Yatori Week 2021 is planned to take place later this month between June 21st to June 27th.
In order to shorten the process, I'm going to open up prompts (please submit them here) and pick my favorites rather than having the fandom vote on them as I have in the past, especially since there tends to be a decent amount of repeats.
I'm trying to keep this pretty casual in order to help fandom participation (as the other character weeks I ran in 2020 pretty much bombed) so please participate in whatever way you find most comfortable.
Whether they know it or not, a god falls in love with the first humans they see.
For most gods, they appear in their original place of worship, where their belief is the strongest. It's the mortals that stand before them that fills those gods with hope and with purpose, with happiness. But when it came to The Yaboku God, a minor deity in every sense of the word, the human that stood before him when he appeared, was the only one. Still, baby blue eyes blinked even wider at the sight of his believer. His purpose. His future. The man scooped him up and sang his praise to the god all the same, filling the tiny child with such happiness.
It was unfortunate that the happiness this tiny god was filled with, was poisoned. Coming from a toxic man who did not worship the god in the honest way a human was supposed to. In fact, this human wasn’t anything like he was supposed to be. This human had the same build as the rest, if not a bit larger. He had the same intelligence, if not even more so. Yet this human was special. The man commanded the demons that yielded to no man or god. He named dead spirits and created gods. This man had a talent for shattering the glass ceilings set before him by the very universe.
As a product of his wish, Yaboku was similar to the man in many ways. This man who raised him. He was just as on the cusp of a taboo existence, a black hole compared to the shining stars around him, beautiful in a terrifying way yet just as powerful. A God of Calamity. Obeying the man who wanted to defy the world’s laws all on his own, a dark mass filled with poison yet fighting to remain holy. Soon Yaboku would realize that he was just as empty as his creator. That he would work forever to fill empty buckets with happiness while it dripped out the holes of their hearts, neither of them getting what they truly wanted.
Before the god would come to that realization, before the child could even begin to give it thought, he would meet another human. She wasn’t a mortal, not like their father, yet he was told she was once human. The girl, a young child like him who was named and bound to the same man, was even less human than their father. A spirit of the dead mixed with that of a demon. She held no memories, no emotion, no hope. But she was human, understanding of that mortality. Yaboku could tell she was human because he wanted so badly to make her smile, her happiness is what fulfilled his purpose. They got along, at least Yaboku thought they did, laughing as those with tight bonds often did. She was strong like their father, in a way that he wasn’t. Her heart never broke, she never wept over the loss of objects or other humans, she saw the larger goal and held herself to a higher standard. His family was something Yaboku would be proud of.
That was, until Yaboku realized the true meaning of the word mortal and how different they were from them. The next human he met was just like the first two, it that she was nothing like them. This human laughed often, like Yaboku, was happy to do things with him and often asked what his thoughts were. His needs. That was odd, his family didn’t do that, but Yaboku figured that was just how she was. He didn’t think too much of it because she was happy which made him happy, so his existence was full. But she taught them there was a difference, a line. It wasn’t that living humans were prey and he was the hunter, it was that they were mortal while he was an existence. His second spirit, bound to the name he gave, took his hand and broadened his horizons. Life was snuffed out easily, mortality is what moved the world yet it was linear to each person that had it. A god was never ending, reincarnating, a constant feeling and existence until it wasn’t. A mortal, a person, lived on in the hearts of those that knew them long after their soul was severed by Yaboku’s blade.
Like most gods, Yato grew until his appearance suited the purpose he was born for. With the loss of his second shinki filling the holes of his heart with scars, Yato was left with the painful poison of his believers. It had been difficult for Yato to live with the knowledge of that line, understanding that he, himself, was not happiness. He knew that mortals were precious, that their lives were unique and easily wiped away, yet he also understood that they were strong. That they endured heartbreak, loss, famine, disease. If whatever they faced didn’t kill them, they would continue down that linear path with even more strength. He still couldn’t understand why his creator and shinki wanted to wipe out every single existence just to get back at those above like him, but that fact alone made up his never ending existence. And that was more painful than anything a mortal could understand.
Mortals weren’t perfect, if his family was anything to go by. His father was hardly the only one hell-bent on eliminating those of his own kind. Yato found that humans struggled with the mortal law of right and wrong. Even if they had the approval of an existence beyond that, a god, they still struggled to have any sort of validation for their actions. An excuse to relive some of the overwhelming guilt of their sins. Mortals were fickle, their memories, their bodies, their morals. As a black hole, it was Yaboku’s job to take on their sins and guilt as his own and hold it within his hollow husk of a heart. They would mix and mingle with the darkness he was made of and fit right at home, just as he was meant to do. This was happiness.
