"karasu Search How 2 Cheer Human Up"

Dan Hays Colorado Snow Effect 4 (with detail) 2007, oil on canvas

The joys of just opening a window

there is still time never kill yourself etc etc

imagine you are jack quaid. or karl urban. or anthony starr. and nepo cast member pretty boy ackles is in cahoots with the creator of your show. he is able to bring in his frat brother and frat lover from that one shit show that can't seem to die. you want to say something but gay people would crucify you.

Coffee ☕🩷

macbeth is shakespeare’s funniest tragedy and mr. macbeth is the funniest character in macbeth. he listens to these creepy old women tell him he’s gonna be king and IMMEDIATELY decides the only thing he can POSSIBLY do is kill a guy and then he waffles about it for a full act and finally comes to the conclusion that it’s morally wrong and then HE DOES IT ANYWAY and his entire fucking life falls apart with an inevitability that is genuinely hilarious

quick blurry fraxus because i forgot i was originally drawing on a small canvas

hair down!karasu

“you’re so distracting,” you grouse as you feel your roommate’s chin come to rest on top of your head, your fingers stilling over your keyboard mid-sentence. 

“‘m bored,” karasu sighs. “and ya spelled specific wrong.”

tilting your head upward, you glare up at him while whacking the backspace key more aggressively than necessary with your middle finger, “because you distracted me!”

he stands back up, chuckling to himself and sauntering off into the kitchen to inevitably make more noise while you sacrifice what remains of your late-semester soul to the research paper gods. 

to be fair, the issue of him being a distraction is less about his shuffling and tittering about the apartment in boredom and moreso just about…him. 

well, a very specific part of him. 

you’ve been friends with karasu for years, you’re close. exceptionally close, you’d argue. and when the entire first floor of your dorm building flooded out last week, he offered you the spare room in his apartment—no questions asked.

it’s a temporary arrangement, so really, it should pose no risk to the neat and tidy little drawer that you keep your attraction to him shoved into the dark corners of. spending a few weeks underfoot with his warm accent, pretty eyes, dry humor, and gravely laugh shouldn’t kill you.

you’re been compartmentalizing it all like a champ for years, after all.

if subterfuge of unrequited pining was an olympic sport—

but you underestimated one tiny issue that you hadn’t quite thought out the consequences of when presented with the opportunity to cohabitate with karasu tabito. 

one little thing—

his hair.

his at home hair. 

his i’m not leaving the house or seeing anyone today hair. 

his clean, completely product-free, ridiculously attractive hair—which falls softly across his forehead, tickling the bridge of his nose. which flits along the shell of his ears and rests against the back of his neck.

(which makes you want to run for the hills and jump into his arms and flee the country and kiss him until you can’t breathe and—)

it’s funny, really, when you think about it. the fact that you’ve actually never seen karasu without styling wax in his hair somehow. it feels somewhat ridiculous thinking it out loud. 

but restricted exposure throughout the duration of your friendship thus far was clearly for the better, given the way you haven’t been able to stop glancing over at him every two minutes since he got out of the shower three hours ago. since he padded into the living room in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and plopped down on the other end of the couch, idly scrolling through his phone and entirely unaware of the crisis he’d unknowingly thrust upon your unsuspecting, fragile mind. 

because here’s the thing—on a normal day, you can squash them down, these inconvenient feelings of attraction. the way your heart flutters feebly against your ribcage at the sound of his voice, at the curve of his lips when you say something ridiculous that makes him smile. 

at the way he says your name, how you always seem to be the first person he calls after games. how he falls asleep with his head in your lap when you watch movies, the way he doesn’t even have to ask what you want when you’re ordering food or getting coffee because he just knows. 

but this. 

this. 

he’s sitting on the other end of the couch again, lazily running a hand through his hair and blowing it out of his eyes every so often while he taps away at a game on his phone. 

and yeah, you’ve never been quite so attracted to him as in this moment.

it’s not even just the fact that his hair is down, even though the back of your neck has yet to stop burning at the sight of it. 

it’s the undeniable domesticity of it all that has your heart racing in your chest. 

that has your fingers itching to toss your laptop aside, to crawl across the expanse of cushions and into his lap—

“please tell me you’re almost done,” karasu interrupts your treacherous train of thought. 

you find him on his hands and knees in front of where you’re seated sideways against the arm of the couch, positioned between your lazily spread legs with one hand hovering over the lid of your laptop, which he’s slowly pushing closed. 

“hey!” you choke out, both startled by the way your body reacts to his sudden proximity and the fact that you haven’t saved your document in fifteen minutes. 

hastily, you do just that, and the laptop snaps shut with a resounding click that seems to echo off of the walls of the apartment like a beacon while karasu stares back at you for a beat. 

a slow grin of victory spreads across his face when he uses one hand to transfer your laptop to the coffee table, but he makes no move to get off of you. 

