My name is Mohammad, a father of three young children living in Gaza. We are facing unimaginable hardships due to the ongoing catastrophic war, and our home is no longer safe. I’ve started a fundraising to raise $40,000 to move my family to a safer place where my children can have a chance at a better future. 💔🍉
If you could spare a moment to read our story and consider donating or even sharing, it would mean the world to us. Every bit of support brings us closer to safety and hope. 🙏
Thank you for your kindness and compassion. ❤
https://gofund.me/fd1faea2 🔗
of course, i have reblogged your post on another account with more followers and am keeping you in my prayers
omg i haven’t seen your blog pop up in so long. how are you ??
ahhhh hey!! i’m doing good, mostly active on my side blog now although i don’t do much writing on there either. i have a few long fics on my ao3 that take up most of my time plus writing for my university degree :3
hi!! ive read your past aot stuff and im obsessed- would you be okay if i used your flower asks (from your 300 followers event) for my personal ships? i'll definitely credit you! :)
idc if you say your blog is dead cos you're 100% amazing. fell in love with a piece you wrote about all the aot characters being whipped for an mc. heartbreaking. soul-wrenching. best piece of angst I've ever read.
THIS IS SO KIND thank you very very much :’) to date it’s one of my favourite pieces i’ve ever written so that means a lot. my interest for aot wavers a lot but i’ve always wanted to do a part two to it, either as a sort of continuation or a similar concept with the adult characters (levi, hange, erwin, etc) . but in the meantime thank you so much !!! i’m so happy you liked it and i hope ur having a lovely day <3
synopsis. it's christmas, but dazai is not prepared to recieve a gift from you—much less what it actually turns out to be
content. fluff, some angst, dazai's backstory spoilers, christmas, mentions of drinking and being drunk, alcohol mentions, mentions of smoking (reader + dazai, brief), mild pining, mentions of dazai being suicidal + one of his suicide attempts (non graphic), unestablished relationship.
Dazai has never had much reason to partake in festivities.
Birthdays, public holidays—the most they did for him for most of his life was mark the passing of another year in the same place, with the same shadows encroaching his mind, with the same gaping hollow pit where his heart should be. Besides, he’s never had anyone to celebrate with. Or wanted to celebrate. Why, when each year was little more than a blank marker in a graveyard nobody visited, another step towards the early grave he so desperately yearned for?
And yet… things change.
With the agency, he experiences his first party. It’s nothing much—Tanizaki’s seventeenth birthday, only a couple of months after he joins for real. It’s modest, because there isn’t many of them back then, just cake and candles and cheap streamers holed up around the room. A quick song, and Naomi had hugged him after, and Fukuzawa’s eyes had shone when he wished him another happy year. It made Dazai feel strange, like he’d picked open a healed scab, and he was left awash with a feeling he hadn’t felt since he’d watched a friend walk out of a bar years ago knowing it would be the last time he saw him.
And then times had changed more. The agency is practically full to bursting, now—Fuzukawa, Ranpo, Yosano, Tanizaki, Naomi, Kunikida, Kenji, Atsushi, Kyouka… and you. It’s not that Dazai ever really trusts anyone at face value, not really, but…
He thinks some people can’t fake it.
And you certainly can’t fake those things about yourself, the ones he finds so interesting. Your kindness, your empathy. They were what drew him to you initially, slumping across your desk until you paid attention to him, sidling up to make casual conversation in a supply closet, peering over your shoulder to read your text messages until you tutted and batted at his head. But it’s not what made him stay; that was when he realised it was all real.
You weren’t just putting on a show for anyone. You were kind, all the time, because you just were. Dazai can’t help but wonder what that’s like.
December brings forth a winter so languid it seems to have lingered for decades; snow envelopes Tokyo in an algid white blanket, and you start coming into the office wearing homespun scarves and mittens. Crime doesn’t stop for Christmas, of course, so on the twenty-fifth you all bundle into the well-heated building. The windows are foggy with condensation from the radiators, and Naomi and Kirako have made a valiant effort at decoration; string-lights hang like festive stars over the windows and doorways, making the place feel sparkly and cosy. Outside the frosted windows, Dazai can see snow drifting down.
