I was thinking about an AU with Jiraiya where reader loves reading, she grew up having books as her "best friends" and would always choose them over any other activity. As she grew up (age!gap between her and Jiraiya is important, though reader is of age!!!) she wanted to explore other appropriate adult themes/genres. One day, while out with friends (I was thinking maybe Genma/Kakashi gen) the topic ends up on her and they ask what she's reading, and she says "One of master Jiraiya's books" and everyone is like 💀 and when they're about to say something unhinged she says "I've been loving the Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi" (his 1st book)
Everyone is taken aback again because they were fully prepared for the Icha Icha as the chosen book. Then, somehow, as the story progresses, Jiraiya finds her somewhere quiet, reading, and he starts talking about the book, the inspo (himself) and how it was a flop. Reader listen attentive, looks up at him and says "You write so beautifully, master Jiraiya" and as he's about to thank her, she goes "The inside of your mind must be a chaotic place" AND HE'S FLABBERGASTED! I think it can go around with him trying to go after her in many occasions trying to prove his mind is not like that (it issss) and the rest is up to you. Fluffy, a tiny tiny bit of angst (can I really call it angst? I don't know), and maybe, just maybee, Jiraiya's heart finding some quiet love that he'd never expect!
Feel free to change it as much as you want or disregard <3 thank you Lia 🤍
nyx, my midnight queen, i need you to know that when we talked about this plot i thought, very reasonably, that i was going to write a sweet little jinjuriki-adjacent literary romance about a bookish reader accidentally making jiraiya fall in love with her
however. as you've seen, it breached containment so fast 😭
your "the inside of your mind must be a chaotic place" line became a 58 page rebuttal, books became their entire love language, jiraiya got psychoanalysed through icha icha, genma accidentally triggered an emotional crisis in an izakaya, the age gap became something they had to actually talk about like adults, and i apparently decided this man needed to learn that coming home can also be a form of love
so. here she is. your request, several months of fictional courtship, one failed novel, one increasingly sentimental gingko tree, and exactly fifteen thousand words later
thank you for trusting me with this because i had an absurd amount of fun writing it and i am now emotionally attached to a jiraiya who keeps finding books for someone because he thinks of her without meaning to 🥹 and, genuinely, thank you for all the support and friendship you've given me beyond this request too. having you in my corner means more to me than i'm ever very good at putting into words, and i’m so grateful that this strange little corner of the internet brought us together 🖤
