i am the fire and i am the forest and i am a witness watching it.
details under the cut.
hello everynyan i return from my weird silence, i hope you all missed me. here is some art from my book series i am writing and my main character. she is a deeply troubled soul who would benefit greatly from cbt and dbt therapy and also talk therapy and perhaps going to a rage room thrice a week?
she’s a gay little freak and tries to drown herself when she has perverted thoughts (she was thinking about her princess’s eyes for too long) for the first time and is a knight and she while she has the ability to burn people she beats people up with genuine love for the game.
contents; suguru geto x gn!reader. age gap (suguru is in his forties, reader in their early twenties !). intoxication; reader is drunk. pre-relationship, vaguely fluffy, slightly charged :3c wc; 1.6k
There is a clouded veil over your mind.
Warmth buds in your chest, not burning, but smouldering. It bleeds down to the tips of your fingers, up to your neck and the shells of your ears, weighty where it blossoms under your skin with intoxicated heat, summer-ripe and sweltering. Your lips are sticky with excess sugar from the bottle on the table, at the cusp of being empty; only a few drops of translucent soju gathered at the bottom of the glass. All you can taste is tangy, cottony sweetness, plum blisters on your half-numb tongue.
It must be well past midnight now. The last you remember, the clock had almost struck twelve, but that was before you sealed your lips around the bottle and lost track of sweetened, silky-smooth sips. Eager to keep up with your older peers, despite your limitations. Around you are the echo of people's voices, of laughter and banter, the clinking of bottles and ice cubes clashing against ice cubes like teeth gnashing teeth. All of it obscured; melting together; no voice distinguishable from any other, the whole bar blurry through your low-lidded eyes.
When your lashes flutter shut under the pressure, you find solace in the sleek, fuzzy darkness on the inside of your eyelids. It’s as close to quiet as you’re going to get.
A yawn tugs at the bottom of your throat, but morphs into a hiccup.
Before you can react, or pull yourself together, your body has slumped sideways and collided with something solid and clothed. Muscle under fabric. Everything feels heavy, your eyelids unable to peel themselves open, your head secured on the dip in the shoulder of the broad body next to you—
Vaguely, you pick up on notes of heady amber.
"Aww, look at that."
"Take a picture, Shoko!"
"Oh, poor thing. Are you alright, sweetie?"
A flurry of muffled voices, sticking together: one raspy with smoke, the other bright and chirpy, the third slurred and sticky with care. You can't think, can't piece them together. Can only think that they're embarrassing, fawning, as if you're a toddler that just tripped over its own stubby feet.
Above you buzzes a fourth. Deep, and smooth, leaning closer. Quiet at your ear.
"… Did you finish the whole bottle?" The voice is familiar, toe-curling in a way your drunken brain can't understand. It smooths heavy, gentle hands down the ridges of your frazzled senses. "Ah, that explains it. It's stronger than you'd think, isn't it."
A warm, flustering voice. Absently, you lick at your lips, tasting the faded flavour of fruit. A whine is resting there, at the tip of your tongue.
"Open your eyes, little one."
One second passes. Then two, and three.
Sluggishly, one after another, your eyelids flicker open. The dim, sunset-orange lights of the bar make you want to squeeze them shut again right away, but you persist— wanting to please— and when your muddled vision sharpens the source of the voice finally comes into view.
Geto tilts his head, bangs swaying with the motion, streaks of silver in between the ink-black. He's smiling, face lines illuminated by the lights overhead. The overcast golden glow makes him look holy, saint-like, tempting like another glass of plum-flavoured alcohol.
"… Good," he hums. Smile a gentle curve, praising. "Can you nod your head for me?"
There is a clouded veil over your mind. The strings binding your brain to your mouth to your limbs are tangled up and strained taut, unfocused; and yet you do. His words smooth over your brain, and your jaw tips down and up. Though you're too gone to notice the subtleties in his expression, his eyes morph into crescents.
