Iβve redone my masterlist! This took me ages, so itβs just BNHA for now. I might make a Haikyuu masterlist later!
My requests are currently closed, but my askbox is always open for thirst and ideas!
I remember practicing how to ask you out to the mirror
pairing: amajiki tamaki x reader
word count: 880
warnings: none!
summary: You and Tamaki share a moment together, and he gets something off his chest
a gift
pairing: bakugou x reader
word count: 2030
warnings: swears?
summary: You happen to find a kitten in an alleyway while making your way home drunk, and decide to bring it home to surprise your boyfriend. It doesn't quite go to plan
you wear them well
pairing: bakugou x reader
word count: 7.1k
warnings: unsafe sex, panty theft, bakugou in pantiesΒ
summary: Laundry mix ups are always a nightmare, but when no one comes forward after a week of all your panties going missing, youβre starting to get desperate. They show up when you least expect it.
summary: βIβm not gonna fuck a fish.β You breathe, eyes clamped shut. βIβm better than that.β
//
After almost drowning, you meet your unlikely rescuer in a cozy cave. It doesn't go as you might expect.
(oh my god, they were roommates!)
pairing: bakugou x kirishima x reader
word count: 6.3k
warnings: threesome, oral sex (receiving), vaginal sex, voyeurism, dragon dick kiri
summary: part 2 of the dragon dick kiri series.Β Bakugou likes to watch.
thirst and headcanons:
bakugou degrading you
bakugou fucking your face
kiribaku threesome
hcs for bakugou with a girlfriend whoβs 220 cm
hcs for bakugou with a tiny girlfriend that can carry him like a princess
TikTok Nakey Challenge
pairing: kaminari denki x reader
word count: 984
warnings: implied NSFW
summary: Mina challenges you to try out one of the new viral social media trends on your boyfriend while heβs playing video games
dragon dick kiri series
pairing: kirishima eijirou x reader, kirishima x reader x bakugou
summary: Kirishima Eijirou was a perfect gentleman. He bought you flowers, he opened doors for you, he gave the sweetest goodnight kisses, he ate you out so good he had you seeing stars. You had the biggest, fattest crush on him, and you would be embarrassed about it if it werenβt for the fact that it seemed, at least for the most part, to be reciprocated.
The problem was Kirishima never let you touch him. As it turns out, heβs packing something... unusual in his pants.
in bloom
pairing: kirishima x reader
word count: 4.9k
warnings: none!
summary: Your apartment in Musutafu is small and cramped, with thin walls and very little natural light. The rent is extortionate for what it is, even considering the location in the city centre, and at least once a month thereβs a complex wide electrical blackout. You can overlook all of the faults of the apartment though, because itβs in a safe neighbourhood close to a hero agency and, most importantly, itβs got a balcony.
You develop a crush on the cute redhead that walks past your balcony every day.
(this beat is)
pairing: kirishima x reader
word count: 2.6k
warnings: drunkenness, dry humping
summary: You can honestly say that you have no idea how this happened. One minute you and Kirishima are giggling drunkenly and getting ready for bed, and the next youβre perched in his lap on the bed kissing so heatedly it feels like heβs about to swallow you whole.
(i love it when yβall)
pairing: kirishima x reader
word count: 4.5k
warnings: office sex, blowjobs
summary: Part 2 of (this beat is). After your drunken tryst with Kirishima, you surprise him with lunch and some new lingerie in his office.
when i was young i fell into a river
pairing: kirishima x reader
word count: 5k
warnings: none
summary: spirited away au.
βOnce you meet someone you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memories to return.β
Animal Crossing With the Boys
pairing: kirishima x reader
word count: 1.4k
warnings: nudity, implied NSFW
summary: Your boyfriend is too busy playing video games to pay attention to you, so you decide to take things into your own hands.
Painful Periods
pairing: kirishima x reader
word count: 1.1k
warnings: mention of periods
summary: Kirishima deals with a reader who has painful periods
thirst & headcanons
feral kiri
teasing kiri
kiribaku threesome
dragon dick kiri tag
thirst & headcanons
kissing izuku
izuku eating you out
what we do in the shadows
pairing: shinsou x f!reader
word count: 8.6k
warnings: horror, creature!shinsou, size kink, voyeurism, yandere-ish shinsou (if you squint?), teratophilia, oral (receiving), vaginal sex
summary: The very first time you laid your eyes upon the house you were certain that you had lucked out, despite its age and bad condition. Once you move in, however, you begin to realise that the house isnβt quite... right
Can I ask why you don't have an Haikyuu masterlist?
of course you can! to be honest i didnβt have too many haikyuu fics so i just never really got around to making one. i probably should make one, but i feel like it would be disappointingly short ahahahaha
π§‘β€οΈHi!!! Just wanted to say I just read your βDaisy Chainβ fic and I donβt think Iβve ever had more enjoyment out of reading a fic than I did with this one. Five stars for the story and for you βοΈ βοΈ βοΈ βοΈ βοΈ
I couldnβt help myself from reblogging it and sharing it with my friends in my server. I think thatβs my favorite story Iβve ever read on Tumblr. Thank you for this meal π
AHHHHHH you are an angel! iβm so flattered that you liked it enough to share on your server, iβm delighted that you enjoyed it!
Your latest work brought back so many fond memories of my late nights watching re-runs of Spirited Away on Disney Channel β€ It was a bit confusing at first because one moment reader was among spirits and then she was back in the human world. Yet the barrier between both wasn't enough to separate her from Kiri, it was so sweet, I loved it π Feel proud of this work, because it was perfect
ohhhhh π₯Ίπ₯Ίπ₯Ί this is so kind of you to say, thank you so so much! yes i can absolutely see how it would be a bit confusing, i was trying to capture the disconnect between the reader and the present! idk how well i did with that though ahahahaha but honestly thank you so much for the compliment, it means a lot!
π¦if you don't mind I'll start using this emoji! But yea I'm glad you really enjoyed writing it! It shows even if it's different from you usual style (I couldn't tell honestly, but I also haven't read all of your stuff. Yet. And even then I probably couldn't). But regardless I thinking writing just hits different when the author genuinely loves what they're writing! And yea I've always wondered what the hell happened to Chihiro after spirited away. I really like this idea that she could just dismiss it as a dream!!!! And low key I would fucking love to read a part two to this is you even felt the desire to write it. But it's awesome as a stand alone too. I'm curious how Bakugou fits in, and idk, anytime I see Kiri and Bakugou together in a fic my brain jumps to poly??? Not that it's bad how you have it! Just rambling like a crazy lady here. Also, do you envision haku/kiri as the same look in dragon form as haku but red instead of teal? And what is it about Kiri that just is perfect for a dragon? Like dragon shift, dragon hybrid, dragon dick, dragon river spirit. All dragon Kiri's are good Kiri's!
Of course, the π¦ emoji is officially yours! Itβs always exciting when someone else genuinely enjoys something that you loved working on! I read somewhere that Miyazaki said that Chihiro doesnβt have any memories of the spirit world, and i thought that was so sad so my brain just straight up rejected it lol
I think Bakugou was at the bathhouse before the reader, and took on a kind of mentor role where he showed reader the ropes and got them food and basically just tried to look after them in his own gruff sort of way, because humans in a bathhouse for the gods have to look out for each other ya know?