He watches from the corner of his eye as you hurry into the office, apologising profusely for your tardiness, slipping gloves off your hands and pulling a hat from your head. Dazai reaches out as you stumble past, pinching the end of your scarf subtly between his fingers; it begins to unravel from your neck in earnest, and only when it catches on the haphazard knot you’d made do you realise. Your body jerks back with sudden inertia with a yelp, hands flying up to your neck, and you topple to the floor with a crash.
Dazai leans back in his chair to watch with mild interest. “Oops. Clumsy today, aren’t you?”
You glower at him, wrenching the remnants of your scarf over your head. “Merry Christmas to you too, asshole.”
“Oh! Is it Christmas?” Dazai casts a distasteful eye around at the decor. “...I hadn’t noticed.”
“Don’t be such a Scrooge,” you tell him primly, getting to your feet and brushing dust off your coat. “And here I actually bought you a gift. You’re such an ass.”
For a moment, Dazai’s sure he hadn’t heard correctly. His head cocks a millimetre to the side. “Huh?”
“I said you’re an ass,” you echo, louder, and it’s only now that Dazai notices the bulging bag you’d dropped when he tripped you. You stoop down to pick it up, and he catches flashes of bright wrapping-paper amongst the burlap, and his mouth goes dry.
“No, that…” He licks his lips. “You bought me a gift?”
For a second, you freeze, and he realises a fraction too late that he probably looks far too surprised right now. From the way your hard expression thaws, you might actually be feeling sorry for him.
“No, Dazai,” you say a moment later, averting your eyes gracefully. “I bought everyone else a gift, and left you specifically out, because I hate you, and you don’t deserve my generosity.”
Hastily, Dazai puts his expression of smug disinterest back together. “Ahhh, that’s more like it.”
You snort, rustle around in the bag for a few moments, and bring out a box wrapped in dark blue paper a moment later. Dazai finds he can’t bring himself to take his eyes off it as you step forward and, almost shyly, place it on his desk.
He looks up at you, to find with a jolt that you’re staring straight back at him, expression soft and shadowed. He feels his heart lodge itself under his tongue.
“Merry Christmas, Dazai,” you say gently. “I… really hope you like it.”
He stares back down at the box and doesn’t reply. A moment later, he hears you make your way around to Atsushi’s desk, and when you present him a gift the boy bursts into grateful sobs, and you and Kunikida spend the next ten minutes calming him down. Not to delight in poor Atsushi’s suffering, or anything, but Dazai’s kind of quietly welcome for the distraction.
He has a horrible feeling the tips of his ears are burning red.
It’s surprisingly quiet, tonight.
He supposed it’s because most everyone else is with their families for Christmas. Not Dazai, though; he’d left his at the office, and now only one remains. You, at his side, hurrying alongside his brisk pace.
The snowfall has all but stopped; stray flakes drift down occasionally, catching in a hair or an eyelash, but for the most part the air is cold and quiet and dark. Stars glint out from between gaps in the skyscrapers.
Dazai casts you a discreet look from his peripheral vision; your face is half-buried in your scarf, hands in your pockets, bag slung hastily over one shoulder. It genuinely took him off-guard when you agreed to meet him after work; if you’d told him four years ago that a coworker would happily follow him into the dark streets of Tokyo without a second thought, he’d have laughed in your face and probably crushed your knee for wasting his time.
But there you are.
You trust him. It still makes his stomach seem heavy, sometimes, that realisation.
But you hardly even stop to ask where you’re going. You just… follow his coattails, all the way down to the river. He stares out at its glimmering surface, inhaling lungfuls of salty air, listening to the gentle rush of it flooding past.
“This is where I met Atsushi, did you know?” He breaks the quiet after a moment. “He stood right here, where you and I are. I had jumped from the bank a little further up in an attempt to drown myself.”
You quirk an eyebrow. “Did it work?”
He snorts. “Young Atsushi is a real hero, isn’t he? He’d been starving for days, homeless and weak, but he still jumped straight in to save my life.”
“You’re a real hero too, Dazai,” you say quietly, and he feels his stomach drop. When he whips his head around to look at you, you’re avoiding his eyes, embarrassed. “You saved my life.”
He… supposes that’s true. On multiple counts, actually. But still…
A hero. Someone flashes before his eyes. A taller man, with dark red hair and tired eyes. He swallows and it tastes like years-old whiskey and ice.
