you may have noticed that my blog is disorganized and thematically incoherent and my tag game is weaker by the day. this is commentary on the chaos of modern existence
Description: A new MMORPG just dropped, between your busy schedule as a college student and your slow but steady rise in fame on twitch you have your hands full trying to juggle between the two. Now imagine that with a blooming friendship between you and THE Kodzuken?
Inspired by: BOFURI: I don't want to get hurt, so I'll max out my defense.
Rating: General/Teens
Relationships: Kozume Kenma & Reader, Kozume Kenma/Reader, Kozume Kenma & Original Character(s), Kozume Kenma/Original Character(s), more relationships to be added
Characters: Kozume Kenma, Tetsuro Kuroo, more characters to be added
Tags: strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, reader-insert, Streamer Reader, Writer Reader, Streamer Kenma, more tags to be added
You sat on a train on an early Wednesday morning. You were on your way to see Kuroo at work. The two of you had decided that doing the interview where you could see the way you work would completely help the way you write your short story.
You were excited to say the least. This was the first time that you've had to go out to make your story. Whenever you were writing you often just did it on your pc that you couldn't move from the musty area of your house. So your imagination was often limited by what you could see and what you could google. But this time, you would be able to see if all first hand and discover exactly why Kuroo chose to do this as his line of work.
You couldn't lie and say you were a little bit interested in what Kuroo does as a job. You saw it first hand when he came to your school when you two first met. It gave you a great starting point on what you were going to write. You already placed down an outline for your story just from that one experience alone. However, that wasn't even close to enough. You needed more, and for that, you had to experience it all yourself.
You looked down at the clothes you were wearing, you wore clothes appropriate for volleyball. Hell, you even bought kneepads just in case you had to dive for a ball like how Kuroo did for you that one time. You were scared that you might get scrapped somehow do you brought a big bag full of things that you would need if ever you were injured or anything like that.
You didn't tell Kuroo about this. You wanted it to be a surprise. It would be fun to see how he would react to seeing you all dressed up and ready to get on court. He might even be ecstatic to see your enthusiasm to play the sport.
Once the train hit your stop you step off and take a deep breath in. This was your first time being in this part of Japan. Tokyo being all that, you know? You were surprised that it was in the more high end part of Tokyo that your directions had taken you. When you were chatting with Kuroo he once told you that he had been on the poorer side of Tokyo. You wondered whether he had been able to boost his way of life somehow during his time in college.
Soon you were standing in front of a building. A large one, in fact.
Hesitantly, you opened the door and entered the building. There was no front desk or anything that could help you find your way around the building, but you trudge on anyway. You found yourself in a large open area where there were plenty of people playing all sorts of sports. The one sport that really stuck out to you was Volleyball. It seemed to be the most popular sport here as most of the clearing were people who were playing Volleyball.
You take out your phone and open your message app to tell Kuroo that you've arrived. It takes a few minutes for him to respond, he tells you to raise your hand and that he'll be right over in a second. You do as your told and for a while it seemed like that didn't do much other than gather attention around you making you seem like you're definitely lost and looking for someone to help you. Which, to some extent, you do. But it doesn't matter for much longer as Kuroo soon finds you and he waves to you, which you do the same.
"Well, well, look at you all dressed up. Does that mean what I think it means?" He asks teasingly. His hand finds cover on his hip as he stares you down.
"If that means playing volleyball, then yeah, I am. I wanted to surprise you!" You said, you notice that he himself is wearing some sportswear, he was already quite drenched in sweat you also realize. You must've taken him out of a game he was playing in the moment.
He chuckles, "I am. But if this means anything that would mean your short story's gonna be something close to the main character playing rather than just watching then?"
"Sort of, yes. I wanted my main protagonist to go from not knowing anything about volleyball to learning to love it."
Kuroo hums in thought, "then now is a good time to try playing. Have you ever had experience with volleyball?"
You shook your head, Kuroo says. "Then let me teach you some of the basic stuff that I wasn't able to teach you last time." He beckons you to walk with him, your shoulder grew heavy with the big bag that still hung on to you but followed him like a mama duck and her duckling would.
You hurriedly place it down on own of the empty seats before following Kuroo along to an empty spot where no one seemed to be gathering. In his hand was a volleyball, where he got it from was something of a mystery to you. But nevertheless you went along with it.
"I taught you how to receive the ball, now I'll teach you how to serve. Watch me and receive."
You do as he says. He throws the ball up into the air and hits it with his open hand. The ball is aimed towards you and you successfully receive the ball, however it doesn't go towards Kuroo like you wanted it to. Instead it hits the head of someone on the stands. You go up to them and hurriedly apologize for it before taking back the ball to where Kuroo had been. Where he had been laughing his ass off.
"Don't laugh!"
But he does it anyways.
When he finally stops laughing he says, "now try doing the same thing I did."
"The— The serve?"
"Yup, just try it. It doesn't have to be perfect."
You steady yourself, trying to remember what exactly it was that Kuroo had done to make a perfect serve towards him. When you got the mental down you raised your hand and threw the ball up, it went up much lower than Kuroo's had which made your serve go downwards instead of towards your opponent.
"Try again." Kuroo instructs you, hands on his hips.
You do as your told.
You do it over and over again, Kuroo now by your side as he corrected every move you did until you did each move to perfection. You continued on trying to serve until your aim was no longer going from side to side, and finally Kuroo was able to receive the ball.
"Yes!" You cried out in victory. Finally being able to hit the ball towards the right area, towards Kuroo.
"How does it feel?" Kuroo asks you as he hands over a plastic bottle filled with water which he got from one of the dispensers outside of the open area.
"Satisfying." You breathed a sigh filled with contentment. Despite this only being the fundamentals and it taking you like 45 minutes to get it right you sure were having a lot of fun.
"You know how to serve and receive. So how's about you try out a real game?"
"A real game? Wouldn't it be too soon for me to try it out?" You voiced out your concern, even though you were having fun you would be working with other people and it'd throw the whole balance of the team with you on it, a complete noob.
"Trust me, it's so much more fun with others."
"Well…" You said, deciding to trust Kuroo. "Alright, let's do it."
He smiles, "that's the spirit." Kuroo then yells out to a group of people who were lazily sprawled across the stadium seats. "Hey, up for a round!?"
The people immediately sprung to life once they heard the word "round." Enthusiastically the group immediately ran towards Kuroo with a huge smile on their faces. They began to talk to one another, asking who would be on who's team and all that.
You shrunk into yourself without even realizing it. New people were always kind of hard to get used to especially with how enthusiastic this group was about playing volleyball. One of them looked towards you and darted straight to you.
"Hey!" They said, waving a hand at your direction.
"Hey…" You waved back, abeit more hesitantly compared to them.
"You're that person coach's been talking about, right?"
"Coach? Who, Kuroo?"
"Yessir! He said he was going to show someone how volleyball's gonna work and that we were gonna show em how cool it is!" They explained it all so excitedly you were kind of surprised how well they're taking you taking away from their playtime.
"That's me. Sorry, I took away from your time to play didn't I? I should've come another day but this is my only free day so—"
"Nah, you're all good. We were all so excited to meet you! You're gonna make a short story about volleyball right? Please let me read it when you're done. I'm a sucker for anything volleyball related."
"O-Ofcourse! I'll let Kuroo know when it's done and he can send it over to you guys."
"Yay, thank youuu!!"
That small interaction made your heart quell, even if it is just a little bit. It made you more stable, stable enough to walk up to the group.
"Hi, I'm here for an assignment of mine. Please, take care of me." You bow your head.
"Ah… you don't need to bow your head. We're all around the same age anyways." One of them said. When you lifted your head you see a dark haired man who seemed to. be the person who was talking to you. "We look forward to working with you."
You smile. "Same here."
"Alright," Kuroo said, "For teams I'm putting Araya and Roku with you." He said, pointing towards you, then pointing to himself for the other two.
The group goes towards one of the unused courts and preps up. Starting with drills, you included. Kuroo had all of you running and diving, that of which already exhausted you to no end, it was already bad enough that you also had to do spike drills, receiving drills, and serving drills. The first one being the hardest out of all of them. You've never jumped any higher than 5 cm off the ground. They even had to lower the net just so that you could play the game proper. You huffed, this was going to be a long and hard game.
The whistle sounded and the game began. Kuroo was serving on his team, he does a serve you've never seen before. He threw the ball high up into the air before running up and hitting the ball straight towards you. You receive the ball but due to your lack of aim the ball ended up going sidewards towards the outside line, where no one close by could save it. This meant that the point went towards Kuroo's team. He laughs at you and grins. You grumble in dismay.
"I'll give you payback soon enough…"
Araya, the girl that had walked up to you laughed. "Don't worry, coach is always like that. He can be… temptingly nice to hit with a ball."
Now it was your turn to laugh, who knew Araya would have such a devilish side to her."You're right. Let's do it after the game."
The game continues on, the other team started to notice that you were the team's weak spot and decided to pull every serve towards you. Sometimes you would get lucky and aim it right towards one of your teammates, while other times it would land straight out of the box. It sucked but you had to admit that you were having a lot of fun despite the amount of red that was starting to pool around your arms. It was like a trophy telling you that you did a good job trying. You were proud and learning.
The game would sometimes stop midway just to lecture you on how to make the ball bounce up in the air. Something like… letting your body lower itself before launching yourself up with the ball which would give it some more momentum along with you or even how your feet aren't to be grounded on the floor, but rather you should allow your body to be flexible and ready at any moment. It was really cool finding out all of these techniques within a game you've never been into.
You actually felt… so free. Sure, your jump could use some more work, but running around the court, blocking, receiving, serving, just… everything about it made you feel so alive, so free. By the time it was halfway to evening you were getting ready to go.
But…
You didn't want to leave this all behind.
"Hey, Kuroo?" You asked the taller man who was busy drinking water.
"Yeah? What's up?" He responded, planting his ass down on a chair out of the dozens that there are in the auditorium.
"Can we… can we do this again? This was just so fun. I've never felt more alive." You laughed like you just said one of the funniest jokes ever, "I don't know, it's not just because of my assignment anymore. Playing with everyone here, getting to know the guys through volleyball. It's all so…"
"Captivating? Fulfilling?"
"Yeah…" You breathed out like it was your first breath on Earth.
Kuroo smiles. "You can always come over whenever you want."
"I will."
As you walked back towards the train station your mind raced with ideas. Things that you wanted to write down the moment you got back home, you open up your notes app just in case you forget it on the ride back home. It was often that something like that happened to you while you were on your commute. You would often daydream about a story you came up with while you were on the way back home and then completely forget about it the moment you get back. It was frustrating, there was no way you were going to let that happen to you now.
As you typed you walked through the streets of Tokyo. It was quite scary to be outside without anyone to accompany you. You kind of wished that you brought Kuroo with you or even asked him if he could accompany you to the train since he would have a better understanding of where anything was as compared to you. But it didn't matter now that that was over with. What mattered was that you got back home safely.
While walking you began to notice something. Every time you stopped halfway something behind you would stop as well. You looked behind you every time after you heard it the first time, it was creepy. You thought about running, that maybe you could outrun whatever was coming after you, but being as unathletic as you are you probably wouldn't be able to get far enough that you could go to a police station and report the creep that's been stalking you.
So, you did the best next thing.
"HEY, WHOEVER YOU ARE I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU!! I HAVE THE POWER OF GOD AND ANIME ON MY SIDE!!" You started swinging around your bag as you ran towards where you thought the figure was hiding, which was an electric post. You ran quite unsteadily as the weight of your bag could basically outweigh you in a bought of battle between gravity and yourself.
"HIYAAAAH" You screamed as you landed a hit on this mysterious figure that had been stalking you this entire time. They stumble back, their arms extended forward as if they were admitting to defeat.
"Stop, stop. It's me, Araya!" The stalker said, which made you stop your attack. When you looked down it was indeed, Araya.
Araya had been the one stalking you.
"What the heck, Araya!? You scared the living shit out of me!"
"Sorry, sorry!" Araya said, getting up from the ground where you hit her down. She dusts herself off before speaking again. "I just didn't know how to approach you! I wanted to accompany you to the train. I also need to go there, y'see?
You breathed a sigh of relief that you didn't realize you were holding and let yourself relax. It was just a friend after all, nothing bad could happen with a friend around. Plus, it's Araya! She's super chill and lovely to be around.
"Thank god it's just you Araya. If it was anyone else I would be screaming bloody mary!"
She laughs, almost awkwardly. "Yeah, just glad it's me!"
For a moment neither of you two talked, nor even moved. You just stared at each other, as if waiting for the other to make a move.
"Aha, yeah…" You said, breaking the awkward tension that grew between the two of you. "Why don't you come with me? I'm sure it would do us both wonders if we went together!"
"YES!" Araya said, putting a lot of emotion into it. "I mean, yes! I'd love to." A bit too much emphasis and emotion into it apparently.
And so the two of you walked to the station together, talking on the way. You had to admit that the day wasn't all too bad. You were able to get the information you needed to write your short story, that's for sure. Plus you were able to make friends along the way, surely that was a plus to all of this.
Now, you were back home and writing about your experience today. You wanted to write down your experience first then create a proper outline just so you could remember everything that happened today. Sort of like how you would a diary, but if this diary was like a draft of an outline sort of deal.
You throw your head back as you close your eyes. Today was a lot. You've never used your Wednesdays in such an active rush like this before. It was certainly something, something you could learn to love. Kuroo had told you that it was totally alright if you wanted to join them again some other time, to that you were starting to make a mental note of. Maybe you could go there on Saturdays after classes were done instead of Wednesdays so as to not break your streaming days. Today was just the exception.
Description: A new MMORPG just dropped, between your busy schedule as a college student and your slow but steady rise in fame on twitch you have your hands full trying to juggle between the two. Now imagine that with a blooming friendship between you and THE Kodzuken?
Inspired by: BOFURI: I don't want to get hurt, so I'll max out my defense.
Rating: General/Teens
Relationships: Kozume Kenma & Reader, Kozume Kenma/Reader, Kozume Kenma & Original Character(s), Kozume Kenma/Original Character(s), more relationships to be added
Characters: Kozume Kenma, Tetsuro Kuroo, more characters to be added
Tags: strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, reader-insert, Streamer Reader, Writer Reader, Streamer Kenma, more tags to be added
"And you got third place, just like that?" Your highschool friend Risa said, her voice was full of shock.
"I know right? They said I got over 200 or so players down and I was like— that's actually insane! I hope someone clipped it and spread it across the net. That might've been my best clip yet."
You and Risa have been friends since highschool, yet nowadays the best way you two can keep in touch is through phone calls, living hours away from one another after Risa left Japan to study abroad meant that the two of you had to find good hours for the two of you to chat at convenient times.
Your phone was placed aside, on speaker for you to hear Risa while you cooked up some food for dinner. You were planning on making some potato curry! You've been craving it since the end of the event.
"If I remember correctly, I saw clips of you. Most of it was praise— wait, you haven't been online? Your name was literally trending the day of the event!"
You shook your head, a little thing you did subconsciously despite being on call. "I've been tired." You said, kind of lying to your friend. It wasn't too far from the truth, but if you had to be honest you didn't really want to see what others had to say, especially since you placed so high despite being a nobody.