And yes, thatβs exactly how i imagined haku!kiri! i just think it would be a cute look, ya know? love my sharp-toothed dragon boy
warnings: none, really! a bit of angst, a bit of fluff i guess?
notes: hello, it's me, back again with some writing! it's been a long time and i'm very sorry about that, but i've finally gotten around to writing and posting my spirited away au! i'm v stressed with college so this turned out more vent-y than i had originally intended, but hopefully it's enjoyable anyway! thank you all for being so patient with me, i am endlessly grateful for you
The dream is the same as always, comforting in its familiarity.
A salt-scented breeze cools your sweat-soaked brow as you pause behind one of the sliding screen doors, the rice paper windows doing nothing to block out the chatter of the other workers. The bubbling noise of the bathhouse is constant, and the quiet little moments you steal away for yourself in the middle of the working day is the only solitude youβve gotten since you came here. The work is physically back-breaking, but you know that youβre working towards a goal. Itβs just a shame that you canβt remember exactly what that goal is.
One of the other girls calls your name, and you sigh as your unofficial break comes to an end. You slip back into the room, ignoring the way the frog spirits snicker and hold their noses as you pass. They like to complain a lot about your human stench, but it doesnβt stop them from threatening to eat you every time you make a mistake. Fear, youβve found, is an uncomfortably successful motivator.
The days bleed into one another, full of scrubbing dark wooden floors and the rich earthy scents of the herbal mixes they use in the baths. The spirits that frequent the bathhouse, that once inspired so much awe and fear in your heart, become so commonplace that you hardly spare them a glance anymore. From the cackling masked spirits that always travel in threes to the grinning cat spirits to the sombre, unspeaking river spirits, you only go as far as to offer them a polite bow before scurrying out of their way. They never spare you any attention, anyway -- most of the time, the spiritsβ eyes seem to look right through you.
All but one, that is.
He looks to be a boy around your age, but appearances can be deceiving around here. His red eyes are often dull and blank, but even so they have a certain ageless quality about them that no human twelve-year-old could ever possess. His scarlet hair sticks up in gravity-defying spikes, and his skin is as smooth and clear as running water. His face is often stuck in a carefully cultivated blank expression; the only thing about him that doesnβt seem intimidatingly otherworldly are the deep purple shadows under his eyes.
He helped you once, when you first came here. The rare act of kindness had stuck in your head, made even more remarkable in the face of the following weeks and months of harsh work and cruel co-workers. You wonder if he remembers; he doesnβt often look at you, but sometimes when he does you swear you can see a flicker of something in his eyes.
Two of the girls start yelling at each other, arguing heatedly over the way the work is being divided. A foreman appears to break up the fight, but then they both start shouting at him instead. You take the moment of distraction to relax, wincing at the pull of your tired muscles in the back of your neck. All the other girls working at the bath house are older and bigger than you, which means you need to work twice as hard to keep up with them and prove that youβre worth keeping around.
In the brief moment of rest, your eyes are drawn slowly to the corridor, where guests and workers alike bustle past as they travel to the treatment rooms and bathtubs deeper into the bathhouse. As if youβve conjured him just by thinking about him, the boy stands in the doorway.
You straighten up on instinct, suddenly self-conscious of your sweat-soaked body and dishevelled uniform. Heβs not even looking your way, preoccupied with the two girls who are still yelling at the frog foreman. Slowly though, his eyes began to travel the room, and you take a deep breath and hold it as his dull ruby gaze lands on you like a physical weight. You crack a nervous smile, feeling the muscles in your cheeks that have gone unused for weeks ache at the strain, and raise a hand to give him a tiny wave.
For just a moment, that blankness in his face seems to quiver and fall away. He smiles back.
You jolt awake, breathing heavily and coated in a light sheen of sweat. Youβve had the same dream, or some variation of it, regularly ever since you were twelve years old and while itβs become familiar to you, you still find yourself feeling vaguely panicked when you wake up after it, as though youβve forgotten something very important.
Once your heartbeat has calmed down a little, you pull yourself out of bed and trudge into the kitchen to make yourself some tea. The weak, milky light of dawn filters in through the windows, lighting your apartment up just enough so that you donβt have to turn on a light to make your way around. You take your tea out to the balcony and sit, gazing out at the purplish early morning sky.
Most of the time when you wake up from those dreams you feel blessedly lucky to be living alone with no one to question or bother you, but sometimes you canβt help but be overcome by overwhelming loneliness. The dreams are silly and most of the time they donβt even make any sense, but in the aftermath of them youβre always left with a vague sense of unfulfillment, though you canβt put your finger exactly on what it is youβre missing. You always end up exactly like this; sitting outside on your balcony in the early morning light, drinking tea alone and desperately wishing for something more.
You sigh, and go back inside.
The dream is the same, but different.
The garden is in full bloom, greenery overlaid with bursts of beautiful bright colours. Camellias, rhododendrons, and oleanders wave and shiver gently in the warm breeze, and apple blossoms hang heavily from a nearby tree. The flowering garden is enormous and maze-like, and you have yet to see it in any state other than fully flourishing.
Itβs a beautiful place, especially after the hot, cramped working quarters of the bathhouse. You inhale the sweetly fragranced air and feel the knot of tension in your spine unfurl; it feels like the first time that youβve been able to breathe all week, but thatβs not the only reason that youβve found yourself outside.
At the bottom of the garden, the grass drops off into a sheer drop. The cliff face overlooks a seemingly endless ocean, and you perch a safe distance from the drop before leaning back in the grass. The sky is an almost surreally deep blue and you watch as enormous fluffy clouds float by, looking as though theyβve been painted on a jewel-blue canvas.
Itβs not the first time youβve had this dream, and you know what youβll see if you keep patiently watching.
It doesnβt take long β it never does. You time your lunch breaks precisely, all so you get to see this sight.
The clear blue sky makes it so much easier to spot the shiny white scales, flashing jewel-bright in the sunlight. The dragon writhes in the sky, streaking through the air like a great serpent caught in the wind. Even from this distance, you can see the knife-like teeth, the great sharp claws that gleam like pyrite, and the twisting horns that erupt from his head like daggers made from calcified bone. He looks deadly, a living weapon that swims through the air like a salmon in open water, but the sight of him makes something settle in your stomach.
You wonder what it would feel like to fall through the air with nothing but the wind to break your fall. You imagine it must feel like freedom.
The dragon flutters through the air, buoyed by the gentle sea breeze. If you didnβt know better, you might almost think that he was showing off β his movements are hypnotic, dreamlike, more like a dance than anything. His scales glow pearlescent in the midday sun, otherworldly and earthly all at once.
You could happily stay and watch him skim through the sky forever, but already the bell is being rung to call all workers back into the bathhouse. You heave a sigh so deep it feels as though your chest is about to crack with the force of it, before hauling yourself to your feet.
Your break is over, and now itβs back to work.
Sometimes you find it difficult to tell when youβre dreaming and when youβre awake. It feels as though everything is always happening all at once, in the present tense, forever. You donβt get to rest when you close your eyes and drift off to sleep, because the dreams just keep coming and coming. Sometimes you donβt feel like your life is real when youβre awake.
Riding on the train has always been therapeutic, especially at this time of the early morning. The sun rising lazily over the horizon sends milky threads of purple and pink across the cloudy sky, and you cradle your chin in your hand as you gaze out across the moving landscape. You love these little trips, feeling more at home in the creaky, overfull train carriage than you do in your own bedroom sometimes, though you canβt quite work out where that particular feeling comes from.
You know sometimes that stories end with βAnd then I woke up β it was only a dreamβ, but in your experience the story simply doesnβt end. You cannot fully wake up without the tail-ends of your dreams clinging to you for the rest of the day, and you never fully sleep. You just dream, dream, dream.