What a sick joke. But he supposes you can’t know any better.
He clears his throat and brings out the small box you’d gifted him from his pocket, holds it up to the moonlight. It’s small, and considerably light. He’d left it unopened on his desk all day, the temptation like an itch he couldn’t scratch. His very own Pandora’s box. Though he’s sure if he opens it, he won’t find death and famine and war and all things awful.
Only you.
You eye him curiously. “What haven’t you opened it yet?”
“Because I’m afraid of being disappointed,” he tells you, honestly, because he can be honest with you and he doesn’t like not being honest with you anyway. It makes him feel slimy, tacky, like he’s just climbed out of a pit of hot oil. He traces a thumb thoughtfully over the lid of the box. “It’s an awful feeling, isn’t it? Being disappointed by people you care for.”
I want to write a book.
He waits for you to say, I’ll never disappoint you, Dazai. And he will leave from this river tonight feeling heavy as concrete, because he knows that you will. Not because you’ll betray him, or hurt him intentionally, though he’d probably deserve it if you did. Simply by breathing, and living. Simply by him loving you. That’s how you’ll disappoint him.
Instead of any of this, you say, “Yeah, it is. But it’s… just one night. And it’s just a gift. So don’t put too much stock in it, okay?”
Dazai blinks. He can see the cold surfeit of stars of the night sky reflected in your eyes. He smiles.
You really do keep on surprising him.
Slowly, his fingers pry open the box, easing off the lid. He notices you holding your breath as the contents of the box eke into view. He blinks; encased inside is a book with a blank, black cover. When he pulls a couple of pages up with a finger and lets them flicker closed, he can see they’re blank.
He stares down at it, uncomprehending.
“I…” Your voice comes out shaky, hesitant. “Um, I remember when we went out for drinks one time, and you told me about… your friend? The one who wanted to write? You said he never got to finish his book, and then you… sort of clammed up, after that. But I could tell he meant a lot to you. I thought… maybe you might like to write your own, someday.”
Dazai can’t speak. He’s distantly aware of you growing more panicky as the seconds stretch by, but…
He vaguely remembers the night you’re talking about. It was… what, Kunikida’s birthday? They’d gone out for a meal, and cups of warming sake with the food had turned to more, to cups of beer, to a bar… it was a good night, he thinks. Kunikida let his hair down (literally, which was a bit terrifying; Dazai hadn’t realised it was so long). At some point, you’d peeled yourself out from between Yosano and Tanizaki, who were both clinging to you and singing, frighteningly enough, to go for a smoke.
He’d joined you outside. He didn’t smoke anymore, but he’d accepted when you’d offered.
He doesn’t remember talking about Oda, but he supposes he must have. There’s no other way you could know about him, and certainly not the part about him wanting to write. That isn’t exactly public record, even with the Port Mafia.
“Dazai?” Somehow, your voice breaks through his foggy reverie. “I—I’m sorry, if I overstepped. I just… well, you’re sort of a hard person to buy for. And that conversation was the only time I could really, well… one of the only times it felt like you were saying what you really thought. But I can… I can take it back, if you…”
Somehow, Dazai manages to find his voice. “It’s lovely,” he says, still staring at it. “Mm, my apologies. I was just trying to remember the conversation. I must’ve been quite drunk?”
You avoid his eyes sheepishly. “Well, I mean… yeah, there’s no sugarcoating it, really. You were pretty gone. Never seen anyone shot that much shochu in under ten minutes, by the way. It was scary.”
“Well,” Dazai smiles gently. “I’m a machine.”
Ah. That came out a little too pensively, if the look on your face is anything to go by. You reach out and tap the blank cover. “Machines can’t write books.”
Dazai wonders what you see when you look at him. He certainly knows what he sees when he looks at you.
He wants to kiss you.
He’d wanted to that night, too, that drunken one with the taste of sake and smoke in his mouth. But he hadn’t. And he won’t tonight, either. Some part of him feels like if he lets you too close, the illusion will be shattered. You still believe he can write books, after all.
He’d hate to disappoint you.
So Dazai does the next best thing, and pockets the book with a smile. It feels warm against his side. “Thank you,” he says to you; his breath leaves him in cloudy white puffs of air, chastised into the cold night and then vanishing as if never there. “It’s very thoughtful.”
