bored-homo

the words echo in your head, but have no apparent source. as your sight adjusts, you can make out a shape that is just barely human. it stands between yourself and the altar you were praying to a moment ago. you could have sworn someone touched you, but the creature was much too far from you to do that. it becomes increasingly clear to you what, or who, this creature might be, and the words escape your lips before you can think any further.

“god, is that you?”

the effulgent figure laughs, or at least you think it was him. the sound seems to be coming from your own head, rather than an outside source. his voice is deep and velvety, but it had a musical quality to it.

No, lamb, for I am one of His servants.

you ponder for a moment, only to come to a stronger conclusion. your voice comes out a bit more confident this time.

“a servant of the lord? are you an angel?”

a sudden sensation of warmth fills you, much like happiness or pride. however, you sense that this emotion is not your own, and that it is merely being transferred to you.

That is correct.

his words send a shiver down your spine. tears still threaten to spill from your eyes, but no longer because of his light. rather, you am tempted to cry because due to the sheer awe that has overcome you. your heart races with divine fear of the being in front of you. electricity races through your blood and down, between your legs. you hope he doesn’t notice your growing arousal, especially since you just met the angel.

“s-so… do you have a message for me?”

Not quite, little one. I have been sent to provide an answer for your prayers.

your attempt to stifle your sinful lust is proving to be increasingly unsuccessful. all you can hope is that this angel does not know the human body well enough, so that he does not recognize your flushed cheeks or pounding heart as symptoms of desire.

“would the answer… is it not a message?”

I do not believe a human would interpret it in such a way.

suddenly, an invisible force guides you up, from your knees, and to a standing position. you feel as though you have no choice but to obey, and so you do. that same force compels you forward, the angel following close behind you. you didn’t need to ask to know what this mysterious force was.

now that you stand next to him, you are forced to confront just how much larger he is than you. he has to be at least double your own height. no wonder people are so intimidated by angels. however, he is more like a human than you expected an angel to look.

you stand in between the altar and the tabernacle, your back facing the pews. the angel comes to stand in front of you and lifts you onto the altar.

he cast both yourself and the dim cathedral in a soft glow. you was almost confident that he had toned down his brilliance so that you could bear being so close. his wings spread behind him in a grand display and a halo encircled his head. however, despite all his glory, he did not cast a shadow.

this close, the vague shape of human facial features were visible. although, they were a bit fuzzy, as if not fully realized. there were indents for eyes, the sharp point of a straight nose, and barely discernible lips.

I suppose I should make myself appear more human, if I intend to do what I wish with you.

the fuzzy edges solidified, and he was no longer a being of pure light. he had eyes like storm clouds and hair like silk. he still had his wings, but now they were formed of feathers rather than fire. you were tempted to run your fingers through them, and over his skin, to touch the divine with human flesh. his face broke into a grin and you flushed, remembering he could see your thoughts.

the angel’s robes were done up lazily, and could be pulled apart with a little tug, as if he was trying to tempt you. you could do nothing to hide your growing arousal, especially since he was right in front of you. even then, you made a pathetic attempt at covering yourself up.

he flicked your hands aside with ease, saying, “You need not hide yourself from me, little lamb. I already know how you feel.”

your face twisted in confusion, distracting from his slight teasing. “why are you speaking aloud to me if you can speak directly into my head?”

“Humans seem to be less afraid of me when I communicate in this way and in a human form. However, I do not seem to have that same problem with you. Even your tears came from a place of awe rather than fear.” one of his hands now cradled your face, as his eyes gazed into yours like you were the divine being here. he scoffed slightly as you leaned into his touch without apprehension, scooting infinitesimally towards him. “You are a curiosity amongst your kind, my dear. That is precisely how you managed to catch my attention. In truth, I have been watching you for some time now.”

you couldn’t help but question him again. “how long?”

“Not too long, but enough to become somewhat attached to you. I know you have being crying out to have your soul to be purified, especially since confession has been ineffective for you, and I have a method of doing so.”

“that method involves me being… here?” you gestured widely to the altar you were currently sitting upon.

“Why do I not just show you?”

before you could utter another word, his lips pressed against yours. how could you think whilst being held in the embrace of a sacred being, molded by god? how could describe the kiss of an angel?

his soft mouth fit against yours, like you were made for this kind of devotion. his hands, once stationary, now roamed your body, eager to learn every secret by touch alone, as well as to create a new one. the angel spread your legs with ease.

you balked at his experience, gasping and allowing his tongue to slip into your mouth. you didn’t expect a being such as him to be able to command your body effortlessly.

he tasted like saccharine wine, reminiscent of receiving communion in your childhood. the angel’s tongue slid against your own, drawing whimpers and whines from deep inside your throat.

the angel guided you to lay down on the altar, as he pushed deeper into your mouth. the moment he pulled away, you were gasping for breath. “you’re… really good at that for an angel,” you sputtered.

“I have been around since the beginning of humanity. It is only logical that I would possess at least some knowledge about pleasing a human.” he looked upon you with such adoration that, if you weren’t already blushing, you could have blushed from that look alone.

without you noticing, he had already jumped to disrobing you. his fingers rested upon the first buttons of your shirt. “You do want this, correct?”

“i think you already know the answer to that.”

“Still, I would like to hear it from your lips.”

“yes, i do.”

“Good,” he said, immediately diving back in to kissing you. meanwhile, his hands worked on removing your clothes. with the way you both were positioned, you could not return the favor. you had no choice but to take what the angel gave to you.

you would have shivered without your shirt, were it not for the warmth of his body above you. you let him guide you through each movements of what is both, to you at least, a foreign ritual and a familiar fantasy.

as his hands moved down, so did his mouth. the angel took his time, pressing kisses to each inch of flesh he had available to him. it didn’t take him long to find the spot that would make you react the most: the junction between your neck and shoulder. he lightly nipped at the flesh, forcing a moan from deep inside your body. “That is precisely what I like to hear,” he muttered against your skin.

his fingers worked at unzipping your slacks, tight due to your fervent arousal, and nearly ripped them off you as soon as he could. however, the angel refused to touch you wanted, needed, him most.

you attempted to move in the only way you could, bucking your hips into his hands and whining, “touch me, please…?”

“Not yet, little one,” he said, using one hand to hold you down whilst the other removed your underwear. “Do you really think you deserve that right now?”

already knowing the answer to his question, you were about to respond “no”. but before you could, the angel fully removed your undergarments, and a whine tore through your throat.

you were humiliated with your position, being naked and wanting in front of a divine being. however, your full erection told a different story. like a lamb in the arms of a priest, you thoughtlessly laid forth your weaknesses. you let the angel guide you, with the promise of happiness.

he pulled away from your body, and you whined at the loss of his warmth. “Shush, my dear. You look so much better like this.” His eyes roamed your body, alight with passion and admiration. “Humans were always meant to be bare. They were meant to submit. Here you are, fulfilling your divine purpose. You’re already on the right track.”

“like… this?” you could hardly believe that something so right could cause you to feel so embarrassed.

“Do you not remember how you were in the Garden of Eden? I shall return you to that purity. Worry not, my dear, for you were also humiliated after the Fall.”

“well… what about you?” you said, now able to reach for his clothes.

the angel flicked your hands away once again. “Have patience, lamb. All will come in due time.”

his head, once resting in the crook of your neck now dives down, where you were just begging him to touch a moment ago. he licks teasingly at your tip, refusing to give you the exact pleasure you want.

you’re tempted to buck into his mouth, hands fisting at the cloth of the altar. you sighed at the feeling of finally having some friction against your aching arousal. however, you knew he’d take it away as soon as you tried to reach your own high.

he removed his lips from your erection temporarily, and a grin pulled at his lips. “Notice how it is not that difficult? You’re learning. Good boy.”

you were about to whine, but he immediately shut you up, taking you deep into his mouth and directly contradicting his earlier actions. his eyes met yours, bearing the color and passion of swirling storm clouds.

similarly, his tongue swirled around your length, switching between flicking your tip and licking long stripes underneath. it was hard to flush at the look he was giving when you couldn’t see it, since your head had tossed back in ecstasy.

as you looked to the sky and met eyes with the saints, you wondered how god would see this. you were moaning like a whore on an altar of worship. engaging in such behavior with a sacred creature had to be sinful in some way. for some strange reason, the thought only aroused you more.

however, the angel had initiated the encounter himself, and claimed he was sent for this. had god seen your desires and decided to be merciful? this notion was less comforting than you thought it might be.

surely, this angel get mad at you for perverting what was meant to be a purification ritual. he would see you sin for what it is: something immedicable. the idea of being scolded pushed you nearly to the edge-

“Do you truly believe you deserve to cum when you think things such as that?” your head shot up as he cruelly pulled off of you, taking away the friction your body so desperately craved.

“what? i-i don’t know what you’re talking about…” you stuttered, pathetically eager to reach the high that has been ripped away from you.

“Don’t lie to me. You know you can’t.”

you were opening your mouth to speak, but your breath caught as the angel finally disrobed. he discarded his garments carelessly behind him, and your eyes feasted on the sight of his body like a glutton. the only sound you could emit was a high whine.

without warning, the angel folded your legs up and shoved two fingers inside you. if he was as frustrated as you suspected, he didn’t let it show on his face. instead he was smiling down on you, encouraged evermore by the sounds that cascaded from your mouth.

he quickly broke this eye contact and set his sights on a new target: your chest. the angel leaned over you, further bending you in half. as he licked at one of your nipples, he pushed a third finger inside you.

your back arched and your nails scratched at his back, threatening to rip through his skin. all your senses were filled completely with him. you were still inebriated on the taste of his mouth. the shape of his halo had burned into your eyes. his fingers moved in and out of you with a wet schlik, massaging your sweet spot. he mouthed at your chest greedily, eager to drain you of every last moan he could.

you keened as the angel pushed a fourth finger inside you. he switched to your other areola, but his other hand played with the already sore one. you grasped as his wings as you were about to reach the edge, and the angel let a low groan, almost devilish in its possessiveness. he pulled out and off your chest, denying you your pleasure once again.

you wanted to cry, you wanted to cum, you wanted to be torn apart and put back together again by an angel you didn’t even know the name of. your nails dug into the bare flesh of a divine being, you wanted to make him bleed for denying you again.

“Calm down, little one. You’ll get your pleasure when I decide you deserve it.”

you couldn’t even form full sentences anymore, only fragments or whine fell from lips. any semblance of defiance died before it left your throat.

“Now, you’re about to get something much better. Hold still.”

he punctuated his sentence by thrusting deep into you, filling you up almost immediately. you let out a low moan when you realized he was still sinking into you. you knew he would be big, but you swore you could feel him in your throat.

he finally stopped, giving you a moment to breathe. the weight of him inside you was almost comforting. the only sounds in this dim place were your mixed breathing.

the angel then pulled out, leaving only his tip inside you, before slamming back in. you made a desperate noise that echoed inside the church, somewhere between a scream and a moan. your hands gripped onto his wings like they were your last lifeline as he began to pound into you.

he acted with a ferocity you didn’t know he possessed, and you were unsure if the angel was angry or extremely passionate. either way, he was ensuring you wouldn’t forget this experience.

he filled your vision, looking down at you with a grin on his face. you had no choice but to meet his eyes. “You wish to confess? Recall your sins, and by my power, I shall shrive you.”

oh. oh.

“bless me, Lord, for- ngh~” you attempted to initiate the confession, but couldn’t get through a whole sentence without moaning or stuttering. “for I have sinned- mfghh- i don’t remember my last confession-”

“Oh, dear. You truly are such an impure creature. Confess, now.” the angel said, without any real pity. he only seemed pleased, and thrusted in and out of you unceasingly.

“i-i have lusted after- mhhh- holy beings-”

one of his hands now rested over your heart. he gazed into your eyes, his own a reflection of the heavens. “Of this sin, with this kiss, I absolve you.”

his lips pressed to yours, gentle and forgiving and he stilled. his wings surrounded you in a soft cocoon. for a moment, the world slowed to a halt. for a moment, all that existed was a human, an angel, and a kiss.

a million things flashed through your mind, but at the forefront was the creation of adam. how could adam resist reaching out? how could he deny himself the pleasure of knowing divine flesh?

his lips broke away from yours, and he shushed your whining. “I have yet to give you your penance, little one. To receive full absolution, cum for me.”

he resumed his thrusts with renewed focus, and you came as soon as he gave the command. “You’re so tight, lamb,” he groaned in your ear. “You’ve done such a good job.”

he rammed into you, cumming deep inside you. the angel kissed you on your forehead, whispering, “Good night, my little lamb. I suspect I shall see you again soon.”

You should’ve known he’d catch you staring.

It started stupidly. You were sitting on that crappy mattress in The Beach, wiping sweat off your face after another game you barely survived, heart still pounding against your ribs. Chishiya walked past, quiet as always, hair tied back, hands in his pockets like death didn’t even bother to look his way.

You looked for one second too long.

He noticed.

He always notices.

“Something on your mind?” he asked, voice flat in that way that somehow made you want him more.

You froze. Because what were you going to say—yeah, I want you to ruin me so bad my legs don’t work?

He stepped closer before you could answer, eyes flicking from your mouth to your throat. You felt cornered without him even touching you.

“You blush fast,” he said. “Cute.”

Your stomach flipped so hard you almost groaned.

And that was enough for him.

He walked you backwards until your knees hit the bed. You landed on it clumsily, palms digging into the thin sheets. Chishiya didn’t give you time to catch up. He climbed over you, slow and calm, like this wasn’t insane, like you weren’t seconds away from begging.

His fingers slid into your hair, tugging your head back just a little.

“Look at me.”

You met his eyes right away, way quicker than you meant to, and he caught the whole pathetic eagerness of it. His mouth twitched like he was trying not to laugh.

“You really want this, don’t you?”

Your voice came out thin. “Yeah.”

He kissed you before you could embarrass yourself further. His mouth pressed hard against yours, pushing you deeper into the mattress, stealing whatever air you had left. His tongue brushed yours, and your whole body jerked like he’d hit a switch.

You kissed back without thinking, grabbing at his shirt, trying to pull him closer. That only made him tighten his grip on your jaw.

“Slow down,” he muttered against your mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”

That alone almost finished you.

He dragged his mouth down your neck, open-mouthed kisses turning into small, sharp bites. You gasped every time his teeth caught skin. He didn’t stop. He liked the way you sounded—he didn't hide it very well.

When his hand slid under your shirt, your breath stuttered. His fingers were cold. He brushed them across your stomach, tracing the soft parts of you that you hated people seeing.

He didn’t comment. Didn’t slow down. Just kept touching you like none of it bothered him.

Like he liked it.

You swallowed hard. “C-Chishiya…”

He looked up at you through his lashes. “Take your shirt off.”

You didn’t even think. You stripped so fast that the shirt got caught on your elbow, and you almost punched yourself. He snorted quietly.

“Hopeless,” he said. “Come here.”

He pulled you in by the waistband of your pants and kissed you again, deeper, messier this time. His hand slid between your legs, cupping you through your clothes. The pressure alone made your hips jerk.

He raised an eyebrow. “Already hard?”

Heat crawled up your neck. “Shut up.”

“No,” he said simply, squeezing harder. “You’re cute when you’re embarrassed.”

You nearly choked.

Then he pushed you onto your back fully and tugged your pants down. You lifted your hips without being told. Pathetic. He loved it.

He wrapped his hand around you, firm and slow. Your head dropped back instantly, a choked noise slipping out before you could stop it. He stroked you like he had all the time in the world, thumb brushing over the tip, watching your thighs shake like you were some toy he’d found lying around.

“Relax,” he murmured, leaning closer. “I’m not going to break you.”

He paused.

“Not yet.”

Your whole body shivered.

Chishiya pushed your legs apart and moved down between them, dragging his mouth up your inner thigh before taking you into his mouth without warning. The warm, wet heat of it made you grab at his hair on instinct. He sucked slowly at first, almost lazily, letting you feel every inch of him.

You moaned loudly. Too loud. He hummed around you like he was amused, the vibration going straight to your spine.

You were shaking so hard your knees kept trying to close. He held them open with his hands, fingers digging into your skin.

“D-Don’t stop—”

He didn’t.

If anything, he got meaner. He took you deeper, sucking harder, tongue teasing the underside in a way that made your hips jump.

“Chishiya— fuck— I’m gonna—”

He pulled off with a wet pop.

“No,” he said calmly. “Not yet.”

You almost cried.

He flipped you onto your stomach before you could even think. Your mind lagged behind your body. You felt him pull your hips up, positioning you on your knees, chest pressed into the mattress.

“Stay like that.”

You obeyed instantly.

He dragged his hand down your back, stopping at the dip of your spine, thumb brushing over a sensitive spot that made your breath hitch. You could hear him behind you—unzipping, shifting, low breaths that you’d never heard from him before.

Then his fingers slid between your thighs and pressed against you, slow circles that made your elbows buckle.

“Relax,” he murmured. “Or it’ll hurt.”

You tried. You really tried. But every touch made your body twitch uncontrollably. He pushed two fingers inside you, steady and unhurried. You moaned into the sheets, gripping them so tight they creased under your fingers.

“You’re tight,” he said quietly, voice thicker than before. “You’re going to feel everything.”

Your head dropped.

“Please,” you whispered. “Just— I need you. Please.”

Chishiya paused.

Then you heard him breathe out, soft, almost like you’d gotten under his skin without meaning to.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll give you what you want.”

You felt him line up behind you. The head of his cock pressed against you, hot and firm. You sucked in a breath, nails digging into the mattress.

“Ready?” he asked.

You nodded quickly. “Yeah— please—”

He pushed in slowly.

Your mouth fell open around a sound you didn’t even recognise. The stretch made your eyes roll back, your whole body tightening around him.

“Relax,” he said again, one hand slipping under your stomach, holding you steady while he sank deeper. “Breathe.”

You tried. You really did. But he filled you too much, too deep, too steady.

When he bottomed out, you felt like your brain was spasming.

He leaned over you, chest brushing your back, breath ghosting your ear.

“Good,” he whispered. “You take me so well.”

Then he pulled back and thrust in— hard.

Your whole body jerked forward. You moaned loud enough for people outside the area to definitely hear, but you didn’t care. Couldn’t care.

He set a rhythm, sharp and deep, each thrust pushing a broken sound out of you. His hips slapped against yours, quick, controlled, like he was holding back something rougher on purpose.

“Chishiya— god—”

“Louder,” he said, gripping your hips tighter. “Let them all hear you.”

Your stomach clenched.

He grabbed a handful of your hair and pulled your head back, forcing your back into an arch. You almost collapsed, but his hand on your stomach kept you upright as he fucked into you harder.

“I told you,” he said, breath hot against your neck. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Your knees finally gave out, and he followed you down, keeping himself inside you even as you shook. He didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. Just kept thrusting into you, deeper, rougher, until you were gasping into the sheets.

“Come for me,” he said, voice low. “Do it.”

You didn’t even touch yourself. Didn’t need to. One more thrust and your whole body snapped tight, release hitting you so hard you nearly sobbed. You clenched around him, shaking, legs gone.

He groaned—quiet, strained—and thrust into you once, twice, before finishing inside you with his forehead pressed to your shoulder.

Neither of you moved for a moment.

Then he pulled out slowly, watching the mess drip down your thighs. His fingers brushed your lower back in a way that felt almost… gentle.

“Don’t fall asleep,” he said, tone lazy now. “Another game might start soon.”

You groaned into the pillow.

“For once,” you muttered weakly, “I hope it doesn’t.”

Chishiya laughed under his breath.

“Then stay close. I might keep you busy until it does, pretty boy.”

Taglist: @zolass @edensrose @tamias-wrld @ilovesugurugeto69 @planetxella @mazettns @longlivegojo @midnight-138 @literallyrousseau @vimademedoitt @useless-n-clueless @flatl1n3 @hikaurbae @lexkou @razefxylorf @abrielletargaryen @coco-145 @eagleeyedbitch @deathofacupid @gayaristocrat @porcalinecunt @whatsaheartxx @thecringes2000 @sageofspades @g4vcat @itsrandompersonyall @blvdprn @blueemochii @sappychat @onyxxxxqq @axetivev @s1llygo0s3 @crazydirectioner2000-blog @thestarsallowed @honey-valentin3 @academiq @gaozorous-rex-blog @idkmissgurl @sa1ki-deactivated20250510@sooniebby @seomn

‎‎‎‎Something, something about your roommate that's been bothering you for a while now. Andrew, he's your typical guy that doesn't talk much, always blunt when you're having a conversation, pretty much stays in his room all day doing god knows what.

‎

‎What was that thing that's bothering you for a while now? Oh right, your roommate had been acting strange around you. How strange you might ask?

‎

‎Well, you see he's been wearing those short shorts where you can basically see his ass cheeks. Not that you've been staring at his behind. Nope, definitely not at all. Although you can't lie, his ass does look good in those short shorts.

‎

‎The way he would stretch when you're around, making some moaning noises and he would act like he didn't do anything. In addition to that, he would find ways to touch you. Whether he's giving you or you asked for something, his fingers would linger on yours along with an eye contact that lasts for far too long.

‎

‎Not the usual glare, or scathing look he would give to people. It's definitely different. Like he's asking for something. And it didn't stop there, he would find ways to provoke you in a way. Like bending down in a provocative pose to get something on the floor with his behind that's barely covered with the shorts he had been wearing for quite some time while looking over his shoulder to gauge your reaction to it. You asked about his choice of shorts and he just shrugged it off as "it's hot, and the ac in my room isn't working." Lie.

‎

‎You thought maybe he's going through something. You didn't think much about it, well that's until you've been noticing that some of your shirts have been going missing. Some boxers too.

‎

‎------

‎

‎It was late at night. You just finished with whatever homework that your professor gave you and it took you all day. Obviously you need to do something to relax. Maybe eat some snacks, yeah that's what you thought.

‎

‎You got up from your chair making a soft screeching sound against the floor as you made your way out of your room. Adjusting your eyes on the dark hallway that's barely lit with the wall lamps.

‎

‎As you've reached the threshold to the kitchen to get some midnight snacks, you found a figure hunch over in front of the fridge. The light coming from it gave a slender silhouette of Andrew who's rummaging through it.

‎

‎As if he sensed your presence, he looks over his shoulder, a smirk crept on his lips, his emerald eyes glimmering with mischief. "Evening roomie. Didn't know you're still awake at this time." He stated still hunch over in front of the fridge.

‎

‎You walked over to him and was about to say something until you noticed the shirt he's wearing. It was one of the missing shirts that you've been looking for. "How the hell did you get my-"

‎

‎Andrew turns around from the fridge to face you and shushes you with his finger, looking up at you from his long lashes since you're taller than him. Those emerald eyes seems to have hypnotized you as he mumble out a few words with a sweet tone. "Does it matter how I got them?"

‎

‎You let out a huff of annoyance, eyebrows furrowed together as you pushed away his finger away from your lips making Andrew raised an eyebrow at the action.‎"Yeah it does? I've been looking everywhere for them!"

‎

‎You took a good look on Andrew and you're not gonna lie, it looks good on him. Albeit it's slightly bigger on him, your shirt looked more like a sweater over Andrew's frame. With his collarbone exposed, and not to mention those goddamn shorts that's been tempting you nonstop. And the legs..his flawless legs. Oh how you wish you could run your fingers over his skin.

‎

‎Andrew noticed the look you're giving him and that gave him an idea. "You want some snack right?" he asks innocently while he walks over to the kitchen counter and sits on top of it after he closed the fridge. A confused look was written all over your face, wondering where this is going. The only source of light now is from the moon outside through the window from the kitchen, making Andrew look ethereal.

‎

‎But the next thing he did made you stay rooted on your spot. He spreads his legs and puts his palm over his crotch letting out a soft whimper. He shoots you a wink and lazy grin on his lips. "How about this? I'm horny as fuck right now and you need a snack. You catch my drift?"

‎

‎-----

‎

‎"Oh fuck yes-!" Andrew threw his head back in pleasure, arching his back in a perfect angle, his legs over your shoulders as you eat him out from the kitchen counter, your hands holding him in place.

‎

‎You never thought you'll kneel down for someone else but hey if it's Andrew and he's offering himself up, why not?

‎

‎Your mouth on his dripping cunt, swirling your tongue around his clit making Andrew squeal in surprise and held onto the edge of the kitchen counter harder trying not to squeeze you in between his legs.

‎

‎He couldn't help but let out blissful moans, grinding against your skillful tongue and mouth. Oh how he wished he asked you sooner if you were this amazing.

‎

‎The pad of your tongue lapping up all of his slick from his folds, drinking them like it's the elixir of life. You were definitely hungry. Those sinful sounds coming out of Andrew's mouth even urges you more. The salty yet sweet taste was definitely better than everything what you had in mind.

‎

‎But that didn't stop there, it escalated into something even better. You had him bend over the kitchen counter, wiggling his ass around urging you to do even more. To penetrate him. To breed him.

‎

‎"Come on, roomie. I've been wanting you to do this for so long.." Andrew looks over his shoulder, giving you the puppy look while he teasingly grinds his still dripping cunt against the tip of your cock. It all happened so fast that you found yourself pants pulled down enough to expose your hard cock, eager to be wrapped around by none other than Andrew's cunt.

‎

‎"You...so that's why you've been teasing me nonstop! Especially those shorts of yours.." It didn't take you that long to piece the puzzle. Andrew had been fantasizing about it, asking for it.

‎

‎"Yeah, took you long enough smartass. Now shut up and fuck me-!" Andrew chokes on his words, letting out a gasp as soon as you slam your hips against his, sheathing your cock all the way deep inside his eager cunt who welcomed it with ease from earlier foreplay. His legs shaking from the sudden intrusion

‎

‎"Well I didn't knew I had to fill the needs of my roommate. But if you're offering yourself up to me..who am I to say no?" You grunt out those words, doing a slow pace at first making Andrew moan softly even moving his own hips against your thrusts. "Faster please..need you to breed me.. please.." Andrew whines out loud, looking up at you over his shoulders with unshed tears at the corner of his emerald eyes.

‎

‎Who are you to deny his needs? His wants? Of course you obliged to his wishes.

‎

‎"Yes-! Pound that pussy-!" Andrew screamed in pleasure as you pound into his pussy. He can feel his legs shaking from the amount of bliss. Every thrust is making him see stars as he held onto the edge of the counter for lifeline. Drool drips from the corner of his mouth, as some fall on top of the counter making a mess. He had been wanting this. To have your cock in him. To be connected with you. And maybe to have your baby. "Please put a baby in me! Knock me up! Oh fuck-" He cries out drunk from pleasure and your cock.

‎

‎The force of your thrusts are enough to make his slender figure jolt and bounce against the counter, the tip of your cock hitting his sweet spot dead on with every deep plunge. He can feel everything, from the way your cock fills him up, to the way it's slightly curve. Every drag of your cock in his walls would sent electric waves straight to his brain, filling him with great pleasure.