Sighing, you lean your head back against the seat that youβre slumped in. The train carriage is too full, and you were lucky to get a seat in the first place β from your vantage point, you watch as people sway in tandem with the motion of the train. Itβs almost hypnotic, how they undulate back and forth with every turn, brushing against each other only to be pulled apart again by the lurching train.
Through the sea of bodies, you catch a manβs eye. It breaks the monotony of the morning commute and your own spiralling thoughts, and your spine straightens unconsciously. He quirks an eyebrow briefly, slightly, in such a way that no one would be able to safely accuse him of having done it.
You look away, startled for no good reason. Do you know him? He feels familiar in a way that you canβt quite put your finger on. The train rattles on, and it takes several long minutes before you work up the nerve to glance the manβs way again. Heβs still watching you, but youβre ready for it this time. His attention isnβt such a shock, and you allow your eyes to wander over his face properly.
You must know him, you think. Your eyes track over his features as though theyβre winding over a well-worn path, admiring the curve of his nose and the fullness of his lips and the arch of his eyebrows over his intense, watchful eyes.
He smiles at you, and it feels as though youβre sharing a secret from across the crowded train carriage. You smile back β itβs just a small tug of the corners of your mouth, but itβs the most youβve smiled in months. Longer, maybe.
In the middle of the carriage a woman laughs at something her friend has said and sways backward, blocking your view of the stranger. It feels like a loss.
The train trundles onwards, and the carriage gradually empties out. You watch people step off the train with friends, with their heads ducked low, lost in thought, arguing over the phone, distracted with their book bags. By the time it comes to your stop, the man is gone.
You try not to feel disappointed as you step off the train β itβs silly, after all. You donβt know the man, and whatever you thought you felt as you looked at each other was surely all in your own head. Your head has been awfully full, recently.
As you step off the train you grapple with your bag, side-stepping a businessman who is busy shouting down the phone at some unfortunate coworker. Youβre distracted, which is the only reasonable explanation for how long it takes you to realise that the man from the train is standing in front of you.
βOh.β You blurt, startled. You had already begun to resign yourself to never seeing him again, so you canβt help but feel distinctly caught off guard at the sight of him standing before you. βHi.β
βHello.β The man says. Heβs looking at you expectantly, but you have no idea what heβs waiting for β as it is, you get completely distracted by his eyes. You hadnβt noticed on the train, but now that heβs up close you see that theyβre a truly unusual deep burgundy. He tilts his head when you remain silent, and bites his lip. Now that youβre really looking, you notice how sharp his teeth are. βYouβve barely changed at all.β
You blink at him. βErβ¦β You trail off nervously. You donβt recognise him, but you feel like you know him. Clearly, he thinks that he knows you.
βItβs fitting, isnβt it? Meeting again on a train?β He smiles, and itβs an impossibly knowing expression. You donβt think youβve ever been on the receiving end of a look that intimate in your life, though you have no idea what heβs talking about.
Someone collides hard with your shoulder and you stagger for balance. You only look away from the man for a mere second, but itβs enough; when you look again, heβs gone.
You take to walking. Thereβs a wooded area behind the town, and you enjoy traipsing idly through the trees. Ancient roots erupt out of the dirt and fan over the ground like hairs, and the moss that covers the trunks of the trees is such a deep green that it almost seems like paint pigment. Itβs soothing, being surrounded by nature like this. It reminds you of childhood β the simplicity of being able to jump over tree roots under a canopy of pale green leaves, of being able to leave all your thoughts and stress at the boundary of the forest.
Itβs where you come after waking sweat-soaked and disoriented from a dream that clings to you like a burr, where you walk among the ferns and the needle-leaved weeds until you manage to shake the last vestiges of memory from your mind. You need it, especially in the mornings where you wake up with the acrid scent of herbal cleanser stinging in your nose or the bite of hard calluses on your palms from non-existent rough cloths. On mornings like that, you walk and walk until you no longer feel as though youβre more alive in your dreams than you are in reality.
Deep in the forest is a great red facade, painted a flaking, faded red. You wander by it frequently, admiring the overgrown greenery that crawls up the walls like reaching fingers, the mossy stone guardian that stands sentinel amongst the cracked flagstones that lead into the tunnelled entrance. Youβve asked around in the town, curious about what exactly this building was for, but most of the locals either donβt know what building youβre talking about or admit that theyβre not sure. One man told you that the facade was built for a theme park in the 90s that had ended up going bust in the recession, and that the building only looked old.
You remain unconvinced on that front. The building has the kind of presence that only very old things have; it feels like itβs watching you.
For the most part, your walks in the forest are peaceful. Recently though, youβve found yourself plagued by an insistent, irritating sense of deja vu. You donβt know where itβs coming from, and it hits you at the strangest of times β when youβre making tea, or in the bath, or cleaning your apartment, or on the train, or admiring the sky on a cloudless day.
The man from the train is the boy in your dreams. It takes you weeks to come to that realisation. You just wake up in the middle of the night on a random Tuesday, with wide eyes and clammy skin and his name slipping from the forefront of your mind.
It shouldnβt be possible, but once it dawns on you, youβre certain of it.
Even stranger is that once you realise it, it feels as though you see him everywhere. You see flashes of red hair when youβre walking down the street, when youβre grocery shopping, when youβre walking home late at night. Itβs only ever the barest glance out of the corner of your eye, just overt enough for you to know itβs him, but subtle enough for you to question yourself immediately after.
One night, you travel to a local city to meet some old school friends. At night, the city seems to pulse. The music from seedy clubs spills out into the neon-lit streets, muffled shouted arguments echoes from alleyways and apartments alike, and the streets are peppered with people either scurrying or stumbling home, with very little variation. Though the perpetually overcast sky hides any trace of the moon or stars, the streetlamps reflect in the ever-present stagnant puddles littering the street, lighting them up in varying shades of sickly yellow.
At night, the city seems alive. Chronically ill and struggling to breathe, maybe, but clinging to life all the same.
The way the neon lights flicker in the gloomy darkness, just barely illuminating the shadows of people hurrying through the streets to get in out of the rain, reminds you of something you canβt quite remember. It sits in the back of your mind like a sour taste, but no matter how much you reach for the memory it remains just out of reach.
You spend most of the night staring out of the steamed up window of the pub, entranced by the sight of the night streets and frustrated by the memories that seem to dangle just out of reach. You know that it doesnβt make for good company, and you feel guilty for that. Your friends donβt seem overly surprised at your detachment. Youβve been drifting away for years, and though tonight was supposed to be all about reconnecting it seems clear that itβs not going to work.
When you eventually stand up to leave, with forced smiles and awkward goodbyes, you canβt help but feel melancholy settle over you like a second skin. As you slip out of the pub and onto the dark streets, the thought crosses your mind that youβre not used to being alone like this. Itβs a silly thought, really; youβve been alone for years. But sometimes, in those liminal moments between waking and sleeping, you swear you can hear the gentle drowsy breaths of dozens of people sleeping all around you, as though youβre surrounded on all sides. On those nights you wake up hot and claustrophobic and uncomfortable, but never feeling lonely.
It is probably your own fault, you reflect as you drift down the sidewalk like a ghost. Itβs difficult to make an effort to know people when you feel as though you donβt know yourself. You donβt know how to bridge the distance between yourself and other people. You think sometimes that youβre missing chunks of yourself.