"Not too fuzzy." He straightens his back, and meets the humoured eyes on the other side of the table, his friends, two women and one man. "Though they can't walk home in this state."
"Good thing thing they've got a reliable chaperone." Gojo's grin is lazy, teeth catching the melted lights, cheek smushed against the heel of his palm. "Where do they live, anyway?"
"Nakano," comes Shoko's flat response. "Suguru knows the address."
"Oh?"
The corners of his eyes sharpen, though his smile remains the same. "They invited me to dinner over Golden Week." Before Gojo can get another word in, he stands, keeping a steadying palm on your shoulder to keep you from falling over, your lashes blinking at the shift in balance. "I'll escort them, then."
When you look up at him with drooping eyes, his voice curls into that tender lilt; the one he reserves for you, for quiet evenings, for moments where you are surrounded by stimula but train your eyes on him alone.
"Is that alright?" he asks. It's not an actual question, but you can't tell. You muster another nod, or something resembling one, before your eyelids grow too heavy, your body too weary, the warmth in your chest too soothing to ignore. You're being guided out of the bar before you can pry them open again— supported by his bicep and shoulder, vaguely registering someone calling out behind you for him to get you home safe— until the chill of the open air is nibbling at the exposed skin of your collarbone, shocking you awake.
"Steady, now."
His voice is caramel, drumming at your spine. Everything is spinning, until it isn't, and the rain-slicked roads and star-clad sky comes into focus. An exhale slips past your lips and turns to vapour. Red tail-lights reflect off the wet pavement, bleeding their limbed lights out across the midnight scene and illuminating passing cars, a taxi that Geto hails over.
It's hard to walk, your steps off-balance, but his palms anchor you as he walks towards the back door of the car. It's hard to think, but you feel safe with him coccooning you like this. Geto is nice. The nicest guy you've met in Tokyo.
Your body is pliant when he guides it inside, slumping back against the seat next to the window while he talks to the driver. Their words are short, hushed in volume. It's comforting white noise, buzzing over your senses, condensed within the car's narrow walls. The interior smells of leather and cologne, pleasantly smokey.
Geto takes the middle seat. His shoulder nudges yours; the contact a reassurance, an invitation. Your body sways, and your hands come to curl around his arm, clinging to him like a child, cheek smushed against the valley between his neck and shoulder-blade. Warm skin on warm skin. An exhale stirs your throat, hot with satisfaction.
(If you weren't intoxicated— if you could see yourself like this— you'd be too embarrassed to face him tomorrow. Geto is nice, but he makes you nervous. Older and wiser, far more experienced, eyes world-worn and sharp. And he knows you like him. You know that he knows, and he knows that you know that he knows. That's why you can't get ahead of yourself; can't grow too bold with the kindness he shows you.
… Though in your fuzzy-headed state, all that reatraint has gone out the window.)
Above you, the ghost of breathy, rumbling laughter. You feel it buzz at the base of his throat, like a dragonfly's chatter.
A larger hand comes to brush against your forehead. It stills there for a moment, as if feeling for temperature, then moves to pet down the back of your head; from crown to nape, the way you would a well-loved purse dog. Your body melts further if possible. You're half-tempted to drape yourself over his lap.
But his hand retreats, and all goes quiet. The supple softness of his skin, the cologne lacing the sleeves of his sweater, rich and warm with notes of amber and incense— cocoon you in a web of safety, draped around you, blanketing.
And you drift off to sleep. Right as the taxi starts to drive towards its destination.
… Suguru's moon-sickle eyes fall on your face. Street-lights seep in through the window as the car passes them by, illuminating your peaceful, dazed expression.
He has seen you vulnerable; curled in on yourself in nervous anticipation, all alone on a bar table for two, like a fawn learning to walk for the first time. Second-guessing your sentences, tripping over your words, looking to him for unconscious reassurance. Cutting vegetables into thin, neat slices, your features soft in the glow of your own kitchen— at peace in your home, and allowing him to see it.
