Though she be but little, she is fierce

Find me at AO3 at sunmoonstarsrain

[amjustagirl]

Nikki, 31. Grandma in body and spirit, writer of SFW haikyuu fics. 

taglist.~ ao3.~

FIC LIST

1. storm chaser (m.list)

pairing: miya atsumu x f! reader genre: angst, comfort, fluff  summary: miya atsumu is as beautiful and destructive as a storm.

a/n: masterlist to all fics set in this universe can be found here.

2. a sea of flowers in bloom  (m.list) 

pairing: kita shinsuke x f! reader  genre: angst, fluff  summary: “take a holiday", your best friend said, “i know just the place". she sends you to kita shinsuke's farm.  a/n: part of the storm chaser universe

3. set your heart on fire (m.list)

pairing: miya osamu x f! reader genre: romance, angst, fluff summary: miya osamu does not dare set his heart on fire. it burns anyway. a/n: sequel to storm chaser.

4. broken compass (m.list) 

pairing: sakusa kiyoomi x f! reader  genre: minimal angst, fluff  summary: sakusa kiyoomi’s heart has always pointed north. he wonders if it’s broken when it starts to point towards her. a/n: part of the storm chaser universe

5. the astrophile (link)

pairing: iwaizumi hajime x f! reader  genre: angst  summary: she means the world to hajime, but oikawa is his star.  a/n: prequel to broken compass (see above)

6. when the sun loves the moon (m.list) 

pairing: bokuto koutaro x f! reader genre: romance, angst, fluff  summary: the downsides of falling in love with a pro-athlete were not made known to you.  a/n: part of the storm chaser universe.

7.  in the absence of sound (link)

pairing: akaashi keiji x f! reader  genre: angst  summary: she believed akaashi could be her forever (but then in the silence, her heart breaks)  a/n: followed by who dares speak aloud these words (see below).

8. who dares speak aloud these words (link)

pairing: yaku morisuke x f! reader  genre: minor angst, fluffy romance  summary: yaku bursts into her life like a hurricane, even as akaashi lingers  like a summer breeze.  a/n: companion piece to in the absence of sound 

9. icarus (m.list)

pairing: oikawa tooru x f! reader  genre: coming of age, angst, romance  summary: the sky oikawa’s heart seeks is a world away from the earth yours is buried in. 

10. dream catcher (m.list)

pairing: akaashi keiji x f! reader  genre: coming of age romance, body swap au summary: akaashi catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. 

11. the sky of the sky (of the tree called life) (link)

pairing: sugawara koushi x f! reader  genre: coming of age romance  summary: suga hits her in the face with his friendship and she starts to get to know him - through the smallest of things, in the littlest of ways.

12. castles in the air (m.list) 

pairing: kuroo tetsuro x f! reader genre: uni romantic drama, a smidge of angst, much fluff summary: kuroo is your pain in the ass classmate. nothing more, really. 

13. love knows not its depth (link)

pairing: kuroo tetsuro x f! reader  genre: angst to comfort  summary: you need a break, you tell your husband. he doesn’t listen, so you run away. 

outtake: a christmas miracle

14. tug of war (link)

pairing: miya atsumu x f! reader  genre: coming of age romance  summary: you and atsumu never stop playing tug of war. 

15. home (link)

pairing: sakusa kiyoomi x f! reader  genre: angst to fluff summary: omi doesn’t know what home is until he throws it all away. 

16. hogwarts x haikyuu au (m.list) 

pairing: multiple  genre: exceedingly fluffy summary: Title is pretty self explanatory, just some self indulgent, magical fluff!

17. drabbles for the hopeless haikyuu romantics 

links to masterlist: 

inarizaki 

fukurodani

seijoh

itachiyama

nekoma

karasuno 

shiratorizawa 

[bubblegeon]

It's just like how our hearts race when we fall in love with someone or when we hear our favorite song. Tenblank, we only create the sound of love. 🥁 GLASS HEART (2025)

[krushing]

Watashi no Otto to Kekkon Shite (2025) Ep. 2 ⇢ Their First Love 🐢 dir. Ahn Gilho

[liveasbutterflies]

So, what are your true feelings for me? Shouldn't you know that by now?

Watashi no Otto to Kekkon Shite (2025)

[amjustagirl]

chapter 5

pairing: hoshina soshiro x f! reader

genre: romance, angst

wc: 5k

summary: you've loved soshiro since you were seven. he will always place his duty above you.

chapt 1 / chapt 2 / chapt 3 / chapt 4 / chapt 5

There is much to speak about, so much to talk about. Hoshina Soshiro says that he loves you, and you’re not sure what that truly means for you, but your brother’s wedding is not the time to discuss all of that. 

“We should get back. Someone’s going to come looking for us.” 

He grips you tighter. “Let them”, he declares, cheeky grin warm against your mouth. “Stay out here with me tonight.” 

“C’mon, we can’t stay here for too long.” You forcibly extract yourself from the tangle of his arms, and he whines, a needy child deprived of his favourite toy. “Oh gods, there’s lipstick on your mouth”, you exclaim in horror.

“Leave it”, he dodges your attempts at dabbing him with tissue.

“Don’t be ridiculous, if you appear back inside looking like this, people will talk -”

“Let them talk”, he says, smirking shamelessly. “I want everyone to know.” 

“Absolutely not”, you snap, pulling at his collar to get him close enough for you to clean him up, but he just uses the opportunity to capture your mouth again. It’s preposterous, the way he manages to turn your brain into mush with just the press of his lips. You have to scrabble at your last remaining brain cell to regroup your train of thought. 

“Soshiro!” you squeal, swatting at him. “Stop it!” 

“Fine, fine”, he laughs boyishly. The sound sends another wave of helpless affection in your stomach, but you strengthen your resolve and rub all evidence of - of what you’ve been up to, well, before, off of his mouth. 

“You’re ridiculous”, you say, throwing his haori off your shoulders, shoving it into a ball against his chest. 

“Ridiculously in love with you”, he quips, and you groan at his cheesiness. 

“C’mon”, you push yourself onto your feet, balancing precariously on your crutches. “Let’s get back before anyone finds us out here.” 

He grumbles in protest when you point blank refuse to allow him to princess carry you back into the ballroom. You will not let him make a scene at your brother’s wedding. It’s already manifestly obvious to anyone with eyes what you’ve both been up to, his hair a dark, tousled mess, his bottom lip red and swollen - and you suppose you mirror him, though you don’t dare to check. 

You try to insist on entering the ballroom separately, but he keeps his hand on the small of your back. It’s a good thing that you left at the tail-end of the wedding when all scheduled events are over, making your disappearance less conspicuous, but his lean, lithe figure never fails to turn heads, especially when he follows you back to your seat like a shadow, delivering you back to your parents with a promise that he’ll be back. 

You want to melt under the table as your younger cousin's jaws’ drop simultaneously. 

“Is he your boyfriend?” they demand, clambering over each other to interrogate you. 

“We’re friends”, you insist. 

It’s not a lie. You haven’t had the chance to scope out what all of this means, where exactly you stand, what he wants from you, but from the way his shoulders stiffen, his gaze resting heavy on your back even as dessert is served, you know he’s chomping at the bit to exhibit his disagreement with your statement in a very visible way.  

“No”, you mouth at him when you manage to get everyone’s attention off you. 

‘You just wait’, he mouths back, folding his arms, sticking his tongue out at you. 

You are glad he manages to behave himself until the festivities are over and you’ve completed your remaining duty to stand by your parents and thank each and every guest for their attendance at your brother’s weddings. His parents smile warmly at you, his mother even holding up the line of exiting guests to invite you out to dinner with them - ‘an opportunity to eat some good unagi’, she says, looking inordinately pleased with herself, your parents looking on and nodding indulgently. 

“Nauseating”, Sochiro pretends to retch. “My little brother’s been staring at you all night.” 

“The toilet’s that way if you’ve had too much to drink”, you call after him sweetly. His mother drags him away by his ear. 

You know Soshiro’s approaching you when your cousins’ eyes threaten to bug out of their sockets. “May I steal her away?” he asks your parents, hand flat against your back, electricity zipping up your spine. 

“I’m busy - “ you try to ward him off with an excuse, but your parents wave you off. 

“I’ll take care of her from here”, he says solemnly, a promise. 

“I’m being kidnapped”, you inform your parents, whose only reaction is to blithely tell you both to have fun and stay safe. You’re glad he doesn’t make more of a scene in front of everyone, but he still can’t resist sweeping you up into his arms once the doors to the ballroom close behind you. “Where are we going?!” you shriek, as he slides you into a waiting car in the lobby, his family’s driver handing the keys over to him.  

“We’re going somewhere private so I can convince you that we’re not just friends’, he replies, winding the car through the brightly lit streets of the city. 

You huff, head rolling against the headrest. “You know I only said that because -” 

“-’cos you’re embarrassed?” 

“Absolutely not”, you snap, sitting up straight. “Anyone with a working brain could never be embarrassed of being associated with you -”, you break off as he starts grinning. “You’re just fishing for a compliment now, aren’t you -” 

“Oh no, no”, he laughs, turning the car out of the city into the quieter, residential suburbs where his family’s resided for generations. “But please, feel free to keep goin’ on, I rather like hearing you sing my praises -” 

“You’re incorrigible”, you fold your arms. 

“Yeah”, he replies, reaching over to hold your hand. “But that’s what you love about me, isn’t it?” 

You squeeze his hand in reply. 

He stops the car at a park, where you and he used to play when you were children, the metal frame of the playground corrugated and rusting but still standing, sturdy enough to hold your weight as he settles you against it. You’re grateful that there’s just a lone street lamp illuminating the playground, the light amber and low, hiding the heat in your cheeks when he leans in close enough for you to see count each crinkle at the corner of his eyes. 

“So”, he says huskily. “Are we really just friends?” 

Your first instinct is to run far away from him (if your legs would hold up), because the truth is, you’re scared. You don’t know what the future has in store for you both. You don’t know if he can do his duty while leaving space in his life for you, especially if you’re still going to be in Osaka for the foreseeable future, more than three hundred miles away. 

But life’s too short for you to be governed by fear. You hammer your spine straight. 

“When I was - in a coma”, he makes a noise of distress in his throat, shifting to hover protectively over you, “I had - I’m not quite sure what it was, really - and I know this sounds like I’m going crazy, but I’m not, I promise -” 

“Go on”, he urges, hand on your hip to steady you. 

You tell him about the girl with sad eyes who loved the boy with midnight hair. You tell him how, in every lifetime, it’s the boy’s destiny to only live for his duty, the girl’s fate to live with a broken heart. 

“It scares me”, you say. “It makes me wonder if there is any hope for us.”

He stays quiet for a while. It’s a relief that he doesn’t laugh at you, but when he lapses into silence, you can hear the beat of your heart in your throat. You open your mouth to downplay your words, suddenly anxious that you’ve said too much, he must think you’ve lost your mind, but Soshiro finally speaks, his words slow and measured. 

“I won’t deny that I’ve always put my duty first my entire life”, he replies. “And I can’t promise that I’ll ever stop. It’s my duty to use my skills to hunt kaijus, just like my ancestors who’ve come before me.”

You nod. “I don’t expect you to stop doing any of that.”  

“I know you don’t”, he says, his fingers slotting between yours, bringing your joined hands up to his lips. “That doesn’t mean I can’t do my duty while doin’ right by you”, he says, voice so thick with sincerity that you have to catch your breath. “Give me a chance to show you I can do both.” 

“Let’s both do our best”, you say against his mouth. 

He kisses you again and again, as if sealing his promise with his lips. 

The distance between Osaka and Tokyo remains an obstacle to his promise. 

He tries his best, continues to visit you on his days off from work, takes you out on dates, outings to cafes where you both talk for hours on end, activities when your legs are finally mended enough to carry your weight without aid. He keeps in touch with you when he’s away, sends you bubbles of his thoughts in between training and patrols, funny videos that he thinks you might like. 