At second place was Kodzuken. You were happy for him, sure. He was known for being a super competitive guy so he probably though getting second was a failure on his part. But for a nobody like you, getting third was like being seen by the public without your consent. There will be love and there will be hate, that's nothing that you'd be able to get away from but nevertheless you wanted nothing to do with your victory.
"I bet you haven't even seen Kodzuken defending your honor!"
"Huh..?" Now that was odd. How would someone like Kodzuken know your name…
Wait…
Your mind clicked like a puzzle finding its missing piece.
He mentioned you in one of his streams the other day when you blew up for the first time for your shitty decisions. He defended you way back when too.
The thought of that happening again made you giddy. So giddy in fact that you hadn't been able to keep the squeal that was meant for your mind in.
Risa laughs at you as you turned beet red. But, nevertheless you ask her enthusiastically. "What did he say?"
"Wait, let me go on twitter and get the clip and I'll send it to you and you can watch it on your own time. I know you have that fat crush on that man~"
"Shut up!" You said teasingly, "I'll definitely watch it later in my own time."
After a moment Risa changes the subject and the two of you soon ended the call to focus on what you were doing. With you making potato curry and Risa continuing to study for her finals that was coming in a week.
That reminded you… one of your professors had made his finals about understanding a different perspective. That meant interviewing a certain person from a field that was completely different from your own.
As you were in the creative field you had to look for someone from another field that was— well, you know. You get the gist of it.
You pondered on how exactly you would have to tackle that in less than 2 weeks. You didn't really have any friends outside of your field. Most of the people you met during your general courses had all been acquaintances or more than strangers but less than acquaintances which you wouldn't have ever thought was possible until you started college.
You set down the bowl of curry that you'd just finished making and made your way to your room to grab your phone. Looking through the options and all. Opening facebook to see the extent of who you could put on the spot as your test dummy. The more you scrolled the more tiring it became. So, you put it down to take a large bite of your curry, letting the flavors savor in your mouth before you started your search again.
Much to your chagrin not much changed in your search so you decided to get off facebook and procrastinate. You had 2 weeks anyways so whats the rush?
You opened up your messages with Risa and find the clip that she had sent you. She was right about Kodzuken defending you, he was going far beyond what you had imagined when she told you about it.
"Chat," he began, "I know a lot of you are upset that I placed second. I am too! But we shouldn't be bashing others who worked hard to get to where they are. Most especially the one in 3rd place. They may be new but that doesn't mean that they're a hacker. That's just bad sportsmanship. If I were the ref I'd put you all in time."
Your heart stuttered. He saw all of the drama that went on without your knowledge and put himself out there to defend you. Did he not care about his status as a professional? Or was it because he's a professional that he's defending you in such a way?
Either way it left you excited. Wanting to play AtH without needing to stream. For the past few days you tried to distance yourself from the game. You had known that there would be massive backlash that would come with being in 3rd, most especially with your ambiguous gender that often led people in thinking that you were a woman. Belittling you just because they thought that you were one.
You took your plate and walked towards where your pc was set up, not wanting to bother with the VR set you booted up your pc which you haven't used to play AtH on in a long while.
For now you just wanted to chill and enjoy your time.
For an hour you spent playing in silence, you actually enjoyed playing in silence more than you did when you were streaming. Streaming in itself is fun but it carried a heavy burden of being entertaining to others while enjoying yourself. It was something you haven't really gotten the hang of. That's why you praised and even worshipped streamers that were funny and entertaining, like Kodzuken. There was just something about streamers like him that made you want to see them play.
That reminded you, it's almost time for his stream to start!
You were about to pull up his stream on your pc when you heard your discord ping, letting you know that you had a message.
You groaned out loud, you haven't had human interaction in an hour and now you're acting like a little baby who's lost stimulation! The nerve of you.
When you opened discord you were surprised to find that Kuroo had reached out to you.
Despite exchanging numbers Kuroo seemed to be more talkative when using discord. When you opened discord he was almost always online. You wouldn't have guessed it from someone like him, he was more… like a normie? Something like that.
You opened the notification and in it it read:
"Hey! I saw you're playing Across the Horizon! Funny, me and my buddy also play AtH during our free time. Wanna team up?"
That surpised you. You knew that Kuroo played games but you never pegged him to be the type of guy to play an MMORPG.
So, you text him back:
"Haha, yeah. I'd be down to play with you guys!"
You type out your player name, sending it to Kuroo before switching tabs to head to twitch, opening up Kodzuken's stream.
You made it just in time for his just chatting segment where he talks about what he's been up to the entire day, what he ate, who he was with, maybe he thought of a funny thing that happened that day, he just talks about anything and everything and he makes it all sound so entertaining, living as Kodzuken.
"Today," he began, his hand on his water bottle. "I went to my company."
"He started a company..?" You muttered to yourself as you take the spoon full of rice and curry and placed it in your mouth. The slight vibration from the spoon that transferred between your fingers as you hummed in contentment filled the room.
"I'm not gonna say what it's called. Not yet at least, but just know that it's going to be big. But I went to the company today and I was going to meeting after meeting, it was sooo boring." He began to mimick what would seem to be the board members who were apart of the meetings. You laughed to yourself.
He continued to talk about his day, you listened to his voice intently. Like he was talking to you and to you only. It was kind of parasocial in a way but you enjoyed it. Sometimes you would even pretend that he was facetiming you and talking about his day and you would respond to him with audible gasps and sheer audacity.
It was fun. No one judged you for it either. Not when you did it all on your lonesome.
You ate, played, and listened to the stream. A perfect night.
You get another ping on discord. Kuroo had sent you a picture of himself, in the background was the AtH friend request screen. It told you all you needed to know. Getting back into the game you added him as a friend. Thrilled that you had someone to play the game with you cheered to yourself before taking about bite at your curry.
Beloved curry…
Just as you sent Kuroo a message he immediately requested in game for you to join his party, to which, you immediately accepted.
What you didn't expect was a familiar name inside of the party list.
Pie_Apple05.
You were bewildered by the coincidence. It had to be a completely different person, there's no way Kuroo is friends with one of your regulars.
But there he was, in game. Sitting in the party list with Kuroo just below them.
You hesitate to ask Kuroo, ask him what his relationship was with Apple, how he knew them, and what not. Your hands press on the keys forming words then deleting them. You didn't want to seem invasive, to be presumptuous. What if it was a completely different person, that they just had the same online name?
But wait…
Apple is a pro at Across the Horizon. How else would they know of the different strats and features that are implemented in the game if not for the fact that they play the game?
So, after some hesitation. You shoot Kuroo a message.
And he replies back almost instantly. Your hands shook as you read the message.
"Yeah, actually… I didn't want to say this but I knew who you were when I met you. My friend, Apple, you call him? Well, Apple is a pretty big fan of yours. He likes to talk about you quite a bit."
He knew. He knew and didn't tell you.
This was the first ever time that someone had actually recognized you and he had kept it a secret.
You weren't mad per say. In fact, it almost seemed like it was a miracle that the first ever person to have recognized you had treated you like a normal human being and kept your streaming life and personal life far apart from one another. But at the same time it was difficult for you to accept that.
You push back into your chair, letting the conversation seep into your mind.
In the end, nothing really changes.
Or at least, that's what you wanted to believe.
Kuroo is online in game at the moment, you remembered. You could just talk to each other via game. So, you shoot him a tp request and in a split second you're immediately sent to his location. God you love modern technology.
"Howdy howdy." He greets you, as if he didn't just give you ground breaking news.
"Hey, so… I actually wanted to see you."
"I had a feeling." He said it so softly. Like he knew how much weight it had on you. "Are you in vr right now?"
"No, I was a little bit lazy today."
He laughs, "well, just so you know I'm hugging your avatar."
You laugh with him. "Thanks…."
"Is there anyway I could repay you for this irreparable loss of your trust?" He said teasingly, although at the same time he seemed quite serious about it too.
You pondered for a minute before something popped into your head. "Oh, I know!"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, you could let me interview you!"
That must have made him quite interested as it seemed like he got closer to his mic. "What kind of interview is it?" He asks.
"I basically need to interview someone who's not from the same background and field as I am and the I'm going to write a piece about the person I interviewed, what their field is like, what kind of culture that they have, and then I'll make it into an original story!"
"That all sounds pretty interesting toots. I'm down for it."
"Yes, thank you so much! Will next week Wednesday work?"
"Any day will work for me."
"Great then… let's meet next week Wednesday."
Before you could leave the game Kuroo stops you. "What if you went to where I work and get a better feel of what it's like to be me?"
You thought on it for a second. That does sound like a pretty good idea. Plus he has been trying to teach you how to play volleyball and since his job has a lot to do with the sport it wouldn't be bad to learn more about the game as well. All for the short story you're working on of course..!
After that you said goodnight to Kuroo and headed off to bed with your phone in hand. You still had to watch the clip of Kodzuken that Risa had sent to you.
You waited until it was the dead of night before you could actually hear the message he sent. You wanted it to be the last thing you hear before you fell asleep and then the first thing you hear in the morning. You scrolled down to the message Risa had sent to you and you were sent to twitter. The video immediately plays, you place your phone up to one ear and let the video play.
He says your streamer name, the one you had made when you were 12 years old, when you had never thought much of it, when you hadn't even thought of being a streamer yourself. He said it in such a tender way that made your heart race and your eyes light up with excitement.
"They're a pretty good streamer aren't they?" He chuckles. You've long become familiar to his laughter. The way it rises with his chest, the way he tilts his head up as he laughs, the way he closes his eyes when he does. To you, it was attractive.
"They got 3rd during the event, right after me. That's pretty impressive considering they're playing on a challege account." He says, his voice gentle, as if he were caressing each word before pulling them out of his mouth. "There's been a lot of hate spreading around from their placement, and chat I know that some of you are taking part in that. That's not good. As a community we should learn to uplift one another, not belittle others for their achievements."
Your heart pounded with every word he uttered. The way such care oozed out onto each word like honey.
He really is your favorite streamer.
Chapter 5 ↤ Masterlist ↦ Chapter 7
Taglist: Comment down below if you want to be @'d!
Description: A new MMORPG just dropped, between your busy schedule as a college student and your slow but steady rise in fame on twitch you have your hands full trying to juggle between the two. Now imagine that with a blooming friendship between you and THE Kodzuken?
Inspired by: BOFURI: I don't want to get hurt, so I'll max out my defense.
Rating: General/Teens
Relationships: Kozume Kenma & Reader, Kozume Kenma/Reader, Kozume Kenma & Original Character(s), Kozume Kenma/Original Character(s), more relationships to be added
Characters: Kozume Kenma, Tetsuro Kuroo, more characters to be added
Tags: strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, reader-insert, Streamer Reader, Writer Reader, Streamer Kenma, more tags to be added
You sigh internally as the teacher drones on and on, something about an assignment that's due next week, but all you could think about was getting out of class and finally getting to play Across the Horizon again. It's been eating up in your brain for the past few days now. With assignments and projects being dropped left and right from every single one of your classes you haven't had the time to play or much less stream.
"Pst…" Your friend nudges you in the shoulder, whispering into your ear. Real subtle of her. "did you see the update announcement on AtH that just dropped?"
"Update?" You whispered back. You eye your teacher, hoping that he doesn't catch the two of you in conversation. As exciting as this new assignment will be for when you get back home you were more intrigued with what your friend Iris had to say.
"Yeah, they said that they're dropping a new map that's gonna go above the current map. You have to be a certain level to get up there though and theres gonna be a boss fight thats gonna test whether you're ready for it or not."
"Ahem." The teacher coughed, his eyes were on the two of you which made you straighten up your back, your eyes glued onto the table in front of you. "If your conversation is so interesting why not share it with the class?"
"No, sir. It's nothing—" Iris tried to backtrack but the teacher cuts her off.
"Next meeting I expect the two of you to come up front with a powerpoint presentation of what you were talking about and why it is so important that you two just had to talk about it. That's all. Class dismissed."
The two of you groan but agree to meet up tomorrow to plan what you two were going to do about this sudden assignment from the professor. You were lowkey excited to make it despite it being a punishment. A way to make one of your new interests be a part of the lesson plan would be so cool! You were going to draft up a plan once you get back home but for now you were on break. In the middle of your classes you have a 2 hour long break where you can go and do absolutely anything you wanted.
To be completely honestly you kind of wished that it wasn't such a long ass time. An hour would do you some good, but 2 hours is a lot. You decided to make use of your time today by going back to the volleyball court you and Kuroo had gone to the other day. You had to admit that you became quite intrigued by volleyball after Kuroo had saved you from one that one time.
You've never been the sporty type, often finding yourself huddling around your sheets of paper inside your house rather than to go out and play with the other kids. You just found that paper and pens can be as much of a companion as other children would be in the court.
Instead of going up the stairs like Kuroo and you had done before you waited for the elevator to come and scoop you up. Around this time of day there wasn't much activity it seemed. You already took your PE lessons for the entirety of your college life during your first terms so you had no need to come back here. Yet, here you were being lulled in by the court.
Or maybe it was the person who saved you.
You could only say so little about Kuroo. He was cool, though not your type, but he's cool. You talked to him a couple times during the past few days and you found out that he's also been playing AtH in his spare time. He was a damage dealer and it actually made you excited. He would be a perfect teammate!
Well, that is if there was a team-up option in the game. Which there wasn't. Not yet at least.
You scrolled on your phone as you waited for the elevator to reach your floor. Going through the social media page for Across the Horizon for news of the update that Iris had been talking about a while ago but that was when you saw something that caught your eye.
Ding!
You stepped out of the elevator and headed straight towards the volleyball court where you were frantically looking around for Kuroo. For a while you couldn't spot him even with his bedhead hairstyle, so you opted to sit down on the bleachers as you read the post that caught your attention.
Across the Horizon's 1st ever Global Event! The Battle Royale.
A battle royale event that'll be hosted globally… It wasn't like a game like this wouldn't naturally have one of those. You had known that it would happen eventually, you just didn't expect it to be the first one.
It'll be an individual event, but people can still decide to team up and face opponents together. That's what's so scary about it. At your current level you weren't sure if you would be able to fight against a team of three or more.
"What's gotten you all glum?" A voice called out to you, one who you recognized to be Kuroo's before you even looked up.
You told him what you knew and he listened with patience. He sat beside you as he processed what you said.
"That's not that bad though. Is there a cash prize or something if you win?"
You shove him playfully. "Not everything has money involved! From what I know though the winner will get a buttload of exp and I think a brand new phone? The latest one."
"Aha, and you said that there wasn't a cash prize."
"This isn't money!"
"But it can be." Kuroo said teasingly and laughs. He looks towards the court where there were a total of 12 people on the field. They were doing some volleyball shit that you couldn't exactly describe properly. You didn't have that type of knowledge. Even as a writer you would have to do extensive research in order to understand what any of it means.
"Hey," Kuroo said, his attention once again on you. "You're free right now, right?"
You nod, "I mean, yeah? I have like 2 hours of free time. Why?"
He grins before placing a hand on your shoulder. "Why don't I teach you some volleyball right now!"
"R-Right now..? Wait..! I'm not wearing the proper clothes and… I don't even know how this all works!"
"That's why I'm gonna teach you from the very beginning!"
"Wait, Kuroo! Wait!!"
"And that's how my day went. Can you believe it? I learned how to serve!" You were live, talking to your chat before going into AtH for today's stream. A stream of chat messages followed suit. Your chat has been quite lively since you gained new regulars. Hell, you couldn't even count the new regulars on your fingers anymore, there were just that many of them now!
