I can see Sanzu being the type person for Mikey and reader. Like their own personal therapist but he gives no actual advice they just rant and solve the problem themselves but Sanzu knows everything and I mean everything, maybe a little to much and he can’t say anything about it. 🫠 And the others don’t ask what Mikey talks to Sanzu about because of the emotionless look in his eyes when he comes out of the office. 😭
"Therapist Sanzu (but Like, Not Really)" — Sanzu + Mikey x fem!reader
The Bonten headquarters had one unspoken rule:
Never. Ask. What Mikey and Sanzu talk about behind closed doors.
Especially when Mikey walked out of Sanzu’s office with that dead stare like he’d just faced a spiritual death and rebirth.
The first time it happened, Ran opened his mouth to ask—
“Don’t,” Rindou whispered, gripping his arm. “Just… don’t.”
Inside the Office, Earlier That Day
You were pacing the room like a storm. Mikey sat on the couch, arms folded.
Sanzu?
He sat cross-legged in his chair like a feral little pink-haired goblin, eating sour candy and staring blankly at the wall.
“I cannot believe he said that to me,” you snapped. “It’s not that hard to say ‘I’m sorry’ when you’re being a total jackass.”
Mikey side-eyed you, unimpressed. “I said I was sorry in my head.”
“You mumbled it into your ramen, Manjiro!”
Sanzu blinked. “...Did you at least finish the ramen?”
“Sanzu.” you both said in unison.
He shrugged, tossing another candy in his mouth.
You kept pacing. “We haven’t had a real date in weeks. We could’ve gone out, but instead we sat in silence and he watched some weird documentary about serial killers.”
Mikey muttered, “It was about brain chemistry.”
“Of murderers!”
Sanzu nodded thoughtfully, eyes still glazed. “That’s... kinda romantic. In a morbid way.”
“Stop helping,” you snapped.
But still—you ranted.
Mikey sulked.
Sanzu just sat there, absorbing it all like a therapy sponge from hell.
Eventually, after like 40 minutes of tension and passive-aggressive glares, Mikey spoke.
“You looked cute when you were mad though.”
You paused. “…You noticed?”
He blinked slowly. “You had that little crease between your eyebrows. I like it.”
You stared at him. “...You’re the worst. But also, ugh—fine.”
You flopped down beside him, and Mikey reached out, brushing your hand with his.
Truce.
Sanzu, still munching his candy, whispered to himself, “Therapy achieved.”
Later, in the hallway—
Mikey walked out of Sanzu’s office first, that signature deadpan look back in place.
Rindou glanced up from his phone. “Yo. You good?”
Mikey just stared. Didn’t say a word.
Sanzu walked out right after, sipping something aggressively pink from a juice box.
Ran leaned against the wall. “What even happens in there, man?”
Sanzu looked at them. Smiled wide.
“Wouldn’t you like to know~”
And vanished back into the chaos like a gremlin with every secret in the world.
Because Sanzu knows everything.
He knows Mikey’s softest thoughts.
He knows what you mutter when you think no one’s listening.
He knows how many times Mikey’s replayed your voice in his head instead of falling into the dark.
But say something about it?
Never.
He just watches the drama unfold like a psychic raccoon with a PhD in chaos.
Warnings: male reader, Elle woods reader but morally bankrupt, polyfic, reader is lowkey ace coded
Notes:
Summary: bontens lawyer is terrifying as he is pink
🌜🌛🌜🌛🌜🌛🌜🌛🌜🌛🌜🌛🌜🌛🌜🌛🌜🌛
When people thought of Bontens lawyer a few things came to mind.
Intimidating.
Mean.
Cut throat.
Not
Glittery
Pink
And undeniably peppy.
"Hello gentlemen! Oh my gosh Ran did you follow my advice! I told you that you could totes rock that color!" (Name) said as the smell of expensive perfume filled the room "Mikey your hair cut looks adorbs! You know I saw a friend of mine with a similar cut but they didn't have your bone structure--" (name) (last name) was the pink peppy lawyer of Bonten and Bonten was honestly....
Terrified of him.
Well not in the way you think.
He was happy and fun loving but in the court room?
He was a fucking terror in pink.
"So, why did ya call me here? I know it isn't for a shopping trip" (name) was dressed head to toe pastel pink and styled perfectly, his clothes the highest quality.
"We need you to do something"
"What?" (Name) asked curiously with a smile "do you need me to get you guys out of a pesky situation with a cop again?"
"No (name), we actually need you to help a few of us get ready for an event" Kakucho said, three out of eight Bonten members knew how to dress but the rest...
Well everyone seen how Mikey and Takeomi dress!
"Omg, you guys are asking for what I think you're asking" (name) said giddily and Kakucho knew they were in for a ride "when do we go?" He asked practically bouncing in his seat "tomorrow, it's for a gala" Sanzu said unsure how to react to him.
"I'll be here at eight!"
(Name) came as promised, in his pink Mercedes and a happy wave as a small dog lay in the passenger seat "hey boys! Whose ready for shopping!" (Name) said taking off his sunglasses with a show stopper smile.
"Oooo boba! You guys thirsty? I'm parched" (name) held Mikey's hand so he didn't get lost as Takeomi, Kakucho, Mochi and Sanzu followed with them "here Mikey, this is a strawberry one!" (Name) handed Mikey the pink Boba drink and and ordered for the rest, getting the flavors spot on "now let's get shopping we don't have much time!"
The men went to stores (name) loved "ok so I want to see where you guys are at comfort, thoughts on---""no pink"
"I'm fine with pink" Sanzu said simply as he was wearing pink "ok I can work with this, how about you guys find an outfit and we can work from there!"
(Name) didn't know how he managed it.
"Mikey, this isn't a flip flop event..." (Name) said looking at Mikey's pick, none of their picks were that good but (name) could fix this "but we can totes get those for your day to day!"
(Name) never shot down their ideas finding ways to incorporate their picks in some way if it be a tie or cufflinks.
"Ok so Mikey, you really work grey tones..."
One of the attendants watched on and grinned "hi! I see you gentlemen are looking for a suit... This one just came in" the attendant said with a grin and (name) inspected the suit "is this a cotton silk blend suit with cashmere lining? And a back stitch for the interlining stitches?"
"Of course!" The attendant lied through their teeth "well... With cashmere you need to do a zigzag stitch and that's clearly cheap wool... The fabric is a polyester cotton blend and I saw that on the rack four weeks ago... Try again" (name) said forward and cut throat as the attendant walked away awkwardly.
"Oh! This is cute! Sanzu try this" (name) handed him the clothes and continued looking for the others "'omi you would rock navy... Oh!"
(Name) found them each an outfit and sat in the waiting area all prim and proper.
"Hey handsome ~" a voice said smoothly and a guy in an expensive suit sat beside him "what's a pretty thing like you doing here?"
"Not interested" the smell of the man's cologne was rancid to (name)s nose, cheap quality and way too much for any normal person to take "come on baby... Don't be like that" he said reaching and groping his hip.
The men came from the change rooms to see (name) tazing the guy and beating the shit out of him dressed like a barbie doll.
"What happened?" Mochi asked with a raised eyebrow as (name) fixed his outfit and looked at them "oh you guys are totally fabulous! You'll get all the ladies-- or gentlemen" (name) didn't judge peoples pretences as he tasted from different wines himself "now let's get shoes!"
(Name) wanted to cry in joy as they were dressed nicely "the suits also have inner pockets, Mikey if you put your snacks in a ziplock bag it will keep the suit crumb free" that wasn't a recommendation and they knew it as they paid for the clothes and went to a perfume store to get them nice scents "Kaku you would rock Gucci gardenia!" (Name) took a sample and let him smell it "nice right!"
"This is perfume..."
"Smells have no gender, you work a musk yes but let's expand!"
And get rid of that gross Cologne he always wore.
"Isn't that right (dogs name)!" (Name) held his dog close and kissed his little nose.
"If I didn't know better you two were fit for the gala!"
(Name) took them to a restaurant he frequented "this was totally a fun day, you guys are gonna slay that gala!"
The men rarely knew what the pink man was saying but they knew it was fond and with nothing short of love.
"So a tazer"
"Oh a friend of mine from Cali gave it to me, it's police grade!"
-> When you get stuck with the infamous no-show Manjiro Sano as your partner for a major class project, you hunt him down fully prepared to drag a delinquent legend back to school by the collar if you have to.
Word Count: 5,554
------
It starts with a list.
A stupid, crumpled, printed list your teacher taped to the chalkboard while the class groaned like they had just been sentenced. You lean forward in your seat, dragging your finger down the columns of names until you find your own.
And then you blink.
And then you blink again.
“…Who the hell is Manjiro Sano?”
The classroom goes dead silent.
Three heads snap toward you like you just said a slur. Someone drops a pencil. Someone else actually gasps. It's dramatic enough that you lean back in your chair, wondering if you’ve somehow missed a world-ending announcement.
A girl near you leans in, whispering like she’s imparting ancient knowledge.
“You… don’t know who that is?”
“No?” you answer slowly. “Should I?”
Her eyes widen with the kind of fear usually reserved for natural disasters.
“That’s Mikey,” she hisses.
You stare blankly.
“That doesn’t help,” you say.
Her jaw unhinges. “THE Mikey.”
You stare harder.
She seems physically pained. “Tokyo Manji Gang? Toman? The delinquent gang that runs this entire side of the city? He’s their leader?”
Ah.
So your partner is a truant crime boss.
Fantastic.
You raise your hand.
Your teacher doesn’t even look up from his attendance sheet. “No, you may not switch partners.”
“I didn’t even ask yet.”
“But you were going to.”
You lower your hand and sigh. “Okay, but my partner isn’t here.”
“He’s never here.”
“…That should be the first red flag right there.”
Your teacher pinches the bridge of his nose. You feel bad for him. He looks like he hasn’t slept since the Meiji period.
“Just… find him,” he says weakly. “Work it out.”
You’re about to argue about fairness, about not being partnered with a literal urban legend but the bell rings, and twenty students flood the hallways, leaving you with your backpack, your half-finished worksheet, and a headache.
You stare at the name again.
Manjiro Sano.
Whoever he is, he’s not dragging your grade down.
You’ll hunt him down yourself if you have to.
-----
Finding Mikey turns out to be harder than you thought.
You ask one classmate where he usually is. They faint.
You ask another. They run away.
Eventually you corner a third, who trembles through an explanation that you should “try the parking lot” like that means anything.
The parking lot is empty.
Then someone else suggests the shrine.
The shrine is empty.
Finally, by pure accident, you overhear some first-years whispering about “Mikey-san and Draken-san” being at “their spot,” which apparently everyone knows about except you.
And that’s how you end up here.
In front of them.
Toman.
A whole cluster of them, lounging around abandoned bikes, laughing, shoving each other, wearing matching jackets, and collectively radiating the kind of chaotic energy that warns normal people to turn around and walk away.
You are not normal people.
You march straight up to the nearest one.
He stops mid-sentence, staring at you like you’ve just approached a wolf pack holding a report card.
“Um. Hi.” You adjust your backpack straps. “I’m looking for Manjiro Sano.”
Five heads swivel toward you.
A tall boy with blonde hair, definitely Draken, gives you a long, assessing stare like he’s trying to figure out if you’re suicidal or just clueless.
“Why,” he finally asks, “are you looking for Mikey?”
“I’m his project partner.”
Silence.
The type that has weight.
The type that says whole gangs have been wiped out over less shocking statements.
Draken clears his throat. “Come again?”
You hold up your assignment paper like a badge. “Group project. He’s my partner. He hasn’t been in class since the beginning of time, so I need him to do his part.”
Someone chokes.
Someone else drops their cigarette.
Draken rubs a hand down his face. “God, you’re serious.”
“Yes?” You glance around. “Should… I not be?”
Before Draken can answer, a voice floats in from behind him, light, airy, singsong.
“Drakeeeeen, did you eat the last dorayaki? I told you I was saving that-”
A small figure hops off a bike and walks closer, pout already forming.
Blonde hair. Big dark eyes. A lollipop in his mouth.
Mikey.
He looks nothing like a terrifying gang leader should look. He looks like a boy who makes trouble because he thinks it’s fun. He looks like he hasn’t attended a single class in months.
He looks at you.
You look at him.
He tilts his head.
“…Who’re you?”
“I,” you say, stepping closer, “am the person whose grade you’re ruining.”
The entire gang audibly inhales.
Mikey blinks at you once, twice, like a cat processing a new toy. Then, slowly, a smile curls onto his lips.
“Oh,” he says. “Class stuff.”
“Yes. Class stuff.” You cross your arms. “You are my partner. You are failing. Actually, both of us are failing, because of you. So get up. We have work to do.”
The look on their faces is priceless.
A mix of horror, awe, and mild respect.
And Mikey? He just grins wider, leaning in with a glint in his eye like he’s found something interesting for once.
“Hmm,” he hums, looking you up and down. “You’re kinda bossy.”
“Only when my GPA is endangered.”
Draken mutters, “This is insane,” under his breath.
Mikey pops the lollipop out of his mouth, points at you with it, and says:
“Alright. I’ll help you.”
Everyone stares at him.
“You will?” you ask, surprised.
“Yeah,” he shrugs. “You came all the way here. That’s kinda cool.”
You blink, taken aback.
Then…
“Great,” you say briskly. “Let’s go.”
Mikey hops up immediately, following you like a duckling.
Toman watches their leader get dragged away by a random classmate like he just imprinted on you.
Draken calls after him, “DON’T SKIP, MIKEY!”
Mikey calls back, “I’M NOT SKIPPING, I’M STUDYING!”
Then he turns to you with an eager expression that should not exist on the face of a known menace.
“So,” he says brightly, “what’s the project about?”
You exhale.
This is going to be hell.
------
You drag Mikey back to school like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
It isn’t.
People stop and stare as the two of you walk through the gate: you with your backpack, him with his hands tucked into his pockets and a lollipop in his mouth, looking like he’s on a casual stroll instead of being forcibly escorted to class.
You can practically hear the rumors writing themselves.
“Is that… Mikey?”
“Why is he here?”
“Who’s that with him?”
“Is she… his girlfriend?”
You ignore it all, focusing on your actual mission: the project.
“Take off your shoes,” you say, pointing at the entrance cubbies.
Mikey squints at them like they’re an unfamiliar species. “Oh, right. School rules.”
“You remember those?”
“Mm,” he hums. “Draken used to yell at me about it.”
You can imagine it. You don’t have to try very hard.
Once you’ve swapped shoes, you march him down the hallway. He keeps drifting, getting distracted by posters and windows and literally nothing. Twice you have to grab the back of his uniform jacket to stop him from wandering off.
“This is boring,” he says eventually.
“You haven’t even started yet.”
“I can feel it.”
You roll your eyes and shove the classroom door open.
Every head snaps toward you.
Then the room collectively stops breathing.
Someone whispers, “No way.”
Someone else reaches for their phone like they want to document this rare, possibly mythical occurrence.
Mikey looks around, visibly unimpressed. “Smells like chalk.”
“That’s because it’s a classroom,” you mutter. You point at his assigned seat, empty since the dawn of time. “Sit there.”
He plops into the desk, spinning slightly on the chair, legs stretching out. He slumps back like he’s at home, eyes flicking over the whiteboard.
Your teacher looks like he might faint.
“M-Mikey,” he stammers from the front, clutching his attendance sheet.
Mikey lifts a hand lazily. “Yo.”
The class is buzzing now, whispers bouncing off the walls.
“He actually came.”
“Who brought him?”
“That girl is insane.”
You ignore the buzzing, tug your notebook out, and slide into the seat next to his. The moment you do, the whispers change tone. More pointed. More curious.
You pretend not to hear any of it.
“Okay,” you say, flipping to a blank page. “The project is on post-war economic reforms. We need to pick a specific policy, research its effects, and do a presentation.”
Mikey stares at you with the most offended expression you’ve ever seen. “Post… what now?”
“Post-war economic reforms.”
“Why can’t we do something cool? Like… famous fights in history.”
“Because that’s not the assignment.”
He slumps further, cheek squishing against the desk. “School sucks.”
“You wouldn’t know,” you mutter. “You’re never here.”
He grins sideways at you. “But I’m here now. For you.”
Your heartbeat does a stupid little jump.
You squash it immediately.
“For the project,” you correct him sharply.
“Mm,” he hums, smile not budging. “Sure.”
-----
The after-school library is painfully quiet.
Mikey is not.
He drums his fingers on the table. Taps his foot. Tilts back in his chair. Tilts too far, almost falls, then catches himself with a laugh that makes three people look over and shush him.
You slap your hand down on the stack of textbooks between you.
“Focus.”
“Can’t.”
“Try.”
“Don’t wanna.”
You inhale through your nose and exhale through your teeth. “Okay. New approach.”
He perks up slightly. “Does it involve food?”
You blink.
Pause.
Absolutely recalibrate your whole plan.
“…It can.”
His eyes brighten instantly. “I like this approach.”
You dig into your bag and pull out the small paper bag you brought, because some annoyingly soft part of you anticipated this. You pull out a neatly wrapped dorayaki and set it on the table.
Mikey goes very still.
“Is that-”
“Yes,” you say. “And you can have it if you answer five questions correctly.”
He stares at you.
You stare back.
The air between you feels loaded, like some unspoken challenge has been issued.
Finally, Mikey leans forward, elbows on the table, eyes shining with determination you haven’t seen once in class.
“Alright, partner,” he says. “Teach me.”
You try not to smile.
You fail.
Just a little.
“Okay,” you say, pointing at a paragraph. “What was one of the goals of the post-war economic reforms?”
Mikey squints at the page, lips moving as he reads. You watch his eyes track the lines, a little slower than you expected, but steady.
“…To reduce the power of large… conglomerates,” he reads carefully, then glances up. “So rich guys couldn’t control everything?”
“Exactly,” you say, pleased. “That’s one.”
His gaze flicks to the dorayaki. “Four more.”
You work through questions. You simplify things where you can, connect it to stuff he’d care about.
“So basically,” you say, tapping the page, “they broke up economic power so one group couldn’t dominate everything.”
“Like how Toman doesn’t let other gangs run our turf,” he says without missing a beat.
You pause.
“…Sure,” you say slowly. “Kind of.”
His whole face lights up. “I get it now.”
You stare at him.
