immediately after rui’s curse is broken, there are no joyous tears, long-awaited hugs, eternal hand-intertwining.
no. your contact comes slowly. it’s the flinches, the incredulous feeling of being able to have bare hands meet the air, the warmth in the air from the small distance between your hands as you sit on a bench. close enough for him to touch if he wanted, but he never worked up the courage to.
you remember waiting, watching him in the aftermath of the curse, hand held close to his face but not touching. you saw the instinctual fear that flickered through his eyes at the sight of you so close to him, and your hand is gone, withdrawn, waiting.
you remember the first time a butterfly landed on him after his curse. he's trying so hard not to shake, incredulously watching the insect stay vibrant in his hands.
you remember watching his hands run slowly through the grass, his eyes always following his movements to confirm it never wilted under his touch.
you remember him heaving in the bathroom in those late nights where he felt too scared to sleep. (he'd forgotten what it was like to rest.) when the fear instilled by the butterfly caught up to him and the delayed panic forced him to relive the cursed years.
you remember watching him cry when peekaboo accidentally bound into his arms, his body finally remembering what it was like to hold something warm. you remember watching his composure crumple, and how you so desperately wanted to wipe the tears off his cheeks.
the first time he touches you, actually touches you, is months after his curse. he'd put his hand against yours, featherlight against your skin, a silent oath to never hurt you. his forehead touches yours, and he whispers into your lips. "thank you for waiting for me."
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or: the colors of the sky
what if…?
the removal of the Kyklos curse also removed your memories of your time when cursed?
jin x gn!reader
tags: angst :)
on ao3 here
The universe loved to play cruel tricks on Jin Kamurai. First with his sister, then his mother, and finally, you.
He should’ve known. He should’ve known that it was too good to be true. Your presence in his life had been steady, and he’d fooled himself into thinking that you would stay with him forever.
Was it truly so wrong for me to think that? Through storm and through tide, with his secrets and fears laid bare, you were there. You stayed.
You saw through the Jin Kamurai that the world knew, and instead saw a part of him that he didn’t even know he had. You helped him realize his identity. You saw him as more than an heir, a responsibility, an expectation.
With you, he had dared to imagine a life outside of expectations, outside of labels. He felt that he could learn to find himself.
And then, you left. Never had he felt so powerless before. Powerless to stop you. Powerless to forget you. Powerless to let you go.
He searched for you, after you left. It wasn’t hard to find you. The Institute had reinvented a new life for you, fabricated a story to explain the hole in your memory.
To you, he never existed. All of those small moments together, all of the secrets you’d exchanged, all of the shared pain and grief as the months before your curse ticked away. They never happened to you.
How blissful it is to forget so easily.
He never dared to approach you, although for whose safety he was never sure.
You stayed with him, haunting his every thought and every move. Even as other faces faded with time, the sound of your laugh, the crinkle of your eyes, the feel of your palm in his— they persisted. You were stubborn as ever, even in memory.
He buried himself in his work, becoming exactly who the world wanted him to be if only it meant gaining a single moment where he was not reminded of your absence. He became the perfect heir, then not just an heir. He somehow, impossibly, raised the Kamurai image to even higher heights.
The distractions worked, sometimes. When in the middle of a heated debate, or lost in the folds of piano music, he could, momentarily, forget you.
He could forget the persistent whisper in the back of his mind that you wouldn’t want this for him, that he was becoming exactly what he feared. It didn’t matter, anyway. You no longer knew him, so you could no longer pass judgment.
Any empty moments in his life were filled with one task or another, lest he drown in your overwhelming absence.
He’d do anything to forget you because he was right: the universe was never kind to Jin Kamurai, and you certainly wouldn’t be an exception.
“Please, Jin. Take a break. You’re not going to be able to keep this up for much longer. You can still fix this.”
The doctor had long since given up trying to persuade him to abandon the cigarette, but they had turned their attention to his work.
“Try taking walks, maybe. It’s flexible and doesn’t require much commitment.”
“Tch.” He’d be dead before he was caught mirroring Tohma.
“At least go outside, okay? No work, just relax.”
I can’t. Because taking a break means remembering you.
“Excuse me,” your breath clouded in the crisp autumn air as you finally worked up the courage to approach the stranger on the bench in the park.
The man took a drag from his cigarette and didn’t even bother to glance in your direction.
You’re a fool for doing this, chided the voice in your head. Perhaps it was right. Perhaps you were a fool. But this was too big of a coincidence to simply pass up.
You’d seen this man in the park several times before, on this exact bench. Normally, you wouldn’t talk to strangers, even if you’d seen them several times from afar.