It was much later at night, after you finished making a draft for that powerpoint presentation that you were going to do with Iris next week you decided that it would be a great time to get on that stream grind. Sure it wasn't a Wednesday but you were just aching to have one after so long of being unable to make it and disappointing your viewers, you know?
You didn't tell your streamers Kuroo's name, though they did know that you'd made a friend a few days ago you didn't think that they would connect the dots and think that it was the same guy. Or maybe they did and they think that he's such a cool guy for helping you out.
"Tonight chat— what are we doing tonight? Well, we are going to play some Across the Horizon. I heard that there was going to be an event in the next few days. So, I thought why not grind on AtH and get some exp since there's also that new update coming soon." You took out your VR set from its casing and connected it to your stream so that they could see what you could see inside. You do have to admit that even with how cool the game is compared to how it looked on your pc it was a bit of a struggle getting it to connect to your livestream.
After a long minute you were able to connect your stream to the VR headset and was ready to start. When you opened your eyes you were inside of the world of AtH. It was always so breathtaking when you boot it up. You walked around the forest where you were last trying to figure out the mechanics of your skillset.
"Okay chat. Let's figure out how we can do this whole fighting thing. We're too slow to charge into people, but we're tanky enough that we can hold out for a long while. Hell, I think that we can survive a thousand hits before we even take a single bit of damage."
You take out a small blade that hung on your back. It came along with the armor and shield set that you had gotten when slaying that one boss a long while back.
"See, when I unsheathe this it paralyzes everything that comes around me. It's going to be super useful once we get into battle. What I was thinking that we could do—" Before you could finish your sentence suddenly a random mod of enemies locked in on you, forgetting that you were in enemy territory. "I'll show you guys right now!"
You unsheathed the blade quickly before sheathing it once more before shouting "Paralyze shot!" A bolt of electricity shot through the air knocking out the mob of enemies quickly. Then you braced your shield towards the sky where dozens of small ladybug blasters began to rain from the sky. You pick one up and began to eat it. You could see from the corner of your eye a string of messages popping up in chat asking you if you were insane.
One bite caused a huge explosion in your face but the rest of the bites that came after felt more like popping candy more than anything.
Then an in-game message pops up.
[You have acquired the skill BOMB EATER]
"See you guys? I think that we're gonna win this thing." You said, giggling to yourself as you devoured another ladybug blaster.
The next time you logged into the game you were sent back to the main lobby where it seemed everyone was also brought to. As you tried to squeeze your way through the crowd there popped out a little dragon which you assumed to be the mascot of the game. It looked a lot like the little dragon that showed up in the front page of the game on steam and on the box that came with the VR set Apple sent over.
Suddenly you heard some squeals coming to your right, catching your attention you went over to take a look at what all the commotion was about.
When you walked over it seemed that a large crowd was forming around something or someone.
"Oh. My. God. It really is you~! Can I please get a screenie with you, pretty please?? I'm a big fan!"
"Me too, me too! I found your tiktok months ago and I think you're a really cool streamer."
"Wait, I was here first! Let me have a screenie first!!"
A group of people began to fight amongst each other for this person's attention. So they're a streamer huh? So they're just like you. Must be a pretty big streamer if people are reacting to them that way.
"E-Excuse me..?"
"Hm?" Someone was trying to catch your attention. Or at least you think it's you who they're talking to. "Are you talking to me?" You asked, pointing to yourself.
They nod, a little fidgety but you could tell that they were mustering up all of their courage to talk to you. "I-I just wanted to say I'm a really big fan! I found you after you made that big marshmallow pie on stream and I thought you were just the most entertaining person I've ever seen on twitch! So… if it's okay… can I please get a screenie with you..!?"
You stood there, mouth agape as you stared in shock at the young lad. This was the first ever time that you've ever been recognized in a game or at all! you could feel your tears beginning to well up.
After a quick screenie with that viewer they went their own way back to where they had been before and that left you to talk with your chat. Did I forget to tell you that you're live? No, I didn't actually!
After a few minutes of waiting the screens surrounding the arena blinked open and soon the little dragon that was soaring above everyone lowered itself slowly until it was just above the great tree in the middle of the lobby.
"Hiya everywan~" The little dragon spoke. It was kinda cute with it's high pitched voice. Truly the pinnacle of a mascot! "Our first event is about to commence! Get ready to be transported into our arenas in three, two, one!"
Just as the countdown ended you and everyone else began to dissipate into thin air and suddenly you were transported to a completely different area of the map.
You took a quick look around your surroundings. It was a completely open area with places where people would be able to ambush you if they had the chance, plenty of spots for them to hide themselves away until the time is right and also… the ground you stood on wasn't exactly solid with a chance of it all crashing down if you get attacked with a heavy blow.
But none of that really scared you. After all, you had a trump card up your sleeve.
"Alright chat," You spoke to your chat, organizing your screen as you do. "We'll be staying here for the time being. You know the plan. Even if we get ambushed or attacked we'll be completely fine!"
Your chat, no matter how much you tried to reassure them, was still completely on edge the entire time. As you drew figures on the ground your chat was busy trying to formulate plans or even tried to get you to move away from your initial spot but you wouldn't budge on that.
"Like I said before guys, even if I were to move now I would be too slow. All we can do for now is to wait."
And wait you did. You spent a large amount of time during the event just talking to your chat and drawing up new figures or drafting story plans for your next class tomorrow morning.
You went on about your life until suddenly a mysterious figure emerged from the shadows.
"Hello there, I am Christmas Rose, and I will be your demise!" You readied your shield and waited for him to strike.
Like you predict he goes straight for you but before he could get a strike in you rushed forward and slammed into his body causing all his momentum to stop and go the complete opposite way. Then, you pulled out your trump card.
"FOUL FEEDER!" With a light bump against your shield the man was suddenly no more than a gem that decorated itself on your shield.
"Let's fucking go chat!!" You celebrated your first win with your chat. Every single one of them cheered along with you, some of them even switching sides from going 'we told you so,' to 'I knew you could do it!'
Just as you were celebrating you felt something hard bump against your head. When you turned around it seemed that a bunch of enemies decided to take advantage of your vulnerable state while cheering and take this moment to strike. Unfortunately for them however, you put all of your stats onto defense which made you, quite literally, indestructible.
After another [FOUL FEEDER] you put those enemies to rest and then you went back to drawing and chatting with your chat until another round of enemies came up to you. This time they were prepared, there were several mages on towers, their staffs pointed your way. This time there was no way you would be able to hit them all with [FOUL FEEDER] so you did your second best move.
"POISON DRAGON!" Suddenly a massive three headed dragon appear from your blade, each head pointed itself in different directions and all together they sprayed a smog of poison across the battlefield which heavily affected every single person on field except for yourself, your poison immunity keeping you safe.
"Paralyze Shot!" You paralyzed them just in case before using [FOUL FEEDER] on everyone that was on the field. It took you quite a while to get through everyone that had been on the towers and in the hidden spots along the broken castle but with your chat with you it wasn't all that boring. In fact you saw that there was a rise in the number of people that were in your livestream. About 100 or so people were tuning in!
And you continued this routine for the next hour or so. Ambushed, then killing, then going back to drawing. It wasn't all too meticulous. In fact, it was like you were in a zen mode. It was comforting in a way that didn't make sense to you.
Soon it was time for them to announce the winners. The little dragon appeared before you, you think to yourself, 'was it named Draco or something? Sounds a little uninspired methinks. It's like that one youtuber.'
"Hiya, I'm happy to announce that you got 3rd place overall!"
"3rd place? Holy smokes chat, never punished!!"
"Now, we'll be holding an interview with our top 3 performers! Starting with our 3rd place, Y/N!"
"Huh— wha uhm… wait this is too… too soon…" you stuttered uncontrollably. It was so unlike you to do so. It was just so sudden. "T-Thank you very mush… Uh… I couldn't have gotten here withouch you all in char." You were hot with embarrassment as you struggled your way through that speech of yours but you couldn't help yourself okay!?
You looked to chat who all sent heart emojis and words of encouragement. They all said the same thing, and as comforting as it was you wanted to hear more.
Description: A new MMORPG just dropped, between your busy schedule as a college student and your slow but steady rise in fame on twitch you have your hands full trying to juggle between the two. Now imagine that with a blooming friendship between you and THE Kodzuken?
Inspired by: BOFURI: I don't want to get hurt, so I'll max out my defense.
Rating: General/Teens
Relationships: Kozume Kenma & Reader, Kozume Kenma/Reader, Kozume Kenma & Original Character(s), Kozume Kenma/Original Character(s), more relationships to be added
Characters: Kozume Kenma, more characters to be added
Tags: strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, reader-insert, Streamer Reader, Writer Reader, Streamer Kenma, more tags to be added
"Oh my god, I'm blooming!"
"Okay, ban that chatter right now."
You laughed as you listened in on one of Kodzuken's livestreams as you looked around for someplace where you could sit down and wait. You were in your campus today, there was an event that was happening in an hour or so and you just so happened to have arrived a wee bit earlier than you had originally planned. So, to pass the time you opened up twitch and started watching Kodzuken.
What? Can you blame me? His streams are really good. He's super entertaining even though he barely lifts a finger, he seems to be the quiet type of person too, a lot of the time he only talks whenever necessary and he hardly does many collabs in person with other creators. He's not the outdoorsy type of guy either.
Finally after a little bit of walking you find yourself a bench that was away from the sun and a great spot where the wind would hit you just right.
Right now, Kodzuken was playing a round of balatro, he seems to have taken a favor towards the game. Maybe its as addicting as some people have said it to be. Who knows? You haven't gotten around to trying it, you were saving up for a better computer so you couldn't really do much other than watch others play it. And besides, it wasn't your type of game.
As you watched your stream you didn't seem to notice the looming shadow over you.
"Balatro, eh? Nice game. Not really my style though." The person spoke, it made you jump from your chair.
"Holy shit, you scared the shit out of me." You said, trying to laugh off the massive scare that he just gave you. You gave the man a better look. He was quite the odd looking one, with a haircut that seemed pretty unusual. He was a black haired man with a hairstyle that almost seemed more like a bedhead over anything that could come across your mind. "uhm…" You said hesitantly. He had come up to you first so you were waiting for him to say something back.
When he realized that he had missed his cue he laughs it off and introduces himself, "sorry I must've bothered you." He chuckled. "I'm Tetsurō Kuroo. I'm not a college student here, would you mind showing me around?"
Well, you didn't really have anything better to do other than to watch Kodzuken's stream, but turning him down to watch the stream would seem rude!
"Sure."
"Excellent! Lead the way to the gym please!" He said, raising a fist into the air. You noted down that he was actually quite fit, judging from the way his muscles buldged from his entire arm.
You crazy.
"Oh, and by the way." He added. "Kodzuken stream? You're goated."
That caught your attention. Even though Kodzuken got like thousands of people watching him stream every day you've never really met someone who's into him.
"You watch Kodzuken!?" You exclaimed with excitement. Your eyes lit up with a burning passion that made Kuroo back off a few steps away from you.
"Yeah… I think he's a pretty cool dude." Kuroo chuckled. He kept pace with you as you walked your way to the gym which was all the way on the other side of the campus which game you plenty of time to talk and chat with this newfound 'friend' of yours. "I haven't really found the time to… watch his streams. I've been pretty busy with this deal with your college."
"Oh? I bet you've found yourself a ton of deals, you seem pretty reliable."
He chuckles politely. "Thanks for the compliments but I'm actually quite new to the buisness, I'm only an intern right now."
"Just an intern? Honestly I thought you were much older than I am. How old are you?"
"22. Surprising huh?"
"Not really, I thought you were older."
"Hehehey! It's rude to speak to your elders that way."
You two stop and stare at each other for a moment before you laugh among yourselves. You laughed so loud the people around you looked at you with strange bewilderment.
"What about you, how old are you?" Kuroo asks with the same inquisitive tone you had. You placed a finger on your chin pondering whether you should tell him. Well, it would only be fair, you asked him and he relented so you might as well.
"I'm turning 20, soon."
"So you're 19."
"Yeah, yeah, sure."
As he was about to say something more you stopped in front of the huge building made for the athletes. it was a building that was held with great magnificence, standing below it made you feel quite tiny, and running through all those stairs made your breath wheeze.
"Woah… I've never seen a 'gym' this big before." Kuroo commented, hands on his hips as he marveled the grandoise building.
"Well, this is a prestigious academy. They gotta do something with the money." You said, putting your phone away in preparation to getting into the elevator with Kuroo later on as you two entered the building.
As you went up the stairs there was the ID scanner needed in order to enter the building. You swiped your ID quickly and stood on the other side as you waited for Kuroo to do something similar until you realized that he wasn't a student and thus didn't have an ID.
You didn't even realize that during your trip here that he had no form of identification hanging around his neck. You peered to the side looking with curiousity as to how he'll manage to get on the other side. You see him sliding over the file that he had been holding the entire way here and he was let in without another word.
"Are you sticking around?" He asked you, it was almost as if he was begging you to stay.
You shrugged, "well, I have an hour to kill so I have some time."
With that the two of you headed to the elevator to which already had a line formed in front of it. Kuroo looked down at his wrist watch and clicked his tongue.
"I'm going to be late." He looks around and his eyes land on the staircase that went winding up the next 10 floors.
"Are you sure..? I can't exactly climb up 10 sets of stairs…" you were now hesitant to come along, you didn't want to be out of breath before you even made it to where Kuroo was meant to be by now.
"Don't worry about it! Here." He lowered himself, crouching down in front of you with his hands behind his back. No, he can't possibly… "get on, I'll carry the both of us up."
"That's super dangerous Kuroo, whats if we—"
"'What if we fall?' Don't let such thoughts get to you. Don't worry I've done this before."
"You doing this before is already pretty worrying… woah—" without waiting for anymore confirmation from you he quickly scoops you up and places you on his back firmly. You can tell from his grip that he had a steady hand. You had nothing to fear, but everything about this was dangerous, and you were trusting a complete stranger who you had just met.
But here you are, on a back of a man who was doing two steps per step while running up the set of stairs. You tried not to move too much, lest he loses his balance and makes the both of your crash but with how much movement he was doing it might just be for naught.
You wanted to ask: "what floor are we headed?" But you were too scared of biting your tongue to let the words slip out of your mouth. But soon he steadied himself on a floor with an open court. Two side separated, one side was playing basketball while the other side was playing volleyball.
"Here we are!" Kuroo exclaimed, slowly letting you off his back. You slowly started to look around, you've never been on this floor before. It was much different from looking down on it. It felt more open, much bigger than you remember it to be.
Kuroo waves at you for your attention and tells you with his hands that he'll be going over to the volleyball side, to which you nod at him before going to opposite direction to explore your newfound surroundings. It was quite exciting. You never really do anything in campus outside of your lectures as well as going out to lunch with some of your friends, all of this was quite new to you even if you've seen it from above where you would often hang out in while waiting for your pe class to start.
You watched as the basketball players make a few turns before you grew bored of them. Basketball, and sports for that matter, have never really interested you all that much if you had to be honest. You've never been the sporty type nor one to leave the house often. So it never came to you as it would other kids. You go over to the volleyball side anyways and sit on one of the benches a couple inches away from the court itself and observed as Kuroo spoke to the grouped up volleyball players before they all separated into groups.