You pass an open shopfront thatβs serving street food, and glance briefly in at the kitchen. The cook is illuminated only dimly in the smoky room, standing out as a shadow figure more than anything, and for a split second you could swear that he has six arms. You look away quickly and carry on walking β you donβt want to look again only to be proven wrong. You want to preserve that little second of magic strangeness for as long as you can.
The puddles on the street seem like theyβre glowing with the light reflected from the neon streetlamps, and you weave your way carefully around them to avoid getting your feet wet. The night has a strange quality about it, almost as though itβs holding its breath.
Considering the combination of your pensive mood and the expectant air of the evening, you donβt feel surprised at all when you look up from the wet cobblestones to find the man standing only a few feet ahead of you.
He smiles like heβs nervous, his gaze tracking carefully over your face. In his hands, heβs holding flowers. Camellias, you think. Itβs the first time since you first saw him on the train that hasnβt been a fleeting glance out of the corner of your eyeβ heβs here in front of you and heβs real and solid and sturdy. He seems more substantial than the streets around you, than your friends back at the pub had been.
βDo you remember me?β He asks, voice soft as though heβs afraid of the answer.
βRemember you?β You croak. It feels as though the words are catching inside your throat. βNo. But Iβve seen you every night in my dreams for years.β
If thatβs the answer heβs expecting, he doesnβt show it. He just keeps looking at you, your face, your body. You wonder exactly it is that heβs seeing. βThese are for you.β He says eventually, holding out the flowers. βI didnβt- I wanted to bring you something, when I saw you again. And I know that you always liked the garden.β
Heβs talking as if the places that youβve dreamed about are real. It doesnβt come as the earth-shattering surprise you might have expected β rather, it feels like a key turning in an old lock. A click, and then a sense of yes, thatβs right.
You take the flowers, and clutch them to your chest. Theyβre a fleshy pink, with a vibrant yellow centre. The petals are as soft as velvet. Holding them feels like holding a safety blanket. βThank you.β Itβs the only thing that you can manage to say right now. Your thoughts are too full, and nothing else makes it out of your mouth.
Itβs rather startling, the feelings that bubble up in your chest. It feels like something has just been unlocked, as though you had stored away all this emotion somewhere deep in your ribcage and then forgotten about it only for it to resurface at this precise moment, for this precise person.
βEijirou.β You croak. βKirishima Eijirou.β
His whole face brightens, and his eyes sparkle. βYes. Thatβs me. You do remember!β
Theyβre not quite memories, you donβt think. They come in dreamlike flashes β the garden, an ocean, train tracks, the feral snarling of a dragon with sharp teeth, hard work and hot food, friends.
βIβm sorry I took so long,β Kirishima is saying, his face open and earnest. βBut I told you that Iβd come and find you again, remember?β
You do remember, sort of. A flash of a warm hand holding yours, pushing you forward over a boundary between one world and another, and a goodbye whispered behind you that sounds like a promise.
βYou saved me.β
Kirishima laughs, though his eyes look a little shiny. βIt was the other way around, actually. I would have stayed trapped in that bathhouse forever, if it werenβt for you.β
βThe bathhouse.β You murmur, wide-eyed. It was real, real, real.
βThings are different now.β He edges closer to you. Heβs large and imposing and taller than you, but heβs hunched slightly in an attempt to make himself unthreatening. βThatβs why it took so long for me to come for you. Things were changing. Me and Katsuki run the bathhouse now.β
Katsuki. In your mind's eye you see a boy with wild blond hair and a dangerous look in his eyes, a boy who gives you extra rice when he can manage and takes over parts of your chores when you get so tired that youβre fit to pass out.
βI didnβt mean to make you wait.β He says quietly, and the tide of emotion that you had just barely been holding at bay comes crashing over you. Before the first tear has welled over the edge of your eyelids, Kirishima has stepped forward and wrapped you in his arms. The flowers are crushed between your chests as you cry.
βI didnβt even know what I was waiting for.β You cry into his silk suikan.
βIβm sorry.β He whispers into your hair. βIβm here now. Iβm not going to leave again.β
You donβt release your grip on him. Youβre not willing to take the chance.
After a moment, Kirishima speaks again. βAre you ready to go?β
βGo?β You echo, finally pulling away. βGo where?β
βHome.β He says, and he means the bathhouse. He means the spirit world.
βYou want me to work for you?β
βI want you to help us run it.β He corrects. The distinction is important for both of you β though the memories are distant, you both know what it feels like to have your names and voices erased so cleanly that it makes you wonder if you ever existed fully at all.
βI donβt know anything about running a bathhouse. Especially not one for spirits.β You say, but Kirishima just laughs.
βYou were always a hard worker. Youβll learn as you go. Thatβs what weβve all been doing.β
You want to say yes. The word beats in your head like a drum, and you canβt think of a good reason to say no. The bathhouse. Home. The chance to feel real and awake at the same time.
βOkay.β You say on a breath, staring at him with wide eyes. βStay with me, this time.β
When Kirishimaβs face lights up in a smile, itβs the first time that you think you can accurately describe someone as incandescently happy. βGood luck getting rid of me again.β
You laugh, feeling nearly delirious with relief and joy. Itβs real. Heβs real. Heβs come back for you, and now youβre going back with him. You think you should probably feel nervous or hesitant, but this brief encounter has felt more solid and right than the rest of the night spent with distant school-friends made uncomfortable by your silences.
βSo, how do we get there?β You ask, but Kirishima just grins at you like you should already know the answer.
The train station is tucked away down an alley just off a busy main shopping district.
βItβs easy to miss if you donβt know exactly where you're going.β Kirishima tells you with a sharp smile, and itβs easy to believe. The red brick building that housed the train station is unmarked, and the trains couldnβt be seen from the main street. The alley itself is home to many curious sights -- paper lanterns bob overhead (though they donβt seem to be suspended by anything in particular), a yellowed flyer from the 1950s advertising Marlboro cigarettes drifts along on what seems to be a breeze despite the noticeable lack of wind, and three magpies sit on a wall wearing little golden timepieces on chains around their necks and caw in time with the ticking.
βReady to go home?β Kirishima asks quietly. In his hand, two train tickets flutter in a non-existent breeze.
A family of mice scamper past your feet, pulling a miniature suitcase between them. A tall, thin woman wearing a blank white mask assists them onto the train.
You laugh at the whimsy of it all β it feels as though youβve stepped into a fairytale, into a dream, into your childhood. βYes,β You grin, βIβm ready.β
Kirishima beams back at you, and holds out a hand to help you onto the train. Finding a seat was easy β despite all the passengers you had seen boarding, the carriage was oddly empty. As soon as youβre seated, you sigh. It feels as though youβre sinking into an old overstuffed armchair, comfortable and familiar. When the whistle blows and the train starts moving, you turn eagerly to watch as the train begins to pick up speed. Within moments, you find that you can barely recognise the landscape blurring past the window β It seems that youβre zooming passed a beautiful sea-view, despite the fact that the city the train station was located in was conspicuously land-locked. You sigh happily and lean against your seat.
You still donβt remember everything about your experience in the spirit world all those years ago, but you think you remember hearing someone telling you βOnce you meet someone you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memories to return."
You make eye contact with Eijirou, who smiles back at you so fondly that it nearly hurts to look at. Heβs changed so much from the boy in your dreams, in your memories. His eyes are no longer glassy and distant β now theyβre shiny and expressive and so bright. His hair is longer too; still spiked and wild, but longer and curling softly over the curve of his neck and shoulders. Heβs the boy your remember from all those years ago, but heβs also a man now. Grown, like you have, but smiling at you gently just like youβre ten years old again.
