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 Posted: Sat May 03, 2025 4:32 pm
Everybody had needed time, after getting back from the battle with the Calamitous Hollow. That made perfect sense. Volterra had gotten separated, off on nis own, because ne had seen people gathering around Murikabushi and gone “Yeah, being around all those people sounds stressful, I’m gonna pass.” Elsa had dissipated into black dust, which had left Muri feeling utterly devoid of joy but must have been even worse for Elsa.
Outside of those two, others in the house had dealt with quite a lot as well. Monoceros had gotten some loudspeaker s**t worked out to broadcast something to senshi phones and Knights’ signet rings because he knew something or other about the General who’d been on some loud, dramatic bullshit at the shindig. Daedalus hadn’t been injured badly enough to die, but he’d still had to fight an incredibly stressful battle to protect a planet that Kiyoshi liked to hope increasingly felt like a home for him. Xiulan had kept his head under unbelievable stress and pressure, for which Kiyoshi was proud of him, but that didn’t make the stress any less of a struggle for him to deal with. Fionn hadn’t wanted to talk about what had happened for him out there that night, which was on one hand fair? On the other hand, though, it also felt like maybe he didn’t want to talk because it had been ******** up and letting him not talk about stuff……well. You couldn’t push people to accept help they weren’t ready for yet, or at least Fionn hadn’t done anything to make Kiyoshi feel like he had reason to break that personal rule. But he still didn’t like the feeling that he couldn’t do anything to help.
Honestly, Grieve might have been the only housemate present who hadn’t gone ******** through it as intensely as everyone else had. Or, well, she might’ve done, but she hadn’t talked about it yet and also, Grieve relished in high-stress situations like that involved a lot of violence. It stressed Aruna out, which made sense given her general avoidance of conflict and violence, but Kiyoshi liked that Grieve was always unapologetically herself, no matter what other people thought about it.
Still, there……were things that needed to be talked about.
Things that had Kiyoshi pacing around his room a little.…… Well, maybe more than a little.…… Look, it wasn’t worth complaining about, okay? He did stop to do things like eat, sleep, shower, and go to work (something that he didn’t feel at all weird about doing under the circumstances, like? Going in for his shifts at Puppy Paws, seeing Keiran and Halia and the others, it provided a sense of accountability that Kiyoshi would not have had if he’d called out and started self-isolating. Compartmentalizing his Not Okay-ness and putting on his professional face to talk to customers and make their orders, it didn’t fix the part where Kiyoshi was overall very much Not Okay, but it helped him feel more like he was a badass b***h who was going to get through this).
Even so, a few days after they’d all faced down a world-eater from some other reality, Kiyoshi accepted that he needed to start the conversation. Maybe he could wait for Elior to do it, but like, what if Elior didn’t? And conveniently, Kiyoshi hadn’t been scheduled at the café today (though he did still check in with Keiran, sending him the text Hey Blossom, I promise I’m not trying to get an extra shift to bury myself in. Not coming in today unless you need an emergency cover for somebody. Need to have a talk with a cute boy who kissed me before everything went down with Harold).
Hesitating outside Elior’s door, Kiyoshi took a deep breath. He knocked, knuckles rapping on the wood a few times in quick succession. The sound came out as nervous as Kiyoshi felt. But nerves or not, he still called out “Elior? It’s me. Can…… Can we talk?”
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Posted: Sat May 03, 2025 7:47 pm
Witnessing the near end of the world and then dying temporarily and staring into the abyss had been...an experience.
An experience that had really sort of reset Elior's priorities, if he was honest. He'd already known that he wasn't really living up to what he'd tried to do when he left the Court, but the change of having to rewrite his entire life had slowed that down.
He'd wanted to talk to Kiyoshi about what had happened sooner, but the million things that needed their attention had sort of made that difficult. And honestly, he'd bene glad to have some time to sit with his feelings.
He'd meant everything he'd said, of course. Maybe he wished he hadn't said it quite so dramatically, at quite such a dramatic time, in front of quite so many people, but....well, what was done was done. And, frankly, he didn't regret any of it. Not seriously, at least.
But he'd been content to wait a few days to discuss things, especially with how exhausted he'd been after that battle. And now, there was a knock at his door.
He pulled down his headset and turned in his chair.