It hits you that he isn’t stupid. Not even a little. He’s just... unbothered. Uninterested. Floating through life on his own orbit.
But when something hooks him, when something connects, he’s sharp.
You’re weirdly gratified you were the one to make that connection.
Five questions later, he’s chewing happily on his dorayaki, crumbs dotting his lips. You’re surrounded by open books and scattered notes, and somehow, progress has been made.
“Not bad,” you admit, scribbling down your half of the outline. “You might actually pass.”
He leans back, watching you as he chews. “Hey.”
“Mm?”
“You always work this hard?”
You shrug. “Someone has to.”
“That why you came to find me?”
“Someone had to.”
He hums thoughtfully, sucking some filling off his thumb. “You’re kinda scary.”
You blink. “Excuse me?”
“In a good way,” he clarifies immediately. “Like Draken. Just smaller. And cuter.”
Your pen stutters.
You refuse to dignify that with a response.
------
Word spreads fast.
By the second study session, Toman is aware.
You know this because when you show up at Draken’s bike shop, at Mikey’s invitation, no less, there’s a row of delinquents pretending very badly not to watch.
“You’re back,” Draken says when you step in, wiping grease off his hands. His gaze darts to the stack of notebooks you’re carrying. “You really got him doing schoolwork?”
“Trying,” you say. “He invited me.”
Draken snorts. “That’s a first.”
Mikey is perched on an overturned crate, swinging his legs, half-empty bag of snacks beside him. He brightens the second he spots you.
“Oi, partner!”
The word makes something flutter in your chest. You press it down and drop your bag at his feet.
“Alright,” you say. “Today we’re working on our presentation structure.”
He frowns. “Didn’t we already study?”
“Knowing things is step one,” you say. “Explaining them without sounding like an idiot is step two.”
“Ouch,” he says, clutching his chest dramatically.
You sit beside him on the crate, knees bumping. It’s a tight squeeze, but you don’t move away. Neither does he.
“Okay,” you say, opening the notebook and angling it between you. “Look. We divide it like this-”
As you talk, filling out a rough outline, you can feel eyes on you.
You glance up.
Half of Toman is leaning around doorways, peeking from behind shelves, very obviously eavesdropping.
You stare.
They freeze.
Mitsuya raises a hand weakly. “Don’t mind us.”
“This is creepy,” you say flatly.
“Don’t worry about them,” Mikey says, reaching over your arm to steal a pen just because it’s yours. “They’re just curious.”
“About what?” you demand.
He shrugs, leaning so close his shoulder presses into yours. “You.”
Your face heats.
You try to hide it by pointing aggressively at the notebook. “Focus, Sano.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says cheerfully.
The others exchange looks.
You hear someone whisper, “She just told Mikey to focus and he listened.”
“Is that allowed?”
“Are we watching our boss get housebroken?”
You snap your head up. “I can hear you.”
They vanish.
Mikey bursts out laughing, head tipping back, eyes crinkling. The sight does something dumb to your chest.
You don’t join the gang. You don’t start hanging around all the time. But you become… a presence. An exception.
And Toman, bizarrely, gets used to it.
------
A week later, you’re back in class, project presentation looming.
You’re at your desk, flipping through index cards, when one of your classmates, Tanaka, you think his name is, eternally smug, sidles up to you.
“Hey,” he says, sliding his hands into his pockets. “How’s it going with Sano?”
You don’t look up. “Fine.”
“He even shows up for you,” Tanaka says with a laugh. “That’s impressive.”
There’s something in his tone you don’t like.
You hum noncommittally.
“He’s not actually doing anything, though, right?” Tanaka continues. “I mean, you’re obviously carrying the whole thing. He’s just… there.”
You pause.
Your pen freezes mid-word.
Slowly, you look up.
“What?”
Tanaka shrugs, careless. “It’s Mikey. He doesn’t do schoolwork. Honestly, sensei should’ve just given you a new partner.”
Anger sparks, hot and automatic.
You think of Mikey squinting at paragraphs in the library. Mikey connecting economic reform to gang turf like it’s the most natural comparison in the world. Mikey actually trying because you asked him to.
You narrow your eyes. “He’s doing his part. We both are.”
Tanaka snorts. “Sure. Look, it’s not a big deal. Some people just aren’t cut out for this stuff. Delinquents like that? They’re just dead weight in class.”
You’re halfway to standing when a shadow falls over your desk.
“Say that again.”
Mikey’s voice is quiet.
Too quiet.
You glance up.
He’s standing behind Tanaka, hands in his pockets, eyes half-lidded but sharp. The energy around him has shifted, still, but dangerous, like the air before a storm.
Tanaka stiffens. “M-Mikey-”
“I said,” Mikey repeats calmly, “say that again. About me being dead weight.”
Tanaka swallows. “I-I just meant-”
“And about my partner,” Mikey adds, tilting his head, smile not reaching his eyes. “Say that part again.”
The room has gone silent. Everyone is watching now.
You stand quickly, stepping between them before this becomes a disciplinary hearing… or a funeral.
“Mikey,” you say, lightly pushing at his chest. “It’s fine.”
He looks at you, expression shifting, the hard edge softening immediately.
“Is it?” he asks.
“Yes,” you say firmly. “Because we’re going to get a better score than him anyway. Right?”
You hold his gaze, willing him to drop it.
There’s a beat of tense silence.
Then Mikey smiles again, genuinely this time. “Right.”
He looks over your head at Tanaka, expression mild but eyes still icy.
“You heard her,” he says. “We’re gonna beat you. So maybe focus on your own project and stop talking shit about mine.”
Tanaka bobbles his head in a frantic nod and retreats like his life depends on it.
You exhale slowly.
Mikey watches Tanaka go, then looks back at you. “You okay?”
You blink. “I should be asking you that.”
He snorts. “That guy’s annoying, but I don’t care what he says about me.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Then why did you get mad?”
At you, the smile turns softer. “He doesn’t get to talk about you like that.”
Something in your chest flips over.
You look away fast, shoving your notebook into your bag with more force than necessary. “Whatever. Just… don’t start a fight over me.”
He hums thoughtfully. “What if I finish a fight over you?”
“Mikey.”
“I’m kidding,” he says, laughing. Then, quieter, “Kind of.”
You should be exasperated.
You are.
You’re also weirdly, stupidly touched.
------
You’re at Draken’s shop again.
It’s late, the sky outside fading into navy, streetlights flickering on one by one. The shop smells like oil and metal and something faintly sweet from the bakery down the road.
The others have cleared out already, leaving you, Mikey, and Draken.
You’re hunched over the workbench, index cards spread out, scribbling last-minute notes. Mikey is perched on a stool, swinging his legs, reciting his part of the presentation under his breath.
“Post-war reforms… aimed to decentralize economic power and-”
“-and weaken the Zaibatsu conglomerates,” you prompt.
He snaps his fingers. “Right. Those guys.”
“You’re getting it,” you say, genuinely impressed.
“Only ‘cause my teacher’s so scary,” he says lightly.
“I’m not your teacher.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Draken walks by, towel over his shoulder. “He giving you trouble?”
“No more than usual,” you say.
“Hey,” Mikey protests.
Draken chuckles, ruffling his hair. “Can’t believe you got him to study. You’re a miracle worker.”
You shrug, pretending that doesn’t make you a little proud. “Bribery helps.”
Mikey grins. “She makes really good snacks.”
“Is that so?” Draken looks intrigued. “You bringing any next time?”
“There’s not going to be a next time,” you say quickly. “The project is tomorrow.”
Both of them look at you.
Mikey’s smile falters just a fraction.
“Oh,” he says.
You blink. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says, waving it off. “Just thought we’d keep… y’know. Hanging out.”
Your heart does a weird, wobbly thing.
You look down at your cards. “We can still hang out. It doesn’t have to be for a project.”
The silence that follows feels heavier than it should.
When you peek up, Mikey is staring at you with a look you haven’t seen before, something open and almost vulnerable.
“…Yeah?” he asks quietly.
You swallow. “Yeah.”
The corner of his mouth lifts slowly, like the sun rising. “Then I’ll do extra good tomorrow.”
You snort. “That’s not how that works.”
“Sure it is,” he says. “If I do good, sensei won’t yell, and you’ll be in a good mood, and then you’ll wanna see me again.”
“You’re so sure of yourself.”
“Aren’t I right?”
You want to say no.
You don’t.
Instead, you shake your head and shove your stack of cards at him. “Again. From the top.”
He groans dramatically, but obeys.
As he stumbles through the first sentence, you catch Draken watching the two of you from across the room, a knowing little half-smile on his face.
You ignore him.
Or try to.
------
You’re packing up later when you realize you’ve been at the shop for hours.
You stretch, your spine popping, and wince. “Ow.”
“You okay?” Mikey asks.
“Just stiff,” you say. “Too much sitting.”
“Here,” he says.
Before you can ask what he’s doing, he steps behind you and places his hands gently on your shoulders. His thumbs press into the muscles at the base of your neck, kneading.
You go rigid.
“Mikey, what are you-”
“Relax,” he says softly. “Just a bit.”
You consider protesting. You really do.
Then his thumbs find a knot and press just right, and your eyes flutter shut against your will.
“See?” he murmurs. “You work too hard.”
“You study too little,” you mumble.
He laughs quietly, warm breath brushing your ear. “We balance each other out.”
It’s alarmingly intimate, standing here in the quiet of the shop with his hands on you, his chest a solid presence at your back. Your heartbeat picks up, loud in your own ears.
“Okay,” you say abruptly, stepping forward out of his hold. “That’s enough. We should go. It’s late.”
He lets his hands drop but doesn’t look offended. If anything, his smile turns softer. “I’ll walk you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” he says simply.
You sigh, defeated. “Fine.”
You walk side by side under the streetlights, shadows stretching long behind you. The night is cool, city noises distant.
“So,” he says eventually, hands clasped behind his head, eyes on the sky. “What are you gonna do after this project? Keep being top of the class? Get some fancy job?”
“Maybe,” you say. “I just… want options. I don’t want to be stuck.”
He hums thoughtfully. “Makes sense.”
“What about you?” you ask, curious. “You ever think about that? Your future?”
He shrugs. “Not really. I’ll take care of Toman. Take care of everyone. That’s enough for me.”
You look at him.
His profile is lit by the streetlamp, lashes casting shadows on his cheeks. He looks younger like this, softer, but there’s a weight in his eyes that’s older than either of you.
“You’re already taking care of everyone,” you say quietly.
He glances at you, surprised, then smiles. “Yeah. Guess so.”
You reach your building too soon.
He stops at the bottom of the steps, rocking on his heels. “So. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” you echo. “Don’t be late.”
He puts a hand to his heart. “I’d never.”
You give him a look.
He laughs, waves, and turns away.
You watch his back grow smaller down the street, oddly reluctant to go inside.
You only move when he glances back once, catches you still staring, and grins.
You absolutely do not slam the door quickly after that.
-----
You’re nervous.
You’ll never admit it out loud, but your fingers fidget with the edge of your index cards as groups go up one by one. Your leg bounces under the desk.
Mikey, on the other hand, looks… relaxed.
Too relaxed.
He’s leaning back in his seat, arms crossed behind his head, eyes half-closed like he’s about to nap.
“Mikey,” you hiss. “Stay awake.”
“M’awake,” he mumbles.
You jab him in the arm with your pen. “Our turn is next.”
He cracks one eye open, looks at you, and smiles. “Don’t worry. I got this.”
You do not feel less worried.
“Next group,” sensei calls, looking at his list. “Sano and (Last Name).”
You stand, smoothing your uniform, heart thudding.
Mikey ambles up beside you, hands in his pockets, completely unbothered. When you reach the front, he casually leans down and mutters, “Hey.”
“What,” you whisper back.
“If I mess up,” he says with a grin, “you’ll fix it, right?”
You roll your eyes. “Just read the cards.”
He laughs and turns to the class.
You start.
You introduce your topic, voice more steady than you feel. You’ve done this a hundred times in your head, practiced your lines, your pauses. It comes easily.
Then it’s Mikey’s turn.
He takes his card.
Your heart stops.
He looks at it.
Then looks up.
There’s a beat where you’re terrified he’s going to say something completely off-topic. Or blank. Or walk out.
Instead, he says, clear and confident:
“One of the major goals of the post-war economic reforms was to break up the power of the zaibatsu, big corporations that controlled a lot of Japan’s economy before the war.”
The class blinks.
He continues, warming up.
“By doing this, the government wanted to stop too much power from being in the hands of a few families. That way, more people could compete in the market, and the economy would be more stable.”
He glances at you.
You nod subtly.
He relaxes, shoulders loosening.
“It’s kinda like… if one gang controlled all the turf in Tokyo,” he goes on, casual but surprisingly articulate. “It looks strong, but if anything happens to that one gang, everything falls apart. But if there are more groups, spread out, the whole thing doesn’t crumble so easy.”
There’s a ripple of laughter around the room, but not mocking. Intrigued.
You hide a smile.
He just did what you’ve been doing for days, connected it to his world, his rules, so it makes sense.
You finish the final part of the presentation together. He doesn’t freeze once. When he falters, you pick up the sentence. When you blank for a moment, he jumps in with an example. It’s… smooth.
It’s weird how easy it is to talk when he’s next to you.
At the end, there’s a small pause.
Then, unexpectedly, your classmates start clapping.
Not just polite taps.
Actual, impressed applause.
Your teacher looks like he might cry again.
“T-that was very good,” he says, visibly moved. “Clear, engaging, excellent use of examples. I’m… pleasantly surprised.”
Mikey beams.
You exhale, tension draining out of your shoulders.
You catch Tanaka’s expression in the back, sour and begrudgingly impressed, and fight the urge to smirk at him.
You and Mikey return to your seats. Your legs feel a little wobbly.
“That was fun,” Mikey whispers once you’re seated.
“You’re insane,” you whisper back. “You just freestyled half of that.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
You can’t argue with that.
When grades are posted later, you see it.
Top score.
You stare at the number for a full five seconds.
Then, involuntarily, you grin.
A hand appears next to yours, ruffling your hair from behind.
“See?” Mikey crows. “Told you we’d beat that guy.”
You swat his hand away, but you’re still smiling. “You did good.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am,” you say honestly. “In a good way.”
He tilts his head, eyes crinkling. “Then I’m happy.”
You look up at him, about to say something more, something like you really tried or thank you, but sensei shuffles by then, clearing his throat.
“Sano,” he says, hesitant. “I, ah. I hope to see more of this… effort from you. In the future.”
Mikey scratches his cheek. “No promises, sensei.”
Your teacher deflates.
“But,” Mikey adds, glancing at you, “I might show up sometimes. If my partner’s here.”
Sensei blinks.
You choke. “I’m not your-”
“Thank you for your hard work,” sensei says to you quickly, like you’re the only thing standing between his sanity and collapse. “Truly. You’ve done a great job.”
You bow politely, murmuring a thank you, and then you’re dragged away by Mikey’s hand on your sleeve.
-----
You end up outside the school gate without really meaning to. One moment you’re packing your bag, the next you’re being herded along by Mikey’s unstoppable momentum.
He finally stops under a tree just beyond the gate, where the street is quieter. The afternoon sun filters through the leaves, dappling his face with light.
“So,” he says.
“So,” you echo.
He rocks on his heels, hands in his pockets, looking at you with a brightness that makes your chest warm. “We make a pretty good team.”
Your lips twitch. “Apparently.”
“Top score,” he reminds you.
“I can read.”
He laughs.
Then, suddenly, he sobers a little.
“Hey,” he says, shifting his weight. “You know how you came to get your partner back from the dead?”
“He wasn’t dead, just truant.”
“Same thing,” he says with a shrug. “Anyway. I was thinking.”
You cross your arms. “Dangerous.”
He ignores that. “I don’t really care about school stuff. You know that.”
“I picked up on it, yeah.”
“But.” He pauses, looking at you. Really looking. “I liked this. Doing something with you. Building it together. Watching you get all serious and bossy.”
You feel your face heat. “That’s not-”
“It is,” he insists, grin tugging at his lips, then softens. “You worked really hard. For both of us. No one’s ever done that for me. Not like that.”
You blink.
Something in your chest squeezes painfully.
“You’re important to me,” he says simply. “So I was thinking…”
He steps closer.
Your back bumps lightly against the tree trunk. You didn’t even realize you’d moved.
He’s close now, close enough that you can see the flecks of brown in his dark eyes, the way his lashes cast little shadows. His smile is smaller, more genuine than the lazy grins he shows everyone else.
“…You should keep being my partner,” he finishes.
You swallow. “For… school?”
“For everything,” he says, without missing a beat.
Your heart stutters.
“Mikey-”
“I mean,” he goes on, eyes darting briefly to your mouth before snapping back up, “you can yell at me when I skip class. Drag me to the library. Make me snacks. I’ll walk you home. Scare off annoying guys. You know. Partner stuff.”
“That’s not what partner stuff means,” you say weakly.
He hums. “It is if I say so.”
You stare at him.
The worst part is that he sounds… sincere. Like in his own skewed, simple way, this is how he says I want you around and I like you and don’t go anywhere.
Your throat feels tight all of a sudden.
“You’re ridiculous,” you say, but it comes out softer than you intend.
He leans in just a fraction more, eyes flicking over your face. “Is that a no?”
You hesitate.
You think about the first day, staring at that cursed partner list, cursing whatever fate married your grade to a delinquent myth. You think about the parking lot, the shrine, the Toman hangout. About textbooks and dorayaki and late-night walks home.
About the way he stood between you and a rude classmate like it was nothing.
About the way he looked when he thought you might not want to see him after the project.
You exhale.
“It’s…” You lick your lips, nerves crackling under your skin. “It’s a maybe.”
He grins, bright and unstoppable. “I can work with maybe.”
“I didn’t say yes.”
“You didn’t say no,” he counters.
You open your mouth, then close it.
He laughs, delighted, and in that moment, caught between annoyance and fondness, you slip.
“If you want me to keep being your partner,” you say, trying to sound stern and failing, “you have to promise to show up. At least sometimes. I refuse to be seen as the person dating a ghost.”
You freeze.
He freezes.
You replay your own words in your head.
Dating.
You want to sink into the ground.
Mikey’s smile does something oddly slow. It softens, widens, shifts into something you’ve never quite seen on him before, something almost reverent.