Finally, your nervous look breaks into a smile, and it’s like dawn has come early and let the sun into the world. Dazai shifts; he doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of you looking at him like that. He tries not to think of how it might hurt, if and when you do.
But, he assures himself, not for a good while yet. You still think he can write books. You must see something in him, some soul that he’s still searching for. Maybe there is something more to him than matter after all.
On the inside of the first page of the book, which Dazai doesn’t find until much later;
To Dazai,
The one who made me believe people write whole novels about just one man. Thank you for saving my life.
synopsis. it's christmas, but dazai is not prepared to recieve a gift from you—much less what it actually turns out to be
content. fluff, some angst, dazai's backstory spoilers, christmas, mentions of drinking and being drunk, alcohol mentions, mentions of smoking (reader + dazai, brief), mild pining, mentions of dazai being suicidal + one of his suicide attempts (non graphic), unestablished relationship.
Dazai has never had much reason to partake in festivities.
Birthdays, public holidays—the most they did for him for most of his life was mark the passing of another year in the same place, with the same shadows encroaching his mind, with the same gaping hollow pit where his heart should be. Besides, he’s never had anyone to celebrate with. Or wanted to celebrate. Why, when each year was little more than a blank marker in a graveyard nobody visited, another step towards the early grave he so desperately yearned for?
And yet… things change.
With the agency, he experiences his first party. It’s nothing much—Tanizaki’s seventeenth birthday, only a couple of months after he joins for real. It’s modest, because there isn’t many of them back then, just cake and candles and cheap streamers holed up around the room. A quick song, and Naomi had hugged him after, and Fukuzawa’s eyes had shone when he wished him another happy year. It made Dazai feel strange, like he’d picked open a healed scab, and he was left awash with a feeling he hadn’t felt since he’d watched a friend walk out of a bar years ago knowing it would be the last time he saw him.
And then times had changed more. The agency is practically full to bursting, now—Fuzukawa, Ranpo, Yosano, Tanizaki, Naomi, Kunikida, Kenji, Atsushi, Kyouka… and you. It’s not that Dazai ever really trusts anyone at face value, not really, but…
He thinks some people can’t fake it.
And you certainly can’t fake those things about yourself, the ones he finds so interesting. Your kindness, your empathy. They were what drew him to you initially, slumping across your desk until you paid attention to him, sidling up to make casual conversation in a supply closet, peering over your shoulder to read your text messages until you tutted and batted at his head. But it’s not what made him stay; that was when he realised it was all real.
You weren’t just putting on a show for anyone. You were kind, all the time, because you just were. Dazai can’t help but wonder what that’s like.
December brings forth a winter so languid it seems to have lingered for decades; snow envelopes Tokyo in an algid white blanket, and you start coming into the office wearing homespun scarves and mittens. Crime doesn’t stop for Christmas, of course, so on the twenty-fifth you all bundle into the well-heated building. The windows are foggy with condensation from the radiators, and Naomi and Kirako have made a valiant effort at decoration; string-lights hang like festive stars over the windows and doorways, making the place feel sparkly and cosy. Outside the frosted windows, Dazai can see snow drifting down.
He watches from the corner of his eye as you hurry into the office, apologising profusely for your tardiness, slipping gloves off your hands and pulling a hat from your head. Dazai reaches out as you stumble past, pinching the end of your scarf subtly between his fingers; it begins to unravel from your neck in earnest, and only when it catches on the haphazard knot you’d made do you realise. Your body jerks back with sudden inertia with a yelp, hands flying up to your neck, and you topple to the floor with a crash.
Dazai leans back in his chair to watch with mild interest. “Oops. Clumsy today, aren’t you?”
You glower at him, wrenching the remnants of your scarf over your head. “Merry Christmas to you too, asshole.”
“Oh! Is it Christmas?” Dazai casts a distasteful eye around at the decor. “...I hadn’t noticed.”
“Don’t be such a Scrooge,” you tell him primly, getting to your feet and brushing dust off your coat. “And here I actually bought you a gift. You’re such an ass.”
For a moment, Dazai’s sure he hadn’t heard correctly. His head cocks a millimetre to the side. “Huh?”