‎

‎You can feel his walls spasming around your cock, and holding onto it like a vice, like not wanting to let you go. And oh boy, the amount of slick he's producing making it even more easier to slide in and out of his pussy.

‎

‎The loud obscene sounds of wet skin slapping sounds and the lewd squelching of Andrew's cunt being pounded, mixed with both of your groans and his wanton moans echoed in the kitchen.

‎

‎Soon both of you reached your climaxed together, burying yourself to the hilt while letting out a loud grunt, filling him up to the brim that it formed a white ring around where the two of you are connected, some even dripped down on his shaking thighs.

‎

‎As Andrew screamed at the top of his lungs, his body convulses from reaching his own climax, finding himself full of cum..full of you. He laid there on the counter, feeling boneless from the pounding he just experienced, panting heavily as he felt your weight on top of him making him whine softly. "Mm..so full.." He murmurs softly with a dazed smile on his lips, definitely satisfied with his fill, only making you chuckle weakly from the risque activity.

‎

‎Few days later after what happened. You were lounging on the couch, watching whatever show was on as you heard your roommate coming from his room. You look over from the couch to see Andrew holding up a pregnancy test. It only has one line on it. He just stared at you, pointing at it with a smirk on his lips.

‎

‎"I'm not pregnant yet. Care to try again, roomie?"

‎If you enjoyed my writing, consider tipping me on my tip jar! No pressure tho!

On the third day, grant Language. 

The record of human history and geography is created through sound, shaped through every word and phrase that is passed on from ancestor to descendant, from merchant to merchant: changes that ripple, as majestic and all-consuming as a tidal wave is to a pond. 

On the fourth day, grant Value.

Value. Your pen halts at the word: ink bleeding into the thoughts on fragile vellum, alongside the even more precious transcript in a separate tome. It is not quite valuable yet. Only when the translation is complete shall it be assigned a fingerprint of its own to determine the use it will have in the world—a task he has deigned to personally preside over. 

On the fifth day, grant Rules.

He’s rather fond of them. Rules, that is—rigid commandments dictating that you must obey him as a temporary vassal, formalities that set clear boundaries between the two of you. 

On the sixth day, grant Meaning. 

Rules that you don’t necessarily assign meaning to. Your fingers drum against the table as you complete the passage. His gaze, almost mechanically, snaps up at the very imprint of that meaningless action—for he has assigned ire and disgust to the moments you don’t conform to the chalk outline you’re meant to stay in. Obedient, like the rest of his people are. On a tight leash, as a crazed dog of the battlefield should be. The senses you’ve sharpened whisper of a quill creaking as gloved fingers grasp it tighter than they should: like he’s holding the supple leather, ready to pull should he need to. 

On the seventh day, grant Dignity. 

He would argue you have none. You would retort that you have all of it. Not as a noble, nor as a transient subordinate of the Argonian pope, but as a human—a concept that has remained unfaltering between death and rebirth. There is enough self-respect contained within you to abate his lack of it for you. 

And on the eighth day, grant us the Paradise where this all started. 

The treatises you’ve thumbed through these past few weeks have alluded to the same conclusion: the Order will bring everything back to the beginning. You’ve heard him speak, when his lips utter sermons you’ve quickly grown tired of, echoing sharply within the cold heaven of this temple: on cycles within each soul’s lifetime; on the universal chance of equilibrium; and other apocalyptic drivel that you pay attention to with only a minute fragment of your brain. 

Like all things, this will trickle back into the beginning, too.

•. *࿐

“Is Brother doing alright? I noticed he’s become too busy to visit often…”

Small cracks. The perfunctory civil gestures—more like jests—performed between lord and aide begin to crumble. 

“Have I done something?” 

Her worry illuminates the amorphous mass of problems that spills and churns, tucked far away in the crashing waves of your mind: like a lighthouse, each word is a beacon that reels in the creature lurking in the deep. It’s far too vile to call a relationship. Too pathetic to be mutual enmity. 

Yet, those same words only catch the very shadow lurking beneath the tumultuous surface. She sees the tension within his set mouth when he comes to visit: the quiet, fragile vestiges of amiability—if one can even call it that. It’s all for her sake, and you don’t mind playing along with his little farce. 

A literal and metaphorical veil separates her from her brother and her friend. Hazy fabric creates impurities in the glacial relationship: futile hopes that this, too, will be restored to what it once was. 

Unfortunately, for her, it has always been like this. 

Her teacup chimes as she sets it in the saucer—far unlike the clumsy handling of your own. It is a stark reminder that you do not belong. The sandwich you so carefully sliced up just a candle earlier is untouched, and you can tell that something’s brewing in her mind. 

(The most pathetic fallacy. His oppressive scent lingers on your clothes: brushing past you as he collected the manuscripts you’d had half a mind to scribble all over. It twists over your body—a cage made from faint soap and clean linen.) 

He invades your thoughts: as a straw man to set ablaze in this uncanny chill. 

Maybe she knows. Some things cannot be fixed, for they were never whole. 

“He’s alone,” she confesses. It’s a point in time you don’t quite remember: a memory that stands out from the rest of its counterparts, unfit to be in the same chronology. 

No wonder, you might’ve said in response, had this been a different life. You bite on the words so hard your lip tears: blood welling into your mouth and coating the lingering saccharine taste of sweets with metal. You hope she doesn’t see your wince. 

“I’m glad you’re with him. It does my brother good to have someone he can trust.”

It has to be a horrible comedy at this point. Words so pathetically ironic, that you would laugh if they weren’t so sad, come out of the Saint’s mouth. All you can do is offer a sympathetic look: as though your existence doesn’t make him a worse person, as though the two of you aren’t entwined in a relationship of reciprocal harm. 

Bile rises in your throat. Maybe it would have been better to break it to her—over the gentle amber tea that ripples in your teacup, amidst the hushed patter of rain that would wash away the needless cruelty in your words as you explain to her, tired therapist style, that perhaps this friendship isn’t working out between you and her unfortunate brother. Trust. It is a concept suited to you and the Saint: something easy and deep that exists as a placid lake, tranquil and ever-present. Even as an antonym, it shouldn’t approach the relationship between you and the Pope at all, lest it be tarnished by association. 

You open your mouth: white lies beginning to coalesce on your tongue, so sweet in the throes of the acerbic truth. 

Yet, there is no need to speak—no need to sully the calm waters between the two of you with an untruth coaxed out in a moment of panic—for the soft leather of boots caresses the stone floors in a rhythm that only belongs to one person. 

“Ah,” she mumbles self-consciously, picking at the delicate lace of her veil. Ah, indeed. “Please don’t tell him I said anything.”

“Of course,” you reply smoothly. Too smoothly. It is the only thing you will be honest about today: as he quietly steps into the room; as his face barely hides the mild irritation upon sight of you; as you mask your own distaste with a small, strained smile. 

Both of you are filthy liars. 

When the End of All Things comes, both of you will be found wanting, and you are not quite sure who will tumble to hell first. 

•. *࿐

One would typically think that the only Pope in the Argonian lands wouldn’t be swayed by petty, mortal emotions. Certainly, in the novel you read, he was more like a carved jade statue rather than human—seemingly distant, neutral, and even quite benevolent if one hadn’t read the later chapters and saw his angelic figure embossed into a neat little corner on the cover of the novel. 

Looking at him now, it isn’t difficult to reach the inevitable conclusion that the villain you knew, and the man you thought you could predict, are two wholly different beings. 

One may ask, why?

Why, indeed.

Your foul mood trails behind you like a grave shroud on a funeral pyre, ignited in the low heat of the day. It smokes and sputters—overpowering, despite the neutral expression on your face and your relaxed body language. 

“Would you like to sit down and join us, my lord? It wouldn’t do, to have us be the only two enjoying ourselves while you stand in this humid weather.”

They look a picture. Her, clad in a pearlescent-grey dress that complements his hair and his robes that you’re sure he picked out himself for this appointment. You mar the landscape; a carmine coat like bloodstains in this view, a bitter reminder of exactly where your nobility was forged. 

“I am here to guard you and His Holiness, my lady. I’m afraid I cannot,” you reply, prompt and curt—as you tend to be towards those in the main cast. 

You stand behind Sunday: stone-like, immovable. It would be easy to unsheathe your sword—fast enough to blur time and space and sever his head from his neck, like you’ve done a countless number of times. It would be easy to flee to the Southern continents with the wind on your heels and a new face recast with the mana that flows through the circles bound around your heart. It would be easy to leave this life behind—to step into the waves that lap on the shores and cast your sorrows into the deep. 

Why has he placed you here, you wonder?

His achromatic hair flutters in the wind, and the soft flesh of his nape is exposed. He doesn’t trust you, at all, yet he’s showing his weakness so easily. 

Their conversation falls on deaf ears as you observe them both: her animated chatter and his quiet responses. 

He smells of tea leaves and the faint oils that come with peeling a fruit, all layered beneath the incense lit daily in the temple. The breeze conveys it to you in whispers, rippling against your body mercilessly. 

You feel glad that the story is slipping back into its unsightly rhythm, after being so ruthlessly upturned by you, if only for the sake of your freedom. 

He’s gazing softly at her, you’d imagine—with about as much pressure as the brush of snow on ground. You wouldn’t know what that looks like, though (considering a) he’s never looked at you kindly, and b) his back is facing you, as well as that neck of his that you can’t help but bore holes into as petty vengeance). Within the past week, she’s visited him twice. The hound (you), naturally, must follow—teeth bared—ready to put yourself in harm’s way for a contract. 

It’s not pride that’s reared its head within him. It would’ve demanded you leave him be with her, as he is capable enough to protect both of them. You’d be inclined to agree. She herself could match most elite monsters blow for blow with the spirit sword she tucks deep within her soul—not that he’d know yet, for that is a secret between only her (and of course, the reader who’s watched over her world, omniscient). 

No, it doesn’t seem to be pride. He knows you know his strength; you’ve fought him, sturdy vines that ensnare their prey, versus a Harpe that, despite its initial misgivings about you, has begrudgingly melded into your hand, ready to reap viscera and blood alongside you. 

Perhaps it’s a concentrated form of wrath. Honed to the finest, sharpest point, it now grazes against your throat—a sign that at the end of the day, no matter how much you writhe and twist against the binds that tie you to Argo, you are still under his thumb. Or maybe, it’s a poisonous sort of envy: a warning that try as you might, you’ll never be able to reach her in a way he has. 

You maintain your neutral expression. 

But, for the first time, something about the happy sight begins to rankle. 

•. *࿐

The only witnesses to your midnight flight from the temple are the small lights that flicker perpetually in the long night. Swift-footed as you may be, the ties that weigh you down aren’t merely contractual, but emotional. Thus, you currently aren’t running away from obligation, but simply maximising your time off—wandering the streets where your face is less known, your presence less well-regarded. 

Except—

The air tears apart under the pressure of a singular blade, resplendent in the dying glow of the streetlamps. 

—something cold settles by the flesh of your neck, half-malicious, half-not. Without turning, you know who it is—which is why Harpe remains snugly in its sheath at your hip. 

“Your Grace,” you greet: laconic, unwavering. “Is there a reason for this ambush?”

“An ambush?” he scoffs, but the sword moves crisply through space, and you hear the click of it against his sheath. “Hardly. If it were an ambush, your head would be lying at your feet right now.”

Your thumb traces the ornate carvings of Harpe, but you still don’t turn to face him. There’s a limit to the respect you show him, much like the rest of the insipid characters in this universe. “If you wanted a fight, Your Grace, you could’ve asked and I would have been happy to oblige.” 

It would be a different matter if he monopolised your time during work hours, but these little slivers of freedom that you grasp with your two hands are so much more precious that you feel a wave of annoyance at the Northern Duke Yingxing’s interruption of your break. You pivot on your heel, finally deigning to show him the frigid expression painting your face—and oh, he’s a bit too close for your liking. 

Something creaks in the distance, like muscles straining against bone when a hand clenches into a neat little fist. 

His face is poisoned with his displeasure, while his black locks ripple like tar in the boreal wind—indistinguishible from the hue of blood when night falls on it. 

“Unfortunately, you falling to my blade will have to be postponed.” His eyes settle on where the hilt of Harpe glimmers beneath the warm swathes of fabric you hastily donned: studying her make, what little details he can glean from the glint. He vivisects both the sword and her wielder—one charged moment it takes for him to penetrate through your bearing and the way your body tenses in a non-combat environment (or at least, you hope), in a way he couldn’t afford to when the ancient jian he held clashed so fearsomely with Harpe. 

One moment. You can’t read the expression that crosses his face—half-contemplative. No. Perhaps a third. Maybe you’d wallow a bit more in the irony of it all—that the pixelated ink has been inhibited with an incomprehensible life of its own—but he’s sliding a thick, expensive envelope out of his long coat, and the moment is gone. 

“An invitation.” 

The two words are laden with about as much emotion as a nondescript plate tucked into the back of a cupboard—so absent as to be completely overlooked and forgotten, just like the implication in these syllables. Is it a threat? A formal request for a duel? A romantic dinner for two that’s been grossly mishandled? 

You don’t take it. In fact, you stare at the cream-hued parchment so long that the deep grey clouds that whorl the night split and spill cautious raindrops. Even beneath the eaves of the closed shops, you can feel the warm water brush the hem of your coat and speckle the ground with petrichor: a most pathetic fallacy. 

“For…” you finally prompt. It scorns etiquette—the instructor the King haphazardly sent your way, oh, how his face would’ve curdled at your manner. 

He leans in, like he’s telling you some great big secret: all the while, his gloved hands sheathe the paper between the layers of fabric that bind heat to your body. 

“It’s confidential,” he replies, and you can hear the faint mockery in his voice as he moves past you without another word—without even a look back. 

•. *࿐

The letter rests heavy in your pocket. 

You wouldn’t notice it normally, but the cheap ale you buy tastes warm, while the potato fritters you order stick in your throat. Despite all your misgivings about the delivery, you unfold the gilded vellum—not with tremulous hands, but with a frown.

It’s simple. You take care to not disturb its contents (heavens forbid you find anthrax in this fantastical setting), and are hit with a subtly cold scent and neat writing you ever-so-aptly attribute to her. She’s polite. She doesn’t beat around the bush. There will be an expedition to retrieve item so-and-so… Even with her succinct style of writing, you still skim the lines exasperatedly—keeping Yingxing’s words in your mind like a blaring alarm. 

An invitation. 

Ah. There it is. She’s dedicated a whole line to the question, corralling it from the rest. 

If you would be so inclined, there is and always will be a space for you, should you wish to take it. 

It’s a big deal, perhaps. You vaguely remember the mythical shield being emblematic of the ending—the protection of the kingdom for the next few centuries or something. One of the cornerstones to victory. Even your colleague had agreed on the ending being unremarkable. Who had she ended up with, again?

You swill the alcohol in the tankard, too focused on thinking about the now-folded letter to notice the hooded figure sliding onto the chair near yours. It’s crowded, you get it, you pay them no mind. Plain features—so plain that you forget them as soon as you’re done with your cursory glance—which ironically, is the very thing that your brain latches onto. 

It’s not hard to figure out that it’s a carefully curated disguise, but it would be far harder to unravel it. Something otherworldly blocks the probing attempts you make, all the while you drink casually without a care in the world. 

As far as anyone knows, your contributions to the kingdom are purely militaristic. Fight a few demons that have crawled up from the underworld, get some gimmicky medals, maybe a title if you really stood out. It’s the only thing you’ve advertised about yourself, while the circles that chain you to life are hidden in a nondescript box behind published details. 

How long has it been since they sat down? Five minutes? Three? The time stretches into a neat year, and despite your scrutiny, the stranger sips their drink with impeccable neutrality—so perfectly that you don’t notice what goes wrong until a split second later than you normally would’ve. The server, normally cat-like with grace on her feet, stumbles, while the lights, normally so unwavering with their light, flicker. Normal is replaced by abnormal. 

A drink spills. A shout echoes. A fist meets a face, and in the instant you focus too long on the stranger, the cacophony diffuses into the quiet corner you occupy; like an alarm clock to a dream, peace shatters and a lone piece of paper flutters to the floor. You’re busy dabbing the foamy flecks of beer off your arm to notice gloves tainted the softest of greys carefully picking the discarded sheet up, briefly passing a cold hand filled with warm light over the folded vellum, before the paper returns to its place on the table. 

You return, none the wiser. 

The stranger leaves, with a mission fulfilled. 

•. *࿐

A body collides with the ground, gutting from the man a wheezed, gasping sound. It’s not a gurgling death rattle, and neither does the thick stench of metal accompany him. Rather, he is merely tired, with the less invasive sheen of sweat coating his body and dissipating into the air—faintly sweet, far more forgiving. 

“You overcompensate through heavy defence, which inhibits your offensive capacity.” His neck cranes to gaze at you: blond hair sticking like straw to his forehead. 

You sheathe Harpe and extend a hand to the Southern Duke’s heir. He takes it, gracefully scrambling up from the Templar training grounds. 

“It works,” Gepard asserts. “You are simply stronger than me.”

“It works—” you counter. “—if you’re in a team and the first line of defense, which you predominantly are. Alone, you will succumb to a war of attrition.”

Out of all of them, he listens the best. Those serious blue eyes seem to digest each word: envisioning the future of which you speak, various stratagems that could leave him isolated from his little group. A man separated from his comrades. A shield separated from its swords. 

A moment later, he readies himself, bending his knees and holding his sword in front of him as though he is inviting you to play. 

“Again,” he utters. You scoff, hands hanging loosely by your sides with no intention of grasping Harpe again today. 

“Get some medical attention for the muscles you pulled first, and I’ll consider it.” You’re about to turn to the barracks to grab a towel when he pulls at your sleeve. There is hesitation—something you rarely see in him—as he opens his mouth, and curiosity gets the better of you. 

“The recommendations you gave for those plants—thank you for them.” He was grateful for advice on fertilisers and small-scale irrigation methods? Any child who grew up in a village in the stacks could’ve told him the same. 

“Sure,” you reply. You’ve a feeling that’s not what he meant to say, but you have no intention of asking about it yourself. 

“And…” he prevaricates. “Will I be fighting alongside you in the future?”

Ah. There it is: an allusion to what can only be the invitation. Somewhere, deep inside your wardrobe, the vellum lies between a pair of old boots and your mentor’s jacket. The words, too, lie buried deep in your larynx; your mouth opens and closes like some fish out of water, not only deciding on what to say, but your general decision on the matter you’ve been pushing back for the past week. 

You are ransomed from this situation with the payment of three words. 

The crystal looped haphazardly around your neck like a collar vibrates with a human voice—a new technology some of your anonymous formulae for waveforms helped develop—and you probably look momentarily relieved, before you actually hear the person contacting you. 

[My office, now.]

Gepard looks at you in curiosity, but you’re already honing in on that large window that overlooks all: on the figure that momentarily stands within sight, before his grey robes flutter gently behind him, and he vanishes. 

[Yes, sir,] you reply drily, flecked with one part relief and three parts resignation. 

“So…” he prompts as you let the stone nestle back onto your chest. 

“I have duties to tend to currently,” you excuse yourself with a perfunctory bow. It’s no promise to discuss this later, nor is it any real answer. Though, if he had a shrewd mind, he might’ve pieced together an answer based on the excuse you gave. 

“When can we—” the heir flounders, reaching after you once more, but you are already gone: as fleet-footed as the summer wind.

•. *࿐

It’s another stack of papers that was allegedly overdue, despite you not seeing hair nor hide of it for this past week. 

You eye this incriminating new piece of evidence, and sit down. 

•. *࿐

It’s hot. The sweat running down your face and neck and sliding in between skin and sun-warmed armour makes you feel overly sticky, while the deep metallic aroma, seasoned gently with notes of linseed oil, add to your very own hell.

What circle would this be? It’s unbearably arid, the position you’re stuck in is beginning to wear on your nerves, and the sun hasn’t even reached its peak. The… sixth… you fumble in the terrible summer haze, feeling about as desiccated as dust. For… heresy? Against… who? Your mind whirls furiously, circling back to a moment where you knelt before Ena’s statue in the temple and prayed for things to change. 

You start laughing. Hard. Metal chimes against metal, and the sudden shattering of your previous impassivity startles the man who sits facing you—though, his surprise doesn’t last long before he carefully sets down the wooden palette and paintbrush, drinking in the abstract change in your expression. It is only when you quiet down, head ringing, that Argenti speaks. 

“I think I’ve got everything I need to complete your portrait,” he remarks thoughtfully, calmly—as though he hadn’t begged you yesterday, publicly, on his knees, without an ounce of shame, to be his model. With feline grace, he slides off his chair and walks up to you, pressing the back of his hand to your forehead. You focus on the faint scent of oil paints that cling to his body, rather than his mildly unnerving proximity. “I’ll finish within the week.”

He lets go, and you begin unbuckling the ceremonial armour he specially polished up for this occasion. You’re half-gone, half-focused on how your damp body adheres the thin tunic and trousers to your body—but not cognisant at all of how it appears. Argenti wisely keeps his lips shut as he examines you for any more details he’d like to add. 

You’re towelling off the sheen on your face when he asks the question. Well, it’s not exactly a question, as one would expect from one so straightforward as he. 

“Oh, I can’t wait to fight alongside you,” he hums, picking up a soft brush once more. You freeze in surprise.

“I—” 

Like clockwork, your reply is cut off by the voice that resonates from the crystal. You cannot tell whether it is coincidence or magic, though for once in your life, you are grateful for the man whom you’ve been contracted to. 

[Office.]

One word. Just one, and you reply reflexively: [Yes, Your Holiness].

“I need to go.” In lieu of acknowledgement, you leave with those parting words still echoing in that arid room. 

•. *࿐

There’s…no papers. Suspicious, you surveil the desk and behind the curtain—no Sunday means a bit of leeway to snoop, after all—but there’s nothing that hasn’t already been neatly marked and processed. You’re in the middle of riffling through the stack of your translations on his desk that you just know he spent hours lining up exactly, when a voice breaks you out of your confusion. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” 

You’re only partially sluggish after having part of your soul sucked into the sixth circle of hell, so you only drop, what, one-sixth of the papers he probably used a ruler and set square to align. 

His glare intensifies. 

“Exploring our joint office, Your Holiness,” you answer briskly. Lying scattered around you, they look rather like little angels who have joined you in falling to the sixth circle. The moment of cold silence stretches as you pick up the forsaken sheets and haphazardly pop them back on their precarious Babel. 

You’re not quite sure, but you think the temperature of the office drops by at least a few kelvin. 

“So,” you begin, and you notice that he’s not crucifying you for the informal language. “I assume there’s some secret wing in the library, which is why you remembered I exist.”

He takes his time walking over, slowly enough that the timid fragrance of soap and tea leaves and linen has time to coalesce into a filigree cage that imprisons you where you are. You stand, frozen, in front of the heavy desk as he sits: crossing his legs and resting a pristine glove against his leg. 

His shoes are an understated black leather. 

“Don’t push it,” he says, stone-cold. His eyes rake over you caustically: the dampened-turned-sheer fabric, the practical glow the sun has coaxed out of you through a faint smattering of sweat, and the tiredness that forces your lids to push down slightly. “And I expect my bodyguard to adhere to a stricter presentation. Don’t let anyone see you like this.”

He utters the words with such finality that you can’t even bring yourself to argue for your innocence. 

“Yes, Your Holiness,” you murmur. 

Gloved fingers languidly push a folded piece of paper your way. 

“So… there is a paper involved in this?” You raise a brow. “A list of books to translate? My termination letter?”

The room becomes even more frigid. 

“Open it,” he says quietly, and somehow, it’s more chilling than if he’d snapped it. 

You do, skimming the words perfunctorily, then thoughtfully. You read it again, absorbing each piece of script. 

“Day of Auspicion,” you contemplate. “I’m assigned to guard the King at this illustrious event.”

There’s one thing you don’t quite get. Maybe you’re just stupid, maybe there’s some higher plan you’re not exactly part of. 

“That’s correct,” Sunday affirms, almost looking surprised that he agrees with you. 

No, you still don’t get it. Fuck, do you really have to ask?

“Why?” you ask, flipping the ceremony schedule. It looks at you blankly, as though mocking you. 

“Enlighten me on what you don’t understand,” he answers just as blankly, as though he, too, is mocking you. You glance disbelievingly at the clock on the wall as if it could tell you, before you turn back, bracing your palms against the desk as you lean over the polished mahogany. 

“I’m under your command right now,” you utter, low and slow just so he understands. For once, His Holiness isn’t sure where to look—into the resolute set of your eyes, on the way the tunic unpeels itself from your body, or the droplet of sweat that’s decided to make an appearance before hiding itself behind fabric once more. 

He settles for looking at the communication crystal that hangs from your neck, its matching pair sitting hotly in his pocket like a pulsing heart.

He’s not one to stay in shock. By the time one period of the pendulum passes, he’s recovered his composure, gazing at the paper crumpled in your fist. 

“You’re not the only one under my command,” he counters easily, folding his hands neatly on the table. 

“But while my contract stands, you’re mine to guard,” you argue, and his eyes flicker back up to yours. “The Knights that reside here aren’t equipped properly to deal with demons, not like I can.”

He scoffs, and in a flash, one of those hands that had been folded so neatly have reached up to yank the crystal around your neck, pulling you to be eye-level with him. You clam up, feeling that familiar scent of him. 

“You said it yourself,” he hisses, and his grasp twists around the thin chain, biting into your nape. It hurts. Yet, all your nerves are honed into the look in his yellow eyes: the strange intensity you’ve never quite observed in them before. “You’re mine to command. So obey my command, and get a grip.”

He lets go, one hand rubbing his palm as though smudging off the blood and bodies you inevitably leave behind in your shadow. 

You’ve been reminded of your place. 

You don’t belong next to him, though it should’ve been apparent from the moment you trailed crimson smears behind you in his unspoiled dove-grey landscape, poisoning it. 

The words settle strangely in your sternum. 

“Yes, Your Holiness,” you acknowledge with all the tonelessness you can muster. He almost nods in approval, tilting his face slightly down at your once-again obedience, as though he was waiting for it. 

“If that’s all, you may leave.” He turns casually to the small table on his side, selecting a thick manilla folder to review. 

He can’t even look you in the eyes. 

You nod, looking around the room one final time as if staving off the plummeting sensation you’re experiencing. 

“Right. Yes, Your Holiness.”

The door closes firmly behind you, and for a moment, his eyes linger. 

•. *࿐

“I mean, is having such a piss-poor—pardon my language—security detail even allowed?” You step in concentric circles around the tower, hoping the induced nausea will cause ceased thoughts, at least momentarily. You don’t think it’s working. 

“What, it’s piss-poor because of personnel shuffling?” Robin asks curiously, methodically dismantling the strawberry tart in front of her like she’s watching a fascinating play. 