“Dating, huh?” he says, voice a little hoarse with poorly concealed glee. “You thinking that far already?”
“I- That’s not what I meant-”
He steps even closer, bracing one hand against the tree trunk near your head, caging you in without touching. His face is only inches from yours now.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “Look at me.”
You do, helplessly.
His gaze is steady. His voice drops.
“If we were dating,” he says slowly, “would you let me do this?”
He leans in, close enough that his forehead brushes yours, that you can feel his breath fan across your lips. He doesn’t close the distance completely. Just hovers there, waiting, asking.
Your heart is pounding so hard you’re sure he can feel it.
You could push him away.
You don’t.
“…Maybe,” you whisper.
His eyes flicker, satisfaction flashing through them.
Then he pulls back half an inch and taps your forehead gently with his own, like a soft little headbutt.
“Okay,” he says, and somehow his smile is even warmer. “I’ll earn it.”
“You… what?”
“The right to do more ‘dating stuff,’” he says matter-of-factly. “If my partner wants it.”
You’re certain your brain has melted.
He straightens up finally, hands sliding back into his pockets, expression turning playful again.
“Until then,” he says, voice light, “I’ll settle for this.”
He reaches down and takes your hand.
Your fingers slot into his like they’ve done it a thousand times before.
Your brain short-circuits again.
“Mikey-”
“Walk me home,” he says with a grin. “Partner.”
You should say that’s backwards.
You don’t.
You just let him tug you along, your joined hands swinging between you, the late afternoon sun warm on your backs.
A neglected reader raised by the old ladies of Gotham.
.
.
.
The appearance of Bruce Wayne’s daughter was quite a scandal. She was born from a flimsy woman, an unknown who was quick to sign her parental rights away and get out of the picture with a big check.
His daughter made her debut and lost public interest in a month. Her name was not heard again until her twelfth birthday. She was not the youngest, just a middle and forgettable child, a touch too shy to ask for help when a vapid man pestered her while her siblings and father were busy making connections.
Mirna could still remember dear Martha comforting her after a hard beating, keeping quiet in her shame while using her nursing degree to patch Mirna up. Martha was famous for her tea dates, where women would come “pressured” by their husbands to make a good impression on the Waynes.
All a lie. Martha would spot a woman in trouble and send an invitation.
Times have changed; fewer women are ready to endure a bad egg. But when it was almost a miracle to have a decent husband—one who would only shame you with whores—it was sweet Martha who stood up to help in silence, even when most of them envied her.
Thomas was a jewel, too much in love with Martha to hurt her in any way. The perfect marriage, a dream that ended too soon in a dirty alley. They had endured their tears at the funeral, afraid to show their love for Martha, knowing that their husbands had only allowed their interaction with the understanding that it was more a chore than a joyous time.
Their grief was quiet, but the women that Martha had saved grew up to stand by themselves, to honor her friend in a tight group who would help other wives in need.
The bad eggs were fewer with each generation, but they still stayed vigilant behind snarky and bitter masks. If they could raise the ire of a man in less than five minutes, they would mark him on the blacklist. If he was single, he would find no wife in all of Gotham.
They were old, nosy, and worse... committed.
So, seeing Martha’s granddaughter by herself, and quite obviously forgotten by her father and siblings, made Mirna’s heart ache. Mirna, of course, disposed of the man as soon as she got near, but didn’t stay to chat with the young girl. Still, she told her niece to keep an eye on her. She wanted to believe that this was the mistake of just one night; dear Brucie was sometimes forgetful, but she had seen how much he loved his kids, defending them with fierceness.
More galas came, and each time they saw her alone. What made them move was her smile, that cursed smile full of brightness that concealed the weight of a broken family behind it.
They had worked so hard in honor of Martha, then seeing her granddaughter, who mirrored her in all her beauty, made them seethe in rage.
They may be trapped in their marriages, but Martha’s granddaughter will not be.
The first thing was showing her how to find the secluded room that guarded their little club at each gala. Gaining her trust was not easy work, but experience came to hand more times than not.
“I don’t need pity,” she would reply with anger.
“Don’t be silly, girl,” Olivia would snap. “Needing help doesn’t make you less.”
Olivia was a widow, a lucky widow whose spouse had left a big fortune and no hidden debts. She was the prime benefactor of the tea club, mocked for it. Those outside their circle would only consider it an expensive way to gossip, where old crones would throw venom at each other.
There was gossip and venom; they needed to have their own fun. But they were not heartless, bitter old bitches.
Nosy, maybe.
“I’m not my grandmother either.”
“Oh honey, we can see it,” Olivia laughed. “Dear Martha didn’t need anyone to defend her.”
“Olivia!” reprimanded Esther at her rude words.
“But she was a grown woman; you are just a girl,” continued Olivia. “So, if you are smart enough, you would see this as an opportunity.”
The anger stayed in her eyes, but curiosity was born.
“What for?”
“To seek a life of your choice, be free of your golden cage,” Mirna said. “Let us train you, so one day you become a shining star above everyone else.”
A single tear fell upon her cheek.
“They are never going to love me, are they?”
“I don’t have the answer, but don’t chase love, dear.” Mirna cleaned her face. “The only one who you must seek to love is yourself. Those that come after must give you affection freely, not with conditions.”
Things changed for the better. While Bruce and his children remained quite ignorant of her affairs, Alfred spotted the sudden bond between her and the old ladies of Gotham and chose to say nothing. He had seen her loneliness, so the change on her lips, where a sincere smile adorned, was a nice sight.
After school, she would go to Olivia’s mansion, take lessons, and hear old anecdotes. They would encourage her to take piano lessons, wear clothes even if she separated from her family’s usual trend, and not care about her calorie intake.
Even if not all the days were good, they stayed. Through her tears and laughs, a bond forged deep in their hearts: no longer only Martha’s granddaughter, but theirs. A precious girl who grew up to be a breathtaking lady, one who could command a room with kindness, but be just as stubborn as her grandmother when seeing someone in need of help.
Being a socialite was way different with social media, but their knowledge was put to good use. Their darling would show them her Instagram account; the millions on it made them proud as peacocks. The photos were carefully selected, but what melted them was the way she was proud to show her “Fierce grandmas,” as she titled the shot with all of them in the middle of a Sunday brunch.
The care they had given her: every day, she paid it forward.
So, while their dear girl didn’t need a man... they lived to see her fall in love.
A good man; they made sure of it.
So, with their go-ahead, Charles proposed. When the call came in the middle of the night, the congratulations came as quickly as tears appeared.
And how late Bruce saw his daughter. Too late to rectify his neglect, but in time to see her form her own family.
“Father,” she called, arriving in the morning. “Sorry to interrupt your breakfast. I know you’ve got a busy schedule, but I think a year is enough notice.” She spoke kindly, but not affectionately. “My wedding is next spring; could you take three days to be in Monaco?”
The answer doesn’t come, so she continues to talk.
“Maybe two days? You can skip the rehearsal, but if you don’t come to the wedding, everyone is going to talk more about it than about my big day,” she explains.
Bruce exhales.
“W-wedding?” he asks. “With who?”
Shock is so overwhelming that his mind doesn’t register at first how his daughter negotiates the days just to make him come—the way she only wants him there to evade gossip, not from a need to have her father there.
“Charles. I presented you to him two years ago, at the charity gala for Women’s Empowerment.” She sends him a resigned look. “Last week, we took our engagement photos in the mansion. I left you a note in your office.”
He didn’t remember Charles or the note.
“Maybe he could come to dinner today?”
He needed to text the kids to know if they knew of this.
“Really?” She arches an eyebrow, annoyed. “I have invited you and the rest plenty of times to come to dinner with us; you always ghost us.” She tells him, “I thank you for the invitation, but we are taking a plane tonight, so we can’t come.”
She goes after that, without getting an apology or an explanation. Just leaving a white-and-golden invitation that smells faintly like cinnamon.
He finds the note she mentions. The thing is that the office is more a facade; he is more comfortable in the Batcave. His kids know to leave a note there if they require his attention... just not her.
His only child out of familiar vigilantism. And he finds that this runs deeper than a moment of forgetfulness; at best, he has been absent. Stacked in one of the desk drawers, he finds more notes.
There were plenty of them from her childhood; they became shorter, colder, and fewer after she turned thirteen. He read glimpses of her life that he ignored... neglected.
It was hard to find that he had not been her father at all.
Alfred finds him in the middle of his unveiling.
“I think I lost hope that one day you would read them when the young miss was ten.”
“You never mentioned the notes to me,” Bruce’s voice is barely a whisper.
“I did, at the beginning,” he says. “But Gotham was turbulent, and your focus—Master Wayne—kept slipping back to the city.”
“And I give her nothing from me.” Dread has made a home in his chest. “I think the birthdays that I attended were barely because I stepped in by mistake,” he confesses. “I handle the rest of the kids’ gifts, but I can’t remember picking hers.”
“Mrs. Wilson had done it every year, just like the Christmas gift,” Alfred told him. “You should give a bonus to your secretary; she has fine taste.”
A bitter laugh left his lips.
“Did she even know I’m Batman?” he asks.
“If she does, she has never mentioned it.”
Even if she knew, after all these years it was barely an excuse to have lost most of her life.
“She is going to marry some guy called Charles.”
“I know. She called when he proposed; she was delighted.” Alfred sighs. “Master Bruce, this is not fixable, but the least you can do is make her wedding the best day. Spare her the sorrow of the media pointing out your absences; they have done it before, and she has denied it with a smile, even if it was painful to lie.”
He nods.
Night comes, and before the kids leave, he asks his children if they know that their sister is getting married.
“Cassandra?” Dick asks, confused. “With who?”
“Can’t be married if we disappear the groom,” says Jason.
That their assumption goes straight to Cassandra just shows Bruce how she is barely part of their lives.
“No, idiots,” Tim calls out. “The princess is marrying; it’s all over her social media.”
“You knew?” Bruce questions, hopeful that one of his children had formed a bond with their sister.
“Hard to miss when it’s all over the news,” he says, still putting his weapon in place. “It’s good she’s leaving; she’s quite delicate for the city.”
“I don’t know how that weakling has kept herself alive all this time,” mentions Damian without cruelty, just stating a fact.
It hurts Bruce more than words can express, the way they dismiss her like gossip. But how can he demand their care when even he ignored her whole life?
He realized that she had lived her whole life being a stranger in her own home.
No father and no siblings... and now, upon her marriage, for the first time all his thoughts focus on her.
Too late to reach her, to show her he loves her, even when he has not cared for her. So, he does more than the least she expected from him.
When next spring comes, he takes the whole week to concentrate on the wedding. Seeing her surprise and relief is enough. He can’t condense years of apology into a single week, but he tries his best to make this week special.
He is there every morning during her bride meetings, even if he stands out like a sore thumb between her friends and the three older ladies who check every corner of the venue like it is a war field.
“Charles is taking his car to race; you can go if you want, Father.”
“I’m okay here, sweetheart.”
She smiles at him, even if not fully convinced.
He had investigated, but observing the life she had made by herself was quite different from seeing it from a screen.
She has inherited the title of “Princess of Gotham” that the media once threw at him, but while he wore it scandalously, she uses it with grace. Her life is gentle, but she has worked hard for it, with the help of the older ladies that he once marked as exhausting.
They are not the harpy he made up in his mind, not if they care so deeply for his daughter. Now he sees it was a facade, just like his Brucie persona.
Walking her to the altar is agonizing. But he supports it with a smile. She smiles shyly at her soon-to-be husband, and he looks at her, full of devotion... In a single second, he can almost see his parents in them.
The rare love he thought he would never see again. He finds himself crying in silence for the girl he failed, for the woman who has found happiness, and for the daughter he never saw.
Alfred silently extends a handkerchief.
He has no right to feel like he is losing her when he never took her hand. Apologies don’t come out of his mouth, but when the dance arrives, he embraces his daughter tenderly.
“I wish your happiness lasts all your life, my dear daughter.” His voice chokes a little with emotion.
There were not enough apologies to reverse what he had done. His daughter observed him for a long time in silence; tears glinted in her eyes, but some storm in her heart calmed at his words. She didn’t forgive him, but she laid her head on his chest.
For the first time, she stops being defensive in his presence. He treasures the moment and the photo.
Three years later, in winter, he travels for the birth of his first grandchild.
He shared happiness that he didn’t deserve, barely holding back a sob when his daughter presented his grandchild in a Batman blanket.
They share a knowing look while Charles coos at the newborn.
“You were not a father at all,” his daughter confesses years later, “but you are a wonderful grandpa.”
Extra scene.
They were quite conscious that she would move with her husband to Monaco, and while keeping in touch was easy nowadays... they had always been nosy! So it must not have been a surprise when the three old goats decided to retire to Monaco too.
Someone had to keep the fort safe when Charles went to race for Ferrari in the season. And, of course, their darling traveled with him as much as she could, so they were always preparing her a suitcase with outfits for the next country.
So, it came as a shock when suddenly a book called “Gotham’s Tea Club” was published.
Martha’s altruism was well known, but the depth of it revealed a tale of how kindness could surpass death and travel through time. Decades after her death, her good heart had even touched her granddaughter.
A lot of women, even if some in anonymity, shared their testimony. Kindness had not stayed only with the wealthy; it had reached even the lowest neighborhoods of Gotham.
Esther reads with tears how her old housekeeper remembers her acting quite bratty about how she needed to stay in the mansion during Christmas, even if she “must” bring her children with her. That winter they were homeless after her husband died and left her with three little children; she described how her old boss acted cold-hearted but was all warm and fuzzy at her core. The kids and she stayed for a whole year, always under the excuse of how Esther could “endure” them just to keep the house working. They got a new place with cash her youngest child found inside her teddy bear.
No word was shared, and there was no surprise when Carmen told her boss she had found a place. She worked for Esther till the kids graduated college, never telling her how she had replicated the tea club in her own neighborhood.
Carmen was not the only maid who learned to run a tight group of women helping each other. The tea club kept strong for years to come, no longer a silent secret, but a movement.
In which crazy gf!reader argues with Boyfriend!Sukuna on a bridge in broad daylight
“It was a fucking milkshake!” he roars.
“It was cheating!” you shriek. People look and point. You ignore them. “You paid for a girl’s milkshake! That means you want her milkshake! I see your infidelity. Real eyes realise real lies, asshole!”
Sukuna groans, face in hands. This day was going from bad to worse — waking up late because you turned his alarms off, getting a ticket when you leaned over to beep the horn at a police car, almost getting into a fist fight after you shoved him into a random man, and now?
Now, he’s stuck on a bridge because his vengeful girlfriend’s pissed he treated a classmate to a milkshake. Apparently, milkshakes are equivalent to head in your books. Suffice to say, he’s ready for the day to end.
And it’s not even 12pm yet.
“Jesus, you drive me fucking insane,” Sukuna grits out. His foot taps relentlessly against the cement, muscles in his face ticking, jaw flexing. “You’ve got a real skill for ruining my goddamn life, I swear to god, woman.”
“Oh? Well, if your life sucks so much, then make a new one without me!” you screech, arms flailing wildly. “In fact, lemme help you out by just, I don’t know, jumping off this goddamn bridge!”
“Yeah, please fucking do! I’ll join you!”
People passing by whisper: “Oh my god, they’re causing a scene,” “should we step in?”, and “are they actually going to jump?” Or some variations of those. Concerned, an old lady steps forward and offers, “My dear, if you need help, we’re here for you.”
You whirl around, throwing the death glare you had at them instead of your boyfriend. That isn’t enough for them to take the hint, it would seem. Taking a deep breath, you give Sukuna only a second to brace himself before you proceed to start…barking. Like a chihuaha. Yipping is probably more accurate. You bark and bark and bark until even more people stop to look. They flinch back, aghast. The old lady splutters, “What on Earth is wrong with you?”
“Fuck you, you old bat,” Sukuna snaps, angry for a new reason. “Never heard a woman bark before? Grow the fuck up and get the hell away from us — our foreplay’s none of your goddamn business.”
Blanching, they stumble back. Then, they march away from the train wreck of a couple making a scene on the bridge flustered and embarrassed. You watch them leave. “Ugh, people these days,” you scoff. “No manners.”
Sukuna grunts in agreement. “Weirdos.” He glances down at you. “Where were we?”
You hum in thought, then beam. “I was gonna jump off the bridge.”
“Oh, yeah.” Shaking tension back into his body, he moulds his face back into an angry scowl. “You can’t keep threatening to jump every time you don’t get your way!”
“Says who?” you yell.
Across the bridge, two policemen sigh and shake their heads at the people silently questioning if they’re going to do something. All they say is, “They’re here every week.”
Based off a couple I saw actually arguing on a bridge a couple days ago. Hope they’re doing well
Meet cute? (☁ ) - Jason and Cherry meet under, not-so-normal circumstances!
Author's Note: I saw Forbidden Fruits with my cousin recently and instantly shipped Jason and the character Cherry! I am black myself, but I imagine the actress for this role sometimes. However, please feel free to imagine whoever!
suguru sits in the back corner of the library across the street from the shop you work at, tucked into a comfortable shadow where the sun doesn’t quite reach. your shift ends at three. he plans to surprise you—walk you out, steal you away for a late lunch, that ramen place downtown you both like. his stoic expression betrays the excitement in his chest. he hasn't seen you in the past few days, conflicting schedules and all.
white noise hums through his airpods, just enough to blur the outside world until it's time to see you. a philosophy book lies open in his hands, spine creased. he’s absorbed, comfortably distant from everything else.
until something thumps onto the table in front of him.
he pauses. slides one airpod out.
a bottle of iced coffee from the nearby vending machine sits in front of him, condensation beading on the plastic. taped to it is a pastel post-it note, the handwriting round, in pink glittery pen. when he looks up, he catches movement. three girls ducking behind a bookshelf a few aisles away. one—clearly, the culprit, from the slight peek of her cardigan he'd gotten before she'd hurried off—peeks around the corner, eyes wide, then immediately pretends not to be looking, coughing and launching into a conversation with her other two friends who were just as eagerly waiting for his response to the move.
suguru leans closer to the bottle.