You took this time to find a good spot on the floor to sit on and tune back into the Kodzuken stream, plugging in your headphones to get a better listen to what he was saying to his chat.
"Kodz you honestly seem pretty out of it, is there something on your mind?" Kodzuken reads out one of his chat messages, squinting his eyes to get a better look and he laughs lightly. "Sure, I've been thinking about my sugar baby."
With that comment the chat exploded with dozens of messages asking him about this so called 'sugar baby' of his.
"What a coincidence…" you muttered to yourself, "Pie literally called themselves my sugar daddy the other day." You laugh to yourself at such a strange coincidence. It took you aback when you heard that and as you were typing into the chat there was suddenly a massive uproar coming from the court. As you looked up you were late to notice the volleyball that was coming straight to you, and it was fast.
"Watch out!" Kuroo said, just as the ball was about to hit your face Kuroo dives down, his hands an inch away from your face and hits the ball back onto the court.
"Kuroo, you're… incredible! How did you manage to hit it so fast? That ball was inches away from my face. And… and the distance between us was so… large! How did you close the gap so quickly?" You asked in excitement, that was an incredible dig from your point of view. If he hadn't done that your face would've been completely red with the force of what you could describe to be something close to a punch in the face.
"You gotta be more careful when you're near a court," he said as he sat down beside you, looking over at your screen. "Kodzuken may be a handsome chump but surely he's not all that to have your entire attention be all on him."
Your face heats up in embarrassment, "sorry… I'll try to focus more next time."
Kuroo chuckles, "why not now? Do you know how to play volleyball?" You shake your head. "Why don't I teach you?"
"Teach me? What for?"
He shrugs, "just for fun, maybe you'd learn to react quickly when a ball is nearing your face." He stands up and reaches a hand out for you to take, to which you do and so you place your phone in your pocket and your headphones into your bag as Kuroo takes a stray ball from the ground and starts to bounce it in the air.
"First, I'll teach you how to recieve. Put your hands like this and try to make the ball bounce as I throw it over okay?"
"Okay." You tried to imitate the way he was holding his hands together but something about the way you were doing it seemed wrong compared to how he did it. But no matter. You readied yourself and he tossed the ball over to your direction, but it was a miss.
"You have to go to the ball, the ball wont walk into your arms."
"Right, sorry. Can we try again?"
"Of course, hand me the ball. Also when you receive the ball make sure that you bend your knees when you do it so that it does a bounching motion when you receive the ball."
You do as he says as he talks and he looks at you with this approving look. It made you quite proud of yourself.
He throws the ball in your direction once more and this time you move to receive it and it bounced up into the air and straight into Kuroo's arms.
"I did it!" You exclaimed excitedly. Pumping a fist into the air and gaining some of the volleyball players stares, some were even clapping at you which made you embarrassed all over again. Kuroo laughs and tells you that you had a knack for volleyball.
"I wouldn't say I'm any good at it though… every time I played volleyball as a kid I always was the worst player."
"You onky get better the more you play. How about next time we play together when we have the chance?"
"Sure, I'd like that."
For a while you just sat with Kuroo, sometimes one of you would have something to say, most of it was Kuroo while you nodded your head as you watched the volleyball players play a match against each other. You didn't really understand it well, Kuroo tried his best to fill you in on what was going on but over all you still couldn't understand it. Soon you realized that it was almost time for the event to start and you bid Kuroo a farewell not before exchanging numbers then you made your way down the stairs and back to the main hall.
Description: A new MMORPG just dropped, between your busy schedule as a college student and your slow but steady rise in fame on twitch you have your hands full trying to juggle between the two. Now imagine that with a blooming friendship between you and THE Kodzuken?
Inspired by: BOFURI: I don't want to get hurt, so I'll max out my defense.
Rating: General/Teens
Relationships: Kozume Kenma & Reader, Kozume Kenma/Reader, Kozume Kenma & Original Character(s), Kozume Kenma/Original Character(s), more relationships to be added
Characters: Kozume Kenma, more characters to be added
Tags: strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, reader-insert, Streamer Reader, Writer Reader, Streamer Kenma, more tags to be added
A few days after the initial stream you found your account on all social platforms blowing up with a bunch of likes and follows, sometimes even a rare comment every once in a while. This was especially common on video posts that showed you playing Across the Horizon. A lot of people seemed to really enjoy your AtH gameplay so for the past few weeks you've only been playing AtH for the new people.
The plan was to keep playing AtH until the people are so desensitized by your mannerisms that they wouldn't mind if we switched games sometime in the future. So far… it wasn't working.
For the next two weeks of you streaming during your free days off of college you noticed that your viewer count was slowly dwindling back down to just about the same amount you had when you didn't get an ultra popular clip. You didn't mind it though it was bound to happen eventually anyways, not everyone will enjoy your craft from just one or two clips and they weren't obligated to staying. However! You see that there's a large portion of people who actually did end up liking your content and staying along with you for the ride. That made you extremely happy.
This bumped you up to 50-60 consecutive viewers per stream!
You have also noticed that one particular viewer that would always show up for your stream and gave you great advice when playing AtH. It was Pie_Apple5.
If you recall last chapter, Pie_Apple5 was fighting off disinformation in the chat and was lowkey backseat gaming throughout the whole livestream. Although you didn't mind it that much, after all they were just trying to help you get better at the game. Even if you won't take the advice. You wanted to play this game differently after all!
That leads you to your new dilemma. The other day you had gone to your local post office after they had emailed you about a package that had been sent over to them. It wasn't a necessarily large package but it sure was heavy. When you first held it in your hands you almost could've sworn that someone had placed dumbbells inside.
You were going to check who the sender of the package was but it seemed as though someone had gone out of their way to erase any and every link they had before sending it over. It was so strange. It wasn't the first time that someone had sent you something. You had your post office's address on your info page after all so there have been quite a few gifts that your small community has sent over to you. Most often though they were letters of appreciation, you loved each and every one of them, so much so that you have a cork board dedicated to the letters along with pictures of trips that you've taken along with family.
After contemplating on whether you should open the package the night before you decided that it would be a great way to start the stream. Who knows, it might be one of your fans who gave you the package! You didn't want them to think that you didn't get it.
You rose up from bed in the early Wednesday morning, despite not having classes you still had a few assignments that you needed to finish before the next day. You didn't want to cram it right after you finished streaming. Hell, you didn't even know how long you'll be streaming for today. You were planning on making it a short stream of you playing a different game, maybe some solo Repo or maybe Va-11 Hall-A. Just anything that wasn't AtH. You loved the game but you were getting pretty sick and tired of just playing the same game over and over again for the last two weeks.
You quickly went over to your pc set up and placed the mystery package on your side desk before you started setting up for your stream. After making sure everything is set up you took a deep breath before pressing the 'start live' button.
Just as you started the stream you see the first messages starting to pop up in chat. Many saying hi and greeting each other. With your small community you loved to see how tightly knit they've become to the point of being friends with one another. It was something you loved about streaming, and something you wouldn't be able to have if you blew up another time so you wanted to relish in it for a little longer.
You took a sip of water before you pressed the unmute button and greeted your chat for the first time this stream.
"皆さん紺一話ルと初今日はルとめて初めて Post Office いい Box"
"Everywarn, hellaur. Todaur we are we are opening a Box from the Post Office."
The chat immediately fills up with clapping emojis as you held up the box to your face. Today you were showing your face, it was inevitable as you had a box to open. You don't really show your face often, it was only during times when people sent over things or you wanted to do an irl stream when you would show your face. So this was a rare occasion for both you and the chat. Many of the chatters were already commenting on your face, it made you a little embarrassed and kind of uncomfortable at the new attention you were getting.
"That's enough about my face guys." You laugh a little uncomfortably. Your mods, taking note of your state, understood their assignment pretty quickly and started to delete any messages that had anything to do with your appearance.
You weren't the most good looking person in the world, you would have to say you were quite simply average. Maybe even below that standard but you had no qualms for how you looked or how others saw you. You had long accepted the fact that you just weren't gifted in that area.
"And right now, we weren't talking about looks, we're all about this package!" You set down the package and reached for some scissors. You switched the camera over to the one that was looking down at your desk and began to neatly cut your way through the plastic o the package. Once you were through with that you worked your way around the tape that had wrapped itself all the way around the box until you were soon left with a box smaller than the one you started with.
"Huh." You lifted up the parsel and took it out of the bigger box. This box was much neater as compared to its outer shell. It had a logo on its white surface too, and words that read—
"VR Set… Oh my god."
Your hands grew shaky at the realization that you had a VR Set in your hands. The money that you had been saving up for one would finally be put to better use!
But wait… you shouldn't get your hopes up just yet. What if this was a prank sent by someone who was posing as one of your fans..?
Hastily and shakily, your hands quickly grabbed at the scissors that you had accidentally dropped on the floor as you sat in shock and began to cut at the official seal that decided the fate of this box in your hands.
"Chat, I don't know. This might be a false alarm. What if this isn't real? I'm so scared I don't wanna look…" You say to your chat as you carefully and slowly lifted up the lid of the box and lo and behold. There sat comfortably between the soft white packaging was indeed a brand new VR set and alongside it was a VR Edition of Across the Horizon. You could cry at this very moment. Who ever sent this must be an angel in disguise..!
You eyes start to tear up before you could catch yourself. Tears streak down your face as you stare at your new VR set.
"I-I just don't know what to say."
You look to chat who were busy trying to comfort you. But in the flurry of texts you find one that catches your eye.
"Do you like the gift?" Pie_Apple05 said.
So they must be the one behind it all.
You laugh, a bit shakily from crying, it almost sounds like sobbing. "You did this Apple?" You rub your tears away as you smile at the screen. Even though they couldn't see you behind the screen you were sure that they could hear your smile through your words. "Thank you, Apple."
"It's no problem, I've got a ton of money to spend anyways."
"That's very kind of you Apple but I don't think you should be spending it all on some random streamer." You try to laugh it off but deep down in your heart you sort of wanted him to spend more money on you. It made you feel… special, in a way?
"I guess… you could call me your sugar daddy, wink wink."
That threw you off guard and for a while you couldn't say anything. "nnno.. actually. Let's not." You said, trying your best to steer the conversation elsewhere before chat could do any more damage, but alas it is a losing battle.
He sends a bunch of laughing emojis and the chat joins in on the joke asking him to buy you a better pc that doesn't lag so much when streaming and the guy actually has the gall to say: "I'll think about it."
As much as you loved the attention and love that came with the VR set you knew that you had to shut this down quickly. You don't want people to think you're some kind of gold digger who asks for things from their viewers! All you want is to be a normal streamer that is respected in all accounts and this certainly is NOT helping whatsoever.
"Okay, as funny as it is please don't actually send a new pc over. The VR set is already such a blessing and I don't want you to spend anymore than you already have on me." You tried, and I say it like its been highlighted in red when I say tried, because you sure did but the chat continued to run on that joke for another 30 minutes as you unpacked and read out the instructions on the manual. Hell, you couldn't even see Pie_Apple5 in chat anymore, probably went back to lurking after that disaster that they created.
You huffed out loud and that seemed to have made your chat concerned about you, some were asking if they joke went a little too far and to which you said. "Yeah, it did. As much as I encourage people to have fun in chat I don't want to be seen as some gold digger. So let's not, okay?"
Your chat understood you completely and immediately changed the subject to what some random viewer in chat was up to today. Something about a cosplay contest happening in their school and that they were in the middle of making a cosplay item to go with their costume and they just had the stream on in the background. It's always so cool to find out that people had you as their background streamer, you've been on the other side of that spectrum so often that you understood just how big of an honor it is to be the streamer in the background instead.
As you finished setting up the VR set and all you positioned your camera to be facing the side of your room that had more space to walk around as well as moving your mic to be a little closer. You also made a mental note to yourself that you should get one of those clip on mics for your next stream.
"Okay guys, I was actually not going to play Across the Horizon today. I wanted to play something else. BUT because of Apple's generous donation, we will be trying out AtH on VR for the first time! I'm so excited guys."
You strapped on the VR set on your head, the game already running and soon you were in. It was like you were playing a completely different game. The pixelated gameplay now expanded itself into a 3d open world game. You walked around the area until you found a mirror to which you looked at yourself in. It was incredible at how different you thought you looked in the pc version that you do in the VR version. You were absolutely obsessed.
You could only imagine the different kinds of fanart you could get if you had a larger audience…
That's honestly what your goal is. To reach popularity to the point of getting fanart! Kodzuken gets so much fanart of his irl self and his online personas it made you quite envious as a smaller streamer. Sure you weren't the most eye catching person in the room but your online personas are literally to die for!
You walk around the town, very slowly you must say. Putting all your stats of defense really had its downfalls such as not being able to move quickly or not doing a lot of damage(though that wasn't really something you cared much about as a shielder). What you're really after is a good teammate.
You can only go so far solo, you needed to get a group together or something in order to progress. There was going to be an event soon, though the details of the event haven't yet been said to the public, there has been leaks that have popped up on social media. It was a solo event so you didn't have much to worry about.
You continue to play for a little while on AtH, mostly roaming across the new environment with the help of the VR set, often bumping into things irl as you explored the world. That was when you heard a raid notification. You quickly take off the headset and find that someone had raided you with 500 viewers!
"Yo, thanks for the raid! I appreciate it!"
You were pretty happy that there was a raid, however what shocked you was the amount of people. Sure 500 viewers was a lot but there seemed to be more than just the amount of people who were there for the raid… There were over 1.5k viewers on your stream.
"Why the fuck are there so many of you!?" You exclaimed, showing your shocked face to the stream via your camera.
Some first time chatters were explaining that there were clips of you circling around social media, again. This time it was a clip of you talking to Pie_Apple05 about not being his sugar baby.
Great.
At this point you might as well just give in to the whole shtick. If you can't beat them… join them.
For the next hour or two you decided that you had played enough AtH for the day and decided to do a Just Chatting stream where you answer questions and talk to your viewers like you would a therapist. Seriously, some of you have issues! If you have a problem don't go to streamers for help they don't know shit! It was fun though, talking to everyone. You thought, maybe it would be a good idea to have another one some time in the future.
When you end stream you decide to scroll through social media, in this case it's twitter. As you scroll through twitter your feed seemed to be showing the exact same girl… when you looked at the hashtag you noticed that it was… for you!? That made you sit up from your bed.
People were making fanart of you… of your character…
You punched the air in celebration as you whooped and yelled your heart out in delight. You immediately started liking and reposting every single piece of fanart you could find. Happy to be getting fanart for the first time in your life.
can i request a yaku x reader in timeskip? maybe like a part 2 of that Valentines day fanfic like how they spend the Valentine day together years later when they are already married and when kids 👉🏻👈🏻
Forever Valentine
Relationships: Yaku Morisuke/Reader, Yaku Morisuke/Original Character(s)
Characters: Yaku Morisuke, Yaku's Brothers, Yaku's Parents
Tags: Fluff, implied Suggestive content, Pregnancy Reveal
Summary: How Yaku and Reader spend their day before Valentines day.
Word Count: 2'131
Ao3
Life is… quite menial. You didn't often think about it quite often, but recently you've been thinking of a change.
You and Yaku have been together for 7 years and married for 2 of those years, You suppose thinking about that kind of thing was something that was bound to happen.
You wanted a child with Yaku.