“No, it’s piss-poor— it’s bad— because of the personnel.” You stop, massaging your temples as you feel the incoming migraine. “How important’s this Day of Auspicion?”

“It’s a huge annual celebration in the Capital,” she answers promptly, and you appreciate how she never seems to look down on you for being from some no-name village. “One of the only times I make a public appearance. Does wonders for morale, but it’s also a time where Ena answers the most prayers, presides over the most serious cases, and—”

“Presides over the most serious cases? How does that—” you wonder out loud, before you begin your pacing once more. “So you’d think, with all this pomp and circumstance, there’d be tighter security. This ceremony is a perfect chance to dampen that exact morale with a large scale demon attack. Their target won’t be the king, but rather the backbone, the representative of their antithesis.”

“You think my brother will be attacked?” 

Robin sets down the fork, folding her hands together on the table in front of her. You blink as you take in the sight, noting the habit is strangely similar to her brother’s. A nervous response? No, it can’t be. 

“Targeted? Definitely. He’s the one performing the blessings, not His Majesty,” you agree casually, leaning on the stone window and drumming your fingers against the parapet. Her eyes meet yours, worried. “But attacked? Not if I can help it.”

“You’d abandon the King?” she queries, as any loyal subject is bound to do, but there’s a small smile behind the fork as she takes a bite. 

“Nooo—” you drag out the syllable with a matching smile of your own. “—I wouldn’t say that. He’s hoarded all the really shiny gems like his Northern Duke and the Cheetah of the South. I’m sure if one of those really shiny gems goes missing, he wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure he wouldn’t,” she agrees, but both of you know that this conversation will stay within the circular cage of the tower and die with the stones. 

And as you leave, the only words that follow you out are a small, quiet, “Thank you.”

•. *࿐

Thank you. For what? Doing the duties stipulated in the contract, which explicitly state protect His Holiness, rather than following his command? For preparing to betray a King who’s rewarded you by focusing on protecting a man you hate with every fibre of your being?

You mull over her words as you slide the cufflinks into their button holes, as you carefully, imperfectly fold your tie, as you slip on the ceremonial jacket and as you make sure Harpe is securely strapped onto your belt. 

The small crystal—the only sign that you and him are connected—sits heavy at your heart, and your own heart is heavy as you adjust the woollen hat on your head. 

You’re tired, and you don’t doubt that you’ll be recalled to the gristly frontline after this. Your grey-haired Pope, after all, has drawn a clear line that you will indubitably cross today if the capital is unlucky enough today. 

And it most definitely will be. 

The last few moments of freedom are savoured. You hated your boss, but it was oddly freeing to be here: gossiping with other workers around the Temple, laying on the sun-warmed roofs of the town, and drinking nights away. Soon, the heavy stench of blood will return to being your normal, until the main cast find their mythical shield artifact and end it all. 

You study your reflection and steel yourself. 

The door opens. 

•. *࿐

“Your Holiness.” You brush past the servants filtering in and out of his private chambers. It’s the first time you’ve entered this place, and it’s pretty much what you expected—plain bed, basic decoration, a pristine, clinical atmosphere. 

Sunday’s gaze flits to yours, and for a moment, you catch uncertainty flickering in those aureate irises. No, perhaps it’s unease. Or maybe trepidation. 

“Leave us,” he instructs those attending him coolly, and they comply with a crisp closing of the heavy oak doors. You wait for the footsteps to cease, and so does he; approximately two of your heartbeats pass before he speaks. “What do you want?”

“I am your escort to the ceremony, am I not?”

He stares at you warily, still half-dressed. 

“Your duties are elsewhere today, are they not?” He mimics your matter-of-fact tone, and you almost groan in exasperation. 

“Not before the ceremony,” you insist, and he squints at you, appearing to decide why it is that today of all days you cling to your futile obstinacy. 

The silence stretches out—

“Humour me.”

—and in the end, no real reason is disclosed. He purses his lips, looking away, and the matter is decided. 

“Where are you going?”

You pivot on your heel. 

“Aid me in dressing—you’ve forced me to turn my attendants away,” he commands imperiously, and that cold tone of his curls around your ear. One victory for you, and now it is his turn. 

Carefully, you turn to where the wardrobe staff have laid out each garment and select the achromatic underrobe, holding it like you would a babe. You wouldn’t want it to be stained with blood, now, would you?

You wish you wore gloves today—which would render you less capable of feeling the tremors of his skin as you gently slide the fabric onto his body. 

“I apologise,” you murmur as you deftly do up each button. “I am not as good as them at this.”

“Continue,” he remarks, firmly locking his gaze on the wall. 

As though he were some sentient mannequin, he calls out various nouns. Mantle. Stole. Mitre. You drape each piece around his body as required, hands trembling slightly with each second you spend in that ever-present, soapy scent of his. 

Finally, he surveys himself in the mirror. 

“Adequate,” he comments, and you breathe a sigh of relief. “But—”

You straighten as he takes a cursory glance along your own ceremonial garb, tugging easily at your tie to bring you to his height. 

“—your standards for your own clothing seem to always be flagrantly lacking,” he breathes, undoing the tie you spent approximately two minutes knotting with nimble fingers. Those hands that far better suit a quill fold the war dog’s collar upwards, easing and moving around your neck to meticulously create a perfect knot. You cannot tell what he is doing. For all you know, he could be studying your jugular and tapping a knife against it, but your focus is firmly stuck on the wall sconce behind him, and that godforsaken scent that lingers in all your senses. 

His hands travel from your neck to your collar, straightening it out. Those same gloved fingers loiter for far too long, smoothing out the wrinkles in your jacket, adjusting a cap you already adjusted, and brushing off invisible lint. 

“Adequate,” he murmurs again, and you think it’s the first time you’ve ever heard him sound like this—less like a rock, and more like a human. It’s completely foreign on him, and you flounder as he checks the time with a small “it’s time.”

You hold out your arm cautiously, calloused palm held upwards with slight hesitation. Perhaps you should’ve worn gloves, perhaps—

His cold hand slides into your own, and your thoughts turn into a lovely shade of static. 

“Do I need to teach you this too?” 

You wrack your brains, before something clicks and you gently curl your fingers around his, bringing his knuckles towards you. It’s a formal gesture that was drilled into you by your etiquette instructor—the basic greeting kiss—which you now put into practice, brushing your warm lips against his first knuckle. You can feel him tense, and wonder whether it is in disgust or horror. Perhaps both. 

Something creaks within you. 

“An honour to escort you, Your Holiness,” you greet formally, civil for once. 

“It is an honour for you,” he replies stonily, and the brief moment of appearances is over. 

The door opens. 

•. *࿐

You glare at the dais, where the Pope is flanked by two (far less competent than you) Templar commanders, and wonder who it was again that signed off on this detail, since it certainly wasn’t you. 

The King arrives with Landau and His Grace in tow, and you bow, say Your Majesty a few times, exchange meaningless formalities before you assume your position behind His Esteemed Self. You ignore both the glances sent by Gepard, and the outright staring from Yingxing, and return to glaring at where the Pope is giving the first of many sermons. 

It’s standard procedure, much like it is in the regular services. You tune out the pious voice of the Pope and scan the surroundings. And scan again. 

“...on the first day, grant Truth…”

His voice is pretty relaxing, quite like white noise. It’s why you ignore it so easily. 

“...on the second day, grant the Calendar…”

There’s nobody suspicious you can see in the masses gathered here—only civilians, peppered with both Imperial and Templar soldiers. When you send out low pulses of energy to double-check, you’re met with a confirmation of this status. It’s far too quiet. 

“...on the third day, grant Language…”

Were you… wrong?

“...on the fourth day, grant Value…”

Above the dais, you can make out Robin, and behind her, the protagonist herself. Those two are fine. She is capable enough to protect both of them. 

“...on the fifth day, grant Rules…”

From here, you pinpoint with razor precision the moment the so-called guard on the right-hand of Sunday dares to stifle a yawn—eyes wandering aimlessly around the crowds as though any danger would be a glaring red and waving banners. You sneer. 

“...on the sixth day, grant Meaning…”

Something tells you to test out the waveforms with a different variable, and you focus solely on the fluctuations resonating with the magic circle created through the absorption of what was supposed to be Duke Yingxing’s demonic power-up crystal. 

“...on the seventh day, grant Dignity…”

There. Right on time. Something stirs in the crowd, like the last sigh rising up from a cadaver: an apparent, heaving groan now that the useless noise created by interference has been accounted for. There. They may as well be waving winking crimson banners—an ode for what is to come. Your eyes lock on His Grace’s glare, and you make the universal motion for retreat and evacuation. He looks at you with fascinated disgust, before his jaw twitches—he has felt it too. 

“...and on the eighth day, grant us the Paradise where it all started…”

You’re not quite sure when it began: the precise millisecond when His Holiness’ controlled, measured breathing through the crystal at your heart began to grow just every slightly more laboured—more panicked. It appears he does not know why, judging how his eyes dart across the crowd; it is only natural that one descended from the archangels that pass judgement have this instinct towards their antithesis. 

“Go,” you tell Gepard lowly, ushering the King out of his little gilt box.

“Where are you going?” Yingxing interjects with cold precision, eyeing the hand cradling Harpe’s hilt. 

“To my duty,” you reply shortly. “Their target is on that dais.”

Yingxing follows your gaze, and scoffs. “You’re saving someone whom you hate, and who hates you in return?”

It’s ridiculous, and it sounds even more ridiculous when His Bluntness says it. 

“Well, yes,” you answer tonelessly, wondering exactly why you’re doing this too. You could let him be protected by those two ceremonial grunts who are more used to practising their fancy swordsmanship than fighting. You’ve dedicated part of your time to helping the knights improve their skills, but they’re not ready for this, not like you have been, not like you are. 

You could let him die. 

It would solve a lot of things. 

Each breath is slowly beginning to coalesce into something urgent against your chest as Sunday starts to feel the gravity of the situation: that something isn’t quite right, that his golden castle is about to come tumbling down. 

You survey the still-calm dais: the tension coming to a maximum before the surface breaks. The man at the eye of the storm looks pitifully small.

“Have the soldiers on-standby to evacuate civilians,” you comment, flexing your wrist. It’ll take, what, maybe a second or two to get to him if you use the step you learnt at war. 

“I’m not your subordinate,” he replies, boreal, and you contemplate why exactly it is that he’s still entertaining this conversation, especially with your back turned to him. 

“You’ll do it regardless,” you inform him laconically. 

The door to the glided cage shuts firmly behind you. 

Almost. The illusion that Yingxing hastily conjured is enough to fool everyone that all is still well. Almost. The blessing is complete, and the ceremony only needs a few more minutes to be over. Almost. 

There’s some stirring—some ripples in the water that hint at what is to come. 

For a brief second, Sunday glances into the cage, and perhaps you imagine it, but it feels as though he’s made eye contact. You can’t tell what his expression looks like, because in the next moment, everything goes to shit. 

The surface tension has been ripped to shreds, and you can hear what this bastardised microphone doesn’t pick up—the trembling fear in his gasp that comes with facing something that fundamentally opposes your existence. 

You don’t think. A grim expression paints your face as you vault over the high balustrade, as droves of them begin crawling over each other, as the civilians stir themselves. Screams coat the air as they scramble away from their neighbours who are honed in, razor-sharp, on their on-stage target. The King will be fine, the civilians will be fine if the knights do their job for once, and Robin will be fine since she’s with the embodiment of plot armour. 

Who won’t be fine?

The man whose breathing quickly becomes more shallow as something stalks towards him with gristly, blood-speckled claws—as his so-called knights face off the demonic beast with trembling legs.

In his heart of hearts, you know that he knows that his thorns won’t be effective against hordes like these, but you commend his spirit in summoning them. 

The creature lunges towards him, and you can hear the sharp intake of air reverberating beneath your shirt as he throws up an arm—but he is too late. 

Metal chimes against a particularly insidious form of keratin. 

Harpe is as reliable as ever as you throw the beast to the side with its own precious momentum, barking out orders to the two commanders that seem like they’re going to piss their pants. Which would, ironically, prove your conjecture of a piss-poor defence correct. 

“I’m not too late, I hope?” 

“Shut up,” he rasps, strangling a smaller demon who’s nipped past the two quivering guards. “Stop gloating.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you hum, cleanly decapitating the beast in front of you. Harpe hums in tandem, buzzing through the air like a current alive with each masterful slash. 

You stab, you cut, you parry. This is what you’re used to as bodies pile up around you, coating you in the filth you’ve been baptised in. A clean arc builds around you and Sunday as the waves keep coming, a few stray monsters veering off to attack the dwindling number of civilians—slowly being taken down by other knights. 

Behind you, Sunday’s breathing becomes ragged. He’s a Pope, with no experience in prolonged battles, and hardly any experience with getting his own hands dirty, with all the plot you’ve derailed. 

In fact, when you glance back momentarily to check on your charge, he doesn’t belong here at all—a lone white smudge in the sea of blood and viscera, so absurdly different you let out a small chuckle. You’ve been in his world, and now he’s visiting yours in all his sepulchral glory: pale ghost observing the living battlefield. 

The dead relax. Those left behind keep fighting. 

“Why are you laughing? Have you lost your mind?” he hisses, and normally you wouldn’t have heard him. Normally you’d be succumbing to the bloodlust and Harpe’s soothing influence, but you hear his whispers as though he were breathing them right into your ear, even though he’s several feet away. 

You don’t quite know why. 

“Perfectly sane, Your Holiness,” you bare your teeth as you unseam a demon beast from belly to shoulder: drenched in sticky, oily blood that never does wash out. 

It’s going well. Too well. The civilians have evacuated, Robin and her have disappeared, and the troublesome knights taking their first toddling steps in this big bad world are managing pretty well against the stragglers. Of course, it means you’re stuck with the heavyweights, yet it’s a simple battle. 

Just like all things, when it’s going too easily, Ena shows up to restore Order. 

One of the first things you learn on the Big Bad Battlefield is this: don’t think about tomorrow, only today. Never the long game, just the very, very next step you’ll take. 

The second thing you learn very quickly is that demons are irregular, irrational, incomprehensible beings—capable of bringing down the Order and everything it stands for. 

Something whistles by your ear, and embeds itself into the wooden platform. An arrow. A surging, demonic arrow, capable of reaching speeds approximate to a bullet’s—yet only few demons unlock the attribute that manifests these devastating arrows. 

“Shit,” you spit, glancing quickly at the man who’s got his back to the wall. “Stay right there.”

Scanning the perimeter, you spot it on the edge of the coliseum, aiming—

You freeze momentarily. Those sights are pointed directly at the exhausted man a few feet away—who’s staying in place because you told him to, who’s got no time to spot what you’re seeing, who won’t hear and react to your words in time to get out of the way. 

There’s less than a second now: far too late to reach the demon pointing straight at him with that corrupted taint coating every fibre at precisely what it’s meant to destroy. 

It’s not too late to interfere with the target. Less than a second to make a decision—before you instinctively lunge towards your left with a hasty use of the fleet-footed step, before you hear that now-familiar whistle—

You can’t catch the arrow with your teeth. That’d be stupid, go against physics, and would probably be rejected by dental insurance. You do the next best thing. You intercept it with your arm.

And no, you don’t catch it. It pierces into your flesh before you have a chance to react, flaring instantaneously with white-hot pain. 

It hurts. The effects are immediate: vision swimming with a red tint so deep it appears purple; veins vasodilating with a heat so intense it feels like you’re melting into a furnace; head pounding so rapidly you can taste each panicked thought on your tongue. 

He’s looking at you in horror, but you don’t react, though you are agonisingly aware of each and every move of his. No, you’re already moving like a puppet on its strings, lit ablaze by hellfire as you approach the remnants of the dead. 

It’s clean, in a place death probably shouldn’t be. You’re luminal, far faster than an arrow. 

Harpe swings through the air so swiftly that she forms a parabolic afterimage long after the head of the beast falls to the ground, and you’ve never felt better—practically flying past the cadaver as you aid the stricken-looking knights who scramble out of your way.

Less than a minute. It takes less than a minute before the arena is filled with only the living—plus one ghost, naturally. Less than a minute before you’re stumbling up those wooden steps once more, honing right in on the main target of tonight. 

The man stands carefully, and you wish you could be as coordinated, with your head spinning as it is. You vaguely remember that he’s under your care, and your hand shoots out to grab his face: turning him this way and that to examine for any injuries. 

“...what do you think you’re doing in that state? You need urgent medical attention…”

Hazily, you take note that you probably shouldn’t call him the pale ghost. Not when fresh, arterial carmine stains his garments, baptising him as One of the Battlefield. He belongs here now—a part of the living like you are. 

You smear oily sanguine on his cheek.

“...you’re burning up. You there—send a messenger to the Temple—I need—”

You may be imagining it, but you think he looks rather worried. 

•. *࿐

“...of all times you arrive now. Typical. Has your subordinate sent word to the Temple, or will you do that yourself?”

“...I’ll just take him to my estate in the capital, Sunday. My sister is a healer, she can—”

“Don’t you dare touch him. It’s demonic taint—he stays with me.”

“All the more reason he shouldn’t go with you. The North has ample knowledge on demons, while the Church of Order cannot risk exposure to high-concentrations of demonic poison. I’ll take him.”

“Duke Yingxing, the Temple is just as, if not more, equipped to deal with demonic poison. Expurgating it will be far easier with copious amounts of holy water.”

“I thought you hated him, Your Holiness. Let me take him off your hands.”

“It appears you’re forgetting your place, Yingxing. He is under my command—he is mine.”

“And if he leaves?”

“...he won’t.”

“...do… know….”

“...”

•. *࿐

Tepid warmth crawls sluggishly through your body, coated in a faint, omnipresent ache that refuses to cease. White-hot iron seeps through your cracked lips, and you feel like you’re drowning, drowning, drowning—

It’s too hot. Too cold. There’s something washing over you: almost as gentle as someone bathing their babe for the first time. Carefully, as though you are about to shatter. 

You are here. You are nowhere, floating aimlessly in something that feels like the first circle of hell, while looking like a fleshy, amorphous mass. 

Limbo. 

It is then you realise your eyelids are practically pasted shut. 

Something taps once—no, twice—against your cheek and runs down your face, just about brushing your mouth. It’s lukewarm—and doesn’t taste like copper. No, it almost tastes like the salt that comes with tears. 

A… cloth drags along your face, or at least you think it is. It’s cold and damp and seems to be grating across your raw nerves, but you can tell it’s trying to be nice and keep you cool rather than torture you. 

You can feel your skin, pulled perfectly to cover every muscle, every fibre of sinew—except, of course, where you can feel the throbbing wound on your arm, covered in tight bandages and the glacial, ever-present rippling. 

Your arm twitches, and the cloth pauses its quiet, deafening ministrations, before resuming, as though not wanting to let you know that it knows you’ve ruined everything by waking up. You pretend you’re unconscious, while trying to figure out why the undershirt and trousers plastered to your body don’t smell like blood, why your arm feels less painful with each passing minute, why you feel like you’re floating. 

Something shifts in the water, folding it neatly around like origami—and you sense it, that familiar tea-leaf-linen-soap scent entrapping you as a hunter does to its prey. 

It’s a hazy reminder of something. Something that flutters grey against the fleshy red of your eyelids—something… you were meant to… protect? 

You think your brow furrows, crinkling like the water around you—and once more, the movements of the cloth stop. It’s like the fabric is anticipating your conscious advent on this plane, but doesn’t want to get too hopeful, so it resumes its heady torture once more. 

“What’s going on?” you murmur groggily, and the water folds even more as someone startles. You can feel them now, against your back: preventing you from succumbing to the chill of the stone lip of this pool. 

A cavernous space sprawls out before your squinted eyes—something close to a lake, in fact, beneath crystalline stalactites that reflect the strange light coming from the abyssal depths. 

“What is this place?” 

You half-expect the cloth to simply continue its path along your face as an answer non-answer, but in its lieu a soft voice replies.  

“It’s ceremonial. All filth that enters is purified.”

The cloth is dipped, before returning to your brow. He’s exceedingly gentle now—as though you’ll crumble into dust, now that you are aware. Of what exactly, you do not yet know. 

“Are you referring to me?” you ask dubiously, looking up at the fuzzy man. You can’t quite place his face, like he’s a fleeting halcyon sensation lost alongside your childhood. You think you’ll get there, though. It’s on the very tip of your tongue. 

“I, too, am filth. Every wanderer of this mortal realm is ridden with sin.”

Filth. Sanguine trickles into your mind, and you suppress a groan as your head throbs. “Fuck.”

“You’re back.” He sounds almost relieved as he examines your pupils, and you don’t know whether to laugh or be concerned with his disgustingly stark change in demeanour. 

“Your… Holiness,” you mutter. Looking around with renewed clarity, you realise his body sitting on the edge of the pool is what’s preventing the cold stone from leeching off any more of your body heat as the poison is expurged, though his legs are equally as boreal: ridden in drenched robes that chafe at your back alongside your undershirt. 

He doesn’t reply, and you affix your gaze to a stalactite that glimmers in the distance. You can’t imagine it was easy for him to swallow his nausea and take care of you. 

“The blood’s gone,” you marvel quietly, pulling at the familiar wet undershirt that should’ve, by all means, been coated with demonic viscera. 

“The demon blood has been purified,” he answers testily, as though he’s grasping at what he knows: the frigid petulance that permeates this doomed relationship. 

You can feel his diaphragm creak and groan against the back of your head as he heaves a shuddering breath. 

Once. Twice. Then—

“Why did you save me?” 

—there it is. Why? You’d like to know too. 

“You would have died had this hit you,” you respond tonelessly, staring at the waters as if they could possibly help you. “Your guards certainly weren’t going to help.” 

He can probably tell you’re irritated: tasting it in the air, mulling it over.

“What—so this was some final self-sacrificing gesture—some last fuck-you to rub it in that you were right?” he scoffs, and you hear the cloth being discarded onto the lip of the pool. The jig is up, the pretense has been discovered—he no longer cares. 

“What?” you fumble. Had you known the exact details of what would have happened, then yes, maybe you would have gloated in his wrongness: the oh-so-revolting blemish on the so-called perfect man. 

He’s silent, but his shallow, rapid breaths break through all his efforts—like he knows he messed up, and regrets saying it. It pains you to admit it, but he spoke one part truth (though the other three parts are a lie by omission). 

“Hey—” you try, if only to alleviate the oppressive atmosphere. You’re saved by his interruption, since you really don’t know what you would have said had he kept his mouth shut. 

“Are you going to leave?”

This time you’re silent while you riffle through your mind to attempt to even guess why he’s asking this. 

“Are you?” he presses, and you can feel his abdomen tense in trepidation. 

The water unfolds, surges and undulates as you twist: less of a paper dream and far more tangible. 

“Keep— keep sitting. You’ll slow your healing if you move too much, since this water can only purify,” he stammers, but you ignore his protest.  

“Who said that?”

You’re standing now, risen from the waters like some bastardised Botticelli piece—except that you are far from divinity. 

“I’m being serious.” He’s looking up with that look that comes with being annoyed at you—which is most of the time. “You’ll hurt yourself—you’ve still got the wound on your arm.”

You lift the aforementioned arm briefly to gaze at the wound—or at least, what covers it—but it doesn’t ache sharply like it should, by all rights. If anything, you think the demonic stone you swallowed a few years back has had an unprecedented effect on healing a wound caused by demonic weapons. 

“I’ve never felt better,” you grit out. Leaning down causes the crystal around your neck to desorb from your drenched body, and his eyes flick between the glinting stone and your blood-tinted eyes. “Who the hell said I was leaving?” 

He swallows. 

“Why wouldn’t you leave? You’re not happy here. You won’t find anything you want here. I’ll write to—” He’s rambling now, and you’d think he was the fever-addled one. 

“Sunday,” you mumble, word foreign on your tongue—heavy as lead and awkward as fuck. 

“Don’t call me that,” he mutters back, but it’s strange. He’s never sounded less convinced. 

“Since we both decided to assume things, I’ll take it we’re even—” 

Sunday, the voice in your mind taunts. You sway on your feet, suddenly intoxicated by that distinct scent: as though you’re burying your nose in it, mouth open to take a bite—

“Sunday,” you repeat, and your wrist is puppeteered to allow your fingers to grace the side of his neck: right where his pulse decides to begin its vivace. 

He does not move. 

His porcelain robes are stained a milky red, distorting in and out of view as you tilt your head to properly assess him. Right there—concentrated behind his head like some damned halo, some strange essence seeps into the filthy air. The odd flavour stains your tongue, and you flinch. 

Angel, your instincts scream—you could press a clawed thumb right there into his vein, you could—

[Your pupils. Shit,] he swears, and for a brief moment, your mind clears as you focus on the Old Language and you let go as though burnt. 

[You need to hold me under,] you demand. Those golden eyes of his search your face and his mouth twitches in a faint smile, before he processes your words. 

[You’ll drown,] he argues, and it is clear that he thinks you’re foolish—as though you’re not perfectly lucid. Or at least, you think you are. 

[Drink.] 

You blink. [The water?]

[Yes, what else?] he frowns, and you shrug—too quickly. There’s a lot of things to drink from, like that goblet filled with pungent-smelling herbs just a few feet away, or—

His neck, the hungry, irrational part of you wails: razor-focused on the soft flesh that lays on the junction between shoulder and nape, just ready for your teeth to—

[Alright.] you blurt, eager to escape the oppressive heat of your thoughts. They’ve begun to distinctly taper off into two camps: the human side, tempered through two lives, and the inhuman side, set ablaze by one death, and one close encounter. 

You don’t know how long you can hold out, so you do the sensible thing: you listen; you reach out for the icy water; you drink. 

Except, you don’t. The holy water reaches about as far as your esophagus before you fold in half neatly, hacking out the red-tinged liquid not-so-neatly. You watch it as it joins its kin and glows faintly before turning into that homogenous shade of clear once more.

“I can’t,” you choke out, clutching at the wet undershirt for support as you look wildly around. “I—”

[Focus,] he says cruelly, but his fingers find your shoulder and press slightly—in some misguided attempt at comfort. 

“Direct blood absorption might be better. Where’s Harpe?” you mutter, moving to stand, but Sunday splays his palm flat against your back. “Sunday.”

It’s the trigger. The gun is cocked, the chamber is fully loaded, and it is aimed directly at you, the human. 

Sunday. 

One shot. The legs are busted, and the human buckles—but it’s still living, still fighting. 

“Sunday?” you try again, and this time, the human isn’t so lucky. Your nails dig into flesh as you press them into your thighs, but the cold water no longer feels cold—and the fresh raw pain from the half-moons your nails leave behind is no longer pain. “Sunday—”

The frigid barrel presses into your forehead, and the trigger is pulled at point-blank range. 