'hi! i thought you were really cute and was hoping you’d like to get to know each other :)'
hearts dot the i's. a phone number follows.
he exhales through his nose, faintly amused. on most days, he would’ve handled this properly—walked over, returned the bottle, declined with a courteous smile. he believes in that sort of thing.
today, suguru's tired. perhaps he's antsy in anticipation. he can barely get his mind off you. and the chapter he’s reading is genuinely interesting.
he nudges the bottle a few inches away from him instead. that'd work well enough, right?
there’s whispering from behind the shelves, disappointment from the girl, reassurance from her friends, then retreating footsteps. once they’re gone, suguru stands, drops the unopened bottle into the trash, and returns to his book without another thought.
by 2:30, he’s packing up. he'd planned on staying longer, but he feels awkward now after that interaction. and can't shake the feeling that he's still being watched.
at the check out counter, he checks his watch, slides the borrowed book and his library card into his bag, and stands. he’s eager to leave now—more eager than he’d anticipated. the air feels stale. he wants to be outside. he wants to see you. he'd arrive to surprise you early. sit behind the register while you finish your shift. he'd done it before.
he makes it to the front gardens of the library before a voice stops him.
“e-excuse me.”
he turns.
it’s the girl from earlier. alone now, shoulders tight, courage clearly borrowed. he registers the effort immediately. it doesn’t soften his stance. he'd noticed her and her entourage sitting together by the front when he'd been checking his book out. dumbly, he didn't suspect they'd been waiting for him to leave.
“i have a girlfriend,” he says calmly, before she can speak.
“oh.” she says. then, after a beat, something sharp creeps in. “so… could it have been a yes if you didn’t?”
he blinks once.
what a strange question to ask a stranger, he thinks.
and even stranger to persist after you've been rejected twice now by said stranger.
“no,” he replies pleasantly. “i appreciate the gesture, but you didn’t actually try to express interest. you bought a drink and ran. i never heard your voice until now. you didn’t even give me the chance to decide if i was interested.”
she stammers, words tripping over each other. “i— i was nervous—”
“nervousness isn’t the issue,” he says gently. “entitlement is.”
her brows knit. “then... if that's how you feel, why didn’t you throw it away?”
he suppresses a laugh at the fact she's even suggesting he would've drank it. “i don’t like iced coffee,” he answers. “i waited out of courtesy until you left to throw it away because, until a moment ago, i had respect for you as a stranger.”
she stiffens, embarrassment flushing her cheeks. “you’re… really mean.”
he tilts his head. “i can live with that.”
she huffs, “i just thought—”
“you thought persistence might change the answer,” he finishes. “might i suggest next time taking no for an answer. it'll be much less humiliating for you.”
before she can respond, a familiar voice cuts in.
“hi!”
suguru turns instantly.
it’s 2:35. you’re standing there with a grin, still in your uniform, bag slung over your shoulder, eyes bright as you hug his arm tightly. relief softens his expression in a way it never would for anyone else.
he steps into you, his arm slipping around your waist, fingers lacing with yours. he kisses your knuckles, “you finished early? i was going to surprise you.”
you laugh. “i surprised you! i saw you through the window.” then you rummage in your bag. “wait, i got you something!”
you pull out a bottle of iced coffee.
the same one from before. down to the brand and the flavour.
his smile turns warm and adoring, “my favourite,” he murmurs, thumb brushing over your skin.
you glance at the girl, head tilting slightly, smile sweet. “oh sorry! are you suguru’s friend?”
she clears her throat, mortified. “n-no. i was just— asking for directions.”
suguru chuckles softly. “oh, don’t worry. i’ll tell her all about it later. we’ll have a laugh.”
you blink, confused, but he presses a kiss to your temple.
“come,” he says. “let’s get ramen.”
your face lights up. “ouuh! yeah!”
𖦹 o. yuuta
picnic date w/ yuuta
it’s warm enough for short sleeves, and mosquito bites and sunscreen. you and yuuta always try to capitalise on the warmer months with as many outdoorsy dates as you can manage. you've claimed your usual spot at the far edge of the park, tucked beneath a cluster of trees where the noise thins out and people don't wander past.
a picnic blanket's spread out beneath the two of you. you sit beside him in that pretty sundress that has him blushing like a schoolboy, knees tucked under yourself, chewing thoughtfully on your sandwich, your head leaned into his shoulder. yuuta watches you over his own sandwich when he thinks you’re not looking, cheeks warm, heart doing that thing it always does around you.
then, faint at first, comes the music.
you both pause, watching the ice cream truck roll in down the far end of the park. you always get ice cream on your picnic dates, it's not the same without it. however, this time, the truck had come late. you both assumed it wasn't coming today and had filled up on the other foods you'd packed.
"aw man..." you pout slightly, looking up at him, "i'm not hungry... d'you still want one?"
he considers it, then shakes his head, also full himself, “we can… share?”
you smile, glad that you don't have to miss out on tradition after all, “yeah!"
the wave of children who had raced towards the truck as soon as it'd pulled in has died down now, thankfully. you stay behind to watch the blanket while he walks toward it, hands shoved into his pockets, rehearsing his order in his head like it’s an exam.
one cup. strawberry. two spoons. simple.
when he reaches the truck, the girl working it looks down at him and smiles brightly.
“hi!” she chirps. “what can i get you?”
“uh—hi,” yuuta says quickly. “just... one cup. strawberry. please.”
she raises an eyebrow. “just one?” she smiles sweetly, "here alone, handsome?"
he freezes. entire face goes pink, "n-no..! no, i'm sharing.."
“with who?” she asks lightly, already scooping.
“my— my girlfriend,” he blurts.
she hums, unconvinced. “oh? don’t see her.”
his stomach drops.
“s-she’s— she’s over there,” he gestures vaguely back toward the trees, immediately worried he’s pointed too broadly. “we’re on a picnic.”
the girl smiles wider. “aw. that’s cute.” she leans forward a bit. “you know, you don’t have to be taken to enjoy ice cream with someone.”
yuuta’s brain short-circuits.
“i— i do,” he says earnestly. “i mean— i am. taken. i’m very taken.”
she laughs. “you’re funny.”
“i’m not,” he says, voice cracking slightly.
“why nervous?” she asks, handing him the cup, fingers brushing his intentionally. “it’s just ice cream.”
he recoils like he’s been burned as soon as he feels her nails scrape his fingers. he holds the cup tightly, "d-don't touch me. please."
there’s a beat of silence.
she blinks. “wow.”
“... sorry if that was weird,” he rushes on. “i just... love her a lot and she’s really important to me, and i don’t wanna do anything that could make her sad, or—”
he stops, breathless, eyes wide.
the girl stares at him for a moment, then snorts. “okay. got it, boyfriend of the year.”
he flushes crimson. “i... i didn’t mean—”
“relax,” she says, waving him off. “she’s lucky.”
yuuta gulps, "can i... get another spoon?"
he scurries back toward you like he’s fleeing a crime scene, ice cream held with both hands like it's a bomb that could detonate at any given moment.
when he reaches the blanket, you're laying down, soaking up sun. he can't even focus on how good you look like that because he genuinely feels like a criminal with a conscience. he sits down a little too quickly.
“ouu, that looks good." you smile, sitting up, taking one of the spoons and having a bite. you pause, paper spoon halfway in your mouth when you see the guilt-stricken expression on his face, tilting your head, "you okay, baby?"
he nods. then shakes his head. then nods again. “yeah. yes. i think so.”
you giggle softly, “what happened?”
he hesitates, then blurts, “she thought i was alone and tried to flirt with me and i panicked and told her about you and how much i love you and then she touched my hand and i told her not to touch me and—"
you blink, taking a few seconds to process because he's talking so fast. then you laugh, "really? what a weirdo."
you take the another bite of ice cream, scooting closer to him. he leans in hesitantly, like he's unsure if he deserves to.
“i’m sorry,” he says, looking worried now, “i-i told her i had a girlfriend immediately, i promise!”
you grin, "what are you even apologising for? you didn't do anything wrong."
"i... uh..."
your heart squeezes. you press a kiss to his cheek. “this ice cream's really good, baby. try some.”
his ears turn red. he smiles anyway, shy and relieved, leaning into you.
𖦹 i. toge
sleepy toge curses your annoying friend
you're not sure why your friend, miyo, always insists hangouts should take place at yours and toge's place. especially when yoka has a pool that's be great for the warm weather today. and emi's place is twice as big as yours. and miyo herself has a new puppy who you're dying to meet.
you've got a small city apartment, a lookout you could barely even count as a balcony, and... and, most notably—a quiet, white-haired boyfriend who adores you with a gentleness that still surprises you sometimes.
of course, still, you’re happy to host. you're delighted whenever miyo and the rest of your group of girlfriends come over to hang out and gossip. even prepared a fancy charcuterie board for all of you to share. with a salami rose and fancy cheeses and grapes. then you'd rummaged the house for all the nail polish you own.
toge had come home from his mission an hour before the girls arrived, worn down and hoarse from using his cursed speech, exhaustion clinging to him like a second uniform. you’d slipped easily into caretaker mode. once he was out of the shower and dressed in soft clothes, you’d pressed a mug of warm lemon tea into his hands for his sore throat, tucked him into bed, and kissed his forehead.
we won’t be loud, you’d promised softly as he drifted into a well-deserved nap.
now the four of you are sprawled across the living room floor, nails half-done, snacks dwindling. your hands rest on a cushion in emi’s lap as she paints your nails a glossy cherry red, recounting a story about her work crush to everyone.
"no way!" yoka gasps, "he's totally into you. you should make a move!"
she sighs, "that's the thing. he's not my type, like at all. he's so quiet. and kinda mean." she pouts, clearly conflicted, "i like extroverted guys, y'know? like the golden retriever type."
"maybe he just needs a push? toge's kinda like that too." you suggest.
"if you don't want him, i'll take him. i love quiet guys." miyo grins, dipping the applicator back into the pot of sky blue for yoka's nails.
"you love taken guys." yoka rolls her eyes.
miyo gasps, defensive, "i don't!"
the four of you look up when the door down the hall creaks, and out steps a sleepy inumaki, hair a little ruffled and eyes droopy. he looks softest like this. it's rare to see him so unguarded.
you open your mouth to greet him, but miyo beats you to it. "hi, toge!" she chirps sweetly.
he doesn’t answer her, rubbing at one eye. you smile instead, tilting your head without thinking, the kind of smile you give only him. that pretty smile that you don't realise drives him insane, "did you sleep well?"
he nods, "salmon."
"wow, so she gets a response and i don't?" miyo pouts playfully.
"shut up, miyo." yoka whines, "you got it on my finger!" you giggle lightheartedly, not quite seeing the bite in miyo's words.
toge couldn't understand how you could be so clueless.
he comes over to you, where you're sat on the rung having your nails done, putting an absent hand on your head. his fingers thread through your hair.
"did we wake you up?" you ask with gentle concern. he shakes his head.
"really? y/n was being super loud, i was sure she would." miyo chuckles.
he stares at her blankly for a second. before looking back down at you "tuna mayo?"
"hm?" you look up at him, "oh, i put it in the fridge. are you hungry? i'll go heat it up for you." you offer, not wanting him to do so much after working so hard this morning.
he shakes his head, "okaka." he insists, pointing to your hands, where polish is still wet. you smile adoringly, because you know what he means. have fun. don't fuss over me.
"okay. there's more tea for you on the stove." you grin, watching him head for the kitchen.
it's only then when miyo shoots up from her spot, "oh, i'm thirsty. what do you have, y/n?"
you look up her with a slightly confused blink, because you'd offered everyone drinks no less than five minutes ago, still you shrug, "we have soda and juice! you can help yourself."
"thanks! you're the best." she smiles, before skipping off to join toge behind the closed kitchen door.
yoka shakes her head with a disapproving sigh, cleaning the sloppy job miyo had done on her nails with an acetone soaked q-tip, "you're too trusting, y/n."
emi nods in agreement.
you frown, "hey, is this about what you two were telling me last week? i told you guys, it's nothing! she wouldn't do that."
"right." they both murmur in unison.
toge takes the tupperware of food you'd cooked out of the microwave, looking over his shoulder when he sees miyo enter. she smiles at him, opening the fridge and looking for a drink.
he sighs softly in annoyance. this is his least favourite scenario. him trapped in the same room as her. yet he can't stop finding himself here. not when she always manages to find an excuse to be left alone with him. usually, he'd tolerate it. she's your friend after all, and you're completely clueless to it. but he's still half asleep and sore right now and in no mood.
"toge~" she smiles, standing up with a can of soda, "can you get me a cup?"
he stares at her blankly, before stepping out of the way with his food.
"... or i'll get it myself." she chuckles, reaching for the dish rack and picking up a clean cup. she peers into the sink with a chuckle, "aww, y/n didn't do the dishes, huh?"
there's five in there at most.
he rolls his eyes, turning around, about to leave. and then she speaks again.
"i couldn't imagine leaving my house like this. like, one thing out of place and i go insane, y'know?"
no. no he doesn't know.
his eyes flick back to the door, convinced she can't have more to say now. but just as he's about to get a step in—
"what's that? is that the food she cooked you?" she peers at the warm tupperware in his hands, then her face twists, "oh... that looks... lovely."
his eye twitches. you'd made his favourite. and you did a damn good job at it.
she bursts into loud, fake laughter, "kidding!~ jeez, you're so uptight. i'd never insult your precious girl like that..."
a moment of silence passes.
finally. she's done. he turns, heads for the door.
"but it kinda looks like—"
"be quiet." the words leave him before he can even stop them.
miyo chokes up, her eyes widening as she opens her mouth and nothing escapes but a hoarse squeak.
he can't even say he regrets it. he sighs softly in relief, before leaving her without another thought.
𖦹 f. toji
your married landlady shoots her shot
toji’s leaning against the kitchen counter when the knock comes.
you’d ducked out ten minutes ago for snacks, leaving him alone in your apartment with the windows open and your cat judging him from the couch.
he opens the door without thinking.
“uh… hi.”
the woman on the other side blinks once.
then her eyes drag. slowly. deliberately. from his face, to his chest, down his arms like she’s inspecting merchandise.
“well,” she says, voice dropping into something syrupy. “hello. is y/n home? i’m her landlady.”
“oh, nah,” toji shrugs, casual. “i’m her boyfriend. toji. she went out. should be back soon.”
“right. toji.” she smiles — pleased with that answer. “she mentioned there was a problem with the sink?”
“oh, yeah. over here.” he steps aside, already turning toward the kitchen. “it’s leaking pretty bad. tried fixing it but i couldn’t figure it out.”
she follows him in, heels clicking, standing just a little too close. her perfume’s invasively sharp.
she leans over the sink unnecessarily, blazer pulling tight. the first two buttons of her blouse have magically come undone within the last thirty seconds. she tilts her head at him with a sultry smirk “you know… i’m very hands-on with my tenants. if there’s anything else you need help with, i have many services—”
toji snorts.
he doesn’t even look at her when he says it.
“aren’t you embarrassed?”
the words land flat. amused. cutting through her pride.
she freezes.
"flirting with your tenant's boyfriend in her kitchen. sad."
slowly, she straightens, colour creeping up her neck as she fumbles with her blazer, tugging it closed like dignity might button itself back on.
“i’ll-i’ll send a plumber in a few days,” she mutters, already backing toward the door.
toji shrugs. “cool.”
the front door opens just then.
you step in with your arms full of grocery bags, kick the door shut with your foot, and smile brightly when you see her.
“oh, hi yurina!”
she stiffens, forcing a thin smile. “y/n, hi. i was just telling your… boyfriend here that i’ll have the leak fixed soon.”
“oh, yay! thanks so much,” you beam, setting the bags on the counter.
“yes. yes,” she nods quickly. “i-i’ll head out now. see you.”
“oh! i have—” you start, reaching for the paperwork she’d given you days ago, stuck to your fridge with a magnet, signed and ready for her.
the door shuts abruptly.
you blink, “…huh. she must’ve been in a rush.”
“yeah,” toji murmurs.
you hum, unpacking snacks. “she’s really nice though! she always brings me these really good peaches her husband grows—”
he glances at the fruit basket on the counter.
“husband, huh?”
you pause. “yeah! he’s a gardener. really sweet guy. and they have a daughter, she's six. why?”
toji smiles. slow. smug.
“oh, nothing,” he says. “just that his wife was offering me all her special services.”
your jaw drops. “seriously?!”
he nods, smirk deepening. “uh-huh. undid her top buttons and everything.”
“is that why she was in a rush?” you gasp, eyes flicking to the peaches — still plump. still perfect. “woah… in front of her husband’s peaches and everything?”
toji laughs, low and rough, sliding an arm around your waist, “people got no shame.” he says, leaning into your neck, "d'you get beer?"
you roll your eyes at him, pulling the bottle you'd bought him.
𖦹 k. choso
rockstar!cho's manager has something against you
the bass is still thrumming through the walls when you step into the back entrance, vip pass swinging from your wrist. the guard barely glances at it before nodding and opening the door.
“welcome back,” he says easily.
you smile. “thank you!”
the whole band crew knows you. you’re always there, front row at all the shows, cheering too loud, sitting in on rehearsals when you can. the band guys joke that you’re the real good luck charm. they always save you a seat. you're family. their first and biggest supporter.
they've just had their biggest gig, like, ever. some huge artist noticed them and invited them to open for them at this huge talent event that actually matters. they'd done absolutely amazing. you couldn't wait to tell him that.
you step further inside, the lights are dimmer here, champagne glasses clink, conversations buzzing with post-show adrenaline. you scan the crowd for choso.
“excuse me.”
you turn.
a woman in a blazer stands in front of you, clipboard tucked under her arm. the band's manager. one of them, at least. the one who always lingers a little too close. the one whose hand always seems to find his shoulder. whose smile only appears when he's around.
you've had your suspicions about her for awhile now. never voiced them. she's been around for quite some time now, and she was good at her job, and she had connections with people in the industry. they had needed all the help they could get from the people who were willing back then. you couldn't imagine taking that away from hem.
“this area is restricted,” she says coolly. “you’ll need to leave.”
you blink, confused. because this woman had most definitely seen you backstage with them various times. your relationship wasn't a secret.