When the doctors finally clear you, you decide to meet him halfway. “I’m moving back to Tokyo”, you tell him over a call. There’s nothing but static for a while, before you hear him give a huge whoop. It leaves you grinning for days. 

Your job’s still waiting for you when you move back. The transition from convalescence to full-time physical activity overwhelms you at first, even when your physiotherapist gives you the greenlight. Your legs still feel like jelly, muscle mass dissipated from your long period of inactivity, but Soshiro sends you his encouragement, texts you his suggestions for exercises to rebuild your strength. Your colleagues rally around you, giving you the confidence to pick up your hammer and tongs again. 

Your parents drive you and your pots of plants back to Tokyo, where you secure a little apartment in a quiet neighbourhood, nicely situated near Izumo Tech, not too far away from Tachikawa base. They’re overly eager to get you out of their house, though they deny it when you sourly point it out. 

“We just want to make sure you and Hoshina-kun get to see each other more”, they tell you. 

“My parents are throwing me at your head”, you inform him via text. 

He sends you a laughing emoji. “My mother’s planning our wedding. She’s convinced that Sochiro’s a hopeless case, so I’m her only shot at seein’ one of her sons married off.” 

You snort, shaking your head. His mother had indeed made such comments all throughout the unagi dinner she hounded Soshiro into bringing you. You’ve known the family since you were a child, but you still harboured worries that they might think you fall short of their son. Your family’s worked with his for generations, but the Hoshina clan is wealthy, well established, not like your family’s working class roots. 

But your worries are unfounded, because she forces you to take the fattest slices of unagi, much to the disgust of Sochiro, who was also threatened into attendance, scolds Soshiro’s father when he tries to talk shop with you, tersely reminding the men of her family that she wants ‘one dinner where the family can talk about something non-kaiju related, so she can finally get to know her future daughter-in-law she’s been waiting her whole life for’. 

You want to sink under the table and combust at the same time. Soshiro mirrors your expression. 

Sochiro glares. “Why does everyone think I’m incapable of findin’ someone.” 

His mother smiles serenely, patting his hand. “Cos you’re you, m’dear. And that’s quite alright.” 

You and Soshiro burst into laughter at Sochiro’s expression of disgust. 

It’s not as if your relationship with Soshiro is smooth-sailing, even when you’ve moved to Tokyo. Your fears haunt you still, especially when he has to blow off some of your dates, occasionally going a week without seeing you because of work. And even when you get him to yourself, his work has a pesky way of getting between you.

He’s mouthing your name into the hollow of your throat, hand on your hip slipping into your waistband. He’s right where you want him - perhaps he could be moving a little faster, but then his phone buzzes and he immediately rolls off you. 

“Duty calls”, he tells you. “I’m really sorry.” 

“It’s fine”, you say, though you stay on your bed staring at your ceiling for a good half hour after he leaves. 

It’s difficult to keep those ugly insecurities in check, and they eat at you, a festering wound that gnaws away at your insides, but you’re reluctant to raise your unhappiness. Your time with Soshiro is so limited, and you don’t want to come across as ungrateful or insecure. 

But it’s impossible to hide anything from Soshiro. 

“It’s obvious you’re unhappy”, he says, looping his arm around you when you next meet. “Talk to me.” 

“It’s a waste of time -” 

“No it isn’t”, he cuts in, cupping your face in warm, steady hands. “I always wanna listen to what you have to say.”

“Always?”, you say, burying your face in his shoulder. “That’s a bold claim.” 

“That’s a promise”, he says with a chuckle. “So, spill.” 

It takes the edge off your fear and unhappiness when you bring them out into the sun. You feel better with your gripes out in the open, acknowledged by Soshiro. To his credit, he really tries his best, and it’s the effort he puts into you appreciate. He schedules his weapon checks to coincide with your lunch breaks, just so you can spend a few more precious minutes with him. 

It’s fortunate that your work also gives you an excuse to see him from time to time. You’re called in to adjust the hilt of his blade, to compensate for the minute change in his grip whenever he wears the Number 10 suit. Its sentience frightens you, now that you see it up close for yourself, its will jostling against Soshiro, debating the best way to attack, never defend, and you nearly jump right out of your skin when the metal tail slithers up behind you, curling around your ankle. 

“This human isn’t too useless”, you hear a metallic, disjointed voice say. “But you’re distracted around it.” 

Soshiro kicks the tail. “Oi, she’s not useless”, he says hotly. “She’s the reason I’m even here.” 

“Oh ho”, the suit chuckles. “Is this the sentiment that humans talk about? I don’t understand it, myself but it’s interesting to see it up close.” 

You bend over to run your hand over the suit’s metal scales. “Don’t give Hoshina-kun a hard time, okay? You can’t go apeshit and destroy things if you don’t work together properly.” 

It rumbles its approval, almost like a cat purring, its tail tightening around your shin. Soshiro, eyes narrowed, immediately orders you out of the testing ground. “It likes you too much”, he complains, once he’s stripped off the suit and out of the earshot of his colleagues. “Says you understand it - it’s a fuckin’ kaiju, it doesn’t even know you -”

“Are you jealous of your own suit?” you giggle at the absurdity of the situation. 

“‘Course not”, he says too quickly. “I’m just tryin’ to keep you safe.” 

“From a suit turned suitor?” you tease. “Jealous you have competition?” 

He pouts. “I just don’t like to share”, he admits sheepishly. “I already don’t get enough time to spend with you, now this damn kaiju suit thinks it can sweet talk you -” 

You burst out laughing. He kisses you to shut you up. 

Beyond work, you keep yourself busy with your plants and pottery lessons, and remind yourself that he can’t help when a kaiju pops up, and one of the many reasons you love him is for his drive and determination to fulfil his duty. He comes to you once, slightly abashed, with yonju guts all over his form. 

“Sorry I’m late. Had a yonju pop up just as I was leavin’ base”, when you gape at him. 

You drag him into your bathroom, ordering him to strip. He waggles his eyebrows at you, but you grab the showerhead and sit him between your knees. He leans his head against your thighs as you scrub shampoo through his dark hair and talks about his day. 

Softly, he asks. “Am I doin’ things right by you?”

“D’you even need to ask?” you reply lightly, building a crown of soap suds on his head. “You’ve done your duty and more and you make me so damn proud. Just - just make sure you always come back to me.” 

You can feel his smile unfurl against your skin. 

You fall into a comfortable rhythm. A year passes and it’s summer again.  

Your house is filled with a sea of blooms when Soshiro buys you two huge pots bursting with hydrangeas and violets. Then he takes a week off work and spends it stuffing you with endless bowls of kakigori, taking you out to all the parades, lantern lightings and firework festivals across Tokyo. 

“I made a promise”, he says when you question him, bemused by his sudden enthusiasm for summertime activities. “Plus, if I stuff myself with shaved ice, I won’t have stomach to steal your ice cream again.” 

“You stay away from my fridge or I’ll strangle you”, you laughingly threaten him. 

He buys another bowl of kakigori to share with you, laden with golden peaches. Well, it’s a win win for you both so you don’t interrogate him further. It’s a treat to see Soshiro dressed up in a cotton yukata, cheerfully buying an armful of food from street vendors to snack on while watching the night sky explode in colour beside you. 

At the end of the week, you both take the train back to Osaka for obon, Sochiro refusing to drive you both on the basis that he’s allergic to being a third wheel. You retort by sending him the numbers of your colleagues who find him cute, ‘though you have no idea why’, you qualify, and he sends you rude gifs in response.

You drop by the Hoshina estate to spend time with Soshiro’s family. Everything remains as it was when you were a child, perhaps the way it has been in past lifetimes, the manicured bonsai trees, the precisely raked ripples in white gravel. Soshiro asked you to wait for him in the courtyard where you first met him as a child of seven, where the ghosts of your childhood linger. You’re a few minutes too early, so you seek shade from the sun’s glare in a sitting room with a familiar looking katana.  

An echo of a past dream draws you in. “He died in battle”, you read the caption below the blade softly to yourself. “His body was never found.” 

(a boy who does his duty too well) 

(and what of love, a girl asks) 

In another lifetime, that could’ve been Soshiro. In this lifetime, it still could be Soshiro. 

Distantly, you hear Soshiro call your name, waking you from your daydream. Warm hands rest on your shoulders, turning you to face him. “Not with your blade in my hand”, he says - and of course, Soshiro knows your thoughts, even if you don’t put them into words. “Not in this lifetime.” 

The blade gleams in the lamplight. But the ring that Soshiro presents you sparkles in the summer sun. 

Hand over mouth, you watch with wide eyes as he drops to one knee. 

“In this lifetime”, his hands shake as he threads your fourth finger with his ring. “Let me always come home to you.” 

In this lifetime, violets bloom throughout the year, improbable as it may be. In this lifetime, the boy still does his duty, but is not a stranger to love. In this lifetime, the girl’s heart is battered and bruised but ultimately is welded whole again, unbroken. In this lifetime, against the odds, your dreams bear fruit, your love awaits you. 

“Tadaima”, you say. Welcome home. 

“Okaerie”, he replies, nearly falling over when you throw your arms around his neck. I’m home. 

a/n: ty for hanging with me these past month and indulging me in my love for one hoshina soshiro. i'm not sure when i'll write again, but i'm forever grateful that you've given me and this fic another chance - do check out my other fics if you love this one!

love always, nikki.

[amjustagirl]

chapter 5

pairing: hoshina soshiro x f! reader

genre: romance, angst

wc: 5k

summary: you've loved soshiro since you were seven. he will always place his duty above you.

chapt 1 / chapt 2 / chapt 3 / chapt 4 / chapt 5

There is much to speak about, so much to talk about. Hoshina Soshiro says that he loves you, and you’re not sure what that truly means for you, but your brother’s wedding is not the time to discuss all of that. 

“We should get back. Someone’s going to come looking for us.” 

He grips you tighter. “Let them”, he declares, cheeky grin warm against your mouth. “Stay out here with me tonight.” 

“C’mon, we can’t stay here for too long.” You forcibly extract yourself from the tangle of his arms, and he whines, a needy child deprived of his favourite toy. “Oh gods, there’s lipstick on your mouth”, you exclaim in horror.

“Leave it”, he dodges your attempts at dabbing him with tissue.

“Don’t be ridiculous, if you appear back inside looking like this, people will talk -”

“Let them talk”, he says, smirking shamelessly. “I want everyone to know.” 

“Absolutely not”, you snap, pulling at his collar to get him close enough for you to clean him up, but he just uses the opportunity to capture your mouth again. It’s preposterous, the way he manages to turn your brain into mush with just the press of his lips. You have to scrabble at your last remaining brain cell to regroup your train of thought. 

“Soshiro!” you squeal, swatting at him. “Stop it!” 

“Fine, fine”, he laughs boyishly. The sound sends another wave of helpless affection in your stomach, but you strengthen your resolve and rub all evidence of - of what you’ve been up to, well, before, off of his mouth. 

“You’re ridiculous”, you say, throwing his haori off your shoulders, shoving it into a ball against his chest. 

“Ridiculously in love with you”, he quips, and you groan at his cheesiness. 

“C’mon”, you push yourself onto your feet, balancing precariously on your crutches. “Let’s get back before anyone finds us out here.” 

He grumbles in protest when you point blank refuse to allow him to princess carry you back into the ballroom. You will not let him make a scene at your brother’s wedding. It’s already manifestly obvious to anyone with eyes what you’ve both been up to, his hair a dark, tousled mess, his bottom lip red and swollen - and you suppose you mirror him, though you don’t dare to check. 

You try to insist on entering the ballroom separately, but he keeps his hand on the small of your back. It’s a good thing that you left at the tail-end of the wedding when all scheduled events are over, making your disappearance less conspicuous, but his lean, lithe figure never fails to turn heads, especially when he follows you back to your seat like a shadow, delivering you back to your parents with a promise that he’ll be back. 