But there was something about this man that made you feel like he was a clue to unlocking your lost memories.
There was something about him— something about the way he reclined, to the color of his hair and the shape of his hands that reminded you of a certain shade of blue. It was a color that you’d caught yourself looking for in the colors of the sky, or in the glow of ice. It was a color that you noticed every time it appeared, but you never knew why.
All of these mysterious habits must have been from the year you’d lost, but why is it that out of all the things to retain, it’s this exact shade of blue?
“What do you want.” The stranger had turned to look at you.
His eyes. It’s his eyes. They immediately brought back the memories of those dreams you have, the ones that dissipate with the first rays of morning light, leaving only an aching sense of familiarity and loss. Those eyes. They must have been in your dreams. Must have.
It takes you a moment to pull yourself out of the depths of his eyes. “Sorry, um. Have we met before?”
Something flashed in the stranger’s eyes before he turned away again. He took another long drag from his cigarette before he spoke. “No.”
“A-Are you sure?” You immediately sit down next to him. You couldn't have been wrong, though. His hair, his eyes, his voice. They all stirred something within you, remnants of memories that had once been vivid sensations.
You reached inside your sweater, fishing for the necklace. The necklace that had been around your neck when you’d woken from your so-called “coma,” the only keepsake you have of the time you’d lost.
“Did you give this to me?” You held the pale blue stone that hung from the chain to him, and suddenly everything clicked.
The colors that you found. The clarity of his eyes. The pendant. They’re all the same color. You've seen this man before, and he'd given you the pendant. Echoes of lost conversations surface, from a place in your mind you didn't know existed. Who was he to you? What did he mean to you?
A lot, clearly, for you to find his eyes in the colors of the sky.
The man turns again, eyes falling on the pendant. He only briefly takes in the pendant, but his eyes flick to yours, searching. Waiting. Do you remember him? Do you know who he is?
The memories begin to surface with exhilarating clarity. The way his eyes softened around you. The way he held you close. The way he let you, and only you, into the depths of his heart.
It was little more than an exhale. A small, barely-audible breath that immediately clouded the air between you. A word that felt second-nature to you, that you didn’t even know you lost.
“Jin.”
please do not reupload my works to other platforms or feed them to AI.
⸜(⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)⸝ this one was inspired by a work by @.lilyinavalley, please go check it out!!
Romeo attempting to destress with tea in Hotarubi and it's not working.
His shouting has made Subaru afraid to approach him. Zenji can't hear himself think and he's on the other side of the lake. Haku is just so tired and has given up trying to give him different kinds of tea.
childhood friends to lovers with jin except you watch his mother’s condition deteriorate through the light leaving his eyes and the decreasing frequency of your meetings.
his final confession of pent-up feelings before he disappears for the longest absence you’ve seen yet. you don’t hear from him for years.
and then many years later he’s back, and you’re watching him go through the same thing that caused him so much pain as a child, reliving what he must’ve felt watching his mother essentially die before him. and you’re watching the clarity in his eyes slip away when he looks at you and you wonder what he could have possibly gone through in those years he was gone.
therapist!rui because he sees the weight in your eyes and doesn’t know how to show he cares without touching you so he offers a listening ear
therapist!rui because he can’t love you the way others do so he settles for listening to your heart
therapist!rui who always kicks other patrons out of the bar without hesitance when you stumble in with that look in your eyes
therapist!rui who stays with you in a room in obscuary, never leaving until you’ve fully relaxed.
therapist!rui who sees you in his bar more and more often as the days you have left draw closer. who counts the days like a calendar, each visit longer than the last.
mmm rui flirts to hide his heartbreak over not being able to hold hands with someone ever again. to hug someone. to brush their hair out of their eyes.
if he keeps flirting, people will think he's okay with his curse. that he's found ways to adapt to the things the curse took away. that he's not suffering with what should be considered a death in its own way.
rui’s face when he discovers that you sought out those late-night conversations only as a means to escape the demons that haunt your sleep.
finally feeling a sense of kinship during the lonely nights until you collapse under the weight of the bags under your eyes and begin to cry in your sleep.
Jupiter came on the other day and the lyrics immediately made me think of them. a gift for @kusanagihaku I promise I don't hate you I was just writing and I kept thinking of you and your fics I'm sorryyy
~ 1k words. (fluff), angst, pining, BAD ENDING somewhat suggestive?? idk
this ends with the jumping scene you have been warned
MC is GN! but Haku uses "Princess" because he always does smh
oh and also there are religious references because what is a Haku fic without religious references
overwhelming ecstasy,
your skin is like a melody
your heartbeat brings you to my knees
just begging for the chance to simply
taste the moonlight on your lips
“Do you remember what it was like before all this?”