“oh... i have a vip pass. i’m meeting choso.” you say unsurely, holding up your wrist. had there been a mistake? the security had let you in... and you'd been assured the pass was all you needed. you've never been kicked out like this before.
her eyes flick to your wrist, then back to your face. unimpressed. “this section is for artists and management only.”
confusion prickles at your skin. “but… i'm always allowed with the band..”
she smiles, thin. “tonight’s different. bigger event. more important guests.”
so she did recognise you. could it hurt to at least call you by name?
you hesitate, clutching the strap of your bag. “oh... i was told it was fine. could you maybe check with—”
“i’m busy,” she cuts in. “security can escort you out.”
your heart sinks. you'd been so excited to see him.
before you can say anything else, another presence fills the space behind her.
“why are you not letting her in?”
choso’s voice is low and calm. but there’s an edge to it that makes the woman stiffen instantly.
“o-oh, choso!” she turns around far too quickly, smile snapping into place. “i didn’t realise— i was just doing my job. she doesn’t seem to have the proper—”
“answer my question.”
the room feels quieter. even the music fades into background noise.
she swallows. “i... don’t recognise her. is she important?”
your eyes widen. important is an interesting choice of words, but choso is already stepping past her.
he stops beside you.
his shoulders relax the second he sees your face. his expression softens, concern flickering across it. “are you okay?”
you manage a small nod, a little embarrassed.
he tightens his jaw. choso is always respectful to the staff. he makes it a point to show them his gratitude. never blames them for mistakes, buys them food when they stay late, always thanks them publicly at the end of concerts for their hard work, never ever raises his voice or scolds them.
but this is just blatant. she isn't even trying to hide it. he turns back to her. “you didn't recognise her." he repeats slowly.
"no... i don't think we've met." she gives you a saccharine smile, "i'm sorry for the misunderstanding. are you cho's friend?"
"i'm... his girlfriend." you mumble.
the manager laughs, fake. “oh! i'm so sorry, i didn’t know." she hits choso's arm playfully, "cho, you should’ve told me she was—”
“you do know,” he stops her. his voice doesn’t rise. that makes it worse. “you’ve met her multiple times. she baked cookies for you and the rest of the staff last week. she's been supporting us longer than you've been managing.”
her smile falters.
“and even if you didn't recognise her,” he continues, “you know the vip pass is all she needs to be back here. so why weren't you letting her in?"
she shifts, defensive now. “i-i was just trying to do my job.”
choso's eyes narrow, "that's security's job. so what's yours?"
a few heads nearby turn. the band guys have gone quiet, watching with grins because they've all also been waiting for choso to snap at her.
“i didn’t mean—”
he cuts her off, “no. what's your job?”
"...m-manager." she looks down.
"right." he says evenly, "don't speak to her like that again. and don't call me cho."
he turns to you then, and that sweet choso smile immediately comes to his face, "c'mon, let's get a drink." he says, wrapping an arm around you and leading you past the barriers and into the event.
gorgeous dividers by @pixopix ! check them out here <33
now how has it already been a month since i wrote the first part HELLO WHAT,, thank you all for the support on the first part i'm sooo sorry it took so long to get this out but i hope u cuties like it too !!! i tried to make all of them a bit longer than i did for the ones in part 1 to make up for it hopefully 😓 schools starting again soon and i'm mad and irritated and annoyed and rly wanna write some angst (bc u dont deserve to be happy anymore if i dont) saurrr i may get into that soon 👀 stay tuned LOVE UUU
you’re on an end-of-year road trip with your boyfriend and a handful of close friends. high school's over and you’ve crammed yourselves into a rented minivan for a four-hour drive to the staycation you’ve been dying for all year.
you're both sat towards the back of the van. you in the window seat legs swinging happily.
you look up at megumi, hood up, earbud in one ear, the other open just enough to hear you when you talk to him. he's restless from the long drive and one of your friends' shitty playlist on the car speakers and everyone talking over each other, but he answers you every time you ask him a question or show him a funny tiktok on your phone or point out something pretty out the window. he shares the energy drink he got himself with you when you ask to try it and smiles faintly when your face scrunches up in disgust at the tartness.
"that tastes like battery acid!"
"i told you."
halfway, the group of you make a pitstop for petrol and a stretch. it's then when you realise (megumi realises) in horror that you left your phone charger in megumi's car this morning.
"there's a convenience store." he points out, and you look up. it's just across the street, "let's go."
one of your friends, mika perks up. “oh, i'll come!” she adds quickly. “i want snacks.”
he holds your hand as the three of you cross the road.
megumi’s never liked her.
he’s never said it out loud, never complained, never told you to stop being friends with her. but he notices things. always has. she acts like everything he says is the most hilarious thing she's ever heard even when he's being serious, she smacks his arm whenever she laughs, she immediately straightens her posture when he walks into a room, checks her reflection in her phone screen and fluffs up her hair.
so he acts a little extra colder with her than he does with everyone else who isn't you. in hopes she'll get the hint and just lay it off.
that's where the whining comes: "megumiiiii, you're always sooo mean to me!!!" and "gosh y/nnnn can you get your boyfriend in check??"
you're oblivious to it. how could you not be? mika's been with you longer than he has.
so the three of you walk into though automatic doors sliding open. you all look over the electronic aisle. rows of chargers hang on metal pegs, all overpriced, all labelled “fast charge” and other lukewarm promises along those lines.
you get bored quickly.
after thirty seconds of staring at cords, you sigh. “this is boring. i’m gonna go get snacks.”
megumi hums in acknowledgement, "get anything you want." he says. you light up with a grin because you know he'd buy you the entire snack aisle if you wanted it.
and then he's alone. with mika. the last place he ever wants to be.
it's quiet. awkward. he clenches his jaw, picking up one of the charger boxes and reading the label.
she breaks the silence, "you're way too good to her, megumi."
he looks up, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, "didn't you want snacks too? you can go with her."
mika blinks— caught, then laughs nervously, "no, i... wanted to buy a portable while i'm here, too." she says, before clearly pretending to scan over the selection of powerbanks.
he bites his tongue, picking up another charger box and examining it.
and then she starts talking again, "you always take care of her." she smiles, phoney.
"it's a charger and some snacks." he responds bluntly.
"well, yeah... but it's the little things, isn't it?" she muses, stepping closer, her shoulder brushing his arm. she bats her eyes, "you're so sweet. i wish i had a boyfriend like you."
his arm jerks back, "don't touch me." his voice drops an octave, and the glare in his eyes is chilling.
she laughs, half-shocked things didn't go her way and half-embarrassed, "wow. okay. i didn't even—"
"she trusts you." he cuts her off, "i think she's an idiot for it. but you're her friend, so don't disrespect her."
"i would never." mika scoffs, "i—"
"good. then you won't mind apologising. she'll find out about this the second her and i are alone tonight."
she opens her mouth to respond—then closes it when you come back around the corner, holding a basket of chips and candy.
“got it?” you ask cheerfully.
megumi nods, taking the basket from you dropping in the charger which he'd selected in the middle of their spat. “yeah. want drinks?"
you gasp and nod, something about strawberry milk as he wraps his other arm around you and leads you towards the large fridge. mika trails behind like a dog with her tail between her legs.
ɞ i. yuuji
you and yuuji at a college frat party
you’re at a party, loud music, drinks in hand, laughter spilling everywhere. you gasp excitedly when you see a friend who you haven't spoken to in a while outside the glass door in the backyard of whoever's house this was. you hand yuji your half-full cup, grinning, "baby, i'm gonna go say hi."
he looks back at you and smiles crookedly, nodding, "okay..!"
he’s leaning against a counter, half engaged in conversation, a little buzzed, a little high off something his friend slipped him earlier (he doesn’t even remember the name of whatever it was), when she shows up.
yuri. a mutual friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. you’ve met in passing a few times. awkward 'hi-bye's. you know each others' names, and she definitely should've put two and two together by now and figured out that you and yuuji are a thing.
but apparently, she wants to test that theory.
“hey yuuji,” she purrs, sidling close.
panic lights up his eyes. his words tumble out before his brain catches up. "oh... hi, yuri." he says, "hah... our names are kinda... kinda similar... i never noticed."
"mhm, sounds like fate." she smirks, "you look cute tonight."
his friends behind him suddenly decide whatever drunken bullshit they're talking about is nowhere near as interesting as what's going on here, so they stop their conversation and watch with dropped jaws at her audacity.
“oh—uh, don’t you know y/n?? you guys have met before... u-uh… she’s like, my girlfriend.”
“she's like your girlfriend?” she teases, tilting her head, hand brushing his arm.
“n-no! that’s not what I meant!! she’s my girlfriend… for real… no cap.” he stammers, face burning, heart hammering, already regretting everything he drank. he sounds like an idiot.
she giggles, tracing a finger over his chest. “you’re adorable. i don’t see her anywhere. she just left you here?”
he freezes. does he push her away? is that rude? he… stumbles back dumbly.
"she’s… over there…" he looks over her head, but can't see you behind the door. "she's talking to her friend. you uh, shouldn’t touch me like that… she fights people… women… girls... ladies… who… do that. type shit.”
“oh?” yuri raises a brow.
he's lying out of his ass now. because you're the sweetest thing anyone's ever met, but anything to get this woman away from him, “y-yeah… she’s… really scary. and strong. a-and… she sent a girl to the hospital once for touching me. she’s super serious about me.”
his friends nearby are losing it, laughing and chiming in like it’s a comedy show:
“oh, yeah, I saw it firsthand. she ripped that girl’s hair out.”
“and her acrylics!”
“then she called the ambulance herself and pretended she just found her like that.”
“yeah, and the girl didn’t even press charges ’cause y/n scared her so bad!”
they're not helping his case. yuuji glares at them. shut up shut up shut up.
yuri raises an eyebrow, curiosity piqued. “huh, so where’s this guard dog of yours?”
and just like that you appear behind him, taking back your cup from his hands, soft smile on your face, oblivious to the image he's just spread about you, “oh, hi yuri! I love your nails, they're so cute,” you chirp. glancing back at him, you add, “is there a dog around?" having heard the last bit of their conversation, "i wanna see! is it cute?”
yuuji’s lie crumbles spectacularly. he just stares at you, mouth open, heart lodged somewhere near his throat, while you beam like sunshine, and yuri… blinks, "oh." she says, before walking off.
"let's... get an uber." yuuji sighs, his head falling to your shoulder. that was enough thinking for one night.
ɞ n. kento
office worker!nanami brings you to meet his colleagues
he takes you to a work dinner his boss is hosting at a too-fancy italian restaurant. the kind with dim lighting, linen napkins, lace white tablecloths and wine bottles that cost more than your weekly groceries.
you’d arrived early, just the two of you and his boss making polite conversation.
until the boss excuses himself to the restroom.
that’s when hana appears.
“ken!” she chirps, sliding into the empty seat on the other side of him.
he barely looks at her, nodding politely. “hana.”
her gaze flicks to you, sitting beside him in your pretty dress, glass of white wine cradled carefully in your hands. her smile sharpens. “oh, hi! you must be the girlfriend.”
the girlfriend?
you clear your throat, forcing a smile. “oh, yeah. i’m y/n. it’s really nice to meet you, i’ve heard lots!”
you have. mostly about how much she irritates him with her constant nagging.
“aww, really?” she laughs. “well, i’m not sure i can say the same. ken’s super serious about his work, isn’t he?”
you hesitate. “uh...”
“i’ve spoken about her before,” ken cuts in calmly, eyebrow lifting, "many times."
hana blinks. “really? i don’t recall!” she turns back to you, like she's sizing you up, smiling thinly. “huh. he really doesn’t have a type, does he?”
you nearly choke on your wine. “p-pardon?” you ask, hoping you heard her wrong. because him not having a type between you and her would imply that—
“everyone says i’m like his work wife,” she giggles.
this time you actually choke.
ken’s hand goes to your back, patting firmly as you cough and sputter, while you're sat there praying the wine doesn't escape through your nose. he reaches for the water pitcher made of crystal glass in the middle of the table and pours you a glass, putting it in front of you. “here.”
once you've recovered and you’re breathing again, he looks at hana. “nobody says that.”
she smiles, unfazed. “you’ve never heard it, ken, 'cuz you're always so uptight in the office! everyone's scared of you,” she grins, looking at you, "except for me. i'm always the one who has to remind him to take his breaks and eat. he'd never do it without me."
you raise an eyebrow over the rim of your glass of your water, truly not sure if she's talking about your boyfriend or a child. you doubt it's true regardless, mostly because he's a grown ass man, but also because the bento you pack into his work bag in the mornings comes home empty every day.
"that's... not..." he murmurs, fixing his glasses, looking at his watch, trying to disengage. when are the rest of his colleagues going to get here already?
"don't try to deny it, ken!" then her attention snaps back to you, eyes dragging over you in a way that makes your skin prickle. “but we really aren’t alike, are we?” she tilts her head. “you seem so much younger… and is that a plushie on your bag? how cute!”
she laughs. it’s not kind. it's mocking. like she thinks she has some sort of superiority over you because she's a few years older and she's more mature (which is highly debatable at this point).
embarrassed, you instinctively cover the plushie keychain on your purse with your hand, heat creeping up your neck.
ken’s jaw tightens.
“perhaps,” he says evenly, looking to her, “the two of you simply aren't alike because i'm not interested in you.”
the table goes quiet.
hana’s smile stiffens. “oh?”
“you were wrong earlier. i do have a type. it's her."
you glance at him, surprised.
he doesn’t look at you. his eyes stay on hana. unblinking.
“you aren't my... 'work wife'. don't call yourself such foolish titles.” he continues, voice calm and precise, “it’s inappropriate. and unprofessional.”
hana opens her mouth.
he doesn’t let her speak.
“you won't speak to her like that again.”
flat. final.
their boss returns moments later, oblivious, and hana laughs and greets him awkwardly, suddenly far too interested in her menu. and the rest of his colleagues begin to arrive at the table.
while you're busy deciding between lasagna or rosé pasta, his hand goes to yours, pulling it off the plushie that you'd been concealing on your purse. he leans into your ear, quiet enough that only you can hear, "don't hide it. it's cute."
ɞ g. satoru
amusement park date with satoru
the amusement park is loud—the scent of fried food floods the air, lights flickering on everywhere as the sun sets.
you’re standing at a game booth with satoru, jaw set in determination.
you need to win him a plushie. he won you one earlier—some stupidly cute little seal—and now it’s a matter of pride. you stare at the last milk bottle in the booth, then the ping-pong ball in your hand. take aim and...
you miss.
again.
the bell doesn’t ring. the plushie stays smugly out of reach. taunting you.
you stare at the empty counter. then at your empty ticket pile. then back at satoru.
“…i used all my tickets,” you mumble, pouting.
satoru blinks. then laughs, soft and fond. “already? wow, baby, you really gave it your all, huh?”
you groan. “i wanted to win you one!"
he’s already pulling his wallet out.
“here,” he says, handing you cash, “go wild.”
your eyes light up, “really?!”
he hums, kissing the corner of your lips, “mhm. go get more tickets.”
you gasp, grab the money, and bounce on your toes before running toward the ticket booth. “thank you baby! don’t follow me, okay? i wanna surprise you!”
he raises his hands in surrender. “yes, ma’am.”
you disappear into the crowd.
satoru turns back to the stall you just emptied your tickets at, leaning casually against the counter.
that’s when the girl running the game smiles at him.
"nah, she didn't want me to play 'cuz she wanted to win me one. it's cute."
she laughs, twirling the strap of her apron. “is she… your sister?”
he stares at her.
then grins.
because the both of them know damn well that she wishes you were his sister.
“oh,” he says lightly, “no. that’s my girlfriend.”
“…oh.”
“like,” he continues, sweet as sugar, “the love of my life.”
her smile tightens. “she left you all alone.”
he shrugs. “she trusts me.”
pause.
then, casually—“your standards must be low.”
the girl falters. “i— what?”
satoru leans closer, resting his elbows on the counter. his tone is playful, eyes sharp. “flirting with a guy after watching him kiss his girlfriend is… pretty embarrassing. don't ya' think?”
her face heats up. “i wasn’t flirting with you.”
“mm,” he hums. “riiight.”
she crosses her arms. “you don’t have to be rude.”
he smiles wider. “i don’t have to be anything with you. weirdo.”
silence.
then he adds, almost thoughtfully, “also, she’s gonna come back with popcorn. you’ll be watching us share it.”
right on cue, you return—holding a band of tickets you'd just bought and a bag of cheddar flavoured popcorn, smiling like the sun.
“hi!” you chirp.
satoru's expression softens instantly. he pulls you in, arm wrapping around your shoulders.
“miss me?” he asks.
"ew." you curl your lip in mock-disgust before grinning again, enthusiastically, “i got us popcorn!”
he beams. then glances at another stall across the way.
“hey,” he says, feeding you a kernel, before popping one into his own mouth, “let’s play a different game, babe.” he emphasises that last word, loud enough for her to hear.
you follow his gaze, gasping, “yeah! that one has cuter plushies!”
“exactly.”
he squeezes you closer, steering you away without another glance back.
behind you, the girl at the stall suddenly finds her counter very, very interesting.
ɞ r. sukuna
fratboy!sukuna helping you run a bakesale
you’re running a bake sale for an assignment in your college business management class. everyone had to pitch an idea, run a stall in the college courtyard, track costs, the whole thing.
yours is baked goods. cute ones. frosted, themed after your favourite cartoon characters. you'd stayed up all night baking.
you asked sukuna to help.
he scoffed. “i’m not handing out no damn cupcakes.”
so he doesn't.
but he did help you put up the stall at five in the morning.
he sits on a fold-up chair behind the table instead, hood up, legs spread, arms crossed, watching you work like a guard dog with tattoos and a temper. you don’t mind. you know he’ll help when you need it. and it’s nice, having him there while you’re busy.
the courtyard is chaos at first. hungry college students swarm the stalls, money flying, your cupcakes and cookies and brownies disappearing. you’re smiling so hard your cheeks hurt.
eventually, the rush dies down.
you glance over your shoulder. “baby. can you watch the stall? i'm gonna go get water.”
he grunts, but stands anyway, dragging the chair back. “’kay.”
you skip off, empty water bottle in hand.
not even a minute later, a girl steps up to the table.
“hii,” she says, dragging the word out. “is this where i get cupcakes?”
sukuna looks down at the cupcakes. then at her.
“no.”
she laughs. loud. fake. “oh my god, you’re sooo funny.” she leans closer. “i’ll take the pink one. can i get a box?”
he says nothing. grabs a styrofoam box.
“did you bake all these?” she asks. “they’re really pretty."