It was a big step in your life. You've never really thought of it that hard back when it was just you and Yaku and the demanding attention that school and all that needed. Not everyone is bound to have kids, sure. But what about you and Yaku? Would he want to have kids with you?
You guessed it was a little late to be thinking that way considering you're married to the man but you two would have had to have this conversation sooner or later.
You opened the door to your quiet home. Yaku would be working late once more. As a Volleyball star he was bound to be super busy and you've accepted that for the way it is. Hell, it was like that back when it was just a club for him anyways so you were very much used to it by now.
After the two of you got married you moved all the way to Russia to help Yaku pursue his dream as a volleyball player. Of course, that didn't mean that you two didn't go back to Japan every once in a while. Although it was very rare you two often go back home during the holidays when Yaku's schedule would let him.
Now that you thought about it, in a month or so it'll be Valentine's day. Your dating anniversary. While you cleaned up the dishes that hadn't yet been given attention to, you pondered on what exactly the two of you will be doing for that day. After all, it was just such a special day.
Whenever that day came he would always go out of his way to buy you some flowers while you gave him some chocolate. Despite his restrictive diet he always made sure to eat your homemade chocolates to show his appreciation for you. It was very sweet of him to do.
After you were finished with washing the dishes you decided to sit down and watch some TV while you waited for your husband to return home. So far though, there wasn't anything interesting to watch.
Ever since you came to Russia you've had to learn a new language in order to be able to communicate with locals and others that weren't from around here. So far your Russian was quite rough, though still understandable to most. You knew the basic phrases and you were slowly able to understand the news forecasts on TV. It was all thanks to Yaku really. He's always been a fast learner and him being able to speak Russian more fluently and faster than you were made him the perfect teacher.
Suddenly the door opened, you looked at who it could be and you find Yaku with a big smile on his face.
"I'm home!" He said in Japanese. Whenever they were alone he would always speak to you in Japanese only.
"Welcome back." You greet him back, standing up from the couch to give your man a kiss and a hug to which he reciprocates.
Hurriedly after he bolts to your shared bedroom in order to get changed before joining you on the couch. You sat right next to one another, Yaku's arm found its place around your shoulders as he cuddles into you. It must have been quite the long day for Yaku to be so affectionate. Much more than he usually was.
Yaku calls you with one of his affectionate nicknames, one of the ones you loved to hear come out of his mouth as he nuzzled into your hair. "What do you think about going back to Japan for Valentines?"
"For how long?" You ask. As much as you would love to go back home you weren't quite sure just yet if your job would allow you to leave during such a crucial time, especially with the project your working on being due in a few weeks time.
"Just a week. Don't worry, I already submitted a form to my coach and he said it would a-okay for me to go. What about you?"
"I'm not sure just quite yet. It would be nice for us to go back home for a while."
Yaku hums, his hands caress your hair as he nuzzles further into your neck.
"S-Say…" You began, a bit nervous with how close he was. No matter how many times he does this it always made you feel all tingly. "W-What would you think… if we had a baby..?"
He froze, his breath hitched against your skin. Not long before he tackles you down and begins to kiss at your neck. "Are you serious!? You really want to have a kid?" He asked excitedly.
The continuous stream of kisses made you giggle, "yes, yes..! Hahaha! I've… Hah! Been thinking about having a kid…. Maybe… maybe two."
"Yes, yes, heck yes!" He moves on from your neck to your lips to which you lovingly take in with ease. Melting into the deep kisses that soon led to more… Suggestive positions.
——————
Soon it became the day before Valentine's day. The two of you had been whisked away from Russia to Japan in a few hours. The first thing you had to do after landing was to get some food, you were starving after such a long trip.
"Your parents will pick us up soon right?" You asked Yaku as he stuffed a large portion of his meal into his mouth.
He nods, mouth still full of food. But answers you soon after he finished chowing down on his meal. "No, they said my younger brothers will be the one to pick us up. Ma and Pa are a little busy at the moment. It is the day before Valentine's after all."
You nod along understandably. His parents run a flower shop and it was sure to be full of customers looking for the perfect flowers to give to their loved ones. You were also thinking about shaking things up this year and giving Yaku flowers instead of the usual chocolates but seeing as you two were here to be with family it would be better to use your time well spent with them.
Once the two of you had finished eating Yaku quickly typed out a message to his brothers telling them to pick the two of you up at the nearest exit near you. You wait for quite some time before they finally arrive.
The boys greet you with such warmth. It was almost like no time had passed at all. They both looked the same as the time the two of you had been here.
In a way they looked quite similar to Yaku, however they were slightly taller than him, they would often use that as a way of teasing their older brother. Often leading them to have squabbles with one another despite Yaku's big age.
"Hey, nii-san. We stopping by the shop to get some flowers?" One of them asked, the other was too busy, focused on the road.
Yaku shakes his head despite his brother not being able to see him very well even with the mirror. "Nah, I'm pretty tired from the fly and I'm sure my beloved is just as tired as I am."
You back him up. "Yeah, maybe we could go tomorrow instead."
Yaku's brother hums to himself, "we could but… ma and pa planned a party to celebrate the of you coming back home so the shop'll be closed by midday."
"Then let's just go in the morning." Yaku insists. You could feel a fight coming along if he didn't knock it off. Luckily his brother doesn't resist and says that they could do as Yaku said.
After a small drive to and from the airport, they were finally home. The two of you quickly went upstairs to Yaku's old room. It was the room that the two of you often stayed in when you came back to Japan. Going back to your family home was a bit of a hassle since it was a little farther away from the airport compared to going to Yaku's home. And besides that you actually liked staying at Yaku's home more than you would have expected. Sure your parents are at home but you could never truly feel at home unless Yaku was with you.
The rest of the day goes by. You took out something you'd been meaning to read from your suitcase and began cracking at it. While you were at it Yaku had gone downstairs, you could only guess that he was going down to talk to his brothers, maybe catch up with them and whatnot. You read until you heard the doorbell ring. You placed the book down and wandered down the stairs to see Yaku's parents had come back home. Not only by themselves however but with your parents in tow as well! You greet you parents with a hug and a kiss between the two of them before quickly greeting your in-laws. Something that you had long been accustomed to doing when seeing them, before following Yaku's mother into the kitchen. When you went in you could see Yaku and one of his brothers— the one who had been driving a while ago— already making dinner for the whole family.
You and your mother-in-law join them shortly, assisting with prepping the steak that Yaku's brother had bought this morning while you talked about whatever you had been working on at work the day before.
Soon with all four of you working in the kitchen the meals were prepped and ready. There was a wide variety of dishes that lay itself out on the kitchen table. The three of you sit down on your self-appointed seats while your mother-in-law called down the rest of Yaku's family. While you waited you three couldn't help but chatter and gossip with one another about your daily lives.
It was strange not being in the same place anymore. It was that way for so long that you'd known most of Yaku's stories. But now that you two worked in different fields you were learning some of them now first hand alongside his brother.
You smiled to yourself. Well there was another story that the two of you were going to share, together. The moment everyone was comfy in their seats you'll tell them.
Soon everyone was at their seats, eating heartily the dishes of which they had made. Seeing so many people enjoying their meals at the same table made your heart flutter. It had been so long since you had last seen this many people at the same table, eating together, and sharing stories together as a family. In Russia it was only yourself and Yaku. During your lunch breaks your colleagues often decide to eat by themselves and if they ever decided to eat together they ate in complete silence.
That must just be the way it works over there, or that's what you've thought over the years you've stayed there. Maybe you just weren't that close to your colleagues and its why they don't really talk much during lunch breaks.
The noise dies down after a few moments which makes for the perfect chance to announce something. The story in which you and Yaku had been rehearsing for the past few days. You stood up and clinked your glass against your spoon.
"Sorry, but may I have your attention for a while?" The room quiets down and the air grew thick with anticipation. "Yaku and I have been thinking… of this story that we would like to share."
Yaku then also stands up, adjusting his collar nervously despite not being the one who was announcing it. He held your hand in support.
"Long ago we never thought we would come this far. But our passion has overcome every hurdle that's come our way. And now, we have a new challenge that's presented itself to us. One that will one day grow itself into a beautiful thing."
You placed one hand on your stomach, you could already see your Mother-in-law holding up a hand to her mouth, your own mother in tears. "We're expecting."
The room erupted in tears and laughter. Many congratulations were thrown around along with a dozen hugs coming from all sides. You and Yaku kissed each other, congratulating the both of you on your success.
"Happy anniversary." He said, a smile plastered on this face.
"Happy Valentine's."
——————
"Mamaaa!!!" A child wails in the distance, you hear tiny footsteps coming your way as you washed the dishes clean. Lunch had just ended. You and your lovely husband always splits the chores evenly between the two of you, with him cleaning the house and tending to the kids, and you who did the accounting and bought the groceries.
It seems, however, to have been another story in the making.
"Mama, Sayaka won't give me my toy!!" Your youngest daughter cries to you for help. Her hands pawing at your apron.
You scoop her into your arms and coo. "My darling, you have to learn to share."
"I was trying to do what you taught me, sharing and all that, but then she just stole it from me!"
"Sayaka!" You yell and your eldest daughter came running down the stairs. A pout was evident on her face. "What did I tell you about taking without asking for permission first?"
She scoffs but says it anyway, "that it's bad manners and that I shouldn't do it yeah yeah. But she was literally asking me if I wanted it! So I took it."
"Meanie!"
You kiss your youngest, Minori, on the nose before letting go of the girl who went running. As your eyes followed her motions you see your husband coming out from somewhere along the house and was coming to see what the commotion was about. That was when the young girl tackled her dad into a hug to which he reciprocates with ease. He too was a scooper and took the young girl into his arms and lifted her off the ground with the grace of a volleyball player.
"Daddy, Sayaka was being mean! Punish her with 100 push ups, now!" The young one demanded as she pointed at her older sister accusingly.
"Oh, you want it so bad huh? Fine then! I'll do it right in front of you." Then the girl drops down and proceeds to do 10 in a matter of seconds. Before you could drop down yourself and stop the girl from going any further your husband puts a hand on your shoulder and shakes his head. He seems to believe that that was what was best for her.
And he was right, soon the girl grew tired and collapsed against your polished floors. Polished but that does not make it any less dirty, you held the girl up by her arms and dragged her from the kitchen floor to the living room, letting your husband deal with your youngest.
"How do you feel now?" You ask Sayaka who still seemed to be trapped in a daze. She climbed up to lay on your sofa, closing her eyes as if she had just died from exaustion.
"I feel great." She said, though her body doesn't seem to say the same thing given how hard she was breathing and how her breath was wheezing.
Sayaka had been born with a health complication but as she grew older it began to become less of a problem between you and Yaku. It was all Yaku that helped make it become nothing more than just a bit of asthma. His love for volleyball transferred over to his two daughters which made every game the most exciting days of their lives.
As you watch your eldest you began to think about how lucky you must have gotten in life to be able to have gotten this far. Nothing would have made you feel any more satisfied as you have now, having your girls and your Yaku by your side, you felt nothing more than complete.
Description: A new MMORPG just dropped, between your busy schedule as a college student and your slow but steady rise in fame on twitch you have your hands full trying to juggle between the two. Now imagine that with a blooming friendship between you and THE Kodzuken?
Inspired by: BOFURI: I don't want to get hurt, so I'll max out my defense.
Rating: General/Teens
Relationships: Kozume Kenma & Reader, Kozume Kenma/Reader, Kozume Kenma & Original Character(s), Kozume Kenma/Original Character(s), more relationships to be added
Characters: Kozume Kenma, more characters to be added
Tags: strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, reader-insert, Streamer Reader, Writer Reader, Streamer Kenma, more tags to be added
Today's the day. Today the new MMORPG, Across the Horizon, is planned on releasing. You sit on your used office chair that your mother had graciously given to you a couple years back with you hand hovering over the mouse as you gazed at your screen that had steam opened, the MMORPG game's store page right in front of you. You refresh the screen several times until it hit 10:00 am, release time. One last refresh and… boom! There it was. You quickly move your mouse to hover over the button, adding it into your cart before you immediately enter and hit purchase.
And just like that, you were now a proud owner of Across the Horizon! Well, for 2 hours at least, or that's what you keep telling yourself. Who knows if you'll actually be able to enjoy it, it might just be like most other co-op games. Too tedious and all that.
Now, for the next part. To stream the game! Of course, that is after you've installed the game. You click a few more times to get the game downloaded and then you open up OBS to start up stream, making sure that the loading screen is up instead of your computer screen for now while you wait for your game to download. You typed in a stream title, something something "Across the Horizon first impression" blah blah, send! Some tags and what not and then we're all set!
You take a moment to take a deep breath in, composing yourself before you hit the live stream button. As soon as you did a few minutes in some of your loyal viewers were starting to show up in chat. You smile to yourself as you see the chat messages pop up. You let them wait for 5 more minutes as you take a swig of water as you put on your earphones.
Finally after some time you finally open your mic.
"Hey guys!!" You greet your chat excitedly. "Are we all excited? New game is out today. Though lowkirkenuinely chat I don't have a clue what we're playing, my friend basically just sent this to me a week ago and told me to play so I'm finding out more on this with all of you guys!"
Within minutes the chat exploded with comments and encouragement, all of which you take with pride. This was something you garnered all by yourself, making all of these people happy just by you hitting a single button. You haven't even started yet.
You make some small talk, answering a few questions in chat and asking a few of them yourself. You liked this small back and forth that you could do with chat, this was something only small channels like yourself could do and you would be cherishing it for as long as you could.
you check steam to see if your game had downloaded, to which it had! Which meant it was time… time to play!
"Okay chat, its time! The game's finally downloaded." You said, clicking a few things in order to make the screen show the steam app to where it was opened onto the game's page. "Alright, you all ready? Cause I sure am, let's go!"
You click the play button and a few seconds go by before the game opens, you open up OBS once more in order to change the screen view to show the game this time. I kid you not the loading screen was on for like 15 seconds before it finally entered you into the main screen.
Chat is talking amongst themselves as you press play. Pressing it so brings you into a character customization screen.
"Okay, chat. Hear me out, what if we were a mage for this first play through?"
The chat explodes, many agreeing and believing it to be a good idea while there were a few in chat who disagreed. One of which said, "mages are way too overdone can't you do something else?"
You hum in agreement, "Thats so true actually Poppy. I was thinking maybe we could try out a class that not a lot of people go for. Something like… a shielder!"
You wait for a response within the chat before you moved your mouse over to the Shield class, for a long while no one in chat was talking before a huge wall of text came from each person in chat.
One of them said, "okay, its true that Shielders aren't necessarily used in MMORPGs anymore idek why they still add them in in this day and age tbh but like ig you could do it? idk I find the Shield class to be super boring and kind of tedious since it takes so long to kill a single enemy without a team."
Another one said, "it would be cool to see how you'd play a Shielder, I don't really see a lot of people dabble in that area of expertise so I think it would be a unique experience for the both of us!"
You spend this time going back and forth between all of the comments that were coming into chat, some of them were trying to weasel you into becoming a swordsman or a mage while others opposed such ideas and were pushing for more niche choices like a rougue or a ranger. As you talked with your chat you didn't even realize that 30 minutes had already passed and you were still stuck in the class choosing phase.
After a while you come to a decision, "you know what Chat? Let's play in a different way. Let's not think about the meta or anything like that, let's go with what our hearts desire and what my heart desires is a change of pace." You mouse hovers over the Shield class before clicking it, pressing accept leading you to the character customization screen where you and your chat spent another 15 minutes deciding on what color your hair should be and then another 15 minutes deciding whether or not you should go for the same gender as your real life self or if you should go with the opposite gender.