[I’m sorry,] the angel says quietly, but you don’t know what he’s apologising for, only that your body is straining to escape the—

Thorns? 

Your neck cranes downward, gazing harshly at the golden light that binds your body: small spikes piercing through flesh and immobilising you, constricting impossibly tighter as though it were a noose. 

“Sunday,” you coo. “You think you can restrain me with—these—puny—things?”

[They’re doing pretty well to tame you,] he pants, scrambling away to grasp the goblet and tip the medicinal herbs out of the vessel. He fills it with holy water, and holds it with a trembling hand. A toast. 

“What, you’re going to force this down my throat?” you taunt, marvelling at the theatricality. “That didn’t work out last time, remember?”

[I do remember,] he murmurs thoughtfully, staring into the depths of the goblet. [I know how this will go, and I will pay the price for it.]

“What?” you laugh incredulously, but he’s approaching you slowly. Curiosity gets the better of you. What’s the angel going to do?

He steps delicately into the pool, as if he weren’t already drenched. 

[Demons represent the base desires that pollute the beauty of Order.] The angel uses the voice that works best for sermons—distant and unreachable, just like Order itself. You frown at the language shift. [For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.]

“Give up, Sunday—” 

He doesn’t respond. Those golden thorns of his twine up—up—until they stop, forcing your head to gaze up at he who came from the heavens. 

His thumb presses against your lower lip, and you startle as you feel his icy, bare skin against it. He’s not wearing gloves, you briefly note, before you sneer in disappointment. 

“Really? I tried that already. I won’t swallow.” Your words vibrate against his hand, and his body gives off a minute shudder. 

[Won’t you?] he murmurs. That deft hand of his raises the goblet. [I’m even paying the price for it.]

“What price?” you frown, perhaps for the first time since the gun fired. 

The goblet touches his lips, and you realise, far too late. 

The price. The static noise of your mind goes pristinely blank: the landscape this unsuspecting angel has always envisioned, without any bloodied hounds marring the landscape. Like war drums, your pulse beats: heavy and fast and hammering right out of your chest. 

You close your eyes, just as his soft mouth covers yours.

He’s warm, you note drowsily—despite his cold hands carefully cradling your face, despite the boreal chill emanating from his soaked body. Those fingers of his brush hesitantly against your feverish skin; he doesn’t know what to do. That much is evident by how docile his body is in comparison to the harsh burr of thorns incapacitating you: how clumsily his lips move against yours. 

There’s some big grand plan that he’s barely committed to: lips clamped shut in a last-ditch effort to preserve his dignity, despite them being the main actor on this isolated stage. 

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

He’s afraid of the price.

Against your own, his chest rises and falls rapidly as he tilts his head: mechanically, like he’s copying some diagram or novel or even worse—his imagination. Some morsel of pity drips into your contaminated blood and you make the final leap for him. Your mouth opens and he jolts, hands curling desperately into your face. He shivers when your tongue eases the seam of his lips, yet his fingers hold you far more firmly than before. 

No, he’s not afraid of the price—he’s afraid of what it means. 

The now-warmed holy water trickles into your mouth, and your throat moves on instinct to reverse its course—but it’s predetermined. He’s holding you like he’s got the upper hand, molding his mouth to minimise any of those precious drops that may escape. 

You let him. 

You let the water wash through, osmose, purify. In turn, your body gives you its next command—far greater, far bolder than remaining as this reanimated thing. Another angel, destined to plummet once it dares to soar too high. 

Corrupt him. 

His hand runs across your neck, circling the larynx as he makes sure to coax down each and every mouthful. So thorough, you note, before he pulls back with a deep gasp, looking every bit the mess you expect his mind to be: lips slicked; pupils blown out so wide his eyes look a murky amber; a light sheen on his flushed cheeks. 

He looks a picture. 

[Again,] he murmurs hazily, picking up the vessel that he dropped and refilling it. You watch every small shift in his expression, but you’re distracted by the loosening binds that have thus far sequestered you in the water successfully. 

Each spike embedded in your body no longer throbs with a sharp pain, but a duller ache. 

The human lives for the third time. 

You don’t tell him about the slight change. 

He kisses you again—except, he’s likely rationalising why it isn’t one. For someone so previously reluctant, he shows no hesitation this time: tilting his head just so, cradling your face, and opening his mouth so pliantly. 

The price has clearly become more tolerable. 

He’s kissing you, and by any god or Ena or Idrila, you’re kissing him back; poison be damned. The angel doesn’t notice your hands freeing themselves from his vines, but he sure notices them tugging him closer: eliciting a sharp inhale when his body collides flush with yours. 

No, it’s no longer just a kiss; now, you’ve involved him in something far out of his depth. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he hisses when he pulls back for air, searching your face for something—anything—that could give him a clue as to what caused the sudden change. 

See? The angel has fallen. There are two humans standing in the water: one whose shock is clearly written on his face, and the other, whose grin coats his expression with a profound delirium. 

“Gonna hold me under now?” you ask, and you don’t know who speaks. Is it you, or is it you? “Vines aren’t really working.”

He’s silent for a few heartbeats; you can sense every one of them hammer against your own sternum as he considers you. You, everything about you: your words, the easy smile on your face, the feverish heat emanating from your body that he can acutely feel. 

“I hate you,” he utters finally, eyes skimming over the blank look in your own. 

“That should make things easy then,” you remark with a faint smile, but you think you’re just as unsure as he is. 

“Don’t— just don’t,” he mutters. His eyes follow your body as you sink into the water, and you understand why people call it contact: for it feels like he’s parsing through your skin the longer he stares at it. 

The vines have all but disappeared—pale yellow mirages of an exorcism—and you miss the ties that once bound you to him. 

Lying down like this, it’s enough to rob you of your buoyancy: enough to guarantee your baptism and absolution of sin. Either a miracle or another grave will meet you, and you’ve had plenty of both. 

Once more, you make his decision for him, by finally submerging your head beneath the frigid waters, allowing your thoughts to be quenched through the slow ebb and flow of the tide. It’s impossible to hear him—impossible to make out the exact shape of words leaving his lips—and you merely wait, even though your lungs ache and your eyes burn and the mana circles around your heart speed up in order to counteract drowning by about two or three extra minutes. It’s not a lot of time, but it’s enough to allow for Sunday’s deliberation and internal monologue to come to the executive decision of—

“Don’t die,” he says, but it could also have been you’re a liar. You’ll never really know. 

The answer is unexpected, or maybe perfectly expected. 

He does want you dead. It’s evident in how he kneels with your body between his legs, how carefully and meticulously his hands first find your shoulders—then hesitantly, your throat—as though your body will accept the water as the lesser of two evils. 

The liquid fills your mouth, forcing its way into each cell of your body as the contaminants are purged.

You are drowning. 

He’s saying words you don’t understand and never will. 

You smile, before you see it: tears faintly streaking his face as he sits in defeat, and you shudder at the sudden weight. Like vices, your hands clamp around his thighs on instinct: desperate to live. 

Don’t die. 

You can tell he’s given up on the conviction you instilled in him when his hands run across your face, lifting you from the font: clean, purged from the sin you’ve been poisoned with. 

“I hate that you saved me,” he’s whispering, and your heart speeds up: whether from his words or hypoxia, you’ll never know. Your nails dig into his skin, and he jolts; a deep flush slowly begins to coat his face as he, too, realises exactly how he’s messed up. 

“Sunday—” You struggle to sit up, and he makes a sort of strangled noise at the sudden movement, shifting on your lap. You’re too close now: so much so that you can taste the faint dregs of the tea he drank that you couldn’t focus on before; so much so that you can hear his pulse beat heavy in his chest; so much so that his damp wings are long enough to brush against your face like a veil. Or even a shroud. 

Something presses into your lower abdomen, and you freeze, not daring to move even a single muscle. 

“I hate you. I hate how even though I hate you, I need— I rely on you,” he breathes, and his hands move from the back of your head to your chest: gripping the wet undershirt as though it can save him, thumbing at the crystal as though it contains his sanity. 

At least while you were reading, you could predict where his madness would lead him; it followed the same clichéd tropes, the religious guilt, the shallow intensity. 

He stopped being predictable a long time ago. 

“Sunday,” you shiver, thumbing circles into the fabric clinging to his thigh. His breath hitches. 

“I hate you,” he mumbles through the tears rolling down his cheeks. 

“I know,” you say just as quietly, and your fingers carefully brush away each small drop, cautiously holding his face. His own hands curl uselessly on your chest, and you’re beginning to feel him affect you too: every shuddering inhale he takes, each minute shift of his hips as he leeches off your preternatural warmth, that dilated look in his eyes. 

An incandescent sort of heat alights each of your veins, and your heartbeat dances an allegro. 

“I hate myself— I hate how—” he chokes out, and you don’t think. 

Your lips are on his, and you swallow each strangulated sob: taste each salty tear. 

Almost instantly, his clenched fists relax: splaying loosely against the wet flesh, tension practically oozing—seeping—out of each pore. He melts into you, pliable, and you, too, hate him for how it makes you feel. 

Slowly, your fingers tilt his jaw, and that small movement is enough to coax a breathy whine from his throat: one that’s quickly devoured by your esurient mouth. It’s clear the noise elicited also makes him acutely aware of the circumstances, for he pulls back for air as though scalded: chest heaving, expression tinged with something inscrutable. 

“Don’t worry,” you say with a certain sort of finality, and he jolts as your fingertips graze past the base of his wings. “I hate you too.”

Your chest rises and falls heavily, running after the heart that pulses, electrified, against your sternum, and you know he can feel it in his hands: every little half-truth, every complex emotion that you’re drenched in, and each sin that taints you.

Each sin that taints him, too. The two of you are ensnared in the oh-so-human carnal sin, treading far too dangerously on the line between temptation and outright apostasy.

He doesn’t answer, tracing a glacial path to where your bandage lies covering a faint wound—contemplating your words and the entire situation. 

“I can’t be doing this— I’m a servant of the Order— I can’t break my vows—” he mutters like he’s coming to a realisation, touching on the border between crazed and frantic as he processes his own thoughts. You stay silent, letting his ramblings fizzle out into the abyssal cavern before you finally speak. 

“Then don’t.”

His eyes snap to yours, then to where your hands have descended to trail in the water: rendered obsolete through his words. 

“Leave the water, and this will all be erased,” you murmur, waiting. Indistinct relief blurs and fades through your mind at the thought that he will make the final decision—that he’ll likely and carefully stand, brush himself off, and the two of you won’t have entangled yourselves deeply enough that you’d run far away, to where Argo is just a passing thought rather than reality. 

You think you know him well enough. 

“You believe that?” he breathes, like his decision hinges on your response. You frown. 

“You said it yourself. All filth that enters is purified,” you rattle off listlessly, wondering exactly why he’s delaying the inevitable. Soon, all this will be a bad dream for him: a timid stain on his relationship with the protagonist, perhaps an embarrassment that’ll take years to fade from memory. 

“Yes,” he says quietly, and his eyes run over your face as you look away: but you can feel the contact trailing over the raw nerves just under skin, much like you can feel every shift of his body as he tentatively draws closer. “That’s right.”

You suppress a groan as the subtle movements prompt his hips to roll ever so slightly over you, but it fades into nothingness as you see his face: cheeks painted in a crimson flush; half-lidded eyes containing the profound desire to devour you; and lips half-open as if to realise that desire. 

You fucked up. You fucked up, but—

His arms snake around your neck, and his wings flutter to shield you and him from the outside world: from the prying eyes of Judgement, from your conscience, and from his guilt. 

—so has Sunday. 

He’s kissing you. Not because he’s saving your mind, not because you kissed him, but because the price is no longer unbearable—hell, you’d say he even likes it. 

Temptation has won. Apostasy has won. 

He has been corrupted beyond repair. 

You have won, and you’re taking your prize. 

The flowery echoes of tea bloom on your tongue when you probe into his mouth, satiating yourself with the familiarisation. Each fine note hidden away beneath his morning drink, every metallic dreg lingering from someone’s blood, each viscous remnant of sweat—the olfactory fingerprint of a fallen angel. 

The sin makes him a quick learner: he tilts his head neatly to the side when you tilt yours; slots himself meticulously against your body, chest flush to your chest; and shivers on cue when your hands trail across his waist, leaving feverish heat behind on sepulchral skin. 

He falls apart like gossamer as you leave open-mouthed bruise after bruise on his neck: searing the clear mark of lust on his body. For now, they are invisible, but the seeds have been planted. Tomorrow, when he wakes up, he will dress alone. 

Or he will call for your help. 

His head snaps upwards as you nip at his clavicle. If you could glimpse where his eyes are tracing, you’d confirm your suspicions that he’s gazing at the heavens (there are none in this tomb). The Order is not looking his way, not now—not tonight. Or maybe it never will again. 

Its precious enforcer has fallen, after all. 

“What do you want me to do?” You press the words like a brand into his skin, drenching him in a fragrance of your making: the preliminary, yearning notes of sweat and sex, with an elusive redolence of holy water. 

In the end, the war hound will await orders like he always has. 

This is the fundamental law behind your flawed existence. 

“Act like you love me.” It’s barely a breath, let alone a whisper. He does not meet your eyes. “Just for tonight.”

 Love and war. You can do that: act out the epic of a lifetime, especially when you’ve lived through half of it. You decide not to think about what comes after the curtain comes down and the actors step off this grand stage. 

His upper robes unseam like wet paper as you tug on them: threads giving out under a lover’s covetous fingers. You regard his torso as a sculptor does to his creation, running your hands over his marble-cold body with the reverence of a pilgrim coming to worship his idol. 

“You’re beautiful,” you murmur, and beneath your obsequious fingers, the sculpture comes to life: sanguine delicately painting his features; goosebumps dotting over stone; sluggish pulse becoming frantic. 

You think the worst part is that it sounds too sincere. 

“Take— take yours off too,” he mutters, and you crack no jokes as you slowly drag the wet undershirt off your body and discard it somewhere where the empty cup lays. 

You think you’ve missed the memo for where he’s supposed to be acting like your lover. 

Wonderingly, his gaze first traverses the scarred expanse of your chest, followed by his gelid fingers. You shiver as they trace each slash, every place you were stabbed, each jagged mark that denotes you as an alien to his peaceful world. 

“Where’d you get this one?” he asks quietly, brushing softly against the one that cradles the communication crystal on your sternum: some burn you got from accidentally causing your food to explode when you attempted to use your mana circuits like a microwave. You grimace, chagrined. 

“I’ll tell you the story of each one next time,” you promise, kissing his forehead before you ease him onto the stone. You kneel before him, allowing you to observe his flush spreading to his shoulders as he whines from the loss of contact and your words that imply there will be a next time (before, of course, his wings flutter over his face to conceal his embarrassment). 

He does not refute it. Perhaps he already knows this is an act limited to this lonely stage: a lie crafted to draw in his immersion. 

You don’t quite know yourself, and you ignore the murmur in your soul telling you.

There are many lies that have festered between the two of you. You wonder if he’s ever truly believed in the Order. You wonder at the limits of his adoration for her. You wonder what’s wrong with you. 

Only one actor here displays model piety in this current scene—you. Your fingertips wander his taut abdomen: handling him like he’s something sacrosanct, except a worshipper wouldn’t do this. Your head dips, and you pay homage to the dips and valleys of his chest, before you latch onto the stiffened peaks that beg for attention—

“Shit,” he gasps at the slick warmth soaking onto his cold nipple, while the rough pads of your fingers coax the other one to the same temperature. You note with satisfaction his reaction—most poignantly, the no-doubt aching stiffness pressed against your stomach as you kneel between his legs, but in second place is definitely the uncharacteristic imprecation spilling from his swollen lips. 

You pause, and watch him come down pitifully from a pleasure he doesn’t yet know: breathing heavy, irises bordering on almost entirely black, and light whines of complaint seeping from his throat. 

“What— what did you do that for?” he protests: frustrated in the exact same manner he displays whenever you circumvent his commands (but of course, he looks far better like this).

You ignore his question, and posit one of your own:

“You’ve never done this before?” 

This. Hands trail down his body, slow and sweet as molasses: punctuating the question with an allusion. An inquisitive finger taps on the remaining fabric wrapped loosely around his hips, and his breath hitches. 

You think his heartbeat wobbles.

“Never experimented, never wavered—” your finger probes just past the small gap between skin and the material. He briefly squeezes his eyes shut. “—never touched yourself?”

“No— no,” he says, clearing his throat. “I haven’t. My vows—”

You hum contemplatively. “Yes, you’re a cut above the rest, Your Holiness.”

“Don’t mock me,” he mutters (but you felt him tremble slightly when you reminded him exactly of his position). 

He is not infallible. 

“Plenty of your peers fall prey to temptation,” you muse. “Because—”

“They are weak,” he scoffs.

“—it feels good,” you finish, languidly pushing down the water-logged fabric covering his legs. The achromatic robe sinks into the waters: the symbol of purity rendered functionally and metaphorically useless. 

He hisses as the cold air grazes his aching cock, and you can feel your own trousers growing painfully tight by the second. 

“Fuck,” he grits out, as you wrap your hand around the base. He’s trying to stay composed: nails darting to dig into your shoulders, clenching his jaw to refrain from making any sounds he deems shameful, eyes stubbornly fixed at some point in the distance (perhaps one of the stalactites you so keenly stared at).

“You alright?” you murmur, languorously moving your calloused hand. He furiously bites his lip, and his eyes squeeze shut.  

“Shut up. I’m fine.” 

You smile faintly, while your hand picks up the torturously slow pace—lubricated by the thick beads of pre-cum leaking from his tip. It’s far too evident that he’s unused to his fundamental rules being bent like this: for despite the shuddering inhales he allows himself, he refuses to unravel any further (even at the cost of biting through his swollen lips). 

It is the mask he puts on daily: the untouchable, the divine. Someone far above humanity—above mortal pain and pleasure. It is an integral part of him, one that cannot be forced off. 

His soul, however, knows it is a lie. 

It’s why the act begins to crumble.

Your thumb circles the head, waiting, waiting—

“Ah—” he moans as you tighten your grip, allowing the friction to coax out the actor from beneath the character. Then, inexplicably, your lazy movements halt completely, and you let go.

“What are you doing? Why’d you— why’d you stop?” he stammers, eyes fluttering open in disbelief. You glance down, watching his furiously red tip weep out a few more pearly globules. 

“Figured you’d be less shy if we were both getting off,” you reason, wiping the translucent liquid on your trousers as you slide the soaked fabric down. You suppress a groan as it drags down your far-too-sensitive cock, and the fluid motion of discarding the pants somewhere in the pile allows you a few precious seconds of watching his reaction in your periphery.

He parts his lips, almost subconsciously. Those thin brows of his furrow in contemplation, before you turn your head back to him, and he averts his gaze with a new layer of carmine blooming across his face. 

“You’re so crude—” His mumbled assessment is punctuated by a sharp gasp as you manoeuvre him back onto your lap where he belongs. 

Your lips press briefly to his brow. “Only for you, love.”

He squints at you, clearly trying to decide just how far you’re going to take it. That pondering only lasts a brief second, though, because—before he opens his mouth to tell you to shut up—you take both his hands and curl them around the two of you, and your mind goes blank. 

“Fuck,” you groan, moving his hands like a puppeteer to tighten his pleasure-lax grip, and you feel his pulse ricochet. “Keep going.” 

He’s clumsy: blinded by the sensation of having something hot and pulsing constantly pressed to him, so much so that he falters and trembles with each movement. You make it worse with your strained imprecations brushing past his wings as you kiss below his ear, leaving teethmarks anywhere you haven’t already. 

One hand finds his nipple, sore from neglect and arousal, while the other anchors his body flush against yours by pressing against his lower back.

He can no longer hold it in: each filthy noise suppressed in the prison of his lips, barred to preserve his dwindling dignity. 

“Ngh—more—” he whines shamelessly, each plea more wanton than the next—as though he has forgotten that his god is watching, judging him for his descent into lust. 

You can’t judge him, though, as your own abdomen tenses with every song you draw from his mouth. A slow, satisfied smile stretches across your face when you roll the sensitive bud between your fingers and his throat bobs uselessly. 

He’s close. 

“Feels weird—” he whimpers, choking on the thrill that is beginning to take over his mind. 

“You’re doing great,” you coo, and your words dissipate over his vulnerable jugular. His rapidly spiralling state forces the preliminary stages of euphoria to wash over your mind, but you suppress the sensation as much as you can. It wouldn’t do if you felt that all-consuming peak before him. 

The hand that was supporting his back now covers one of his, maintaining the pace that his pleasure-addled hands can’t keep up with. 

Just a bit more. 

Stray moans dribble from his lips, and you swallow each of them—including the sound of surprise he makes as he spills onto his hands and your body. The sudden heat leaking onto your dick is enough to force your own climax, coating his body with thick ropes of white. 

You rock into his body, prolonging his high for as long as possible (and yours), and only slow down when his rapid breathing becomes ragged. 

“Well done,” you whisper, pulling back—and just like that, the curtains close as his wings flutter over his face: clarity finally hitting, salient in the wake of mind-numbing ecstasy.

“Fuck, fuck,” he mutters in half-shock, but as you take his hands and lick off the filth coating them, his spent cock twitches, betraying his body. That’s nothing, though, since yours is still at full-mast: edacious for whatever he’ll give you. 

“Do you want to keep going?” you ask, noticing the doubt flickering in his eyes as he gazes through the feathers of his wings at your blood-engorged dick. He swallows thickly, then gazes at the holy waters like they’ll tattle on him to their god. 

“Yes.” He barely mouths the words, filled with embarrassment once more as desire floods into his veins. 

Your grin is shark-like. 

“Got it,” you breathe. You devour his gasp like a lover would, as your hands find the firm globes of his ass, kneading the flesh in preparation for the next scene. 

He pulls away just as your index finger slips into his hole, burying his face into the flesh connecting neck and shoulder. 

“Hurts—” he mewls, and his arms loop around your neck to support his shivering body. “Is it s’posed to?”

“It usually does,” you murmur regretfully into the soft down of his feathers, and he startles at the additional stimulation. “I’ll go slow.”

He hums, mollified, but then you feel a dull ache at the juncture of flesh, and you realise very quickly that he’s biting down on you to keep himself composed. 

“Mmph—” he moans against your feverish skin as you inch deeper into his slick hole, finger far warmer than the water lapping around it. 

“So tight,” you mutter wonderingly, and his pulse becomes electric at the filth spewing from your mouth. “Relax for me, doll.”

“Trying to,” he slurs between mouthfuls of flesh, and you make a small sound of appreciation as your finger eases in deeper, gently circling the muscle and soft flesh inside—probing, searching for the spongy organ that will make your job far easier. 

Where is it? 

You get your answer when you curve your fingers slightly to the side and immediately feel a sharp, stinging pain as his teeth pierce dermis.

Found it. 

The quiet restraint leaves you: focus honed purely on each reaction of his sensitive body. Each muffled whine is documented. Each flutter of fervid insides is noted. Each emotion painting his body language is analysed. 

“It feels—” his whispered statement is shattered with a small whimper at your finger rocking faster into him, chasing after the frenetic tempo of his pulse. With each pump of your index, you make sure it curls to the side with pinpoint precision.

He’s close. You savour each broken groan drawn out of his throat: playing in syncopation to his allegro heartbeat. The symphony just needs a little more time to complete. 

You will complete it. 

“Ah— please,” he begs, and his teeth clamp back onto sore skin with the more purposeful force you’re ratcheting up. “Feels weird—”

“You said that last time, baby, and look how you enjoyed it,” you murmur, rubbing small circles into the plush flesh of his ass in small comfort. His heaving abdomen presses flush against yours at your words, and you smile a smile for yourself. Got him. 

“Sunday,” you breathe against the feathers shielding him from your satisfied expression. That’s what pushes him past the brink, causing him to freeze in your arms. 

For the first time, you think you can hear your name threaded through the incoherent moans as he tilts his head back: arching into you, and allowing you to press soft kiss after kiss to his fragile throat. 

Shit. 

The actor’s facade is beginning to crack. 

You observe the sopping wet mess freshly coating both your bodies, and a strange heat flickers into existence within your stomach. You ignore it. 

The man sitting on top of you is still rocking against you, frantically riding out his high, and you can’t help but be intoxicated by him. He’s getting sloppy. The rhythm you were so enjoying has dwindled, and he slumps against you, cock twitching pathetically against his taut stomach. 

You wish you could see his expression right now, as you slip in another finger and he lets out a hoarse whine at the burning stretch. It’s not enough. Concentrated, you slowly scissor the digits without heeding the dull pain of his nails tearing through the already-scarred canvas of your back. 

Your body has already been painted by war. You don’t mind if these brushstrokes are from love instead. 

“Faster— ah—” 

His tamed cadence sears itself into your memory. He doesn’t quite know it yet, but try as he might, he’ll never feel as pure as he once was. As he paints you, he too is molded—marked—by your heated touch. 

You don’t want him to forget how he feels right now. 

He can’t. 

Enraptured, you insert a third finger into his slick hole, coaxing those drunken mewls out of his body through your other hand playing with his tender chest. More. You tug roughly on his swollen nipples, catching the raw flesh against the callouses on your fingers: dull pain to distract him from the stretch you’re impatiently forcing. 

“You’re so cute, love,” you murmur with quiet reverence, breathing in the fragrance of tea and soap: now mingling with the scent of sweat and sex. The bitter taste of corruption is precisely what allows the timid notes to bloom—now characters in their own right. You drown in the heady redolence, drunk on the very man you claim to hate. 

His face presses deeper into your shoulder at the soft-spoken words, and you feel his skin burn: set ablaze by sweet nothings. Nothings, for they should be considered a farce—empty platitudes designed to lull him into a stupor. 

It’s working. You wonder what he thinks of your words: whether he can sense the lies in his soul. You don’t feel the once-familiar intrusion poking into your head. 

Perhaps he doesn’t want to know. 

The actor’s facade continues to shatter. 

Your fingers languorously carve out a space for you within him, while your other hand works its way around the supple dips and contours of his body: stroking, caressing, marking him as yours for tonight with damson shades. 

A handprint will bloom tomorrow on his thigh: forgotten until he brushes past it and feels the dull ache of a bruise. It’s a reminder that he can never forget: cannot merely lock away his shame, for while the amaranth hue may fade, the space you’ve created inside him is irreversible. 

In turn, you’ll sleep on your side for the next few weeks: slowing the circles around your heart enough that the wounds he inflicts remain tender and raw. He’ll catch a glimpse over your collar—covered haphazardly by the thin material—and it, too, will serve as a reminder of what exactly transpired tonight.

His god may forget once he steps out of this pool, but he will not. He cannot. 

You won’t let him.

Your grin looks more like a snarl as he shudders. You’ve learnt to read the signs of his descent into pleasure: the way he digs his nails in to anchor himself, the way his body trembles with shockwaves that spiral out from his taut stomach, the way his breathing becomes ragged and so unlike his normal dignified self. 