“no,” he replies flatly. “my girlfriend did. i’m just watching the stall for her.”
her smile falters. just a little.
“aw,” she says, lips curling into a pout. “shame.”
he pauses. looks at her. “what.”
she grins. “it’s a shame. you’d look cute in an apron.”
he blinks.
slowly.
“are you flirting with me,” he grunts, “right after i told you i had a girlfriend.”
she rolls her eyes, still smiling. “c’mon. you’re a frat guy. i bet you have, like, twelve.”
his eye twitches.
he looks down at the cupcake.
then—
squish.
he crushes it in his hand. frosting oozes between his fingers. cake collapses into a sad, mangled mess.
he drops the ruined thing into the box with a miserable thwop. closes the lid. slides it across the table to her with a shit-eating grin.
“didn’t wash my hands,” he adds casually.
her face drains of colour, "what the hell!?"
“that’ll be four bucks.”
she rolls her eyes, walking away to buy something from another stall, grumbling under her breath.
right on cue, you come back, bottle refilled, humming.
“thanks for watching—” you stop. blink. he's stood there, eating the deformity, frosting all over his hand. “why does that cupcake look like it got jumped?”
sukuna looks down at you, "quality control. or somethin' like that."
you snort. “you don't even know what that means."
he smirks lazily, "these cupcakes're good, babe.”
"i saved you some in the fridge. you didn't have to destroy one just so you could eat it." you laugh, shaking your head, going back to fixing the display.
"want some?"
"gross. you didn't even wash your hands."
he grins, sitting down behind you. stall secure.
super cute dividers by @cursed-carmine! check them out here
SUKUNA is a nerd trapped in a hot football player’s body. You ask stupid questions, and he answers them factually. Sometimes, it’s an educated guess that turns out to be right.
18+ CW college au / suggestive / established relationship
Sometimes you look at your boyfriend and genuinely wonder how he ended up on a football team when he could probably squeeze his way into NASA. If your girl math is correct, he could also find the cure to cancer with that stupidly sexy brain of his.
There was a time when the two of you were just lounging on the couch, talking about general science.
“I was so pissed when they removed Pluto from the roster!” you say dramatically before tossing popcorn into your mouth. “That was my favorite planet.”
“Fuckin' roster?” Sukuna laughs, his hand squeezing your thigh absentmindedly. “It’s cool, baby. I think they’re reconsidering bringing it back.”
Your eyes light up instantly. “No way?”
He nods, then casually adds, “It’s more geologically alive than Mars, and NASA’s new spacecraft snapped new photos of it.”
“Oh. That's...” You blink. "interesting to know."
Sukuna looks like a himbo. Sometimes he even sounds like one. But when his brain switches gears, everyone’s jaw drops (yours included). He knows way more than he lets on.
During off season, he likes rewatching football games. Sometimes it’s other teams. Sometimes it’s his own games, replayed again and again while he studies every mistake.
You sit beside him, watching his focused expression intently.
“Just curious,” you say while tilting your head. “Do you guys physically butt heads during a game?”
“Oh yeah. Happens more often than you think.” He takes a quick sip of beer. “That’s why we wear helmets.”
Your lips part. “So you don’t get bumps on your head?”
“Close.” He turns to you with a small smile. “It’s so our brain doesn’t get scrambled." You nod slowly as he keeps explaining. "We run with so much force that colliding with anything, really, can make the brain slosh around and cause a concussion.”
He then pulls out his phone and opens Google, typing football headgear. Sukuna scoots closer and tilts the screen toward you.
“So the outer shell is made of polycarbonate, right?” He says while zooming in on the image. “It’s good because it's lightweight and durable, but also has high impact resistance.” He swipes to the next photo. “Now, this one’s a soft shell. It helps with reducing impact.”
You nod again, following along even if half of it flies over your head.
He sets the phone aside and starts using his hands to explain instead. “So we kinda need both for protection since a concussion is not sexy."”
You don’t really have much to add to that. “I see.”
It’s not just science and math, either. After a year of dating him, you only realize he’s also well-versed in the arts during a quick visit to an exhibit.
You were hesitant to bring him along at first. You thought old paintings and sculptures would bore him to death. But boy, were you wrong.
While you snap photos of a painting, you ask casually, “He likes that lady that much, huh?”
“That lady is his wife,” Sukuna says, never taking his eyes off the painting. When he feels you staring at him, he lifts a brow and shrugs. “Pussy had him on a leash, he had to paint her multiple times.”
You lean closer, grinning. “Would you paint me multiple times too?”
"I'm not a painter but..." He glances around, then smirks and leans in to whisper, “I like painting your body with my cum, if that counts.”
Your face burns instantly.
“Suki!” you whisper yell.
He just laughs, pleased with little joke. "What? Not a fan of my art?"
Honestly, who needs Google when you have a hot nerd at home?
synopsis: you’re a college gossip columnist with a shitty boyfriend. your life takes a turn when you meet a hot guitarist that makes you pause writing about other people’s lives and start living yours. (feeding the ino girls, god knows we’re starving)
warnings: toxic boyfriend, alcohol, justified(?) cheating, some angst, some smut, fem reader, messy reader, cursing, check chapter warnings
( gif credits to the lovely @parktheeshark for this crisp gifset ! )
☤ ─ KINDER SEAS ; Park the Shark
summ. 3 more times the infamous Park the Shark watches over you, & the 1 time you repaid the favour.
w.count. 7.2k (whew!)
tags. More oceanic motifs , mutual pining , Shark being an asshole & a protective gentleman all at once , some law-related inaccuracies probably , not beta-read oops
a/n. Dynamic previously established here in this fic. Finally a part 2 to the Pearls Before Swine fic! Apologies for the long wait, I hope you enjoy!
1.
A CLARION CALL summons God’s cavalry in the dead of the night. Overhead, the PA system booms the dreaded Code Triage across the halls of Departments: An MCI triggered after a structural collapse of a construction site, which had also caused a multi-vehicle pile-up, bringing about a domino effect of lethal casualties.
It tears everyone asunder. 12-hour shift going 14 (and counting) entirely on your feet now with the additional storm surge of emergency traumas; either standing during surgeries or sailing between multiple theatres to assist with crush cases, complex fractures, traumatic amputations. Pulling all the stops possible, going hammer and tongs—
To no avail.
Case after trauma case watching people die on the table only to have to swiftly move on to the next; Or for them to be ferried to the ICU with the knowledge only a miracle or a prayer might save them. You can’t help but feel the swamping weight of guilt on your shoulders; Can’t help but feel like you’re drowning from the literal and metaphorical blood on your hands.
It’s a struggle. Sink or swim—
You just hadn’t expected Park the Shark, of all people, to be the sea-beast that would keep your head above water instead of dragging you under it.
“Precious is looking for you at the Nursing Station,” he informs, which— well, coming from him, is the most courteous way you will ever hear him say Get the fuck back out there and make yourself useful, to someone crying their eyes out in an on-call room.
“Shit. Okay,” you nod, trying for steadiness as you blink back tears. But your voice cracks, and the humiliation only adds to the shame of you having flinched out your skin at being caught weeping by your literal boss, alongside the exhaustion and the weariness and the grie—
“Sorry. Just. Give me a minute.” You sniffle. Wipe your tear-stained cheeks like a child as you palpably feel Park observing (…judging?), silently, before drifting into the room.
He leans against the work table. Crosses his arms. (A shred of consideration, perhaps, if you’re hopeful to read it as such: A 6’2” beast of a man trying his best not to crowd you in a tiny room by keeping distance; keeping your space on the bed yours as much as he’s keeping his own in the corner.)
“Minute’s up,” he bluntly declares, after a beat. And just before you can open your mouth to protest:
“What the hell happened?” he asks.
You look up at him, blindsided.
Park has never been the type for small talk or inanities. A captain of a no-nonsense, streamlined, tight ship who preferred to nip bullshit in the bud. The abrupt gesture of conversation has you haywiring for a moment: He hadn’t asked it in a way that sounded fed up or impatient at all.
You shake your head. Duck your gaze to pick at the soles of your shoes. They’re stained, still, with dried blood.
He just wants to make sure you’re not a liability, you reason to yourself. Quit crying before you ruin your image to him.
“M’fine,” you finally exhale. “Just exhausted.”
“You’ve had shittier days,” he disagrees immediately, as if he’d predicted your reply— which is true, you’ve endured longer hours than today before in your career. Park is simply cutting to the chase, like the problem solver he is; that familiar tone in his voice sparking your reflex into deference. Don’t waste my time, it feels like.
And so you yield. Unlatch the floodgate of your heart.
You tell him about the 15-year-old who could’ve been saved with a clamshell thoracotomy had his sternum and ribs not been pulverised into too many fragments for you to pick out; about the premature twins delivered to the NICU after an 8-month-pregnant mother had suffered an Open Book pelvic crush fracture on the drive back home from their OBGYN check-up with PTMC just an hour before.
You tell Dr. Park about the other trauma patients you watch code and die on the table despite doing everything you could; and about the 12-year-old little girl with the open skull fracture, and the above-the-knee amputation you had to perform on a 17-year-old teen, and the 21-year-old man who you’re sure is going to wind up paralysed from the waist down.
That while most of your patients were stabilised enough to survive and pull through emergency surgery, they still have a long way yet to go in suffering the winding road to recovery; still have to endure the ICU anyway to fight for their life, and we both know how postoperative mortality rates fucking look like, don’t w—?
“Hey,” Park overrides sharply, cutting cleanly through the tempest in your spiralling head.
You suck in through your teeth with a flinch. Fortify yourself. Bring the levees back up around your heart for when he spears you with a barrage of strictures; to tear into you for wallowing in your despair like a child.
Only—
“You just said you did everything you could,” he points out incredulously, brows pinched. “That’s as high as the ceiling goes in trauma cases like these.”
A difficult thing to hear, given his stern cadence as he harshly says it, and an even harder pill to swallow. But it works enough, surprisingly, to steady you back into some semblance of sanity. Anchoring you from going adrift.
“Anything further is the work of God— and I don’t believe in in divine miracles,” he censures, pragmatic. “I believe in Doctors. And the good ones do everything they can.”
(That is to say: you did good. You are good— of which also says: I believe in good. I believe in you.)
It feels like a cold plunge. Shocks you into blinking up at him again, with what you can only imagine is owlish surprise, considering the way he’s looking back at your teary gaze with that same unimpressed expression he gets whenever he states something glaringly obvious: Detached. Clinical.
You bleed out the saturated warmth welling up somewhere beneath your ribcage before it can drown you. Flood it with cerebral rationale instead:
Park the Shark does not hand out compliments, and so you ought not to foolishly consider what he implied as such. This is… charity. That scrap of validation he knows everyone seeks desperately from him. Just an off-hand lifeline thrown to buoy you through rough waters.
(Then again, you’ve never known Park to say something just for the sake of saying it. He’s the taciturn sort, and above all an unapologetically brutally honest one. So maybe—?)
You internally shake your thoughts.
“The rest is just noise,” comes his fierce conclusion. “Tune it out.”
“Did it take long?” you ask, just as the redundancy of the question had hit you. “To tune it out, I mean.”
It should’ve been a blatant no to hear from the cold-blooded Park the Shark of all Doctors— bold and hardhearted and perfectly sensible for someone who’d earned a certified specialty in Ortho-trauma early on in his career. Bone-deep certainty driving his hands and cold data clearing his head that provides infallible, utilitarian disconnect from him and other people.
But it appears, briefly, like he’s considering something as he stares at you. It’s gone into the depths before you can make out the shape of it: A flash of something alive underneath the maritime blue of his eyes.
“Your shift is over,” he settles stiffly, after the pensive moment. “Go home.”
That sits you up straight, diverted by the non sequitur. “What? No, I—” You must have crossed a line; must have failed some unknown test he’d been dishing out to be abruptly dismissed like this, surely? “I can keep going—”
“Go home, pup,” he repeats, in that menacing snap of finality he uses to clinch arguments. Teeth and a scrunched nose in a half-snarl. “I won’t say it again.”
“Two more consults,” you barter pathetically, sliding off the bed before you can stop yourself: You’ve planted yourself stubbornly in front the door where he’s made headway to exit after pushing off his corner. “I have four more patients.”
You unflinchingly meet his leviathan-keen gaze when he stops short in front of you. There’s an exasperated bristle to his expression, as if you’re a pesky little sea urchin insistent in blocking his path back to the shoreline.
“You’ve been on your feet for over 14 hours.” So have you, Shark, you manage to swallow back. “Yeshua volunteered to come in early,” Park continues, visibly growing more annoyed. “You covered for him last time. Scale’s even.”
“Yeshua? He never volunteers for anything,” you scowl, only for it to hit you a moment later. Yeshua never volunteers. Park would have had to put him up to it, essentially giving you an out, and… sparing you a kindness?
Be realistic, you remind yourself. It couldn’t be. He’s probably punishing Yeshua for something while replacing your uselessness. Two birds with one stone. Ever efficient.
“Look, alright? I’m done crying. I got it out my system,” you insist, as patiently as you can. Pointedly taking a deep breath and tucking your hair back in an attempt to back your mettle. “I’m fine. I’m not a liability, Dr. Park—”
A noncommittal scoff. As if to say Is that what this is, pup? “If you were, I’d have told you a long time ago.”
There it is again. A liferaft. The sliver of recognition you can’t help but take to heart as implied approval, like the greedy, self-indulgent girl you are. Clinging hopelessly onto the flimsy fact that his absence of criticism is the closest thing anyone can get as praise.
“Now move, or you will be moved,” he warns, dryly.
You heed him before your imagination runs wild at the idea. Step aside to let him make his way out the door. End the conversation.
But he shifts slightly to pull it wide instead, his hand coming up high against the door and above your head to hold it open for you. An easy, economic motion, stretching him into a looming figure. There’s more than enough space to let you pass if you dip below his arm just a fraction.
Hardly chivalrous. Enough, though, that it’s a dissonance to his otherwise… ungracious character.
Well? An impatient tilt of his head to the threshold. Ladies first.
“Handover after speaking with Precious,” he orders sharply, disregarding your shy, sheepish Thanks once you finally duck past him. “I don’t wanna see you after that.”
It should’ve come across unforgivably offensive with the way he’d delivered the coarse words, but the entire exchange you’d just shared with him since he’d walked in had only served to soften the abrasiveness of his instruction into something achingly endearing in your chest.
“…Yeah,” you mumble, flustered. “Okay.”
2.
The amputation bites you back in the ass within a few months of the MCI: a teen with an athletic scholarship loses his future, an angry father’s threat to sue you comes to fruition, and PTMC’s Legal Department contacts you— and all the medical staff involved in the operating theatre that day, much to everyone’s chagrin— in regards to the case.
Dr. Brendon Park has a decorated career in medicine long enough to have faced his own line of medical malpractice lawsuits against him. You, however, do not.
The email alone sends you spiralling.
“Quit pacing,” Dr. Park scowls. He sets the break room coffee pot down with a frustrated thud that echoes like a gavel. “You’re gonna give me a fucking headache.”
“They’re filthy rich,” you ignore, undoing your surgical cap with an exasperated rake of fingers through your hair. “They could easily take this all the way to court if they wished—”
“Then I’ll testify on your behalf,” Park dismisses, easily. He doesn’t even meet your gaze as he hisses it— delivered so scathingly yet casually; you can’t decipher if there’s any truth to it or if he’s just trying to placate you from wearing a hole through the floor. “Every doctor gets sued at least once in their life.”
You throw your hands up. “Yeah, well, I was sure as shit hoping not to join that statistic.”
“Then go get a fuckin’ job at the VA hospital,” he cuts, brutal. (It’s sensible: any lawsuit there would instead go against the government.) He’s raised his voice now, to bring an end to the discussion. “Or, you can doctor up and deal with this like everybody else has to.”
“It’s a deposition,” he says, in what you can only compare to as a verbal eye-roll. “Not the end of the world.”
Feels like it, you don’t snap back, resorting instead to a huff too deliberate to go unnoticed. Park shoots you a look sharp enough to pierce through your soul at the sound, and you find yourself shrinking back from the eye-contact instinctively.
His pager blips through the tension before he can lash out at you. He assesses it between a sip. Sighs frustratedly.
“They’re going to ask you questions,” he begins— and the coffee must’ve stilled the torrent in his veins, because his voice has shifted to something more relenting; though with no less attitude.
“Yes or no will suffice. If you give anything more, the lawyers will poke holes— and trust me, they will find a way to— so keep it short. Stick to the facts and the data. Don’t overexplain or try to defend yourself, because that’s your attorney's job. D’you understand?”
He takes another swallow of his coffee. Watches you nod stiffly as you absorb the information.
“ED needs consult,” Park announces, lazily. He jerks his chin. “Use the distraction.”
On any other day it might’ve been humiliating to be dismissed this offhandedly and sent away on what’s most certainly going to be a menial case— but for some reason this time feels less like blatant rejection and more like he’s giving you another out; another escape.
Distraction. It’s unusually transparent of him.
The way he’d said it hadn’t been unkind. Not exactly warm, either. Still rough around the edges in a way only Park can manage to deliver an attempt at comfort.
So you do take it.
You know better than to come back from the moment’s reprieve still being a useless worrywart; so you let his cold advice ring through your head across the days like a countdown— All the way up until Park had allowed the hospital attorney to pull you out of a simple arthroscopy procedure, and finally escort you to your deposition, of which you spend the entire time fidgeting in your seat.
“You did excellently,” compliments Attorney Morgan Stiles, in the wake of the aftermath. “You gave me infinitely less trouble than Park did, for what it’s worth.”
In the middle of the elevator ride back down, your attention snaps to the folder in hand being offered to you. Park had completed his deposition yesterday morning. He hadn’t mentioned a peep of it to anyone.
ORAL DEPOSITION TRANSCRIPT, reads the document, once you curiously accept it. You skim the unnecessary information— dates, names, summaries, confidentialities— and jump to a random page:
(Somewhere in the end-half of the deposition, you figure. You can picture it in your mind’s eye; the austere hospital courtroom, with Dr. Park seated sentinel and glacially calm as usual, voice answering steadily throughout the examination in that unabashed impatience and contempt reserved for people taking up his time.)
A: That’s the nature of traumatic cases. What you’re doing is conflating a poor outcome to poor medicine, which isn’t the case, because some of PTMC’s best trauma surgeons were operating on this patient.