"Oh, right. Chat I actually forgot to tell you all that I'm on a time crunch." You said as you tested out different clothing styles for your Shielder character. "I have exactly one hour more to see whether I like this game or not and if I don't I'll be refunding the game."
A chorus of "noooo's" echoed throughout the chat, it seemed that they really wanted you to continue playing the game. It would make sense considering how long it took for you and chat to come to an amicable agreement as to what class you would pick. But it matters not, the only thing that would guarantee another play through is your enjoyment.
When you finish up with character creation the game then puts you on the skill points distribution. You ponder for a while, letting chat once again talk amongst themselves as you decide where exactly you wanted to put your first 100 points. It would be wise of you to put it all in different skills to make you as well rounded as possible but…
"Chat, remember when I said that we would play differently?" You said, stretching your arms as if preparing for a brutal physical retaliation. "Well, I'll be playing differently. Not just in niche but in skill too. I've decided, I'll place all my skill points on vitality!"
Just as you had expected a lot of people were pretty much against your decision, it was a pretty awful move in MMORPGs to place all your points on one singular skill, but who gets to decide what you do other than yourself? So you place it all on vitality anyways.
Now, you can actually play the game! You start out in a tutorial section, easy stuff to help you navigate through the game. The game itself was pretty high quality, you'd seen some posts on the internet about the game being VR friendly and that it might be a better way to play the game but as of right now you weren't going to invest in getting a VR set, its just way too expensive for a broke college student like yourself. Even getting a good pc that could play most games had already taken out a large portion of your savings. No, there was no way that you would get a VR set just for this game.
While you were in the tutorial area you were reading through Chat as you progressed. One chat message that really stuck out to you read: "wait since your friend recommended you this game wont they also be on stream?"
You quickly shut this idea down, "nah this friend doesn't like being on stream, its a weird world out there and you don't know what kind of crazies might be out there. They're still in chat though! Probably just lurking around, don't mind them."
Soon you finish the tutorial area, you leave it not long after and are teleported into a town. Presumably the first town on the game. As of right now there were a ton of people hanging around, the in-game chat was exploding with people talking and asking one another for things and what-not. But considering that most people here were still in the basic gear it'd be safe to say that people didn't have much to offer.
"Hmm, let's go try leveling up first." You say to twitch chat, then you press a few buttons as you tried to look for the in-game chat button to talk to other players. Eventually you find it and you type out in chat, "Does anyone know where to find low level enemies?"
It takes a few minutes before someone responds telling you to follow them, you agree and they lead you off into an entrance to a forest where they drop you off at not before giving you a couple of HP potions.
"Sweet, that's so kind of them to do. Okay Chat, let's do thisss!" You walk around the forest for a while trying to find some enemies to fight. A couple minutes pass and you still haven't found a single enemy which was worrying so you talk to your chat as you passed the time. Chat decided one of the best topics to talk about right now was how exactly lemons could taste so sour and why they like or dislike it as a fruit.
"I'm telling you chat lemons are literally an essential to make food taste good! Like you wouldn't have a nice tasting steak if you didn't squeeze at least a little bit of lemon in it, c'mon!" You laugh along with your chats answers as you walked around the forest, not long after a small ferret enemy comes out of a bush and a fight begins.
"Oh my god, finally!" The game sends you into a battle screen, your character now a pixelated sprite that goes against a ferret. Whoever shall win? Let's find out!
You let the enemy hit you, it pounces against your pixelated self over and over again however you realized that you weren't taking a single bit of damage against the creature.
"Chat is this real? Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing this…" You ask chat, your hands found their place on both sides of your head in shock. Your chat also seems to be in shock as the chat piles on with a lot of "WAHAT???" and "You're actually hacking bro"
"I'm not hacking I swear, what is going on??" You click the attack button and you only deal one damage at a time. "Oh god, this is gonna take a whole fucking hour isn't it..."
And it does. You and your chat stayed on that screen for a whole hour or so just trying to slice up the ferret. But, after a more than a few hundred swings you were able to fell the enemy and your chat and yourself errupts in a satisfying cheer.
"That took forever!!" You said as you stretched in your chair, a notification pops up on your screen. It reads 'you are now at level 8!'
"Hey, at least that was worth it, we went from level 1 to level 8 so quickly." Then another notification pops up on your screen. 'New skill unlocked! [IRON WILL]. Skill can be unlocked by being in a battle for over an hour.'
"That's actually insane." You said, "and that also means I can't refund this game anymore huh…" You sigh as the chat erupts in cheers once more. 'Oh well' you thought, 'it wasn't as though you weren't enjoying yourself even with the fact that you spent a whole hour fighting a single enemy, much less one that was level 5.'
You quickly open up the skill [IRON WILL] and read out its description. "This skill allows users to tank a One-Hit KO move with 1 HP. Holy shit this is OP as fuck!"
You decide to head back into town after that one encounter and look through the town while you had the chance to. So far you were able to find different areas such as the potions shop and the armory to which you were greeted by a player by the name of Auro.
"Hey, you're new too aren't you?" The person types out in a private message to you. You snort. "Who isn't?" You tell your chat to which they agree with you immediately, you love your chat. You don't say that the person who's talking to you though, instead you say: "Yeah, been at it for an hour and I'm really loving it. I was just wandering around to see what I could do with all this gold I got."
The player begins typing immediately after you sent that text, "I'd say you should get some better gear, basic gear can only take you so far in this game. Luckily for you you ran into me! I can get you some better gear for 1Mil G."
"One Milion G!? I've only got 2000 on me atm…"
"Oh, then maybe you could go find some gear through fighting boss enemies instead."
You ponder on that a little. In your current state there would be no way for you to be able to fight against a boss and win. But, then again you said that you would be playing differently from how you usually do and you wanted to push yourself to the best of you abilities, if you back down now then you would be going back into your comfort zone. So you begin typing.
"Where can I find a boss?"
"There should be one on the northern side of the mountain over yonder, I remember seeing someone on the forums talk about a boss so difficult its made a lot of players quit just because of how insane the difficulty gap is."
"What do you think, chat? Should we do it?" You ask your chat, still quite hesitant yourself you needed a second opinion before you decide to rush in. To your not-so surprise a vast majority of your chat said yes. However… you realize that there seems to be a lot more unfamiliar name popping into your chat giving in their own two cents about the situation your in. Curious you check your viewer count and see that its gone from 30 viewers to… 347!? Wait wait hold on that's not right! You've never had this many people on one livestream before.
You start to panic, your breaths becoming more and more shallow as time went on, you open your discord on your phone, making up an excuse to your chat about going to get a drink before continuing the game when in reality you were sitting at your desk with your mic muted as you tried to get a hold of your friend to calm yourself.
Fortunately for you your friend is still in chat and had been lurking and observing the situation before you even realized that there was a situation. They pick up your call and you immediately break down, your breath hitches as tears began to well up in your eyes.
You were on call with them for a few minutes, just long enough for you to calm down and continue playing.
"Hey guys!" You say in your most cheeriest voice, trying to make it sound more like you weren't just crying your eyes out in pressure of performing well. "Sorry it took so long, someone had broken my water dispenser and I had to get a new one— like order a new one, real quick. You know how it is… heh… anyways!"
You look through google real quick for some direction for the boss before you begin walking in that direction. You tried to make sure not to look at the viewer count, trying so hard not to feel self conscious about literally everything you were doing at the moment.
Eventually you make it to the boss's dungeon. It was a long walk there without any sort of stamina, you curse your wish for a change. If you weren't so devoted into doing this challenge you would've put some points towards stamina just so you weren't this slow. You felt like a turtle!
You enter the dungeon and were met with several enemies coming your way, they began spreading poison throughout the cave. You thought that you could just barge in and claim the boss but it seemed that it was going to be a whole lot more difficult than you thought.
They spray more and more poison onto you which continued to drag your hp further and further down, defense wouldn't be enough to keep you alive in this dungeon. Luckily you had a few HP potions that the person who assisted you a while back still in your pockets so whenever you were nearing the lower scale of your HP you would break open a bottle and heal yourself all the way back up then they poison you again and so goes on the cycle of poison and restore.
It must've been 15 minutes of this until you got another notification, it reads: 'You unlocked Poison Resistance!'
"Aw sweet! This is gonna be so much easier from now on." You bash your shield against the enemies as they continued to surround you with their bodies and their poison. Now that they were less effective you were able to go through the dungeon with ease even gaining a few levels as you trekked up the dungeon cave.
Soon you were face to face with the door to the Boss. You breath in, then exhale. "Okay, chat. Are we all ready? This is gonna be our toughest fight yet!" The chat cheers you on and you open the door.
At first there seemed to be nothing of sort behind the door. It was just a large empty space. But as you walked further in you realized that the walls were made up of some purple substance that seemed to leak from the top of the walls, as you walked closer to the middle it began to form some sort of entity that grew as tall as the room itself. It lowers one of its three heads to face you, then it spits purple liquid in your direction. Alarmed by this you weren't able to defend in time leading you to get hit. As it hit you you realize that what it spat at you was poison.
In front of you was a dragon made of poison.
"How the fuck am I supposed to hit an enemy made of poison itself!?" You ran as fast as you could around the room, trying to evade the shots of poison that the three-headed dragon spewed your way. Sure you were resistant towards poison now but that didn't mean shit if you don't have anymore potions to heal you back up. There was just so much a tiny bit of resistance could handle but at the same time there was no way you could just keep running forever. So, you decided, to charge towards the enemy.
The dragon once again spits at you but this time you were fast enough to block it, using this momentum before the enemy can spit another one at you you launch yourself shield first into its stomach. You don't realize until after you were inside of the dragon, that charging into a liquid entity would lead you into falling inside of said entity.
"Great, now I'm stuck." You tried spamming the movement buttons to see if there was any way you could move around its innards but to no avail. Your health was slowly depleting as the minutes passed on, you were utterly and completely stuck. All you could do was watch your little pixelated body struggle inside of the monster.
"Well guys, here's to our first death." You say as you prepare to finally take your last breath however a notification pops up. Curiosity takes hold of you and you press it. It reads: "You gained [POISON IMMUNITY]!"
"Huh, you're actually kidding!?"
Then another notification pops up you press it quickly, this one reads, "Congratulations, you gained the skill [FOUL FEEDER]!"
"What the heck is that?" You press down on the skill and it gives you an option to place it on your shield. You, of course, do so and the moment you did the enemy was affected by something causing it to shimmer and turn into purple dust. In a flash you had defeated the enemy by doing nothing.
You sat there in confusion, your chat was just as confused spamming question mark emojis and going 'wtf' as you stared at your screen in confused silence.
Your confusion doesn't last all too long before a chest appears in front of your character, opening it you find a set of armor and a shield that went perfectly with your attire. It was a simple black armor with a red trim that went around each sharp edge, the shield was the same. It sort of reminded you of a volleyball team you once watched on tv back when you were in high school except the colors were more red than black. You couldn't remember for the life of you what that team's name was though and you had no time to waste. You put the armor on and immediately started boasting to your chat.
"Well, well, well. Guess we don't have to buy gear after all, and look chat! This set is one of a kind. Only one person's ever gonna have a set like this and its all mine." You waggle your eyebrows in a prideful manner despite your chat not being able to see it you know that its presence has been felt as the chat boos you in response of such an arrogant tone.
More notifications pop up on your screen, most of them were notifs of you leveling up. Why was it made so that you get a notification for every level you go up? You had at least 12 notifs telling you that you had leveled up as if one wasn't enough. You were at level 20 now, pretty convenient.
You streched your arms up letting yourself take a break after that whole ordeal. You got yourself a nice set of armor plus a cool shield, defeated an enemy no one's ever been able to beat before, gained a large amount of viewers in such a short amount of time, and gained a few new skills, today seemed to be a pretty successful day. You walked your way from the mountain back to the town, talking and interacting with your chat along the way. If you had to be honest, talking to your chat was the most fun part about today, you gotta say a lot of the newer viewers were pretty funny and got along great with some of your older viewers, especially this one guy in chat named Pie_Apple5 who was busy fighting other viewers on how the game worked.
Just as you set foot in town you decided that that was enough streaming for today and that you should work on your own projects for your college courses that were due within the week. So you quickly said your farewells before looking for someone to raid. Just as you were looking for someone to raid you find that Kodzuken just started his livestream!
You looked at your current view count, about 431 people were here right now, which meant that your raid could be noticed by Kodzuken at this very moment.
"Okay guys, I'm gonna have you all raid Kodzuken. Legit my idol, and I want you all to be on your best behavior okay? Okay, good." You type in the command to start a raid and you bid them all a farewell as they all get teleported to Kodzuken's stream.
You shut off your computer quickly and opened your phone to watch Kodzuken's stream. Hurriedly you run to your room and slam rushed on to your bed, you were just quick enough to hear Kodzuken greet your raid with open arms.
Kodzuken greets your fans and even says your streamer name!? Your heartbeat quickens as he takes notice of you, how parasocial of you. But you couldn't care less! That's one of your idols taking notice of you, one of the people that got you into streaming, this was literally a gift given by the gods above!
He reads out a comment in chat, "'Kodzuken, did you see their playstyle in Across the Horizon?' Ah, yeah. I did. It's all over social media and honestly it made me laugh."
What did he just say..?
Did he just say it's all over social media? No, no way. Is that why there were so many people on today's stream..?
You pull out a second device and open up twitter, quickly you searched up your twitch name and found a clip of you placing your skill points on vitality with over a thousand likes, then another cut up clip of you fighting the ferret for an hour with five thousand likes, and then another clip of you slowly dying to the dragon before getting sucked into its belly, now that one was the highest count with over 15k likes!! You also see your notifications blowing up as people began to follow you and liking your older posts.
How embarrassing… this was how Kodzuken is going to see you from this point onwards? He's going to think you're some kind of crazy person who can't play a game correctly? And here you were fantasizing a day when you could collab with Kodzuken on some kind of co-op game or something and be seen as someone equal to him.
You sigh, you would suppose that that dream is over now. All you are is a viewer to him anyways.
You focus your attention back to the stream where it seemed that he was still talking to his chat, answering questions and doing things on his phone. He was doing a lot more of the latter however, you weren't quite sure what he's doing at the moment, it looked like he was texting something?
"Sorry guys, I was ordering some food. Anyways back to what I was saying. The way that that streamer was playing the game is nothing unusual. Lots of newbies start of with putting all their skill points on a specific skill, however this game is the kind of game that's been coded to allow a flexible play style such as a full on vitality run without it hindering a person's enjoyment of the game."
By 'that streamer' he must be talking about you. It seemed as though he was defending you for your playstyle. Your heart flutters and stammers in adoration. He was so kind to be so considerate. You cover yourself in your blanket. Being recognized by your favorite streamer made you so excited to get back on and stream again.
Maybe streaming isn't so bad after all.
Just then you get a message from your highschool friend. "Vc?" You text back a 'yes!' And immediately after you get a call request to which you answer.
"You saw how high your viewer count was right?" They said, in the background you could hear some sizzling noise. They were probably cooking while on the phone. They always seemed to be doing something whenever they were on voice call with you.