You want to melt under the table as your younger cousin's jaws’ drop simultaneously. 

“Is he your boyfriend?” they demand, clambering over each other to interrogate you. 

“We’re friends”, you insist. 

It’s not a lie. You haven’t had the chance to scope out what all of this means, where exactly you stand, what he wants from you, but from the way his shoulders stiffen, his gaze resting heavy on your back even as dessert is served, you know he’s chomping at the bit to exhibit his disagreement with your statement in a very visible way.  

“No”, you mouth at him when you manage to get everyone’s attention off you. 

‘You just wait’, he mouths back, folding his arms, sticking his tongue out at you. 

You are glad he manages to behave himself until the festivities are over and you’ve completed your remaining duty to stand by your parents and thank each and every guest for their attendance at your brother’s weddings. His parents smile warmly at you, his mother even holding up the line of exiting guests to invite you out to dinner with them - ‘an opportunity to eat some good unagi’, she says, looking inordinately pleased with herself, your parents looking on and nodding indulgently. 

“Nauseating”, Sochiro pretends to retch. “My little brother’s been staring at you all night.” 

“The toilet’s that way if you’ve had too much to drink”, you call after him sweetly. His mother drags him away by his ear. 

You know Soshiro’s approaching you when your cousins’ eyes threaten to bug out of their sockets. “May I steal her away?” he asks your parents, hand flat against your back, electricity zipping up your spine. 

“I’m busy - “ you try to ward him off with an excuse, but your parents wave you off. 

“I’ll take care of her from here”, he says solemnly, a promise. 

“I’m being kidnapped”, you inform your parents, whose only reaction is to blithely tell you both to have fun and stay safe. You’re glad he doesn’t make more of a scene in front of everyone, but he still can’t resist sweeping you up into his arms once the doors to the ballroom close behind you. “Where are we going?!” you shriek, as he slides you into a waiting car in the lobby, his family’s driver handing the keys over to him.  

“We’re going somewhere private so I can convince you that we’re not just friends’, he replies, winding the car through the brightly lit streets of the city. 

You huff, head rolling against the headrest. “You know I only said that because -” 

“-’cos you’re embarrassed?” 

“Absolutely not”, you snap, sitting up straight. “Anyone with a working brain could never be embarrassed of being associated with you -”, you break off as he starts grinning. “You’re just fishing for a compliment now, aren’t you -” 

“Oh no, no”, he laughs, turning the car out of the city into the quieter, residential suburbs where his family’s resided for generations. “But please, feel free to keep goin’ on, I rather like hearing you sing my praises -” 

“You’re incorrigible”, you fold your arms. 

“Yeah”, he replies, reaching over to hold your hand. “But that’s what you love about me, isn’t it?” 

You squeeze his hand in reply. 

He stops the car at a park, where you and he used to play when you were children, the metal frame of the playground corrugated and rusting but still standing, sturdy enough to hold your weight as he settles you against it. You’re grateful that there’s just a lone street lamp illuminating the playground, the light amber and low, hiding the heat in your cheeks when he leans in close enough for you to see count each crinkle at the corner of his eyes. 

“So”, he says huskily. “Are we really just friends?” 

Your first instinct is to run far away from him (if your legs would hold up), because the truth is, you’re scared. You don’t know what the future has in store for you both. You don’t know if he can do his duty while leaving space in his life for you, especially if you’re still going to be in Osaka for the foreseeable future, more than three hundred miles away. 

But life’s too short for you to be governed by fear. You hammer your spine straight. 

“When I was - in a coma”, he makes a noise of distress in his throat, shifting to hover protectively over you, “I had - I’m not quite sure what it was, really - and I know this sounds like I’m going crazy, but I’m not, I promise -” 

“Go on”, he urges, hand on your hip to steady you. 

You tell him about the girl with sad eyes who loved the boy with midnight hair. You tell him how, in every lifetime, it’s the boy’s destiny to only live for his duty, the girl’s fate to live with a broken heart. 

“It scares me”, you say. “It makes me wonder if there is any hope for us.”

He stays quiet for a while. It’s a relief that he doesn’t laugh at you, but when he lapses into silence, you can hear the beat of your heart in your throat. You open your mouth to downplay your words, suddenly anxious that you’ve said too much, he must think you’ve lost your mind, but Soshiro finally speaks, his words slow and measured. 

“I won’t deny that I’ve always put my duty first my entire life”, he replies. “And I can’t promise that I’ll ever stop. It’s my duty to use my skills to hunt kaijus, just like my ancestors who’ve come before me.”

You nod. “I don’t expect you to stop doing any of that.”  

“I know you don’t”, he says, his fingers slotting between yours, bringing your joined hands up to his lips. “That doesn’t mean I can’t do my duty while doin’ right by you”, he says, voice so thick with sincerity that you have to catch your breath. “Give me a chance to show you I can do both.” 

“Let’s both do our best”, you say against his mouth. 

He kisses you again and again, as if sealing his promise with his lips. 

The distance between Osaka and Tokyo remains an obstacle to his promise. 

He tries his best, continues to visit you on his days off from work, takes you out on dates, outings to cafes where you both talk for hours on end, activities when your legs are finally mended enough to carry your weight without aid. He keeps in touch with you when he’s away, sends you bubbles of his thoughts in between training and patrols, funny videos that he thinks you might like. 

When the doctors finally clear you, you decide to meet him halfway. “I’m moving back to Tokyo”, you tell him over a call. There’s nothing but static for a while, before you hear him give a huge whoop. It leaves you grinning for days. 

Your job’s still waiting for you when you move back. The transition from convalescence to full-time physical activity overwhelms you at first, even when your physiotherapist gives you the greenlight. Your legs still feel like jelly, muscle mass dissipated from your long period of inactivity, but Soshiro sends you his encouragement, texts you his suggestions for exercises to rebuild your strength. Your colleagues rally around you, giving you the confidence to pick up your hammer and tongs again. 

Your parents drive you and your pots of plants back to Tokyo, where you secure a little apartment in a quiet neighbourhood, nicely situated near Izumo Tech, not too far away from Tachikawa base. They’re overly eager to get you out of their house, though they deny it when you sourly point it out. 

“We just want to make sure you and Hoshina-kun get to see each other more”, they tell you. 

“My parents are throwing me at your head”, you inform him via text. 

He sends you a laughing emoji. “My mother’s planning our wedding. She’s convinced that Sochiro’s a hopeless case, so I’m her only shot at seein’ one of her sons married off.” 

You snort, shaking your head. His mother had indeed made such comments all throughout the unagi dinner she hounded Soshiro into bringing you. You’ve known the family since you were a child, but you still harboured worries that they might think you fall short of their son. Your family’s worked with his for generations, but the Hoshina clan is wealthy, well established, not like your family’s working class roots. 

But your worries are unfounded, because she forces you to take the fattest slices of unagi, much to the disgust of Sochiro, who was also threatened into attendance, scolds Soshiro’s father when he tries to talk shop with you, tersely reminding the men of her family that she wants ‘one dinner where the family can talk about something non-kaiju related, so she can finally get to know her future daughter-in-law she’s been waiting her whole life for’. 

You want to sink under the table and combust at the same time. Soshiro mirrors your expression. 

Sochiro glares. “Why does everyone think I’m incapable of findin’ someone.” 

His mother smiles serenely, patting his hand. “Cos you’re you, m’dear. And that’s quite alright.” 

You and Soshiro burst into laughter at Sochiro’s expression of disgust. 

It’s not as if your relationship with Soshiro is smooth-sailing, even when you’ve moved to Tokyo. Your fears haunt you still, especially when he has to blow off some of your dates, occasionally going a week without seeing you because of work. And even when you get him to yourself, his work has a pesky way of getting between you.

He’s mouthing your name into the hollow of your throat, hand on your hip slipping into your waistband. He’s right where you want him - perhaps he could be moving a little faster, but then his phone buzzes and he immediately rolls off you. 

“Duty calls”, he tells you. “I’m really sorry.” 

“It’s fine”, you say, though you stay on your bed staring at your ceiling for a good half hour after he leaves. 

It’s difficult to keep those ugly insecurities in check, and they eat at you, a festering wound that gnaws away at your insides, but you’re reluctant to raise your unhappiness. Your time with Soshiro is so limited, and you don’t want to come across as ungrateful or insecure. 

But it’s impossible to hide anything from Soshiro. 

“It’s obvious you’re unhappy”, he says, looping his arm around you when you next meet. “Talk to me.” 

“It’s a waste of time -” 

“No it isn’t”, he cuts in, cupping your face in warm, steady hands. “I always wanna listen to what you have to say.”

“Always?”, you say, burying your face in his shoulder. “That’s a bold claim.” 

“That’s a promise”, he says with a chuckle. “So, spill.” 

It takes the edge off your fear and unhappiness when you bring them out into the sun. You feel better with your gripes out in the open, acknowledged by Soshiro. To his credit, he really tries his best, and it’s the effort he puts into you appreciate. He schedules his weapon checks to coincide with your lunch breaks, just so you can spend a few more precious minutes with him. 

It’s fortunate that your work also gives you an excuse to see him from time to time. You’re called in to adjust the hilt of his blade, to compensate for the minute change in his grip whenever he wears the Number 10 suit. Its sentience frightens you, now that you see it up close for yourself, its will jostling against Soshiro, debating the best way to attack, never defend, and you nearly jump right out of your skin when the metal tail slithers up behind you, curling around your ankle. 

“This human isn’t too useless”, you hear a metallic, disjointed voice say. “But you’re distracted around it.” 

Soshiro kicks the tail. “Oi, she’s not useless”, he says hotly. “She’s the reason I’m even here.” 

“Oh ho”, the suit chuckles. “Is this the sentiment that humans talk about? I don’t understand it, myself but it’s interesting to see it up close.” 

You bend over to run your hand over the suit’s metal scales. “Don’t give Hoshina-kun a hard time, okay? You can’t go apeshit and destroy things if you don’t work together properly.” 

It rumbles its approval, almost like a cat purring, its tail tightening around your shin. Soshiro, eyes narrowed, immediately orders you out of the testing ground. “It likes you too much”, he complains, once he’s stripped off the suit and out of the earshot of his colleagues. “Says you understand it - it’s a fuckin’ kaiju, it doesn’t even know you -”

“Are you jealous of your own suit?” you giggle at the absurdity of the situation. 

“‘Course not”, he says too quickly. “I’m just tryin’ to keep you safe.” 

“From a suit turned suitor?” you tease. “Jealous you have competition?” 

He pouts. “I just don’t like to share”, he admits sheepishly. “I already don’t get enough time to spend with you, now this damn kaiju suit thinks it can sweet talk you -” 

You burst out laughing. He kisses you to shut you up. 

Beyond work, you keep yourself busy with your plants and pottery lessons, and remind yourself that he can’t help when a kaiju pops up, and one of the many reasons you love him is for his drive and determination to fulfil his duty. He comes to you once, slightly abashed, with yonju guts all over his form. 

“Sorry I’m late. Had a yonju pop up just as I was leavin’ base”, when you gape at him. 

You drag him into your bathroom, ordering him to strip. He waggles his eyebrows at you, but you grab the showerhead and sit him between your knees. He leans his head against your thighs as you scrub shampoo through his dark hair and talks about his day. 

Softly, he asks. “Am I doin’ things right by you?”

“D’you even need to ask?” you reply lightly, building a crown of soap suds on his head. “You’ve done your duty and more and you make me so damn proud. Just - just make sure you always come back to me.” 

You can feel his smile unfurl against your skin. 

You fall into a comfortable rhythm. A year passes and it’s summer again.  

Your house is filled with a sea of blooms when Soshiro buys you two huge pots bursting with hydrangeas and violets. Then he takes a week off work and spends it stuffing you with endless bowls of kakigori, taking you out to all the parades, lantern lightings and firework festivals across Tokyo. 