But he's never, ever seen you this unguarded. Never so drunk, so gone, so reliant on his protection.
(It's a feeling more intoxicating than soju; more than umeshu and whiskey, and saké with yuzu on the side. More addictive than alcohol or nicotine.
You trust him. Nothing compares to the high of that, the promise of what could come of it. If he plays his cards right, if he's very careful, if you're ready to be loved by a man who knows what he's doing.)
You're the sweetest thing I've met, he thinks. Gazing at you silently, as the road grows wider, as the radio of the car begins to play a tender waltz. Curls a careful arm around your shoulder, cautious not to wake you, and tucks you closer into his side. The sweetest thing in Tokyo.
Through the gentle, tipsy fog around his own mind, Geto's eyes flutter shut. He stays awake and vigilant, until the taxi comes to a stop.
contents; suguru geto x gn!reader. cult era geto. descriptions of injury and blood. protective suguru. possessive suguru. light angst. wc; 1k
You're washing your face by the sink when Suguru opens the bathroom door.
It's not where he typically finds you at this hour. In the kitchen with the TV buzzing from the living room, moon-watching on the balcony, in your bed, belly up and meeting his gaze through the window.
This time, you don't acknowledge him at all. Your head stays down, your body hovering above the sink. It makes for a macabre image: the dim lights over your head, the sound of water oscillating down into the drain, wet wipes balled up and scattered about on the tiled floor around your feet. Their crumpled edges are crimson-smeared, sticky with blood.
The line of his lips tightens.
Suguru steps forward, soundless. Everything is silent. You aren't wearing anything under your waist except for underwear, scraped knees exposed to his prying gaze, upper body clad in a white tank top; it would rouse his appetite for you, were it not overshadowed by alarm. He places a hand on your bare shoulder— cold to the touch— and turns you to face him.
When you do, he is met with a long, bloodied cut, running in between your eye and nose.
Silence. One. Two.
"Who?"
His voice is cold. Cut-throat. Flat where it falls in the space between you, three beats of silence laying thick in its wake.
Droplets of water dribble down your jaw. He tears into the wound with his eyes, seething in his observation. It's no longer bleeding, but the flesh is raw and puffy, red like butchered meat, the camellias in his garden when they're at their peak of beauty nearing December's end.
You exhale, weakly. "Suguru—"
"Who?" The same sharp calm. Faux, fury concealed. His hold on your shoulder doesn't falter nor tighten. "A mission? Who sent you?"
"Suguru."
The reprimand in your tone stills his tongue. If only because it sounds so frayed. You turn back towards the mirror, brushing his fingers off your skin. Muttering, faintly; ”You're too intense."
"… It's going to scar," he presses.
Click. The mirror cabinet opens. "I don’t mind."
"I do."
Your fingers reach for a roll of cloth, curling carefully around it. Your knuckles are bruised too, he notices, smudges of lilac budding between the ridges. His gut only coils further. The silence between you weighs heavy; tense like the muscles of his face, the burning amber of his gaze, trained on the flesh peeking out from underneath the cut on your face. Peach-rot, peach-skin peeled until only fruit-flesh remains.
It makes him nauseous to look at.
"… Why?" you ask, quietly. Still not facing him. "Would you find me grotesque?"
(Suguru's gaze flickers gold and red, the flash of a flame in eyes like burning branches.)
"Don't start." His jaw twitches. "You know I wouldn’t."
No response.
He waits a moment before continuing, a cocktail of anger and worry bubbling beneath his breath. "It could have hit your eye. It could have blinded you."
With a quiet hum of acknowledgement, you turn on the tap. Water streams out, crackling white noise fills the bathroom, echoes against its cold, white walls. It kills the silence, but unease still festers. You bring the cloth under the water, let it soak up the excess until it's dripping through the crevices between your fingers. Then you squeeze it, wring it dry.
"Maybe," you start, with an undercurrent of bitterness, "you just can’t bear the thought of me being marked by anyone but you."