“Sunday,” you coo once more, and as Pavlov foretold, his abdomen heaves and tenses against you—though, this time, the larger intrusion forces his back to arch, and he practically wails as shivers wrack his body. Something warm and far less viscous soaks your lower torso, and you know he’s close to completely unravelling. 

Saliva coats your chest, and you briefly wince as you realise just how much he’s bitten you in order to keep his sanity—enough that any marks will be faintly visible through your uniform shirt, enough that you’ll be a walking reminder for weeks on end. 

You swallow. 

“Can you keep going?”

It’s a question that unintentionally reads as a challenge: a gauntlet thrown at a man who, even in the most primal of acts, hates losing to you. 

He trembles against your body, but when he looks up, that blown-out gaze of his is steely as it locks on to you. 

Your breath hitches. 

He’s exquisite. 

Of course, you’ve known this since you first saw him on the illustrated cover: character captured in painstaking detail by the illustrator. But in turn, those details are painfully lacking when you look at the man in front of you. 

His sooty lashes flutter as he blinks away the tears that have welled up in his eyes, and you find your mouth to be terribly dry. His statuesque face, normally so composed, has been made into an utter mess: flushed cheeks coated in a clammy sheen; silvery hair plastered to his damp face; expression scrunched with overstimulation. The soft rouge of his mouth parts: swollen with kisses, hoarse with moans, and slick with the saliva that betrays his hunger. 

“Yes,” he mutters, exasperated. “I’m—”

You’ll never find out what he meant to say, for your lips capture his swiftly—adoringly. He makes a muffled sound of surprised protest, but his arms pull you by your nape so he can be closer to you as you passionately devour the small noises that escape from his mouth. 

“I didn’t— I didn’t finish. What was that for?” As he pulls back with a gasp for air, his question is punctuated by the slow press of your lips to his cheek, his ear—anywhere you’ve neglected, anywhere you haven’t shown the appreciation he so rightfully deserves. 

He sounds perplexed. 

“You’re beautiful,” you admit between stolen kisses.  

It sounds honest. 

Maybe it even is. 

You look at him like he’s hung the stars up in the sky, and he looks away. Heavy is your gaze, and even heavier is the emotion plaguing your heart. 

It’s easy to manoeuvre him when he clings to you like this: detaching his pliant body from yours through placing him back on the stone bank once more. You can feel his heart palpitate at the sudden lack of your febrile limbs cradling his frigid being; small murmurs of protest echo in the ripples of water, but you let them wash over you. 

The sensation of your dense cock pressing down on him is enough for his eyes to snap back onto you with a strange sort of intensity in his eyes: one part hunger, the other three something you can’t quite name. 

You drive me to madness. 

You run a hand caustically over his abdomen where you estimate the soft projection to be, and you can feel each tremble as the fireworks blast over his neurons: sensitivity heightened to an almost agonising degree. You almost smile when his spent cock dribbles out a few more pearls of translucent liquid at your idle touch. 

“Need— need you,” he heaves, but underneath the slurred words is the iron undercurrent of a command: imperious, so utterly like the Sunday you know. 

Your almost-smile becomes an irreverent, shit-eating grin, and he frowns. “Just do— ah—”

He whines brokenly as you line yourself up with his swollen hole, just barely pressing the head into the sticky mess. It hurts, no doubt, so you inch forward at a torturously slow pace: breathing now as ragged as his as you fight the urge to slam your hips into his, viscous desire catalysed by the slick sound gushing salaciously against your dick. 

You swallow, gazing at his arched body deliriously. 

“So tight, doll, shit” you swear, and your words cause him to squeeze, vice-like, around you. Your smile becomes wider, but inexplicably freezes as he cants his hips upwards to wrap his legs around your waist—coaxing a shaky moan from you, lips parted in surprise. It’s his turn to smirk faintly, taunting you for being so slow with it.

You indulge him, losing yourself in the fervescent heat of his insides momentarily, and losing a bit of your mind in the process. 

The adagio quickens. 

“What’s wrong?” he goads hoarsely, satisfied with the brief upper-hand he’s gained. You don’t reply, concentrating on his expression as he opens his mouth once more. “You feel— ngh—”

He writhes as you slam your hips into him, bullying yourself into the space you weren’t quite able to reach with your fingers. His incomprehensible sobs are the only sort of warning you get, before he makes an even bigger mess of himself: thin ropes of almost-clear liquid spurting from his half-limp cock, running into the dips of his heaving stomach. 

You know he’s seeing the same stars he hung up for you so prettily, and you continue rolling your hips in tandem with his wailing moans—sweet talking that obscene sloshing sound straight from the source.

You’re going crazy. 

Fascinated, your fingertips trace the prominent bulge shifting his guts, and he whimpers: fat tears rolling from his cheeks as you force his body to clamp down even harder around you. 

“That’s it, love,” you relish, rocking into him to watch the mound on his tummy shift inwards and outwards. “See that?” 

Despite himself, he exhaustedly cranes his neck to see where you’re looking—shivering with every drag of your hips—and you watch him take it all in. His spent cock still squirting thin rivulets so pathetically across himself, the protuberance that clearly indicates just how well you’ve carved a space into him, all the marks that are beginning to seep into his unblemished skin, all the marks he’s left on you—he takes it all in, turning an exquisite shade of pink. 

The mess is such a repulsive contrast to the cheery smile on your face. 

“You take me so well,” you mumble: words turning into blather as you begin to move once more. Your mind turns into endless mush as you unthinkingly lift his leg up onto your shoulder so he can take you even deeper, unheeding of the pitiful mewls that he chokes out. 

You’re only chasing your own high as you establish a brutal pace. You lose yourself—tension coiling in your abdomen—with each overstimulated flutter of his gummy insides, with each keen plaint wrenched from his drooling mouth, with each roll of his eyes to the back of his head. 

“So good,” you slur, tears rolling down your own cheeks at the divine sensation taking control of all your senses: the heavenly sight of his spent body splayed in front of you; the thick odour of lovemaking dripping over the trepid scent of his tea; the lewd sound of skin slicking against skin; the taste of salt and sweat still lingering on your tongue; and finally, the feeling of his body against yours—a dream to rival all dreams. 

“Sunday,” you babble: his name a mantra as he shudders under you. His ankle perforates as your kiss turns to a bite, and your tight grip around him will leave yet another plum-hued bruise by tomorrow. 

A frothy ring of white begins to form around your cock as it slams into him at a punishing tempo, but you are not quite done yet. You’re so stupidly deep that he’s wailing out something that sounds a lot like your name. 

It sounds so desperate you can’t help but tense: can’t help but spill deep inside him. Hot spurts of white coat his insides, swelling each tender ridge within—enough that the new stretch forces another orgasm from him, milking the last drops of cum from his useless cock. 

“Fuck, doll,” you moan loudly, bending down to kiss him as you ride out the euphoric wave blissfully controlling your body. 

You swallow each sob, every tear as you fuck the pearly globules into his body, enough that he’ll find the remnants dripping onto his leg for days no matter how well he purifies himself in these waters. 

“Don’t leave me,” he murmurs into your mouth, drifting in and out of clarity as you rob him of his breath. Some rational part in the mind buzzing with white noise idly wonders if he’ll remember his words tomorrow—if they’ll be overshadowed by his act of tasting the forbidden fruit. 

“I won’t,” you promise, pressing a chaste kiss to his clammy brow. Slowly, you pull out, watching the thick rivulets of pearly white gush from his spread legs onto the pure stone.

You consider the mess you made of His Holiness from your knelt position. 

Then, like the hound you are, you bow your head, and eat. 

•. *࿐

“I’m just… worried about him.” Robin’s voice filters through your ears, subject to your distracted, capricious thoughts. Your eyes flick to her hands, stiffly curled around a now-cold teacup: an ode to the hours spent catching up after the disastrous celebration and the long days spent in your respective roles. 

You were wondering when the conversation would shift to him. 

“He’s been terribly guarded recently, even with me.” Her hand props her chin up, half exasperated, half concerned for the idiot she calls brother. “I mean, not that he’s got great communication usually, but it got so much worse after you didn’t wake up—I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry.”

You turn this new information over in your mind: a new snippet to pin with red thread against the rest. Thoughtfully, you sip your own chilled tea. 

“I’m glad you’re here with him. It’s good he has a friend to rely on—especially since he cares about you so much.”

You smile into the porcelain. 

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” you murmur, and your teacup chimes against its saucer as if agreeing. “He’s loosened up a bit. Doing a lot better.”

Before she can respond, her mouth shuts as footsteps echo: methodical in the way only one person is. 

You lean forward, changing the subject of discussion smoothly, just as a gloved hand roots itself on the top rail of your seat. 

“So, I hope you didn’t get too scared at the ceremony itself,” you continue, bowing your head politely with a lulled Your Holiness in greeting to the man behind you. 

“Robin, Viscount.” He lingers just a touch longer on your title, as though desperately holding on to the practised civility the two of you have demonstrated longer than time itself. You suppress a smile.

Her eyes flit briefly between you and her brother, contemplating the slight shift in atmosphere. You ignore it, like you ignore his fingertips grazing your shoulder as he takes a seat right next to you. 

“No,” Robin regains her cheerful smile, as if her pensive gaze never existed. “Her Grace was very accommodating.”

You half-expect His Holiness’ body to tense slightly at any mentions of her, but his eyes focus intensely on you instead—as though gauging your reaction instead. The visitor in your head leaves satisfied at your emotional indifference, but what you aren’t indifferent to is the faint blush spreading across Robin’s face as she discusses her bodyguard’s battle prowess. 

Interesting. 

You take another sip of your stone-cold tea (the leaves have an awfully familiar taste). 

•. *࿐

“...there’s a lot of misconceptions about what we must do to enter the paradise promised to humanity…”

Sunday’s voice really is relaxing. It’s the perfect white noise to polish Harpe to, since you evidently aren’t paying attention to his sermon. The laity are enraptured by his words, and you are safe to continue your blasphemous actions—sequestered up high on an alcove behind them, a vantage point to rival all vantage points. 

Your posture is awful, you note with mild amusement. You’ve grown soft: slouched, legs spread carelessly with Harpe slung across them, a cloth loosely clasped in your hand. It should probably be classed as a sin within itself; everyone else is standing respectfully, or kneeling. You brim with irreverence.  

“…strive to uphold Order in what you do…”

His eyes briefly meet yours. You can tell, even from this far way—much like you can tell that despite his placid expression, he’s seething with irritation as he takes in your borderline pornographic position hidden away from everyone’s eyes but his own. 

“...lambs— lambs of Ena, our god will shepherd us to the End—”

Against the backdrop of his perfection, the brief fumble in his words are startlingly obvious as his gaze stumbles once more across the congregation, though his faint flush is visible to nobody but you. 

“...even when all seems lost…”

You wait. You watch. You hope the viscous liquid that drips down his leg isn’t too uncomfortable. Against your chest, his breath hitches through the crystal.

Like clockwork, he raises his gaze to the alcove once more. Languidly, your thumb rises to your mouth and swipes across your lips, as if you’re reminiscing over the taste of breakfast. 

You can’t fault him for averting his gaze from your intense scrutiny. 

He’s got a lie to uphold, after all. 

•. *࿐

tags:

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO ENDS UP AS YOUR ROOMMATE AND MAKES YOUR DORM FEEL LIKE ENEMY TERRITORY . . .

your life flashes before your eyes the moment you see the name on the roommate assignment sheet.

fushiguro toji.

the name is bolded at the top of the email, like it knows it’s about to ruin your entire year. at first, you think it might be a glitch—maybe the system crashed, maybe this is someone else’s result—but no. it’s definitely your name at the top, and fushiguro toji’s just underneath it. perfectly centered. stamped in fate.

you scroll through the rest of the email hoping for a way out. what you find is a cold, corporate statement at the bottom:

roommate assignments are final. changes may only be made if serious conflict is reported and verified by university housing.

so, basically, you’re screwed.

you wouldn’t care this much if toji was just some overly sociable senior who threw parties and blasted music all night. that kind of nightmare, you could handle. maybe you’d even end up bonding over a shared hatred of 8 a.m. lectures. but no—this is something worse.

toji is popular for one reason and one reason only: he’s terrifyingly hot. unfairly so. tall, athletic, all sharp features and a stare that could crack concrete. he’s the kind of guy who always has people whispering about him but never seems to speak more than a few words himself. and when he does, it's usually to tell someone to get lost.

you’ve seen him around campus—at the gym, outside class, walking back from practice with that same blank look on his face like he’s permanently bored with existence. once, a girl tried to flirt with him after a lecture, and he shut her down so fast she looked physically winded. another time, a group of guys tried to invite him to a party after a basketball game. he only clicked his tongue and looked at them in disgust before he walked off.

so, yeah. that guy is your new roommate.

you stand in front of your dorm room with your suitcase in one hand and your phone still pulled up in the other. the screen’s gone dim by now, but the name is seared into your memory. you stare at the door for a long second, then glance down the hallway, seriously wondering if sleeping on a bench outside might be more manageable.

you’re halfway through debating whether or not that counts as a “serious conflict” when the door suddenly swings open.

toji stands in the doorway, already looking irritated. he’s wearing a black hoodie with the sleeves shoved up his forearms and a pair of worn basketball shorts. his hair’s damp, probably from a recent shower, and his eyes drop down to your suitcase before settling on your face. you haven’t said a word, and yet he already looks done with you.

“you just gonna stand there all day?” he asks flatly. “or do i gotta drag you in?”

you freeze. “uh. no—i’m coming in.”

you shuffle past him, tugging your suitcase behind you and kicking your shoes off in the process. the room’s already been claimed, of course. his bed is made, desk half-organized, shelves lined with protein powder and gym gear. your side is completely untouched. as you move toward it, you hear the door click shut behind you, followed by the sound of fabric rustling as he flops back onto his bed like it’s been a long day.

you hesitate for a second, awkwardly standing in the middle of the room, unsure what to say. you glance back at him.

“how’d you know i was out there?” you ask.

toji doesn’t even look up. he’s opened a protein bar and takes a bite before answering. “heard you breathin’.”

you blink. “you heard me breathing?”

he shrugs like it’s not weird at all. “thin door.”

right. sure.

you don’t press him on it. instead, you start unpacking your things, quietly arranging your side of the room while trying not to feel weirdly self-conscious about… existing. he doesn’t say another word, and you don’t push your luck. you’re just grateful he hasn’t kicked you out yet.

but the silence is heavy. like he’s listening to everything.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO ONLY EVER SHOWS UP TO THE DORM LATE AT NIGHT WHEN HE THINKS YOU’RE ASLEEP . . .

you’ve been staring at the ceiling for what feels like hours. the tiny red numbers on your digital clock have been crawling toward 2 a.m., but sleep still hasn’t even attempted to visit. the dorm’s too quiet. the mattress is too stiff. the shadows in the corners of the room don’t quite feel like they belong to you yet.

it’s been almost two weeks since you moved in, and your body still refuses to get comfortable here. every creak of the walls, every shift of the pipes makes your brain go full alert. you’ve tried everything—music, a hoodie over your face, pretending the ceiling is one of those cheesy mobile night skies from when you were a kid—but nothing helps.

except, maybe, the weird new ritual of waiting for toji to come back.

because the thing is he always shows up late.

like clockwork, somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m., the door opens. and it’s not like he’s out partying—you know that for a fact. he’s never smelled like smoke or alcohol, never drags himself in like someone who’s been drinking. and it’s not like he has friends. you’ve never heard him on a call, never seen him with anyone outside of class. he barely talks to you, and you live with him.

so, yeah. it’s unsettling.

your eyes shift toward the door now, like instinct. as if on cue, the lock gives a soft click, and the handle turns with that smooth, controlled motion that tells you he’s done this hundreds of times before.

you close your eyes.

it’s stupid, probably, but it’s become routine at this point. pretending to be asleep makes it easier. easier to avoid the awkwardness, easier to ignore the weird twist in your stomach when you think too hard about how secretive he is. easier to avoid the fact that sometimes you hear him pause by your bed, like he’s checking something.

you keep your breathing even and let your hands go limp at your sides.

he steps in. shoes come off at the door with barely a sound. there’s the soft rustle of fabric, the dull thud of a bag being dropped, and then the creak of the bathroom door as it opens and clicks shut again behind him.

you wait. one minute. two. three.

the room is silent. you start to shift a little, letting your eyes peek open just a sliver—just enough to glance at the clock again, maybe reposition your arm under the pillow—

and freeze.

toji is standing right next to your bed.

he’s just there, looming like a sleep paralysis demon with his hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie. his expression is unreadable at first, something bored and neutral—until his mouth quirks up slightly in that almost-smirk you’ve only seen once or twice.

“caught you,” he says, voice low and amused.

you jolt upright like someone just pulled the fire alarm.

“jesus christ—! what the fuck—”

he tilts his head. “you always fake sleep when i come back?”

“what? no,” you lie immediately. “i was sleeping. i was—i’m a light sleeper.”

toji hums, clearly not buying it. he stays where he is, relaxed and unbothered, like he’s used to making people squirm. “nah. you breathe different when you’re actually asleep.”

you blink. “…what?”

“your breathin’ pattern. it’s off.” he says casually. “when you’re asleep, it slows down after a while. your shoulders don’t tense like that either.”

you stare at him, deeply unsettled. “why do you know that?”

he shrugs, unhelpful as always. “i notice things.”

“okay, but that sounds like something a serial killer would say.”

he raises an eyebrow at you. “you sayin’ i’m a serial killer?”

“i’m saying you act like one.”

there’s a pause. then, to your shock, he actually lets out a short laugh—quiet and raspy and short-lived, but a laugh nonetheless. you don’t know whether to feel accomplished or concerned.

“maybe i just don’t like being watched while i come in,” he mutters, more to himself than to you.

you frown. “i’m not watching you. i’m—i’m just awake.”

“every night?”

“…coincidence?”

toji gives you a look that says he doesn’t believe you for a second, then turns away and heads back toward the bathroom like the conversation’s over. just like that.

you fall back into your pillow, heart still racing.

you don’t know what he’s doing out there this late. you don’t know why he watches your breathing. you don’t know why he seems so familiar with your sleep patterns after just two weeks.

you also don’t know why none of that is enough to make you ask him to stop.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO ACTS LIKE YOU PISSED ON HIS TERRITORY WHEN YOU SIT ON HIS BED FOR THE FIRST TIME . . .

you’re already swaying before you even make it through the door.

the hallway spins a little when you try to kick your shoes off, but you manage—barely—until one of them gets stuck halfway and you just kind of… give up. your brain’s too fried to deal with it. your bag slumps to the floor next to them with a heavy thud, the zipper halfway unspooled from how fast you yanked it open earlier in class.

your phone buzzes somewhere in your pocket, but you ignore it. everything feels too loud. your clothes are clinging to your skin, your shoulder’s sore from carrying that bag all day, and you swear whoever came up with a 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. class schedule deserves jail time.

you shuffle into the room, squinting at the dull lighting, and drop yourself onto the first soft surface you can find. it’s a bed. whatever. it’s close enough to the floor that you don’t have to fight gravity. you don’t even think about it. you just sit—on the edge, hunched forward, head hanging low like your neck gave up holding itself up. you let out a sharp breath and close your eyes.

you don’t hear the bathroom door open. you do, however, feel it when the air in the room changes.

“...that’s not your bed.”

his voice isn’t loud. it doesn’t need to be.

you crack one eye open, head still tilted down, and find toji standing a few feet away. his hair’s shoved under a backwards cap that makes him look ten years younger—until you see his expression. the slow-burn scowl twisting up his face is not youthful in the slightest.

he’s dressed in yet another hoodie clinging to his frame, hands shoved in the pockets like he’s trying not to do anything impulsive with them. but the look in his eyes? sharp. warning-level sharp.

“shit,” you mumble, throat dry. “sorry. didn’t even notice.”

you make a weak attempt to stand, one hand bracing your knee, but your legs buckle halfway and you end up slumping back down with a quiet groan.

toji doesn’t move. he just stares at you like you’ve violated some ancient blood pact.

“yours is literally two steps away,” he mutters.

“i know, i just—” you gesture vaguely, too tired to explain. “long day. can’t feel my spine. let me sit for, like… thirty seconds.”

he exhales, slow and sharp through his nose, and you can tell he’s debating whether or not you’re worth the argument. most days, he probably wouldn’t care—he’d just drag you by the collar or say something mean enough to get you off his shit. but today, you must look pathetic enough that even he’s hesitating.

he takes a step forward, then stops.

“you smell like campus.”

you squint at him. “...what does that even mean?”

he doesn’t answer. just grimaces a little, like the scent of other people on you bothers him more than he expected.

you blink slowly, head tipping forward again, this time resting fully in your hands. “toji, i will get off your bed in a minute. if you push me right now, i’ll die. you’ll have to clean up a corpse.”

“don’t tempt me.”

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO ALWAYS WEARS HOODIES AND STUFF ON HIS HEAD, NO MATTER THE WEATHER . . .

toji’s been lying on his bed for the past thirty minutes, doing absolutely nothing but scrolling on his phone and occasionally sighing like you ruined his day. you don’t know what he’s reading. probably death threats. maybe recipes. who knows. he’s weird.

the room’s dim, just your desk lamp casting a soft yellow glow over your laptop. the air conditioner’s barely keeping up with the weather, and there’s a faint hum of someone’s bluetooth speaker from a few doors down. it’s summer, people are loud, and everything feels sticky.

you wipe your forehead with your sleeve and keep typing, barely registering the sweat clinging to the back of your neck until it drips down your spine.

“jesus,” you mutter under your breath. “how are you not melting.”

you don’t even mean to say it out loud. but then you glance over, and see toji lying flat on his back with his hood up and sleeves down. he hasn’t taken off that damn hoodie all day.

“what?” he says without looking up.

you spin a little in your chair, elbow propped on the armrest, cheek squished in your palm. “you’re not hot?” you ask, a little louder this time.

toji’s thumb stills on the screen. “no.”

you blink at him. “you’re wearing a whole-ass hoodie.”

“and?”

“it’s september.”

he shrugs one shoulder. doesn’t bother to elaborate.

you stare at him for a beat. then two. then—“are you bald.”

toji looks up this time.

“…what?”

“like, under the hood,” you say, gesturing vaguely at his head. “you got, like, a cue ball situation going on? or… a monk thing? is it a religious vow?”

toji squints at you like you just accused him of arson. which, to be fair, feels like the same level of offense in his book.

“what the fuck are you talkin’ about.”

“i’m just saying,” you continue, utterly unfazed, “no one’s ever seen your head. i’ve known you for months and i don’t even know what your hairline looks like. you don’t take your hood off. you wore a beanie for three weeks straight. someone saw you at the gym with sleeves down. at the gym, toji.”

he blinks at you. expression unreadable.

“so,” you say slowly, “i’m just wondering… is it, like, a wig? do you glue it down?”

a silence settles between you. toji sets his phone down on his chest, his eyes still fixed on yours.

“you wanna die that bad?”

you snort. “that wasn’t a no.”

“you think i’d wear a wig?”

“well,” you gesture, “i don’t know what’s going on under there. maybe you got, like… patchy scalp. or mange. or a giant birthmark in the shape of a penis.”

he stares at you. not even mad. just… silent. eerie.

“i’m gonna bury you in this hoodie,” he says eventually.

“joke’s on you,” you mutter, turning back to your laptop. “you’re gonna have to take it off to do that.”

there’s a creak of movement behind you. your skin prickles. you pause mid-sentence and glance over your shoulder just as toji sits up, slow and fluid, elbows resting on his knees.

hood still on, naturally. he reaches up.

you freeze.

his fingers brush the edge of the hood—just barely tugging it back.

you catch the briefest flash of something dark at his hairline, the shadow of ink-black strands—real, not a wig, thick and messy like it’s been pushed back hastily—and then he yanks the hood right back on like he changed his mind halfway through.

“there,” he says, voice flat. “you happy?”

you blink. “…you still might be bald.”

toji grabs the nearest pillow and hurls it at your head. you duck, barely, cackling under your breath as it thuds off your chair.

“you’re actually insane,” he mutters, lying back down with the most violent sigh you’ve ever heard.

“what, i’m just curious.”

“you ask questions like you’re trying to get shot.”

you grin and spin your chair slowly back around, resuming your typing like nothing happened. still, you can’t stop thinking about the glimpse you saw—just enough to tell that there’s nothing weird under there. no scars. no tattoos. no signs of trauma.

you don’t say anything else after that, but the image sticks with you. the quiet look in his eyes. the flash of hair, thick and real. the way his hand twitched when your eyes lingered too long.

it wasn’t embarrassment. it was… something else, like instinct. like hiding.

like he didn’t want you to see too much.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO GETS TWITCHY WHEN YOU COME BACK SMELLING LIKE SOMEONE ELSE . . .

you barely finish locking the door behind you when toji’s voice cuts across the room.

“the fuck is that smell?”

you freeze mid-step, one shoe half off. “huh?”

he’s sitting on the couch, legs spread, arms folded, looking at you like you just dragged roadkill into the apartment. the tv’s on, something muted and boring, but his eyes are glued to you—sharp, irritated.

you sniff your shoulder. “i... don’t smell anything?”

“you don’t,” he mutters, eyes narrowing. “but i do.”

you straighten up, confused. “i came from the library. i was with—”

“yeah,” he cuts in flatly. “i know.”

there’s a pause. just long enough to make your stomach twist.

“you gonna shower or what?” he asks.

you blink. “right now?”

“yeah. now.” he leans forward, elbows on his knees, tone low and firm. “you’re trackin’ three other people’s scent all over my dorm. it’s disgusting.”

“jesus, okay—sorry i have a social life.”

he doesn’t respond. just stares. the kind of stare that makes your skin prickle, like you’re too close to something that might bite.

you toe off your shoes. “it’s not that serious, man. give me five minutes to eat and—”

“no,” he snaps.

you look up, startled.

“you’re not puttin’ your shit on the couch. not touchin’ anything. not even the floor. you reek.”

his voice is calm, but there’s a weight behind it—cold and heavy, pressing down the back of your neck. you’ve seen toji irritated before—usually over traffic or a chipped mug—but this is different. his whole body’s coiled like a tripwire, and it’s all directed at you.

“alright, fuck, i get it,” you mutter, raising your hands in mock surrender. “i’ll shower.”

he doesn’t reply. just watches as you backtrack toward the bathroom like he’s making sure you actually go through with it.

you shut the door a little harder than necessary and lean against it, heart thudding. the hell was that? he’s never been this intense before. sure, he’s blunt and weirdly strict sometimes, but this was something else entirely.

you glance at your reflection and wrinkle your nose. do you really smell that bad?

as soon as the water starts running, some of the tension bleeds off—barely. you try not to overthink it while stripping down, stepping under the stream. but the image of his face—jaw tight, eyes cold—sticks in your head. it wasn’t just annoyance.

it was something closer to disgust. territorial.

you scrub harder than usual.

when you come out ten minutes later, towel around your neck and hair still dripping, he’s right where you left him. still on the couch, but now leaning back with one arm slung over the backrest, watching you with unreadable eyes.