“I made a promise”, he says when you question him, bemused by his sudden enthusiasm for summertime activities. “Plus, if I stuff myself with shaved ice, I won’t have stomach to steal your ice cream again.” 

“You stay away from my fridge or I’ll strangle you”, you laughingly threaten him. 

He buys another bowl of kakigori to share with you, laden with golden peaches. Well, it’s a win win for you both so you don’t interrogate him further. It’s a treat to see Soshiro dressed up in a cotton yukata, cheerfully buying an armful of food from street vendors to snack on while watching the night sky explode in colour beside you. 

At the end of the week, you both take the train back to Osaka for obon, Sochiro refusing to drive you both on the basis that he’s allergic to being a third wheel. You retort by sending him the numbers of your colleagues who find him cute, ‘though you have no idea why’, you qualify, and he sends you rude gifs in response.

You drop by the Hoshina estate to spend time with Soshiro’s family. Everything remains as it was when you were a child, perhaps the way it has been in past lifetimes, the manicured bonsai trees, the precisely raked ripples in white gravel. Soshiro asked you to wait for him in the courtyard where you first met him as a child of seven, where the ghosts of your childhood linger. You’re a few minutes too early, so you seek shade from the sun’s glare in a sitting room with a familiar looking katana.  

An echo of a past dream draws you in. “He died in battle”, you read the caption below the blade softly to yourself. “His body was never found.” 

(a boy who does his duty too well) 

(and what of love, a girl asks) 

In another lifetime, that could’ve been Soshiro. In this lifetime, it still could be Soshiro. 

Distantly, you hear Soshiro call your name, waking you from your daydream. Warm hands rest on your shoulders, turning you to face him. “Not with your blade in my hand”, he says - and of course, Soshiro knows your thoughts, even if you don’t put them into words. “Not in this lifetime.” 

The blade gleams in the lamplight. But the ring that Soshiro presents you sparkles in the summer sun. 

Hand over mouth, you watch with wide eyes as he drops to one knee. 

“In this lifetime”, his hands shake as he threads your fourth finger with his ring. “Let me always come home to you.” 

In this lifetime, violets bloom throughout the year, improbable as it may be. In this lifetime, the boy still does his duty, but is not a stranger to love. In this lifetime, the girl’s heart is battered and bruised but ultimately is welded whole again, unbroken. In this lifetime, against the odds, your dreams bear fruit, your love awaits you. 

“Tadaima”, you say. Welcome home. 

“Okaerie”, he replies, nearly falling over when you throw your arms around his neck. I’m home. 

a/n: ty for hanging with me these past month and indulging me in my love for one hoshina soshiro. i'm not sure when i'll write again, but i'm forever grateful that you've given me and this fic another chance - do check out my other fics if you love this one!

love always, nikki.

[amjustagirl]

can i just say that i absolutely LOVE the part of possibly the reader and hoshina's ancestor's or their past life (both even) in chapter 4. it made me want to ask if you're ever going to make a story about that as an angsty prequel 😔😔 (YOU DID WELL ON CHAPTER 4 BTW!! i reread it so many times!! def one of my fav soshiro fics)

eeee thank you for enjoying the fic!!!

ooh that's interesting (but you do know that it'd be an incredibly angsty fic right if i do write the starcrossed lovers prequel...?) i could write it but i feel like you guys will KILL me.

[amjustagirl]

Ur duty fic is sooooo well-written its actually so beautiful....... the fact that the only ch left is the last one makes me weep -,____- but im so excited !!

<3

thank you for calling my fic baby beautiful. hopefully this isn't the last fic i write for hoshina (or at all), but there's still the last chapter i can give you guys :) hope you enjoy it.

[amjustagirl]

sorry to bother you again! (same anon as last time) but do you have another estimate for the last chapter?

chapter 4 was written SO so well and it had me kicking my feet and squealing like a high school girl 😂

haha i only post fics that i've completed, so don't worry, the full fic will always be posted unless something happens to me. but yes, am going to post the chapter today - prob in a few minutes or so. glad you enjoyed the fic!

[amjustagirl]

I can’t. I litch-rally can’t!

Shutting it down, healing, working on yourself, and then having this man come back and act exactly how you wanted before!!! And you have to convince yourself that he’s not serious, it’s not that serious just so you can BE and keep growing

AHHHHHHHH

AND THEN IT HAPPENS!

Idk how you do it but you always get these feelings SO RIGHT! The pains of growing even when it’s good. Focusing on yourself and creating your own life even when you’re hurting, knowing you will move beyond that hurt.

I always always always love your writing. It always feels so personal and kind and comforting.

You’re so talented and I giggle and squeal and kick my feet when I see you post and reblog!!!

tyyyyy :'>

all my stories are personal because ugh, i end up pouring in so much of myself into my fic babies. i might not have lived each experience that i put my characters through but emotions like joy, frustration, longing - all of these are so universal, and idk, writing's always been my outlet to express all of this. thank YOU for giving me the encouragement to continue doing what i love, when it's sometimes so easy for me to get in my head and convince myself that my writing is trash and that i should stop.

[amjustagirl]

Hello Nikkiiiiiiii dearerr, how are youuu?

I have come to squeal and scream for the new chapterr~~ ehem2

First of all I am so in love with this part. Ngl there's just so many parts I want to fangirl about but this particular section just had my heart in its grip like AAAUGHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAAA HUWAAAAA LIKE THE CONVERSATION WAS SO CASUAL LIKE BUT THE REVELATION BEHIND IT. THE WAY HE JUST FACED THE REALITY. THAT HIS LADY IS CREATING DISTANCE. Saying that she doesn't have anything much tying her there to Tokyo anymore... I took some 3 mins before continuing cause it is so beautiful. The way he reacted, he swallowed his feelings like how she did before huwaaaa... and I loveeee the fact that it does not deter him but kinda ignite his resolution to see her 😭😭😭😭👍👍👍

Also this part HAHSJAJDJEJR IT REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF OUR MR AND MRS KITA 😭😭😭💕💕💕 I was squealing the whole timeee.. I'm so happy they got together now but low-key would love to see Soshiro wooing MC even more

i truly live (and write) for your comments <3

tbh i kinda kept myself from responding to asks and comments this week, in part bcos i did eye surgery (to fix my short sightedness, no biggie!!) and also cos idk - imposter syndrome really hit me hard when i posted chapter 4, and somehow i told myself that the reception to chapter 4 of duty was so less ardent than chapter 3 that i must've done a bad job. LOL all i can say is that your insecurities don't leave you even when you hit your 30s (which is old and decrepit on the tumblrsphere) but i digress.

honestly you're right! i wanted to drag out the courtship between soshiro and the mc BUT at the same time, i also knew that she's so hopelessly in love with one hoshina soshiro that i just did not feel realistic for her to keep playing hard to get! and i subscribe to the belief that if you want something, go get it so - it's not the chase that's crucial, it's what they do once they're together.

which leads us to chapter 5 :)

[allwaswell16]

I just want to talk about the power of commenting on fics for a minute.

I have my main fandom, but when I read in other fandoms, I don't know many of the writers. So I usually just find fics by looking through the tag I want. And if it's a tag I'm really interested in, I'll read every fic in the tag. And if there's a fic I really liked in there, I'll start reading everything by that writer.

So what this means is I'm sometimes reading fics or writers that don't have tons of hits/kudos/comments on their fics, but I found them through some obscure tag I wanted to read. And so I'll get back some really incredibly sweet replies to my comments.

But then, something even more incredible started happening. I'd be reading WIPs by some of these writers and they'd literally start writing the rest of the fic for me. They started asking me what I hoped to see happen or if I had any requests. And when the fic was finished, one of them said the only reason they kept writing the fic was for me.

Sometimes there can be such a lovely connection between the writer and the reader just because you decided to leave a comment. And sometimes you as the commenting reader can become the lone reason why a fic makes its way into the world for all the other readers who come after you.

[amjustagirl]

(ehh was chapter 4 not...well written?)

[autumnleaves1991-blog]

This is why writers abandon stories. It’s not that we don’t love them, it’s because we don’t want to love them alone.

[amjustagirl]

chapter 4

pairing: hoshina soshiro x f! reader

genre: romance, angst

wc: 5k

summary: you've loved soshiro since you were seven. he will always place his duty above you.

chapt 1 / chapt 2 / chapt 3 / chapt 4 / chapt 5

When you blink open your eyes, you find yourself back in the Hoshina family estate. 

The garden is exactly as you remember it. Bonsai trees, neatly manicured. The white gravel ocean raked with ripple lines. Heat shimmers off the ground, harsh summer sun bearing down on the tiled roof. A young man with dark hair and sad, violet eyes sits across you. 

“Soshiro”, you cry, fumbling to your feet. 

He looks right through you even when you’re standing right before him. 

He’s wearing the navy hakama he reserves for formal occasions, the family crest embroidered in gold thread on the back, a ceremonial katana strapped to his hip. Something’s about to happen, you realise, the compound bustling with servants carrying paper lanterns. No one pays you any notice as you float behind him down the familiar corridors of the house, a ghost. 

His father approaches, severe lines running through his forehead. “You know your duty”, he claps his son’s shoulder with a heavy hand. 

Soshiro’s shoulders slump, an invisible weight bearing down on him. 

His duty awaits outside the estate’s gates. 

A young woman, clearly noble born, waits for them to greet her with her chin in the air, dolled up in matrimonial white, surrounded by a retinue of servants. She tilts her chin higher to assess her groom as he offers her his arm before bowing her head demurely, letting him help her up the stairs. 

The sun in your eyes forces you to turn away. Another woman catches your gaze, the profile of her face backlit in the blue-grey dusk. Rough hands, a cheap, cotton yukata, she hides in the shade. Her anguish is apparent in the defeated curve of her mouth. 

She’s you, you realise, with even sadder eyes. 

This is a dream, you tell yourself. A shitty, crappy excuse of a dream that you probably caused by drinking one too many cans of beer. You really should take better to maintain a healthy REM cycle, maybe pick up some meditation or exercise, because heaven knows your psyche will suffer if your subconsciousness decides to torture you in your sleep too.  

You close your eyes. 

You still don’t find yourself back in your bed. Instead, the stench of manure hits you, then the scratch of straw under your feet. That sad girl - you, in another life perhaps, kneels before the same dark haired boy, Soshiro, still as a statue.  

“The horse is saddled. We can ride somewhere, far away where no one knows either of our names, leave all of this behind. You don’t have to get married to a woman you don’t love -” 

He’s carved of marble in the moonlight, doesn’t move to meet her gaze, not even when she tugs at his sleeve. “I am but a second son, but even I know my duty to my clan.” 

“And what about love?” she asks. “What about me?” 

Neither of them notice you when you tumble out of the stable into the night. But there’s nothing but darkness looming before you, the moon nowhere to be seen, and when you turn back, the stable has disappeared. In its place, a familiar, wooden hut, where a fire grows. The heat of the forge stings your face, ash flying, the smell of burning steel in the air. 

This time, Soshiro’s in the lacquered leather of a samurai warrior from centuries past. “Is it ready?” he directs his question at the woman in the forge. 

Wordlessly, she hands him the sword in her hand, red hot from hammer and tongs. He weighs it in his hand, swings it once, twice, flashing quicksilver in the dim light of the blacksmith’s forge. You recognise the blade. You’ve seen it hung up in one of many sitting rooms in the Hoshina estate, captioned as belonging to a Hoshina ancestor who never returned home. 

You understand why her voice quivers when she calls out to him before he leaves. “My lord”, she says. “Will you ever lay down your sword?” 

“Perhaps in another life”, he replies. 

In the shadow of the forge, the violets in his eyes wither and die. 

