#'if the bread looks baked its time to make a sandwich'

[quarterprioritymidnight]

Can you explain the shirt so the bastille girlies (me) understand the reference 😇

absolutely, my love. it's one of dr dan bastilles inspirational catchphrases from the bad decisions music video. its kind of a random reference i know, but its exactly my dumb sense of humour and my brain was like 'need that on a t-shirt' lmao

[i-cant-sing]

Okay okay, I have another idea-

Yandere dad Nanami x Nanami reader

I've made yall see the menace Fushiguro reader who we all love and adore, but let's talk about Nanami's daughter who is an absolute angel and polar opposite to Fushiguro reader.

Child reader is just the most well behaved kid, listens to her father always, and since Nanami is raising her, she's also going to be very good in her studies because papa Nanami is a very good teacher. I mean, reader is definitely on top of her class and has a whole wall dedicated to her awards and medals. She just has to show off her math skills when she plays cafe (because obv she's gonna be a baker who bakes fresh bread daily for Nanami to buy and make sandwiches) and uses Monopoly money.

And when I say reader is polite, that is the understatement of the history. She just cannot bear to offend anyone! She has to put "-san" with everyone's name and has to address them correctly. "Yuji-san! Megumi-San!" And "pervert-San!" Which is Gojo, because of course Nanami has told her to beware of him and only address him as "pervert-san".

"But my name's Gojo!" He tells you, but you're so distressed because dad told you to call the white haired man wearing a blindfold/glasses "pervert-san" and it'd be rude to address him as anything else!

And Nanami adores his kid so much. She's such a perfect child, never breaks rules (don't talk to strangers or Pervert san.) and is such a goody-goody. He is a present father, he makes time for you. The Jujutsu sorcerers can wait, the world can be saved by someone else, but he needs to attend your school play at all costs. And even when hes not around for the day, he has raised you to be a very responsible child- like you even go get the groceries on your own when dad is late! (Like that Japanese show in which they send kids to shop on their own)

But of course, there are times when he needs to be away for longer periods, so he needs to hire a babysitter. His top choices: Shoko(although hes a little hesitant since you have a morbid curiosity learning and Shoko would happily let you accompany her to the morgue), Yuta, Maki, Megumi + Yuji + Nobara.

Who is NEVER allowed to babysit you? Gojo.

Gojo babysits anyway. (He fr steals you from Megumi trio)

And Nanami just comes home to Gojo and reader eating takeout and he's just like "Y/n, how could you let Pervert san in your home and eat with him?" And reader's just on the brink of tears and is trying to defend herself "b-but you said to be polite to guests! And Pervert-san bought food for me. Wouldn't it be rude to not share it with him?" *reader's teary eyes* and then Gojo is like "you'd rather let your child starve? Can't you see how tiny she already is?!" *Gojo's teary eyes* and Nanami pops a vein "it's not cute when you do it!"And then kicks Gojo out of the house.

Even though reader can dress herself up appropriately, she still has to have her hair done by Nanami, no matter what age. At some point, reader probably realises that it's something Nanami needs more than she does. It's a tradition, you think, but it's actually a coping mechanism for Nanami to deal with the fact that you're "growing up" and don't ask him to watch cartoons with you or read you bedtime stories anymore🥺

And Sukuna??? He takes one look at you and he's already decided he's gonna be mean to you, but then the more time you spend with him and Yuji, the more he realises.... its just not worth being mean to the only person who is so sweet to him and actually greets and talks to him like he's an individual person and not just a parasite inside Yuji's skin. Like reader just goes "Sukuna-san! I'm painting Yuji-san's nails but he can't pick a color. Will you help?" And he's like "Alright, fuck it I'm taking this brat with me when I comit mass murder. She's safe."

I feel like Nanami will allow reader to have a fairly normal childhood, so he keeps his yandere tendencies at a bay. It's when you start growing up and as he says "the others try to taint you with momentary pleasures" that his yandereness begins to show. Honestly, it's just more of his protective tendencies coming to light than anything else. He thinks people don't have your best interests in and sometimes he's right, but how else will you learn if you don't experience it?

Also, if you do end up having cursed energy and the ability to see curses, I think that's when Nanami starts spiralling down. He does not want you to become a Jujutsu sorcerer, he wants you far far away from the Jujutsu world completely. He can't- he can't allow what happened to Haibrara happen to you. He can't allow your innocence and naivety to be tainted by the horrendous world of curses. He'd rather risk you hating him forever as he locks you away than allow you to put your life at risk for others.

You are his priority. Your safety is his priority. You'll understand in due time why he did what he did, so while his heart does break hearing you cry and beg to be let out of your room, he doesn't regret putting you in there one bit.

Nanami sighs as he continues prepping your dinner. Guess he'll have to add some crushed sleeping pills so that you don't get sick from crying your bodyweight out (or more like he can't bear to see you in such a pitiful state.)

God save the poor souls who do end up kidnapping you.

[factual-fantasy]

23 asks! Thank you!! :}} 🐶

Guys, please read the FAQ in my pinned posed before sending asks, like the ask button says. You don't have to read them all- just a quick check to see if i have answered your question already and especially to see my stance on requests.

I'm not taking drawing requests at the moment. If I hit an art block and start taking requests, I'll make a post about it and update my pinned post.

Again, please just take a quick glance at the FAQ before sending in your asks. It saves both of us a lot of time. Thank you! <:)

Currently there isn't actually a plot line I'm following- its more of a "day in the life of the neighborhood" kind'a thing.

The main points of interest though is Wally's home being alive and it watches him sleep at night.. this causes Wally to have terrible sleeping problems and anxiety. But no one knows Home is the culprit..

Another point of interest is Julie secretly actually being a huge beast that is simply disguising herself as this pretty little harmless neighbor.. she truly is a nice person and loves her friends, but she has disguised herself to look this way so that people wouldn't be afraid of her. Only Frank knows what she really looks like..

And lastly, Eddie is a real human from our/another world. He was somehow brought here to the neighborhood.. he has no memory of his original life..

Oh wow!! :000 That blue one is so pretty.... 🥺💞💞

@imdonewiththisblogsblog

A BUTTERFLY WITH CLEAR WINGS?? THAT SOO PRETYYYY💞💞💞

@littlelightfish

AAA THANYIOU!! :DDDD

Octo is intended to kind'a have normal old man problems- he's kind'a far sighted, has a cranky back, gets tired easy, gets winded faster than he used to.. other than that and the natural aches and sores that came after his major injury- (that comic you're referencing) he's relatively ok! :00 (Those dizzy spells that I talked about come from when he overworks himself.. normal old man things! <:D)

Seafoam is intended to be the youngest of his siblings, and his eldest sister was a rotten egg that had kids way too young.. and her kids were ALSO rotten eggs that had THEIR kids way too young. One of those kids being Red. So because of the age gap between him and his sister, and both generations having kids at like 20 years old... Seafoam is 55-65 and Red, his great nephew, is like 4-6...

Spider crab tends to not interact a whole lot with Pinwheel and Tuna, since they are a little too high energy and loud for him. 😅 But Coco and Red are nice company. :)

Spider does worry about the crewmembers that are missing limbs or eyes.. he does his best to offer help without overstepping. Sometimes those things are sensitive to talk about.. Also Spider sure looks old, but I pictured him being somewhere in his late 30s. Stress will add a lot of age to your face... 😅

I can see Spider crab, Louis and Tuna spending the most time in the kitchen just to be around Ellie. Although if one of them comes for a visit and one of the other 2 is already there, they probably wont stick around long. <XD Spider doesn't like Louis or Tuna's noise and Tuna like's to be alone with Ellie to talk peacefully.. As to who cooks when she cant... I can see the crew eating things that don't need to be cooked until she gets better. Pre-baked bread, easy sandwiches, etc- in an emergency though I can see the crew catching fish and Louis cooking them for the crew :))

Red might have nightmares yeah.. although his family were pretty rotten so this new crew is actually rather nice.. also Coco is his favorite playmate :))

AAA THANKYIUU!! :DDD IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE URCHINS DESIGN!! :)))) Unfortunately though, I haven't thought out her backstory too much..

I'm thinking she met Cuttlefish the same time the rest of the crew did. As for what made them friends, I kind'a like the idea that Urchin can see right through Cuttle's facade. She's not used to having someone see through all her lies, see the REAL her.. and still want to be her friend. Its nice.. 🥺

and finally WAARRHGHH THANKD FOR THIS ASK! :DDD MY HEART IS FULL OF JOY READING YOUR INTEREST IN KY OCS!!! :))))

Honestly? I have absolutely no idea XD 💀💀 All I know is Poppy is the oldest and Sally is the youngest. Sally is probably around 18-20--

@spirited-splashes

WWAHGGG THABK YOU SO MUCH!! :DD ITS MY FAVORITE THING TO DRAW!! :}}}}}

@legitanawkwardmess

ALKDKJENFKJEN THATS HILARIOUS XDDDD

I haven't decided what the neighbors reactions would be since I have no plans for Julie to reveal herself.. though even if she did, I have a feeling she would want to maintain her smaller form. Even if it takes more energy..

To Julie, this body represents who she really is. Who she really wants to be. This is how she want's the world to see her. Even if the truth got out and everyone accepted her. She'd stay in her smaller form anyways..

@i-only-created-this-to-read

So far I don't have intentions for there to have been any tenants before Wally.. or at least no one will ever find out who they were or what happened to them.

As for how old Home is, I haven't decided this and its also a complete mystery to the neighbors. Poppy has lived there ever since she was a child and Home was already there when she moved in..

Now Home could get creative and find different ways to harm or even kill those it doesn't like.. but thankfully Home doesn't have any intentions to hurt anyone, especially not Wally. Home wouldn't even try to significantly hurt Barnaby, despite him getting in the way of Homes plans.. although Home cant resist the occasional stubbed toe or splinter out of frustration...

As for adding stuff to Home's body.. if Wally purposefully slapped a strip of duct tape on the wall, that wouldn't really become a part of Homes body. Things only really attach to Home if they are significant.

Examples being a new shelf. An added wall to split a room, cutting a hole in the wall and installing a window, ripping up carpet and installing hardwood floors, etc. The nail holding up a picture frame or that nail gun plugged into the wall are not apart of Home..

Though that's not to say Home cant control the outlets, it can! But that would only give Home the power to turn the nail gun on and off. Home cant make the gun fire..

As for plants, even if they engulf Home and grow in-between the floorboards, Home cannot control plants.. or if there was moss or some kind of fungus growing on the walls? If it ate away at the wood that plank would just die off and Home couldn't feel/control it anymore..

Lastly, Home being able to move things quickly is kind'a what you would imagine. Home moves them as fast as that object can reasonably move. How fast do you think you could slam a door? How fast do you think the window would slam down shut if you gave it all your might?

I hope I cleared up these questions! :00 And sorry if I accidentally missed one or two! <:D

OUUGHH I LOVE THIS!! ITS MAKING ME WANT TO DRAW THE COMIC AGAIN XDDDD

No worries! :DD

@soulful-rodent

On desktop the limit appears to be 100, I'll see what I can do! 😅Also thank you! :))

AW! :DDD I'm glad they like it! But yeah absolutely keep it to the light stuff-- my Octonauts art has a surprising amount of blood in it for a kids show 💀

(Referencing this post)

I might just be! XD🪄✨✨✨Also thank you!! :)))

@captain-skyler1987

Oof... welcome back? <:D ... sorry-

Awe! I'm glad to hear you liked my Gravity Falls stuff!! :DDD Thank you so much!! :))

@jayemover-16

Oh no no! :0 reblogging is a feature of Tumblr and is not reposting! :))

My idea is that Wally only really has sleepovers with Barnaby. He would have sleep overs with Howdy too, but that Pillar's on a pretty tight sleeping schedule/routine <XD

Now Barnaby has noticed that Wally sleeps better when he crashes at his place. Because of this he has started offering his house as a getaway for Wally when ever he notices he seems a little extra tired..

Something to note; neither Barnaby nor Wally think something is wrong with Wally's house because of this- they're just starting to think that Wally's anxiety is worse when he's alone..

Also thank you so much!! :DDDD

@wolfie-777

I don't think much would change to be honest.. they'd still be the same old Wally and Barnaby even after a species swap!

This was sent right after I commented that I'm still open to Welcome Home suggestions. Are these Welcome Home AUs..? <:0 I am unfamiliar with them..

Oof, went back and fixed it. I tend to type too fast and get slime and smile mixed up. 😅

It can be a little embarrassing when people point out my typos, mostly because every single typo I make is pointed out every single time without fail.😅💀 But no worries, I know you meant no harm-

[omgfiredragon18]

mom says it's my turn on the writing

Hey, this is my first contribution to the DOAI sitcom au after lurking for literally a month and a half-

Also this is my first fanfic on Tumblr so I'm sorry for any formatting issues

Anyway enjoy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alex remembered the days after that terrible Halloween: the panic, the curfew, the interview, the loss, everything. However, the thing they remembered most of all was the public service announcements. The warnings played almost every hour at the beginning of fall, warning the citizens of Eastridge about the Smiling Snatcher, the Eastridge Demon, Clyde. For months all they could think about at night were the phrases "You do not hear the knocking," "Do not trust anyone you see wearing this costume," and "Keep all doors and windows locked."

It used to scare them—the thought of something being out there. At this point, however, Alex couldn't help but whisper, "Keep all doors and windows locked," as they slid their window open. They then paused for a moment, fidgeting until the window slotted into place with a click.

They understood that this was probably a death sentence, but it was also the only thing they could think of to stay alive. A cool breeze started to slowly drift into Alex's room as they peered out of the open window and into the night, looking for any people or flashes of orange. When they didn't see anything, they let out a relieved sigh and walked out of their room, making sure to close the door behind them to try and fight the chill. 

The yellowing fluorescent light in their kitchen was on, illuminating the space. It had the essentials—a refrigerator, a stove, cabinets, a dishwasher, and just enough counter space to house an assortment of random nick-nacks. The lights hummed quietly as Alex opened their cabinets in order to retrieve a jar of peanut butter. It was the cheap stuff—a store brand—that stuck to the roof of your mouth. They then moved to the fridge. Letting their hand trace the scratches Clyde left in it the first time it had entered their home. Then Alex opened the fridge and pulled out a random jar of jelly. They weren't sure how old it was, but it didn't look like it was actively rotting, so it would work. Grabbing the bread, they made their way back to the peanut butter. Pulling out a butter knife, they began to spread the sticky substances across two slices of bread. Once there was a decent amount of each, they pushed the slices together into a sandwich. Taking the sandwich, they went back into their room only to freeze. 