"Hey, Kiyoshi," he said. "Come on in, door's unlocked." Though, as he offered, he stood up, going to open the door himself, because it felt...weird, to just stay lounging.
Everything felt a little weird and a little exciting. Probably the result of kissing the boy he'd had a crush on for years. And now being about to have what sounded like a very serious conversation with said boy.
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Posted: Mon May 12, 2025 11:44 pm
With the invitation, Kiyoshi let himself in. Instinctively, he looked around, then peeked back out into the hallway, leaning partway out again—but rather than follow Kiyoshi, Cersei nosed around at Fionn’s door. She booped her face against it a few times. Pawed at the wood. But when the door didn’t open (probably because Fionn was down at the mechanic’s shop where he worked and wasn’t there to open), Cersei huffed and padded her way to Yuki’s room instead.
“……Sorry,” Kiyoshi said with a sigh, coming all the way back into Elior’s room and waiting for him to close the door. “Just—y’know, dog parent instinct. Thinking ‘Is she going to come out of wherever she is and invite herself to the conversation’ and needing to check.…” Which, honestly, Kiyoshi didn’t think he would’ve minded? But at the same time, him not minding Cersei’s presence might’ve presented some issues of its own. She could’ve helped keep him grounded, but she also could have distracted him. “And, uh, no, by the way. She……she’s in with Yuki.”
With that said, though, Kiyoshi looked around. He hadn’t been invited to sit anywhere, but it felt a bit better to do so, just given the height disparity going on between him and Elior. Even perching on the edge of Elior’s desk, being careful not to knock anything over, felt much better than looming over him, curse-blessed with the height, legs, and overall stature of the Rokugin family despite not officially having their name anymore. Bare of both hair and most fabric (the former thanks to self-care habits Kiyoshi saw no reason to break just because he wasn’t currently performing in drag on a stage), his tawny legs sprawled out until he tucked them back closer to the desk.
“……Feel like I should’ve practiced something,” Kiyoshi admitted offhandedly, one hand idly playing with the fabric of his little sleep shorts. He liked these ones. Nothing too complicated: black fabric with a pattern of golden suns, silver crescent moons, and glittery white stars. Comfy and perfect for a day off. “Or at least better planned how to actually start this, but……I guess, best place? Are—are you okay, right now, to talk about……the us of it all?”
Struggling to actually start that conversation almost made Kiyoshi feel like he should’ve worn a different shirt. Something that didn’t feature fanart of Solas and Dorian Pavus looking sassy and exasperated at each other, with Dorian quipping “Ah, Solas, you startled me. You’re always so nondescript” while Solas shot back “Please speak up! I cannot hear you over your outfit!” Two of the most verbally adept video game boyfriends out there……though, in fairness, both of them did get tongue tied in serious situations with their love interests, and Solas would literally rather tell Lavellan that her vallaslin were a slave brand than tell her she’d been sleeping with the Dread Wolf, so…… Maybe the shirt was appropriate after all.
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Posted: Fri May 23, 2025 12:52 am
Elior nodded. Honestly, it made sense to check on Cersei; everyone in the house was responsible for her, to some extent, but she was Kiyoshi's Dog first and foremost.
"Yeah, I get it," he said, and he dropped back into his desk chair, trying not to be distracted by how cute Kiyoshi looked in a t-shirt and sleep shorts. Granted, Kiyoshi always looked cute, but perhaps he was noticing it especially much, given...the situation.
"I've been wanting to talk about the us of it all for a long time," Elior admitted. "I've...liked you for a really long time, before...all of this, even. Before I ever asked you if you trusted me and brought you through a mirror. But it never felt like the right time to say anything. And then, you know, the world was ending, and suddenly the right time didn't seem to matter anymore? Because there might never be another time?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 12:29 am
Listening to Elior, Kiyoshi had to think back on other times. Had to reflect on it all, and the context surrounding everything. Mostly, he thought about Greg. How Greg had tried to cite Elior-Then-[white noise and broken keyboard sounds where Kiyoshi had once known Elior’s old civilian name]’s behavior around Kiyoshi-Then-Reiki as evidence that someone else wanted to seduce Greg’s then-fiancé away from him. At the time, Reiki hadn’t wanted to listen, and frankly, Kiyoshi didn’t want to bring it up now.
