HELLO HOW ARE YOU WHAT HAS HAPPENED WHAT WILL HAPPEN IVE MISSED UUUUUUUUUUUUU MY FELLOW FREAK ! <33333333333333333333333333333333
HELLO MY DARLING I HAVE MISSED YOU TOO MY FREAKY NASTY GIRL ‼️‼️‼️
I have been on semi hiatus I’ve just been lurking occasionally fr but I’m hoping to plot my return I’ve just been so super tired and busy but YOU ARE BACK AND I AM SO HAPPY ILY ILY ILY !!!!! <333333333333
Beating Hearts and Silent Oaths: The Story of a Princess, a Knight, and the Unbreakable Strings of Fate.
♕ Paring: Knight!Suguru x Princess!Reader
♕ Warnings: f!Reader, royalty!au, no curses!au, standard fantasy violence, blood, pining, some angst, hurt/comfort, injury, check each chapter for specific warnings.
♕ A/N: thank you to @starlightszn for making me fixate on this topic and prompting me to write this! This is very loosely based on Legend of Zelda in terms of just a couple points, but it is not a Zelda au! This is going to be a multi chapter fic, I’m not sure how long yet, and I will try to update as often as I can! This is the series masterlist, so check back here for new chapters!
contents; suguru geto x gn!reader. first date, long-term friends to lovers. reader is a giddy little loser bUT SUGURU IS TOO …….. boyfriendisms, one or two pet names (for my mental health). fluff fluff fluff !!!! wc; 1.7k
When you reach out your palm to face the sky, clear droplets sputter off your bare skin.
It's a Saturday afternoon. You're standing outside your apartment complex south of Tokyo, at the peak of the bridge between autumn and winter, and it's raining. Drizzling, not so heavy that you can’t get away with not bringing your umbrella.
This isn’t ideal weather for a first date, but who cares? It's lulling the whole city into peaceful rest, making the air smell of wet earth and asphalt, watering the roots of the red-rimmed autumn trees lining the slippery roads. Ripening the world. Pitter-patter cries the droplets when they're splattered on the pavement— comforting white noise. It's not so bad. Makes you drowsy, but it's manageable.
The moment your eyes are about to flutter shut, a black car parks on the other side of the street. The noise of gravel crunching under tire-wheels snaps them back open, your back straightening out.
It's his car. You can see him through the window, long black locks against the leather seat behind him, his eyes searching for you when he rolls it down and peeks outside.
"Suguru!"
When he finds you, his face lights up.
… Or so you think. To the untrained eye his shift in expression is subtle, but you know Suguru; you see the relief between his brows, the slight ginkgo-crease of his eyes, pink lips twitching with the strain not to smile too wide.
Then he's opening the car door and stepping outside. Comfortable but stylish, a wooly gray sweater with a sleek black coat draped around his shoulders, sunset-brown corduroy pants secured by a leather belt. Not too formal, not too casual. You hate that he's like this, so good at smoothing out the crevices of whatever role he finds himself slotted into; honour student, teacher-in-training, boyfriend-to-be.
… Boyfriend.
He's your boyfriend.
Right.
All around you the whisking of yellow, orange leaves, shaped like stars and ovals, dancing in the wind. They break under your feet when you walk down the steps. With unmistakable pep, eager to get to him on the other side. Another vehicle speeds by, and you stiffen at the sidewalk.
Suguru is still there when it passes. His eyes say Stay there and let me get you, and you listen.
"Have you been waiting long?" he asks before anything else, voice silken-soft and smooth. Raindrops stick to the strands of his hair. "Traffic was terrible near the city centre. If I'd known, I would have headed out sooner…"
"No, don't worry! I just stepped out." Before he can call the lie, you go: "Hi, Suguru."
And, like clock-work, his honey-brown eyes soften.
"Hi." He's smiling with teeth now, fingers reaching for your hand. He squeezes it briefly— greedy, greedy— before guiding it to fall. "How are you, baby?"
You try not to grin. Or sputter.
"Good. You?"
Smoothly— or so you think, anyhow— you tangle your arms together. Tug him forward. He takes the hint, and begins to lead you both towards the parked car, rain-slicked windows and dim headlights. Suguru looks handsome under the cloudy sky, features strangely softened in the shadowed light, as if painted with delicate watercolour, silvers and cobalt-blues. "Perfect," he responds. You can't hear a hint of insincerity in it. "I've been looking forward to seeing you all day."
It's hard to doubt him when he speaks with that cadence. Self-righteous, candid. a Leave it to me kind of tone. He could tell you two plus two is five in that voice and you'd go Sure, Suguru, that's awesome. Thanks for telling me. Could tell you the sun is blue or that the earth is shaped like a duck. Awesome. Great.
You're weak and stupid, but he sounds too good. You'd lick his lips clean of the sound if you could, but—
Before you can say anything you're already standing in front of his car. It's nice, nothing crazy. Easy to get into parking spaces, sleek and narrow, stylish in an old-fashioned sort of way. Suits him just fine. Nothing stands out except the stickers you and Shoko snuck under the side-view mirror when he first took you for a test drive. Miraculously, they've lasted— mostly faded and weathered with age, sure, but still there, not yet removed. It would be easy to.
Suguru, you've found, is no less of a sentimentalist than you are.