Crouching in their window was a dark shape with a mouth full of yellow teeth and two crooked yellow eyes.

"Your window was open," the creature said with its many overlapping voices.

"I know," Alex said, trying not to let their voice show just how nervous they felt. This was not the first time that the Smiling Snatcher had entered their home, but they still had to fight off the urge to run and hide from it. Ignoring their gut instinct, Alex held out the plate to the predator.

"You're an idiot," Clyde said, finally entering the room and grabbing the sandwich. It took a bite and then walked past Alex. They flinched as the demon passed, trying to ensure there was no contact between themself and it.

Once the Smiling Snatcher had exited, Alex rushed over to the window, looking out once more to make sure no one could have seen the demon. Once they were sure no one was watching, they closed the window.

Making their way out of their room, they found Clyde curled under their table, still munching on the sandwich and rumbling contentedly. Phantom shapes clung to the edge of the room. Half-formed illusions that did nothing but put Alex on edge. Seeing as the hallucinations were only half-baked, Alex assumed they probably weren't going to die tonight. With this half-reassurance, they went over to the television and turned it on, letting the sound of a random channel wash over them.

They leaned back and closed their eyes, trying to let the stress of the day flow out of them. The auditory hallucinations in the Lankman Foundation had really started to get to them recently. The pleas for help were harder to ignore every day. They started thinking about their time spent in that red-tinted hellscape. The constant, unending feeling of being watched was soaked into the bedrock. The caretakers wandered the halls like robots. Sweeping through them, occasionally entering patient rooms. The whole place had a bad atmosphere that followed Alex long after they clocked out for the day. 

Their train of thought was interrupted as they felt the couch shift under them. They opened their eyes to see Clyde crouched next to them.

"What are you watching?" Clyde asked.

"Uh," Alex paused to look over and see what exactly they had been watching. The screen showed birds flying around a city while a cheery voice explained how pigeons use the shape of their feathers to help them glide.

"It's a documentary; basically, a person explains a bunch about a certain topic; um, this one is about birds," Alex explained. Clyde let out a little hum that sounded like radio static, tilting its head as it watched the television with interest.

They sat like that for a few tense minutes, just observing the birds, before Alex suddenly got up. "I'm gonna... go," they said, turning to the demon. The Smiling Snatcher twitched its tail in a way Alex took as a go-ahead, so they turned around and walked to the kitchen.

Once they were back under the yellow lights, they leaned up against the wall. Now that they were out of Clyde's sight, they realized just how hungry they were. Alex walked over to the fridge, opening it to see what they could find. They leaned into the fridge for a second, grabbing a string cheese stick and an entire head of broccoli. With a sigh, they grabbed a plate and mentally prepared to consume their "dinner."

As they exited the yellow-tinted room, they saw dark birds flying through the space. Ghastly apparitions that swirled around on imaginary air currents. Alex walked into the living room with their slap-dash meal to find that Clyde had disappeared. Alex froze, eyes scanning around as they attempted to locate the veldigun through the hallucinations. Their eyes then locked onto a splash of orange and black sitting in front of the TV. It was glued to the screen, its tail twitching side to side as it tracked the birds.

Despite the scare caused by the veldigun, Alex managed to make their way over to the table without having a heart attack. Forcing themself to ignore the illusions and focus on their food, Alex started to eat. Despite their attempt, however, they felt their eyes drifting to the strange companion they had seemingly gained. They wondered briefly when this unlikely allyship would end. It wasn’t like this could last forever. Even if the veldigun didn’t kill them, the foundation would. Shaking themself out of their thoughts, they continued eating.

That was until they noticed Clyde sitting straight up, its muscles tensing as the program lingered on a shot of one of the pigeons. Alex felt their stomach drop as they recognized the same posture their old family cat had used to make before it pounced. They started getting up, not even sure what they were going to do, watching Clyde freeze for just a moment before the television cut away from the shot. Clyde let out an annoyed huff and relaxed. Alex all but collapsed back into their seat. They closed their eyes and pressed their hands against them. After a long moment, they decided to try and go back to eating. Everything settled into a small moment of calm before the sounds of birds suddenly cut off, a familiar blaring alarm pouring out of their TV.

"As Halloween night begins to set in..."

Alex snapped their head up, noticing that all the hallucinations had frozen. Then ever so slowly, Clyde began to creep closer to the television, their eyes reflecting on the surface as they began to watch the PSA.

Neither of them said anything as the announcement began to play. The basic elevator-esk music was the only sound for a few minutes. It permeated the air of the house, seeping into every crevice. The only interruption was after rule two when Clyde let out an amused huff.

"Stupid humans think locking their doors can keep me out. If I really wanted to, I could break through any of their doors or windows."

Hearing this caused Alex to feel like a stone was dropped into their stomach. Of course, from their time at the institute, they learned about just how much stronger the veldigun were compared to humans. However, they never really internalized it until just then. If it could just break down anyone's door, then there was really almost nothing protecting them and everyone else in the town from the demon currently sitting in their living room.

"Well, of course they could be more dumb," The demon continued looking towards Alex with a grin. Alex felt their blood freeze as they stared at the veldigun in front of them. Suddenly it let out a laugh, or more specifically, a cacophony of different laughs all layered on top of each other like a sitcom's live audience gone horribly wrong.

The laughter slowly came to a stop, and Clyde got up, stretching themselves out like a cat, before they turned to Alex once more.

"Thanks for the sandwich." It then made its way back towards Alex's room. Alex found themself letting out a breath they didn't know they were holding. They then quickly stood up, only to almost collapse as their legs tried to give out.

Abandoning what was left of their meal, Alex stumbled over to their room, finding the window wide open once more and no trace of the Eastridge demon.

[crocswithoutsocks]

What do cogs eat in Toontown: Corporate Clash?

I'm doing research for a fic and have been scrounging the wiki for this information so I thought I'd compile my findings as a nice organised tumblr post in case anyone else needs access to this very specific part of the lore. There's actually a lot more than I thought there would be! If I've missed anything, feel free to add! The definitive list will be way at the bottom of the post if you just want the cold hard facts.

Section A - Foodstuffs that have a lot of evidence pointing towards their consumption by cogs.

Oil - Massive evidence for this in both Derrick Man and the CEO battle. Heals suits in Derrek Man, and seems to be their preferred food given its literally the only thing being served at the banquet? Maybe more of a beverage than a food? Still makes the list either way. Different varieties of oil are also mentioned, including carbonated/seltzer oil (from the Director's Cuts ARG andHigh Roller's trivia questions) and crude oil (discussed further below).

Cogfee (Coffee) - Cogfee is mentioned all the time. There's promotional art of Chip promoting cogfee, and his secretary also requests a new cogfee machine in the April Toons ARG. Cathal and Brian have also both delivered/refused to deliver cogfee to Allan, respectively. The Toxic Manager also gives the Insider a cup of Cogfee in the Director's cuts ARG, and there's probably even more examples of cogs drinking cogfee that I haven't included here. It's also worth a mention that Jennifer's favourite drink is a soyl mechiatto, which I would have assumed to be the cog equivalent of a machiatto with soya milk, but the fact that High Roller's trivia question on the subject makes a distinction between soyl mechiatto and cogfee mechiatto makes me doubt that the soyl one contains cogfee at all. Alas, I don't know enough about actual coffee to be able to tell you if you can even make a machiatto without coffee.

Cookies - Most of the evidence for this comes either directly or indirectly from Belle. Evidence for suits eating cookies comes from Belle's interview notes, the 1.3 blog post, the comic with Flint and Belle baking, and the C.O.O's 2023 dialogue. These also provide other things suits can eat in the form of cookie flavours: charcoal, ginger tar and crude morsels. I don't know if ginger tar is ginger flavoured tar or a variety of tar called "ginger tar", so that's up for interpretation. As far as I can tell, all three seem to function as a chocolate chip substitute, but could also possibly be replacing things like fruit or nuts in the cookies. The only non-Belle-related cookie evidence comes from the Director's Cuts ARG, where the Middleman gives the Insider a plate of crude oil cookies. I assume the crude oil used in these is a different thing than the crude morsels in the C.O.O's cookies, and I can't really identify what crude oil is supposed to be a subsitute for food-wise since it appears multiple times in different contexts.

Sandwiches and assorted ingredients - Cathal eats a sandwitch halfway through his battle, and you can't really get evidence more definitive than that. The wiki says it's specifically ham and cheese, and looking at his renders I can see that probably. In the 1.3 key art, he's got a different sandwich that looks like lettuce and tomato, so from Cathal alone, bread, ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato can be added to the list of things suits eat.

Ketchup - This is really a subsection of the last category given tomatoes have already been confirmed, but Count Erclaim steals 'Chup from Rocky on multiple occasions (notably the 'Halloween Hater comic') and Cathal also has two bottles of it in his office. There are also a concerningly high number of ketchup bottles inthe Mozzerella Styx freezer. So... Ketchup. Interestingly enough, the ad for Mozzerella Styx on High Roller's website lists 'Chup as a drink, so maybe its a suit beverage? Sure, why not.

Water - The existence of the water cooler attack implies that cogs can and do drink water, and it's also listed as an available drink three times on Mozzerella Styx's menu, as 'water', 'dihydrogen monoxide' and 'corporate water supply'. They also drink sparkling water/seltzer/carbonated water, whatever you want to call it, since Jennifer asks where she's supposed to keep her sparkling water after Spruce takes a bite out of her desk, and seltzer is one of the available options in the Mozzerella Styx drinks machine.

Cereal - Dave buys 500 boxes of cereal in the April Toons ARG. The picture identifies the cereal as 'Oil-o-Flakes', but the description says they're 'corn flakes', soooo... corn confirmed? Maybe?

Pizza - You'd think this one would be easy, given the fact that literally the only cog owned restaurant is a pizzeria, but the fact that Mozzerella Styx is a front kind of raises the question of whether they actually serve food there. Either way though, Count Erclaim orders a "none pizza with left beef" in one of his monologues, and even if his pizza is a meme it's still a pizza, and Erclaim is still a cog that's probably going to eat it. Oh. Also beef then, I guess.

The sustenance page on the gopher version of cogs.ink gets a special mention because I forgot about it completely and then felt like I'd struck gold when I stumbled back upon it. Things mentioned on this page that aren't already on the list include:

Coal, petrol-marinated beet and diamond dust inside a sandwich called the 'Money Christo'.

Sides include crispy steel bits, extra crude oil and gas-infused triple-fried coal.

Coal again, Turpentine Ansoff Jelly and Oxalic Acid patties, all of which are considered breakfast (or, deskfast, as the page says) foods.

Carbon carbonara, made with only the finest eggs and crude oil (but what ingredient can be used in cookies and also in carbonara?).

Canned bread (WHY IS IT IN A CAN?) and kerosene dip.

Compressed fish

Strawberry Daigou, which is a dessert according to the description, and also contains the allergen 'red'. I didn't know suits could be allergic to anything until now.

SODIMM SOda

Section B - Things that I'm not certain on but I thought were still worth a mention.

Pie - Allan asks if the pies the toons are throwing at him "are imported blueberry", which implies that he's eaten both imported and non-imported blueberry pies before, to be able to tell the difference. Either that or he's been hit in the face so many times with both that he's now able to tell the difference, and he doesn't actually eat them. He can tell its blueberry though, which does suggest he's had those before and knows what they taste like. Given strawberries are already confirmed, its probably safe to say that cogs eat blueberries too.

Wood - Spruce, basically. He takes a bite out of Jennifer's table during his interview, says he's got at chomping trees in his personal statement and he's always got that log in his mouth. It's never really stated whether he actually eats the trees or just bites them, though. Also, eating trees feels very much like a Spruce thing, and not something any other suits would do. Like, they probably can eat wood, but would they want to?

Coins - Its mentioned in the cog building music backstage blog post that Dave ate 20,000 Cogbucks worth of quaters in the Cashbot mints. I'm confident this is a Dave exclusive thing and that no other cog would ever do this. I think.

Section C - Things that depend entirely on the validity of Mozzerella Styx as an actual cog restaurant.

Mozzerella Styx seems like it would be a veritable gold mine of information on cog food, but that actually depends on who Mozzerella Styx's target audience actually is. Mozzerella Styx's target audience is important because if they're trying to appear as a reputable toon resturaunt, then there's no gaurentee that cogs would even eat the things on their menu, as they would be toon foods rather than cog foods. The menu is weird though, since it definetly includes things that toons would never eat, like oil, which implies either that suits are intended to eat there or that whoever wrote the menu didn't know that toons can't drink oil. The menu does seem to be geared towards toons in some way, though, given the two 'toon drink here' options in the drinks section. Who are your target market, Mozzerella Styx??? And that's not even getting into if they even sell food there. The short with the two toons ordering a pizza implies that you can definetly order there, but the outcome of that short (the toons never getting any pizza) combined with the menu says 'pay upfront', 'product not gaurenteed' and 'no refunds' makes me incredibly doubtful that anyone has ever managed to successfully eat food from Mozzerella Styx (the fact that the toons are going here also suggests its a "toon" resturaunt. Or maybe they're just chill with going to a cog owned resturaunt? They definetly at least heard Styx over the phone). HOWEVER! The fact that the 1.4.0 patch notes say they're generating more money through pizza sales, combined with the (presumably paid for) ad on High Roller's website and the fact that they have actual pizza ingredients in the freezer makes me think that maybe they are actually running a resturaunt with real food on the side of all the money laundering? Perhaps? Either way, this big long ramble has acheived nothing, and I've got no idea if these foodstuffs are any more valid than I did at the start of it. Well then. If we're assuming that cogs do eat at Mozzerella Styx, for the sake of having more data, then everything on the menu can be added to the list. This includes:

Pineapple - The head huntin' hawaiian pizza, despite the pizza pictured under it not containing any pineapple, does make another appearance on a poster where pineapple is visible. There's no sauce, though. Why is there no sauce on this pizza. (Also, I'm going to remove pineapple from the 'Mozzerella Styx Clause', since Jennifer says in Buck's interview notes that he smells like pineapple, meaning she's eaten or at least smelled it before. Therefore, it's probably a valid suit food).

Nuts and bolts - The same poster with the hawaiian pizza also suggests you add [photo of nuts and bolts]. They aren't mentioned by name, but they sure are there!