You cannot bear to watch this play out before you again and again, a twisted loop you’re powerless to stop. There is nothing you can do to shock yourself awake, a ghost in every lifetime you freefall through, so bone weary, you stop running, sink to your knees. Wherever you are, the nightmares stop once you close your eyes. The damp grass is cool against your back, the darkness becomes soothing. It’s easy to lose yourself to a deep, undisturbed sleep. 

(wake up) 

The thrum of your heartbeat starts to still. You think you hear a faint echo. It sounds like Soshiro.

For the first time in your life, you hesitate to answer. 

(please, wake up)

“But it’s comfortable here”, you say to no one at all. “I’m so tired.” 

The neverending grind of work, of long hours spent hunched over glowering flames and complicated weapon blueprints. The dull ache of heartbreak, the painful lesson of learning to be okay alone. 

“Let me sleep”, you whisper. 

The darkness holds you close, blankets you. It’s too easy to let yourself just be, no one to disappoint, no one who disappoints. You let yourself be pulled beneath the tide, the endless ebb and flow lulling you into a dreamless slumber. 

Perhaps you could be content like this. 

Perhaps not. You think of the menagerie of plants you’ve gathered, they depend on you for food and water. There’s a pottery class on Sunday that you’ve been excited to attend, an abstract pot that you want to attempt. You’re supposed to meet your mother for tea, you’re looking forward to feasting on peaches, in season in the dying weeks of summer. 

Your eyelids are still heavy with the weight of sleep, but you force them open. A streak of pain that shoots through your right side, but you slowly sit up anyway. A sea of hydrangeas,  shimmering violet-blue in the early morning light stretches before you.

An achingly familiar voice calls your name. You lift your face to meet the rising sun, feeling its warmth flicker through you. 

Your heart begins to hum. 

You’re not in your own bed when you crack your eyes open. 

The room is too white, too pin-neat. There are clear tubes running from your arms, bandages restricting even your slightest movement, not that you really can do much other than shift about the too-narrow bed you’ve found yourself in, the sudden brightness disorienting you. 

“Oh!”, an unfamiliar voice exclaims. “Call the doctor, she’s awake!” 

Your head threatens to split open. It hurts too much to stay awake. 

You fall back into a dreamless sleep.

You drift in and out of consciousness after that, the pull of sleep still irresistible, but you stay awake for longer periods of time. Doctors poke and prod at you, nurses fuss over you. It’s hard to recall any conversations you have during this time, your memories melding almost into your dreams. 

People ask you questions about your name, your age, where you’re from. It feels as if you’re stuck underwater, it’s a struggle to gasp for enough air at times to answer them, but you think you find enough brain cells to rub together in the cotton wool jumble in your head, mumble the right answers so they go away. 

Your parents show up to visit you. 

‘’Llo”, you mutter. Your father looks strangely old, your mother tired. 

You’re pleased that your mother brings chopped peaches for you, less so when you realise you have no ability to swallow solid food just yet. They disappear for a hushed conversation with the doctors, leaving you with little distraction so you drop back off to sleep. 

The next time you wake, the room is dark. 

Even in the dim glow of machines beeping, you make out the faint outline of a boy you know too well, curled up uncomfortably in a plastic chair. “S‘ro”, you mumble, half asleep. 

A flurry of movement. He appears by your uninjured side, staring at you wide-eyed, as if he doesn’t believe you won’t disappear. You wonder if he’s another figment of your dreams because he stands so still drinking his fill of you, until he remembers to breathe again. 

“Hey”, he says hoarsely.

“Mmph”, you grunt. In your vague, rambling train of thoughts, you register surprise that he’s even here. “S’ work?”

His laugh is wet. “Are you seriously askin’ me ‘how’s work’ right now?” 

You frown. Why - why is Soshiro even here? 

“I’m here for you, silly”, a warm hand settles on your left arm. “Go back to sleep. I’ll seeya later.” 

You start to stay awake for longer stretches at a time. 

Your parents gently fill you in on your situation. You were touch and go for a while, your mother recounts tearfully, your head injury making the doctors doubt you’d ever wake. You had to be cut open to stop internal bleeding in your gut, fix a multitude of shattered bones in your right hip and leg. Burns, on your shoulder and arm which required skin grafts, extensive medication to keep infection at bay. 

Everyone treats you like you’re made out of glass even as your condition steadily improves, aided by the wonders of kaiju regenerative technology. Your parents fuss over you like a child, tucking you in too tight beneath starched hospital sheets. The nurses refuse to let you shower, only allowing you sponge baths which you detest. 

Soshiro’s the worst of the lot. 

At first it's endearing how protective and sweet he is. The doctors give him a wide berth, most of the nurses terrified of him, though he swears that he’s been utterly polite when you question him about it. He doesn’t allow you to do anything yourself, not even hold your own cup of water when you drink. Your bedside is overflowing with colourful greeting cards, half of them signed by him, and he brings you a fresh bouquet of flowers during each visit. 

“That boy is besotted with you”, one of the nurses who isn’t intimidated by Soshiro trills in with her unsolicited opinion. “It’s adorable.” 

He’s not”, you deny, frowning. “We’re just friends.”  

It’s a little too much. The only visitor who doesn’t smother you is Sochiro, who snaps back to his usual self the minute you show a little of your usual snark. “Did you break your head too?” you ask, when he arrives bearing a hamper of fruit. 

“Impertinent brat”, he snaps back. “I’ll have you know my father put me up to this.” 

You grin. “I suppose that’s where your brother got his manners from. Pity you don’t have any.”

He glowers at you, but doesn’t storm out of the room. Instead, he brandishes a small, silver knife and starts peeling fruit. “I never wanted a younger sibling”, he grouses. “Should’ve dropped Soshiro in the drain the minute he was born, then I’d never have to deal with your smart mouth -.” 

“Aww”, you coo. “Hoshina Sochiro, Captain of the Sixth Division, getting soft in your old age.” 

“Shut it”, he snaps, while stuffing perfect wedges of fruit into your palm. 

It reminds you of the easy friendship you had with Soshiro, not the way he’s behaving, almost as if he feels anything more than friendship for you - which he’s confirmed to your face that he mostly does not. It confuses you, the tender way he treats you, the lingering stares when he thinks you’re asleep, and you much prefer him to go back to the way he was before. 

“Stop it!” you finally burst, when his smothering becomes too overwhelming. “Treat me like your friend - not like I’m some glass figurine you’re trying to keep safe.”

A plastic chair screeches back. He stares at you. “Do you even realise how close you were to dyin’?” 

“Sorta”, you reply, though some gaps remain empty in your memories, “but I’m okay now, and ‘sides, what happened was just bad luck -”

“No it wasn’t just luck”, he replies. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Something shutters behind his eyes. “It’s my fault you’re hurt.” He angles himself away from you. “I crashed into your building.” 

“The kaiju threw you into the building”, you correct. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He lunges forward to grip your bed rail, his sudden intensity scaring you. “I could’ve been the cause of you dyin’-”

“My head’s pretty hard”, you try to diffuse the building tension with a joke. “Would take more than a fallin’ building to kill me.”

He makes a strangled sound of outrage in his throat. “Don’t. Just - don’t.” 

His tone is devoid of its usual lightness. He’s - he’s angry, scared, face twisting into a scowl, body coiling, as if preparing for an attack. “You’re upset”, you murmur. “Don’t be.” 

“You could’ve died.”

“Hey”, you beckon him forward, lifting your uninjured hand off the bed to place it on top of his. He grasps at it, a drowning man clutching at a lifeline. 

“It’s okay”, you say gently. “I’m okay.” 

“Promise me you’ll stay safe.”

“I’ll try my best”, you offer. 

An angry sound escapes through his clenched jaw, his face strained. You brush the skin of his wrist with your thumb until the too-quick staccato of his pulse steadies. 

“Go to sleep”, he finally says. “Just stay safe.” 

After that, something shifts. Soshiro resumes the mantle of his chaotic, goofy self. 

“I’m gonna yell at you when you’re better”, Soshiro huffs the next time he visits. “A daikaiju -it was a nine on the fortitude scale, y’know - decides to attack near you, and you not only choose to stay put, you run back into a collapsing building for whatever reason -” 

“I was trying to save some of the blades -” 

“How about you focus on savin’ your own damn skin -” 

You sniff, deliberately closing your eyes. “I’m going back to sleep.” 

“Oi”, he grounds out. “Stop pretendin’.” 

The reappearance of the playful banter you’re used to sharing with him puts you back at ease. “Don’t you need to sleep too?” you ask, staring pointedly at the purple smudges beneath his eyes. “In a bed, not a hospital chair that’s going to give you a crooked neck.” 

“S’fine”, he always replies. “Still way more comfortable than sleepin’ out in a forest durin’ kaiju hunts.” 

“Still”, you insist. “You don’t have to visit me so often. I know how busy you are with work.” 

He squints at you. “Do you not want me to be here?” 

“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it -”

“Sometimes work can take a backseat.” 

You beckon him forward, place a hand against his forehead. “No fever”, you pronounce. “That’s odd -  the Hoshina Soshiro I know would never say that unless his mind is addled by illness-” 

He pulls away with a splutter, cheeks a furious pink. 

But awkward moments like this remain, no matter how much you try to keep your conversations light, breezy. There’s a tension Soshiro carries, especially apparent in the broad lines of his shoulders. He’s nervy, jumpy almost, the unguarded hitch in his breath when he draws in just a little too close. There’s something he’s keeping in, deep inside his chest that keeps trying to explode out of him whenever he’s not careful. 

There’s a glimpse of that when you tell him of your plan to move back to Osaka to continue recuperating under your parents’ roof. You’ll miss your apartment where you navigated much of your young adult life, the routines you’ve built for yourself. But you’re tired of living in the hospital, sleeping on a too-hard bed, without much privacy from nurses who pop in and out of your room at odd hours at all times. Your parents agree to ferry you to check-ups and appointments, and they even got your brother to transport your plants to make you feel more at home. 

“You’re not leavin’ for good, surely”, he frowns. 

“I’m not sure”, you shrug. “Izumo Tech does have offices in Osaka, and there isn’t much tying me to Tokyo anymore. 

There’s a sudden lull in the conversation as Soshiro falls silent, face stricken. He opens his mouth as if to speak, once, twice, before shutting it deliberately,  Then his face slackens into a childish pout. 

“Don’t go”, he whines. “Who would I hang out with when I’m off-duty?” 

Caught off guard from this sudden change in mood, you refrain from pointing out that you’d each taken turns to studiously ignore the other before. “You’ll survive”, you pat his hand. “And, on the rare occasions you actually find the time away from work, you’re always welcome to visit me in Osaka.” 

“I will”, he replies, so seriously that your traitorous heart skips a beat. 

“I doubt you’ll get enough time off work”, you brush him off lightly before changing the subject. 

You don’t expect him to visit, not when Osaka is two and a half hours away from Tokyo on the shinkansen, but he turns up at the doorstep of your parents’ apartment with roses, dusty pink like the flush up his neck. 

“Hoshina-kun”, your mother exclaims. “Come on in!”

Something is up. Your mother bustles around, ushers him into your room, lays out before him an offering of cut fruit. Surprised at the tableau before you, you blink, looking up from your book. 

“Don’t you have to work?” 

“I do have days off, y’know.” He says, easing you into your wheelchair. 

“Thought you said killing kaijus isn’t a nine to five job”, you remind him pertly. 

He tweaks your nose. “Don’t be smart”, his eyes crinkle as he laughs, rolling you out of the confines of your parent’s house to a nearby park to enjoy the crisp cool autumn breeze, settling you down in the shade beneath a sprawling gingko tree. 

“Well, how’s work?” 

He considers you with a sideways glance. “I refuse to answer”, he says primly. “If I do, you’ll make use of it to accuse me of being obsessed with my job.”

“Aren’t you?” 

“This is exactly what I mean”, he throws his hands out dramatically. “Shouldn’t you just be happy I’m here -” 

“Actually”, you tease. “Isn’t the train fare really expensive? Can you afford that on your pay?” 