“…better?” you ask dryly.

“yeah.”

you hesitate for a second, then head toward your bed, still towel-clad. he doesn’t say anything else, but you can feel his eyes on your back as you walk.

it makes your skin crawl.

but not in a bad way.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO GROWLS IN HIS SLEEP . . .

you’re not sure what’s more exhausting—your presentation due tomorrow or the fact that you’re still working on it while half-asleep and slightly cross-eyed. the glow of your laptop screen is starting to burn into your retinas, but the moment you shift to close the damn thing, your brain remembers a slide you forgot to fix.

so you grit your teeth and keep going, back pressed against the headboard, blanket half-draped over your legs, and a half-empty water bottle rolling dangerously close to your ankle.

it’s one of those rare nights when toji knocked out before you did. not that you’re keeping track or anything—but it’s so uncommon that it almost feels like witnessing a shooting star. he’s curled up under his blanket across the room, a pillow covering his entire head like he’s trying to suffocate himself on purpose.

you're not even sure if it's comfortable, but he hasn't moved in the past twenty minutes, so maybe he's dead. or just incredibly asleep.

you're halfway through rephrasing a sentence when you hear it.

a low, guttural noise. deep. primal. angry.

you freeze. like actually freeze—fingers hovering over your keyboard, heart doing this little hiccup in your chest. you glance toward toji’s bed, thinking maybe he's awake, maybe he's watching something on his phone with the volume down low and bass on max. but his screen is off. and he hasn't moved.

then it happens again.

grrrrrrrrrr...

you nearly jump out of your skin. it sounds like a fucking animal. like something you'd hear behind you in a horror game just before you get mauled.

and then you realize.

it's coming from toji.

“what the fuck,” you whisper to yourself, staring at the pillow-covered lump across the room. “are you growling right now?”

there's no response, obviously. just another rumble, this one more of a snort, like he’s annoyed even in his sleep. you don't know whether to laugh or leave the dorm completely. who the hell snores like that? no—this isn't even snoring.

you’re half-convinced if you yank that pillow off his face, you’ll find a second mouth under there or something equally cursed.

you glance back at your laptop, then at him, then back at the laptop again.

“…i’m gonna pretend i didn’t hear that,” you mutter, dragging your blanket higher and doing your best to ignore the occasional low growl still rumbling from his bed like distant thunder. "whatever eldritch shit you're dreaming about, that’s between you and god."

still, you don’t go back to your slide right away. you just sit there listening, vaguely unsettled.

he sounds like he’s guarding something...?

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO KEEPS DOING THINGS THAT ARE BORDERLINE AFFECTIONATE . . .

you don’t expect him to be home.

technically, he’s not supposed to be. you remember him saying something earlier—something about going to train off-campus, something vague and grunted in that gravelly voice of his while you were half-asleep and facedown in a bowl of cereal. it didn’t sound like he’d be back anytime soon.

which is why it doesn’t make sense that the lights are on when you get back to the dorm.

you blink at the door, then double-check the hallway. no one around. it’s not late, but it’s quiet—just the hum of old pipes and the faint buzz of a vending machine down the hall. you unlock the door slowly, warily, like the inside might look different somehow.

and it does.

not by much, but still. there’s a plastic bag sitting on the kitchen counter, and when you peek inside, there’s a neatly packed to-go container. your stomach turns on instinct—recognizes the smell before your brain does. the grilled meat rice bowl from that place you keep swearing you’re gonna quit ordering from because it’s overpriced and always sold out by the time you get off campus.

except they didn’t sell out today. because it’s right here.

you stare at it for a moment. then glance toward the hallway. the bathroom door’s shut. faint sound of running water.

he is home.

you don’t even get a chance to call out before the door opens and he steps out, rubbing a towel over his head. his hair’s damp, skin still flushed from the shower, and he freezes the second he sees you holding the bag.

you lift it slightly. “this yours?”

he doesn’t answer right away. just shrugs the towel off his head and tosses it toward the laundry bin with a lazy flick of his wrist. “got two. figured you’d be hungry.”

“you went out of your way to get this,” you say slowly, watching him. “that place is like fifteen minutes from the gym.”

“so?” he mutters, brushing past you toward the fridge. “it’s not that far.”

“you hate crowds.”

“it wasn’t crowded.”

“it’s always crowded.”

he opens the fridge. stares inside like it’s got the answers to life’s greatest mysteries. then shuts it again and turns around, his face unreadable.

“are you seriously gonna bitch about gettin’ free food?” he asks.

you narrow your eyes. “no. i’m just confused.”

“you want the food or not?”

“…i want the food.”

he responds flatly, “then stop talkin’.”

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO ACTS WEIRD WHEN A FULL MOON IS APPROACHING . . .

“oh, hey. full moon this weekend,” you say absentmindedly, tossing your phone face-down onto the table after seeing a random post about it on twitter.

you don’t even glance at him. you’re too focused on finding the tv remote between the couch cushions. maybe that’s why you miss the way he freezes. he doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t make a sound. his posture stiffens like something just locked up in his spine, and his hand—resting on the armrest—curls just slightly into a fist.

when you finally glance over, he’s already looking away. his jaw is tight, visibly clenched, and his fingers flex like he’s trying to shake tension out of them. the muscles in his neck twitch once before going still again.

you blink and squint at him, confused for a second. “…what?”

he doesn’t answer directly. after a beat of silence, he mutters something low under his breath about having stuff to do that weekend. the words come out flat and quiet enough that you barely catch them. he doesn’t elaborate.

you frown a little, but let it go. you don’t think anything of it—until the disappearances start.

at first you assume he’s just being his usual asshole self again. toji’s not exactly known for consistency. ever since you started rooming together, he’s mostly been lazy, half-asleep, or lounging on the couch with no sense of schedule. he’d gotten too used to your presence. now, suddenly, he’s gone at 2 a.m. with no warning or reason?

the first night it happens, you wake up because you heard the faint sound of footsteps, quiet but quick, and the soft click of the front door locking behind toji. when you peek into the hallway, it’s empty. the living room too. his shoes are gone. his jacket isn’t on the rack.

you check the clock: 2:47 a.m.

you frown and crawl back to bed, telling yourself not to be weird about it. maybe he just went for a walk. maybe he was hungry. maybe it’s not your business.

but then it happens again the next night. and again after that.

every single time, he comes back around dawn—sometimes a little after 6 a.m., other times just as the sky is starting to lighten. his hoodie is usually smudged with dirt, and you notice his jeans have grass stains near the knees. sometimes his hands are scraped up. other times, there’s something off about the way he moves, like he’s sore in places he doesn’t want to talk about.

he never says where he’s been. he just walks in, heads straight for the shower, and crashes in bed without another word.

you’d ask if he was getting laid somewhere, but honestly, he looks too pissed off and exhausted for that. more than once, you hear him groan like his body’s giving out.

huh.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO GETS DEFENSIVE THE MOMENT YOU ASK HIM WHAT HE’S HIDING . . .

after the fourth day, you stop pretending you’re not noticing.

“what’s going on with you?”

toji doesn’t look up from the fridge. he’s rifling through it with one hand, the other braced on the counter for balance. his hair is still damp from another early morning shower, and there’s a faint bruise forming under his jaw that you’re sure wasn’t there yesterday. his hoodie is unzipped halfway, revealing a flash of his collarbone and the line of muscle that disappears into his sweatpants.

“you gonna get to the point or just keep starin’?” he grunts, not even bothering to turn around.

you ignore the sarcasm. “you’ve been disappearing every night this week.”

he snorts and reaches for a water bottle. “what’s it to you?”

you fold your arms and keep your voice level. “seriously, toji. where the hell are you going?”

he shuts the fridge harder than necessary. the bottles inside rattle against each other, and the sound echoes in the quiet kitchen. “none of your business,” he replies without looking at you.

you follow him to the table, watching the way he drops into the chair like his whole body aches. “it kind of is, man,” you argue. “you’re not going to classes, you look like shit, and you come back covered in dirt like you fought your way out of a fucking grave. if you’re in trouble—”

“i said drop it.”

his voice is sharp, cutting clean through your words. it isn’t loud—he doesn’t need to raise it—but the edge in it is enough to shut you up. he doesn’t yell, doesn’t glare, but the tone is enough to make your pulse skip for half a second.

toji unscrews the cap of the water bottle and downs half of it like he’s been in a desert for days. his fingers tap against the label once, slow and controlled.

“i don’t owe you a play-by-play,” he says eventually, eyes still fixed on the bottle. “we’re not datin’.”

you try not to let the frustration creep into your voice. “i didn’t say we were.”

“then stop acting like you’re my fuckin’ wife,” he mutters, standing abruptly. he walks off without giving you another glance, the sound of the front door shutting behind him louder than it should be.

you stare at the hallway, arms still crossed. your jaw clenches, but more than that, you feel unsettled.

this isn’t normal for him. toji’s secretive, yeah. you’ve gotten used to that. he’s not a guy who talks just to fill silence. but this isn’t privacy—this is avoidance. and whatever he’s avoiding, it’s starting to look less like a bad mood and more like something he can’t control.

you think about the moon again. think about how he froze when you mentioned it.

and you wonder what the hell it is you’re not seeing.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO FINALLY GETS CAUGHT . . .

you honestly thought you'd get a few hours of peace today. toji had a required lecture he couldn’t skip unless he wanted to repeat the whole semester, so you figured the dorm would be empty.

you’d even planned it out: find your charger, eat something that wasn’t instant noodles, and maybe breathe without walking on eggshells for once. ever since the tension between the two of you started, you’d been giving him space. or at least trying to.

you unlock the door with your head down, muttering under your breath, “where the hell did i put that charger—”

your words die in your throat as you step inside and look up.

toji’s in the room. and he is definitely not at his lecture.

he’s also shirtless, standing with one arm halfway shoved through the sleeve of a black t-shirt. his chest rises slightly as if he was startled mid-movement, but that’s not what has you frozen.

the ears are what make your brain short-circuit.

short, pointed, and covered in black hair, they sit at the top of his head like they’ve always belonged there—twitching subtly like they’re tracking you. for a second you honestly think you might be hallucinating, except you blink, and they’re still there.

your eyes drift lower. he's ripped, obviously—you knew that—but now there’s the added complication of the thick black tail hanging behind him. it curves slightly at the end, curling over the waistband of his sweatpants like it’s completely normal. like it isn’t the most insane thing you’ve ever walked in on.

toji stares at you. you stare back. neither of you move.

“uh,” you say after a long, painful silence. “is this why you’ve been disappearing at night? because... you’re a furry?”

toji’s expression immediately sinks into one of pure disdain. he exhales loudly, dragging a hand down his face as the shirt falls forgotten to the floor. his ears twitch sharply in irritation, which only makes it worse because now you’re staring at them in real time.

“jesus,” he mutters. “i knew you were a fuckin’ idiot.”

you blink. “i mean, i didn’t know the tech for those ears got this advanced—”

“shut up,” he snaps, cutting you off like he doesn’t even want to humor whatever’s happening in your brain. “just shut up and close the damn door.”

you’re still frozen in place, heart hammering, but your hand moves automatically to shut the door behind you with a soft click. the air is thick with something unspoken, something raw and charged, and you can’t tell if you should be afraid or impressed or deeply, deeply confused.

your brain is still trying to catch up to what you just walked in on, but you push through the mental static and do your best to sound... normal. supportive, even.

“look, man,” you begin, carefully, hands raised halfway in a peace gesture. “i just want you to know that if—if this is your thing or whatever, i’m not judging. like, at all. live your truth. some people knit, some people join cosplay clubs, some people—i don’t know—put on ears and tails. who am i to say anything? we’re all just trying to get by.”

toji doesn’t even look at you as he pulls his shirt over his head. it’s one of those tight black ones that clings to every inch of muscle on his torso, and it takes real effort not to stare too long at the way it stretches across his chest and arms.

especially when his tail flicks once behind him in irritation, drawing attention to itself like it knows you’re trying not to look. great.

“you’re not helpin’,” toji mutters, voice flat as he smooths the hem of the shirt down over his abs. “and i already told you to shut the hell up.”

“right. right,” you nod quickly, still standing awkwardly near the door. “just thought i’d let you know i’m chill about it, is all. you don’t have to feel weird around me. you know, if this is a lifestyle thing—”

he turns to you sharply, ears twitching again. “what part of ‘shut up’ did you not understand?”

you clamp your mouth shut.

he sighs, long and heavy, and stalks toward you with the kind of slow, predatory energy that immediately sets your nerves on fire. before you can take a step back, his hand curls into the front of your shirt and he drags you—effortlessly—across the room.

you stumble into the couch behind you as he shoves you down into it, still standing over you with that same deadpan expression. his tail twitches behind him, and it takes everything in you not to say something about how real it looks.

he leans down slightly, resting a hand on the couch back as his eyes bore into yours.

“if you say another word,” he says calmly, “i will bite your fuckin’ head off.”

your eyes flick to his mouth, where his lips are pulled back just enough to show off a gleam of teeth. not normal teeth. sharper. animal-like. they catch the light and make your stomach drop in a way that’s equal parts awe and concern.

“got it,” you whisper, pressing your lips tightly together.

the silence that follows is thick. you sit there frozen, unsure whether you’re allowed to blink. toji stares at you for a second longer, then lets out another sigh and straightens up. he turns away from you, scratching at the back of his neck like this whole thing is more annoying than anything else.

but the silence keeps growing. and your mouth, unfortunately, has never learned how to stay shut for long.

“so... you are gonna explain this, right?”

he turns his head just enough to shoot you a glare. “disobedient little shit.”

you flinch a little, but don’t look away. your hands are clenched in your lap now, and your voice comes out a bit smaller than before. “i mean, i think i’m owed at least some context here.”

toji huffs. his ears twitch again, betraying the irritation he tries to keep off his face. after a beat of silence, he finally mutters under his breath.

“fine.”

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO LOSES HIS SANITY TRYING TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS . . .

toji starts pacing.

he doesn't even bother trying to act casual about it—his movements are sharp, almost agitated, like he’s trying to burn through a fuse before it catches. your eyes track him automatically, more out of instinct than curiosity, but you can’t help noticing how his tail flicks wildly behind him, like it's just as tense as he is.

his ears are twitching nonstop too, swiveling every time you so much as breathe. the worst part is how normal it all looks on him. like they belong there.

he finally stops mid-stride and whips around to face you. “stop lookin’ at me like i’m one of those freaks,” he snaps.

you blink, caught off guard. “freaks?”

“yeah, the freaks,” toji repeats, like it’s obvious. “the ones who buy glue-on tails and make weird sounds at each other in public. fuckin’ wannabes.” he sounds personally offended. “they’re pretendin’. i’m not. don’t lump me in with them.”

your eyebrows slowly start to rise as your brain catches up to what he’s implying. and once it does, your concern skyrockets.

“wait,” you say carefully, “do you... do you think you’re, like... different? like biologically? are you mad because you think the furries are stealing your... i don’t know. culture?”

toji’s face twists into something murderous. “don’t finish that sentence,” he growls.

you shut up instantly.

for a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of him breathing through his nose, sharp and irritated. then, like a switch flipping, he exhales in a long, frustrated sigh and runs a hand down his face.

“i’m just trying to understand,” you say weakly, shrinking into the couch. “this is a lot.”

he turns his head slowly to glare at you over his shoulder. “stop thinkin’ so loud.”

“i—what?”

“i can hear your stupid thoughts. you’re spiralin’.”

you avert your eyes, guilt prickling at your spine. “sorry,” you mumble.

toji mutters something under his breath and drags a hand down the back of his neck again. for the first time, he seems reluctant. not because he’s shy, obviously, but explaining this seems to physically pain him.

“look,” he says flatly, “whatever you’re imaginin’, it’s not that. i’m not delusional. my ears are real. so is the tail. they’ve always been. i don’t know what kind of advanced psycho bullshit you’re tryin’ to diagnose me with, but this isn’t that.”

you stare at him in silence for a long second, brain slowly melting. he sounds serious. dead serious. which would be fine if this wasn’t the most unserious shit you’ve ever heard in your life.

“so you’re not roleplaying,” you say dumbly.

toji throws you a look like he’s two seconds from strangling you.

“okay, okay,” you raise your hands quickly, “just clarifying.”

he rolls his eyes and starts pacing again, grumbling something that sounds like another insult to furries. your gaze drifts back to his tail as it sways behind him, less agitated now but still clearly alive.

your mouth moves before your brain catches up. “what if it’s just really good prosthetics?” you say to yourself.

“what the fuck did i just say about your thoughts?” toji snaps.

you ignore him. curiosity gets the better of you.

the moment he passes by the couch again, you reach out on instinct. your fingers close around the thick base of his tail and you tug, expecting something light or fake to give way.

what you get instead is a sharp, very real jolt of resistance—and a very real reaction.

“fuck—!” toji snarls, whirling around with wide eyes and a tick forming near his brow. his hand flies back to swat yours away, and his tail immediately coils like it’s guarding itself. his ears pin flat against his head, and for the first time all evening, he looks genuinely pissed.

“what the hell is wrong with you?” he demands, practically vibrating with rage. “do i look like a fuckin’ toy to you?!”

you’re frozen, staring up at him with your mouth slightly open. “it’s real,” you whisper, horrified.

he throws his hands in the air. “yeah, no shit! that’s what i’ve been sayin’ this entire fucking time!”

“i thought maybe it was a delusion!” you yelp, genuinely panicked now. “like, you believed it was real, but it wasn’t actually, you know? like a... tail placebo!”

“a what?”

you try to explain, but words are failing you. mostly because your entire worldview just took a nosedive into the uncanny valley. toji glares at you like he’s actively fighting the urge to murder you on the spot.

“pull that shit again,” he says lowly, “and you’re gonna lose a fuckin’ finger.”

you nod mutely. the silence stretches thick between you, broken only by the angry flick of his tail and your own stunned breathing.

finally, toji turns away again and mutters, “you’re the actual psychotic one.”

you decide not to argue. instead, you sit very still for a moment, reeling. not because he threatened to bite your finger off, though that part was admittedly a little terrifying, but because now there’s a lot more you have to wrap your head around.

namely: why the hell is fushiguro toji—your very human-looking, emotionally constipated roommate—suddenly the poster boy for something out of a dystopian anime?

“okay,” you say slowly. “then... what are you?”

he tenses again. not as violently as before, but it’s enough to notice. his back is to you, shoulders squared, head tilted like he’s deciding if you’re worth answering at all.

“i’m not some fairy tale,” he grumbles.

“i know,” you say quickly. “i’m just trying to understand. i’ve never seen anything like this before, and i’ve definitely never heard of—whatever this is, hybrids?—being real.”

toji exhales hard through his nose and turns slightly to glance out the window, as if pretending he’s somewhere else will make this conversation end faster. you don’t miss the way his fingers flex again at his sides, as if he’s fighting some invisible impulse. his voice is low and tight when he finally responds.

“don’t call it ‘whatever this is.’ and stop sayin’ that hybrid crap.”

you blink. “okay. then what is it?”

he turns around fully this time and meets your gaze, his expression unreadable. there’s no more twitching ears or angry tail flicking. he just looks... tired.

“synthetica,” he says. “that’s the real term. ‘synths’ for short.”

you stare at him blankly. “that sounds made up.”

toji snorts. “it is. someone in a lab probably got bored and slapped a cool-soundin’ name on us so they’d feel less like criminals.”

you’re not sure what to say to that, so you don’t.

he goes quiet for a moment, jaw working. begrudgingly, he adds, “we’re not common. there’s only a handful of us out there. most people don’t even know we exist.”

“but... why?” you ask, voice soft. “how?”

toji shrugs, eyes flicking to the floor. “top secret international experiment. bunch of countries workin’ together on god knows what. japan is one of them. they’re tryin’ to engineer living weapons or somethin’ close to it. human bases, animal enhancements. better senses, faster reflexes, that kinda shit.”

your brows furrow. “you were made in a lab?”

he gives you a sharp look. “don’t say it like that.”

“i didn’t mean—i’m not trying to be an asshole, i just—god,” you exhale. “that’s a lot.”

toji lets out a humorless laugh. “you think it’s a lot hearin’ about it? try bein’ it.”

you swallow thickly. “how many of you are there?”

“not many,” he says. “low success rate. most don’t survive the process, and even the ones that do usually break down early. mentally, physically. too many issues. the ones that make it—” he gestures vaguely at himself, “—they monitor for years. and if you’re stable enough, they sell you.”

the words hit you like a brick to the chest. “they sell you?”

“yeah. to the rich. the government. collectors. freaks with too much money and not enough morals.”

you feel sick.

he glances at you again and, for a second—something softer flickers in his eyes, almost self-deprecating.

“i got lucky,” he mutters. “guy who bought me... he treated me like a person. raised me like a normal kid. not a pet, not a fucktoy. just a kid.”

toji’s expression hardens. “most aren’t that lucky.”

he doesn’t elaborate. he doesn’t really have to.

you let the silence stretch for a minute. the room feels colder than it did before. outside the window, the campus lights glow dimly under the night sky, but in here, it’s like the entire world narrowed down to just him.

fushiguro toji, who has ears and a tail and a past stitched together by governments and greed.

he shifts his weight like he’s ready to be done with this conversation, and honestly, you don’t blame him. “you satisfied?” he mutters. “or you gonna keep grillin’ me like some nosy fuck?”

you shake your head quickly. “no, i’m—i’m good. i mean, not good, but... i get it. kind of.”

you let the weight of his words settle in your chest. the silence between you stretches again, long and taut like a held breath. you don’t really know what to say, but you know what not to say. no wide-eyed sympathy, no pitying bullshit, no “you’re still you” garbage that he would probably spit back at you with disgust.

instead, you meet his eyes—still sharp and waiting—and say, “i’m not gonna tell anyone.”

he doesn’t respond immediately. he just stares at you like he’s assessing whether or not you’re lying. then, with a small scoff and an exaggerated roll of his eyes, he leans back against the window frame and mutters, “i know.”

you raise a brow. “you know?”

“if i thought you were the kind of idiot who’d go runnin’ your mouth, i would’ve broken your jaw ten minutes ago.” his voice is casual, like he’s talking about the weather. “my old man has enough money to erase people. wouldn’t be hard.”

“great. comforting.”

he shrugs, unfazed. “wasn’t meant to be.”

still, the threat lingers in the air—a reminder that you’re not dealing with a regular guy. there’s something sharper beneath the surface. something more dangerous. even if he’s choosing not to aim it at you.

you swallow hard and draw your knees to your chest, propping your feet on the couch and resting your chin on top. your voice is quieter now when you ask, “does anyone else know?”

toji scoffs, as if that question alone was insulting. “of course not.”

you nod, feeling a little stupid for asking. “right. yeah. didn’t think so.”

he doesn’t say anything to that, but you notice the way his body has eased slightly. not relaxed, exactly, but the tension in his shoulders seems to have drained just a bit. like something inside him uncoiled the moment you said you weren’t going to tell.

he stays standing for a few more seconds, watching you. his gaze isn’t hostile anymore—it’s just unreadable. and then he pushes off the wall and heads toward the kitchen like the conversation never happened.

you stay where you are, trying to make sense of everything. trying to piece together the version of toji you thought you knew with the one who just admitted to being engineered like a weapon.

from the kitchen, you hear the fridge door open and then shut again.

“you want anythin’?” his voice is gruff, casual, like he’s asking about a beer run and not pretending you didn’t just shatter a government secret between you.

you blink at the back of his head and answer, “no, i’m good.”

he grunts something noncommittal and disappears behind the fridge door again.

and somehow, despite everything, you find yourself exhaling. not because things are normal—they aren’t. but because, for whatever reason, he told you the truth. and that has to count for something.

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO DOESN’T TALK ABOUT IT BUT DOESN’T HIDE IT EITHER . . .

things have been going… smoother, somehow. or at least, as smooth as things could be when your roommate was a genetically engineered hybrid with a tail that twitched every time you said something stupid. you don’t talk about the night you found out. he never brings it up, and you don’t push him to.

but the atmosphere between you has shifted, like something’s settled.

it’s a thursday afternoon when you catch him lounging on the couch. he’s got some rerun playing on the tv, barely paying attention, scrolling through his phone with one hand. he’s still got a jacket on—black, zipped halfway—but for once, the hood is down. and his tail is out, relaxed and lazily draped over the side of the cushions. it twitches slightly when you walk past.

you don’t mean to stare. really, you don’t. but you do.

toji catches you almost immediately. doesn’t even look up from his phone as he grunts, “if you’re gonna gawk, at least grab me a drink or somethin’.”

“you want anything specific, your majesty?”

he finally looks over then, eyes dragging up lazily to meet yours. “cold. fizzy. preferably not your cheap ass soda.”

you huff a laugh and make your way to the fridge, grabbing a can and tossing it to him. he catches it with one hand like it’s nothing, then cracks it open with a satisfied sigh. his tail curls slightly, almost subconsciously.

you’re still watching him. not as obviously this time, but he notices anyway.

“what now,” he mutters, side-eyeing you.

you hesitate, then ask, “can you, like… retract them?”

“what the fuck.”

“your ears and tail. can you make them disappear? like in anime.”

he lets out a groan that sounds half like a growl. “stop comparin’ me to that fictional bullshit.”

“it’s a valid question,” you mutter.

“no, dumbass. i can’t retract them. this isn’t some magical girl shit.” he takes another sip of his drink, then adds, more begrudgingly, “old man said the lab’s working on some suppressant or whatever. chemical compound shit. supposed to help us blend in easier.”

“like a serum?”

“somethin’ like that.”

you raise an eyebrow. “and… you’re not using it because…?”

toji shrugs. “probably costs a fuckton. not like he can’t afford it, but i’d rather deal with annoyin’ stares than inject myself with some new experimental crap.”

you hum under your breath, thoughtful. it’s easy to forget sometimes—how advanced science had gotten. and how most people were probably walking past synths without even knowing. the fact that someone like toji was one? someone who kept to himself, skipped parties, threatened to bite your head off for sitting on his bed? it felt unreal.

and yet here you were. watching his ears twitch every time the soda fizzed too loud. watching his tail flick with annoyance when you took too long to respond. watching him, quietly, and thinking maybe it wasn’t all that strange anymore.

“you done starin’?” he asks, voice low.

“nope.”

“i’ll fucking deck you.”

you smile. “you say that every time.”