New Year Cabbage

Salad - No idea what this salad contains, so I suppose every vegetable and other thing that could possibly be in a salad is up for debate. If you wanted to make it out of already confirmed salad stuff, it would probably be lettuce, tomato and beetroot.

Mushrooms - The picture of the aledgedly hawaiian pizza appears to have mushrooms on it, and mushroom pizza is also an option.

Broccoli - The alleged hawaiian pizza also has what I think is broccolli on it, and I really like broccoli so I'm adding it to the list.

Bread-sticks

Junior Executive Juice - I hope this is juice made for junior executives and not juice made out of junior executives

Ice cream cone - Not specified whether this is an ice cream cone as in 'its ice cream in a cone' or 'it's an ice cream cone with no ice cream'. I'll assume there's ice cream involved because it seems cruel to deprive these robots of ice cream.

Waffle cone

Traffic cone - I mean... it's on the menu?

Onions

Pine - Pine needles? Pine trees? Pineapples? We will never know

Jellybeans - I find it funny that these guys are just casually eating the toons' money. Maybe there's a difference between currency jellybeans and jellybeans for eating, but its still funny.

Soda Cold-a - The drink machine by the front counter actually provides a lot of new drinks that I'm specifically exempting from the 'Mozzerella Styx Clause' due to the fact that a) Toons definetly cannot drink half of this stuff and b) this drink machine for sure exists and probably does dispense all of these things. Available beverages not yet counted include antifreeze, diet oil, coolant, Cold-a and gas (which completes the C.O.G.S trifecta! Horray, suits can officially eat everything that C.O.G.S inc produces!)

Slushies - The slushie machine behind the counter appears to dispense slushy in flavours DRINK, Zap and BLUE. There are no cups present near this machine, only cones, which implies it could be a snow cone machine, but the ad on High Roller's website shows a cup with a straw labelled 'BLUE', so either they're drinking snow cone syrup or its a slushie machine.

Snow cones

Salt and pepper - There are salt and pepper shakers on all of the tables. Horray for seasonings! Why you would put those on a pizza I have no idea.

The List

Okay, I've probably missed something but here's my definitive list, colour coded, alphabetized and sorted for your convenience. Items in black are pretty much 100% confirmed, items in blue are speculative with not much evidence and items in green depend entirely on Mozzerella Styx's validity as a cog resturant.

Human safe foods:

Beef, Beetroot, Blueberries, Bread, Bread-sticks, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carbonara, Cereal, Cheese, Cookies, Corn, Eggs, Fish, Ginger(?), Ham, Ice cream, Jellybeans, Lettuce, Mushrooms, Onions, Pepper (the seasoning not the vegetable), Pie, Pineapple, Pizza, Salad, Salt, Sandwiches, Snow cones, Strawberries, Tomatoes (and derivitives ketchup and tomato sauce), Waffle cones.

Things humans should definetly not be eating:

Charcoal, Coal, Coins, Crispy steel bits, Crude morsels, Crude Oil, Diamond dust, Extra Crude Oil, Gas-infused triple-fried coal, Ginger tar, Kerosene, Nuts and bolts, Oxalic Acid Patties, Petrol, Pine, Traffic cones, Turpentine Ansoff Jelly, Wood.

Beverages:

Antifreeze, Carbonated oil, Cogfee, Cold-a, Coolant, Diet Oil, Gas, Juice, Ketchup(?), Oil, Slushies, SODIMM SOda, Soyl, Sparkling water/Seltzer, Water.

Unidentified:

red

All of these things can probably be broken down into their core ingredients, too, which would really expand the variety of foodstuffs on offer. Basically, cog food seems to be pretty similar to human food, just with a lot more metal and machine-stuff.

[yuurei20]

Short Translation from Twst the 2nd novel: Ruggie in the Cafeteria(pt4/4)

"‘You mean they have good teamwork?’ Yuuya recalls an earlier conversation with Ace. ‘Is it because Savanaclaw has so many beast-people?’

‘Well, Savanaclaw has a lot of people like us, too. I think it’s just how the dorm is. It’s 'cause they’ve got the most athletes. That’s why they’re so good at Spelldrive.’

'Now that you mention it, that came up in class this morning, too.’

Savanaclaw is based on the indomitable spirit of the 'King of Beasts,’ one of the Great Seven. And, true to that spirit, its residents all seem strong and proud of their dorm.

‘You talk Savanaclaw, you’re talkin’ a tournament-winning dorm. They’ve got a ton of athletes who have gone pro after being scouted at competitions.’

Deuce furrows his brow. ‘But last year, the dorm that won was…’

‘Exactly. That’s what caused the fight this morning. For the past two years, the winner’s been Diasomnia. If you’d watched the broadcast of the tournament last year, you’d know that.’

‘Ah.’ Deuce blinks. ‘Yeah, I can see why that’d end up in a fight.’

‘Right? Savanaclaw is probably gettin’ real tense with the tournament coming up again. It’s probably best to steer clear of them right now.’

It seems that Diasomnia has been dominating at Spelldrive in recent years. As reigning champions, Savanaclaw must see them as rivals. Now understanding the root of the quarrel from this morning, Yuuya resolves to stay far away from both dorms until the tournament ends.

‘The Spelldrive tournament…’ The raging Grim finally collapses forward onto the table. ‘I can’t be in the tournament, and then this happened to my deluxe menchi katsu sandwich…nothin’ good ever happens to me! This is the worst day of my life!’

Grim buries his face in his front paws, which become slick with tears and snot.

Feeling sorry for him Yuuya gingerly arranges Grim’s scattered baked goods on the table, then gently strokes his hunched back. ‘You’ve got a lot of other snacks. They all look delicious, and you can get another katsu sandwich next time. Let’s just give up for today.’

‘Grrr. Damn it…’

Yuuya offers Grim a bagel that he devours in three bites, glowering at the table. ‘This alone ain’t gonna be enough…hey, Yuu! I’m takin’ your stew!’

‘Come on now, cut it out.’ Yuuya rescues his bowl in a hurry, and Grim makes a grab for Deuce’s bread.

'Stop it! I don’t have anything to do with this!’

‘Man, we’d better eat before Grim inhales everything.’ Ace swallows his bread whole without chewing. While he’d probably planned enjoy it at his leisure, in the end he couldn’t even taste it. In a cacophony of noise and the blink of an eye, lunchtime is over."

[rorja]

Unseen - shoko x reader

° summary: shoko meets reader on a random afternoon in a cafè managed by her parents. She's immediately attracted by reader's strangeness, especially because she claims that she's able to see ghosts but doesn't know about the existence of cursed spirits.

• cafe!au, reader can see ghosts, use of she/her pronouns, airhead-like reader. [spoilers about the hidden inventory arc]. Shoko centric. 10k word count.

▪︎a/n: this is our first os on tumblr, english is not our first language so please be kind <3 - 🔖divider credits to: saradika

Shoko Ieiri never acted on her impulses. That’s why when she spoke that afternoon, suggesting to catch the metro and drop at a casual station instead of staying amidst the busy streets of Tokyo, name-dropping places they were familiar with nonetheless, Gojo and Geto promptly stopped their banter and began to walk towards the nearest station. It would’ve been fun, was the silent agreement between the three of them, to explore places they haven’t had the chance to explore because of missions and such. It was also a nice way to fully take advantage of the rare free time they had in their hands. No missions. No curses that required their intervention. No corpses waiting motionlessly on a metal table that reeked of sterile alcohol. Merely three students that got out of school grounds to enjoy their afternoon.

That was how they ended up at your parents’ café. A little rustic heaven that carried the fragrances of fresh coffe beans together with baked goods, both salty and sweets, handmade and carefully placed in front of the wooden shop window. Peeking amongst the veneer ivy plant, ever so green and bathing contentedly under the golden sunlight, the warmth coming from the yet too hot bread. The smell of it reaching the trio and hugging them ever so gently, inviting them inside even.

One of the first things that caught her attention just as easily were the many plants around, from the smaller ones under the counter sitting nicely on unevenly cut bricks, to the ones hanging from the ceiling. Some others sparse elegantly here and there in different pots of different sizes, but each and one of them —along their sometimes funny pots— helped in creating a very cozy atmosphere. A pleasing one that mixed well with the white and woody brown on the ceiling, the walls, the tables, even the rugs probably handpicked with love… everything in there was just carefully placed in a way to put everyone at ease. To make you feel relaxed. Which was already something acquired in the color choice and the usage of that uncountable number of plants, Shoko thought vaguely. It definitely was not her cup of tea, neither the usual kind of cafés she would be seen at, opting for something more modern and known as a subtle reassurance of sorts. But there was something in this well-hidden gem that was so enticing. Like a spell that gently encouraged her to come closer, to take a peek at those baked goods as small children used to.

And Shoko thought for once, that she really didn’t want to fight it; gladly waving her white flag and surrender to the appeal of the café. She had nothing to lose. Maybe, she briefly wondered, those sandwiches were as good as they appeared to be too.

Her coffee was on the way. The table Gojo pushed them to offered a nice view on the white counter and its coffee machine, where the woman that got their orders was working dutifully. An herbal tea for Geto. Hot chocolate with a lot of cream and some kind of colorful sprinkles on top (only green and pink, in a n exact order) for Gojo. A simple black coffe for Shoko. It was funny to depict their differences even in something as simple as their go-to drinks in a café, it further proved once again what a messy match they were nevertheless. Messy but never mismatched.

Shoko looked around, her eyes scanning lazily the interior dotted by different slivers of terracotta and painted plastic planters everywhere her eyes landed. From the small constellations of plants near their feet to the bigger, main ones gently swaying over each person’s head. Like dandelions dancing in their air, tenderly moving by the gusts of wind coming from the door every time a new customer entered. No one seemed to pay attention to those subtle but graceful dance steps, preferring to lower their heads over their computers or chatting with their friends just to erupt in loudly chuckles and whispers that hardly were respectful for the ones working. Her friends too, unfortunately, falling in that category with their nonchalant conversations —even though Geto tried to scold Gojo, his words seemed to have no effect at all, the latter still going on with his yap on the latest game he played recently.

“’M going to smoke” she was quick on her feet, her eyes previously catching a glimpse of a door that surely lead outside given the structure of the café. The boys only nodded distractedly at her.

A cork board stood near the door, slightly scraped at its edges as probably placed there from a long time, but the many sheets placed there only acted as an indicator that it was still used to this very day. One being pinned in there from just four or five days at best as the paper was in seemingly better conditions, a photo of a cat in the center of it. Bright red, bold letters stating that the cat went missing last Thursday in that neighborhood.

She didn’t put a lot of thoughts on it, discarding the missing notice to push the door open. It was a small garden with few discarded chairs to sit on here and there, well-maintained just the same as the other plants in that café. Surely the people who worked there seemed to have a big appreciation for plants, going as far to take care of them lovingly. A bush near her feet only confirming her thoughts, tiny drops of water still sitting on the foliage.

Her hand dipped in the pocket of her skirt to retrieve the lighter, cigarette sitting idly on her lips now. Relief growing instantly from the first drag, back relaxing against the wall near the door as her eyes wandered around. Only in that moment she realized that she wasn’t exactly alone in that garden. Indeed there you were, hunched over a bush. Maybe one of the customers, Shoko thought absentmindedly in between a drag and another. Ashes falling on the ground silently, as if not willing to interrupt whatever you were busy into.

It happened when the cigarette was still burning, tip glowing red weakly while reaching steadily its end, that Shoko noticed something weird about you. Her brows furrowing as she stared into your back, always facing the wall but now pushing a white plastic plate filled with… milk? More inwards toward the bush. Your hand moving in repetitive gestures, almost as if emptily caressing nothing. There was nothing in there, neither traces of a cursed spirit or a cursed spirit itself. A blank spot filled with nothing if not air. There was not a trace of cursed energy flowing in your body.

So, what were you doing then?

“Uhm…” Shoko’s voice ringed in the air. Another light touch at the base of the cigarette, another amount of ashes falling. “Are you okay?”

You turned around, back straightening upon hearing an unfamiliar voice. That garden was your precious and very needed breath of air, often coming there to seek a break from the usual smell of coffee beans and still warm bread, fresh off the oven. It was unusual for the clients to come out here, your mother the only one crossing that door to call you back if in need of more hands.

“Yes?” You answered carefully, not exactly understanding what the girl might refer to. It must have been visible on your face, your brows furrowing in genuine confusion, at the unusual question as if it’s not like you were doing something weird.

It was only when the brunette eyed your hand wearily that you connected the dots. Oh, the cat! The realization only making you want to burst into a laugh.

“Oh, you mean him?” You smiled fondly at the black and white cat that was now sniffing the milk, before tentatively licking it. He was so cute, warming enough to you and accepting your caresses with soft, appreciative purrs as he kept drinking the milk. “Sadly, Tanaka-san will never see his adorable cat anymore”.

���

Shoko kept that bizarre meeting for herself, not finding it worthy to tell Geto or Gojo. Kept the same way a child would keep its secrets, a personal memory to explore once alone in the dim lights of her room before falling asleep. For some reasons she found herself unable to stop thinking about it, her now teased curiosity always appearing in her mind under the disguised image of the café, only to come back to you.

She discovered that the café was run by your parents, occasionally seeing you taking the orders of some salary man with his head down on his computer or at the cashier, exchanging money and receipts while your father was busy with the coffee machine. Some other time she’d trace your figure in one of the far-away tables, school uniform yet to be discarded for the white apron she was growing accustomed to. And Shoko’s visits grew. By a lot, now becoming a number that hardly could be counted within ten fingers. It would go the same way each time, always the same dance where she would choose the table near that new coppery pot on the side, then order the usual black coffee (and a sandwich too on rare days). Afterwards she would walk to the door on the back leading to the garden, a cigarette sitting idly on her lips, sure to find you there busy in some weird antics again. Just like the first time she’d met you.

As a matter of fact, you were always up to something she couldn’t comprehend. Like that one afternoon she had found you hanging numerous wind chimes in a corner, too busy humming something to notice her leaning on the wall and staring. Acting unbothered once again, as if she was the weird one for asking to have a sort of explanation and questioning your doing. As if hanging that many wind chimes wasn’t weird at all and Shoko’s perplexed stare was pointless to begin with.

“My neighbor hated these,” you had said that afternoon before Shoko could even open her mouth to make the same question “now that I’ve hung them up, I’m sure he’ll never come to ask me for favors!”

Shoko had simply nodded, breathing the smoke out from her mouth. Not asking further than that as it proved to be useless. “Is he a wild animal?”