“otoya and hiori wanna get dinner,” he tells you by way of explanation. 

it’s not fair how much more attractive his stupid, cute little mole looks with dark strands of hair falling against it—

“and?” you ask carefully. 

you just want to reach out and touch—

“and you gotta eat, too, so i’ve been waitin’ on you, princess.”

fucking pet names. one goddamn crisis at a time.

your ribcage is on the verge of becoming a triage center. 

“well, don’t you—shouldn’t you go and get ready, at least?” you do your best not to sound completely and entirely rattled as you gesture toward his hair. 

he looks up with just his eyes, as if he’s only just now noticing the origin of your afternoon’s torture. “what, does it look that bad?”

is he serious?

he smirks, and—oh. your breath hitches in your throat as you try to figure out when he got so close, when he shifted even higher to cage you in entirely between his tall, muscled frame and the plush, worn-in couch cushions. 

it makes you feel dizzy, being beneath him like this. 

karasu smells like the strawberries he was eating earlier, and your throat goes dry as you think about the way he’d outright fed one to you instead of handing it to you like a normal person when you asked. the way his fingertips had briefly touched your lips—

he smells like the fabric softener he’s used for years, and it’s seemingly the last remaining lifeline left to ground you in this moment. you grasp at it, almost desperately. 

you end up unconsciously fisting a hand in the fabric of his shirt instead. 

he leans in a little closer, close enough that his hair brushes against your forehead. 

it tickles. 

warmth blooms hot in your gut, petals of heat caressing your spine.  

“does it look bad?” he asks again. 

you can feel his breath skirt against your lips. 

“maybe,” you whisper, voice almost hoarse. because you need some sort of an upper hand here. 

he huffs, eyes locked on yours. “liar.”

“you’re distracting,” you tell him again for the—you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve said it today. 

one of his knees is slotted dangerously between your legs, and you try not to think about the way his thighs look in his kit. how often you have to tear your eyes away from the sight of them when you’re watching his games. 

fucking footballers. 

“am i?” 

you nod slowly, and you wonder what his lips taste like. how he kisses. if they’re as warm as the body heat that’s blanketing you while he keeps you bracketed beneath him. 

if he’d methodically break you down like he does to his opponents on the field—if he’d call you some other endearing thing in that pretty accent of his while your legs are wrapped around his waist, while you’re carding your fingers through his hair and parting your lips and gasping his name. 

you wonder if he’d take it slow and drag his nose down your cheek before sliding his lips along the curve of your jaw. 

if he’d kiss you long and deep, licking his way into your mouth with one hand splayed against your throat and another curled around your hip. 

if he’d—

“you’re distracting, too, ya know,” he whispers. 

“what?” your heart’s pounding so loudly in your chest, you’re not sure if you heard him right. 

karasu taps your chin lightly with his pointer finger. “ya read out loud, and ya sing to yourself while you’re cookin’ and cleanin’.”

embarrassment washes over you as you begin to realize what a bothersome house guest you’ve probably unintentionally become over the past few days. “i’m sorry, i’m just so used to living alone, and—“

he cuts you off abruptly, “i said you’re distracting, not that i didn’t like it.”

you blink up at him owlishly, and your chest tightens in confusion as you breathe out what seems to be one of the few last remaining words in the wasteland of your mental dictionary, “what?”

“you have a pretty voice,” he murmurs, thumb ghosting over the edge of your bottom lip. “i like hearin’ it.”

you feel breathless when you exhale the only other thing you can think to say, “karasu.”

his eyes fall shut for a moment, and he smiles. “i love the way you say my name.”

your tongue dances impatiently against the back of your teeth as you swallow, testing the weight of three different syllables—

“tabito,” you whisper. 

he opens his eyes suddenly, and he stares down at you with an expression that has your toes curling against the couch cushions. 

“you should only say that if ya want me to kiss ya,” he rasps. 

your fingers tremble slightly as you reach up and touch his hair, slowly brushing the tips across his mole. he catches your hand when you go to pull away, keeping it there. 

“tabito.”

karasu’s mouth crashes into yours. 

penelope didn't have to turn the tree bed into a riddle. she could have asked odysseus to prove his identity, to tell her something only he would know — which she actually did a few books earlier, when she asked the beggar to describe odysseus, and odysseus told her about a purple cloak with a particular golden brooch that she fastened herself twenty years ago. when penelope tells telemachus they have signs by which they'll know each other, you sort of expect more of the same. and instead, she decides to trap him. like a bug in a cup.

and it's delightful to me, idk, how odysseus has been trapped and cornered in various way throughout the odyssey, but arguably never so that he has to tell the truth to get out. (with the phaeacians, maybe? the omniscient narrator corroborates some of what he tells them, but do we really know everything?) and in fact he is not trying to get free of penelope. he wants something from her, wants to convince her, wants to be welcomed home, but until this point he's lied to her, revealed himself to other people before her, and been distant with her (though also patient! he doesn't try to strongarm or rush her into accepting him; it's his idea to sleep elsewhere).

except penelope isn't looking for him to be distant and patient. penelope lies in a way that requires odysseus to stop playing along — not only to prove that he knows what odysseus knows, but that he's willing to tell the truth about himself.