Silence stretches. A rustle of wind claws against the bathroom window, muffled by the glass.
Suguru says your name. Each syllable bends around his tongue, stretched taut and weary.
"You can’t be—"
A sigh. He pinches the skin between his brows, numbing pressure on his muddled nerves. The words go unspoken, lost somewhere between his mind and mouth.
Your fingers move unflichingly, expression well-disguised of anything but fatigue. Or maybe that really is all you're feeling. It's hard to tell in the dim light, hard to even look at you without feeling his heart tear itself into overripe halves. You press the wet cloth against the gash without flinching.
Suguru watches, for a moment. Doesn't know what to say, or do, doesn't know how to mend what he must have broken long ago. He should know. He should know you better than anyone else. Should know how to handle you when you're like this, unspeaking, so fragile he wishes he could reach out and curl his hand around your soul, turn you into a perfect sphere for him to store inside his stomach. There, you'd be safe, and the world could not get to you.
But he'd only be proving your point.
He lets his fingers twitch uselessly at his sides, itching to tend to you. When it becomes unbearable, they take hold of your wrist.
"Let me."
No resistance. He wonders if it's the exhaustion; if you were secretly hoping he'd offer. He won't take any chances by prying for an answer. Can't afford to lose this, the sticky, crimson-smeared, fractured-at-the-edges five-letter word that keeps your window's latch unhooked—
Trust.
You let him dab the wound with cotton gauze, as gentle as a farmer cutting wool off of a docile sheep. Brows furrowed in unease he cannot shake, in quiet, fuming desperation.
To let him help. To let him leave something.
(Proof that he was there, hovering above you, under dim-lit bathroom lights in the dark of night. Proof that he was there for you, too little too late.)
Your eyes fall shut. He keeps the wet cloth pressed against the cut, curling a steady arm around your waist. You don't protest. It’s a small comfort, but enough. Drying blood cells seep through sluggishly, staining the pure white. Suguru will find whoever is responsible. He'll find them, kill them, sever them limb by butchered limb. Kill them for touching what shouldn't be touched. For hurting what should never feel hurt.
For leaving a mark that will never fade. No technique, no time. A forever reminder of his failure; as if the pills on your nightstand aren't enough. Kill, kill, butcher, swallow if need be.
A sigh slips into the air. It is tinged with weary, tender relief.
He feels you lean into his touch, barely.
Suguru steels his heart.
(In a deep, silent corner of his mind comes the thought: his lips against the broken skin, suckling the blood-clot. Replacing mark with mark. The desire overwhelms him, try as he may to butcher it.
contents; suguru x gn!reader. suguru-typical angst. bday blues. takes place after the events of premature death, two weeks after suguru’s defection. wc; 1.1k
Your 18th birthday is a quiet one.
Satoru, Shoko and Kento-kun bought you a birthday cake: dollops of sweet cream smeared on spongy golden-brown layers, topped with a handful of ruby-red strawberries and generously coated in powdered sugar. Gifts: a scarf for the long winter that awaits you beyond september's gentle-handed gates, a cartride for Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations on the Nintendo DS you and Satoru co-own, a stuffed animal in the shape of a rabbit. You should have been happy. It's natural to be happy on the day of your birth. Natural to feel lucky, beyond what words can express, that there are people in your life who want to celebrate you being born— even though Satoru's smile didn't reach his eyes, hair unkempt and damaged at the roots, even though Shoko reeked of cigarettes and cheap beer and Kento never once reached for his portioned slice of cake. Even though Yaga-sensei wasn't there at all.
(He's still held up with the higher ups. Interrogated. Doubted. You've never seen him look as crushed as when he came back to Jujutsu High three days ago, and that was just to gather more paperwork for them to use as evidence against him. There are bigger things are at stake; more than his career.
You get that. You do.)
You're a selfish, wretched thing, for being so ungrateful. For being so disappointed.