That seemed to catch your attention, turning to face her with a confused glance. “What?”

“Seems like you want to keep away an animal” Shoko had explained, under the soft dingles coming from the wind chimes. The wind stirring away the smoke coming from the cigarette when too near to you.

“No? He’s just dead” And oh, you had answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world that Shoko ended up widening her eyes for a very fraction of second. There was a first time for everything, even a first time of hearing something as strange as that.

Shoko Ieiri was rarely one to chose silence, especially when faced with such odd words. That afternoon had been the very first time she voluntarily chose to stay silent.

●

It had happened again. Every time she’d meet you, you were always up to something that went beyond her logical understanding. This one time you were just a few steps away from the entrance of the café, in one of the many narrow streets of the neighborhood, kneeled and busy recollecting the books fallen from your school bag whilst mumbling something that was hard to make out with the distance. You didn’t even realize that Shoko was walking towards your direction, attention still focused on the ground where your books were lying.

“…-’ve changed address. Lives on the third floor, or at least that’s what he told me the last time he ordered his coffee” silence, then a resigned sigh. “I don’t know what to say, he never talked about it in front of me”

One, two, three… five.

There books were now back inside the bag safely closed. It was in that moment, while you were standing up on your feet again and fixing the bag on you shoulders that you noticed Shoko staring back at you. Floreal scent with rich and deep notes reaching your nose first and betraying her silent presence, most probably busy wondering what must’ve happened for you to kneel down in the first place.

“Oh, it’s you!”

The silence between you two pregnant with confusion, as it always has been since the first moment you had met her. A dynamic you two seemed to have accepted and easily fell into, prompting you to clear your throat and say something. Shoko standing there, arms crossed on her chest. Waiting for you to explain yourself, no matter how much it would take. You were somehow relaxed to know that she would’ve listen to you.

“Miyazaki-san. She asked me if I knew where her husband was” Shoko blinked once. No one was in that alley with you at that moment, and she was quite sure of it. Sure of her eyesight at least, but indeed after meeting you she was slowly starting to questioning it too. Both her eyesight and her own abilities as a Jujutsu sorceress.

“Ugh! She seems to not understand that the bond with her husband is starting to wear off. A lot of time has passed and of course, the pain is not as strong as before. That’s why she isn’t able to find him, or she lose sight of him!” You explained to her, annoyed with the situation that Shoko failed to grasp. Who was the lady again? Did she disappear before she was in the alley? But then again, she had heard your voice alone. As if you were busy speaking alone within the walls of the alley and nothing more.

Yet, once again, Shoko found herself falling in step with you towards the café.

“I was ignoring her at first because it’s starting to get on my nerves how se fails to understand this simple thing, but she’s really stubborn. And insufferable too. So she ripped my bag” another exhausted exhale coming from your mouth. Shoko listened in silence, trying to follow your side of the story. “Can you believe it? She asked me if he has a lover!”

And of course it happened again. And again, again. Whenever Shoko would walk up to the café, you would always be either there or in one of the alleys near. You, who would always be too busy in another one of your strange shenanigans.

Shoko, after a long and hard day stuck inside that room that reeked of sterile alcohol and decaying bodies inside of Jujutsu High, came back to the café. Dutifully following the routine she had unconsciously established in her head, walking to the ever-closed door in the back after drinking her coffee. For once, it was you having followed Shoko outside —having been placed on cashier duty per your father’s request while he finished getting the bread out of the oven.

She’d always lean with her back on the wall, glowing cigarette between two fingers while she breathed the smoke out, careful to tip her head up for it to disappear as quick instead of latching on her clothes.

(Or worse, your clothes. That being the main reason behind her actions, not wanting you to smell of nicotine and cheap packs bought a bit away from Yaga’s eyesight. It wouldn’t be fair to serve the customers while smelling of cigarettes now, wouldn’t it?)

And you would lean a bit close to her. Each meeting mending a distance that seemed too big, too intimidating at first. Now it was only a matter of mere steps against a colder wall.

“Is there a cat or an angry wife following me?”

You are staring, the hidden message behind her words. Enough to make you snap out from your thoughts but not enough to make you look elsewhere out of embarrassment.

“No… you have a weird aura today” you said, tilting your head to try and figure out what was wrong in that girl you had found yourself spending more time with. Something familiar, that you had met already many times before.

“Hah? Let’s hear it”

Shoko’s amusement glowed in her eyes like the burnt tip of the cigarette, solely to fall like ash on the ground once you finally answered her.

“Did you touch a dead body?”

Shoko widened her eyes. The now burnt cigarette dropped near her shoes with a muted thud, but in that moment it was louder than any thought in her mind.

●

Ieiri Shoko lived, studied and (already worked) in the world of Jujutsu. Seeing creatures that didn’t fit the commonly known criteria of reality, that redefined the laws of the reality they all lived in and fiercely fought the laws of what supposedly was their nature, was something she had to grow up with. That was normal for her.

However, listening a common girl talking about her ability to see and talk with dead people but unable to see curses on the other side of the street (your confusion every time Shoko would try to explain their existence to you was genuine; you were a non-sorceress, there were no doubts about it), was completely astonishing. Absurd, even. Shoko shrugged it off by calling you “weirdo” (or so Gojo would’ve done) but never once she stopped thinking about it. From the day she figured out the last piece of the puzzle, directly coming from your mouth on top of it, Shoko felt her brain totally fried.

There has always been something about you that pulled her forward. Teasing her curiosity further, prompting her to close that distance that kept you two slightly apart when leaning against that wall, inching her to solve that anomaly that was your reality. A reality that you had accepted and found a balance with.

And so it hasn’t been that long before Shoko figured out that every person you mentioned had really existed at some point in that very same city. Shoko thought that it wasn’t unorthodox for someone in their society to fully commit to a specific side of the gruesome art that was jujutsu nonetheless, but not being able to see cursed spirits was something she had never heard of. It was impossible.

That was the reason behind her current predicament.

“Sensei, do you think is possible?”

Yaga didn’t answer immediately, dark sunglasses covering his shock about the unusual question. Taken aback firstly by the many ‘in a hypothetical scenario’ that Shoko had used as an introduction of sorts for what she has asked. Secondly, it was Ieiri Shoko. It was rare for that student of his to blatantly show her genuine interest like this.

He pushed the sunglasses up his nose. “Ieiri, our world is so complex that the birth of a singularity as the one you’ve told me about, wouldn’t surprise me. Either way I wouldn't deny its possibility”

“Therefore you aren’t absolutely sure of it” Shoko answered, eyes narrowed at her professor’s words. Yaga simply nodded.

“With absolute certainty I can tell you who’s about to die” and before she could say anything else, ask anything else regarding the whole situation that was slowly eating her brain away, Yaga walked to Gojo, scolding the guy for his unfair trick pulled in the middle of the training session he was having with Geto.

“Therefore you aren’t absolutely sure of it” Shoko answered, eyes narrowed at her professor’s words. Yaga simply nodded.

“With absolute certainty I can tell you who’s about to die” and before she could say anything else, ask anything else regarding the whole situation that was slowly eating her brain away, Yaga walked to Gojo, scolding the guy for his unfair trick pulled in the middle of the training session he was having with Geto.

●

“Which school you go to?”

You were sitting at her usual table, right in front of her with that white apron on. That day the café was slow, few clients sitting here and there typing on the keyboards or enjoying their drinks with hushed words. Far away from the usual bustling that would greet Shoko each afternoon, that would keep you busy serving dishes and drinks with that green tray you knew how to balance in one hand. There was no such thing today, which has lead you to sit at that table near that coppery plant pot, watered a bunch of minutes before by your mother.

Shoko blinked, the gentle but sour steam coming from the mug a pleasing distraction that she welcomed half heartedly. Without asking a permission you had plopped in the vacant chair and started a conversation out of nowhere, taking her by surprise. You seemed to do that a lot, a characteristic trait of yours that up until that day has never failed.

“I’ve never seen that uniform around” you watched as Shoko placed the mug on the table, the tips of her hands twitching slightly at the loss of that burning feeling.

“Jujutsu High School, we study how to exorcist cursed spirits” her answer came in a mild sarcastic tone, as if saying something that was evidently false and waiting carefully for your reaction. For Shoko it was a challenge of sorts, an absurd one which only purpose was to expose who was the one lying.

But you nodded, like you fully understood the meaning of those words and thus not prying. Accepting them as an absolute truth.

“Cool. Is it in the city centre? Is it private?”

Shoko pondered her words. You really didn’t falter at all, huh? “Yes and yes"

“Ah, I’m jealous! I go to an all-girls school”

“Are there some ghosts in yours?”

“Nah, just the one in the third bathroom on the second floor that bothers you to play…” your hand slammed on the table and in a heartbeat your laughter filled the café. Something in her’s expression making you weak and expose your own joke. “I was kidding. That is the legend about Hanako, didn’t you know it?”

Shoko chuckled, a forced one just to go hand in hand with you. A smile tugging the corners of your lips at that, chin now resting on your palm as you hitched closer to her. “Anyway, no ghosts. Just the old headmaster who shot himself in his office after admitting bankrupt”

A polite chuckle leaving her lips once again at your… joke? She wasn’t really sure, but at the same time she didn’t want to damped your mood. Neither she didn’t want to say something that could threat the smile you were now wearing.

“Oh yes!” She sipped her mug of coffe as you clapped your hands together. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Shoko shook her head, lips still sitting on the border of the mug as her eyes glinted with confusion. Did she give you such an impression?

“Ah! I thought that one of those guys— one of the two you came the first day with…”

So she wasn’t the only one silently observing, huh?

●

“Look at that girl and tell me what you see”

Gojo let out another exasperated sigh, dramatic enough for the odd request just received in that weird day. Feeling somewhat baffled by the ongoing ordeal. Number one, Shoko asking him to go drink something together? Weird. Number two, Shoko insisting on her choice for the café instead of leaving the decision in the hands of the winner of a bloody fight between him and Geto? Something was absolutely not right here. Number three on that list, not only did he followed her like the good friend he was, she had him waiting outside for the arrival of a certain girl!

Gojo Satoru had his own fair share of weird things happened since he got enrolled at Jujutsu High, but this? This could easily make it to the top five, to be completely honest.

“Mhhh” he brought his hand to his chin. Head tipped slightly for his glasses to slip further on his nose, allowing him to see the picture in those bright colors that would often hurt his eyes. A dramatic mannerism sprinkled with some hints truth, just like the hot chocolate in front of his eyes. After some moments he pushed his glasses up, effectively hiding his eyes and turning to Shoko with an idiotic smile.

“She isn’t my type!”

“I didn’t mean that, idiot. Use your six eyes on her” Gojo shrugged but eventually did as told. He silently prayed for it to end fast so he would be able to dig in his hot chocolate.

Gojo shook his head vehemently. “Uh no… nothing”

He stopped once he saw Shoko’s furrowed brown, contemplating something in that head of hers. Arms crossed on her chest and coffee going completely forgotten on their table, which was really unusual for her. Whatever situation she found herself in with that girl, clearly was something that big. In the two years they had known each other, nothing has ever gotten Shoko so invested. Neither Yaga’s difficult tasks (or final tests, as the old man enjoyed calling them) at the end of every year.

Gojo took the spoon, ever so carefully scooping up the cream with the colored sprinkles before swallowing it. An appreciative noise erupting from his chest just like a happy kid. “Are you trying to give me some lectures about the inner beauty of people? I mean, it’s not like she’s bad-looking but…”

“You see her like a normal human being, so? Not a trace of cursed energy flowing? Nothing else?”

Shoko quickly put an end to whatever his mind has come up with, returning to the main reason she’d brought him here in the first place.

“I told you already, didn’t I? Stop asking, I want to eat now”

Shoko couldn’t say anything to that. If it was true that there was not an hint of cursed energy in y/n then that only meant that she was a sort of singularity herself. Just like Yaga had told her days prior. All the theories she’d made, all of her analysis, lack of records in each archive… everything threw in the trash with only a glance.

There was no ethical explanation about your ability. That was the absurd thing for her.

Her shoulders fell. “Order whatever you want, I’ll pay for your effort as promised”

Not like he needed it, Gojo was just very fond of being a nuisance for her. So he didn’t let her repeat twice, pinpointing the next few sweet treats written on the menu for the next time the old lady would walk to them.

“There’s something though,” Gojo added while observing you and Shoko exchange a greeting gesture with an amused expression, “her heartbeat incresead!”

●

Shoko run from the station to the address you had sent to her earlier through an unusual sms. You told it was important, an urgent matter that woke her brain up with possible and different scenarios as to why you were on the streets at one in the morning. So she got up, dressed quickly in her uniform and tried to reach the location as fast as possible. Didn’t matter if she was signing away her school records by breaking the curfew, sneaking out at ungodly hours of the morning.

And you were there. Easily spotted, sitting motionlessly on the dark and wet sidewalk with a wretched expression on your face that was painful for her to watch. Big grins like the ones you often had on your lips when in the garden suited you most. Yet, you were there. Incredulous widened gaze fixed on the asphalt in front of you.

“y/n, what happened? Are you hurt?” You had your head lying between your hands and when Shoko finally reached you, you did nothing. Acknowledging her presence by sitting straight on that dirty sidewalk only, your pout more evident as you tried to keep your tears in, fighting your breakdown at the best of your capabilities. Still like the waters of a river, gloomy like the rain that fell that same evening.

Shoko’s hands twitched slightly. You didn’t even look at her, that simple missing gesture making her heart fight violently her ribcage in a tumultuous uprising. You, who didn’t even greet her with your sweet words or a gentle wave of your hand. Something was very wrong, and the thought only made her growing nervous in her stead.

When you spoke, the corners of your mouth trembling visibly, her shoulders fell. “Today I helped a girl filling her fridge”

Shoko blinked once, twice. Trying her hardest to put together the information you willingly let out, trying to understand the meaning behind your words. What was so tragic about filling a fridge? Surely there must’ve been something else… right? “What?”

“She asked me to fill her fridge because she knew her mother would’ve gone to check if she was taking care of herself properly when she was alive and—” a long sniffle, “of course I had to do it and I waited here. I saw her mother going in and then leaving the house completely heartbroken and—” you kept telling her, hiding your face from Shoko and hitting the ground repeatedly with your foot “the girl thanked me but I can’t stop feeling… like this. Because her last wish was to not make her mother worry”.