Q: And would you agree a different Senior Attending Physician, such as you, Dr. Park, may have altered the outcome for this patient had they been present?
A: No. I’d have done exactly the same thing as my Resident did from bedside to theatre.
Q: And so you maintain your Resident did not err in her decision to amputate above-the-knee?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you classify her decision as a judgement call, given the circumstances of the mass-casualty?
A: Didn’t we just clarify this? [Sighs] No.
Q: Are you confident in your answer, Dr. Park?
A: Confidence is sure as hell what it takes to work as an Orthopaedic Surgeon in a Level-1 Trauma Center, isn’t it?
MS. JENN WALTERS: That’s nonresponsive, Doctor.
A: Jesus christ, yes. I’m certain.
Q: If confidence is needed for an Orthopaedic Surgeon, as you’ve said, why did your Resident reportedly appear distressed following the case?
MS. MORGAN STILES: Objection. Relevance.
Q: It regards to the confidence of the standard of care the physician delivered--
A: Excuse me? No, absolutely not. It regards to her being a Doctor with a fucking conscience.
Q: Be professional, Doctor. You’re on the record.
A: You undermine my Resident, Sir. A trained and capable surgeon who recognised the acuity of the injury, escalated accordingly, and executed it appropriately to standard of care. That’s exactly why I signed off operationally, and that’s why I’m here. If you challenge her decision, you challenge mine--
Q: [crosstalk 00:44:21] --As established, yes--
A: --Her “poor confidence” post-operation doesn’t indicate the level of competence she performed in that OR whatsoever. If you’re gonna try her as guilty for showing a little heart after an evidently difficult case amidst an MCI, then you should be trying me, the entirety of the Surgical Department, and the goddamn rest of PTMC too for every tear we shed on a loss, don’t you think?
Q: Carry on, Doctor.
MS. MORGAN STILES: Objection. Asked and answered. You’re not required to continue, Dr. Park.
A: Yeah? Well, I want it on the record anyway-- Good medicine begins with good character, and hers has never once been in doubt to me. I don’t-- I wouldn’t want to lose her. Any doctor worth their salt wouldn’t want to lose someone like her.
Q: Alright. Well. Shall we say you acknowledge all of what you said, Dr. Park, as your personal opinion?
A: [Pause 3s] It’s a professional one.
You blink, dumbfounded. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”
Attorney Stiles shoots you a discerning look as she studies your flustered expression.
“That page you’re reading,” she repeats slowly, taking the transcript back with a knowing smile as the elevator descends, “I was saying, that for all the times I’ve had to represent Dr. Park, he’s never once failed to acknowledge the competency of his colleagues. He is, for all intents and purposes, a man of honesty.”
That makes you deflate more than you’re willing to allow yourself. Professional opinion, you remind yourself. That’s all it is.
“But,” she continues, and this time you do glance at her with a flash of hope in your eye too bright to ignore, “I’ve never seen him jump to anyone’s defense the way he did for you that day. He took off on a tangent. You can’t gauge the tone in his transcript, but he was angrier than he sounds here. Angry for you.”
Something treacherous flits behind your ribcage. You smother it before it can take flight. “He’d have done it for anyone, I’m sure.”
A snort. “I’ve represented him multiple times across the years. He never has,” she says, brows raising at you. “Dr. Park has always been a man in control of his emotions especially when it matters most— but that deposition was the first I ever witnessed him lose his cool. You must be a pretty good doctor, aren’t you?”
The elevator dings. Sound akin to a lightbulb going off in your head when you decipher the smirk on her face.
“Like he’s mentioned: he was just…” You shrug unconvincingly, laughing it off with an awkward smile as she slips out to her floor. “He was just being professional.”
She winks as the doors shut. “Sure. Whatever floats your boat, Doc.”
3.
“…ith the systems out. Spectralinks are down. Paging departments will be done by the hospital landline or in emergencies by mobile phones,” Park explains, before raising a clipboard with a sticky-note attached. “This is my number. Only contact me if it’s urgent, unless you want an early fucking grave.”
But that’d been over a week ago. Within specific context of a literal cyberattack sending everybody offline and analogue.
Here, now, with your phone in hand and vision swirling after forcibly hurling the contents of your stomach out in the dingy bathroom sink of a bar— You hit send on your text before you can backpedal and wonder if this too could even count as an emergency to Park’s eyes:
Stranded in a bar, your last long island iced tea sweating on a cocktail table had tasted glaringly off; And it must be paranoia kicking you into overdrive, vulnerably surrounded by a posse of drunkards, but you’d decided to empty your stomach just in case before you could talk yourself out of it.
Maybe it’d been a heavy pour, you’d tried to convince yourself, Or just a flat drink, or the fact you’ve been nursing alcohol on a relatively empty stomach after a 6 hour spinal fusion cas—
Your heart stumbles. Notification chirping.
You’d expected him to not open your long-winded, over-explained S.O.S messages from you at all. Maybe leave you on read. Hell, blocking your contact would’ve been less of a surprise than a straightforward reply going:
9:55 | Address and live location.
Straight to the heart of the matter, as usual. You know better than to argue. Too late to take it back without making further a fool out of yourself.
➤ …You started sharing your Location with Park the Shark 🦈.
9:51 | [Live Pin📍631 Suismon St. Pittsburgh, PA 15212.]
9:51 | Its ok rlly i can just call an uber. U can ignore this
He calls you two minutes later, saving you in the nick of time from being inveigled into a game of pool with the ragtag group of strangers you’ve been held socially-hostage to by proxy of your now-missing friend. (You should’ve known better than to thirdwheel her and her partner.)
Ten minutes. Stay on the phone, Park orders, You okay?
The abrupt bound of your heart at the question feels ill-timed given the situation, but you feel the unbidden surge in your gut anyway: Here is Park the Shark, beastly and brutal, asking if you were okay.
“Oh. Yeah, I—”
“Yo,” comes a new voice. It’s the ginger who’d cornered and badgered you into the game, a drunken grin on his face as he leans on his cue stick, eyes obviously wandering. “Who’re y’on that call with? C’mon, join me.”
Your grip tightens around your phone.
“My boyfriend,” you blurt reflexively, anything to throw up a boundary to ward off or deter anyone else from encroaching further into your seemingly-inviting space. “He’s on the way to pick me up.”
A beat.
The lie catches up to you a moment later. Has blood rushing to your face and your ears when you remember, mortifyingly, that Park is overhearing everything over the line.
Fuck. Whatever. It’s done. You’ll deal with the fallout later, you figure. Endure the humiliating consequences he’ll put you through and the inevitable snarl of a lecture. The all-too-familiar trademark wrath of Park the Shark that you’ve survived before—
Park hums. A half-breath that escapes as an… amused huff. (You’re probably mistaken, right?) Makes your pulse rabbit further. “That shake him off?”
You’re caught off guard. Glancing sideways at the group prowling your periphery, half-waiting for you to rejoin them for the night. “Not really,” you admit. “How close are you?”
“Seven minutes. Just keep talking to me. What’d you drink?”
You obey dutifully. Answer whatever he asks: why you’d been out tonight, where your friend had gone, and about the little clique that had invited you into a round of pool with less choice than they made it feel like.
Park doesn’t interrupt you when you make an off-hand lament about your heels digging at your ankles, nor about your addled drink; rattling to him that no, no, I threw it up. I’m a little queasy but I’m fine, really. I can still just call an Uber and power through the hangover tomorrow morning—
His voice keeps you company. Occupied. Distracts you just enough to make the short wait less insufferable; That by the time you’re looking up from where you’ve been picking distractedly at a drink coaster, you witness Park’s leviathan shape slice through the bar and part patrons like water to a prow, not sparing a drop of attention to the turned heads as he sails past the pool table into a dead-reckoning towards you.
Let’s go, is all he snarls. Abrasive. Canine-sharp and a flashing glint of jagged teeth as he delivers his classic shark-stare to your fishy onlookers. And if the inebriated ginger and his shoal of drunkards had any suspicions about Park being with you, it’s promptly dashed by his hovering hand behind your back as he weaves you through the revelling crowd; his leading presence and angling body enough to shoulder and be a proverbial breakwater for you all the way out the door.
It’s drizzling out tonight. Chilly. When you exit the bar, the dark sleek of his car is idled (Read: parked illegally) and waiting at the slick curb. He strides ahead just enough to open the passenger door, hand on the roofline as he guides you to duck into your seat. It’s a welcome warmth of pressure behind your back, and then again when the crown of your head brushes his palm.
A shield from clipping the frame. Startles you more than the touch itself.
“Hey. Eyes on me,” he orders, in that maddeningly level tone of his, once he’s sure you’ve settled properly and clipped your seatbelt on. “If anything changes— you tell me before you decide to throw up in my car, or I’ll leave your ass on the street. Got that?”
“God forbid.” Your smile is tight-lipped and sheepish. “Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Park.”
He doesn’t answer until much later, when he’d put in your address and let the murmuring humdrum of the radio fill in the space, that he stiffly reminds:
“Didn’t I tell you before not to get used to me playing nice?”
Your mouth opens, then shuts in contemplation before you let yourself slur your words. “I know. I’m sorry. This was highly unprofessional and I, I shouldn’t’ve called, but I just figured…”
He’s white-knuckling his steering wheel. You can see the masseter in his jaw flex. “Don’t make it a habit,” he snipes.
“I won’t,” you start, fumbling for your phone in your purse. Your vision is muddling as the seconds fly and your soberness begins to ebb once more. “I’ll delete your contact, if you want—”
“I meant the unsafe drinking,” he amends, pointedly.
You blink. Battle with yourself, fleetingly, on whether he knows what he’s just unintentionally implied; how dumb it would be to ask Does this mean I get to keep your number? as your lockscreen winks back to sleep again. Does this mean you care? Does this mean—
“It was a personal opinion, wasn’t it?” you find yourself blurting out.
The car rolls to a stop at the red light of an intersection. Nothing but the steady, pitter patter of rain threading the silence with a melodic lull. It unwinds you more than you realise, has you unconsciously sinking into the comfort of your seat. There’s no taking back what you’ve asked now. No escaping. In for a penny…
“What you said about me in your deposition, I mean,” you continue. I don’t want to lose her. That’s what he’d stopped himself from saying, hadn’t it?
The traffic light blinks go. Sea-green floods through the windshield and washes over Park. Reveals him in a way you’ve never witnessed before: caught out; a fish out of water. There’s a few loose strands over his forehead that somehow only makes him the most domestic you’ve ever seen him— and frustratingly attractive.
Someone honks. (That hopeful part of you is digging its watery grave again: taking his distracted hesitation as something else that could be entirely different.)
“You’re lucky you’re drunk,” he comments, once he remembers to move. Blank. You can’t read him. Can’t gauge the depth of the ocean-blue in his eyes from where you’ve been metaphorically walking the plank.
“Oh,” you murmur humorously, letting him off the hook for ignoring the question, “you’d know if I was drunk, Park, believe me.”
“Yeah? What the hell are you right now, then?”
“Sleepy?” you offer, before shaking your head. “No. Not that.” Head over heels, you don’t answer, turning to gaze outside the window instead. Watching raindrops race as the city flickers past. “…I’m struck.”
A beat.
You can feel him spare a pensive glance as you let your head tip back into the carseat, eyes fluttering heavily for a moment’s reprieve between your tipsiness; Can feel him like a brand on your skin, gaze searing into your profile. Judging you, perhaps, between the streaks of streetlights passing rhythmically across your face.
You can hear him in your head, even if the words never leave his mouth. The hell’s that supposed to mean?
Silence.
You must have let it stretch too long, though, because something shifts in the tense air that you can reflexively pick up after years of working hand in glove with him in the OR: Stillwater. Doldrums. A calm before the storm.
Park’s attention has sharpened to a scalpel’s point.
Somewhere between the syrup-thickening haze of sleepiness, your thoughts have quietly muted out, and your eyes slowly slip shut into the diaphanous beginnings of a fever drea—
His hand lands on you.
Presses on the inside of your wrist.
(Who knew Park the Shark could be so gentle, comes your candid thought.)
It’s enough to startle you, lazily cracking one eye open to peer at him through the gossamer of exhaustion: Park’s got an arm across the console reaching easily for you, gaze focused— not on you, not quite, but on where his fingers meet your pulsepoint.
He’s… counting your heartbeat.
(You hope he doesn’t notice your pulse skip at the contact; at the dreadful idea he’d discover your girlish fondness over him—)
“You said you threw it up,” he says, evenly, turning from another red light to warily chase your half-lidded gaze. “Hey. How long after?”
“Mh,” you hum, susurrus. “Soon, I think.”
“Pup,” he asserts. Then your proper name. (You take a deep breath in at that, hope he doesn’t feel the goosebumps line your skin at the bass of his voice.) It stirs you awake.
“I’m fine,” you muse drowsily, flattered. “Just… tired. S’been a long night. Had that spinal case today, remember?”
Park glowers. Withdraws his hand back. He doesn’t look reassured or humored when that same sea-green light from traffic bathes him soft again.
“I’m driving you to the ED. Keep your eyes open ‘til we get there,” he orders, already checking his blindspot as he makes a sharp turn when you begin to protest. “And shut up and stop arguing with me.”
That was that.
He’d firmly ceased the conversation from any possible attempts of dispute, and drove you to the ER to hand you over to a rightfully stunned Dr. Shen, while ignoring the prickle on his skin from half the medical staff curiously watching the scene take place.
Then Lena is asking you questions, though your thoughts are a little gummy around the margins. Park answers where he can. Ever the one to make the situation efficient. She called me to pick her up from a bar. I’m worried her drink might’ve been spiked. It’s been roughly twenty minu…
(I’m worried. The words pass so fleetingly it could’ve been imagined by you. It probably had been.)
And then IV lines, and a bed, and the turn of Park disappearing behind the curtains of North-4, and—
Come morning, there’s a white paper bag set at the foot of your bed by your zipped purse. The label and symbol emblazoned below its handles is recognisable: it’s from PTMC’s Gift Shop.
You peer into it to find… slippers.
Slippers? Not the standard-issue hospital ones that are rubber-soled and thin, but the plush ones; meant for visitors or nit-picky patients unexpectedly admitted overnight: Pale blue, absurdly comfier than necessary. There’s neither a purchase receipt nor a tag in sight.
Your heels are tucked neatly by the wall instead of being kicked someplace else. For one disorienting second, you expect to see Park posted by it in that impossibly statuesque stillness of his— nose down, arms crossed and folded, expression predatorily severe in that way it always gets before he launches into a scathing lecture.
…He isn’t there, of course. That would’ve been ridiculous. Park had no reason to stay once you were in capable hands; once you were safe.
(His absence leaves a stubborn hollow in your chest regardless.)
“Oh, hey,” you begin, when Lena checks in on you sometime later. “I’m feeling way better. Thank you. But, uh, can I just ask— Who bought me the slippers?”
Her brows are raised as she peeks at you over her spectacles, half-amused. “Who d’ya think, sweetheart?”
+ 1.
By the (alleged) third HR report that quarter, Gloria does a shakedown in regards to the infamous Park the Shark.
It pisses him off even more than usual. It pisses off everyone in Orthopaedics, in fact. On one hand because an angry Dr. Park means a shorter fuse and more tongue-lashing; And on the other: because everyone in Ortho defends each other’s throats like they were their own.
The in-fighting between departments have never been anything but off-hand retorts and petty remarks; but now that someone who knows a guy who knows a guy who’d bribed a guy managed to catch wind on which specific departments have reported Dr. Park— well. It hadn’t taken long to figure out the names.
“And yet, somehow, not a single peep from any soul in the Ortho Department,” points out Gloria, after she’d stolen you into her Director’s office for a ‘brief conversation’ one Monday morning. You have a feeling you might not have been the first person buttoned into this situation today— let alone the month.
“Oh,” you say, failing to hold back the bubble of laughter at what her tone is setting up. “You think we’ve been Stockholm’d?”
“I think Dr. Park is a six-foot-two white man who has an intimidating presence to match with his terrible reputation and notoriously curt behaviour.”
You make a face. “He went toe-to-toe against Precious and lost.”
(This time Gloria makes a face. She knows well and clear the spitfire of a personality your charge nurse Precious— a four-foot-eleven Filipina who’s been running the Ortho floor like the Navy itself long before you or even Park joined— carries around. )
“Well,” she relents comically, sinking into her office chair. “Precious is an outlier.”
“So you think everyone else is just too afraid to speak up?” you conclude.
“Doctor, I need you to take this seriously.”
Right, you inhale, making a theatrical show of straightening up. Gloria looks expectantly at you as you gather your thoughts with a sigh.
“Do you remember when Dr. Lee lost his youngest daughter back in June?” you begin, glancing at the back of a framed picture on her desk. “It was a car accident. Quick and painless. Common for her age group; Common emergency case for a Level 1 Trauma Center like ours.”
“Funnily enough, after he buried her— Dr. Lee didn’t encounter a single paediatric trauma case for the remainder of the year, you know?” you continue, meeting Gloria’s gaze. “Somebody else was always mysteriously available to take the patient away from Lee’s hands.”
If Gloria got the hint, she didn’t show.
“And on Ramadan, Dr. Arif never worries about whether he’ll faint toughing out an 8-hour operation like he did in his intern year,” comes your next story. She knows this one, surely: Park had infamously kicked him out the theatre for it. “That’s because ever since that day, trauma cases during that month are redirected to somebody else if it overlaps with the only time Arif gets to break his fast.”
“There’s also Suren, one of our best and most senior scrub nurse, who had to step away from work to return to Mongolia and dedicate her time taking care of her dying mother. She left just last month with a collection enough to help her tide over anything: hospice, funeral, even travel.”
Gloria interjects with a finger— “Precious started that fund,” — which only serves to make you snort.
“You really think our nurses here are paid enough to pool together almost, what, ten grand on a week’s notice?”
“Okay, alright, I get it,” she instantly says, sounding unbelievably incredulous. It grinds your gears more than you expect.
“So you think Dr. Park is responsible for all this… charity? You think he goes out of his way to order cases to be rescheduled or redirected for others; That he’s the type of man who would reassign personnel for their benefit— that he’s somebody who’d go the extra mile?”