You nod even though you knew that they couldn't see you, "yeah, I think I peaked around 400? It's actually pretty insane. I felt so much pressure just by looking at the amount of people that were there.
"How are you feeling now?" They said, their voice softened in concern.
"Much better. I got a hang of it halfway through the stream thankfully. But knowing you were there really helped so… thanks."
The two of you talked for quite some time before your friend told you that they had to go to which you let them leave. This left you in the silence of your home. With your parents out for work the entire day this left you with an empty house where you could do whatever you wanted.
You take this time to scroll through your profile while watching the Kodzuken stream where he was also playing Across the Horizon except he's playing through VR. You have to say, the difference between VR and PC are vastly different. Where there would be pixelated characters inside of a pixelated dungeon instead they are in an almost realistic virtual reality and your perspective is inside of your character.
As you scroll through your twitch account you notice your follower count has gone from 362 to over 1k. It blew your mind just how effective going viral on social media could boost your engagement and popularity.
You lay on your bed, letting Kodzuken's voice drift you off into sleep, his voice always had you asleep in 30 minutes instead of the usual 1 hour that takes you to fall asleep.
With what's happened today you were sure that one day you'll have success in your twitch career as you have now.
Description: A new MMORPG just dropped, between your busy schedule as a college student and your slow but steady rise in fame on twitch you have your hands full trying to juggle between the two. Now imagine that with a blooming friendship between you and THE Kodzuken?
Inspired by: BOFURI: I don't want to get hurt, so I'll max out my defense.
Rating: General/Teens
Relationships:Kozume Kenma & Reader, Kozume Kenma/Reader, Kozume Kenma & Original Character(s), Kozume Kenma/Original Character(s), more relationships to be added
Characters: Kozume Kenma, more characters to be added
Tags: strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, reader-insert, Streamer Reader, Writer Reader, Streamer Kenma, more tags to be added
"I hope you know I'm butt-ass naked while watching your stream LoL."
"Okay chat, who sent that one? You're banned. Literally banned, no one needs to know that shit bro."
Today was a free day, a day where you could just sit back and relax a little before the storm that was coming the day after. It's become your weekly routine to watch a stream from some of your favorite streamers, right now your all time favorite is Kodzuken. In fact he's streaming right now.
"I have to go now, hope your stream goes well." A random chatter says through a 1500 yen donation. Kodzuken says thank you and carries on with his game. You had him in the background as you wrote down an essay on how the rankings of Pro Heros from My Hero Academia reflects on society and their favoritism towards those who are considered to be attractive by society and why this is relevant in our time today.
College is… definitely not what you thought it was going to be. You thought it was going to be serious, much more serious than what you were doing right now but here you were, writing about one of your favorite shows for class. Never in your life would you have thought that something you had interest in would ever be approved as an essay to be done for class, and it sure as hell is one heck of a ride.
Not many would approve of the course you decided to go for. I mean, sure there's lots of people who go to college to do arts as their major but its always arts as in drawing and sculpting and doing all those things art students do. You on the other hand, chose to major in writing.
First year was hella disappointing, not much writing to be done. It was only when you started second year when things started to ramp up a bit. You're getting to learn more about theology and deepening your knowledge on different structures, it was a bit hard at first but you were starting to ease up on it some more.
Your fingers typed across the keyboard with fervor, your mind was brewing with ideas as to what to add onto this paper. This paper is literally going to be the peak of your existence if you play it all right. All you need to do is to organize your thoughts into this paper and boom! A 4.0 right then and there.
You were breezing through the paper until you heard Kodzuken start saying his goodbyes to chat, you quickly switched tabs and typed out a goodbye message before closing the stream.
You sigh, muttering to yourself. "His streams have been getting shorter and shorter lately." You chuckle a little, "maybe he's busy irl?"
But who could know? You weren't some psycho who stalks their favorite streamer, hell you didn't even know if your streamer had a socmed!
You decided to take a small break from your paper, opening discord you find a message from one of your close friends from highschool wondering whether you saw the new MMORPG that was releasing in a few days. You quickly type out a response.
"Hey, no I haven't actually. What's it even about?"
"Oh, you know how MMORPGs are like! this one however has an insane amount of skills and hidden skills that you can only gain through further experience. I was in the beta testing and it was legit fun."
You tapped your chin in wonder, you weren't really the type of person who plays MMORPG. Co-op games that you enjoyed were far and few in between and when you did like a Co-op game you usually only played with friends.
"Won't you at least give it a try? I promise you that It'll be so much fun you'll forget to even put down your controller." Your friend pleaded as hard as they could in text form. After a few seconds of you not responding they sent out a voice message of themself pleading in the most desperate voice that they could attain.
You sigh. You send a meme picture of the "What the hell, sure." meme in response. Immediately after you were sent another voice message of them going 'yippee!!'
You chuckle to yourself, you could never say no to your friend you swear, it always ended up with you saying yes. Not because of peer pressure(or so you say) but because you do just love your friend that much that it was so hard to say no.
You send another text message. "If I don't enjoy it I'll just refund it."
They immediately type back, "I promise you, you'll enjoy it so much 2 hours will pass in a flash!"
After that response you closed discord in favor of google, you needed to see what exactly this game was and what its all about. Sure your friend could hype it up all they want but you never know. Like, okay you trust your friend that this would be a good financial decision but you really wanted to know what the reviews are like before you even buy the game.
Scrolling through reddit and other sources for people who have played the beta test and it seemed to be an overwhelmingly positive first impression. You smile to yourself as you scroll through the different reactions. None of them really stuck out to you since a lot of them say a lot of the same thing. They say things like "Oh yeah, its really beginner friendly. If you've never played an MMORPG this is a good place to start." or things like "Ts is so peak."
Okay, the reviews have spoken. You will buy the game.
Opening up steam you type in the game's name and soon you were face to face with its store page. You look through all the videos and pictures that they have on display before scrolling down to the wishlist button. Pressing it quickly you make your escape, closing steam right after.
Now, it's back to writing your essay which was 2/4th of the way done. You'll be needing to skim through the manga again before continuing to write this down. Writing has never been harder than ever. You never thought that something so mundane could have so much to unpack and uncover, and this was only a paper your professor would see.
So much work just for one class… now imagine starting work and being a professional.
Hmm… Maybe there would be less work since its just one thing at a time. Idk I'm not a professional just yet. I'm already working on my first novel though!
Writing is so much fun.
As you reminisce about your course and where you are now your phone lit up with a notification from a school friend of your on viber. You quickly open it and find that they're asking you for if you've already read the assigned reading for tomorrow's class. Confused, you respond: "No? What reading?"
They respond a few minutes later giving the details to the readings. Seeing this you panicked and immediately went on Canvas to look through the class modules in search of this class reading. God, you must be the most air-headed person in the room. That is to say, you're the only person in the room!
After searching through every single tab in that course you realized only after that that you were supposed to be the one to provide the material for yourself. You mentally facepalmed as you googled it and immediately got the result.
To be completely honest, you wanted to do a live stream tonight. You always did livestreams every wednesday night Japanese time but you might have to break it to your 30 viewers that you wont be able to make it tonight because of this reading.
Yes, that's right. You have 30 consecutive viewers! A while back you got a raid from someone that had around 250 something viewers and some of them liked you enough to stick around which is absolutely fire on your end. You just started streaming a few months back too, back then you only had around 7 viewers. Most of which were irl friends, with the raid however you were able to go from a nobody to a Twitch affiliate! It's so freaking awesome.
You pressed on Discord on your phone and quickly typed an announcement in your little discord channel to inform your viewers of your sudden cancellation. Some of them immediately sent support and love in the general chat. you reacted to each and every one of them. You love your small little community so much they've always been so kind and patient with you even when you were struggling with a game.
You've never been all that great with games in general, whether it be physical or video game. You were a casual gamer, basically. Very different from the streamers you liked to watch like Kodzuken or Derapchu or Jumperwho but its always so fun to play games when others are enjoying it with you.
You and your community have also recently started doing weekend game nights! Most of the time you would all play Gartic Phone or Minecraft or something else that was Co-op that everyone could play and… if all goes well during your first impression in the MMORPG your friend is making you play, maybe you'll play it with your viewers too!
Anyways, you still need to read that one school reading for tomorrow. You open up a vod of Kodzuken that you haven't gotten around to watching and put it on play in the background. Now, for a night full of nothing but words.
You were planning on giving a box of chocolate to Yaku, your dearest friend Yaku Morisuke who always took time out of his day to help you with studying. You told yourself that these chocolates were nothing more than appreciation chocolates, it's not like those were anything new, people give those on valentines all the time and besides you were only giving him store bought chocolates. You didn't go all out just to give it to him. You were quite literally kicking yourself for not thinking about making them by hand but you swear you had no time to make them! Midterms was just around the corner and you didn't have enough time to make chocolate, again these are just appreciative chocolates nothing more nothing less.
You sat on your chair impatiently, your knee bobbed up and down as you awaited in anticipation for your class to be finally over so you could walk with Yaku back home… or that's when you were planning to give them anyway. Yaku still had volleyball practice after this last class anyways and you didn't want to give him the sweets while there was an audience that would soooo embarrassing. Kuroo would literally tease you forever for giving Yaku chocolates on valentines day, ugh, there was no winning when it comes to Kuroo let me tell you.
It must have been ages before the teacher finally dismissed the class after giving out a piece of homework to do during the weekends. You bolted out the door and ran straight for the classroom over, opening the door you find Kuroo and Yaku standing in a corner of the room. Their eyes darted straight on to you the moment you opened the door. It was a pretty loud slam having to open the door so quickly.
You noticed Yaku turning slightly red as you started to walk towards the two boys, Kuroo teasingly nudged Yaku's shoulder before pushing him towards you. They were always an odd pair, the complete opposite of the other. Yet, they complement each other in a way. That must be why they're such good friends no matter how many times they argue.
"Hey~" Kuroo greeted you with a cheerful smile and a wave to which you return.
"Let's go? You guys have volleyball practice after class right?" You asked, adjusting the bag that hung on your shoulder.
Kuroo nods, "we do. But, I was thinking… maybe you and Yaku could head on home early."
"What?" The two of you said, your heads whipping around so fast you could've heard a snap.
Okay so Kuroo was being a pain in the ass, as always. But this… I didn't wanna give the chocolates so early! I was vouching on them having volleyball practice to ease my nerves before I give them to him. This is going to ruin my entire plan!
"No," Yaku said defiantly. It was good to know that the two of you were on the same page. "I told Lev and Kenma that I was going to help them with their serve and receives."
"Come on Yaku it's only for one day! And besides…" Kuroo leans down to whisper something in his ear. Something that made Yaku so much redder than he already was.
"N-No!" Yaku said, almost yelling so loud that he attracted the gaze of the other students who were packing up their stuff. He scratches his head before he takes your hand. Calling out your name he said, "let's go to practice without that bozo."
You nod, subconscious about your decision to nod as Yaku takes you by the hand and practically pulls you in the direction of the volleyball court. Behind you you could hear Kuroo laughing his ass off. He'll probably be a little later than the rest of the guys, that idiot spent that entire time doing nothing that his table was still not clear of his items. It made you wonder what had happened in that classroom before you entered. However, now was not the time to wonder about that and instead focus on you literally holding hands with Yaku?? In your three years of being friends with the guy the two of you never maintained any sort of physical contact. The closest you ever got to that was your hands grazing against the other and that in and of itself was enough to make your heart flutter.
Hooo, hooo, calm down. It's just handholding. Friends do this all the time, you've held hands with friends before… but they were usually girl friends not boys! Not Yaku…
His hand was pretty warm… the way he pulled you through the crowd made the muscles on his arms so much more visible than it usually was. You wanted to trace his veins and— no, no! No you didn't want to do any of that. None of that!
You were so entranced by his bicep that you didn't even realize you were at the courtyard until Yaku tried to yoink his hand out of yours. That's when you also realized that you have been holding on to his hand so firmly that Yaku couldn't take his hand out from your grasp. You smiled sheepishly as you let go of his hand, he chuckles at you.
"Sit and stay? I'll walk home with you later, is that cool?"
"Super cool."
Yaku smiles at you, "great."
Hurriedly he opened his bag beside you and shuffled through his stuff. He pulls out his jersey and beelined towards the changing room, not before waving to you and yelling out a "see you in a bit!"
You chuckle to yourself, Yaku has always been so considerate towards you. Always telling you where he's going, what he's doing, even going as far as to explain things to you when you didn't understand things. I mean, it makes sense he does tutor you sometimes but like they're all just so confusing until Yaku dumbs it down for you. He always seems to know just what to say, he was like a wizard of words and numbers.
A little while after you found yourself a nice spot to chill out in the doors swung open and in came Kuroo. His eyes darted across the yard until they landed onto you, when he did he had this huge grin that appeared on his face. He walked towards you with this swagger, like he had something big he wanted to share. He hops onto the bleachers, his grin still as large as it had been a while ago. You wait for him to say something but he just sits there for a while, his hands fumbling with his bag as he drops from his shoulders.
"So," he starts. "You and Yaku."
"What about us?" Your heart began to race, just the thought of the two of you in the same sentence made your heart pound with this anticipation, this wanting feeling.
No, you swear that there was nothing more to these feelings of yours. They're just… feelings.
Before Kuroo could say anything more the door to the court swung open once more. This time it wasn't one of the volleyball players, but rather a group of girls, counting there were only three of them but they still count as a group. They all looked around the court with awe, wandering together as a group until they stopped when they saw Kuroo who sat beside her who smiled and waved at them. They squealed, meekly waving back before they made their way to the bleachers.
"Uhm, hello…" the girl at the very front of the group said. How brave of her, she must be an underclassmen as you didn't recognize her from any 3rd year class. She looked to be a 2nd year, as did the girls behind her. Maybe Kenma knew them..? Ah, forget it he probably knows no one in his grade.
"Can we help you ladies?" Kuroo smiled at them, him and his usually shiny smile that seemed to make the girls swoon over him. To which the group of girls actually do swoon to.
"Y-yes, actually. We were wondering if it would be okay for us to sit in and watch you guys' practice..?"
"Of course!" Kuroo pats your back, "this one over here's actually watching us practice. All the time, even."
You playfully glare at Kuroo who doesn't spare you a glance as he smirks, he knows what he's doing. The girls looked at you, it was clear that they were looking at you with some awe. You weren't used to the attention though…
"Uh, yeah. I guess I do." You muttered under your breath. Already regretting saying a single word.
"Can we sit with you? Please we would really appreciate it..!"
You looked at the anxious girl's face. If this was you in any other scenario you would have rather bolted through the entire gym a hundred times over than to ask a stranger, much less an upperclassmen if you could sit with them. You were never the most outgoing person in your group of friends.
You sigh, inwardly of course. It would seem pretty rude to just sigh after being asked. "Sure. I'd be happy to have some company."
"Thank you so much!"
The younger coach blows a whistle and soon Kuroo was whisked away and off he went to the changing room before he could get his head chewed off by Yaku who, just on time, came out of the said room to kick Kuroo's ass as he entered. It was way worth it to see his smug little self get some karma.
You chuckle to yourself, Yaku always has been able to lift your spirits no matter how bad you felt. It was one of the most notable things that you liked about the guy.
Your mind wanders off into the bag on your lap where your box of chocolates were held. It wanders even further back to the boy who held your hand today, his nice and warm hand that felt good on your cool skin. That made you smile like it was nothing but child's play.