Through the window behind his head, the sunrise begins to bathe the water in delicate pinks and yellows. Youβll wait for as long as you need to for the memories to return, but even if they donβt thatβs alright. You can just make new ones.
Ok so I left the two really long reviews for your fics the last few days and now I read your spirited away au and omg!!!!!!!! It's so good!!!!!!! Just the way you wrote it. How you deacribe everything as half awake half asleep or like a memory on the tip of your tongue!!!! It was beautiful! The flashes of magic between the mundane and not feeling like you belong! And Kiri being the sweet boy he is! And to write so much with so little dialogue and have it still be so so so good is amazing!!!!! It was so perfect. I know you said you wrote it fast but it doesn't show. It feels like you must have spent hours and hours on it and edited it and just gah!!!!!! I'm so happy I read it, it was beautiful. Thank you once again for giving us more amazing writing!
HNNNG i genuinely love you so much, itβs not even funny π my heart jumps whenever i see a message from you, itβs just so lovely reading your thoughts!Β
iβm so so glad you enjoyed reading it, itβs quite different to my normal style but i actually really enjoyed writing it!
warnings: none, really! a bit of angst, a bit of fluff i guess?
notes: hello, it's me, back again with some writing! it's been a long time and i'm very sorry about that, but i've finally gotten around to writing and posting my spirited away au! i'm v stressed with college so this turned out more vent-y than i had originally intended, but hopefully it's enjoyable anyway! thank you all for being so patient with me, i am endlessly grateful for you
The dream is the same as always, comforting in its familiarity.
A salt-scented breeze cools your sweat-soaked brow as you pause behind one of the sliding screen doors, the rice paper windows doing nothing to block out the chatter of the other workers. The bubbling noise of the bathhouse is constant, and the quiet little moments you steal away for yourself in the middle of the working day is the only solitude youβve gotten since you came here. The work is physically back-breaking, but you know that youβre working towards a goal. Itβs just a shame that you canβt remember exactly what that goal is.
One of the other girls calls your name, and you sigh as your unofficial break comes to an end. You slip back into the room, ignoring the way the frog spirits snicker and hold their noses as you pass. They like to complain a lot about your human stench, but it doesnβt stop them from threatening to eat you every time you make a mistake. Fear, youβve found, is an uncomfortably successful motivator.
The days bleed into one another, full of scrubbing dark wooden floors and the rich earthy scents of the herbal mixes they use in the baths. The spirits that frequent the bathhouse, that once inspired so much awe and fear in your heart, become so commonplace that you hardly spare them a glance anymore. From the cackling masked spirits that always travel in threes to the grinning cat spirits to the sombre, unspeaking river spirits, you only go as far as to offer them a polite bow before scurrying out of their way. They never spare you any attention, anyway -- most of the time, the spiritsβ eyes seem to look right through you.
All but one, that is.
He looks to be a boy around your age, but appearances can be deceiving around here. His red eyes are often dull and blank, but even so they have a certain ageless quality about them that no human twelve-year-old could ever possess. His scarlet hair sticks up in gravity-defying spikes, and his skin is as smooth and clear as running water. His face is often stuck in a carefully cultivated blank expression; the only thing about him that doesnβt seem intimidatingly otherworldly are the deep purple shadows under his eyes.
He helped you once, when you first came here. The rare act of kindness had stuck in your head, made even more remarkable in the face of the following weeks and months of harsh work and cruel co-workers. You wonder if he remembers; he doesnβt often look at you, but sometimes when he does you swear you can see a flicker of something in his eyes.
Two of the girls start yelling at each other, arguing heatedly over the way the work is being divided. A foreman appears to break up the fight, but then they both start shouting at him instead. You take the moment of distraction to relax, wincing at the pull of your tired muscles in the back of your neck. All the other girls working at the bath house are older and bigger than you, which means you need to work twice as hard to keep up with them and prove that youβre worth keeping around.
In the brief moment of rest, your eyes are drawn slowly to the corridor, where guests and workers alike bustle past as they travel to the treatment rooms and bathtubs deeper into the bathhouse. As if youβve conjured him just by thinking about him, the boy stands in the doorway.
You straighten up on instinct, suddenly self-conscious of your sweat-soaked body and dishevelled uniform. Heβs not even looking your way, preoccupied with the two girls who are still yelling at the frog foreman. Slowly though, his eyes began to travel the room, and you take a deep breath and hold it as his dull ruby gaze lands on you like a physical weight. You crack a nervous smile, feeling the muscles in your cheeks that have gone unused for weeks ache at the strain, and raise a hand to give him a tiny wave.
For just a moment, that blankness in his face seems to quiver and fall away. He smiles back.
You jolt awake, breathing heavily and coated in a light sheen of sweat. Youβve had the same dream, or some variation of it, regularly ever since you were twelve years old and while itβs become familiar to you, you still find yourself feeling vaguely panicked when you wake up after it, as though youβve forgotten something very important.
Once your heartbeat has calmed down a little, you pull yourself out of bed and trudge into the kitchen to make yourself some tea. The weak, milky light of dawn filters in through the windows, lighting your apartment up just enough so that you donβt have to turn on a light to make your way around. You take your tea out to the balcony and sit, gazing out at the purplish early morning sky.
Most of the time when you wake up from those dreams you feel blessedly lucky to be living alone with no one to question or bother you, but sometimes you canβt help but be overcome by overwhelming loneliness. The dreams are silly and most of the time they donβt even make any sense, but in the aftermath of them youβre always left with a vague sense of unfulfillment, though you canβt put your finger exactly on what it is youβre missing. You always end up exactly like this; sitting outside on your balcony in the early morning light, drinking tea alone and desperately wishing for something more.
You sigh, and go back inside.
The dream is the same, but different.
The garden is in full bloom, greenery overlaid with bursts of beautiful bright colours. Camellias, rhododendrons, and oleanders wave and shiver gently in the warm breeze, and apple blossoms hang heavily from a nearby tree. The flowering garden is enormous and maze-like, and you have yet to see it in any state other than fully flourishing.
Itβs a beautiful place, especially after the hot, cramped working quarters of the bathhouse. You inhale the sweetly fragranced air and feel the knot of tension in your spine unfurl; it feels like the first time that youβve been able to breathe all week, but thatβs not the only reason that youβve found yourself outside.
At the bottom of the garden, the grass drops off into a sheer drop. The cliff face overlooks a seemingly endless ocean, and you perch a safe distance from the drop before leaning back in the grass. The sky is an almost surreally deep blue and you watch as enormous fluffy clouds float by, looking as though theyβve been painted on a jewel-blue canvas.
Itβs not the first time youβve had this dream, and you know what youβll see if you keep patiently watching.
It doesnβt take long β it never does. You time your lunch breaks precisely, all so you get to see this sight.
The clear blue sky makes it so much easier to spot the shiny white scales, flashing jewel-bright in the sunlight. The dragon writhes in the sky, streaking through the air like a great serpent caught in the wind. Even from this distance, you can see the knife-like teeth, the great sharp claws that gleam like pyrite, and the twisting horns that erupt from his head like daggers made from calcified bone. He looks deadly, a living weapon that swims through the air like a salmon in open water, but the sight of him makes something settle in your stomach.
You wonder what it would feel like to fall through the air with nothing but the wind to break your fall. You imagine it must feel like freedom.
The dragon flutters through the air, buoyed by the gentle sea breeze. If you didnβt know better, you might almost think that he was showing off β his movements are hypnotic, dreamlike, more like a dance than anything. His scales glow pearlescent in the midday sun, otherworldly and earthly all at once.