Your rant eventually came to an end. Another sniffle, head hidden away between your arms and pressed against your knees, then a heart breaking scream. One that Shoko thought you needed. In this moment, faced with your raw pain, she couldn’t keep questioning wether what you saying was true or not. Wether what you were telling was real or a mere fruit of your imagination, if she was indulging and giving all of he attention to a bunch of lies. She didn’t really care right now about the truth, about all what she has done since meeting you, silencing her own thoughts and her personal doubts for one night only.

You were clearly suffering, and if she could’ve helped you in any way feeling you better, then she was more than glad to do so.

Without a second thought, she sat close to you. Closer than any other time in the garden of the café, your shoulders bumping together as you kept your face hidden.

“So…” she started tentatively, “when you see them, you help them too?”

Her curiosity got the best of her, not really sure how to steer the conversation from here on. It was something she was unfamiliar with, but she didn’t want to undermine your point, your feelings. So she did what she best at: stalling, trying to get a reaction out of you in order to grasp a sliver of your truth. It’s what she did on the rare occasions Satoru would get mad, and it always worked. Here she was, doing the same thing with you, fidgeting with her fingers as you answered with a whined ‘yes’. Another first time, this time one where Shoko had to use all of the empathy stored deep down in her body and soothe your heart. It seemed like you never stopped surprising her— never stopped coaxing her out of the cozy, mundane shell she’d found and claimed safe.

She tried again. “I know how you might feel. In what I do, helping not always make us feel that sense of satisfaction we seek”

A beat.

Then a gentle hum. “…it’s the first time it happens to me”

Shoko wanted to laugh. She could still remember the traces of sadness lingering around her body, having been at your place so, so many times before, not really knowing what to do or how to get rid of that pain, clueless on who to ask for advices too. But if her life was one that had succumbed to the helplessness of this selfish society way before, you, on the other hand, could at least count on her. Or at the very least that was what she willingly promised to you with her silence. No sugarcoated words or faux promises that everything would be fine in the end, just a solid shoulder to cry all your tears on.

“It will alway get worse”

Shoko tried again, a tiny chuckle escaping past her lips. Her hand coming to rest on your shoulder in a clumsy act of reassurance.

“Come on, let—”

You didn’t let her finish the sentence. Throwing yourself in her arms, hugging her tightly against your chest hoping that she would understand what you didn’t trust your voice to mutter out. Shoko stilled for the second time that night, but her hands found your back instinctively. Almost automatically. Her body taking over her roaring mind for once, beating it in a matter of a bunch of seconds, patting your back awkwardly in a gesture of comfort.

For the first time that night, you finally looked at her. A sudden relief shooting through her veins when she noticed that your tears had dried up and a small tentative of a smile curled your lips. “Shoko?”

“Yes?”

“I need a cigarette” Shoko didn’t try to push it. Her hand dipped in the pocket of her wrinkled uniform’s skirt, glad that she didn’t forget the pack with the lighter at the dorm as she would sometimes do while in hurry. She hand it one to you, silently watching you lighting up one from the pack and leaving it on the sidewalk as it slowly consumed itself.

An homage, as you had breathed out later, because the soul you helped out was a smoker just like her.

The cigarette consumed itself steadily, ashes scattering around swayed by the nightly wind. Shoko stayed there close to you, closer that she’s ever been to, staring as the glow slowly died out for as long as you needed to. Only when the cigarette burnt completely she dared to look for your eyes, just to find you already with your puffy eyes on her.

“Thank you”

Shoko gulped down her bubbling nervousness, hoping you didn’t catch neither a glimpse of it. “You shuldn—”

“You’re a good friend”

●

Time became a blur. Going by far too quickly for Shoko to keep up with her mixed thoughts. Her growing doubts only adding fuel to an already burning flame, sustaining it, making it bigger than before. A blurry picture that smelt like the smoke she would often times let out from her cigarette. If her only certainty after school was to indulge the guys in whatever arcade they had set their eyes on, mostly on the free rare afternoons where missions wouldn’t require their intervention, now even that one single thing begun to shake. The solid and steady base of a boring life slowly crumbling —after meeting you.

Now she would hop on the first train heading towards the district of your parents’s café, waiting for you with a coffe mug at the table she kind of reclaimed as hers if you still weren’t home from school, leisurely spending the whole time talking about trivial matters. From your day at school to a tiny rabbit ghost that chased you to the garden. From the persisting chase of the angry wife again to you asking about her day, her school, the friends you have seen her coming to the café the very first time. Then, she would come back to campus with the last train available on the departure timeline.

Some other nights Shoko would meet familiar faces, sorcerers coming back from missions that involved moving on other cities, full of scars and fresh scratches that would need a basic medical treatment. Nothing much physically, but they would drag their steps a bit, tiredness growing heavy on their limbs and exhausted eyes that would fall shut once sat down. Shoko supposed that she would mingle well amongst them, same beaten expression but instead of fighting curses, her opponent was none other than her own doubts regarding you. You with your grin while talking about some stories of your about the ghost of the day or some stories about everyday clients. You with your curiosity about her own school life, nodding and listening attentively, not doubting a word falling from her mouth. Not prying for more, accepting eagerly what she’d say with crinkled eyes and gentle smiles. You, you, you…

Long conversations with the sole shared purpose to grow closer, to get to know each other better. To close a distance that rapidly shrunk as the ticks of the clock went by, hidden by the many hanging leaves of the café.

Talking through sms became a routine by now, your friendship gradually growing to the extent that matching charms dangled from your phones, that Shoko held the title of ‘best friend’ (you decided it on a random Tuesday afternoon, after another sip of the drink you made yourself at the empty counter). Indeed, every day was a continuously doubting of your honesty, your mental health too, while you deemed her worthy of your blind trust.

The more you’d grow closer, the more Shoko’s head screamed louder.

●

Until the thread snapped.

The pleasant and bumbling routine coming to an halt unexpectedly on a humid, sunny day of August. The day both Geto and Gojo came back from a deemed easy mission forever changed.

It’ll always get worse — those the words Shoko had told you months ago, on that night she found you sitting on a lonely grey sidewalk. Those the words coming back in her mind like a tidal wave washing on the rocky shore, as she stared at her two friends.

One kept climbing high, higher in his career and the ability he quickly developed, outgrowing his old skin and adapting to the changes of his newly-found powers. His change more pronounced by his cold behavior to the current events. Geto, on the other hand, sank lower into the ground: he begun skipping Yaga’s lessons, accepting the fewer missions he was assigned to without a word, treating them like not much than a daily commission of sorts. Crumbling in the naked four walls of his room.

Shoko stayed on the middle, empty.

Devoid of any will to shatter the new state. Or so she believed staring at the turned grey corpse of Amanai Riko, other sorcerers staining the morgue with their loud chatting about the unexpected turn, deciding the next steps for a standard treatment of a corpse. The same used to dispose of a sorcerer’s body.

Shoko and the boys had a favorite spot on campus, one that they childishly claimed as theirs only, right behind the school’s gymnasium. A perfect place for their smoking sessions far away from Yaga. Shoko and Suguru were the ones often finding their way to that place, exchanging few words about the lesson of that day, commenting the antics of some weird man he had to help in his missions or joking about that patient that proudly wore a tattooed the face of his beloved actor on his bottom. Gojo liked to stay with them in those moments. Not smoking, not always at least, affirming every time how much he detested the sensation but it didn’t escaped the way lately a cigarette could be seen idly sitting between his fingers more often than not.

That day Gojo wasn’t there, another mission entrusted by the higher-ups themselves. So Shoko sat in that corner of the campus, fully convinced she would stay there alone until her cigarette burnt out. She was proved wrong as Geto appeared from the side, his hair tousled and not in the usual styled bun she had seen him with from the start of their second years. Purple-ish bags now more prominent under his eyes too, giving away the many nights of disturbed sleep he carried on his back, that along the growing weight of the missions he was required to attend; jacket and pants of the usual jujutsu uniform discarded for a more comfortable and baggy attire, leaning to the wall carelessly and fumbling with his lighter.

Only when the cigarette started to turn grey at the tip, he waved his arm in a gesture of greeting. Crinkled eyes and corners that failed to reach them. “Yo”

Shoko nodded in his direction. This new sight of his friend becoming a familiar one as of late, one that she had to made peace with. Itching awareness sticking to their skin like humid winds of summer, but never spoken about, never confronted by one of them and so falling around them as a taboo. It has always been like this, after all. Sadness, grief, sorrow… different names enclosed in a bubble that was way too embarrassing to bring up in their conversations, acknowledging its presence but never strong enough to pop it, knowing that they could only watch as one had to fight alone in this personal war. That’s what the three of them always did.

“Satoru isn’t at school today?” He said, breaking the numbing silence around them.

“No. Mission”

“Mh”

Some minutes of silence passed.

“You are leaving school more often. Are they giving you missions too?”

Shoko didn’t know what caused a small chuckle to fall from her lips (maybe a specific word? Or maybe being put face to face with her growing frequent escapades? Not that she was hiding them anyway), but that made Suguru’s face contort in a silent hunch of confusion, tiredness making its presence known in each wrinkle of his frown. God, how tired he looked. Since when he didn’t sleep?

“No, uh… I go to kill some time” was her answer, paced by a drag of her cigarette.

Another striking difference between Suguru and Satoru was that the latter would’ve easily accepted her answer, not pressing further for other informations or, better yet, changing the topic altogether simply because he didn't care at all. Suguru, instead offered a silence that seemed to talk, gently coaxing the words out of your mouth with a comforting ‘tell me when you feel like it, I’ll listen’.

So Shoko didn’t have other choices, her gaze diverting from him and turning to the orange tinted sky.

“I met a girl” there was no need to look back at him, Shoko could’ve feel his eyes stuck on her just as fine, boring holes on her back. “You remember that café we’ve been months ago, right? I went back, we became close”

She watched as the cigarette fell on the ground, dull and turned off now. “She’s weird”

Geto didn’t answer, biting his bottom lip in a thoughtful expression at the new information she trusted him with. However, she too didn’t let him answer, taking the chance and firing off a question.

“Geto, do you believe in ghosts?”

The query found its answer in a small chuckle, which Shoko was glad to be the cause of even if it had a sour undertone.

“I mean, do you believe people are able to see them?”

“Are you changing the topic or are we still talking about the girl?”

“Both, actually”

Suguru let his cigarette fall too, crushing it beneath his shoes. His now free hand messing out the already knotted strands. “But she’s not a sorceress”

Shoko threw him a glance that seemed to say ‘that’s the dilemma’.

After a beat, she simply started telling the boy about your meetings and the many afternoons spent together. Stories about the ‘ghosts’ that you helped ‘cross over’ slipping from her lips at once, with nothing than pure and genuine fondness with hints of amusement in it when each time she reminded something funny that you did.

Geto opened his mouth to answer, but no words ringed in the air. Shoko noticed the way his body stiffened, as if after pondering his words he decided to hold them back from her, but she feigned ignorance at that gesture, watching with the corner of her eyes his posture straightening back on his feet.

“Do you like her?”

For once Shoko felt taken aback, eve if totally aware his friend would’ve come up to that conclusion in a matter of time. It was one of the reasons she appreciated talking to him in first place, without retorting to long and useless explanations or specified details, for all of that didn’t align with her persona. Suguru was the mirror to her inner self, needed when her mind became too clustered and messy with many thought swirling around.

“It’s nice, being with her” she shrugged. But Geto’s assertive expression transpired, as Shoko would’ve come to learn after, the many doubts that were already haunting him.

“Just don’t trust her easily” and with that last sentence, he left.

●

Four weeks passed since that day. Four weeks filled with the same doubts that never seemed to cease, increasing and becoming louder even in your absence. Shoko’s phone signaling another incoming message from its place on the desk —your messages, shifting from confused tones coming from her own disappearance to something more worrying. Funny was how Shoko could hear your voice through the massages, very much fretting the more the clock ticked by.

Four weeks like this.

Until Shoko gained some strength to take the phone and reassure you with a short text that yes, she was fine, just a little tired from the unexpected hard time at school that required her whole attention. An half lie that she was sure it would work.

One afternoon, Shoko acted on her impulses again. She couldn’t even explain how she came to this conclusion, her mind bringing up the idea to take a moment for the three of them, a moment as the trio they were not long ago, thinking that it could’ve brought some comfort, a sense of familiarity after what had happened.

This is how they ended up at the café run by your parents, sitting at the table she used to think was hers alone, waiting for their orders to arrive. Gojo and Geto sitting close to her, but feeling more distant.

You noticed them walking in, but did not approach. Limiting yourself to a cheery nod in her direction while staying at the counter, helping your father with the many orders placed. Nevertheless, Shoko noticed how your eyes seemed to linger to the table next to the garden’s door, linger to the three of them with shades of blue, your expression now more sad than anxious. As if you could really see through them.

Shoko was smoking her cigarette, as the routine between your meetings imposed, waiting for your arrival and stories with the ghost you ha helped that day. She didn’t even have to wait long, the door opening with a soft creak that gave away your presence, stopping in front of her with your arms crossed on the chest and eyes on the ground. Not the usual grin adorning your face, not your eyes crinkle and glimmering under the warm sun rays, even your body movements were nothing than a crafted imitation of a shell.

“What happened when you disappeared?” You asked, eyes glued to the tiny leaves on the ground.

Shoko tried her best to sound normal, to keep together the fake ease she carefully crafted on the train ride, pushing a strand of her hair behind the ear. “Well, same old things” she answered you, “all the homework I procrastinated came to chase me down”. But you didn’t laugh, didn’t shrug off the half assed attempt to cover up what really happened, your expression still firm and discouraged from where you stayed.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t ignoring you” she tried again after several seconds of silence. You never were silent with her.

And that worked. You finally diverted the gaze from the ground, setting your eyes on her, but this time Shoko couldn’t see nothing than your firmness. “You’ve changed”

“Positively, I hope?” The brunette tried again with a small chuckle but your gaze did not quaver.

“No, because you’re lying”

Shoko felt stunned. Among all the absurd, bizzarre things you two had told each other, never once you doubted her words and now you were contesting the most innocent of sentences?

“There’s a girl… with black hair and a braid that looks at your friends. Who is she?”

Shoko should’ve been stunned, her heartbeat probably increasing and eyes widening. The confirmation that all of your stories had always been true, that the ghosts you helped were always there unable for her to see. You could see Amanai standing there. Instead, in the same way as you, Shoko stopped being surprised.