This was appreciative… that's all.
"Oh, wow. Senpai, you have chocolates too!"
But I suppose not everyone would think of it that way.
"Y-Yes, they're… um, they're appreciative chocolates. To show the person I'm giving to that I appreciate them for all they've done for me. Yeah…" The words tumbled out of your mouth before you could even think. God this girl probably thought of you as some kind of weirdo who can't confess her feelings…
She nods as if she had it all figured out, "it's okay senpai. We all have our moments." So she does think of you in that way… "look here senpai, I have chocolates of my own!"
After a bit of scuffling around in her bag she pulls out a small pack of chocolates wrapped in a plastic bag. They didn't exactly look the best but you could tell that there was effort that was put into it. It was heartfelt and so different from your own. It actually made you feel slightly more insecure about yours.
"I… I have someone here— in this club that I wanted to give these too." She explained, her hands fiddled gently on the soft red ribbon that wrapped itself shut around the mouth of the bag. "He… he means a lot to me and is a really good friend. I… I wanted to show my appreciation too, maybe even show that… I like them more than I want to admit."
She grew red, her gaze turned to the court. As you followed her gaze you couldn't seem to pinpoint who exactly she was going to give these two. Too many bodies moving at the same time. Before you could ask the whistle blows again and Yaku is swapped back out, you turn to look at her once more and you find that her gaze landed on… him.
"Yaku..?" You whispered to yourself. Your heart raced with questions. Was it really him? Did you dare to give your chocolates after knowing this? You didn't want to seem as half hearted now… hers are handmade, well-crafted and thought through, while yours were…
They're just appreciative..! You've said this to yourself so many times already today. But you just can't help but shake this feeling of uneasiness that came with the knowledge of another girl giving Yaku chocolates.
Your lip trembled, you could feel the tears starting to well up in your eyes. You push them away as quickly as you could without alerting the girl who's gaze was still plastered onto Yaku's figure.
You looked at her, she was a short girl with nice short hair. Yaku likes girls with short hair doesn't he? You pull at a lock of your hair, unruly from the passing of the day. You never really cared much about how your hair looked or how long it was, but now suddenly you did. Because another girl has prettier hair and a prettier face and a nicer body.
"I… I'm sorry," you stood up quickly, rushing to get all of your things in order before you ran out the door. You could hear someone yelling out your name as you rushed out the door. Your tears fell from your eyes, you must look so ugly right now. Crying like this over something so dumb and pathetic.
It's just chocolates.
"Was it really though..?" You ask no one in particular.
You ran and ran until you no longer knew where you were. It's a dangerous thing, being alone in an unknown place in tokyo but right now you just couldn't seem to care whether it be here or there as long as it wasn't that stupid gym.
After a little bit of walking you found yourself in an alleyway with minimal amounts of trash. You sat down on the lid of a garbage can. Pondering what you should do next. If you went home right now, chances are Yaku or someone else from the volleyball club would be right at your doorstep right now and you just can't right now, you just wanted to be alone. Wanted all these thoughts to go away, all these problems to just disappear!
One thing you were realky glad about was the fact that tomorrow would be a Saturday which meant you could spend the day sulking in your bed thinking about how much of coward you were for thinking the way you did. It was literally just a girl with chocolate, so what if she gave them to Yaku?
…or maybe the problem was never her, never Yaku. Rather, yourself.
"Hey."
You jump with a startle. Your eyes widened when you saw who it was.
Yaku.
Yaku who was still in her jersey and full of sweat from all the practice. He must have followed you the moment you darted out of the gym.
"Yakkun, you… you followed me all the way here..? How?"
He chuckles before pulling out his phone, "we have trackers for one another, remember?"
"I guess… I forgot to turn it off." Or maybe… you wanted him to find you, for him to pick you, because… you like him.
You like Yaku Morisuke.
He motions to the empty spot on the dumpster, asking you if he could sit with you. You nod your head slowly, your tears still flowing down as you quickly try to make them disappear. But of course Yaku notices them. He brushes away your tears with swipe of a thumb. The sudden contact made you want to melt into his touch, embrace him and… kiss him.
"What happened?" He asked gently. His thumb caressed your cheek to which you leaned into. You didn't know why, just because you admitted to liking Yaku, that you were suddenly so wanting of his affection. Maybe it was some of of possession over him? You didn't want to end up being one of those psycho girls who did anything for their boo but his touch just felt so good on your cool skin it made you want more.
You don't answer him, you don't tell him it's because of some stupid reason such as chocolates. Instead, the two of you basked in each other's warmth and presence. You scooted closer, letting your head lean against his shoulder. He was only a little bit taller than you but it never really bothered you. You liked him the way he is.
He doesn't make you answer, he lets you take your time. Letting you come out of your shell. That was how it was when the two of you were studying as well.
Maybe you had always been blinded not to notice all of this.
Then the sun had began to set. Yaku decided then and there that the two of you should start making your way home, the train was going to shut down soon. He held your hand as the two of you entered the train, not a single time did your hand slip away from his. He held you firmly against his own. You felt… grounded.
"Yakkun," you said after a long time of silence, the grip you had on your bag loosened. This is it.
His eyes fell onto you, patiently waiting, watching. If any time was it it was now.
But you don't.
Your hands shakily bring the chocolate box back down, it made a noise as it dropped back down to the bottom of you bag. You knew that he knew now.
He smiles, "another time maybe?"
You look at him dead in the eye, his smile wasn't one of kindness, rather it seemed… bitter.
"No." You said firmly. Taking his hand and leading the two of you inside of your home.
He calls out to you, askng you why you were leading him inside the house. You tell him to shut up and follow, so he does.
You stop when you finally made it up the stairs and into your room. You locked the door behind you, you didn't want your mother barging in when you knew full well that she would ask you what was wrong and why you came back home so much later than usual. She'll ask if there was something wrong. She knew that Yaku always went out of his way to walk you back home. Hell, he's even sat down for dinner with you and family at least twice now!
…okay, maybe he's become more like family than you thought.
Yaku sat on the edge of your bed, waiting for you to say something.
You shuffled through your bag, grabing the box of chocolates you toss it into his lap, for real this time.
When you look at his face he was full of joy, a big smile was plastered on his face. "Thanks."
He opens the box and takes out a piece for himself to enjoy, right after he picks up another. However instead of eating it he points to towards you.
"Care for a bite?" He said almost teasingly. You flushed and hesitantly leaned in and opened your mouth for him to put it in your mouth. The flavor of sweetness rushed through your tongue. It was delicious, and even moreso satisfying as it came from Yaku himself.
The two of you sat in comfortable silence for a while, eating chocolate on your bed together. His free hand found itself intertwined with your own. When it happened, you didn't know. But it felt so nice.
The niceness doesn't last for long as your mother, just as you had predicted, knocked on your door. Yaku was the one to answer the door, opening it wide enough to see you and the box sitting on the bed. She was ecstatic to say the least. So much so that she invited Yaku for dinner. Again, not the first.
But this time, instead of embarrassment or frustration you felt happy to have him sitting at the same table as you and your family. Maybe, just maybe, one day he'll be sitting at the same table as you for dinner every night.
As the two of you walked down the street eyes stared at the two of you, must be such a pair, a man who seemed to be ready dressed to go to a mosh pit with someone wearing a simple plain jane outfit, you could feel the stares of envy boring through your skull as you moved along.
It must've only been a couple minutes before the two of you arrived. The relief you had felt as you stepped through the door suddenly came rushing back to you as eyes began to peer at you once more.
The agency itself seemed relatively normal from the outside, a kind of hopeful atmosphere held over you as you looked at it. It wasn't massive, per se, it was just about the same as any other building around it, not too big and not too small. You’d suppose it's normal as it's only been 2 years since he started working as a prohero and not as a student, still though it's impressive that he was able to do this much at only 20, most are still sidekicks till they're 25 or even older, or that's what you've heard.
As you walked into the building you noticed that it held a similar feel to it, however its interior was significantly much darker than the bright looking agency you saw. It wasn't unpleasant but it wasn't the most welcoming. It's just a you thing that probably made you feel this way, you saw many others in the building. Most of them looked to be sidekicks from the costumes they wore, some civilians here and there waiting for their turn to file a problem.
As the two of you walked farther into the building, many of the sidekicks stopped what they were doing to greet Tokoyami, who acknowledged them with a nod while paying no heed to the civilians who gawked at him, whispering to one another, you would have to guess it was probably about how a handsome man is holding the hand of just some out of nowhere civilian.
Tokoyami sensed your tension and squeezed your hand, reassuring you without words and calming your nerves. He’s always been very sensitive to emotions.
Greeting the clerk he led you to an elevator behind the booth, leading you both to the highest floor. Once the elevator door closed he let go of your hand, leaving a warm trail where it hugged into the crevice of you. He coughed into his other hand and mumbled an apology to you.
The ride up was quiet after that, you opted to stay silent as you didn't know what to say. As the elevator opened up it revealed an entirely spacious area. Ridiculously huge for one person to use.
Your eyes darted across the room, it was very spacious, there wasnt much up here aside from the essential shelves that spanned the entire room and the desk that sat itself near the back of the room yet placed itself in the center.
"It's quite… something." You say as you politely compliment the design of the exterior.
He sighs, his hand presses the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "I had told Hawks that I needn't such an extravagant office, however the man never listens."
"A big nest is sure to catch, Tokoyami," a voice called out. The chair of the desk swerved, now facing our direction. A man sat there, blonde shaggy hair with a choppy smile, the name of Hawks, the former number 2 hero of japan comes to mind.
Your eyes widened as your brain realized who was in front of you. Despite being out of the physical prohero scene Hawks has continued to play an important role in Hero society as the current president. If you had asked me if such a man would have been good at that role I would've told you just as much as anyone else, no. But here we are, a few years along and living in a much more prosperous state compared to when Heros were regarded as saints or higher beings. Hell there's been less breaking and entering going around your area since the start of his presidency.
"Well I guess you didn't need the nest if you just catch your mate with your claws." He does a thing with his hands that make it look like a birds claw and growls pathetically. "Rawr…"
Tokoyami groans, for once since the two of you had met he looked like they were the same age. "Hawks, I've told you several times before that if you need be here you should address so to me or one of my colleagues."
"Yeah, but they're all up in my face whenever I tell them I want to go help you out."
You stood there as the two continued to bicker, their voices becoming nothing but noise. You wandered over to a small corner of the room where you browsed through the several books that laid bare on the shelves, some looked interesting while others looked to be Tokoyami's type of books, while Hawks had been the one to arrange the room perhaps it was Tokoyami who arranged the shelves.
"Something catch your eye?" A voice startles you back, it was Hawks who leaned in close, you could feel his breath tickle the hair on your cheek as he did so. You looked around the room to find Tokoyami had left the room. It seemed that during their argument Tokoyami had stomed off leaving the two of you alone.
"Uhm y-yeah, I guess." You stammered out, carefully choosing your words. "I was just wondering if maybe… Tokoyami had been the one to arrange the shelves..?"
"Hmm…" Hawks takes a better look at the shelves, a hand found itself rubbing against his chin as if he was deep in thought.
"Yeah, I guess he did. I swear I added a few figures of mine on this shelf… guess he didn't want them here."
You laugh awkwardly, "yeah, I guess so."
The two of you stood there in silence, awkward silence. You didn't know this man or what he wanted with you but it must have been something that he needed to get done as he leaned in closer to you once again. This time he spoke lowly: "Listen, this kid is important to me. So if anything were to happen between the two of you I suggest that you go and do it behind closed doors. Got it?"
You were frozen on the spot, what were you supposed to do in that kind of scenario? Run maybe? Or maybe just kill yourself on the spot?? God did you wish you could just do that right now.
The best you could do was meekly nod your head. He smiles, you noticed however that his shoulders continued to be tense. "Good. I know you're a good kid, I'm sure anyone who's been friends with Tokoyami for as long as you have is a good kid. I just… I just don't want him to get hurt."
Oh… he was just protective.
"I get that." You said.
Hawks looked at you with feint surprise but urges you to continue.
"I… I've known Tokoyami for a long time. I've been through some things with him and I know exactly what kind of bullshit he's been through." You lift a closed palm up to his face, a determined look plastered itself across your own. "I promise you, I won't harm Tokoyami."
He looked at you, for a long time he looked at you and didn't say anything. Then he scofffed then it turned into a light chuckle. "Alright, I trust you."
You felt a smile creep up as he began to leave. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad as you thought.
Suddenly you hear Tokoyami's voice calling out for you, you looked towards where his voice was coming from and see him gesturing for you to come with him. You obliged.
He leads you away from the large office into a smaller, more cozier space that was tucked away near the back of the first room was. It had a proportionate bed that was shaped a lot like a nest which accommodated the small stature of the room. Tokoyami took a seat on the office chair that lay on its lonesome near a study desk, one that was reminiscent of a school desk from your youth.
"So," Tokoyami began, coughing into his hand. "First and foremost I have to apologize on behalf of my mentor. He's known for being quite the forward man."
"Oh, no no he was no trouble whatsoever! In fact he was… charming. Yes," I think that's the best word to describe him. "He was very charming."
"Then I'm glad that the two of you were able to come to an understanding." He leans forward. Beckoning you to make yourself more comfortable. But you just… wasn't sure where exactly was a good place to sit on. You didn't want to make a mess or disturb the area. After a bit of contemplating you opted to sit on the edge of his bed where the blankets weren't touching.
"About the favor." You began, "how exactly will this work out? I mean, I get that we'll do all the couple stuff in public but how exactly would we do it?"
He coughs into his hand once more, his face flushed red. "That… that detail is merely up to your standards. If you so wish we could proceed only as far as handholding. Anymore than that is not necessary. That is, unless, the press believes that our act is merely that of an act."
"I-I'm completely fine with a few… kisses."
"In certain areas, I presume."
You nod.
"Then that is certainly enough." He shoves a small card into your hands, with a nod of approval you opened the card and out came two tickets.
"Movie tickets?"
"Tis so, our first outing."
"When exactly will it be?"
Before Tokoyami could respond Dark Shadow came out from its hiding and responded for the both of them. "This weekend!"
You pondered over its words and the lettering that came with the tickets as the two of them fought the other in the background. You had work during the weekends, you couldn't afford to take the time off to do this. But…
As you looked back at Tokoyami and his newly found face, you couldn't help but think of how sad he might be if you were to let the offer slip away. Just as you were about to make your decision however Tokoyami began to speak.
"If you feel conflicted by any means I will be offering you a sum of money for this favor."
"What..? Money? But this is a favor between friends I couldn't, I shouldn't..!"
"It is the least I could do for you." He said, "for everything you've done for me."
You looked between Tokoyami and the tickets, weighed the responsibility of your job and the responsibility of being a friend on a nonexistent scale. Whether the act of going out with him was all for the money that he was dangling above your head or if this was all because of your friendship, you didnt know. All you knew was that it was now or never.
"Alright. I'll do it. This weekend, at the movies we'll go on a date."
It was his first time. For once in his life there was no manual that could help ease his anxiety, no matter how much he tried to look for a guide or a manual to help him through this it seemed almost pointless. Now he lay on your bed as your bodies clung to one another, his body felt hot, his heart raced in a way that his body seemed to embrace. Your hands intertwined with his own as you guided him through the motions. Soon he laid in rest with your body above his own, you head buried into the crook of his neck. Cuddling was quite puzzling.