Haku laughs into your hair, his warm breath stirring the hairs on your head as his arms tighten around you. “Of course. How could I forget?”
Your memories of before, a before you weren’t completely sure ever existed. Before what? The answer was lost, hidden in the small moments between you, the quick glances and lingering touches.
It was hidden in the way he’d held your hand the first time you’d met him, and time and time again after that, fingers curled protectively, but still only a whisper as if you would shatter if he dared to squeeze.
In those silent moments when you found yourselves standing close enough to share a breath, the world silent save for your heartbeats, in the question that rose in his eyes.
In the way his lips curled whenever he noticed the blush feather across your face.
The teasing comments as he stood on your doorstep, looking up at you as if worshipping a god.
The way his gold eyes seemed to soften into something more akin to amber before he leaned forward, lips brushing the shell of your burning ear as he whispered forgotten poetry.
The way his laughter rumbled through his chest every time he saw you flush.
The warmth of his embrace, the honey of his scent enveloping your growing dread when he broke the news. In his arms, just for a moment, you were able to forget your curse, your now sealed fate.
Your memories of him, of before, were small moments of almost, but not quite. A quick step back. A broken gaze. A return to normality. A normality that you both knew you didn’t want, but were too scared to break.
no one's ever loved like this
I'm certain it must be holy
to feel something so pure
I wish I’d met you earlier. It’s a stupid thing to think, bringing forth the crushing weight of your curse, of your powerlessness. It’s just you and me against fate and against the world.
Perhaps in another life he could love you with all the reverence you deserved. Perhaps in another life he could fulfill all the promises he never made. Perhaps in another life he’d let himself ask those silent questions, and let you answer them.
Sometimes you can’t help but wonder about this other universe, knowing the inevitable pain that will ensue as you lose yourself in what you could never have.
How sweet his lips would taste, how your skin would sing underneath touches that set you alight. The impressions he’d leave once you’d shown him the fire that burned within you, not glass, not flowers. How his eyes would burn into a honey as his gaze locked onto yours. Dancing to a melody that only you could hear.
The universe that was, regrettably, not yours. You were stuck with the now, where you’d left your world in Haku Kusanagi’s arms, wishing for another world that would never come.
overwhelming ecstasy
twisted in your entropy
clinging to you desperately
and I can taste the sweetness of your breath
All around you, Darkwick burns.
“Please,” you whisper into his shirt. “Don’t go.”
“I’m sorry,” he says into your hair. “Looks like I couldn’t save you, in the end.” Slowly, he untangles himself from the embrace. The flames looked almost inviting, reflected in his eyes.
A choked sob wrenches from the depths of your chest. “Don’t say that. None of this was your fault.”
“Never lost faith in me, did you?” His eyes carried the weight of the world. A soft smile graced his lips, but the pain in his eyes spoke volumes more.
You fumble, searching for any words that could convince him to stay. All of those speeches you’d prepared, all of those nights rehearsing to yourself for the moment you’d hoped would never arrive, rehearsing anyway because the dread coiling in your gut wouldn’t leave. The moment your nightmares realized themselves, the moment your world teetered on the edge of oblivion, about to step into the unknown without you, your words failed.
Only memories remained. Memories that you couldn’t possibly even begin to put in words.
“S-Safety guaranteed, remember?” The words leave your lips feather-light, spoken more to yourself than to him. You never thought he’d actually hear you. He always hears you.
The gold of his eyes glitters as he remembers what he’d said to you when you first met. The pain in his smile drives a knife in your chest as you realize that this time, this time, he’s not offering you a hand. Not following him into the unknown. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t be the guy you wanted me to be.”
the stars are screaming loud
the world outside is breaking down
burning cities, whispered vows
The stinging in your eyes spills over, and so do the words that have grown to be stuck in your throat over the last year.
“I don’t— I don’t fucking care if you’re the not the guy I wanted you to be. I want you, Haku,”
This gives him pause. His eyes widen, the comforting smile he’d pasted onto his face falls away. “I want you too, Princess. And believe me, if I could give you the world, I would. But we can’t have everything we want. Not in this life, at least.”
…What?
He twists away, facing the flames of your memories, of your life together.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“You’re not even looking at me!”
He laughs, the sound hurting you more than you’d ever thought it could. A sole, short-lived string of notes that carry into the fire.
“That’s more like it. Maybe one day, in another life, another universe, we will meet again.”
The stars scream with you as you watch his figure disappear into the flames.
and I'll always be at home with you
did you know that in Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, the word star-crossed didn't mean destined by fate, it meant fated for doom. for in this love, you have crossed the will of the stars.
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