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO STARTS LEAVING HIS HOODIE OFF WHEN HE’S HOME . . .

the first time it happens, he comes out of the shower wearing nothing but a fitted black tank top and sweatpants, towel slung around his neck. no hoodie. no cap. his hair is damp, clinging to the sides of his face, ears twitching every so slightly as he walks past you like nothing’s changed.

he doesn’t say a word. just heads straight to his desk, opens his laptop, and starts clicking through whatever work he’s got lined up. you catch the faint flick of his tail, lazy and relaxed, swaying near the floor.

your footsteps creak a little on the floorboards as you cross the room, and his ears twitch again—subtle, but you notice. like they’re still getting used to being out in the open. but he doesn’t tense, doesn’t glare at you, doesn’t even tell you to fuck off.

you throw yourself on your bed with a soft thump and bury your face into your pillow, biting down a smile. you don’t say anything, don’t point it out. you just… let him be. and he lets you be. which, in a weird way, feels like a win.

the next time, he gets back from the gym late, the front door creaking open as you sit by the fridge, lazily picking at the grapes you’d stuffed into a bowl earlier. you look up just in time to see him tug his hoodie over his head and fling it onto the nearest chair, cap following suit as he runs a hand through his messy, sweat-damp hair.

he’s shirtless. again. glistening slightly from the workout. you tell yourself not to look. then you promptly look.

you clear your throat and pretend to cover your nose. “jesus, you stink. that gym must be cursed.”

he doesn’t miss a beat, twisting open a water bottle and chugging half of it before glancing down at you with a faint scowl. “funny. you smell worse every time i walk through the door.”

you snort, almost choking on a grape. “rude.”

he smirks faintly, the curve of it just barely there before he turns and leans on the counter beside you, tail flicking once near your leg. you try not to stare again.

but it’s hard not to admire the way his shoulders flex when he lifts the bottle to his lips again.

you lose the teasing edge in your voice as your gaze softens, eyes flicking to his ears—twitching once, but no longer tense. “i’m glad you’re not hiding anymore.”

he pauses. not long. just enough for you to catch the faint shift in his expression.

he scoffs, rolling his eyes as he pushes off the counter and mutters, “don’t get used to it.”

but you both know he doesn’t mean it. his tail brushes lightly against your shin before he walks away.

he’s still the same pain in the ass. but little by little, the armor’s peeling back.

you watch him as he flops onto the couch, tail draped lazily over the side, scrolling on his phone like he didn’t just take a step forward. like this is normal now.

and maybe, for him, it’s starting to be.

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO STARTS ACTING LIKE HE ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT YOU . . .

it’s subtle. toji never makes anything obvious—like you’re supposed to piece him together on your own, without a manual, without instructions, just a mess of sharp edges and muscle memory.

you're half-asleep on the couch after a long ass day, your laptop still open beside you with a half-written paragraph glowing on the screen. the dorm’s quiet, save for the hum of the fridge and the soft pat of footsteps across the floor. you don’t even lift your head until there’s a soft thump on the table next to you.

a glass of water. cold. no ice, because you never like ice.

you blink at it, then slowly glance up toji, who’s standing a few feet away, already looking at his phone like he didn’t just do something weirdly considerate. you open your mouth to say something—anything—but he cuts you off before the words come out.

“you looked like you were dyin’,” he mutters. “hydrate or whatever.”

you stare a second longer. "...you feeling alright?"

“shut up.”

your charger breaks, and without a word, he leaves his on your desk before he heads out for the day.

he starts ordering extra food. not a lot. just enough for you to notice that he keeps dropping a second serving of dumplings on the counter. he never says it’s for you, but he never eats it either.

you come home late one night, tired, brain-fried from a group project that went nowhere. the dorm is dark except for the glow from toji’s side of the room. he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, hoodie off for once, tail curled lazily around his hip. his ears twitch when you enter, but he doesn’t say anything. just glances up briefly before going back to the old paperback in his hands.

you throw your bag down and flop into your bed with a groan, muttering into your pillow, “kill me. please.”

toji’s voice is quiet. “what happened.”

you blink. roll over. “what?”

he doesn’t look up. “the group thin’. whatever.”

you stare. “…you actually listen to me?”

“unfortunately.”

and maybe it's nothing. maybe it's just these little things, these offhand gestures and quiet reactions. but when you glance over at him later that night, you find his tail slowly tapping against the mattress in a steady rhythm.

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO LETS HIS GUARD DOWN AROUND YOU . . .

somehow, toji ends up sleeping in the most random ass places these days.

like the couch. or the floor near the closet. you caught him passed out in the weird little nook by the window once, with a blanket half-draped over his chest and his tail lazily curled around a throw pillow.

he doesn’t even bother hiding anymore. no more burying his face under pillows like he’s allergic to being perceived. instead, he just knocks out cold wherever he feels like it. sprawled across the mattress like a corpse, one arm over his eyes, mouth slightly open, and snoring like a hellbeast.

no, really. it’s not cute. you thought the growling thing he did in his sleep was rare—some weird fluke that happened when he was having a bad dream or something—but no. apparently, that’s just his baseline.

there’s one night he falls asleep on the couch and you actually pause your movie because you think something’s growling behind you. turns out it’s just toji, chest rumbling, ears twitching, looking way too peaceful for someone snoring like a monster truck.

you try not to think about how comfortable he’s gotten. or how normal it feels now to see a tail flick lazily over the back of your shared couch. or the way his ears move when he hears you unlock the door, even if his body doesn’t.

and then there’s the food thing.

you come home one day and the dorm smells like grilled meat. actual grilled meat. not the instant crap you usually microwave. you turn the corner into the kitchen and there he is—shirtless, obviously, because why would he cook with clothes on—leaned over the counter with three full plates of steak and chicken and god-knows-what-else.

you deadpan, “did you eat someone?”

toji doesn’t look up. he rips into a piece of meat like it insulted his family. “don’t fuckin’ talk to me while i’m eatin’.”

“yes, sir. my bad.”

somewhere between the fourth and fifth steak, he looks up and notices you still staring.

“…you want some or what?”

you decline, because you’re not sure your digestive system could survive whatever prehistoric protein he’s inhaling.

but it’s weirdly domestic, watching him eat like this—no posturing, just unapologetically wolfing food down like this is his house and you’re the guest.

that night, you’re both in bed—your beds, respectively, because boundaries—and you’re scrolling through your phone while he lies there with his arm over his eyes, tail twitching every now and then like he’s already halfway to sleep.

you speak before thinking. “hey.”

he groans. “what.”

“…what breed are you?”

you swear you hear him physically grind his teeth together.

“cane corso,” he mutters, like it physically pains him to say it. “now shut up and go to sleep.”

you blink up at the ceiling. “huh. yeah. no, that makes a lot of sense actually.”

“sleep,” he growls again, but there’s no bite in it. just exhaustion.

you smile to yourself, just a little.

cane corso. yeah. big, territorial, kind of scary, probably could rip your face off if he wanted.

but he hasn’t. and he won’t.

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO BEGRUDGINGLY LETS YOU TOUCH HIS EARS . . .

you’re both slouched on the couch, some true crime documentary droning on in the background. the narrator’s going on about a decades-old cold case, but you haven’t absorbed anything since the last commercial break. your focus has… shifted.

specifically, toji’s ears.

they twitch sometimes. subtle little movements, like a cat’s. one flicks toward the TV when the sound gets sharp. the other flicks back toward the hallway when something thuds faintly in the dorms. it’s not like he’s doing it on purpose either—he looks completely checked out, arms crossed, legs folded underneath him, blank expression fixed on the screen.

you glance at him from the corner of your eye, then look away.

and then you do it again.

and again.

by the seventh time, he lets out a heavy, annoyed huff through his nose. doesn’t look at you, just mutters, “what the fuck are you lookin’ at?”

you freeze for a second. then purse your lips, squinting forward like you’re pretending to focus on the documentary again. “nothing.”

his gaze sharpens. “bullshit.”

you sigh, giving up the act. you turn your head fully this time, resting your cheek against the back of the couch as you stare at him openly. “can i touch your ears?”

he blinks. once. slow and unamused.

“…what the fuck did you just say to me?”

you sit up straighter. “your ears. i just—i’m curious, okay? do they feel like real dog ears or not?”

his eyes narrow, jaw clenching slightly like you just insulted his bloodline. “the hell kinda dumbass question is that?”

you shrug. “a valid one?”

“do i look like a fuckin’ golden retriever to you?”

“no, you look like a pissed off cane corso, which is worse,” you mutter under your breath, not quietly enough.

he gives you a long, exhausted look.

but you’re already leaning forward with your hands clasped together. “c’mon, just for a second. please. i’ll stop if it’s weird. i swear.”

he stares at you. you can practically see the gears turning in his head—probably weighing the annoyance of saying yes against the bigger annoyance of saying no and having to listen to you whine about it.

eventually, he exhales through his nose. short. sharp. “fine. one second.”

you grin, victorious, and scoot closer. “hell yeah.”

you reach up carefully, fingers brushing the edge of one of his ears before you press in gently. it’s soft. like really soft. surprisingly warm too, and there’s a slight twitch under your touch like he’s trying not to flinch.

“huh,” you murmur, dragging your thumb along the velvety surface. “that’s crazy.”

he doesn’t say anything. just sits there with his arms still crossed, legs pulled up into a lazy cross-legged position, looking like a statue carved entirely out of apathy. his eye twitches every few seconds. you pretend not to notice.

you keep petting, half-entranced by the texture, the subtle responses—his ears flicking slightly, one tilting toward your fingers.

then, after a minute or so, his ears suddenly flatten back against his head and he swats your hand away. not hard, not with the kind of force you know he’s capable of—just a low-effort thwap, like he’s shooing a fly.

“that’s enough.”

you draw your hand back with a small pout. “damn. you’re no fun.”

“they get sensitive if you keep messing with ‘em,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s already regretting all his life choices.

you lean back again, arms crossed now. “kind of a good thing you don’t take the serum to hide them. they’re soft as hell.”

toji groans and tilts his head back against the couch like he wants to melt into it and die. “are you a fuckin’ moron?”

you blink. “rude.”

“it doesn’t remove anything,” he grits out. “the serum just lets me retract ‘em when i feel like it. doesn’t make ‘em disappear forever.”

you raise an eyebrow. “so you could pop them back out on command if you wanted me to pet you again?”

he clicks his tongue and says nothing. which is… kind of an answer in itself.

you grin. “noted.”

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO RESPONDS TO YOUR TOUCH WITHOUT THINKING . . .

the walk back from the convenience store is quiet.

the sky is dark but not black, the kind of shade that clings to the edges of streetlights and turns the air soft and heavy. you’re carrying a couple of plastic bags full of snacks and canned coffee, the handles cutting into your fingers with each step. toji walks beside you, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets, his head tipped just slightly forward like he’s too lazy to hold it up.

you glance at him out of the corner of your eye.

his ears are tucked flat, and his tail—though mostly hidden under his hoodie—is low, swaying just enough that you can tell he’s not irritated. not entirely.

you shift the bags in your hand, then reach over and press your knuckles lightly against his arm, bumping him once.

he doesn’t say anything, but he leans slightly into the pressure. barely. like he’s pretending it didn’t happen.

you do it again, knuckles tapping against his jacket. “you’re always so damn quiet when we go out. people probably think i kidnapped you.”

“you did,” he mutters.

“right. because i dragged a six-foot-two musclehead out of the house at gunpoint for banana milk.”

“wasn’t banana milk,” he says, eyes still on the sidewalk.

you bump into him again, a little more deliberately this time. “don’t change the subject.”

his tail twitches, just once.

you cut through a back alley to avoid traffic, feet crunching over loose gravel and wet leaves. there’s a vending machine humming against the wall, its light flickering faintly. you stop there, mostly out of habit.

toji stands just behind you as you bend down to press the button for canned tea.

you glance back at him. “you want one?”

he shrugs. “don’t care.”

you get two anyway.

when you hand him his, your fingers brush his. he flinches—not a big, obvious jolt, but a tight flick of his fingers before he pulls them back like the can’s too cold.

you pretend not to notice. “burn your delicate hands?”

“shut up,” he says flatly, but he doesn’t let go of the can.

you walk a few more minutes like that, trading quiet sips from your drinks, his shoulder brushing yours occasionally. it’s casual, incidental. it should be. but every time your sleeve touches his, he stiffens just slightly. not like he’s uncomfortable—more like he doesn’t know how to relax into it.

you try something.

you let your pinky drift, just enough to graze his hand. his fingers twitch again. then… stay still.

you stop at the low brick ledge outside a closed café, dropping your bags at your feet and sitting with a sigh. “my legs are gonna fall off.”

toji stays standing for a beat before finally sitting beside you. there’s space on the ledge, but he sits close—close enough that your knees knock together when he adjusts his weight.

you don’t pull away.

neither does he.

the silence stretches again, thick but not awkward. just full. you lean back, elbows propped on the edge behind you, head tilted up toward the sky. no stars tonight, just gray clouds moving slow and heavy.

you glance over at him.

he’s watching the street across from you, his face unreadable, mouth set in that neutral line he wears like armor. but when your knee nudges his again, gentle and intentional this time, his eyes flick to you for half a second.

you do it again—press your knee to his and leave it there.

toji doesn’t move.

you slide your hand down between you, let your fingers settle lightly on the edge of his thigh. you don’t grip, don’t squeeze. just let your touch rest there, warm and barely-there through the fabric of his sweats.

he goes still. completely still. but he doesn’t pull away.

his tail flicks behind him once, slow and uncertain, like he’s thinking about what to do. then he shifts just slightly—almost imperceptibly—into your touch. like his body is moving before he can second-guess it.

you both don’t say anything as your fingers stay right where they are.

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO LETS YOU SLEEP ON HIS SHOULDER . . .

you’re both slouched on the couch with a textbook cracked open between your knees and your notes scattered across the coffee table. it’s past midnight, the room dim except for the soft glow of the floor lamp in the corner. you’ve been trying to understand the same formula for the past twenty minutes, and your brain feels like it’s turning to paste.

you rub your eyes and groan, voice muffled behind your palm. “toji. i’m actually gonna die.”

toji sighs like he’s regretting every life choice that brought him here. “you’ve said that five times.”

“because it’s true.”

you slump sideways, cheek pressed against the back cushion. toji doesn’t look at you—he’s too busy scribbling numbers down in your notebook with that impatient grip of his, handwriting rough and fast but somehow still legible.

“this isn’t even your major,” you mumble.

“nope.”

“why do you know this?”

“i’m not stupid,” he says flatly.

you make a halfhearted noise of agreement. his tone is sharp, sure, but his tail’s swaying lazily over the side of the couch and his ears are relaxed, twitching now and then at the sound of the pages flipping.

he finally taps the corner of the book with his pen. “look. you’re messin’ up your order of operations. it’s not that complicated. you just keep rushin’ through the setup.”

you lift your head enough to squint at the equation. “okay, but explain it to me like i’m a dumbass.”

he grunts, but obliges.

the next ten minutes are him walking you through the problem step by step, voice low and even, surprisingly clear for someone who always sounds vaguely annoyed by everything. you nod along, jot down a few things, and try your best to follow, but your focus keeps drifting. the warmth of the room, the steady cadence of his voice, and the weight of the day all start to pile on.

he keeps talking. something about rearranging terms, then canceling them out—

but you don’t respond.

“hey,” he says eventually, glancing over. “you listenin’?”

he turns his head just in time to feel a sudden weight against his shoulder.

your head. you’ve knocked out completely, slumped sideways into him with your lips parted and breath slow.

toji goes very still.

his hand hovers midair for a moment, pen still between his fingers. your temple is tucked neatly against the edge of his collarbone, and he can feel the warmth of you, the slight drag of your breath brushing through the fabric of his shirt.

he exhales through his nose, low and tired. “...seriously?”

his voice is quiet, but there’s no bite to it.

your notebook is still open on your lap, pencil caught between the pages. your fingers twitch slightly in your sleep like you're still trying to write something down, and toji watches you for a second, then mutters something under his breath and closes the book for you.

he lets you lean there longer than he should.

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO STARTS TOUCHING YOU WITH HIS TAIL . . .

the first time it happens, you honestly think it’s an accident.

you’re leaning against the kitchen counter, half-awake and waiting for the kettle to boil, when something soft brushes the back of your hand. it’s fleeting, just a light flick of movement, but distinct enough to make you freeze.

you glance over, and sure enough, toji’s crouched in front of the fridge with the door wide open, tail lazily swaying behind him. it’s the only thing about him that ever seems relaxed—long and dark, fur thick and well-kept, curving through the air like it has its own moods.

your eyes drop to your hand, still resting on the counter’s edge, and then shift back to him. he doesn’t turn around right away. just grabs a container of something, straightens up, and finally glances over his shoulder like he already knows what you’re thinking.

“move your damn hand,” he says, tone flat.

but there's something off about his mouth—a flicker of amusement curling at the corner. blink and you’d miss it.

you do as he says, not because you’re scared (maybe a little), but you’re trying to figure him out.

he’s unpredictable, the type who doesn’t like people close unless he has a reason to keep them there. so you assume it’s a one-time thing, a coincidence born out of bad spacing.

except it keeps happening. not every day. not even predictably. but often enough that you start to notice.

like when the two of you are sitting at the table—he’s reading something, and you’re mindlessly scrolling through your phone—and his tail shifts under the surface, brushes your ankle once, then again, light and purposeful.

or when he walks past you in the hall and it flicks against your knee, just enough to make you feel it.

at first, you think he’s messing with you. so you say something one night, voice low and careful, like you’re testing the water. “your tail’s got a mind of its own, huh.”

he doesn’t even look up from the couch. “you got a problem with it?”

you blink. “no. just saying.”

he hums—neutral, unimpressed. but there’s a twitch of his ear that betrays him.

he’s doing it on purpose.

you start to notice how casual the touches are. they’re always brief, just enough to draw your attention without drawing anyone else’s. never lingering too long. never paired with words.

it’s like some unspoken agreement. he gets to reach out in his own way, and you don’t ask questions.

one night, it’s just the two of you again—late, quiet, the kind of atmosphere where time feels heavier than usual.

you’re both on the couch like you always are when you both have free time. the tv’s on, but neither of you are really watching. he’s stretched out on one end, socked feet propped up on the coffee table, while you’re sitting near the opposite corner, elbow resting against the armrest.

his tail shifts once. then twice. it curls slowly toward you, brushes against the back of your hand like a test.

you don’t move away. instead, you curl your fingers slightly and let them graze along the fur—barely a touch. the texture surprises you. it’s softer than it looks.

he doesn’t say anything, but his tail stills for a second. not pulling away. not twitching in warning. just still, like he’s registering it.

your eyes flick to him.

he’s looking at the screen, jaw slack, head tilted slightly like he’s more focused on the sound than the visuals. he hasn’t acknowledged what just happened, but his ears have angled faintly back—toward you.

so you trace a little more of it, fingertips dragging lightly along the curve of it.

“you’re gonna make it shed,” he mutters after a beat, still not looking at you.

“you’re the one who keeps putting it on me,” you say.

he snorts. “don’t flatter yourself.”

but he doesn’t move. his tail twitches once under your hand, like it’s deciding whether to stay there or not, and then it settles.

you don’t know what this means yet, but whatever.

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO SLEEPS IN YOUR BED WHEN HE FEELS TOO AGITATED TO BE ALONE . . .

you wake up to the feeling of movement.

the mattress dips at your side, slow but heavy, like something big just settled beside you. groggy, you blink against the darkness, eyes adjusting to the low sliver of moonlight slipping in through the blinds.

at first, you think you’re dreaming. there’s no reason for someone to be here—no reason for him to be here.

but then you roll over, and yeah. it’s him.

broad shoulders hunched slightly like he’s still on edge, messy hair flattened on one side, his jaw clenched tight. his eyes catch the light just enough for you to see the sharp glint in them. not exactly angry. just unreadable.

“…toji?”

he doesn’t look at you. “shut up,” he says.

you blink, brain still stuck somewhere between sleep and confusion. “...okay.”

he doesn’t offer an explanation. doesn’t shift to face you. just lays there stiffly on his back, one hand resting flat on his chest, the other shoved under the pillow like he needs something to anchor himself.

his ears are out. not tucked or hidden like usual. and they twitch once, sharp and reactive. his tail flicks behind him—once, twice, agitated—and then goes still.

you lie there in silence for a moment, staring up at the ceiling like it’ll give you an answer. but nothing comes.

you don’t ask what’s wrong. you don’t ask if something happened, or if someone triggered him, or if he’s trying not to lose control of something he doesn’t understand.

instead, you reach out and press your hand lightly against his bicep.

his muscles twitch under your touch—tense, coiled, like instinct told him to react before he remembered it was you. but he doesn’t pull away. he doesn’t snap at you either.

so you leave your hand there. just for a while.

his breathing slows, bit by bit, until it’s steady again.

and even after your arm goes numb from the position, you don’t move. because he’s still there. not saying anything. not offering comfort. but staying.

he stays there the whole night.

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Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO STANDS CLOSER THAN NECESSARY IN PUBLIC . . .

you want ice cream.

at 11:48 p.m., your stomach decides to declare war on your self-control and your freezer is criminally empty. you’re already halfway into a hoodie, shoes half-laced, when you look over and say, “you coming?”

toji, who’s stretched out across the floor like a goddamn housecat in front of the fan, opens one eye.

“why the hell would i—”

“you can get something too,” you cut in, grabbing your keys. “or you can just follow me and complain the whole way. i don’t care.”

he does complain, for the record. muttering the entire walk to the convenience store like it’s a personal offense that you dragged him outside past midnight.

“not your damn dog,” he grumbles, hands shoved in the pockets of his black jacket.

but he still follows. always two steps behind. never more.

the store’s mostly empty. one cashier half-asleep behind the counter, a college guy loitering by the snacks, and the faint buzz of overhead lights. you make a beeline for the refrigerated section, scanning rows of drinks and ice cream cups with all the intense concentration of a man about to make a critical life decision.

you feel him before you hear him.

a quiet shift of air. fabric brushing fabric. the subtle weight of someone stepping into your space—just close enough to press into your personal bubble, but not close enough to be inappropriate. like a shadow at your back.

you glance to the side. his shoulder nearly touches yours.

“you’re crowding,” you say, nudging him lightly with your elbow.

he doesn’t move. doesn’t even blink. “don’t like the way that guy looked at you,” he mutters.

you blink, confused. “…what guy?”

toji doesn’t answer. his tail flicks once, slow and irritable. his ears are peaking out of his beanie, slightly tilted, like he’s still listening for movement. his gaze stays forward, blank like always, but his posture is different.

more tense. more aware.

he shifts a little closer, enough that his jacket brushes against your back when you reach for your drink.

you don’t say anything after that. just grab your ice cream, pay, and walk out into the night like nothing’s changed.

except from that night on, he never lets you walk ahead of him anymore.

when you’re out together, he’s always right there—beside you or just behind, angled like he’s ready to intercept anyone who steps too close. he stands between you and strangers in crowded places. presses a hand to your lower back when someone gets too near. doesn’t speak on it, doesn’t explain, but never wavers either.

he stands close. always too close to be just a roommate.

and you let him.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO ACTS WEIRDLY POSSESSIVE AS HIS RUT APPROACHES . . .

you’re sitting on the couch, finishing up your assignments with your laptop perched on your thighs. you’re mid-sentence, talking about some guy in your elective who made you laugh during a group activity, when toji sets his drink down a little too hard. the can slams against the table, a sharp metal clack that makes you flinch.

you look up. he doesn’t even look sorry as he mutters, “he sounds annoyin’.”

you blink. “he wasn’t. it was just funny.”

he doesn’t respond. just sits there with his arms crossed, his leg bouncing like he’s burning off something he doesn’t want to say out loud.

the next day, he’s waiting by the front gate when you get back from class.

you spot him easily. gray hoodie, sleeves pushed up, headphones around his neck. his cap is pulled low over his face, but even then, people glance at him as they pass. he ignores them, arms folded as he leans against the fence.

“what are you doing here?” you ask, trying not to sound surprised.

he shrugs. “finished early.”

“you never wait for me.”

he doesn’t explain. just falls into step beside you as you start walking back to the dorms. his tail flicks occasionally behind him. his hands stay buried in his hoodie pocket, but his body is tense—like he’s on edge.

“you didn’t answer my texts earlier,” he says, voice casual, but not really.

“i was in the middle of class.”

“hm.”

you glance at him. “is something wrong?”

“no,” he says. “just didn’t want you walkin’ back alone.”

“i’ve done it a hundred times.”

“doesn’t mean i like it.”

later that night, you’re in the kitchen getting a glass of water when there’s a knock on your door.

you open it to find one of your floormates standing there, asking if you’re still free to help with that project. you nod and tell him you’ll come by in a bit. it’s a short conversation. harmless.

but when you shut the door, toji’s standing at the end of the hallway, watching.

you frown. “what?”

he doesn’t answer right away. just moves closer, slow and quiet, like he’s thinking too hard about something he doesn’t like admitting. “he could’ve just texted,” toji says finally.

you blink. “what?”

“your little group project. why’d he come to the door?”

“he was just asking.”

he clicks his tongue and walks past you. “bullshit.”

you stare after him. “what’s your deal lately?”

he pauses, not turning around. then he says, “people like to use excuses to get close to you.”

you scoff. “he’s not trying to get close to me. it’s literally schoolwork.”

toji’s tail flicks behind him, agitated. he doesn't respond, but you can hear the edge in his voice when he mutters, “doesn’t matter. don’t like it.”

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO IS SUDDENLY ALL UP IN YOUR SPACE . . .

you’re standing by the stove, spatula in one hand, watching your eggs sizzle when you feel the heat of him behind you. you think he’s just passing through at first—maybe heading for the fridge, or the sink—but he stops short, close enough that the curve of his chest almost grazes your back. his breath brushes the side of your neck.

when you glance over your shoulder, he’s just… standing there. arms loose at his sides, tail flicking low behind him, eyes on the pan like he’s waiting for you to offer him a bite.

“you need something?” you ask.

he grunts. “nah.”

he doesn’t move.

you bump him with your elbow and he finally takes a step back, only to trail a hand over the small of your back as he does. casual. like it’s something he’s done a hundred times before.

but he hasn’t.

the next time it happens, you’re sitting on the couch, scrolling through your phone, and a friend drops by to return a book he borrowed. it’s not a long conversation. you’re standing by the door, talking about schedules and weekend plans, nothing special.

but the whole time, you can feel toji’s presence behind you—barely two steps away. arms crossed, expression blank. his ears twitch like he’s tracking every word.

your friend glances at him once, and then twice. “your roommate always look that thrilled to see people?”

you give him a strained smile. “yeah. he’s a real people person.”

once the door closes, you turn around to find toji still standing there. closer than before. his tail curls lazily around your calf and lingers there like it belongs.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO DOESN’T LIKE IT WHEN YOU SMELL DIFFERENT . . .

he’s leaning against the wall like he’s been waiting, one arm braced just high enough to block your path. the other hangs loose at his side, hand twitching once like he hadn’t decided what to do with it yet. his eyes catch yours, sharp and dark, and he looks at you like he’s sizing you up. or maybe trying not to do something.

you blink up at him. “uh. hey.”

he doesn’t answer. his gaze drags over your face, slow, then dips to your throat. you feel the weight of it. it’s not subtle.