Maybe this wasn’t a first date as such? But bringing up his ex still felt like poor form.
“Y’know, there are people I didn’t listen to back then about this. Obaasan, Miss Sibyl, Hinami, my mom. Mostly, I didn’t listen to them about ‘If you can use your mouth to lip-synch Megan Thee Stallion’s part in ‘WAP,’ then you can use your mouth to tell Elior how you feel about him.’ But then……” Kiyoshi shrugged. What he had to admit felt pretty stupid, on the other side of getting kissed right before fighting Harold Darkstar, professional life-ruiner, PhD. Still, it probably kinda needed to be out there in the open. “I thought they all had to be crazy? Or telling me nice things to make me stop deciding how you felt, then using that to talk myself out of talking to you? Because I didn’t think there was any way you might’ve felt anything romantic about me.”
There were, however, some more Complicated dimensions going on here, and……did talking about the engagement count as bringing up Greg? Kiyoshi didn’t know. But he couldn’t really talk about his.
“Then, for a while, it was also like……kind of a ******** lot happening? Everything, everywhere, all at once? And making me feel like ‘Y’know, maybe I just don’t want any romance right now’?” For want of something to do with his hands, he idly fussed his fingers through his bangs. “I had just broken off an engagement, then found out I’m a magical girl. Oh, s**t, it’s also Pride Season within a couple weeks of finding out I’m a magical girl. Then I froze up and didn’t stop this ******** Nega-guy Arsenolite from starseeding somebody who’d only been out late for him to find because Raymond Callahan had been at one of my. shows. Then, one of my girls back in the Court ******** up romantically with some ridiculous Christmas elf Order senshi and Miss Angelica decides it’s open season to go all Inglourious Basterds on Dark Mirrors for existing.
“And then some literally flaming tsundere wanders into my life and starts tsun-tsun-ing all over me, and he is, as ever, several whole pieces of work that have been, like, ripped apart and shoved back together with hot pink glitter glue. A walking, talking encyclopedia of bad decisions on both his part and mine. And then it was just……” Well, Kiyoshi swiftly found something new to do with his hands: steepling them around his nose and mouth so he could groan into his palms. “Elior, this harem protagonist moonlighting as a General-Sovereign was demanding and pushy at me. Threw a tantrum worse than Aunt Satomi’s cats about me just existing in his presence and not giving him everything he wanted. Complained to at least three of his husbands and four of his underlings about how he wanted me to go away, while dragging me around the basement of a burned out hotel by my chest-bow. Then, he was <******** shocked that, like? Yes, Faustite. I do interpret that as the behavior of someone who doesn’t like me.”
Which was worse form in this conversation: bringing up the engagement to a lying cheater who had wanted Kiyoshi-Then-Reiki to quit drag, or bringing up Faustite? Well, at least Faustite had an actual reason to be in the sauce here.
“We—you and I, we—do……really need to be on the same page about him,” Kiyoshi conceded, gently kneading at the bridge of his nose before letting his hands drop into his lap. “And about Yuki, though obviously, that relationship isn’t nearly as—eugh—complicated. But reining myself back in from Tangent Land? My original point was that……I fancied you back then, too. Even when I was still engaged. And first, I didn’t think you felt the same, so I didn’t want to make my feelings into your problem? But then, magic got involved and I……did that thing I do? Where I intend to do one thing for myself, but I get myself into hijinks, and then it’s like six weeks later and I’m like ‘Oh right, I never actually re-hemmed that skirt, did I’?
“……The ‘skirt’ in this analogy being, like?” Kiyoshi quirked his shoulders, making a noise that definitely conveyed the sense of I don’t know. “Basically anything that involved caring about and properly taking care of Reiki-Kiyoshi the person instead of Reiki-Kiyoshi-Murikabushi the magical girl? So, honestly, it’s better that you waited, in some ways? I don’t think I was in a headspace where us doing anything romantic would’ve been good for either of us.”
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Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2025 12:53 am
Elior couldn't help the hint of a smile that tugged at the corners of his lips. Maybe he hadn't had anyone be so blunt with him? But yeah, he recognized the situation of "I can't talk to him, obviously he's not interested." He'd mostly boxed up the feelings, personally, but...well, still. It felt familiar.