"Here." He holds the car door open with a smile. The interior smells nice and familiar, leather and cologne. Not overpowering, but gentle hints of bergamot and cedarwood. Once you've slipped inside he closes it with a dull thud; walks around the front and settles himself in the driver's seat.
"Ah. Right."
Suguru reaches for a plastic bag at his feet. What he brings out is a fresh bouquet of crimson-red primroses, the scent of them light and sweet as it wafts through the car, blooming on the interior of the windshield, the tips of your fingers and ghost of your breath. You accept them when he hands them to you, a satisfied smile on his lips. As if the sight of you cradling them is nothing short of perfection.
Curse him, you think. Curse him for doing this so perfectly. You should've thought of flowers too.
Heat simmers beneath your cheeks. You feel shy. Not humiliated or so embarrassed you can't speak, but pleasantly, visibly flustered, sitting spoiled and settled in the passenger's seat of his car. Not that he's never made you shy before— god, would that be a lie— but then you at least had the option to hide. Now you're in his space, holding his flowers, and you're—
His. Partner.
Suguru shakes his head when you thank him, voice smaller than you'd like it to sound; "I wanted you to have them," he kicks the car into motion. Glances at you once more, as if to savour, drink in, before he has to pull out of the parking space. "They made me think of you."
The flowers are light, but the sentiment weighs heavy. You examine them more closely, their scarlets and rouges, their heart-shaped petals. Golden blots of yellow in the middle. They're pretty, you think— silky beneath your fingertips.
Meanwhile, he turns on the radio. Out spills the low echo of some indie song you don't recognize but still find nostalgic, half-rock and half-ballad. Summery.
It fills the space between you, blends together with the pitter-patter rain and purring of the engine.
Before you can wallow in it, Suguru speaks.
"You look good today." His voice is soft. "Pretty."
Familiar heat at your ears and neck. Bubbling, insistent. It makes you want to burrow your head into the ground. Sit with the rabbits. Shy, stupidly shy, stupid heartbeat scampering about. The rabbits would just laugh at you.
An exhale parts his lips. He lifts a hand to card through his locks, maneuvering the car with his left hand. "Well, you always look pretty."
… This guy.
This time you have no choice but to avert your eyes. Thankfully, there's a window to your right perfectly suited for that kind of cowardice— blurry trees and groggy sparrows passing through your peripheral, the car moving at a steady pace. There are people moving about, most of them holding onto an umbrella, groaning when they step over puddles or holding their palms out to feel the rain.
The world spins wearily. Spinning, nonetheless. You are content to just witness it, within the safety of your boyfriend's car.
(Boyfriend. Boyfriend. You gnaw the syllables between your teeth, lick over their edges.)
The hum that buzzes to your left hangs low in his throat. Lower than usual— as if it wasn't strong enough to make it to his lips.
"Thank you."
It's spoken softly.
You don't have the courage to look at him, but you hear the smile in his voice clear as day. Inside your chest, your heart squeezes.
Neither of you speak for a while. Suguru has been your friend for a long time: silences with him are never awkward, never especially tense. He's a patient, good guy. Waits to be spoken to unless he knows you're too nervous to do so yourself. Adapts seamlessly to the people around him, from Satoru's bouts of social ineptitude to Shoko's non-verbality, Kento's quiet and Yu's loud. Your everything, honestly. Even now.
Now more than ever. Now that you're his, and he's yours. You're almost afraid; like all the desire that’s been budding in his chest until now, all stubborn roots and wistful branches of apricot cluster, will break out of him and eat you up.
(But then, of course— the temptation to root them up yourself.)
"So," he rounds a corner, gets comfortable in his seat, his knee meeting yours in a gentle nudge. "Where do you want to go first?"
Without thinking, you tangle your legs together. Might not be the safest thing to do while he's driving, but it feels right. Feels easy to push and prod where he lets you, just as he does to you. You give his ankle a playful tug, as if to test the limits of what he'll let you get away with.
"What are my options?" you ask, playfully.
"Wherever you want." You catch his warm smile in the rearview mirror before turning to look at him, the silky bangs framing his face, sculptured hands on the steering wheel. "I'll drive you wherever. Though I was thinking we could have dinner later, if you'd like."
Sounds great. You tell him as much, and he looks pleased, something in the way he lets his shoulders slack. Subtle, but there. Weighty in its subtlety. Like everything he is and does.
"In that case…" You tip your head up in thought. "Um, maybe we can just take a lap?"
"In the car?" He adjusts his hands on the steering wheel. Another subtle tell; usually he keeps them there, relaxed and poised, the picture of composure. Usually he doesn't fidget very much at all, and his hands don't look glassy.
"Mm. I think it's nice." The muffled sound of the radio's indie tracks, the rain richocheting off the windows. It soothes your brain; the easy, guided pattern of noise. "Is that okay?"
Suguru pauses. Then smiles, easy, half-exasperated. Eyes aglow with soft indulgence. You want to kiss him.
I feel as though many would assume that in a car full of children chanting ‘happy meal!’ while driving past a McDonald’s, Geto would say there is food at home and, conversely, Gojo would also be chanting ‘happy meal!’ while pulling into the drive thru. This is incorrect. Geto would get the kids happy meals. Gojo would pull into the drive thru and order a large black coffee and then point and laugh.