“The Defense Force’s generous enough to give me food, clothing and a roof over my head”, he replies drolly. “So I think my bank account can take the occasional hit.” Then, he shoots another mock glare your way. “Anyway, I don’t wanna talk about work or anything related to work.” 

“Then I guess there’s nothing else to talk about”, you tap your chin thoughtfully. 

“Idiot”, he wrinkles his nose. “We haven’t even talked about how you’re doing.” 

“Me?” 

Exaggeratedly, he takes a look around. “I don’t see anyone else I could be askin’ about -” 

“You wanna hear about my boring doctor appointments?” 

His eyes are wide, earnest. “I wanna hear about everything.” 

The sudden seriousness of his demeanour catches you off-kilter. Haltingly you tell him about the long check-ups that take hours, the doctors being optimistic about your progress, the physiotherapy sessions you’ve started. You’re slowly starting to walk again, a few steps at a time, giving you hope that you’ll be on your own two feet by the time of your brother’s wedding at the end of fall, even if you have to rely a little on crutches. 

“I’m talking too much”, you say, looking down at your lap. 

“Don’t stop”, he urges. “Keep talkin’.” 

A snort. “You’re gonna get sick of the sound of my voice”, 

“What a silly thing to say”, his gaze holds yours, steady, sure. 

There’s something impossibly soft in his eyes, a tenderness in the curve of his mouth. You don’t dare to put a name to it yet, don’t even dare to look too closely at it lest you lose yourself to daydreams that can’t possibly be true. Yet, in the purpling dusk, even though the seasons dictate that there be no summer flowers this late in the fall, there’s a bud of hope in your heart that starts to unfurl, petal by petal, twining itself between the ribs of your chest. 

(i like you)

(i’m sorry)

You remind yourself that your heart is not quite healed. Stitches remain, fleshy scars pink and raised. Ventricles working overtime to compensate for the damage he’s wrought just months prior. Mercilessly, you prune those hopes like unwanted weeds, chopping away at errant stems and leaves. 

“I’m tired”, you break away from his gaze. “Shall we call it a day?” 

He makes it difficult for you to safeguard your heart. 

Once a week, he makes the trek from Tokyo to Osaka without fail, appearing at your parents’ door with a bouquet of flowers and a bag bursting with fruit, whatever is in season - peaches and peonies, apples and chrysanthemums. Picnics when it’s sunny, cafes or supermarkets when it rains. Your mother has a sudden change of heart regarding him, always asking you when he’s coming to take you out next.  

“Seriously, don’t you have work?” you demand. “You can’t keep coming down here, it’s ridiculous.” 

“Is it?” he asks quietly. 

“It is”, you reply. “It’s a waste of your time and money.” 

With careful, calloused fingers, he tilts your chin up to meet his gaze. “What must I do to make you believe it’s really, really not.” 

You flinch, cramming your thrumming heart back into the confines of your chest. “You’re ridiculous”, you say as calmly as you can. If your leg weren’t still broken, you’d flee in the other direction, put as much distance as you can between you and Hoshina Soshiro, for fear of losing your heart again to him. 

He’s relentless, a quality that makes him an excellent swordsman and soldier, though it does not bode well for your heart. You spend the next few weeks keeping your conversations light, unsentimental, refusing to allow that unnamed emotion budding  in his eyes flourish any further, he remains undeterred. You catch him watching you sometimes, with something you don’t dare to name that bleeds into you, spreading the seeds of hope deep in your gut.  

“I’ll be back next week to see you”, he always says. “Stay safe.”

You should tell him to leave you alone, let you replant your heart in another pot, give it a chance to learn to stop looking towards him for his light. But the words choke in your throat, and it’s all you can do to look the other way. 

You don’t get any respite even at your own brother’s wedding. 

It’s too large, too crowded an occasion, your parents booking out a banquet hall in an upscale hotel to cram in their swarms of guests. As the younger sister of the groom, you’re expected to greet each and every guest, thank them for their attendance even if you’d much rather be at home, warm and snug in bed. Instead, your head threatens to split open, your hip’s on the verge of falling apart. You curse your stubbornness in insisting against bringing your wheelchair, the crutches you lean on cutting into the tender flesh of your underarms.  

“Did anyone tell you that you look beautiful tonight?” 

As it was in your dreams, he’s in a haori, deep blue with golden thread, but this time he looks right at you. Your mouth goes dry and you can’t seem to swallow your heart back down your throat. 

“Save your flirting for my cousins”, you retort, turning away. “They’re all aflutter at meeting you tonight.” 

He doesn’t let you flee. An arm loops around your waist, sears through the silk layers of your kimono and smoulders. “You’re cranky cos you’re tired, so let me help you.” 

You blame your capitulation on the absence of your wheelchair, not because you’re light headed from the sudden surge of helpless affection in your gut, as much as you refuse to allow yourself to believe his words. You let him steer you into your seat, palm flat against your back, heat suffusing into your skin. 

“I’ll be here if you need me”, he says simply. 

You don’t need him, you want to say, you can’t, but your mouth can’t seem to form the words when he leans in, tucks a stray strand of hair behind the shell of your ear, his touch feather light. 

“Vice Captain Hoshina!?” As you foresaw, a gaggle of younger cousins goggle at him, drag him away for selfies and autographs. You don’t get a chance to speak with him again once the wedding starts, the seating plan placing him with his parents and other business associates of your parents, a few tables away.  

The sheer scale and grandeur of your brother’s wedding isn’t what you’d have chosen for yourself, the cavernous ballroom feeling too large and impersonal, speeches dragging on for too long, but your brother and your new sister seem to radiate contentment, though you suspect the champagne toasts might have helped. 

As the sister of the groom, you’re the target of your older aunts’ inquiry as to ‘when it’s your turn next’, never mind that you burrow into your seat, trying to disappear from sight, and when that fails miserably, try to divert their attention to anything, anyone but yourself. If you had full use of your legs, you’d make a hasty retreat by now, but you’re so painfully slow on your crutches that you’re sure even the oldest grandma questioning you on your dating status (or lack thereof) would be able to catch up with you. 

“Ladies”, a smooth voice cuts in. “How are you all doin’ tonight?” 

A boyish smile with a cheeky snaggletooth works wonders on elderly ladies, you learn. It gives you the chance to slip away to the bathroom, splash water on your face, shackle your heart back in place. 

This brief reprieve doesn’t last long. Soshiro emerges from the shadows, pushing off the wall to pad quietly behind you. 

“What are you doing here?” you demand. “You should be back inside -” 

“I’m here to make sure you’re safe”, he replies. “Unless you don’t want me to make sure you don’t fall and crack your pretty head open?”  

“Stop it”, you say crossly, your crutches clacking loudly on the floor as you speed up, trying to put some distance between you two. “You’re giving everyone the wrong impression.” 

He follows right on your heels. “Perhaps I’m givin’ the right impression -” 

“Just  - just stop, Soshiro.” 

You burst through glass doors to push your way onto the open rooftop in the hope that the nighttime air will cool the heat rising in your cheeks, but you miss your step, crutches sliding on marble tiles and oof - 

Warm arms wrap tightly around you. You tell yourself it’s the shock of your almost-fall that makes you sag against a broad, lean chest, compliantly allowing Soshiro to tuck your face into his shoulders, settle an arm beneath your thighs, carrying you over onto a seat. A thick, rich fabric rests on your shoulders - his haori, you realise, the warmth from his body seeping into your skin. 

“Are you hurt?” he drops to one knee in front of you. 

The intensity of his gaze flays your chest open, exposing your beating heart, its stitches frayed. The spectre of the girl with sad eyes haunts you, leaving you terrified that you’ll suffer the same fate as her in this lifetime too. 

“I need you to stop”, you shove him back, a trapped animal brandishing its claws. “I want you to leave me alone. I don’t want your pity -” 

“Pity?!” he falls back on his haunches, gaping at you, incredulous. “Is that what you think it is?” 

“What else could it be?” you demand wetly, eyes stinging. “Nevermind, I changed my mind, I don’t want to know -” 

“Haven’t I made it obvious these past few months?” he asks, and you shake your head stubbornly, no. “What I feel for you - I’ve been goin’ crazy from the moment they told me a buildin’ fell on your head, so fuckin’ terrified I was goin’ to lose you just as I realised how stupid I’ve been -” 

Your head swims. “I don’t -” 

“I’ve loved you since I was eight. I just didn’t realise it til I nearly lost you.” 

You push aside the clouds of anger and fear blurring your vision. You see Hoshina Soshiro kneeling before you, slicing his chest open with your blade to reveal his heart, pressing it bloodied and beating into your waiting hands. 

In this lifetime, in this moment, he is yours and you are his.  

There is no guarantee that this will remain. Duty will always call upon him, and he will answer without fail. That is his destiny, as much as he is yours. Realisation crashes into you, relentless waves pulling you underwater. You will have to share him with the rest of Japan, possibly the world. This too shall end, be it tomorrow or years down the road if fate smiles down on you both. 

But even if his heart belongs to you for no more than a day, it’s enough. It’s all you’ve ever wanted. 

“You love me.” 

“Yeah”, he murmurs, moving so impossibly close that you see the violets in the depths of his eyes in full bloom. “And I kinda think you love me too.” 

Instead of answering, you tug him towards you, tangle your fingers in dark hair, let your lips press against the seam of his lips. He doesn’t give you the chance to breathe, arm curling around your waist, his hand cupping your face so he can tilt your chin up to pour himself into you. You drink him in, greedy to take what you can get, mouth open against his, lost to the raging current of want, of love that pulls you beneath the waves. 

“I think I do”, you say softly.  

Hoshina Soshiro smiles at you, wider and brighter than the moon. 

a/n: i hope this chapter soothes the anxiety from last week heh :>

squeal at me pls! muacks always <3

[amjustagirl]

chapter 4

pairing: hoshina soshiro x f! reader

genre: romance, angst

wc: 5k

summary: you've loved soshiro since you were seven. he will always place his duty above you.

chapt 1 / chapt 2 / chapt 3 / chapt 4 / chapt 5

When you blink open your eyes, you find yourself back in the Hoshina family estate. 

The garden is exactly as you remember it. Bonsai trees, neatly manicured. The white gravel ocean raked with ripple lines. Heat shimmers off the ground, harsh summer sun bearing down on the tiled roof. A young man with dark hair and sad, violet eyes sits across you. 

“Soshiro”, you cry, fumbling to your feet. 

He looks right through you even when you’re standing right before him. 

He’s wearing the navy hakama he reserves for formal occasions, the family crest embroidered in gold thread on the back, a ceremonial katana strapped to his hip. Something’s about to happen, you realise, the compound bustling with servants carrying paper lanterns. No one pays you any notice as you float behind him down the familiar corridors of the house, a ghost. 

His father approaches, severe lines running through his forehead. “You know your duty”, he claps his son’s shoulder with a heavy hand. 

Soshiro’s shoulders slump, an invisible weight bearing down on him. 

His duty awaits outside the estate’s gates. 

A young woman, clearly noble born, waits for them to greet her with her chin in the air, dolled up in matrimonial white, surrounded by a retinue of servants. She tilts her chin higher to assess her groom as he offers her his arm before bowing her head demurely, letting him help her up the stairs. 

The sun in your eyes forces you to turn away. Another woman catches your gaze, the profile of her face backlit in the blue-grey dusk. Rough hands, a cheap, cotton yukata, she hides in the shade. Her anguish is apparent in the defeated curve of her mouth. 

She’s you, you realise, with even sadder eyes. 

This is a dream, you tell yourself. A shitty, crappy excuse of a dream that you probably caused by drinking one too many cans of beer. You really should take better to maintain a healthy REM cycle, maybe pick up some meditation or exercise, because heaven knows your psyche will suffer if your subconsciousness decides to torture you in your sleep too.  

You close your eyes. 