“I said you’re an ass,” you echo, louder, and it’s only now that Dazai notices the bulging bag you’d dropped when he tripped you. You stoop down to pick it up, and he catches flashes of bright wrapping-paper amongst the burlap, and his mouth goes dry.
“No, that…” He licks his lips. “You bought me a gift?”
For a second, you freeze, and he realises a fraction too late that he probably looks far too surprised right now. From the way your hard expression thaws, you might actually be feeling sorry for him.
“No, Dazai,” you say a moment later, averting your eyes gracefully. “I bought everyone else a gift, and left you specifically out, because I hate you, and you don’t deserve my generosity.”
Hastily, Dazai puts his expression of smug disinterest back together. “Ahhh, that’s more like it.”
You snort, rustle around in the bag for a few moments, and bring out a box wrapped in dark blue paper a moment later. Dazai finds he can’t bring himself to take his eyes off it as you step forward and, almost shyly, place it on his desk.
He looks up at you, to find with a jolt that you’re staring straight back at him, expression soft and shadowed. He feels his heart lodge itself under his tongue.
“Merry Christmas, Dazai,” you say gently. “I… really hope you like it.”
He stares back down at the box and doesn’t reply. A moment later, he hears you make your way around to Atsushi’s desk, and when you present him a gift the boy bursts into grateful sobs, and you and Kunikida spend the next ten minutes calming him down. Not to delight in poor Atsushi’s suffering, or anything, but Dazai’s kind of quietly welcome for the distraction.
He has a horrible feeling the tips of his ears are burning red.
It’s surprisingly quiet, tonight.
He supposed it’s because most everyone else is with their families for Christmas. Not Dazai, though; he’d left his at the office, and now only one remains. You, at his side, hurrying alongside his brisk pace.
The snowfall has all but stopped; stray flakes drift down occasionally, catching in a hair or an eyelash, but for the most part the air is cold and quiet and dark. Stars glint out from between gaps in the skyscrapers.
Dazai casts you a discreet look from his peripheral vision; your face is half-buried in your scarf, hands in your pockets, bag slung hastily over one shoulder. It genuinely took him off-guard when you agreed to meet him after work; if you’d told him four years ago that a coworker would happily follow him into the dark streets of Tokyo without a second thought, he’d have laughed in your face and probably crushed your knee for wasting his time.
But there you are.
You trust him. It still makes his stomach seem heavy, sometimes, that realisation.
But you hardly even stop to ask where you’re going. You just… follow his coattails, all the way down to the river. He stares out at its glimmering surface, inhaling lungfuls of salty air, listening to the gentle rush of it flooding past.
“This is where I met Atsushi, did you know?” He breaks the quiet after a moment. “He stood right here, where you and I are. I had jumped from the bank a little further up in an attempt to drown myself.”
You quirk an eyebrow. “Did it work?”
He snorts. “Young Atsushi is a real hero, isn’t he? He’d been starving for days, homeless and weak, but he still jumped straight in to save my life.”
“You’re a real hero too, Dazai,” you say quietly, and he feels his stomach drop. When he whips his head around to look at you, you’re avoiding his eyes, embarrassed. “You saved my life.”
He… supposes that’s true. On multiple counts, actually. But still…
A hero. Someone flashes before his eyes. A taller man, with dark red hair and tired eyes. He swallows and it tastes like years-old whiskey and ice.
What a sick joke. But he supposes you can’t know any better.
He clears his throat and brings out the small box you’d gifted him from his pocket, holds it up to the moonlight. It’s small, and considerably light. He’d left it unopened on his desk all day, the temptation like an itch he couldn’t scratch. His very own Pandora’s box. Though he’s sure if he opens it, he won’t find death and famine and war and all things awful.
Only you.
You eye him curiously. “What haven’t you opened it yet?”
“Because I’m afraid of being disappointed,” he tells you, honestly, because he can be honest with you and he doesn’t like not being honest with you anyway. It makes him feel slimy, tacky, like he’s just climbed out of a pit of hot oil. He traces a thumb thoughtfully over the lid of the box. “It’s an awful feeling, isn’t it? Being disappointed by people you care for.”
I want to write a book.
He waits for you to say, I’ll never disappoint you, Dazai. And he will leave from this river tonight feeling heavy as concrete, because he knows that you will. Not because you’ll betray him, or hurt him intentionally, though he’d probably deserve it if you did. Simply by breathing, and living. Simply by him loving you. That’s how you’ll disappoint him.
