Tian Guan Ci Fu 🦋 Chinese Physical Version Promotional Video
CN physical copies to include 3 volumes, with brand new extras! EXCLUSIVE release of newly 10K words of new content and postscript publication (source in post link)
just thinking about the irony of why don’t you stay being jeff’s song and the implication that it is therefore kim’s song, but he’s the one who left. how between the three couples, the ones who should have had the easiest time staying were the only ones who parted ways. how despite all odds, porsche stayed with kinn. how despite vegas feeling like everyone he loved left, pete decided to stay with him. why don’t you stay is the kinnporsche and vegaspete anthem, but when looking at kimchay it’s not a question of why don’t you stay but a question of kim asking himself “why didn’t i stay?” and i’m actually not okay about it in the slightest
a/n: I’m sorry it took a while, but I finally did it~ my first x reader fanfic because i got desperate. Please enjoy!
Your first meeting was not the most ideal of circumstances. Chishiya was a new member of the Beach and was undergoing what seems to be the Borderland version of a hazing, while you were abandoned by the friends you recently made after a Two of Clubs game. You can't find it in yourself to blame them. This is a Spades game; joining a large group of people will only get you killed easily. This doesn’t stop you from hoping they survive this game though, even if you are on the verge of passing out yourself. You remember forcing yourself to take one step after the other until you ended up stumbling into the room that started whatever this is you seem to have with him.
You and Chishiya coincidently ended up in the same floor, and the same room despite the vastness of this game's arena. Or maybe the two of you just shared the same vague idea on how to exit the school building without setting off too many traps. You let out a breath of relief when you realized it was another participant instead of a tagger. There were three taggers in total and they were restricted to their respective floors. You already passed by two taggers and you preferred it that way. Anything else is better than the taggers if you’re being honest. At that time, Chishiya had his back towards you, white hoodie and all. You practically dragged yourself towards him and before you could take a peek at the piece of paper in his hands that probably contained some idea on what will happen on this floor, he crumpled it in his hands and merely said, "Run."
You heard a resounding click behind you and you started sprinting. You didn’t even look back to see what was potentially chasing you both. Run now, questions later, you thought. Chishiya already had a head start but you managed to keep up with him. Joining the track and field club back in high school was probably the best decision you've even made in your life.
Both of you ran towards the direction where the elevator should be. You are betting on the off chance that none of the participants are currently using it. Chishiya reaches the elevator first and gets the doors to open. He gets in and you joined him just in time for it to close. The both of you collapsed on the floor out of exhaustion. The half-baked plan worked. Not only did you set yourself as bait to trap half of the rabid dogs in some of the rooms, you also had to trust a complete stranger to not abandon you in the middle of it all. The only gripe you had with him is that he insisted in keeping the other half to roam the floor. This plan of his would have most likely killed you. Luckily, you only lost a shoe. But it still took you longer than necessary to reach your exit.
"I was honestly ready to jump off the window if your plan failed." You joked.
Jumping out the windows will result to being lasered and you have no intention of dying that way tonight. Nor do you have any intention of losing this game. You would have run down the stairs to the 2nd floor and risk finding a tagger there instead. The taggers are only human and they would have been distracted by the pack of rabid dogs running after this poor and exhausted player.
You heard him snort beside you, clearly not believing a word you said.
"Get up, we still need to clear the second floor," he replied instead.
You pushed yourself off the floor before getting thrown back towards it by a force from a blast that shook the elevator. This terrified you a lot that you ended up grabbing the closest thing to you—Chishiya’s arm. Embarrassingly, you unconsciously pressed your body to his side and buried your face right in his shoulder. It didn’t help that he pushed you away, but at least he held out his hand to help you stand up. Another rule of the game is that for every 10 minutes that pass, one floor starting from the 10th floor will be incinerated. That blast must have been from the 4th floor.
After assessing your current situation, you made the conclusion that you went straight to the first floor. Last time you checked, this building didn’t have any basements. The rules of the game also said that the first floor is the end goal so there shouldn’t be any traps in this floor. You only need to get out of this metal death trap to officially get on the first floor. You checked the phone that was provided by the game masters and saw you still have over 30 minutes before the remaining floors are burned down.
The elevator doors were already a few inches open so you took a peek and found that the floor was devoid of any furniture or other ornament except for the standard table you often see at the end of each game that contains the card they were playing.
“I think this is it. We’re almost there,” you said as you excitedly pushed the door further open. Since you clearly could not open it by yourself, Chishiya decided to lend you a hand. As soon as it was wide enough to fit a person, Chishiya let himself out first while you followed behind him.
You headed for the exit immediately while he grabbed the card from the table. The sound of a notification bell emanated from both of your pockets. This indicates the added days to your visa. This means you have a total of 7 days before your visa ends. This was good, it gives you more time to prepare for your next game. You recently started training your body seriously again. You even found people who were kind enough to teach and offer you some advice to survive Borderland. This reminds you that you actually prepared for tonight. You grabbed your water bottle from the fanny pack you brought with you and took a couple of sips.
Now that you felt refreshed, you shifted your attention to your new found companion who was just casually walking out of the building like they didn’t just play a death game a few moments ago.
He actually looks…. good? Cute? Handsome? My type? You couldn’t believe how you managed to survive a Diamonds game but still short circuits at the sight of a handsome man.
In this moment, you failed to realize that you have been staring at this stranger for a full minute.
“Water?” you offered all of a sudden, dangling your half empty water bottle in front of him.
He stared at you for a few seconds before finally accepting it.
“It’s not much but it’s better than nothing,” you said just to fill the awkward silence as he drinks.
“Thanks,” he replied, handing you back the bottle
This time, another explosion broke the awkwardness between the two of you. This time, it was at the third floor. You heard someone scream and you pretended it was someone you did not recognize. Reality finally sinks in with you. Now is not the time get distracted. You needed to keep your head in the game and gather as much intel as you can so that you can get back to your world as soon as possible. You sat on the steps outside of the building and kicked off the shoe you were wearing. It makes no sense to wear it since you already lost the other pair. You threw it as far as you can that it went past the gates. Chishiya noticed this and began to leave. While you were inwardly disappointed to see him leave, you were more concerned with other things.
“Aren’t you going to wait for your friends?” you asked, raising you voice to make sure he hears you.
You half expected him to ignore you completely, but he surprised you when he paused and replied, “I don’t have friends. But I think you should leave yours instead,”
Tempting.
“No thanks.” You didn’t bother raising your voice anymore. He probably knows the answer. It was not in your blood to abandon people, especially this small company you made. You just can’t.
You continue to watch his back until it disappeared from your view. Even then, you simply stared into the empty space he left behind. You didn’t even get his name, not that he asked yours. You weren’t even sure if you’ll ever meet him again. One of these games will surely end him, or maybe it gets you first. Or maybe you both survive and see each other in your old lives. In a café, or a park, or maybe at a party during the weekend.
You allow your train of thought to go on and on in that direction. Even if it’s only for a few minutes, you let yourself fall into a fantasy of your own making until you finally heard the last explosion.
Projecting hurt/comfort writers see a character and be like “I am currently falling so far but I also want to believe that I’m going to land on something soft so I’m going to vicariously experience that through you”
romaincrisis
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
ellievsbear
kianamaiart