You still don’t find yourself back in your bed. Instead, the stench of manure hits you, then the scratch of straw under your feet. That sad girl - you, in another life perhaps, kneels before the same dark haired boy, Soshiro, still as a statue.  

“The horse is saddled. We can ride somewhere, far away where no one knows either of our names, leave all of this behind. You don’t have to get married to a woman you don’t love -” 

He’s carved of marble in the moonlight, doesn’t move to meet her gaze, not even when she tugs at his sleeve. “I am but a second son, but even I know my duty to my clan.” 

“And what about love?” she asks. “What about me?” 

Neither of them notice you when you tumble out of the stable into the night. But there’s nothing but darkness looming before you, the moon nowhere to be seen, and when you turn back, the stable has disappeared. In its place, a familiar, wooden hut, where a fire grows. The heat of the forge stings your face, ash flying, the smell of burning steel in the air. 

This time, Soshiro’s in the lacquered leather of a samurai warrior from centuries past. “Is it ready?” he directs his question at the woman in the forge. 

Wordlessly, she hands him the sword in her hand, red hot from hammer and tongs. He weighs it in his hand, swings it once, twice, flashing quicksilver in the dim light of the blacksmith’s forge. You recognise the blade. You’ve seen it hung up in one of many sitting rooms in the Hoshina estate, captioned as belonging to a Hoshina ancestor who never returned home. 

You understand why her voice quivers when she calls out to him before he leaves. “My lord”, she says. “Will you ever lay down your sword?” 

“Perhaps in another life”, he replies. 

In the shadow of the forge, the violets in his eyes wither and die. 

You cannot bear to watch this play out before you again and again, a twisted loop you’re powerless to stop. There is nothing you can do to shock yourself awake, a ghost in every lifetime you freefall through, so bone weary, you stop running, sink to your knees. Wherever you are, the nightmares stop once you close your eyes. The damp grass is cool against your back, the darkness becomes soothing. It’s easy to lose yourself to a deep, undisturbed sleep. 

(wake up) 

The thrum of your heartbeat starts to still. You think you hear a faint echo. It sounds like Soshiro.

For the first time in your life, you hesitate to answer. 

(please, wake up)

“But it’s comfortable here”, you say to no one at all. “I’m so tired.” 

The neverending grind of work, of long hours spent hunched over glowering flames and complicated weapon blueprints. The dull ache of heartbreak, the painful lesson of learning to be okay alone. 

“Let me sleep”, you whisper. 

The darkness holds you close, blankets you. It’s too easy to let yourself just be, no one to disappoint, no one who disappoints. You let yourself be pulled beneath the tide, the endless ebb and flow lulling you into a dreamless slumber. 

Perhaps you could be content like this. 

Perhaps not. You think of the menagerie of plants you’ve gathered, they depend on you for food and water. There’s a pottery class on Sunday that you’ve been excited to attend, an abstract pot that you want to attempt. You’re supposed to meet your mother for tea, you’re looking forward to feasting on peaches, in season in the dying weeks of summer. 

Your eyelids are still heavy with the weight of sleep, but you force them open. A streak of pain that shoots through your right side, but you slowly sit up anyway. A sea of hydrangeas,  shimmering violet-blue in the early morning light stretches before you.

An achingly familiar voice calls your name. You lift your face to meet the rising sun, feeling its warmth flicker through you. 

Your heart begins to hum. 

You’re not in your own bed when you crack your eyes open. 

The room is too white, too pin-neat. There are clear tubes running from your arms, bandages restricting even your slightest movement, not that you really can do much other than shift about the too-narrow bed you’ve found yourself in, the sudden brightness disorienting you. 

“Oh!”, an unfamiliar voice exclaims. “Call the doctor, she’s awake!” 

Your head threatens to split open. It hurts too much to stay awake. 

You fall back into a dreamless sleep.

You drift in and out of consciousness after that, the pull of sleep still irresistible, but you stay awake for longer periods of time. Doctors poke and prod at you, nurses fuss over you. It’s hard to recall any conversations you have during this time, your memories melding almost into your dreams. 

People ask you questions about your name, your age, where you’re from. It feels as if you’re stuck underwater, it’s a struggle to gasp for enough air at times to answer them, but you think you find enough brain cells to rub together in the cotton wool jumble in your head, mumble the right answers so they go away. 

Your parents show up to visit you. 

‘’Llo”, you mutter. Your father looks strangely old, your mother tired. 

You’re pleased that your mother brings chopped peaches for you, less so when you realise you have no ability to swallow solid food just yet. They disappear for a hushed conversation with the doctors, leaving you with little distraction so you drop back off to sleep. 

The next time you wake, the room is dark. 

Even in the dim glow of machines beeping, you make out the faint outline of a boy you know too well, curled up uncomfortably in a plastic chair. “S‘ro”, you mumble, half asleep. 

A flurry of movement. He appears by your uninjured side, staring at you wide-eyed, as if he doesn’t believe you won’t disappear. You wonder if he’s another figment of your dreams because he stands so still drinking his fill of you, until he remembers to breathe again. 

“Hey”, he says hoarsely.

“Mmph”, you grunt. In your vague, rambling train of thoughts, you register surprise that he’s even here. “S’ work?”

His laugh is wet. “Are you seriously askin’ me ‘how’s work’ right now?” 

You frown. Why - why is Soshiro even here? 

“I’m here for you, silly”, a warm hand settles on your left arm. “Go back to sleep. I’ll seeya later.” 

You start to stay awake for longer stretches at a time. 

Your parents gently fill you in on your situation. You were touch and go for a while, your mother recounts tearfully, your head injury making the doctors doubt you’d ever wake. You had to be cut open to stop internal bleeding in your gut, fix a multitude of shattered bones in your right hip and leg. Burns, on your shoulder and arm which required skin grafts, extensive medication to keep infection at bay. 

Everyone treats you like you’re made out of glass even as your condition steadily improves, aided by the wonders of kaiju regenerative technology. Your parents fuss over you like a child, tucking you in too tight beneath starched hospital sheets. The nurses refuse to let you shower, only allowing you sponge baths which you detest. 

Soshiro’s the worst of the lot. 

At first it's endearing how protective and sweet he is. The doctors give him a wide berth, most of the nurses terrified of him, though he swears that he’s been utterly polite when you question him about it. He doesn’t allow you to do anything yourself, not even hold your own cup of water when you drink. Your bedside is overflowing with colourful greeting cards, half of them signed by him, and he brings you a fresh bouquet of flowers during each visit. 

“That boy is besotted with you”, one of the nurses who isn’t intimidated by Soshiro trills in with her unsolicited opinion. “It’s adorable.” 

He’s not”, you deny, frowning. “We’re just friends.”  

It’s a little too much. The only visitor who doesn’t smother you is Sochiro, who snaps back to his usual self the minute you show a little of your usual snark. “Did you break your head too?” you ask, when he arrives bearing a hamper of fruit. 

“Impertinent brat”, he snaps back. “I’ll have you know my father put me up to this.” 

You grin. “I suppose that’s where your brother got his manners from. Pity you don’t have any.”

He glowers at you, but doesn’t storm out of the room. Instead, he brandishes a small, silver knife and starts peeling fruit. “I never wanted a younger sibling”, he grouses. “Should’ve dropped Soshiro in the drain the minute he was born, then I’d never have to deal with your smart mouth -.” 

“Aww”, you coo. “Hoshina Sochiro, Captain of the Sixth Division, getting soft in your old age.” 

“Shut it”, he snaps, while stuffing perfect wedges of fruit into your palm. 

It reminds you of the easy friendship you had with Soshiro, not the way he’s behaving, almost as if he feels anything more than friendship for you - which he’s confirmed to your face that he mostly does not. It confuses you, the tender way he treats you, the lingering stares when he thinks you’re asleep, and you much prefer him to go back to the way he was before. 

“Stop it!” you finally burst, when his smothering becomes too overwhelming. “Treat me like your friend - not like I’m some glass figurine you’re trying to keep safe.”

A plastic chair screeches back. He stares at you. “Do you even realise how close you were to dyin’?” 

“Sorta”, you reply, though some gaps remain empty in your memories, “but I’m okay now, and ‘sides, what happened was just bad luck -”

“No it wasn’t just luck”, he replies. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Something shutters behind his eyes. “It’s my fault you’re hurt.” He angles himself away from you. “I crashed into your building.” 

“The kaiju threw you into the building”, you correct. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He lunges forward to grip your bed rail, his sudden intensity scaring you. “I could’ve been the cause of you dyin’-”

“My head’s pretty hard”, you try to diffuse the building tension with a joke. “Would take more than a fallin’ building to kill me.”

He makes a strangled sound of outrage in his throat. “Don’t. Just - don’t.” 

His tone is devoid of its usual lightness. He’s - he’s angry, scared, face twisting into a scowl, body coiling, as if preparing for an attack. “You’re upset”, you murmur. “Don’t be.” 

“You could’ve died.”

“Hey”, you beckon him forward, lifting your uninjured hand off the bed to place it on top of his. He grasps at it, a drowning man clutching at a lifeline. 

“It’s okay”, you say gently. “I’m okay.” 

“Promise me you’ll stay safe.”

“I’ll try my best”, you offer. 

An angry sound escapes through his clenched jaw, his face strained. You brush the skin of his wrist with your thumb until the too-quick staccato of his pulse steadies. 

“Go to sleep”, he finally says. “Just stay safe.” 

After that, something shifts. Soshiro resumes the mantle of his chaotic, goofy self. 

“I’m gonna yell at you when you’re better”, Soshiro huffs the next time he visits. “A daikaiju -it was a nine on the fortitude scale, y’know - decides to attack near you, and you not only choose to stay put, you run back into a collapsing building for whatever reason -” 

“I was trying to save some of the blades -” 

“How about you focus on savin’ your own damn skin -” 

You sniff, deliberately closing your eyes. “I’m going back to sleep.” 

“Oi”, he grounds out. “Stop pretendin’.” 

The reappearance of the playful banter you’re used to sharing with him puts you back at ease. “Don’t you need to sleep too?” you ask, staring pointedly at the purple smudges beneath his eyes. “In a bed, not a hospital chair that’s going to give you a crooked neck.” 

“S’fine”, he always replies. “Still way more comfortable than sleepin’ out in a forest durin’ kaiju hunts.” 

“Still”, you insist. “You don’t have to visit me so often. I know how busy you are with work.” 

He squints at you. “Do you not want me to be here?” 

“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it -”

“Sometimes work can take a backseat.” 

You beckon him forward, place a hand against his forehead. “No fever”, you pronounce. “That’s odd -  the Hoshina Soshiro I know would never say that unless his mind is addled by illness-” 

He pulls away with a splutter, cheeks a furious pink. 

But awkward moments like this remain, no matter how much you try to keep your conversations light, breezy. There’s a tension Soshiro carries, especially apparent in the broad lines of his shoulders. He’s nervy, jumpy almost, the unguarded hitch in his breath when he draws in just a little too close. There’s something he’s keeping in, deep inside his chest that keeps trying to explode out of him whenever he’s not careful. 

There’s a glimpse of that when you tell him of your plan to move back to Osaka to continue recuperating under your parents’ roof. You’ll miss your apartment where you navigated much of your young adult life, the routines you’ve built for yourself. But you’re tired of living in the hospital, sleeping on a too-hard bed, without much privacy from nurses who pop in and out of your room at odd hours at all times. Your parents agree to ferry you to check-ups and appointments, and they even got your brother to transport your plants to make you feel more at home. 

“You’re not leavin’ for good, surely”, he frowns. 

“I’m not sure”, you shrug. “Izumo Tech does have offices in Osaka, and there isn’t much tying me to Tokyo anymore. 

There’s a sudden lull in the conversation as Soshiro falls silent, face stricken. He opens his mouth as if to speak, once, twice, before shutting it deliberately,  Then his face slackens into a childish pout. 

“Don’t go”, he whines. “Who would I hang out with when I’m off-duty?” 