“A girl we failed to help”

●

The established routine between the two of you recomposed itself easily.

Shoko’s visits became more frequent, lately meeting often outside the four walls of the café, sometimes meeting up for some shopping together or some quiet visits in a natural landscape. Ordinary, peaceful activities that Shoko could only ever dreamt of with Gojo and Geto. Her favorite moments, though, were the afternoons spent in your house (which was located on the upper floor of the building) when you didn’t know what to do or were left with no ideas. Many moments of that kind were spent rotting on bed lazily with magazines you used as proofs, to keep her updated about te ongoing gossip between an idol or reading out necrologies on the newspaper, preparing yourself in case some ghosts would chase you down on the street. A constant moving from one aspect of your personality to the other.

In one of those moments, you rested on your side facing Shoko whilst talking her ear off about a classmate followed by tiny, cute ghosts of at least seven hamsters. It seemed like she didn’t understand that her parents replaced them once dead, all of them identical since the girl kept talking about the same one, describing a healthy and long life worth a record. Shoko only followed half the story, noticing later that her mind was busy with other things. Her eyes fixed on your lips, not really understanding a word you were saying but following closely the movements with enthrallment.

You noticed her sudden silence, just as you approached the end of that silly story, and in a bout of self-conciousness you sucked your lips in. That broke the spell effectively, Shoko’s eyes rising up to meet yours just to laugh it off.

It was not a single episode.

Moments like this one quickly growing in number easily as the dynamic of your relationship began shifting to something else. From an initial challenge to discover who was the liar between you two (or so Shoko fiercely believed at that time) to a more teasing one, waiting for the day one of you would address and break that barrier. Often acknowledged but left hanging in the air, neither of you ready to face it.

●

Shoko disappeared again, like those four weeks in August but yet differently from that time. She didn’t answer your texts and neither the long, ripetitive rings that you busied yourself with more times in a single day. Anxiety became worry, then angry and at the very end, sadness.

Weeks became a blur in your eyes, not keeping the count of how many days passed anymore, stuck in a vortex of different emotions playing in your chest. You started projecting your frustrations on your parents, after a while, refusing them the help they needed down in the café.

You also started to deliberately ignore the spirits chasing you on the streets, begging to be listened, making them mix in a parade of pleas growing louder each day behind your back whilst you kept your pout and head lowered on your way to your home.

Until you stopped trying to contact Shoko. It was useless.

You saw her again on a random day, while busy moving some boxes around of a big order placed by your father some days ago. She was there, silently watching as you placed another box on the shelf, and you didn’t know what to feel first. Anger? The desperate need to scream all of your frustration on her? The sleepless nights wondering what had happened for her to disappear on you again? Or maybe grabbing her and checking out yourself if she was alright, if everything was alright.

The initial surprise swelling inside your chest flickering like the flame of a candle under the pressure of all those bottled, mixed sensations you were feeling. The weight becoming overwhelming as your eyes noticed an important detail.

“Sorry, study chased me down again”

“Liar” was your quick answer. You didn’t mean it, the word falling from your lips as a reflex. But at this point you could sourly see how you almost got used to Shoko sudden disappearances.

Shoko smiled. Your eyes dimming as you traced the heavy bags under her eyes, a blue and purple undertone to them, the exhausted demeanor and her silence that louder than any words she could speak of. Her body slimmer in a way that made you feel dizzy, sick to your stomach at the repercussions she sported on her body.

“Can you see him?”

And you could only nod at that feeble question. Staring into the figure of a young boy with cheerful brown eyes, his smile reaching all the way to his eyes while you felt yours swelling with tears. Death touching Shoko for the second time in less than a month. You nodded again.

“He says he’s happy that you’re not alone”

Shoko didn’t say anything else, processing your words slower than any other time as you offered a comfortable silence. You didn’t move from your place as you watched her careful hide her face, eyes glued on the ground to not face you. Your ears perking at her mutters, not asking for any explanation of sort, not prying or eavesdropping.

But there was one thing you understood, one coherent mumble that had your heart crumbling in different pieces. One word only: “Haibara”

●

Geto Suguru left the school not much than a few weeks following Haibara’s death.

Shoko closed with a loud thump her phone, lids falling heavy and promptly, gently cradled by your perfume imprinted on the sheets of your bed, the soft humming of your voice under the spray of the shower reaching her ears nonetheless —even with the door of the bathroom separating you two.

Gojo answered with the same, monotonous ‘yes’, ‘ok’ and ‘I’ll come back shortly’ every time she tried to contact him by texts, asking how his mission was going or a simple ‘how are you holding up?’ following Suguru’s defection. He had made of his dorm room a refuge of sorts, drowning more and more in the new missions assigned to him, hiding behind the excuse that he had to study, to train, to define better his still new ability of reverse cursed technique. Shoko avoided the campus as much as she could, stepping under the traditional gates just to follow Yaga’s lessons and her duties rooted inside the morgue she was growing indifferent to. Her favorite place to relax and shut off her mind moving from that corner behind the gymnasium to the four walls of your room, where she felt free to breath properly.

With you it was different.

There was no such thing as an ‘embarrassing bubble’ that shouldn’t be acknowledged, on the contrary, you persisted for her to talk about her feeling or you began to recognize its presence from nothing. It was the conclusion she came to after an afternoon similar to this one, where you were busy studying at your desk and her sprawled on the bed absentmindedly staring at the ceiling.

The lack of attention coming from her must have been more prominent that she’d imagine because that day you had thrown yourself in a tight hug, on hand resting at the base of her neck to push Shoko resting her chin on your shoulder.

Holding her against your body as some sighs escaped your lips, an attempt to make her aware that all of those tragic events were catching up on you. But while Shoko understood that, a side of her couldn’t help but notice the notes of your perfume or how you felt good between her arms. Pieces of a puzzle that matched perfectly.

You knew of Geto, or at the very least you knew that a dear friend of her left the school in bad terms. Your attention and gentleness reserved for a situation so ‘simple’ having left her even more stunned (and whipped).

On her hand, Shoko knew that she felt angry, confused and sad on the surface. But deep down she was also aware of how this insane situation would end up changing her relentlessly. Nevertheless, there wouldn’t be any Suguru helping her figuring out the many emotions swirling in a tumultuous current inside her brain.

She had lost another friend.

The unexpected spring in your steps coming from the bathroom made her thoughts scatter around and fade in thin air, the wetness lingering on your skin meeting the wood of the floor in a excited rhythm that it proved to be effective for her. And then, with a boisterous gesture, you opened the door of the bathroom, damp hair sticking to the soft texture of your shirt but you seemed clueless to the wet patch growing on your back.

“Look! I did it!”

Shoko furrowed her brows, now sitting on the bed confused by the big grin lighting your face. “What?"

“Look at my hip!” And only after your finger pointed the skin she noticed it. A temporary tattoo, one that would fade away after some washes and fierce rubs of soap, glittering under the light probably coming from one of the many magazines you read. It was the drawing of a butterfly, pink lines dotted with sparkles and shimmer. It was cute.

Shoko stared at it in a sort of trance, partially thinking back to the unanswered texts she had sent to Gojo since that morning. On the other side her eyes seemed glued to that bare bit of skin you were proudly showing, a new one she haven’t had the occasion to see up until that very moment, tracing it and caressing it avidly with her her eyes.

The charm breaking as you huffed and pouted for the lack of answer. Shoko turned to you, following with her gaze as you sat closely on the bed. Right next to her.

“Won’t your school punish you for that?"

You huffed again, this time rolling your eyes. “I’ll cover it with the skirt, of course! You’re talking as if you’re not the one smoking between lessons anyway”

Shoko could only chuckle at your remark, having being caught red-handed by your words. You didn’t bother, lying on the bed carelessly and staring at the tattoo adorning your hip.

“It’s cute… it suits you” she let out with a smile, lowering her head to take a better look at the glittered lines. The butterfly sitting nicely against the hipbone, a nice shimmer to it that made your skin color stand out gracefully. Those words seemed to fuel your grin, and for that Shoko was glad.

“If they would expel me for this little thing, I would be happy actually. I’m tired of that boring school”

“You wouldn’t want that to happen” the corners of her lips soured a bit at the timing of your joke. Lowering herself just to be at your level and being able to look you in the eyes.

A beat.

Then a playful “would you still be my friend even if I was a girl without education?”

“I can accept the ghosts, but not this”

Shoko kept going back to the still exposed hip, the butterfly catching her eyes more than she’d like to admit it.

“I can accept the ghosts, but not this”

Shoko kept going back to the still exposed hip, the butterfly catching her eyes more than she’d like to admit it.

“Hello, hello?” You tried to call her back, noticing her unusual lack of concentration. One of your finger circling in the air in front of her eyes, as if poking an invisible barrier, “can I burst the bubble of your thoughts?”

It was a random choice of words, one that you evidently didn’t put a lot of effort into. Yet, Shoko felt a chill running down her back at the odd choice, too close to hers, a metaphor that she didn’t let it out from her lips in front of you, rather keeping it seal in her mind each time she had to describe her clumsy way to handle her emotions.

And once again, she found herself acting on her impulses. Forgetting about how nice the painted lines seemed to kiss your skin, her eyes meeting yours as if stuck in a haze that numbed her senses. Her hands growing closer to your cheeks and cupping ever so tenderly to lead you close, closer to her. The first brush of lips sending a shiver down the curve of your back, clumsy, not entirely touching at first. Still dancing around a line she was set to cross in one way.

Then, you felt her lips on yours. The kiss itself slow, a tentatively one to test your reaction, to see if you were fine with it. It lasted a few seconds, but you didn’t give her a chance to grow the distance between your lips, immediately chasing after them and sealing them in another one. And another one, another one just as Shoko hoped.

Was there something that couldn’t be left unseen by you, at this point?

[theawkwardterrier]

Bake On: A Jamie/Claire Wednesday100 story

Week 1: Cake

Jamie gets his signature - Mam's snow cake - into the oven before he takes a moment to truly size up the competition.

There's the usual crop of grannies and older gents and young mum types, a smarmy-looking middle-aged man Jamie instantly dislikes, a willowy girl he smiles at because she's trembling with nerves, a hulking, wildly bearded lad with an accent Jamie can't place (Welsh?), and then, down in the front corner, far from his back row...

He watches her for so long that he has to rely on the technical and showstopper to make up for his overdone cake.

Week 2: Biscuits

There were many things that Claire considered before entering the competition: that her self-taught skills wouldn't hold up, that she didn't have the sorts of stories and traditions needed for the signatures, that she wouldn't be able to balance it all with her usual work schedule.

She hadn't thought that she'd need to remind herself to focus each time her ears detected a Scottish accent at the back of the tent, or that, after her Kingston biscuits came first in the technical, she'd think about his grin and the light touch of his foot against hers the entire drive home.

Week 3: Bread

"The best simit I've had was off splintery carts pushed by old men who would have considered you mad for criticizing the sesame seeds' evenness."

Jamie looks up from messaging Jenny to find Claire beside him. He'd been trying to stop reexamining his near elimination today. Now he smiles without thought.

"Well, Sassenach, I'll be back next week. That's what matters."

"I suppose that's true." She smiles back, cheeks rosy and rounded, before adding, "You're taking the train, aren't you? I can drive you to the station."

It's an easy walk. The choice to ride with her is even easier.

Week 4: Pie

"Will London surgeon Claire's use of herbs finally win her the title of star baker?"

Her held breath becomes a laugh. She sets down the knife she had been using to carve her pastry top, looking over to him leaning on her bench.

"It might, especially if freelance translator Jamie doesn't get back and give her some competition."

He flashes a grin. "Canna have that. My case is done cooling besides."

She watches him walk away, then resumes, her hands steadier now. She wonders whether he could have possibly noticed her doubts from the back. No, she decides. A coincidence.

Week 5: Pastry

He doesn't notice how long they've been talking until Claire shivers in the midnight chill. It seemingly doesn't register with her - she simply crosses her arms and continues speaking about her patients - but he wants to tuck her against himself, offering his warmth.

Her expression is vivid, and he hates cutting her off (although he'd have hated interrupting her while discussing their fellow contestants, London versus Edinburgh, or today's lunchtime sandwiches). Still, he checks his watch, yawns, says, "Christ, it's that late? We'd better get in if we want to be awake for the showstopper," and sees her safely sheltered.

Week 6: Chocolate

It's meltingly hot in the tent, and everyone's rushing about. Claire's behind on her own bake, and so nearly doesn't notice the cheesecake sitting out at the edge of one of the vacant benches, matching the description Jamie gave of the one he was planning while they'd baked together over the phone this week. Her eyes narrow, and she looks around.

Frank looks back, then immediately glances away.

She places Jamie's cake back into the refrigerator. There isn't time for revenge now, but they can plan together later.

In the meantime, beating Frank will be sweet in its own way.

Week 7: Puddings

"Didna ken this would be the week where I'd remember them so much," Jamie says that night, knowing that she hears him despite his quiet words.

He supposes he should feel embarrassed, tearing up over a batch of clootie dumplings, but he remembers Mam helping him tie the cloth, remembers Da ruffling his hair and Willie saying with his mouth full, "They're good, Jamie!"

And Claire doesn't make him feel foolish, simply places her hand over his, saying, "I don't think there's a wrong time to remember the people you love," so he doesn't feel alone there in the dark.

Week 8: Tarts

She's smiling with satisfaction for the first bit of the drive, star baker title finally achieved and her place in the semi-final assured. It's only as she's shaking her head for her own foolishness at wanting to call Jamie to celebrate when she's barely left him (and knows that he had work to take care of on the train ride home besides) that she realizes what this means.

They've both shown their skill and she's confident in their chances of making it through next week. But even so, even if they get into the finale together, their weekends are numbered.

Week 9: Patisserie

The tension in Jamie's shoulders has nothing to do with two days fussing with choux pastry, or the pressure of next week's final, and everything to do with the countable hours he has left with Claire.

They stand talking in the car park long after the others have packed up and left, after he's missed his train, and he wonders if she might feel the same. Regardless, more time with her doesn't seem like a chance he can miss.

At the next pause, he breathes and asks, "Might ye—Will ye come have dinner with me, Claire?" and watches her smile.

Week 10: Final

The contestants carry their showstoppers to the waiting crowd of loved ones. In classic British fashion, the finale fete is chill and rainy; the camera catches Claire carefully keeping her hair out of her icing.

"Christ, I'd forgotten what the damp did to that curlywig o' yers."