Instead of any of this, you say, “Yeah, it is. But it’s… just one night. And it’s just a gift. So don’t put too much stock in it, okay?”
Dazai blinks. He can see the cold surfeit of stars of the night sky reflected in your eyes. He smiles.
You really do keep on surprising him.
Slowly, his fingers pry open the box, easing off the lid. He notices you holding your breath as the contents of the box eke into view. He blinks; encased inside is a book with a blank, black cover. When he pulls a couple of pages up with a finger and lets them flicker closed, he can see they’re blank.
He stares down at it, uncomprehending.
“I…” Your voice comes out shaky, hesitant. “Um, I remember when we went out for drinks one time, and you told me about… your friend? The one who wanted to write? You said he never got to finish his book, and then you… sort of clammed up, after that. But I could tell he meant a lot to you. I thought… maybe you might like to write your own, someday.”
Dazai can’t speak. He’s distantly aware of you growing more panicky as the seconds stretch by, but…
He vaguely remembers the night you’re talking about. It was… what, Kunikida’s birthday? They’d gone out for a meal, and cups of warming sake with the food had turned to more, to cups of beer, to a bar… it was a good night, he thinks. Kunikida let his hair down (literally, which was a bit terrifying; Dazai hadn’t realised it was so long). At some point, you’d peeled yourself out from between Yosano and Tanizaki, who were both clinging to you and singing, frighteningly enough, to go for a smoke.
He’d joined you outside. He didn’t smoke anymore, but he’d accepted when you’d offered.
He doesn’t remember talking about Oda, but he supposes he must have. There’s no other way you could know about him, and certainly not the part about him wanting to write. That isn’t exactly public record, even with the Port Mafia.
“Dazai?” Somehow, your voice breaks through his foggy reverie. “I—I’m sorry, if I overstepped. I just… well, you’re sort of a hard person to buy for. And that conversation was the only time I could really, well… one of the only times it felt like you were saying what you really thought. But I can… I can take it back, if you…”
Somehow, Dazai manages to find his voice. “It’s lovely,” he says, still staring at it. “Mm, my apologies. I was just trying to remember the conversation. I must’ve been quite drunk?”
You avoid his eyes sheepishly. “Well, I mean… yeah, there’s no sugarcoating it, really. You were pretty gone. Never seen anyone shot that much shochu in under ten minutes, by the way. It was scary.”
“Well,” Dazai smiles gently. “I’m a machine.”
Ah. That came out a little too pensively, if the look on your face is anything to go by. You reach out and tap the blank cover. “Machines can’t write books.”
Dazai wonders what you see when you look at him. He certainly knows what he sees when he looks at you.
He wants to kiss you.
He’d wanted to that night, too, that drunken one with the taste of sake and smoke in his mouth. But he hadn’t. And he won’t tonight, either. Some part of him feels like if he lets you too close, the illusion will be shattered. You still believe he can write books, after all.
He’d hate to disappoint you.
So Dazai does the next best thing, and pockets the book with a smile. It feels warm against his side. “Thank you,” he says to you; his breath leaves him in cloudy white puffs of air, chastised into the cold night and then vanishing as if never there. “It’s very thoughtful.”
Finally, your nervous look breaks into a smile, and it’s like dawn has come early and let the sun into the world. Dazai shifts; he doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of you looking at him like that. He tries not to think of how it might hurt, if and when you do.
But, he assures himself, not for a good while yet. You still think he can write books. You must see something in him, some soul that he’s still searching for. Maybe there is something more to him than matter after all.
On the inside of the first page of the book, which Dazai doesn’t find until much later;
To Dazai,
The one who made me believe people write whole novels about just one man. Thank you for saving my life.
content. weight mention, weight loss and gain, healthy/happy weight gain, fluff, kisses, brief hair loss, mentions of sex, mentions of crying, major death note spoilers, food, eating, gender-neutral reader
synopsis. on how you help matsuda heal
Matsuda gains weight after the Kira case.
He’s never exactly been a beanpole, but those six, seven years of pretty much nonstop stress make him shed pretty much all his extra fat. He doesn’t notice at first — but then he realises he’s colder in the winter months, shivering and whining inside clothes that are suddenly drooping off of him. His hair thins, and he grows circles under his eyes, deep and dark, bruise-coloured shadows taking root in his youthful face.
