#serudeji

[mizho-babe]

[mizho-babe]

@ng_tki on twitter/X

[mizho-babe]

Giving / Taking

Charity gives and gives. Service is so used to giving without asking for anything in return. Having no desires of her own - that was always selfish, in her eyes.

Lust takes and takes. Desir relished in possession. He never cared about the needs of those he claimed, never left them with anything to hold onto. Everything was his for the taking—affections, bodies, devotion. If he left anything behind, it was only the hollow ache of being used.

So he doesn’t understand Service at all.

He doesn’t understand why she is always giving. Not after she beat him in battle. Not after she looked him in the eye and humiliated him. She took everything from him—his pride, his power, his ability to see his master as just an object of his Lust. He doesn’t understand when, near the end of the Funeral, she saw him again and immediately jumped to hug him, as if nothing had changed.

Desir had pushed her away, confused and irritated. What did she want? Was she mocking him? She grinned, smug as ever, teasing him about being a sore loser, but the kindness in her voice lingered. It wasn’t the naive want he was used to twisting into something useful. It wasn’t pity, either. It was just… there. Offered freely.

He continues not to understand for a while.

Service struggles, too. Giving is easy. Taking is not.

It’s one thing to accept shallow things—compliments about her blue hair or someone admiring her Noh. Those things are silly, they're nothing.

But help? Accepting that is different. Especially after becoming human. Oldie offering to carry the groceries (even though she was the one who volunteered to grocery shop for him), Sophia staying up late to help with her homework. Accepting advice, accepting comfort. Accepting that, despite everything, she does miss how things used to be. That human life is strange and awkward and frustrating. That her body—her human body—does not feel like hers all the time. She doesn’t like it. It makes her feel defeated in ways she doesn’t know how to express.

So she does what she’s always done. She throws herself into others, reaching out to the former dôji, finding distractions in her own generosity. If she keeps giving, keeps helping, keeps doing, then maybe she won’t have to think about herself too much.

Desir sees through her. And at the same time, he continues not to understand her at all. Doesn't understand that to give is what helps her newfound human heart stop aching.

He tells her—blunt, unkind in the way that is natural to him—"You need to stop."

She laughs it off. Rolls her eyes. She knows exactly what he’s talking about. It’s more than just his usual irritation at her checking up on him, more than his exasperation when she throws her arms around his neck for a hug that lingers a few seconds too long. To give is to know, and she knows—knows he’s uncomfortable with how much she’s giving. Because he’s used to people giving him just enough to satisfy him, to keep him interested without ever making demands in return. That’s the kind of attention he’s always taken. He’s never had to consider that giving only part of oneself is incomplete, shallow. That taking without accepting is one-dimensional.

So she doesn’t stop. Doesn’t stop pestering him. She keeps showing up. Keeps offering her effortless kindness—not as some grand gesture, not even as a means of proving something, but simply because it’s her. And even when it stops being just a pastime, just a distraction to keep herself busy, she still doesn’t stop.

And he doesn’t stop telling her to go the hell away.

Until, one day, he does.

Until, somewhere along the way, he realizes he doesn’t quite hate her company like he thought he would. He stops trying to push her away so much and starts testing the boundaries instead. How much can he take before she wavers? Before she falters the way so many others did when they realized he would always demand more?

And yet, the way she falters is nothing like what he expected.

A real compliment—"Wow, Service, you worked hard on this meal, didn’t you?"—makes her stutter, looking anywhere but at him. The little things, the real things—like someone offering to carry her bag or insisting on walking her home—trip her up in ways his teasing or flirting never does.

So he starts pushing, just to see what happens. Initiating their physical contact for once—leaning into her space before she can do it first, hugging her, pressing an ironic peck to her cheek, giving her full, deep kisses that leave both of them breathless. He watches with amusement as she stammers, stiffens, eyes darting away like she can’t quite process it. 

For someone so endlessly generous, it turns out she’s terrible at accepting anything.

And that, he thinks, is interesting. 

Unknowable to him in a way that’s intriguing. 

Until it isn’t.

Because one day, without realizing it, he’s giving just as much as she is.

Listening when she rattles on about her day—truly listening—and pushing her to keep talking when she suddenly cuts herself off, realizing she’s been rambling too long. Watching her light up as she tells a story, watching the way her hands move, the way her excitement makes her voice rise. His touches shift, too. Hugging her back just as tightly. Letting his arms linger around her waist, not just out of habit but because he wants to. No longer just to amuse himself by making her flustered, no longer just to test how much she can take before she falters. They become about her. 

And on her end—she grows more comfortable with it all.

This thing that she had once understood only as selfishness.

She starts accepting his compliments, not brushing them off or deflecting with a joke. Starts believing them, realizing that they aren’t just flippant remarks but something real. And the kisses—those, too. She stops treating them like a transaction, stops thinking she has to immediately give something back. If she’s too shy to kiss him in return, he doesn’t mind. If she can’t always comfort him the way he does—if all she can do is sit beside him in silence when he’s having a difficult moment—he never asks for more.

And then, one day, she realizes something that terrifies her.

That Service wants to take everything from him. That she wants all of him, in a way that is new and greedy and selfish in a way she’s never allowed herself to be.

And, just as terrifying—

Desir realizes that he wants to give her everything she’s ever wanted.

[mizho-babe]

Ulti/Vice

[mizho-babe]

Desir and Service both consider Valentine's Day their favorite holiday, but for very different reasons. I want them to show each other why >:)

[mizho-babe]

reverse fanfic trope: Love interest CEO is a himbo who runs their company into the ground

is for

Service/Desir

[mizho-babe]

Fluffy things I’m putting in my serudeji fic just cuz:

- Sumako and Desir baking cookies together

- Desir doing the playing-boombox-outside-Service’s house

[mizho-babe]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

in which Desir & Service have a cute park date and proceed to do dumb teen shit afterwards