“you been wearin’ new lotion?” he asks, voice low and too casual to be casual.

you pause. “yeah. it was on sale.”

he already knows that. he saw the bottle sitting on your nightstand this morning. you left it out on accident.

toji shifts a little closer. you feel the warmth of him first—how solid he is, how tall. then his head dips, and before you can say anything, his nose brushes against the side of your neck. it’s slow. unhurried. like he’s savoring the scent, like he’s trying to memorize it.

you swallow hard.

“don’t like it,” he mutters. his breath is warm against your skin. “you smell different.”

your pulse kicks up, but you don’t step back. you don’t really want to. he’s close, closer than anyone has any business being, and you can feel the heat coming off him.

his tail flicks once and brushes your leg, lazy and thoughtless. there’s a tension in his voice that catches you off guard, like he’s trying not to let himself slip.

his hand lifts. his fingers skim your waist, then curl there, just barely, like he’s testing what he can get away with. you don’t stop him.

“couldn’t smell you right all day,” he says. his tone doesn’t change, but there’s a look in his eyes—like he’s losing patience with himself. “don’t like that either.”

you glance at his mouth. your throat’s dry. “i’ll switch back,” you say, quietly.

his gaze flicks up to yours. “yeah?”

you nod.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO STARTS LOSING SLEEP . . .

you wake up to the faint creak of the floorboards and the low hum of the fan overhead. it’s past three. your room is dark, save for the sliver of moonlight coming through the blinds, striping the floor in cold silver. at first, you think maybe it was just the fan, or the pipes doing their usual haunted-house routine. but then you sit up, and you see him.

toji.

he’s sitting on the floor beside your bed, back against the frame, one knee bent and the other leg stretched out in front of him. shirtless. sweat-damp at the collarbones. breathing a little too hard for someone who’s supposedly been still. his head’s tilted back like it’s too heavy for his neck, jaw tense, like he’s biting back something he doesn’t want to name. moonlight cuts across his shoulders, glinting off the chain around his throat.

you rub your eyes and whisper, “what are you doing?”

he doesn’t look at you at first. just tilts his head a little, jaw tight. his fingers twitch where they’re draped over his knee, like he’s resisting the urge to reach for something.

“couldn’t sleep,” he says, voice low and rough. “what’s it look like?”

you glance toward the clock. 3:18. “you pacing again?”

toji doesn’t answer. just sniffs quietly and drags a hand through his hair, like he’s trying to cool himself down. like his own skin feels wrong.

“everythin’s fuckin’ loud lately,” he mutters. “everythin’ smells wrong. can’t think straight.”

you blink. he never complains. not about pain, not about stress, not about much of anything. hearing this much already feels like something's shifted.

he finally looks at you. eyes dark, heavy-lidded, like he's been wound too tight for too long. and then, without warning, he reaches for your wrist—not rough, not aggressive. just deliberate. his nose brushes your skin before you can even register what he’s doing, and he inhales deep, right against the inside of your wrist.

you tense for a second. not from discomfort. more from the way it feels—how natural it is. his voice is quieter when he speaks again, words pressed into your pulse. “this is better.”

you stare at him, unsure what to say.

he doesn’t ask you anything. doesn’t explain himself further. just keeps his face near your arm, breathing you in like it’s the only thing keeping him from snapping.

“go back to sleep,” he says finally, even though he doesn’t let go. “i’m not gonna do anythin’.”

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO FINALLY GOES INTO RUT . . .

you barely get the door open before it slams shut behind you.

your back hits the wood with a dull thud, your bag slipping off your shoulder and hitting the floor. you’re half a second from cursing when you look up—and freeze.

toji's standing in front of you, close enough that his chest brushes yours when he breathes. and he’s breathing hard. really hard. his pupils are blown out, eyes glowing faint gold in the low hallway light. his tail’s lashing behind him, restless, agitated. his hair’s a mess, sticking to his forehead.

“toji,” you say carefully, eyes narrowing, “what—”

“close the door.”

it’s already closed, but you don’t correct him. his voice sounds rough, more gravel than usual, like he’s been grinding his teeth all day.

“what’s going on with you?”

he doesn’t answer right away. his hands find your hips, firm and hot through your shirt. “smelled you comin’ up the stairs,” he mutters, like it’s some kind of explanation. “told myself i’d wait.”

you swallow. “but you didn’t.”

toji leans in a little closer. not enough to kiss you. just enough for his nose to brush your cheek, your jaw. he inhales slowly like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your scent, and his exhale shudders out uneven.

“can’t think,” he admits, barely above a whisper. “everythin’s too much.”

his fingers tighten slightly on your waist. and for once, he doesn’t look like he’s got something sarcastic loaded on his tongue. no cocky grin, no smug little remark. just tension, heat, and restraint.

you place a hand on his chest, feeling how hard he’s breathing. the heat coming off him is unreal.

he lowers his forehead to your shoulder. “you don’t have to. i’ll—fuck, i’ll figure it out.”

you pause. your fingers curl in the fabric of his shirt.

“toji.”

he grunts in response, but doesn’t move.

“hey. look at me.”

his gaze lifts, slow and heavy. his eyes are sharp now—brighter than usual, but not out of control. you meet his stare, steady. “you’re not gonna fuck this up.”

his jaw ticks, like he’s biting back something. not words—restraint, maybe.

your fingers tighten slightly on his shirt. “so stop acting like you might.”

he exhales harshly through his nose, and he closes the distance between you like something inside him finally snapped. there’s no warning, no careful buildup—just the violent crush of his mouth against yours, like the pressure of holding himself back all day finally reached a breaking point.

it’s rough and unrestrained. his teeth catch on yours, breath hot and uneven, and he kisses like he doesn’t care about finesse, only contact. his tongue pushes deep, every movement driven by something primal, and his jaw flexes like he’s fighting to keep himself contained.

your head tilts instinctively, letting him in deeper, and you kiss him back with just as much urgency. it’s messy and wet, your mouths slipping and dragging together in a rhythm that’s more hunger than coordination.

each time your lips meet again, he groans—sharp and guttural—like just having your mouth on his is enough to shake something loose in him.

your hands slide under his shirt, palms dragging up the flat of his stomach. his skin is burning up—tight muscle shifting under your fingers, tense like he’s ready to snap. when your nails rake over the line of hair below his navel, he grits his teeth, jaw flexing hard enough to crack. his shoulders twitch like he’s fighting the urge to move too fast.

his tail hauls you in, locking your bodies together, and you feel the weight of him right up against you. your crotch grinds into his zipper, heat pressing hard against heat. he rolls his hips once—slow, deliberate.

your breath stutters, mouth brushing his as you try to say his name. it comes out broken. “toji—nnnh—”

he exhales through his teeth, head tipping forward like that noise short-circuited something in him. his tail jerks, tensing around your leg.

his mouth doesn’t leave yours. he has one hand groping down your ass, the other sliding under your shirt, fingers splayed across your lower back like he needs skin. the heat coming off him is overwhelming—muscle flexing with every breath, jaw working like he’s grinding down what little patience he has left.

toji huffs a low sound—not a laugh exactly. just something rough in his throat. he drags his mouth down your jaw, breath hot, voice low and strained.

“should’ve come home sooner.”

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO FUCKS YOU FOR HOURS WITHOUT A BREAK . . .

it’s been hours. your body gave out a long time ago, but toji’s still fucking you like he hasn’t noticed. or maybe he has and just doesn’t care.

your chest is slick with sweat, breath dragging in slow, shuddering bursts. your arms aren’t holding you up anymore—they’re just there, trembling under the weight of it all, while your cheek presses flat to the mattress. you can feel him behind you, stretched over your back, cock driving in deep from behind, heavy and thick and relentless.

every thrust pushes your knees forward. every one lands hard. there’s nothing left of rhythm anymore—just the sound of his hips slapping into you, the hot rasp of his breath, the ragged groans tearing out of his chest like he’s losing patience with how long he’s not buried in you to the hilt.

his hand’s on the back of your neck, rough and steady, holding you in place. not hard. just firm. like a warning. like you’re not supposed to move until he says you can.

“hnnnh—f-fuck—” he mutters low, voice scraping deep in his throat, teeth grit. “still so fuckin’ tight—nghh—even after all this?”

your only answer is a wrecked little noise, half-sob, half-moan, high and breathless as your spine arches under him. he snorts under his breath, then grinds in harder, cock dragging against your insides like he’s trying to feel every ridge. just to hear you make that sound again.

“yeah,” he breathes, all grit and filth, lips dragging down your spine. “that’s what I fuckin’ thought. slutty little hole still squeezin’ me like you haven’t been stuffed full all fuckin’ night.”

his other hand claws at your waist, pulling you back into each thrust like you’re just something to grip. your skin’s raw where he’s held you. hips littered with smudged fingerprints, red welts, nail marks.

your back’s even worse—dotted in bruises and bite marks, old and new, places where his mouth stayed too long. you feel used. split open. ruined. and he’s still not finished.

“tch—mmhhf—shit—” he groans again, slurring it into the crook of your shoulder. his breath is hot and shallow, tongue dragging lazy across a mark he left earlier, right before he sinks his teeth in again—sharp enough to make you jerk, and his hand tightens on your neck like he likes the way you flinch.

he yanks you back into another thrust, hard enough that your thighs tremble. his cock presses up deep—deep, thick, heavy, and swelling—and you feel the base start to stretch you for the second time that night. thick pressure blooming at your rim, making your hole flex involuntarily around him. you whine, throat caught on it—“nnhhh, f-fuck—s’big, toji—”—and his grip on your hips jerks tighter like instinct.

“yeah? you feel that?” he growls, voice going dark. “feel my fuckin’ knot pressin’ up in you again? uhhn— fuck—gonna split you open on it—keep you fuckin’ plugged, yeah?”

he leans in more, his lips brushing the shell of your ear, panting ragged against it, hips still driving forward with the single-minded force of a man possessed.

“nnnh—knot’s comin’ again,” he growls through his teeth, breath hot and shaking.

the bed shifts violently with every slam of his hips. he’s rutting into you, fucking up into the softest spots he’s already bruised inside you, cock twitching with every desperate grind.

the slap of his hips is wet, noisy—schlk, slrp, slap!—your ass glossy from sweat and slick and the mess that’s been leaking out of you all night, only for him to shove it back in every single time.

“hahhh—f-fuck,” you gasp, voice barely a rasp, eyes squeezed shut. “toji—s’too—t-too much—can’t—”

“nah.” his voice cuts in sharp, guttural, teeth bared behind every word.

“keep makin’ those pretty little whiny noises, baby—and i’m gonna knot you so deep you can’t even walk to class tomorrow—uhnnh—you’ll feel me in your guts all week.”

you whimper, pathetic—“tojiiiii—”—as your body clenches down again, as your cock twitches untouched beneath you, leaking helpless against the bed.

he bites right where your shoulder meets your neck, dragging his teeth slow as his hips stutter. you feel it. the knot swelling full—wider, tighter, locking in with a wet pop that stretches your hole around the bulge until it burns.

he groans, broken—“fffuck, f-fuck, thass’ it—fuuuck—”—and thrusts in one last time, buried to the hilt.

your eyes roll back. the pressure, the stretch, the way he grinds in deep with slow, pulsing jerks as his cock unloads again—thick, hot, endless—your belly goes tight, your body trembling as you moan loud and cracked through your throat.

“hnnh—fuck, baby,” he murmurs, voice ragged and already starting to haze over again. “don’t pass out on me yet.”

he kisses your neck as he continues with a manic grin, “still got hours t’go.”

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO STARTS CALLING YOU AN OMEGA . . .

you don’t even know how long it’s been. time stopped making sense somewhere between the fourth knot and the stretch of your hole around his cock going from unbearable to necessary. you’re not even on the bed anymore—can’t lie down, can’t crawl.

he’s got you pinned against the wall, your back slick against the paint, your legs hooked over his thick forearms as he fucks up into you like he’s trying to break the foundation.

his tail’s lashing behind him, wild and twitchy, muscles flexing with every brutal thrust like it’s sharing in the rhythm, like it’s got a mind of its own. it curls in close and flicks every time you cry out, curling tighter around his own thigh, coiling high and tense with every pulse of your wrecked hole around his cock.

his ears—dark, plush, twitching—flatten when he growls, stand upright when you moan, perk when you whimper and beg. they’re locked onto you, tuned to the mess you’re making, and when you hiccup a cracked little “f-fuck, toji—!” they twitch once and stay up, alert and fixated like prey just moved beneath his paw.

he’s carrying your whole weight like it’s nothing—slammed between his body and the cold wall, your arms dangling useless, your head lolling back with every thrust. your hole is stretched wide around him, gaping, red, ring twitching with every rut of his hips, like your body still doesn’t know what to do with the sheer size of him.

and still he keeps going.

shlk—schlp— the sound of it is slick and nasty, wet like your body’s just a sleeve made for him now. cum’s leaking out in thick, milky strings that drip down the back of your thighs and spatter onto the floor, but it doesn’t matter. none of it matters. he’s fucking it back in with every thrust, deeper, harder, like it pisses him off how much you’re losing.

your hole isn’t just raw. it’s used. ringed with spit, smeared with cum, loose enough that his cock drives in to the hilt with a nasty little slrrp and no resistance. no struggle. he’s got you wrecked, ruined, ruined good, and when your hips twitch, when your cock bounces soft and spent against your belly, all you can do is moan.

“t-toji—hahh—hahh, fffuck—i can’t—!”

your voice breaks, nearly a sob, but it doesn’t slow him.

“can’t what?” he snarls against your neck, hot breath thick against your skin. “can’t take it? mmnh—bullshit. you’re fuckin’ open for me, baby.”

his grip flexes under your thighs, fingers digging in until your skin dimples beneath them, lifting you just a little higher—enough to angle his cock deeper, until the base slams flush against your ass.

“gape’s sayin’ you love it,” he growls, biting the curve of your jaw. “little hole won’t fuckin’ close.”

his tail snaps against your leg when you twitch, a hard flick like warning, and his ears flatten when your head drops back, when your tongue spills from your lips in a broken moan.

he fucks into you harder, faster, thrusts bouncing you against the wall with each one, your back smacking it with soft little thuds as you moan through gritted teeth.

you’re drooling. you don’t even notice it until he licks it off your chin and laughs—low, raspy, breathless, one ear cocking at a smug tilt while the other stays up, twitching in time with your gasps.

“such a messy fuckin’ omega,” he hisses into your throat, tail winding tighter behind him, curling around your calf like it’s trying to bind you to him—keep you from even thinking about pulling away.

the word burns in your stomach. it shouldn’t. you’re not one. you’re just human. no scent, no heat, no biological bond. but toji’s rutting into you like you’re his, and when he says it—like that—something in your gut tightens and twists, hot and brutal and needy.

you moan like it hurts.

“nggh—f-fuck—toji—d-don’t—”

“don’t what?” he huffs, teeth catching your ear, ears now pinned low and back with heat, hips still driving up. “don’t call you what you are?”

you try to shake your head, but he growls—low, vibrating deep in his chest—and bites the side of your neck.

“baby, you feel like one.”

his thrusts go wild then. brutal. punishing. all weight and speed and raw hunger, his balls slapping wet against your ass as your hole clutches uselessly around him. you’re not even clenching anymore—just spasming, wide open, puffy and ruined and taking every inch.

his ears are flat again, head dipped low against your neck like he’s trying to bury himself inside you, chasing the feel of your hole spasming. his tail is thrashing wildly, curling, twitching, jerking tight every time your body shakes.

“this little cunt’s fuckin’ starving,” he grits out. “so wet—gaping like you need me, omega. fuck, I can see inside you when I pull out—uhhhhn, yeah, just like that—fuuuuck—”

he thrusts deep, then drags back slow, and you feel it—the way your hole stretches around him, how it barely tries to close before he’s slamming in again.

slrp-thmp. slrp-thmp.

“you hear that?” he pants, ears twitching. “you’re so fuckin’ sloppy for me—shit, could live inside this hole—fuck you open every night, knot you every goddamn morning—”

you’re babbling now. sobbing on every word. you don’t know what you’re saying. it’s just noise.

“ahhhnn—t-toji, it’s too—d-deep, too much—nghh—m’gonna—f’gonna—”

“cum,” he growls, voice ragged and desperate, ears up and locked forward. and when he slams in one last time, knot swelling thick and fast, you feel pressure locking in, sealing you up tight, heat spilling into your gut all over again.

your whole body shudders. your hole pulses and twitches around the base of his cock, stretched insanely wide, lips slick and raw and wet with the endless mess he’s pouring into you.

and he doesn’t let go. his tail winds around your thigh and his ears twitch with every little breath you sob out, just watching you tremble.

he just holds you there, up against the wall, pinned and leaking and knotted full, cock throbbing inside as he purrs into your throat.

“told you,” he pants, slow and smug. “my good little omega.”

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO GROOMS YOU WHEN HIS RUT CLEARS MOMENTARILY . . .

toji’s eyes flick to the digital clock on your nightstand. 5:30 a.m.

he clicks his tongue, low and irritated. it felt like time’s mocking him, like the blinking red numbers have something to say about the fact that he’s still in your bed, half hard, drenched in sweat, and only now starting to feel like a human being again. or close to it.

your breathing’s the only sound in the room. light, shallow, a little uneven. you’re limp under him—dead asleep. face pressed into the pillow, mouth open, one arm stretched out like you tried to reach for him at some point before your body gave out.

toji exhales through his nose. the kind of breath that’s more of a sigh than he’ll ever admit to.

you’d passed out maybe fifteen minutes ago. slumped forward, shaking, legs done for, voice blown out. and he… didn’t stop right away. didn’t mean to keep going as long as he did, but it was like he couldn’t get his brain to come back online. not until now. not until the gnawing under his skin let up just enough to make room for something other than the need to fuck you full.

you reek of him.

sweat. spit. cum. the scent is thick in the air, and it drags something slow and satisfied through his chest. he did exactly what his body told him to—he claimed you, filled you, marked you until your body remembered his name even in sleep.

he shifts with a grunt, muscles complaining as he sits back. there’s a wet sound when he peels off your thigh, and he ignores it. he grabs a couple tissues from the box on your nightstand, wipes the worst of the mess off your lower back, your thighs, between your legs.

he’s not delicate about it. he’s not trying to be gentle. but he’s thorough. cleaning you down with the same rough, tired efficiency you’d use to wipe blood off a blade.

when he tosses the tissue into the wastebasket, he leans down again—nose brushing just behind your ear. you twitch in your sleep. not enough to wake. but enough for him to notice.

toji sniffs once. slow. then noses at your sweat-slick skin, his tongue dragging lazily up your throat, catching on salt and fading heat. it’s not sexual. not really. more like instinct. as if he’s checking, making sure you still smell like him underneath all the sweat and spit.

he licks again, lower this time. neck, shoulder, collarbone—wherever there’s skin he’s already bitten. he presses his tongue flat, slow and steady, like he’s cleaning you. it’s lazy, half-hearted. just a few tired swipes of tongue.

you’re covered in his marks anyway. hickeys blooming down your back, sharp little indents from his teeth littering your neck and chest. nothing that’ll scar, but you’ll feel them in the morning. you’ll know where he was.

his head drops against your shoulder for a second. he just stays there, breathing.

then, without saying a word, he crawls back into bed beside you. one arm hooks over your waist—heavy, anchoring. his other hand palms your ass once, almost absently, then drags the blanket up over both of you with a tired grunt.

his lips brush the back of your neck, pressing a soft kiss on the skin.

then he’s out just like that. still half hard, dehydrated, sore all over, but asleep in under a minute—his tail curled loosely around your thigh.

ㅤ

ㅤ

Ი︵𐑼ㅤDOG HYBRID!TOJIㅤWHO TAKES CARE OF YOU THE MORNING AFTER . . .

you wake up slowly. everything aches.

your legs feel like they’ve been taken apart and reassembled wrong. your back’s sore, your neck’s stiff, and your throat’s dry. for a second you’re not even sure what time it is—just that the air’s warm, the light’s dim, and the bed you’re in isn’t cold.

then you hear it—soft clinking, a dull sizzle, the faint creak of a cheap cabinet door.

your eyes crack open.

toji’s at the kitchenette, back turned to you, wearing nothing but a loose pair of sweats and the same dark tank top he’d yanked halfway off sometime last night and didn’t bother finishing the job. his hair’s still messy. ears out, tail swaying slow and low behind him. there’s a pan on the stove. eggs. some kind of toast. you blink, confused.

your voice comes out rough. “...are you cooking?”

he doesn’t turn around. “what’s it look like?”

“you don’t even cook for yourself.”

“shut up.”

you’re pretty sure you hear him mutter “fucker can’t even stand straight today” under his breath as he flips something in the pan.

your head falls back against the pillow, eyes shutting with a groan. your entire lower body feels like it’s been run over and then thrown in the dryer. the soreness is the kind that comes from being thoroughly ruined and then left to steep overnight. and he’s acting like you’re the problem.

you manage to sit up a little. the blanket slips down your bare chest and you wince. “you didn’t have to, you know. i can—”

“no, you can’t,” he cuts in, flatly. “tried movin’ in your sleep and damn near whimpered.”

your face burns. “i did not whimper.”

he grunts. “sure.”

you hear the stove click off. a few seconds later, he’s standing next to you with a plate in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. he drops the water in your lap, then squats down in front of you, balancing the plate on his thigh as he holds a fork out to you like you’re five.

you glare at him. “i can feed myself.”

his gaze drops pointedly to your trembling thigh. “right.”

you open your mouth to argue again, but the smell hits you—eggs, rice, sausage, a little garlic. your stomach growls before you can stop it.

“…fine.”

he raises an eyebrow, like he knows, and then holds out a forkful of food. you take it, chewing slow. you swallow before mumbling, “you remembered i like garlic rice.”

he doesn’t respond at first. just shrugs one shoulder, gaze flicking to the side.

you keep chewing, quieter now. toji scoops another forkful for you without needing to ask. after a few bites, you finally ask, “didn’t you have class this morning?”

“emailed the prof.”

you blink. “...you emailed your professor?”

“yours too.” he nudges your leg with his knee when you keep staring. “don’t look so shocked. i know how to type.”

“you usually don’t care.”

he shrugs again. “felt like doin’ it.”

you don’t say thank you. not out loud. but you meet his eyes for a second too long, and he looks away before you can try and read the expression there. his ears flick like they’re irritated with him for letting you see too much.

after the last bite, he sets the plate aside and presses his palm to your forehead, checking your temperature like it’s casual, like he didn’t rail you into unconsciousness a few hours ago. you lean into the touch without meaning to.

you lie back down once the plate’s empty, stomach warm and limbs too heavy to argue with gravity. your body’s already trying to sink back into sleep, head turned toward the wall, eyes fluttering shut.

but toji’s not having it.

“don’t pass out yet.”

you groan into the pillow. “why.”

“you stink.”

“you stink,” you mutter, face buried.

he clicks his tongue. “shut up. you’re the one smellin’ like sweat and cum.”

you grumble something—probably an insult, though it comes out half-slurred. still, you don’t move. not until he yanks the blanket off your legs in one clean motion and the cold air hits your skin like a slap.

“fuck—”

“up.”

“toji.”

he’s already standing over you, arms crossed, ears twitching in clear irritation. “shower. now. or i’ll drag your sorry ass in there myself.”

you try giving him a withering glare, but you’re too tired for it to land. “i literally can’t walk.”

“yeah?” he shrugs. “not my problem.”

but it is his problem, apparently—because the next second, he’s bending down, one arm sliding under your knees, the other curling around your back like it’s nothing. you yelp as he lifts you, already halfway out the room.

“you could’ve just helped me walk, asshole—”

“you were gonna stall.”

he doesn’t bother with a warning as he nudges the bathroom door open with his foot and flips the light on. your head’s tucked under his chin, your arms looped around his shoulders by default, and he’s definitely not not smug about it.

the water runs hot by the time he sets you down on the closed toilet seat.

he yanks his own shirt off, tosses it somewhere out of sight, then starts the shower like he’s done this a hundred times. and maybe he has. not with you, but there’s something oddly practiced about it. efficient. like his hands know what they’re doing even if his brain’s halfway shut off.

he helps you up, steadies you with a hand low on your back. your body feels like rubber. your legs shake. still, he guides you in carefully, stepping in right after, tail flicking behind him as he moves.

his hands come next. shampoo, fingers massaging your scalp, dragging through your hair. not gentle, but not careless either. then soap across your chest, shoulders, arms—methodical, not shy. it’s not sexual. not right now. he’s just cleaning you up like you’re an extension of himself, like he doesn’t see the point in asking if you’re okay with it when you clearly need the help.

when he’s done, he shuts the water off, drapes a towel over your shoulders, and grabs another to scrub at your hair with. it’s rough. you wince.

“ow—”

“don’t be a baby.”

he dries you off quick, then wraps a clean towel around your waist before scooping you up again like a sack of potatoes. he heads straight for his bed this time, barely glancing at yours.

“hey,” you murmur, “that’s not my—”

“your bed’s a mess,” he grunts. “i’m not lettin’ you rot in that.”

you blink, too dazed to argue. “you gonna change my sheets?”

he scoffs. “what, you want me to leave you to do it?”

you sink into the fresh sheets like a stone, limp and clean and exhausted. toji covers you with a blanket, then disappears for a few minutes—probably to strip your bed and toss everything in the wash.

he climbs in next to you a minute later, arm slinging around your waist as he settles. his body’s still radiating heat, but calmer now. grounded. you feel the way his tail wraps loosely around your ankle under the covers. not tight. just there.

you’re already half-asleep when you mumble, “thanks.”

toji doesn’t answer. but you feel the way his fingers brush once, lightly, through your hair.

your voice is quiet as you ask, “have you… ever done this before?”

he doesn’t say anything right away.

you blink, eyes barely open. “i mean, taken care of someone like this.”

his scoff is immediate. sharp. defensive. “fuck no.”

you turn your head a little, enough to catch the way he keeps his gaze fixed ahead, jaw tight. his ears flick slightly, tail giving a lazy, agitated twitch. he’s not looking at you. not even trying to.

you watch him for a second. “really?”

he grumbles, “you think i go around washin’ other people’s hair and changin’ their sheets?”

there’s something about how he says it—low, annoyed, like he’s irritated with himself more than you. like he’s realizing it for the first time too. you smile to yourself, barely suppressing the warmth creeping up your face.

“mm,” you hum, soft as you close your eyes. “good.”

toji still doesn’t look at you. but his hand rests a little heavier on your waist.