Claire elbows him from her spot beneath his arm, although she is laughing along. "Hush and watch. We're about to lose in front of the entire country, after all."

"True enough. Still, I think we won more than that cake stand o' Glenna's," he says.

By the way she kisses him, she agrees.

[kazu86sworld]

I have nothing if I don't have you

(Chapter 2)

Kriiiiing!

Kakashi hated that sound. The sound of the alarm clock beside his bed. It's not the alarm's fault. The alarm had carried out its task according to its orders, waking Kakashi at 6 o'clock.

But Kakashi was still reluctant to wake up. He still felt tired and sleepy, because just like the previous days, he had difficulty sleeping at night. This has happened every night, since 2 years ago, since Rin suddenly left his side, left their family, left their home.... by only leaving a message on a piece of paper that she had decided to pursue her dream long ago, to become a famous actress. Rin couldn't be contacted either. Her cellphone number is not active. The emails that Kakashi sent were never answered. Her social media is also not up to date. Even when Kakashi contacted Rin's mother, she answered that she didn't know where Rin was.

Kakashi got up and reluctantly walked to the bathroom. However, he still had to get ready for work.

After showering and getting dressed, Kakashi went down to the kitchen, heated water to make coffee and baked a slice of bread, not 4 as usual, because today there would be someone else preparing breakfast for his three children. Well... at least starts from today, his daily duties will be lighter.

The water kettle makes a sound indicating that the water inside has boiled. Kakashi turned off the stove and left the kettle for 10 minutes so that the coffee wouldn't be too hot. While waiting 10 minutes, as usual he fiddled with his smartphone, skimmed the news and checked his email.

When he was about to pour hot water into a cup containing instant coffee, his doorbell rang. Kakashi looked at the wall clock in the kitchen. 7 o'clock. It must be Tenzo. On time like yesterday. He put the kettle down and walked to open the door.

"Good morning, Sir!" Tenzo greeted excitedly when Kakashi opened the door.

Kakashi was a bit surprised by Tenzo's enthusiasm. It felt like he still couldn't believe that the person standing in front of him was a man. His long brunet hair was still flowing like yesterday and he was still wearing a t-shirt with a cat on it, jeans and a sling bag. His wide eyes narrowed with a smile.

"Umm...Is something wrong, sir?" Tenzo asked

"Oh...no...nothing... Good morning, tenzo. Please come in."

"Thank you, sir." Tenzo bowed and went into the house.

"The children will wake up in a moment. Please prepare breakfast and lunch, then take them to school. All the food ingredients are in the refrigerator. If you need to buy groceries, please use the money in the drawer."

"Roger that, sir!"

"Do you know where their school is?"

"I know, sir!"

"Good. The car key is in the glove compartment. And they have to be at school before 8."

"Don't worry, sir! You can count on me." Tenzo said while clenching his right hand.

"Okay then, I'll go now."

Kakashi sipped his coffee, took his toast with his right hand, took his briefcase and car key with his left hand, then went to the office.

After Kakashi left, Tenzo walked towards the kitchen, looked at what food or drinks were available, both in the cupboard and in the refrigerator, then thought about what breakfast and lunch he could make with the existing food ingredients. It didn't take long for Tenzo to get an idea of ​​what to make.

Kriiiiiiiing....there was an alarm sound from upstairs.

"It must be Sakura, Sai, and Naruto's alarm. OK, I'll start cooking..." Tenzo said to himself while clenching his fists.

A few moments later, sakura and sai came down. As usual, Sakura went down the stairs lazily, yawning, stretching her body, and rubbing her eyes. Meanwhile Sai came down with a pale, expressionless face.

"Good morning!" Tenzo said cheerfully.

Sakura and Sai were surprised, partly because they weren't used to seeing Tenzo in the kitchen that morning, and partly because at the dining table there were 3 plates of sandwiches and 3 glasses of orange juice. Usually they only see toast and milk.

"Enjoy your breakfast." Tenzo said smiling. "In a moment, I'll finish making your lunch and then I'll take you to school.

Sakura and Sai looked at each other. Then they sat down and took sandwiches on their plates.

Sakura looked at the sandwich in her hand, took a bite, then chewed slowly. She then felt something on her tongue. "That's really great..." she said...in her heart...she didn't want his praise to be heard by Tenzo who was busy preparing lunch.

Meanwhile Sai was holding a sandwich while watching Sakura next to him. Sai became curious. He then started eating his sandwich. He stopped for a moment after taking the first bite, because he also felt that the sandwich was very delicious. But sai is not as expressive as sakura even though it is only in the heart. The fact that he continues to eat his sandwich until it's finished is a sign that he likes it.

Tenzo finished preparing his lunch, then looked at Sakura and Sai. They were both finishing their orange juice. Then Tenzo realized, Naruto hadn't come down yet.

"Umm...where is Naruto?" Tenzo asked.

"That lazy boy must be still in his bed..." Sakura answered nonchalantly.

Tenzo went up and headed for the only room whose door was still closed. That must be Naruto's room, thought Tenzo. He knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he opened it slowly. Naruto's room was a mess. Toys and clothes were scattered here and there. Naruto himself was still asleep under his blanket. Tenzo approached and sat next to Naruto.

"Naruto...come on, get up. It's time for you to get ready for school..." said Tenzo.

No answer.

Tenzo sat next to Naruto and touched him gently. "Naruto...come on, wake up..."

"Uuuh...I don't want to wake up..."

"But you have to go to school..."

"I don't want to go to school..." Naruto answered while still closing his eyes.

"Why you do not want?"

"Anyway, I don't want to." he answered while covering his face with the blanket.

"If you don't go to school, you won't be able to meet your teacher, you won't be able to play with your friends..."

"I don't like school. I don't want to meet teachers. I don't want to play with friends." Naruto answered from under the blanket.

Tenzo thought. He had to find a way to get Naruto to wake up and go to school.

"Naruto...do you like ice cream?"

Naruto was silent for a moment, then answered "Like..."

"How about I buy you ice cream. There's a new ice cream shop near the school. If you want, you can choose the flavor of ice cream you want, you can choose the toppings you like, and you can eat as much as you want." Tenzo said

"Really????" Naruto opened the blanket.

Tenzo nodded with a smile.

"Yeeeaaaahhh.....I want ice cream!"

"But there is one condition..."

"Oh nooo! What's that????"

"You have to go to school."

Naruto's enthusiasm immediately died out.

"How about that" Tenzo asked

"Umm... okay... but... can you accompany me while at school? I don't want to be left behind..." said Naruto.

Tenzo smiled and nodded.

"Now go downstairs for breakfast and get ready to go. OK?"

Soon everything was ready on the terrace. When Tenzo was locking the door, Naruto said...

"Sakura...lace my shoes..."

"Do it yourself, lazy!" Sakura answered.

"Sai..." said naruto

"Don't want to." Sai answered flatly.

"Naruto, why don't you tie your own shoes?" Tenzo asked.

"Because he's a spoiled and lazy child. It's his father who always strings him along..." said Sakura. Naruto whined while stomping his feet.

Tenzo knelt in front of Naruto, leveled his eyes with Naruto's, then held his shoulders. "Listen Naruto. I will teach you how to tie shoes. Pay attention, because starting tomorrow you have to tie your own shoes..."

"Don't want to!"

"If you don't want to, then you go to school without shoes, and maybe everyone at school will look at you strange and even laugh at you..." said Tenzo firmly.

"Uughhh.....alright...." said Naruto reluctantly.

Tenzo sighed then smiled. "You're a great kid, Naruto. I'm sure you can tie your own shoes. Now pay attention..." Tenzo started tying Naruto's shoes slowly.

"Well, it's easy, right? You can do it. Alright, let's go. Don't be late for school." And finally, the four of them went to school.

Konoha Corp is one of the large contracting companies in the city. The office building is magnificent and very artistic. After driving for half an hour, Kakashi's car finally arrived at the basement parking level. After parking his car, Kakashi walked towards the elevator. Usually he has to run because he is late after taking his children to school. But today he could walk casually to the elevator.

Kakashi entered the elevator together with 3 female employees. The three of them immediately became embarrassed, gave each other codes, and straightened their makeup. It was clear that they were happy to be in the same elevator as Kakashi, and it was no longer a secret that many female employees were attracted to Kakashi. Kakashi himself never cared about it because he wasn't interested at all.

Since Rin left 2 years ago, Kakashi decided to focus all his thoughts, feelings and energy only on his three children and his work. He didn't want to think about falling in love or anything like that at all.

Finally the elevator arrived at the 10th floor. The marketing floor. Kakashi walked towards his room. As a marketing manager, of course he has his own room. He put his bag away and turned on the computer.

"Wow...wow...what a surprise! Who's here so early?" Who's Genma?

"Aren't you always late, Kakashi?" Gai said.

"Morning Genma...morning Gai..." Kakashi greeted his two subordinates. Even though they were subordinates, they were kakashi's close friends.

"You didn't take your children to school? It's not Sunday, right?" Genma said as he sat at Kakashi's table.

"Someone has already taken them..." answered Kakashi while looking at his computer screen.

"Oh...who?" Gai asked as he sat down and crossed his legs on the chair across from Kakashi's desk.

"New nanny." Kakashi answered without looking away from the computer screen.

"Oooh... you finally got a new nanny..." said Gai.

"She must be a middle-aged woman, with a firm face, gentle eyes that can suddenly turn scary sharp, white hair pulled back into a bun, and a long-sleeved shirt and long skirt, right?" Genma guessed while crossing his arms over his chest.

"Umm... not really. The new nany is 3 years younger than me, with a couple wide and soft eyes, long brunet hair, not in a ponytail or bun, and so far always wears a t-shirt with a cat picture on it and jeans..."

"Really??? That means she must be so beautiful, right?" Gai asked excitedly while leaning towards Kakashi.

Kakashi thought. Tenzo may looks pretty, but he's a male....

"Who's so beautiful?" A voice from the doorway startled kakashi, genma and gai. That's Anko, the main manager of the architectural section at Konoha Corp and the only daughter of the director.

"Genma met a middle-aged woman, with a firm face, gentle eyes that could suddenly turn scary sharp, white hair pulled back into a bun, and wearing a long-sleeved shirt with a long skirt. And Gai thinks that the woman was so beautiful... "Kakashi replied casually.

Anko wore a clueless expression. How could a woman like that be so beautiful? "Genma and Gai are weird..." thought Anko.

"Is there anything I can help you with, Anko?" Kakashi asked.

"Here are some documents. Dad wants you to study them." Anko said as she walked to Kakashi's table.

"Oh... thank you. Sorry for bothering you. Why didn't the director just call me to his room..." said Kakashi

"Because I my self offered to take it here..." answered Anko while placing the document right in front of Kakashi and blinking one eye. "Okay. See you soon, Ka-ka-shi..." Anko turned and walked out of Kakashi's room.

"She didn't even care we were both in this room too..." Gai said with teary eyes.

"Well...it can't be helped. It's clear she likes Kakashi..." said Genma.

"You're really lucky, Kakashi. All the female employees, even the director's daughter, like you. You just have to choose which one you like to go on a date with..." said Gai.

"I'm not interested..." Kakashi answered while opening the document from the director.

"None of them caught your attention?????" Genma asked.

"Nope..." Kakashi answered briefly.

"Why??? Aren't they all beautiful and smart... and there are also some who are very rich, like Anko..." asked Gai.

"I'm not interested in them at all. I'm more interested in the assignment I gave you two last week. Hand me the report now..." said Kakashi, who was greeted with unenthusiastic complaints from Genma and Gai.

Meanwhile...

Tenzo, Sakura, Sai, and Naruto arrive at school. Sakura and Sai walked towards their school building. Meanwhile Tenzo took Naruto to the building next to him. Tenzo kept his promise to Naruto, after taking Naruto to class, he sat on a park bench in the school yard, waiting for Naruto.

Two hours later several parents came to pick up their children at kindergarten. The school bell rang. Kindergarten children walk out of their classrooms. Some left the classroom by running excitedly to their parents who had come to pick them up, while others left the classroom casually while chatting.

Tenzo got up from his seat, waiting for Naruto to appear. Not long after, Naruto was seen. A happy expression appeared on his face to see Tenzo kept his promise to wait for him at school. He immediately ran towards Tenzo and immediately hide behind him. Tenzo was confused as to why Naruto was hiding behind him and holding his shirt tightly.

"Orphan...orphan..." shouted a boy, followed by the laughter of two other children next to him. They mocked Naruto as they walked away.

Naruto tightened his grip on Tenzo's shirt. After the children had left, he released his grip. Tenzo turned around, then knelt in front of Naruto.

"Naruto..." said Tenzo while touching his cheek gently.

"Why... why did mom leave..." Naruto struggled to hold back tears. Tenzo hugged Naruto, he himself didn't know who and where Naruto's mother was and didn't know what to say.

After a while, tenzo said "How about I keep my promise? Treat you ice cream?" Naruto nodded in his arms. Tenzo got up, carrying Naruto, then walked to a new ice cream shop not far from there.

As soon as he entered and saw the various colors and flavors of ice cream, various toppings, and various colorful balloons that could be taken for free, Naruto immediately forgot his sadness.

"Well, you can choose the flavors and toppings you like..." said Tenzo as he put Naruto down.

Not long after, Tenzo and Naruto were sitting on the bench in the school yard. Naruto enjoyed 3 flavors of ice cream with chocochip and sprinkles toppings in his right hand, while his left hand held a red balloon. Tenzo sat next to him enjoying vanilla ice cream with walnut topping.

"Is it delicious?" Tenzo asked. Naruto nodded as he continued to lick his ice cream.

"You like it?" Tenzo asked again. Naruto nodded again while licking his ice cream enthusiastically.

"Thank goodness...." Tenzo said.

When the ice cream was finished, Naruto raised both of his hands while exclaiming "It's really goooood!"

Tenzo smiled, then asked Naruto. "Umm...naruto, can I ask you something?"

Naruto nodded his head happily.

"Those kids...are they your friends?"

The happy expression on Naruto's face immediately disappeared. He lowered his hands, lowered his head, fell silent, then nodded slowly...

"Do they always do that to you?"

Naruto nodded.

"Is that what makes you not want to go to school?"

Naruto nodded again.

"How did you feel when they did like that?"

"I....I....I don't like....I don't like them calling me that. But...I also don't like that mom is gone...why is she gone...why?" Tears started to roll down Naruto's cheeks. "All the children are always dropped off and picked up by their mothers. When there are events at school, their mothers always come, but my mother doesn't..."