The night-light on your cupboard isn't working as it should. Something with the batteries— it flickers on and off, dims and brightens and illuminates your tear-streaked cheeks where you lay with your back against the mattress in the corner of your room. You'd rather it didn't shine on you at all.
Today is a quiet day. It's a funeral for a boy who hasn't died; who left you no more than two weeks ago, leaving nothing but a photo and a note that Shoko burned with his lighter.
You should count yourself lucky that there was a celebration in the first place. Lucky they even remembered. Deep down you know it's just because they want to think about something other than him— you know because you want that too, want the memory of the look in his eye when he turned away from you to stop killing you in your sleep, sliding its knife in a slit of your throat when you open your eyes and remember how his voice sounded saying Goodbye. You want the wound-less funeral, the Demon of Death flicking its tail against a bell twice your size to let you off with just the tears.
You want it, but you still haven't figured out how to go about it. All you can think about is Suguru.
(If he was here— if he was with you— he would have made your birthday special. Given you a handmade, thoughtful gift, with a thoughtful smile, made sure you didn't feel lonely or small. Would have told you something like: I love you. I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. I know you wanted to say it first. It's hard when you look at me like that. Or: I'm so lucky to have you, you know that? You'll never understand how much you mean to me.
To which you would have said:
Then why'd you leave?)
There are still more tears to shed. They burn, acidic, at the root of your lashline, catch aflame where they run down your cheeks in white-hot streaks. Sniffles tug at your lips and teeth even when you bite down on your sweater-sleeve to muffle them. You think of poor, sweet Suguru, Suguru with the honeysuckle eyes. You think of a boy with the same name, white shirt sodden with blood-clot. Picture him standing outside your window and waiting for you to notice him in the dead of a night that is no longer yours; that will never again be yours.
Because today isn't a birthday at all. It's the moment of calm after the world has shattered, the clarity of knowing there is nothing left to break. You will never feel whole again.
You will never feel 18.
(You will forever be 17, or 16, at the height of a youth that you're sure will never end— the inside of your belly ripe with apricot branches and laughter.)
You don't think Suguru will ever feel 18 either. February will pass him by, with no birthday cake or birthday gifts— the thought tears through your throat, fresh tears brimming in your red-rimmed eyes and spilling past them. You don't think he'll ever feel like a child again.
The night is long and quiet. Minutes pass. You remain curled up in bed in something resembling a fetal position, feeling your heart bleed through the mattress. You'll keep aging in the coming years, but you'll never get to celebrate it. All they'll ever think of is the leaving and the funeral that was never actually a funeral, but a mourning all the same. It's all you'll ever think of, even if they feed you enough strawberry shortcake to turn your insides into mush. Suguru killed your birthday. He killed it like he killed those villagers and like he sometimes kills you in your sleep.
It doesn't make you resent him.
There are traces of him in your room, fourteen days gone untouched. Novels on the upper shelf, some of their pages still fresh with a newly-bought scent, because he promised to read them to you but never got the time. Keycharms of bunnies and other fluffy animals magnetized against the wall above your desk— a potted plant by the windowsill that smells sweetly of rot— a lovesick haiku written on plain paper and stuffed into the far end of a cupboard. Old birthday gifts.
It doesn't make you resent him, because without him it's always been dead.
Minutes pass.
When you've shed the last of your sadness in silent, pain-staking heaves— when you're sure your eyes will pop out of your skull— sleep pulls you under. It's a quiet, restless sleep, devoid of dreams.
An hour passes.
There is a rustle in the breeze outside your window, left ajar for midnight air to cool your heated skin. It rouses you awake. The bell chime Satoru put up last summer rings out, like a thousand shards of crushed glass; like a memory of ocean waves beating against your ankles. The breeze echoes, a scattered noise, your eyes blinking blearily through the dark, flickering fog over your room.
It drops a pin onto the glass surface of your heart. Your body is still half-numb with sleep, your head sluggish and dry when it lifts itself up—
And there, nestled against the windowpane under flickers of clear-blue shade: is a small, rectangular package.
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