Caught off guard from this sudden change in mood, you refrain from pointing out that you’d each taken turns to studiously ignore the other before. “You’ll survive”, you pat his hand. “And, on the rare occasions you actually find the time away from work, you’re always welcome to visit me in Osaka.” 

“I will”, he replies, so seriously that your traitorous heart skips a beat. 

“I doubt you’ll get enough time off work”, you brush him off lightly before changing the subject. 

You don’t expect him to visit, not when Osaka is two and a half hours away from Tokyo on the shinkansen, but he turns up at the doorstep of your parents’ apartment with roses, dusty pink like the flush up his neck. 

“Hoshina-kun”, your mother exclaims. “Come on in!”

Something is up. Your mother bustles around, ushers him into your room, lays out before him an offering of cut fruit. Surprised at the tableau before you, you blink, looking up from your book. 

“Don’t you have to work?” 

“I do have days off, y’know.” He says, easing you into your wheelchair. 

“Thought you said killing kaijus isn’t a nine to five job”, you remind him pertly. 

He tweaks your nose. “Don’t be smart”, his eyes crinkle as he laughs, rolling you out of the confines of your parent’s house to a nearby park to enjoy the crisp cool autumn breeze, settling you down in the shade beneath a sprawling gingko tree. 

“Well, how’s work?” 

He considers you with a sideways glance. “I refuse to answer”, he says primly. “If I do, you’ll make use of it to accuse me of being obsessed with my job.”

“Aren’t you?” 

“This is exactly what I mean”, he throws his hands out dramatically. “Shouldn’t you just be happy I’m here -” 

“Actually”, you tease. “Isn’t the train fare really expensive? Can you afford that on your pay?” 

“The Defense Force’s generous enough to give me food, clothing and a roof over my head”, he replies drolly. “So I think my bank account can take the occasional hit.” Then, he shoots another mock glare your way. “Anyway, I don’t wanna talk about work or anything related to work.” 

“Then I guess there’s nothing else to talk about”, you tap your chin thoughtfully. 

“Idiot”, he wrinkles his nose. “We haven’t even talked about how you’re doing.” 

“Me?” 

Exaggeratedly, he takes a look around. “I don’t see anyone else I could be askin’ about -” 

“You wanna hear about my boring doctor appointments?” 

His eyes are wide, earnest. “I wanna hear about everything.” 

The sudden seriousness of his demeanour catches you off-kilter. Haltingly you tell him about the long check-ups that take hours, the doctors being optimistic about your progress, the physiotherapy sessions you’ve started. You’re slowly starting to walk again, a few steps at a time, giving you hope that you’ll be on your own two feet by the time of your brother’s wedding at the end of fall, even if you have to rely a little on crutches. 

“I’m talking too much”, you say, looking down at your lap. 

“Don’t stop”, he urges. “Keep talkin’.” 

A snort. “You’re gonna get sick of the sound of my voice”, 

“What a silly thing to say”, his gaze holds yours, steady, sure. 

There’s something impossibly soft in his eyes, a tenderness in the curve of his mouth. You don’t dare to put a name to it yet, don’t even dare to look too closely at it lest you lose yourself to daydreams that can’t possibly be true. Yet, in the purpling dusk, even though the seasons dictate that there be no summer flowers this late in the fall, there’s a bud of hope in your heart that starts to unfurl, petal by petal, twining itself between the ribs of your chest. 

(i like you)

(i’m sorry)

You remind yourself that your heart is not quite healed. Stitches remain, fleshy scars pink and raised. Ventricles working overtime to compensate for the damage he’s wrought just months prior. Mercilessly, you prune those hopes like unwanted weeds, chopping away at errant stems and leaves. 

“I’m tired”, you break away from his gaze. “Shall we call it a day?” 

He makes it difficult for you to safeguard your heart. 

Once a week, he makes the trek from Tokyo to Osaka without fail, appearing at your parents’ door with a bouquet of flowers and a bag bursting with fruit, whatever is in season - peaches and peonies, apples and chrysanthemums. Picnics when it’s sunny, cafes or supermarkets when it rains. Your mother has a sudden change of heart regarding him, always asking you when he’s coming to take you out next.  

“Seriously, don’t you have work?” you demand. “You can’t keep coming down here, it’s ridiculous.” 

“Is it?” he asks quietly. 

“It is”, you reply. “It’s a waste of your time and money.” 

With careful, calloused fingers, he tilts your chin up to meet his gaze. “What must I do to make you believe it’s really, really not.” 

You flinch, cramming your thrumming heart back into the confines of your chest. “You’re ridiculous”, you say as calmly as you can. If your leg weren’t still broken, you’d flee in the other direction, put as much distance as you can between you and Hoshina Soshiro, for fear of losing your heart again to him. 

He’s relentless, a quality that makes him an excellent swordsman and soldier, though it does not bode well for your heart. You spend the next few weeks keeping your conversations light, unsentimental, refusing to allow that unnamed emotion budding  in his eyes flourish any further, he remains undeterred. You catch him watching you sometimes, with something you don’t dare to name that bleeds into you, spreading the seeds of hope deep in your gut.  

“I’ll be back next week to see you”, he always says. “Stay safe.”

You should tell him to leave you alone, let you replant your heart in another pot, give it a chance to learn to stop looking towards him for his light. But the words choke in your throat, and it’s all you can do to look the other way. 

You don’t get any respite even at your own brother’s wedding. 

It’s too large, too crowded an occasion, your parents booking out a banquet hall in an upscale hotel to cram in their swarms of guests. As the younger sister of the groom, you’re expected to greet each and every guest, thank them for their attendance even if you’d much rather be at home, warm and snug in bed. Instead, your head threatens to split open, your hip’s on the verge of falling apart. You curse your stubbornness in insisting against bringing your wheelchair, the crutches you lean on cutting into the tender flesh of your underarms.  

“Did anyone tell you that you look beautiful tonight?” 

As it was in your dreams, he’s in a haori, deep blue with golden thread, but this time he looks right at you. Your mouth goes dry and you can’t seem to swallow your heart back down your throat. 

“Save your flirting for my cousins”, you retort, turning away. “They’re all aflutter at meeting you tonight.” 

He doesn’t let you flee. An arm loops around your waist, sears through the silk layers of your kimono and smoulders. “You’re cranky cos you’re tired, so let me help you.” 

You blame your capitulation on the absence of your wheelchair, not because you’re light headed from the sudden surge of helpless affection in your gut, as much as you refuse to allow yourself to believe his words. You let him steer you into your seat, palm flat against your back, heat suffusing into your skin. 

“I’ll be here if you need me”, he says simply. 

You don’t need him, you want to say, you can’t, but your mouth can’t seem to form the words when he leans in, tucks a stray strand of hair behind the shell of your ear, his touch feather light. 

“Vice Captain Hoshina!?” As you foresaw, a gaggle of younger cousins goggle at him, drag him away for selfies and autographs. You don’t get a chance to speak with him again once the wedding starts, the seating plan placing him with his parents and other business associates of your parents, a few tables away.  

The sheer scale and grandeur of your brother’s wedding isn’t what you’d have chosen for yourself, the cavernous ballroom feeling too large and impersonal, speeches dragging on for too long, but your brother and your new sister seem to radiate contentment, though you suspect the champagne toasts might have helped. 

As the sister of the groom, you’re the target of your older aunts’ inquiry as to ‘when it’s your turn next’, never mind that you burrow into your seat, trying to disappear from sight, and when that fails miserably, try to divert their attention to anything, anyone but yourself. If you had full use of your legs, you’d make a hasty retreat by now, but you’re so painfully slow on your crutches that you’re sure even the oldest grandma questioning you on your dating status (or lack thereof) would be able to catch up with you. 

“Ladies”, a smooth voice cuts in. “How are you all doin’ tonight?” 

A boyish smile with a cheeky snaggletooth works wonders on elderly ladies, you learn. It gives you the chance to slip away to the bathroom, splash water on your face, shackle your heart back in place. 

This brief reprieve doesn’t last long. Soshiro emerges from the shadows, pushing off the wall to pad quietly behind you. 

“What are you doing here?” you demand. “You should be back inside -” 

“I’m here to make sure you’re safe”, he replies. “Unless you don’t want me to make sure you don’t fall and crack your pretty head open?”  

“Stop it”, you say crossly, your crutches clacking loudly on the floor as you speed up, trying to put some distance between you two. “You’re giving everyone the wrong impression.” 

He follows right on your heels. “Perhaps I’m givin’ the right impression -” 

“Just  - just stop, Soshiro.” 

You burst through glass doors to push your way onto the open rooftop in the hope that the nighttime air will cool the heat rising in your cheeks, but you miss your step, crutches sliding on marble tiles and oof - 

Warm arms wrap tightly around you. You tell yourself it’s the shock of your almost-fall that makes you sag against a broad, lean chest, compliantly allowing Soshiro to tuck your face into his shoulders, settle an arm beneath your thighs, carrying you over onto a seat. A thick, rich fabric rests on your shoulders - his haori, you realise, the warmth from his body seeping into your skin. 

“Are you hurt?” he drops to one knee in front of you. 

The intensity of his gaze flays your chest open, exposing your beating heart, its stitches frayed. The spectre of the girl with sad eyes haunts you, leaving you terrified that you’ll suffer the same fate as her in this lifetime too. 

“I need you to stop”, you shove him back, a trapped animal brandishing its claws. “I want you to leave me alone. I don’t want your pity -” 

“Pity?!” he falls back on his haunches, gaping at you, incredulous. “Is that what you think it is?” 

“What else could it be?” you demand wetly, eyes stinging. “Nevermind, I changed my mind, I don’t want to know -” 

“Haven’t I made it obvious these past few months?” he asks, and you shake your head stubbornly, no. “What I feel for you - I’ve been goin’ crazy from the moment they told me a buildin’ fell on your head, so fuckin’ terrified I was goin’ to lose you just as I realised how stupid I’ve been -” 

Your head swims. “I don’t -” 

“I’ve loved you since I was eight. I just didn’t realise it til I nearly lost you.” 

You push aside the clouds of anger and fear blurring your vision. You see Hoshina Soshiro kneeling before you, slicing his chest open with your blade to reveal his heart, pressing it bloodied and beating into your waiting hands. 

In this lifetime, in this moment, he is yours and you are his.  

There is no guarantee that this will remain. Duty will always call upon him, and he will answer without fail. That is his destiny, as much as he is yours. Realisation crashes into you, relentless waves pulling you underwater. You will have to share him with the rest of Japan, possibly the world. This too shall end, be it tomorrow or years down the road if fate smiles down on you both. 

But even if his heart belongs to you for no more than a day, it’s enough. It’s all you’ve ever wanted. 

“You love me.” 

“Yeah”, he murmurs, moving so impossibly close that you see the violets in the depths of his eyes in full bloom. “And I kinda think you love me too.” 

Instead of answering, you tug him towards you, tangle your fingers in dark hair, let your lips press against the seam of his lips. He doesn’t give you the chance to breathe, arm curling around your waist, his hand cupping your face so he can tilt your chin up to pour himself into you. You drink him in, greedy to take what you can get, mouth open against his, lost to the raging current of want, of love that pulls you beneath the waves. 

“I think I do”, you say softly.  

Hoshina Soshiro smiles at you, wider and brighter than the moon. 

a/n: i hope this chapter soothes the anxiety from last week heh :>

squeal at me pls! muacks always <3

[amjustagirl]

I always get this grand idea that I will read your fics when all the parts are out so I don’t have to deal with cliffhangers… and yet every single time, I see people squealing about each part and I can’t help myself and then I HAVE TO WAIT IN AGONY. I thought I was safe this time because so many of the chapters were already out and I figured the next one would be out soon but I did not anticipate it would be a CLIFFHANGER. Girl you really make us work for each bit but damn is it worth it! 😂❤️

hoho well...

i think you'll be happy with the chapter i'm about to post then.