Yet he always noticed the other side. What he was missing. The other gods with all their glowing light and wholesome believers with their honest wishes. Sometimes Yaboku would come in contact with these people. Even have the pleasure of solving their mediocre problems. It could get aggravating to see them fret over such minor things when his entire existence drowned him in a sloppy toxic blackness. Yet it felt nice to be able to solve a problem and for it to go away for good. He felt the gashes in his heart close up a little bit more when the meaningful mortals showered him with gratitude. It was when he waved those happy mortals goodbye, never to be heard from again, that Yato realized that they too had darkness. But despite that they went about their lives without holes in their hearts. That he, with all the emptiness of his father, was an existence with a dripping, bleeding heart.
Yato had made friends with humans throughout his existence. Both living and dead. They were far and few in between- being an assassin tended to isolate him from others- and that was enough. A couple shinki who needed him to shoulder their sins and wipe away their problems. There was also that old fisherman that told the same stories while Yato worked with him by the southern sea. That princess that Yato was to guard until her marriage, who loved the outfits he made. The man who claimed to be a samurai who could always drink him under the table. Those brothers in arms that fought alongside him in matching uniforms when they were far, far too young. And that forgien girl that spun him around the dance floor, gave him a kiss, and let him marry her for nothing but fun before she found her soulmate in a different foreigner. All of them gave him a handful of happy memories that clinked painfully around his chest like five yen coins in a tattered pocket. He enjoyed them, was proud to carry them, but didn’t put too much stock into them. At least until he met her.
She was a believer. An honest to god believer that prayed to him, understood who he was, and had all the good intentions of a proper wish. Her heart was not only solid but strong and her intelligence held a wisdom that only a proper mortal could. Like all humans, she was different than every other yet she was special. It wasn’t just her life that was precious. She was precious, in both the grand scheme of things as a mortal to god and everyday. Hiyori Iki was a human who filled Yato with happiness, filled his heart until it felt so full he could only describe it as contentment. She was everything he asked for and nothing he could possibly have imagined. Yato found he didn’t want anything more than her smile just like a proper god should.
And as a god- her god as she said- he loved her. It was a love that grew with time and effort rather than that wistful first sight god’s felt for their believers. Yato loved her in every sense of the word. The love of a god to their believers, an eternal existence to a mortal one, a close family member, a friend sharing wonderful things with, a person to call their own and hold. Since meeting Hiyori, Yato could feel a bit of what it was like to be an existence that served humanity properly; as a kind-hearted beacon of light and comfort, filled with nothing but honest love. Of course that was silly. Yato was Yaboku and Yaboku was a god and Hiyori was precious and humans were mortal. The universe didn’t like it when someone stepped over that line when they weren’t supposed to.
Which is why The Yaboku God will have to continue his existence, re-learning how to be content with yearning. Knowing that he will always carry nothing but darkness, a container that will never be full, forever unable to have what those around him were simply blessed with. But you know what? That was alright. Yato was proud to smile with a broken heart if it meant he got to serve all her wishes and be her God of Fortune. If all Yato had to do for Hiyori Iki to be able to live out the full length of her precious life was to bear the weight of all the darkness of the world, then he was more than happy to do so.
starting off the week with my most suggestive fic, as you do.
Hands
Everything about Yato had always been frantic, powerful, overwhelming. Of course, Hiyori figured that anything pertaining to their romantic relationship would be much the same. In some ways, she was right. In other ways, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
Now that they were finally getting past that initial phase of being awkward with each other and things were developing beyond small kisses and the rare make-out session, she was learning more about him. And one of the things she loved most was how he was always so slow and gentle with his hands when he touched her.
The feather light feeling tickling her side, she finally asked, “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” He repeated, freezing in place.
“Move so slowly and deliberately, yet hardly put any pressure.” She looked up with a small smile.
Yato quirked an eyebrow, “Because you’re precious to me, obviously.”
She giggled and raised her hand to run it through his hair, “Thank you. And I love the feeling, but you can use a little more pressure sometimes. Like alternate back and forth, maybe.”
“So you like it rough, then.” He commented smugly as his hands slid down to her hips, pressing his thumbs into her pants and swirling them in light circles.
“Yato.” She squeezed her legs together both out of shock of what he said and his sudden movement downward, “I don’t know what I like yet about anything like that, that’s kind of the point of this conversation.”
He raised his hands back upward, cupping her face and pecking her lips, “Sorry. Despite the jokes, you know I obviously don’t know what the hell I’m doing either.”
“And for that I’m thankful.” She let out a long sigh under her breath.
“What?” He looked down at her in confusion and she shook her mind.