You could happily stay and watch him skim through the sky forever, but already the bell is being rung to call all workers back into the bathhouse. You heave a sigh so deep it feels as though your chest is about to crack with the force of it, before hauling yourself to your feet.
Your break is over, and now itβs back to work.
Sometimes you find it difficult to tell when youβre dreaming and when youβre awake. It feels as though everything is always happening all at once, in the present tense, forever. You donβt get to rest when you close your eyes and drift off to sleep, because the dreams just keep coming and coming. Sometimes you donβt feel like your life is real when youβre awake.
Riding on the train has always been therapeutic, especially at this time of the early morning. The sun rising lazily over the horizon sends milky threads of purple and pink across the cloudy sky, and you cradle your chin in your hand as you gaze out across the moving landscape. You love these little trips, feeling more at home in the creaky, overfull train carriage than you do in your own bedroom sometimes, though you canβt quite work out where that particular feeling comes from.
You know sometimes that stories end with βAnd then I woke up β it was only a dreamβ, but in your experience the story simply doesnβt end. You cannot fully wake up without the tail-ends of your dreams clinging to you for the rest of the day, and you never fully sleep. You just dream, dream, dream.
Sighing, you lean your head back against the seat that youβre slumped in. The train carriage is too full, and you were lucky to get a seat in the first place β from your vantage point, you watch as people sway in tandem with the motion of the train. Itβs almost hypnotic, how they undulate back and forth with every turn, brushing against each other only to be pulled apart again by the lurching train.
Through the sea of bodies, you catch a manβs eye. It breaks the monotony of the morning commute and your own spiralling thoughts, and your spine straightens unconsciously. He quirks an eyebrow briefly, slightly, in such a way that no one would be able to safely accuse him of having done it.
You look away, startled for no good reason. Do you know him? He feels familiar in a way that you canβt quite put your finger on. The train rattles on, and it takes several long minutes before you work up the nerve to glance the manβs way again. Heβs still watching you, but youβre ready for it this time. His attention isnβt such a shock, and you allow your eyes to wander over his face properly.
You must know him, you think. Your eyes track over his features as though theyβre winding over a well-worn path, admiring the curve of his nose and the fullness of his lips and the arch of his eyebrows over his intense, watchful eyes.
He smiles at you, and it feels as though youβre sharing a secret from across the crowded train carriage. You smile back β itβs just a small tug of the corners of your mouth, but itβs the most youβve smiled in months. Longer, maybe.
In the middle of the carriage a woman laughs at something her friend has said and sways backward, blocking your view of the stranger. It feels like a loss.
The train trundles onwards, and the carriage gradually empties out. You watch people step off the train with friends, with their heads ducked low, lost in thought, arguing over the phone, distracted with their book bags. By the time it comes to your stop, the man is gone.
You try not to feel disappointed as you step off the train β itβs silly, after all. You donβt know the man, and whatever you thought you felt as you looked at each other was surely all in your own head. Your head has been awfully full, recently.
As you step off the train you grapple with your bag, side-stepping a businessman who is busy shouting down the phone at some unfortunate coworker. Youβre distracted, which is the only reasonable explanation for how long it takes you to realise that the man from the train is standing in front of you.
βOh.β You blurt, startled. You had already begun to resign yourself to never seeing him again, so you canβt help but feel distinctly caught off guard at the sight of him standing before you. βHi.β
βHello.β The man says. Heβs looking at you expectantly, but you have no idea what heβs waiting for β as it is, you get completely distracted by his eyes. You hadnβt noticed on the train, but now that heβs up close you see that theyβre a truly unusual deep burgundy. He tilts his head when you remain silent, and bites his lip. Now that youβre really looking, you notice how sharp his teeth are. βYouβve barely changed at all.β
You blink at him. βErβ¦β You trail off nervously. You donβt recognise him, but you feel like you know him. Clearly, he thinks that he knows you.
βItβs fitting, isnβt it? Meeting again on a train?β He smiles, and itβs an impossibly knowing expression. You donβt think youβve ever been on the receiving end of a look that intimate in your life, though you have no idea what heβs talking about.
Someone collides hard with your shoulder and you stagger for balance. You only look away from the man for a mere second, but itβs enough; when you look again, heβs gone.
You take to walking. Thereβs a wooded area behind the town, and you enjoy traipsing idly through the trees. Ancient roots erupt out of the dirt and fan over the ground like hairs, and the moss that covers the trunks of the trees is such a deep green that it almost seems like paint pigment. Itβs soothing, being surrounded by nature like this. It reminds you of childhood β the simplicity of being able to jump over tree roots under a canopy of pale green leaves, of being able to leave all your thoughts and stress at the boundary of the forest.
Itβs where you come after waking sweat-soaked and disoriented from a dream that clings to you like a burr, where you walk among the ferns and the needle-leaved weeds until you manage to shake the last vestiges of memory from your mind. You need it, especially in the mornings where you wake up with the acrid scent of herbal cleanser stinging in your nose or the bite of hard calluses on your palms from non-existent rough cloths. On mornings like that, you walk and walk until you no longer feel as though youβre more alive in your dreams than you are in reality.
Deep in the forest is a great red facade, painted a flaking, faded red. You wander by it frequently, admiring the overgrown greenery that crawls up the walls like reaching fingers, the mossy stone guardian that stands sentinel amongst the cracked flagstones that lead into the tunnelled entrance. Youβve asked around in the town, curious about what exactly this building was for, but most of the locals either donβt know what building youβre talking about or admit that theyβre not sure. One man told you that the facade was built for a theme park in the 90s that had ended up going bust in the recession, and that the building only looked old.
You remain unconvinced on that front. The building has the kind of presence that only very old things have; it feels like itβs watching you.
For the most part, your walks in the forest are peaceful. Recently though, youβve found yourself plagued by an insistent, irritating sense of deja vu. You donβt know where itβs coming from, and it hits you at the strangest of times β when youβre making tea, or in the bath, or cleaning your apartment, or on the train, or admiring the sky on a cloudless day.
The man from the train is the boy in your dreams. It takes you weeks to come to that realisation. You just wake up in the middle of the night on a random Tuesday, with wide eyes and clammy skin and his name slipping from the forefront of your mind.
It shouldnβt be possible, but once it dawns on you, youβre certain of it.
Even stranger is that once you realise it, it feels as though you see him everywhere. You see flashes of red hair when youβre walking down the street, when youβre grocery shopping, when youβre walking home late at night. Itβs only ever the barest glance out of the corner of your eye, just overt enough for you to know itβs him, but subtle enough for you to question yourself immediately after.
One night, you travel to a local city to meet some old school friends. At night, the city seems to pulse. The music from seedy clubs spills out into the neon-lit streets, muffled shouted arguments echoes from alleyways and apartments alike, and the streets are peppered with people either scurrying or stumbling home, with very little variation. Though the perpetually overcast sky hides any trace of the moon or stars, the streetlamps reflect in the ever-present stagnant puddles littering the street, lighting them up in varying shades of sickly yellow.
At night, the city seems alive. Chronically ill and struggling to breathe, maybe, but clinging to life all the same.
The way the neon lights flicker in the gloomy darkness, just barely illuminating the shadows of people hurrying through the streets to get in out of the rain, reminds you of something you canβt quite remember. It sits in the back of your mind like a sour taste, but no matter how much you reach for the memory it remains just out of reach.
