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Tender Offerings (Winter Version): A ShoKaye Playlist
Twelve Days of Shipmas: Merry Melodies | Shouto Todoroki x Kaye (me!)
The soundtrack to a ShoKaye winter embodies gentle familiarity. It's pulling your love closer, into a sweet embrace or maybe even an impromptu dance as you build the home you've always dreamed of.
Lyrics instead of annotations under the cut, because it makes the 12-year old inside me happy.
Kaye looks up at the sound of his footsteps, smile blooming as she reaches an arm out. "Hey, cutie."
Shouto falls into the embrace with a smile of his own. "How's the book?"
"Good! Just revisiting an old standby." She holds the cover up. He's heard her talk about it many times before, knows how much it means to her.
"This is the same author who wrote that short story, right? The one you get angry about people misinterpreting?"
"I'm not angry about it; I just think people should remember her work is rooted in utopian ideals and genuine belief in a better-" She catches herself. "Yes, she wrote that story, too."
With a gentle laugh, he nestles further into her side, making himself comfortable. "Could you read some of this one to me?"
From this position, he doesn't see the look in her eyes, but feels its meaning through the soft kiss pressed into his hair.
"I'd love to."
Feeling so lucky to get a commission from @o0kawaii0o, who did a stunning job of bringing this moment to life! I'm absolutely overjoyed ❤️
rbs okay-please don't save/repost
hiiii kayyyye 💚 i'm here to yap your ear off about kaori and dabi 🥺 this got a lot longer than i intended. tw: angst, cause i'm giving you the watered down version of their og timeline lore
do you watch musicals? have you heard of heathers the musical? if not, 10/10 recommend, you can find an okay-ish recording of the entire thing on youtube. it's basically falling in love with a yandere the musical
but that's kind of what i modelled the og kaori x dabi story off of. she's a hero (or ex-hero, can't decide where in her timeline I want them to meet) who ends up defecting because, like a lot of the LoV, she believes in Stain's message more. that and she's been betrayed a few times by her own agency for things outside her control. she's angry, she's bitter, he helps her get revenge but it goes a little too far and they kill a few someones. whoops, now she's tied up with a murderer but.. at least he's hot?
i'm a big sucker for relationships that start physical and end up emotional, so you absolutely can bet that's what it is for them. except when it does get emotional, neither of them really acknowledge it out loud. they're both burned by emotions (ba-dum-tsh) so despite keeping each other a little closer than they do the rest of the LoV, despite sweet intimate moments happening just a little more often, they never outright tell each other. og dabi and kaori's relationship is very much a "show love through arson actions" type of relationship
spoilers for the last couple of season after this point
skip a few underdeveloped plotpoints to the end, when dabi is done fighting shoto and basically goes supernova, killing himself. i think the manga says he lives off life support for a few years before dying. meanwhile kaori is jailed, like spinner, will be for the rest of her life. but she's been good, really cooperative and really just doesn't have the fight in her anymore. how could she when the last person she wanted to live for is dying? so a few years down the line, due to her good behavior, she gets to visit him. heavily supervised, because you never know (maybe it's pro hero shoto supervising because he's curious about the type of person who loved his brother) but there's no need to worry because all she wants to do is yap at him.
and like, i have this headcanon that she's mused about alternate lives with him before. dabi doesn't believe in that shit, but kaori was adamant that they're both getting on each other's nerves in every lifetime.
so anyway, hours later and she's told it's time for her to leave. she's reluctant, but understands. just before she exits dabi's room, she yells back to him "i love you, i'll see you in our next life" and i break my own heart because it's the only time one of them ever says it out loud and she's not even sure if he heard or if he even knew she was there.
their og story ends there, with dabi dying maybe a week later and kaori dying a few years after that. aaaand then reincarnation pro hero AU happens to make me feel better 😂 but i'll yap about that one another time haha
Neoonnnn hello! Thank you for this delicious lore drop eeek
As a former goth AND theater kid, I am quite familiar with Heathers lol. I love this as a foundation for the relationship and it makes a lot of sense for people who admire Stain tbh (tenacious, revolution as violence but tainted by revenge, etc etc.). Did Kaori have a specific revenge goal in mind before "whoopsie-daisy people are dead now"? Does she feel particularly guilty after, or is she quick to hop on board the murder train? (And if she does feel guilty, how long does it last/does it ever end up haunting her?)
Maaan, Kaori never knowing if he heard her or knew she was there is devastating, but what if he did? And now he's pleading with some unknown force in the universe to tell him he was wrong, that reincarnation IS real and they are destined to be together in every universe, because that's his only chance to say it back, to be with the one person he's ever actually wanted to live for. Oops now I'm breaking my own heart.
Him never getting to say "I love you" back in this lifetime is devastating enough, but like. They do know, right. Right??? Neon tell me that they know the love is real and mutual before Kaori actually says it please--
I like to think post-war, the justice system does move to more of a restorative practice, where there's more opportunities to do well and recover from mistakes. Do you think she'd be interested in those opportunities, and if so, what might they look like for her? Or is she too consumed by grief for Dabi (and the dreams they shared that never actually manifested). I also love the idea of it being Shouto who supervises her. I bet both of them would see it as a chance to feel closer to Dabi and better understand his life.
Looking forward to the pro-hero AU installment heheehe 💛
say it's here where our pieces fall in place
we can fear 'cause the feeling's fine to betray
where our water isn't hidden
we can burn and be forgiven
where our hands hurt from healing
we can laugh without a reason
The biggest thanks to @itoshoe for this stunning commission, and for being so lovely throughout the process! I'm over the moon ✨️
Ursula K. Le Guin, Tales From Earthsea