After all of it, after L and Near and Light, god, Light—he doesn’t eat for a while. You hover, learning how to cook proper meals, nourishing and hot and full, as though if you just make the right concoction of fish and rice and vegetables and broth it will build back the man you love, put him back together like a puzzle piece. One rare night when Matsuda gets home early enough that you’re still awake and waiting for him, the two of you sprawl out on your queen-size bed. You reach out as he sleeps, snuffling restlessly into the comforter, and run your hand over the gentle slope of his cranium. His soft hair comes away in your fingers like raven feathers.
He cries a lot. He’s always been an easy crier, your Matsuda, but after Light’s funeral it’s like he’s crying out all his weight, all of him. He cries when he watches sad movies, he cries when he eats really good food, he cries when he’s drunk, he cries when you have sex. And he cries a lot after Kira. Sometimes quiet, sniffly, wet hiccups and big dark shiny eyes, and sometimes it feels like he’s ripping apart from the inside, like his grief is prying apart his rib cage and twisting his heart up into a knot.
But you rebuild.
It’s been six years since you put Kira in the ground with Matsuda’s bullets lodged in his torso. His blood seeps into the soil, turning it, salting it, haunting it maybe. Matsuda certainly acts haunted, for a bit, but the ghosts turn to shadows turn to dust, to nothing, and he begins to let the sunlight back into your apartment again.
You eat takeout from shitty cardboard boxes; it’s clammy and undercooked and sure to leave you both riddled with food poisoning in the morning to come, but Matsuda seems happy enough. He shovels food into his mouth with chopsticks till his cheeks bulge. He’s flushed rosy with the light from your cheap lamp and something else, something you’ve began barely hoping recently is contentment. He’s starting to glow again, like the young man you fell in love with.
It’s another year after that he comes to you and complains that his smart trousers have shrunk in the wash. You take one look at him and your heart leaps, then swells.
“No, baby, you’ve gained weight,” you tell him gently, trying not to let on how pleased you are. Matsuda blinks, sleepily bewildered, all hazy-eyed from an early rise, then casts a look down at his body. His stomach has started to jut gently over his hipbones, which have softened like carved butter. His thighs are a little bigger, too — still toned from years of running around restlessly, but softer, pushing gently against the legs of his boxers.
“Oh,” he says, thoughtful if nothing else. He nudges his gaze back up to you coyly. “Do… you mind?”
“Mind?” you echo. “You look gorgeous, baby. You look so happy.”
Matsuda lets a breathy chuckle escape him, a bashful hand on the back of his neck, cheeks cherry-red, ever the shy schoolboy. His dark eyes glint with stars that have been out since that evening in the warehouse. “Aw, man. It doesn’t really bother me, I guess. I could always head to the gym after work…”
“Well, only if you want to,” you say gently, folding one of his shirts. You think fondly you might have to buy him more soon, a bigger size, and oh what a privilege it is to watch the man you love be here long enough to grow bigger and happier and healthier, to put food in his mouth every day. It’s something more intimate than sex sometimes, watching his stomach flex when he changes his shirts, his arms and shoulders turn soft, the angular jut of collarbones smooth over.
You drop the shirt and meander over. Matsuda’s breath still catches when you cup his face, smoothing your thumbs over warm boyish cheeks. He watches you, plump lips parted, and giggles when you lean forward to plant a firm kiss on his brow.
“You look good,” you murmur into his skin. “If you’re happy with how you look, I’m happy. I’d never ask you to change.”
“Ahaha…” Matsuda’s nervous laugh trails to a stop, and he rests his hit forehead against yours. Toothpaste breath and sandalwood aftershave wafts over your face. “Th-thank you. I’ll probably come straight home, then… I’ll be beat.”
You pull back, butterfly his cheeks with kisses ‘till he’s bright red and squirming, laughing like the sunlight. “I’ll have dinner waiting.”
content. weight mention, weight loss and gain, healthy/happy weight gain, fluff, kisses, brief hair loss, mentions of sex, mentions of crying, major death note spoilers, food, eating, gender-neutral reader
synopsis. on how you help matsuda heal
Matsuda gains weight after the Kira case.