You spend most of the night staring out of the steamed up window of the pub, entranced by the sight of the night streets and frustrated by the memories that seem to dangle just out of reach. You know that it doesnβt make for good company, and you feel guilty for that. Your friends donβt seem overly surprised at your detachment. Youβve been drifting away for years, and though tonight was supposed to be all about reconnecting it seems clear that itβs not going to work.
When you eventually stand up to leave, with forced smiles and awkward goodbyes, you canβt help but feel melancholy settle over you like a second skin. As you slip out of the pub and onto the dark streets, the thought crosses your mind that youβre not used to being alone like this. Itβs a silly thought, really; youβve been alone for years. But sometimes, in those liminal moments between waking and sleeping, you swear you can hear the gentle drowsy breaths of dozens of people sleeping all around you, as though youβre surrounded on all sides. On those nights you wake up hot and claustrophobic and uncomfortable, but never feeling lonely.
It is probably your own fault, you reflect as you drift down the sidewalk like a ghost. Itβs difficult to make an effort to know people when you feel as though you donβt know yourself. You donβt know how to bridge the distance between yourself and other people. You think sometimes that youβre missing chunks of yourself.
You pass an open shopfront thatβs serving street food, and glance briefly in at the kitchen. The cook is illuminated only dimly in the smoky room, standing out as a shadow figure more than anything, and for a split second you could swear that he has six arms. You look away quickly and carry on walking β you donβt want to look again only to be proven wrong. You want to preserve that little second of magic strangeness for as long as you can.
The puddles on the street seem like theyβre glowing with the light reflected from the neon streetlamps, and you weave your way carefully around them to avoid getting your feet wet. The night has a strange quality about it, almost as though itβs holding its breath.
Considering the combination of your pensive mood and the expectant air of the evening, you donβt feel surprised at all when you look up from the wet cobblestones to find the man standing only a few feet ahead of you.
He smiles like heβs nervous, his gaze tracking carefully over your face. In his hands, heβs holding flowers. Camellias, you think. Itβs the first time since you first saw him on the train that hasnβt been a fleeting glance out of the corner of your eyeβ heβs here in front of you and heβs real and solid and sturdy. He seems more substantial than the streets around you, than your friends back at the pub had been.
βDo you remember me?β He asks, voice soft as though heβs afraid of the answer.
βRemember you?β You croak. It feels as though the words are catching inside your throat. βNo. But Iβve seen you every night in my dreams for years.β
If thatβs the answer heβs expecting, he doesnβt show it. He just keeps looking at you, your face, your body. You wonder exactly it is that heβs seeing. βThese are for you.β He says eventually, holding out the flowers. βI didnβt- I wanted to bring you something, when I saw you again. And I know that you always liked the garden.β
Heβs talking as if the places that youβve dreamed about are real. It doesnβt come as the earth-shattering surprise you might have expected β rather, it feels like a key turning in an old lock. A click, and then a sense of yes, thatβs right.
You take the flowers, and clutch them to your chest. Theyβre a fleshy pink, with a vibrant yellow centre. The petals are as soft as velvet. Holding them feels like holding a safety blanket. βThank you.β Itβs the only thing that you can manage to say right now. Your thoughts are too full, and nothing else makes it out of your mouth.
Itβs rather startling, the feelings that bubble up in your chest. It feels like something has just been unlocked, as though you had stored away all this emotion somewhere deep in your ribcage and then forgotten about it only for it to resurface at this precise moment, for this precise person.
βEijirou.β You croak. βKirishima Eijirou.β
His whole face brightens, and his eyes sparkle. βYes. Thatβs me. You do remember!β
Theyβre not quite memories, you donβt think. They come in dreamlike flashes β the garden, an ocean, train tracks, the feral snarling of a dragon with sharp teeth, hard work and hot food, friends.
βIβm sorry I took so long,β Kirishima is saying, his face open and earnest. βBut I told you that Iβd come and find you again, remember?β
You do remember, sort of. A flash of a warm hand holding yours, pushing you forward over a boundary between one world and another, and a goodbye whispered behind you that sounds like a promise.
βYou saved me.β
Kirishima laughs, though his eyes look a little shiny. βIt was the other way around, actually. I would have stayed trapped in that bathhouse forever, if it werenβt for you.β
βThe bathhouse.β You murmur, wide-eyed. It was real, real, real.
βThings are different now.β He edges closer to you. Heβs large and imposing and taller than you, but heβs hunched slightly in an attempt to make himself unthreatening. βThatβs why it took so long for me to come for you. Things were changing. Me and Katsuki run the bathhouse now.β
Katsuki. In your mind's eye you see a boy with wild blond hair and a dangerous look in his eyes, a boy who gives you extra rice when he can manage and takes over parts of your chores when you get so tired that youβre fit to pass out.
βI didnβt mean to make you wait.β He says quietly, and the tide of emotion that you had just barely been holding at bay comes crashing over you. Before the first tear has welled over the edge of your eyelids, Kirishima has stepped forward and wrapped you in his arms. The flowers are crushed between your chests as you cry.
βI didnβt even know what I was waiting for.β You cry into his silk suikan.
βIβm sorry.β He whispers into your hair. βIβm here now. Iβm not going to leave again.β
You donβt release your grip on him. Youβre not willing to take the chance.
After a moment, Kirishima speaks again. βAre you ready to go?β
βGo?β You echo, finally pulling away. βGo where?β
βHome.β He says, and he means the bathhouse. He means the spirit world.
βYou want me to work for you?β
βI want you to help us run it.β He corrects. The distinction is important for both of you β though the memories are distant, you both know what it feels like to have your names and voices erased so cleanly that it makes you wonder if you ever existed fully at all.
βI donβt know anything about running a bathhouse. Especially not one for spirits.β You say, but Kirishima just laughs.
βYou were always a hard worker. Youβll learn as you go. Thatβs what weβve all been doing.β
You want to say yes. The word beats in your head like a drum, and you canβt think of a good reason to say no. The bathhouse. Home. The chance to feel real and awake at the same time.
βOkay.β You say on a breath, staring at him with wide eyes. βStay with me, this time.β
When Kirishimaβs face lights up in a smile, itβs the first time that you think you can accurately describe someone as incandescently happy. βGood luck getting rid of me again.β
You laugh, feeling nearly delirious with relief and joy. Itβs real. Heβs real. Heβs come back for you, and now youβre going back with him. You think you should probably feel nervous or hesitant, but this brief encounter has felt more solid and right than the rest of the night spent with distant school-friends made uncomfortable by your silences.
βSo, how do we get there?β You ask, but Kirishima just grins at you like you should already know the answer.
The train station is tucked away down an alley just off a busy main shopping district.
βItβs easy to miss if you donβt know exactly where you're going.β Kirishima tells you with a sharp smile, and itβs easy to believe. The red brick building that housed the train station is unmarked, and the trains couldnβt be seen from the main street. The alley itself is home to many curious sights -- paper lanterns bob overhead (though they donβt seem to be suspended by anything in particular), a yellowed flyer from the 1950s advertising Marlboro cigarettes drifts along on what seems to be a breeze despite the noticeable lack of wind, and three magpies sit on a wall wearing little golden timepieces on chains around their necks and caw in time with the ticking.
βReady to go home?β Kirishima asks quietly. In his hand, two train tickets flutter in a non-existent breeze.
A family of mice scamper past your feet, pulling a miniature suitcase between them. A tall, thin woman wearing a blank white mask assists them onto the train.