And so did all of the rest of it. Of a thousand things piling up and making it feel impossible to chase what he wanted, or who he wanted--even if the things were different. They'd ended up here, together, but only after both of them had spent way too long deciding that it wasn't the moment to talk and that even if it was, only rejection was waiting.
He huffed.
"You managed a very eventful couple years as a Senshi," he said. "I don't want to imply mine have been less eventful," a youma train, a strange beast from the depths of Mirrorspace--several of those, even--a village and a strange monster in the woods, and that was just the highlights reel, "but you crammed in a lot. It's no wonder you didn't feel like you had time for anything else, especially not stupid boys with technically decent faces," he pointed at himself, but there was a playful edge to his voice and his expression. A little in genuine self-deprecation.
"But yeah, I'm glad it took us a while. I had my own s**t going on, with my magic unraveling, and figuring out who I really am as a Senshi, and feeling like I ruined your life by bringing you into the Dark Mirror," and if he just said that outright and skipped right past it and moved on, they could ignore it, yes, "and then adjusting to being Elior instead of Levi, so...waiting for a little while? For the best."
His smile did get a little tense, though--because Kiyoshi was right, there was a flaming elephant in the room to acknowledge.
"And, for the record? I'm fine with you and Yuki. You two are really important to each other, and I don't mind sharing, sort of? With him? Not that you're, like, a purse he's borrowing or whatever, but--I think you understand what I mean, here. 'Metamours with Yuki' is a status I am perfectly fine with. 'Metamours with Faustite,..."
This was the harder part. But Elior had to hope that Kiyoshi would understand.
"I don't know if I can accept my...boyfriend," it felt like another bold leap to say that, but after the last one he'd taken, it wasn't quite so hard, "being in a situationship with a General-King. I worked with the Negaverse a decent amount. I know what they're like. Anyone who makes it to General, never mind General-King, gets there by being incredibly dangerous."
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Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2025 3:03 am
“Smart boys with very pretty faces,” Kiyoshi corrected Elior, using a likewise playful tone, even though he took the correction very seriously. Yes, it was a joke, but that was how things went with self-deprecation, wasn’t it? Letting it go without pushback made it easier to let those kinds of thoughts take root for real. “Very pretty faces and, like you just said, more than enough of your own going on. As much as the movies we grew up on taught me that getting into relationships in the middle of everything in your life exploding is totally cool and fine, actually? I mean, like……”
Pulling an incredibly skeptical face, Kiyoshi shook his head. “……Nah? Y’know, not for me, I don’t think? Sounds like a good way to make some impulsive decision that won’t work out for anybody in the end?”
Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay on light things. Not when Faustite lingered still with them, hovering over the conversation and the future relationship that Kiyoshi and Elior wanted to have. And Elior’s boundaries about that connection made perfect sense. They only differed from what Kiyoshi himself had thought in specific nuances of phrasing. And coming up with the best response for everything Elior had to say felt like a really tall order.…… Tall enough that, as he combed his fingers through his bangs (which did nothing to soothe his nerves), Kiyoshi felt like the better option was simply to embrace imperfection and say something.
“Y’know, I had……let’s call it ‘a moment of clarity’ about him? After you disintegrated but before we all got out. When I thought ‘Well, ********, apparently we’re gonna be stuck in here with Harold ********’?” He sighed, shoulders tensing up. “I’d been looking around for him periodically the whole time, because he was one of the other people who had one of the magic spikes. And he had his whole team with him, so it was like ‘Okay, he’s probably fine, but I care about him in spite of the warning signs, I do want to know if he’s okay.’ But then, when the black lightning disintegrated you? I had some kind of feeling like ‘I should look around at who all made it. So many people decided to start looking to me for leadership—’”
Daedalus. Tempesti. Mönch. The Saturn Knight she and Tianyi had both known, whose name Kiyoshi didn’t even know offhand. Tianyi, who’d been more of a leader than Kiyoshi felt like he’d been, because he’d used his magic to keep Murikabushi fighting when the fight had started to feel insurmountable.