“I don’t think. I know,” you correct, matter-of-fact. “He’s a good man. He may be an asshole, and the furthest thing from being nice— but that doesn’t mean he’s unkind.”
Gloria’s mouth purses at your defense. The uncharacteristic flash of ferocity and canines you’re baring is, undoubtedly, an unconscious trait of mettle you’ve inherited from the Shark. Protective; territorial.
“When you work with Dr. Park long enough, there are two things you learn quickly. One: is that he values efficiency. Tact to him is for people who have time to waste. If there’s a path of least resistance that gets him the results he desires— that the patient needs, above all— he’ll do it.”
Gloria gives you a stare that looks like, and secondly?
“Second: he’s fair. Consistent. He’ll tear you apart for a shitty postop note, sure, but he also never humiliates people for things outside of their control. He’ll bitch about the circumstances, ofcourse, but doesn’t everybody? He doesn’t care to be liked. He sure as hell doesn’t look for approval.”
There’s a myriad of things you can add on that you curb yourself from saying: My first year of Residency I didn’t have to endure the blatant misogyny for long because he drilled respect into my peers' skulls. In every case where there was an escalation or combative patient he would already be standing ahead of me like a bulwark. Whenever I come home to the blue pair of slippers he bought me because I complained about my heels once in passing, I’m reminded he picked me up when I had no one to call and drove me to the ER.
You shake your head. Draw steel into your voice.
“It’s difficult to tell the difference between whether Dr. Park is inconvenienced or concerned,” comes your conclusion, “until you eventually realize that with him, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Gloria’s office chair squeaks as she sinks back.
“You sound very certain,” she says, after a defeated pause.
The smile you give her is deceivingly sweet. “I am.”
Recognition comes by Thursday evening in the breakroom, thanks to nursing chatter.
“A little birdie told me you stuck your neck out for me,” says a low voice.
You shut the refrigerator door. Turn around to see the broad back of Dr. Park, busying himself with pouring what looks to be his third coffee.
“I’m sure everyone on the floor did,” you answer, leaning to the counter adjacent to him. “Especially Precious, I heard.”
“Little lady chewed Gloria’s ear out over nursing staff shortages and safety measures instead,” he muses. “She was locked in that room with Precious. Not the other way around.”
A punch of a laugh escapes you. “I could never.”
“But you did,” he allows, making you look at him in surprise. “Whatever bullshit you said to Gloria three days ago in that office seemed to convince her I’m worth the HR-trouble of keeping around. I got off with a slap on the wrist.”
(Which roughly means: he’ll keep his head down for awhile until the storm has passed, before he’s back to biting the heads off whoever he deems incompetent again.)
“It wasn’t bullshit,” you deny. “I won’t bore you with the details. But I just told her the truth.”
“That I’m an asshole?”
You shrug at his deadpan expression. “Well, we can’t all be perfect.”
A beat.
And then— Park laughs.
Laughs.
Curling at his lips and dimpling into his cheeks. Slight, brief, but candid. It’s a mellow, breathier sound than you would’ve ever expected. Knocks the air from your lungs in an instant and damn near startles your brain into short-circuiting. He’s never looked more roguishly handsome than he is now:
Privately smiling. Slicked-back hair now boyishly tousled from the surgical cap he must’ve yanked off after that 7 hour scoliosis case, eyes crinkled at the corners and half-weary from exhaustion as his arms lazily uncross to grab his mug. It feels alot like you’d managed to peer behind the drawn curtains; like you’ve just met the glimmer of Brendon Park.
“Don’t expect a thanks,” he scoffs, too tired to deliver it seriously, and you find yourself wishing you could continue memorising his smile when it finally vanishes behind a long sip of his coffee.
“I don’t. I wouldn’t have said what I said professionally if I didn’t believe it all personally,” you dismiss, as if it’s obvious.
His mug eventually lowers. It takes all the willpower in you not to watch the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallows his drink. Again, there’s that curious flash you catch momentarily in the watercolour blue of his eyes, diving away from sight.
“Guess that answers your question, then.”
You blink. What?
Park stares. Waits for it to register. Nothing comes, however; Not until he easily shifts forward, suddenly stepping proximally close into your space, enough you can smell the coffee steaming from his mug as he slightly corners you in an attempt to reach with his other hand—
The drive to the ER, you suddenly remember.
The realisation of it all comes to you in the zip of electricity that travels up from where Park has now (deliberately?) brushed his hand against the skin of your wrist— your pulsepoint: He’d been reaching for his pager left ontop the counter behind you, it appears.
I don’t want to lose her. That’s what he had stopped himself from saying that day. You’re sure. The evidence had been right there; it’d been the furthest thing from being professional. It’d been intimate.
It was a personal opinion, wasn’t it? You remember tipsily asking. A nondescript way of asking if you matter at all in the way he matters to you. If it had been something more— and now: I guess that answers your question, then.
“Oh,” you say, like an idiot, as if his confirmation hadn’t just brought up a thousand other questions in your mind.
His eyes tarry. Always something so jarringly intimate in the way they cut clean into yours. Lets it take up your speechlessness.
You wonder if the there-and-away flicker of his gaze to your lips, just before he’d turned to leave the breakroom, was just a feverish figment of your imagination.
Delusion, you convince yourself, when the door clicks shut. Surely.
BILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY!GOJO SATORU X HEIRESS NEGLECTED WB!READER
Bio: Young heiress to Wayne Enterprises who ends up getting swept off her feet by the billionaire playboy of Jujutsu Tech. Will the Wayne name be taken over by the Gojo clan?
“Billionaire playboy Satoru Gojo at it again with another girlfriend,” the headline reads as you scroll through your phone.
He’s such a pig, you think. How could that man be the owner of Jujutsu Tech the world’s greatest tech company next to Stark Enterprises and Wayne Enterprises? It’s unbelievable. The one running it is a self-absorbed, narcissistic bastard who can’t keep his dick in his pants. The world can be so unfair. They kiss the ground he walks on, and he can come up with the most bland, basic idea and still make billions off it. It’s infuriating.
While you’re stuck in business meeting after business meeting, trying to make sure your wealth isn’t swallowed up by some rich fat bastard, he’s out there taking shots off a supermodel’s body in Cancún. You’re practically foaming at the mouth just thinking about it.
It’s just not fair how people like him can dilly-dally and do whatever they want, while you have to do all the real work. It took ages for Bruce to finally recognize you and see you as the heir to Wayne Enterprises. It took even longer for him to consider that you should be the heiress. The rest of your brothers didn’t want the position, so it only made sense for you to take it. And finally, you have it. Years of proving yourself and making up for mistakes that other people made put you where you are.
And then there’s him. He just gets it handed to him on a silver platter. It’s just not fair, you think to yourself completely unfair. But life isn’t fair, you remind yourself. Not fair at all. So deal with the cards you’re dealt.
But what if life deals you cards you never thought you even had in your deck? Most people would go insane, while others would forfeit the game. But you stay put, because, God, you have no idea what to do when a boy likes you.
How do you even begin to explain this? Satoru Gojo the heir to the Gojo Clan, Jujutsu Tech CEO, Prince of Tokyo and Shibuya respectively has taken a liking to you. To you, of all people.
At first, you thought he was only there for the money. Wayne Enterprises is a very powerful company, and it would make Jujutsu Tech just as powerful if they were to combine. But he hasn’t once talked about business moguls. Every time he tries to court you or woo you into his arms, he only talks about dates and flying you out to some of the prettiest places in Okinawa. Who knew a billionaire playboy could be such a caring man?
Wait no. You can’t just fumble because of a smile and a couple of well-placed hands. Sure, he put his hand on your hip once while taking a photo with you at an expensive Jujutsu Tech premiere (that he invited you to), and it did make your blood run hot but that’s beside the point.
You’re not something to be won over and crossed off a list. You’re not some playboy’s little plaything. You are an heiress a goddess with an empire all your own, not some princess to be courted and ruled. Even if it felt good.
Because he's a man after all a cheating, lying, narcissistic, evil man. But beautiful blue eyes and white hair like a sheep's, and a dazzling smile, and did I mention he has dimples? And oh my god, get it together.
But you can't fall for him. You can't fall for any of those sweet words. He's probably just trying to trick you into a scandal where you end up losing all you ever worked for, and Bruce might see you as incompetent and never give you that recognition you truly deserve. You can't falter. But sure, your heart does skip a beat when he stares deep into your eyes.
But now you're not the only one who's going through it. Gojo's actually going insane because you haven't taken any of his advances seriously, and he's been annoying all of his workers.
"I don't know what I'm doing wrong, Nanami. I buy her flowers, I buy her jewelry, I take her out to dinners which she doesn't go to anyways and she still doesn't think I'm serious about her."
The tired Nanami rolls his eyes. He's Gojo's secretary while also being one of his close friends, and both jobs are hard enough. One pays well while the other pays zero.
"Maybe if you stop following supermodels on your Instagram and tried to clean up that little playboy persona of yours, then maybe she'll give you a chance," he says simply, like the answer was so obvious. And it was obvious, but it would take someone like Gojo not to even realize that.
"You think a self-respecting woman like her would fumble to the knees of a womanizer? Have more respect. Miss Wayne is a smart young woman. In her eyes, she thinks you're after her fortune, or even worse. At least try to prove to her that you're worth it," he hums simply, walking out of Gojo's office.
Oh, how he wants to wrangle that blonde man, but damn it, he's not wrong either. So he tries his hardest. He cleans up his playboy persona. Still, you won't look at him. It's driving him crazy.
Have you never met a man interested in you before? Well, the answer is obviously no. You've been infected from a young age, and the idea of love horrifies you like a kid being afraid of clowns at a fair. And like Gojo comes rushing in, full of love and affection and care, well, you want to burn him down with a blowtorch.
"Miss Wayne, may I please have this dance?" he'll ask sweetly, holding a hand out to you so you can step closer to the gala's ballroom light. But instead of blushing and taking his hand, you swiftly walk away from him, dodging him instantly.
This is not what he's expecting. You're completely out of the ordinary. He sends flowers to your office; you would turn them back in the next day. What will it take to win your heart? He doesn't even know at this point, cracking down ever so slightly.
But when he makes you laugh for the first time, it's like he's seeing roses and pretty pink flowers surround your face. He's slowly cracking down on his Ice Queen, seeing that warm side of her. Please, just give him one chance. He'll treat you right, he promises. It's not even a promise at this point—it's a vow. He doesn't even want to combine both of your companies. He just wants you. Is that so hard to ask?
Oh, and also be ready for abrupt marriage proposals out of nowhere. He tends to do that when he feels you guys getting closer, ever so slightly.
pairing(s): (platonic) batmom!reader x arkham knight!jason todd
summary: armor can't hide the fact that jason todd needs his mama
warning(s): mentions of violence, trauma, grief, death, injury, family tension and unedited work
a/n: this is an old ass jason fic i wrote but i rerad it and thought it was cute so here you go !
"i'm uninterested in whatever game you and batman are playing." you deadpanned, looking at the arkham knight.
you expected the knight: the voice, the armor, the faceless cruelty of it all. but when he stepped into the low light of your living room, you didn’t see the monster everyone else feared.
you saw the way his shoulders slumped, like the weight of the city wasn’t just on his back but in his bones. no grand intimidation, no menace. he shifted in place, boots scuffing against the floor like a child would. —like jason would when he was being scolded for doing something: when he’d broken a window, when he’d stayed out too late, when he thought you’d stop loving him for it.— you shook the thought from your head, tilting your head at him. "why didn't you leave town?" the question caught you off guard, causing your mind to stall for a quick moment.
"what?" you blinked, confusion wrinkling your brow. why would he care if you left town or not? "you should go." his voice is stern, making you snort at him, but truthfully his voice was softer than you expected. not a threat. not a warning. something caught in between that you couldn't place: quiet disappointment.
you crossed your arms. "and where exactly was i supposed to go? metropolis? i’m sure superman has enough on his plate." you laughed, shaking your head at him. "i’m not scared of you or scarecrow." he shifted in place, the sound of his boots scuffing the floor too familiar a nervous tic.
for half a second, you almost pictured jason there instead, fidgeting under your gaze like he had after dented walls with a thrown ball, or when he thought you’d be disappointed in him. the memory lanced sharp, and you shoved it down hard.
grief was cruel like that, painting ghosts onto strangers.
it happened to you far too often than you'd like to admit: when tim showed you his robin costume, when dick was making your dinner, and even sometimes you'd get the urge to call him. your baby. you'd grieved, but the grief never left and that pit in your stomach never faded.
the knight tilted his helmet toward you, head cocked —in that same impatient way jason had when he didn’t like an answer.— "you should be," he said, but there was no venom, no promise behind it. he sounded like someone mimicking what they thought a villain sounded like.
"are you here to scare me then? kill me? take everything i have?" you rolled your eyes, gesturing around the small apartment. "i don't have anything for you. i haven't worn my suit in years or helped batman, so trust me, i'm not any leverage to him. so why you are here, i do not know."
"you think batman cares about leverage?" his voice wavered, bitter, anger dancing in his words. "he doesn’t protect people. he destroys them."
you frowned. the cadence was too sharp, the words too personal, like someone who’d argued with bruce a thousand times before.
for a dangerous second, you swore you almost recognized him, his familiarity running too deep within you, but still, you couldn't place it. "you sound all studied up in all things batman." you mocked him. it made him huff, standing tall before you, but then, just as quickly, his hand flexed at his side, thumb rubbing against his palm like a nervous tick. you were terribly good at reading people, one of your many good abilities, but you didn't understand this one. he had broken into your home, and yet, he was nervous. a shyness to him almost mixed in with all the anger brooding off him.
for a moment, you’re not in your living room at all.
you’re back in the kitchen, light flickering overhead, jason 14 years old and pacing with the same exact twitch, muttering about how bruce never listens, how he doesn’t need someone hovering over him. that he could handle himself. you remember telling him that you didn't care if he could handle himself; you'd be there to handle the brunt of it anyways, that you’d never stop loving him no matter how hard he tried to test it.
the memory slices through you so sharply that you almost call his name. almost.
"yeah, well, we both know him better than most, ma." you blinked hard, throat tightening, and the knight’s silhouette swims back into view. not your boy. not jason. just another ghost wearing his shadows. grief was cruel like that, conjuring pieces of him where they didn’t belong.
like your mind needed to fill in the blanks with him to survive.
the words lingered as you tried to tell yourself you imagined, that the memories were all mixing together into one.
your eyes traced him again, desperate for reassurance that this was just a man in a mask, an enemy like the many you had faced before—nothing more. but every detail refused to cooperate: the restless thumb against his palm, the shift of weight from one boot to the other. your stomach twisted because you wanted it to be him. and that was worse than if it truly was.
"you should go."
he froze at that, helmet tilting the faintest bit like your words wounded. the silence stretched, and in it you could almost feel him staring. like if he took the helmet off, you’d find those green eyes looking back at you.
but he didn’t. the silence swallowed you whole. "how'd you even get in here."
“you never lock the back door.” the words landed like a stone in your chest. your breath stuttered before you caught it, forcing your face into something flat, unimpressed. anyone could have figured that out, you told yourself. anyone watching long enough.
“been stalking me, then?” you shot back, the edge of your voice a shield. “what, did you make a list of my bad habits to throw in my face? next you’ll tell me i leave the porch light on too.”
he shifted, and though the helmet revealed nothing, you felt the weight of his stare. too heavy. too knowing. then a small chuckle: “you do,” he said simply. no mocking lilt. no satisfaction. just… fact. your laugh was brittle. “lots of people do. doesn’t mean you know me.”
but the truth was crawling under your skin, buzzing in your bones. he hadn’t just broken in. he remembered.
"what do you want?" your voice soft, quieter than you meant, as if you were afraid of the answer.
he stilled, and you hated how your chest tightened in the silence. if he were just another villain, he would’ve already spit out demands, threats, ultimatums. instead, he just stood there, shifting once, boots dragging like he couldn’t stand still.
finally, the modulated voice broke through the heavy quiet. “...to make sure you’re safe.”
you blinked. your head tilted, frown cutting sharp across your face. that wasn’t the answer. it wasn’t his answer. it was too… tender. too careful. like words you’d heard before, whispered at your doorway when a boy swore he didn’t need you waiting up for him, but loved that you always did.
your heart lurched, and you forced a scoff up your throat. “you’re doing a terrible job of it,” you said. “breaking into my home, creeping around like a shadow. you want me safe? stay the hell away from me.”
but he didn’t move. didn’t argue. just stood there with his hand flexing at his side again, like he was biting back something you weren’t meant to hear. his laugh is dry: "you know you never used to tell me to go." your stomach felt like it was plummeting, and your throat felt dry. you couldn't speak. "in fact you used to beg to stay." he walked further into the room, closer to you. "used to let me sleep in your bed, the old man hated it." he shook his head at the memory while you felt like you couldn't move.
felt like your skin was vibrating.
“i don’t expect you to remember,” he said, voice tight, almost bitter. “especially since you forgot me so quick.” his fingers curl tightly into his hand, he's upset, angry.
all the same tells.
but it couldn't be…
"jason?" the name left her lips for the first time in what felt like years. he visibly relaxed at her voice, like he had spent this whole time just waiting for his mother. he reached up, opening his mask. "hey ma." you want to break down, you want to crumble
you can't. it feels like you don't know how. every emotion washing over you. you took a slow step forward, gulping, "jason-how-“ he took a sharp step back, and it broke your heart. it tore something in you that you didn't know could be broken.
"don't."
he flinches, stepping back again, and your chest tightens. he looks different, scars covering his face that broke your heart, but the boy you remember is still there, buried under the armor and the anger. "i’m not-" he starts, voice bitter, then cuts off, unsure. like he wants to tell you he's not who he used to be, he is a shell of himself. a part of him feared you'd never love him the same again.
"my baby," a soft whisper that shatters him, that tells him that all he needed was his mother, who had spent all night crying in that abandoned wing. his mother.
he had scripted a thousand things to say to you, to yell at you, to tell you off, but all he saw when he looked at you was the woman who had loved him ever since the day bruce wayne took him in. he saw his mom, the woman who held him when he cried. the one who had made his robin suit especially just for him.
and when you saw him… you only saw the poor boy who you had caught trying to steal your husband's tires.
your jason.
a/n: idk if i like this too much but tysm for reading and i hope u liked. feel free to request!