You laugh at the whimsy of it all β it feels as though youβve stepped into a fairytale, into a dream, into your childhood. βYes,β You grin, βIβm ready.β
Kirishima beams back at you, and holds out a hand to help you onto the train. Finding a seat was easy β despite all the passengers you had seen boarding, the carriage was oddly empty. As soon as youβre seated, you sigh. It feels as though youβre sinking into an old overstuffed armchair, comfortable and familiar. When the whistle blows and the train starts moving, you turn eagerly to watch as the train begins to pick up speed. Within moments, you find that you can barely recognise the landscape blurring past the window β It seems that youβre zooming passed a beautiful sea-view, despite the fact that the city the train station was located in was conspicuously land-locked. You sigh happily and lean against your seat.
You still donβt remember everything about your experience in the spirit world all those years ago, but you think you remember hearing someone telling you βOnce you meet someone you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memories to return."
You make eye contact with Eijirou, who smiles back at you so fondly that it nearly hurts to look at. Heβs changed so much from the boy in your dreams, in your memories. His eyes are no longer glassy and distant β now theyβre shiny and expressive and so bright. His hair is longer too; still spiked and wild, but longer and curling softly over the curve of his neck and shoulders. Heβs the boy your remember from all those years ago, but heβs also a man now. Grown, like you have, but smiling at you gently just like youβre ten years old again.
Through the window behind his head, the sunrise begins to bathe the water in delicate pinks and yellows. Youβll wait for as long as you need to for the memories to return, but even if they donβt thatβs alright. You can just make new ones.
Guess who spent days trying to paint in this softer, semi-realistic style? Honestly i have mixed feeling about these, for example i wish the little n*pple censors didn't have to lowkey ruin the drawing, but thank you Tumblr π
Anyways! These painting were inspired by @makoodles 's fiction called: darling itβs better (down where itβs wetter) with Merman!Bakugo, its absolutely chef kiss, so read it i beg you!
So I left that really long review for down where it's wetter and dragon dick kiri and now I just read a gift and in bloom and gosh you just got me in the feels!!!!!!!
When the kitten was purring and was weak I though it might die! But it was a fucking rat! That was just such a unexpected plot twist!!!! (Cant lie part of me wonders if they kept the rat). And I just love how throught she's just like "probably was the rum". And bakugou is just so exasperated but also in love!!!! And idk if it happens in a universe where he's a pro hero but the idea that he is and probably sees blood and violence from time to time but it's grossed out by a rat is hilarious!!!
Then with in bloom!!!! Gosh I just love everything about Kiri. Picturing him running around a garden shop is so funny! Like it just almost seems like it'd be a bull in a china shop! And he's so so so sweet. Just the whole 'you sure you don't wanna go on the date first? My throat may be closing a little but I'm sure it'll be fine!!!!!' so heart warming. Absolutely enjoyed both and I can't wait to work through more of your masterlist!
the way my heart speeds up when i see these asksπππabsolutely LOVE that youβre making your way through all of my fics and iβm so so delighted to read your thoughts and reactions! canβt quite describe how incredible it feels to read messages like this, it honestly leaves me smiling for dayssss!
Can I just say of you were to write a kiri spirited away fic I would read the shit out of it! Like of course, your write whatever you want and please don't think I'm demanding this! But if you do write it is be so excited to read!
hnnnn thank you so much angel omg
honestly one thing i always think about after i watch spirited away is what happened to chihiro after she left. like, does remember the spirit world at all? does it come back to her in flashes in dreams? i think i kinda wanna explore that
abt your spirited away au for some reason i feel like having kiri as chihiro would be so interesting ? sorry if this is different from what you had planned but im a somewhat recent follower so ive never seen you talk about but yeah i feel like kiri's personality would work so well like having this bright eyed sunshine can do attitude be thrown in a situation like that and then extrovert kiri trying his hardest to make friends with a stoic haku!reader idk im just spitballing here lol
ahhh hello and welcome !! in fairness i havenβt talked about it in ages and ages! also i absolutely adore that idea! itβs not what i was thinking but itβs honestly so sweet, youβre right that kiri would make such a sweet chihiro ππ
i was thinking of putting kiri as haku, bc it made sense in my head with him being a dragon? idk idk i feel like itβs gonna be a pretty venty/disjointed fic?
warnings: horror, creature!shinsou, size kink, voyeurism, yandere-ish shinsou (if you squint?), teratophilia, oral (receiving), vaginal sex
notes: um! hello! so i havenβt been very active lately, but i decided to write a short lil fic for halloween and then ended up with this 8.6k monsterfucking fic π hate myself lmao but hopefully you guys will enjoy! ily! happy halloween!
The very first time you laid your eyes upon the house, you were certain that you had lucked out.
Itβs tall and imposing, and seems to lean slightly forward as though itβs hunching with old age. The wooden steps leading up to the weathered porch are splintered and rotted, the shingles of the roof are thin and broken, and one of the windows in the downstairs sitting room has been smashed (probably by a group of overzealous, rebellious teenagers).
βItβs beautiful!β You murmur, enamored with the greenery sprouting whimsically out of the gutters lining the roof. Youβre so distracted by the houseβs wild charm that you miss the nervous sweating of the realtor, and the anxious glances he keeps throwing into all the dark corners of every room youβre in.
That initial sense of wonder and charmβ¦ ended up fading pretty quickly. Itβs not the worst house, by any means. You know for a fact that, all things considered, you actually got pretty lucky with it. The current market for houses is terrible, everyone says so! So the fact that you managed to land a beautiful period home, fixer-upper or not, in a quiet neighborhood (read: inconveniently far away from the nearest town) for way below market value should be nothing short of a miracle, especially for a first-time buyer who had barely fulfilled the basic requirements for a mortgage.
It should be.
But you begin to come to the slow, certain conclusion that the houseβ¦ isnβt quite right.
The wild, overgrown nature of the house and garden loses its charm when it comes time for you to single-handedly tear up the needle-leaved weeds that have begun to grow in every crevice of the garden path, leaving your hands torn and bleeding. The secluded location, which you had first delighted over as being peaceful and quiet, soon becomes intimidatingly isolated. As summer rolls to a close and the bleakness of winter begins to stretch before you, the lush greenery surrounding the house begins to wither and brown. The evenings get shorter as darkness begins to roll in earlier and earlier, and before you know it October is drawing to a close. Things are going well for you. Really, they are. Work is good, youβre managing the commute to town better than you had initially expected, and the process of fixing up the run-down and broken bits of the house is going pretty smoothly.
The thing is, the thing that you really donβt like to admit to yourself, is that you seem to be having troubleβ¦ settling into your new home. Even after three months there, itβs an adjustment to be suddenly living on your own after so many years sharing apartments with polite and detached flatmates. Youβre going through an adjustment period. Thatβs all.
Thatβs what you tell yourself late at night, when youβre lying in bed wrapped up in your duvet and staring fixedly at the broad white expanse of the ceiling in the dark. Youβre adjusting. Itβs not strange to have difficulty sleeping in a new, strange environment! The fact that the problem has been persisting for months now is something you try not to think about; youβre adjusting, thatβs all.
#I...have neverβ#I have NEVER#gotten this h word over a Shinsou fic#Shinsouβs my fave and I love him sm but like this? holy god#it checked every box. I am So Into monster Shinsou#my stomach is actually in knots I need to go lay down (via @unboundbnha)
ah. tags like these are truly the reason i love posting my writing
okay so like... i know that iβve talked about writing a spirited away au for kiri x reader before, but i never really got around to it. spirited away is my comfort film and iβm really stressed with college atm so i was just watching it there and like... now i really wanna write it again lol