“‘—and the ones who made it probably need me to be uplifting and encouraging right now, and tell them that they all did their best, even if we took heavy losses.’” Deep breaths. This, too, was a conversation Kiyoshi could get through. He had to get through it; he and Elior both deserved that. “……I didn’t have anything to say for the ones who survived. And I thought that I should look for him, but as soon as I thought that……” Kiyoshi shook his head, folding his arms back over his chest. “All I could do was wonder ******** why. Part of it was that I was upset and I didn’t want to unload anything on him—or worse, on either of the harem-husbands who’ve been decent to me and, unlike Faustite, haven’t jerked me around emotionally. But the rest of it was ******** why.”
Groaning into one of his palms didn’t really make Kiyoshi feel any better about the situation. Still, he needed the release while he tried to connect that one thought to the next.
“Y’know, the first night of all this with Harold? When Keiran and I went up to some big, weird space hexagon and five of us found the spikes? Well, Faustite’s there, right, and I ask if he’s okay. I default to using ASL, not trying to hide anything but just because Faustite can’t speak after one round of antagonizing Princess Cybele got his throat and vocal cords all ******** up. And noticing that, some bitchy little General Twink tries to go ‘Ohhh, ohhh, White Moon senshi, look, that one is weird about Faustite’—which fell on entirely the wrong audience? Like, Encke knows that I’ve been weird about Faustite. Kerberos knows that I’ve been weird about Faustite. And the space senshi doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall, so who cares.
“The attempt at sowing discord between the four of us falls absolutely pancake-flat because he’s trying to make headlines out of something that isn’t news. Instead, Faustite jumps all over it and—look, he was talking with his hands and I was trying to investigate what wound up being very important Harold intel, so I admittedly only heard half of what was going on? But Elior, it sure did sound like he was going. the ********. off. at people who are supposed to be his ******** colleagues, if not his friends? The one time I met Jet when I was still with the Court, I got the sense that he cares not just about whatever intra-Negaverse harm reduction tip he’s on but also about Faustite. Like, whatever he knows about Faustite’s past motivates him to try and prevent all that from happening to anybody else.
“And in a room full of adults—several of whom actively care about this little nightmare and his wellbeing—Faustite is having an explosive tantrum because one bitchy little twink tried to make the four Order senshi in the room fight each other. An idea that, again, did not succeed for General Dorian Gray-ite. It’s all kinds of ‘Oh, why are you casting aspersions on me, are you accusing me of disloyalty’ and, like? b***h, what? He has at least three husbands who are unflinchingly loyal to him and, as far as I know, give him whatever he asks for. Most of his subordinates seem more loyal to him personally than to Metallia. He has success in his chosen field of murder and mayhem, he commands respect for literally killing people and setting s**t on fire, he knows a White Moon skank—” Kiyoshi pointed at himself, “—who will snitch on other White Moon skanks to help rescue one of the husbands because no, actually, I don’t think ‘But he’s Negaverse’ is a justification for torturing somebody.
“And with all of that good-from-a-Faustite-sympathetic-perspective s**t in his life, he is still so miserable and ******** empty that he needs to invent attacks against him to get ******** mad about, just so he can direct all the rage he feels on a literally constant basis <******** somewhere. Even though his ******** twink colleague literally did not deserve it, because whatever Faustite thought he saw simply did not happen. And I’m just………I’m ******** over it, y’know?”
Pressing his palms back into the edge of the desk, Kiyoshi let himself slouch. “I’m over being a sassy gay dumpster for this idiot and all his trauma, when literally the only thing coming out of it is that he keeps choosing to get worse. Probably not entirely deliberately, but that gets into everything about how our own perceptions of what we deserve tie into consent and agency by limiting the options we allow ourselves to see in any situation. And a lot of people on our side would push purification as the be all, end all of helping him, but unless he’s willing to put in the ******** work to get and do better? All it’s going to do is make him a dysfunctional, omnicidal maniac in a Knight uniform, with none of the flimsy-a** excuses for guardrails he currently has in the Negaverse.
“……Which is all—I don’t know? An awful lot of words to get to the point of ‘You’re right. Never formally broken up with somebody I haven’t actually dated before, but hey, guess there’s a first time for everything.’” Glancing over at the window, Kiyoshi sighed. “The trick there is just gonna be finding the little b*****d out there in the streets.…… After the whole mess with trying to get Heliodor out of being tortured in December, I don’t think Liánlí’s in the mood to let me borrow his signet ring for the purpose of setting up meetings with Faustite and I don’t blame him. So, I need to find him to make it official? But otherwise, please do consider him dumped.”
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