He’s never exactly been a beanpole, but those six, seven years of pretty much nonstop stress make him shed pretty much all his extra fat. He doesn’t notice at first — but then he realises he’s colder in the winter months, shivering and whining inside clothes that are suddenly drooping off of him. His hair thins, and he grows circles under his eyes, deep and dark, bruise-coloured shadows taking root in his youthful face.
After all of it, after L and Near and Light, god, Light—he doesn’t eat for a while. You hover, learning how to cook proper meals, nourishing and hot and full, as though if you just make the right concoction of fish and rice and vegetables and broth it will build back the man you love, put him back together like a puzzle piece. One rare night when Matsuda gets home early enough that you’re still awake and waiting for him, the two of you sprawl out on your queen-size bed. You reach out as he sleeps, snuffling restlessly into the comforter, and run your hand over the gentle slope of his cranium. His soft hair comes away in your fingers like raven feathers.
He cries a lot. He’s always been an easy crier, your Matsuda, but after Light’s funeral it’s like he’s crying out all his weight, all of him. He cries when he watches sad movies, he cries when he eats really good food, he cries when he’s drunk, he cries when you have sex. And he cries a lot after Kira. Sometimes quiet, sniffly, wet hiccups and big dark shiny eyes, and sometimes it feels like he’s ripping apart from the inside, like his grief is prying apart his rib cage and twisting his heart up into a knot.
But you rebuild.
It’s been six years since you put Kira in the ground with Matsuda’s bullets lodged in his torso. His blood seeps into the soil, turning it, salting it, haunting it maybe. Matsuda certainly acts haunted, for a bit, but the ghosts turn to shadows turn to dust, to nothing, and he begins to let the sunlight back into your apartment again.
You eat takeout from shitty cardboard boxes; it’s clammy and undercooked and sure to leave you both riddled with food poisoning in the morning to come, but Matsuda seems happy enough. He shovels food into his mouth with chopsticks till his cheeks bulge. He’s flushed rosy with the light from your cheap lamp and something else, something you’ve began barely hoping recently is contentment. He’s starting to glow again, like the young man you fell in love with.
It’s another year after that he comes to you and complains that his smart trousers have shrunk in the wash. You take one look at him and your heart leaps, then swells.
“No, baby, you’ve gained weight,” you tell him gently, trying not to let on how pleased you are. Matsuda blinks, sleepily bewildered, all hazy-eyed from an early rise, then casts a look down at his body. His stomach has started to jut gently over his hipbones, which have softened like carved butter. His thighs are a little bigger, too — still toned from years of running around restlessly, but softer, pushing gently against the legs of his boxers.
“Oh,” he says, thoughtful if nothing else. He nudges his gaze back up to you coyly. “Do… you mind?”
“Mind?” you echo. “You look gorgeous, baby. You look so happy.”
Matsuda lets a breathy chuckle escape him, a bashful hand on the back of his neck, cheeks cherry-red, ever the shy schoolboy. His dark eyes glint with stars that have been out since that evening in the warehouse. “Aw, man. It doesn’t really bother me, I guess. I could always head to the gym after work…”
“Well, only if you want to,” you say gently, folding one of his shirts. You think fondly you might have to buy him more soon, a bigger size, and oh what a privilege it is to watch the man you love be here long enough to grow bigger and happier and healthier, to put food in his mouth every day. It’s something more intimate than sex sometimes, watching his stomach flex when he changes his shirts, his arms and shoulders turn soft, the angular jut of collarbones smooth over.
You drop the shirt and meander over. Matsuda’s breath still catches when you cup his face, smoothing your thumbs over warm boyish cheeks. He watches you, plump lips parted, and giggles when you lean forward to plant a firm kiss on his brow.
“You look good,” you murmur into his skin. “If you’re happy with how you look, I’m happy. I’d never ask you to change.”
“Ahaha…” Matsuda’s nervous laugh trails to a stop, and he rests his hit forehead against yours. Toothpaste breath and sandalwood aftershave wafts over your face. “Th-thank you. I’ll probably come straight home, then… I’ll be beat.”
You pull back, butterfly his cheeks with kisses ‘till he’s bright red and squirming, laughing like the sunlight. “I’ll have dinner waiting.”