They were both silent for a moment. The wind blows softly...

"You know Naruto...I myself have never met my mother..." said Tenzo while looking forward.

Naruto raised his face, looking at Tenzo.

"My mother died shortly after giving birth to me. So I never saw her face directly, I never heard her voice, and she also never took me to school or came to my school when there were parent events."

"Then who takes you to school or comes to school when there are parent events?"

"My sister" answered Tenzo while smiling at Naruto. "I used to feel jealous when I saw other children being dropped off or picked up by their mothers. Some of the children also made fun of me. So I often cried and was angry about why my mother had to leave me so quickly. Then one day my sister said, instead of spending time and energy on crying and angry, wouldn't it be better if I focused on doing everything with the best I could do, so that I could make my mother or the people around me proud of me and happy. Since then I decided not to cry and get angry anymore. I decided to always do everything with the best effort that I can do and enjoy it. So my heart feels spacious and light. Then I can be the champion in class and I always get the best score in every subject. That made me don't have time to pay attention to the ridicule of my friends, so in the end they themselves stop mock me." Tenzo's gaze was still directed far ahead. Meanwhile Naruto was still looking at Tenzo next to him, with a look of surprise and admiration.

"So...how about you focus on doing the best you can in everything you should do, Naruto? And enjoy it? Since the first time I saw you, I knew and I was sure that you were a tough, strong and great child... Tenzo said while wiping the tears from Naruto's cheeks.

Naruto nodded and smiled at tenzo. Tenzo raised his right hand for a high five, and Naruto patted it firmly.

"All right. We still have an hour until Sakura and Sai finish school. How about we go shopping at the market?"

"Okay. I want to buy a lot of chocolate and candy!!!"

"No..."

"What?? Why???"

"You've eaten too many sweets today..."

"But I want chocolate and candy..."

"No."

"I want..."

"No."

The two of them continued to argue while walking casually to the nearest market.

That evening, after dinner, Sakura, Sai, and Naruto went to their rooms. At 7 o'clock Kakashi arrived home. When he opened the door, Tenzo was standing near the sofa.

"Welcome home, sir." Tenzo said with a warm smile. Kakashi was a bit surprised, because it was unusual for someone to greet him like that when he came home from work.

"Can I go home now, sir?

"Yes, of course. You can go home, Tenzo."

"Umm... I prepared dinner for you, sir. Just in case if you haven't had dinner yet..."

"Oh...thank you very much..."

"You're welcome sir." Tenzo said as he bowed, then took his bag and went out.

After closing the door, Kakashi went upstairs. When he entered Naruto's room, Kakashi was surprised because Naruto's room was very neat, not as messy as usual.

"Wow... I'm surprised your room is so neat. Was there just a storm that put everything back in its place?" Kakashi asked while sitting on the bed holding Naruto in his arms.

"I was competing to tidy up my room with Tenzo. Tenzo divided my room into two parts, I tidied up here and he tidied up over there. The loser has to treat the winner ice cream tomorrow."

"Oh... I see... Then, who's the lucky one who will get an ice cream treat tomorrow?"

"Of course I am!" Naruto answered happily. Kakashi laughed while rubbing Naruto's head.

"Tenzo also brought me lunch, bear-shaped rice balls, cute and tasted very good too..."

"Really? That's good."

"Umm....Dad...."

"Hmm?"

"Will Tenzo come here again tomorrow?"

"Of course. Tomorrow he will still work here. At least for the next 3 months. Why?"

"I want Tenzo here..."

"Are you sure? Usually you didn't like previous nannies?"

"But I like Tenzo. I want Tenzo here, dad...forever..."

"Ummmm....Well... let's see then..." answered Kakashi while hugging and kissing Naruto's head.

After saying good night to Naruto, Sai, and Sakura, Kakashi went down to the kitchen. Not like usual either, this time the kitchen was clean and tidy. On the table there is a square bowl. When Kakashi opened the lid, what was inside was beef lasagna. Kakashi sat down, took a fork, scooped up beef lasagna and put it in his mouth. Kakashi chewed it slowly. Delicious...so delicious, he thought.

Coincidentally, he himself hadn't had dinner either. Usually he orders fast food. Apparently Tenzo is good at cooking and tidying the house. Kakashi also didn't expect Tenzo to get close to Naruto so quickly.

Even though it was only Tenzo's first day working here, for some reason Kakashi felt that his house felt more.....hommey.

Then kakashi thought about Naruto's words earlier, "I want Tenzo here dad...forever...."

"For...ever?" Kakashi muttered.

To be continued.... :)

@swinginmakerbonkplaid

@loadbearinonion

@keepyourpantsongohan

@kakayamalover

@rainbowfey

@kaka-yama

@waterlilyblue64

[unimpressive]

August was busy. It always is, but this year? Whew.

It's historically our busiest month at work and one of the only times I'm typically offered overtime. I fought off anxiety by cross stitching something for a friend.

The garden was full of abundance and I've been busy making pickles and tomato sauce for the months ahead.

I love to bake, and I also bake when I'm anxious, and Ive been trying to stock us with homemade breakfast when possible, so donuts and bagels are a regular around here, a long with sandwich bread in a Pullman pan I thrifted.

A cousin with the most wonderful love story was married this month, and my little one was the flower girl. Its been a long while since I've cried that much from sheer joy, but it truly was one of the happiest weddings I've ever had the pleasure of attending.

I tried on approximately a thousand dresses for said wedding, trying to find that fit for a thirty something mom that was modest-but-not-frumpy, allowed for running after a kid all day, dancing, and didn't require buying a special bra. It is stupidly difficult to find a strapless or cross strap bra in an H cup, and I am over that life at this point 😂

Weve also visited the zoo, train parks, playgrounds, farmers markets, friends, and family, getting in what we could before - gasp! - preschool begins. September looks to be nearly as busy as August, but I know before long, we'll have our new routine set down and be on our merry way.

[romaine2424]

WIP Wednesday: The Azkaban Letters Chapter 9: The Mothers

Long Snippet: (This is Draft)

The fourth-floor landing, including the runner carpets, were designed to celebrate the native summer heather.  Harry let his hand run along the carved oak railings until he reached the last door on the right. It was to Narcissa’s sitting room. Only a few pillars that stretched from floor to ceiling broke his rhythm.

He knocked before pressing down on the lever to open it. “Narcissa. Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll go,” Harry said as he saw Narcissa, Queenie Greengrass, Violette Bullstrode, and Gwendolyn Goyle having high tea. They were dressed in their finest pastel robes sitting at the white linen covered round table in the centre of what Narcissa now called the Ladies drawing room. The lavender drapes, hiding two large windows on either side of the balcony’s French doors, had been pulled. He could only imagine the doors being opened and fresh spring air blowing through. He began to shut the door.

“Harry!” Narcissa said so abruptly that he froze before he could shut it completely. “Please, come in. We would enjoy your company. I didn’t know you’d be home so early.”

Harry opened the door a bit further. “I didn’t expect to be. I should’ve notified you. I—I’m not dressed for high tea,” he said with grin.

“Come in, Harry. We’ll forgive you this time,” Queenie Greengrass said with a quick smile. She lifted her wand and an additional chair made its way between her and Gwendolyn Goyle.

“Okay,” Harry said. “But I do promise next time to wear my robes.” This he’d learned from Narcissa that it showed respect for the hostess serving high tea. Their normal tea-time meetings were casual and usually held in this same room but by the fire or on the first floor, a few times in a small conservatory they discovered off the kitchen, which had a door that led out into the back garden.

Gwendolyn poured his tea for him. He added his normal two sugars and splash of milk. He eyed the three-tier silver tray knowing to start at the bottom with the sandwiches first. “We were discussing Halloween and the upcoming holidays. We have decided we will take a stroll along the forest edge to collect holly, juniper, and pine for the wreaths and garland,” Narcissa said. Harry shook his head. Thinking of Christmas was so far from his thoughts. His instinct was to say ‘whatever you want’ but he heard Draco’s voice push through. His voice telling him that there were things to live for. And since his first Christmas at Hogwarts, he loved Christmas. He needed to step back and allow these joyous moments back into his life.

“That sounds lovely. And a large tree in the entryway, I hope,” Harry replied. “We’ll have to ask the house-elves if there are any ornaments, but making our own could be nice, too.” He almost laughed seeing the pleased expressions on the four witches’ faces. Gwendolyn’s was the warmest. Her face was round, much like the rest of her. Her dark brown eyes expressed her emotions freely. She was known to roll them when Narcissa spoke at length about the treasures now lost at Malfoy Manor. “Are there any plans for Halloween?”

The witches’ sitting room became quiet. Harry glanced up and saw that the mothers were all looking at each other. Narcissa cleared her throat. “Harry, traditionally we would decorate, have a feast, and there would be games. But we know the date also coincides with the night of your parent’s passing.”

“Is there something I should do to mark the event?”

“There is if you choose to,” said Gwendolyn. “In our home, we usually leave an empty spot at the table, then have a toast after dinner and a personal story or two is told.”

“We do the same, but also place an altar by the hearth. Pictures of those we’ve lost are placed on it along with the honouring of Sahmain as a harvest feast. Gourds, squashes, apples and even breads are placed there, too,” Violette said.

“Oh, that is lovely,” Narcissa said. “We should see if Florean will bake some bannoks. And I’ll ask the elves to make sure we have a good number of pumpkins. Jack o’ lanterns are a must.”

“I think that all would be really nice,” Harry said. “Though I don’t have any personal stories to tell. I’ll leave the decorating up to all of you on that front. It’s likely I won’t be here much as per the usual.”

“So, Halloween is settled then,” Narcissa said. “Oh, and Harry, remember some of us were at Hogwarts when your parents were there. We might be a tad older, but I still have a few vivid recollections of them in school.”

“Violette and I were just a year older,” Gwendolyn said. “We have stories.”

“And they’d be <i>nice</i> stories?” Harry said with a hopeful laugh.

Chapter 8 Snippet: Letters to Narcissa

Coming Summer 2023

[theultimatebakeoff-brianna]

Homemade English muffins are "the star of the show" at Vinal Bakery

Vinal Bakery is not your typical bakery. Located on 222 Somerville Ave, Somerville, MA, Vinal Bakery has become a staple for community members and young professionals on the go. The small New England bakery specializes in six flavors of homemade English muffins. “We also have a sandwich menu and everything comes on an English muffin, so that is kind of the star of the show,” says owner and pastry chef Sarah Murphy. 

After learning from the bakers in her family while growing up in New Hampshire, Murphy took a risk-free opportunity to pursue baking as her full-time career when the 2008 Recession hit. “I realized I wasn’t cut out for desk work,” Murphy explained. She skipped culinary school and went straight to the kitchen, working at places like Flour Bakery and Morning Glory Farm in Martha’s Vineyard. Owning her own bakery was always Murphy’s end goal. Vinal Bakery opened in April 2019 after an old pizza place was selling in Murphy’s own neighborhood. “I think there’s a little bit of an entrepreneurial gene in the family,” Murphy jokingly noted. She credits some inspiration for opening the bakery to her dad who was also a business owner. Murphy also took the lucky opportunity to open Vinal General Store in 2022, after the space next door opened up. Vinal General Store is an old-school New England general store serving sandwiches, beer and wine, and even soft-serve ice cream. 

The small bakery invites customers inside with the scent of freshly baked English muffins and what Murphy describes as “rustic New England pastries.” The soft green walls and aroma of coffee greets you as you walk through the door. Staff members can be seen preparing fresh bakery items and sandwiches behind the glass. Simple but delicious pastries like banana bread or a chocolate espresso cake inspired by a recipe from Murphy’s grandmother can be paired perfectly with a breakfast sandwich or coffee. One of the most popular items on the menu is the “Miss Maple”. The sandwich features an over-medium egg with cheddar cheese and a sweet touch of maple butter, all on top of a fresh English muffin. The homemade English muffin is soft with a nice crust, and it easily beats any store-bought English muffin. The sweet and savory combination creates the perfect bite that can be enjoyed inside the bakery or on the way to work. In addition to a tasty variety of food, Vinal Bakery has a range of coffee, tea, and espresso drinks to enjoy. The mocha latte features smooth espresso with your choice of milk and dark Valrhona chocolate ganache. The drinks can be enjoyed hot or cold, and they are the perfect start to your day.

“I like that our menu is all made from scratch and really thoughtful in terms of the ingredients we put in, but it’s a very accessible menu to people,” Murphy explained. “It’s not too elitist,” Murphy joked. The food and drinks are especially accessible along with the online ordering system and the small pickup window on the side of the bakery. The new head pastry chef works with Murphy to research and develop new pastries for the bakery. The Union Square community full of young professionals and families is the perfect location for Vinal Bakery. The bakery serves an array of families, construction workers, cops, and more. A warm breakfast sandwich and an iced latte are hard to pass up while working in the area. 

From bookkeeping to spending time in the kitchen, Murphy loves every part of it. “I think the personalities that do best as professional bakers are the ones who really like both the act of making things with your hands and also the predictability of the routine of the day,” says Murphy. Like herself, Murphy looks for the same traits when hiring new bakers. Leaving her desk job and following her passion for baking worked out in the best possible way for Murphy. Vinal Bakery has maintained its success, even while navigating the pandemic during its first year of business. Owning an independent bakery comes with many challenges, but it has taught Murphy leadership skills and unusual but useful skills. “You weirdly get a lot of knowledge that you wouldn’t otherwise get,” Murphy noted. Owning a bakery has helped Murphy learn how to troubleshoot and fix any challenges that come with the job. But that is exactly what she loves to do.

As Vinal Bakery is approaching its fourth birthday this April, Murphy and her staff continue to provide excellent service. “I think really fostering a community of caring, and respectful individuals, which I think shows in our service,” says Murphy on what makes Vinal Bakery different from the rest. Murphy focuses on maintaining a positive culture and community within the bakery. “I think just holding the team accountable to keep things very consistent so that when guests come they know they are gonna have the same type of experience they had the last time,” Murphy said. The outstanding reviews reflect the consistency of both the service and quality of Vinal Bakery. If you ever find yourself in Union Square of Somerville, MA, Vinal Bakery is certainly worth visiting.

[plotholes-and-spellingerrors]

I want to highlight something, because I'm seeing a conflation between this "AI" system and "AI art" (as being part of the AI spectrum on the whole) and I want to reiterate that these are really, really different technologies. "AI" Is not a technology! It's a marketing term that is applied to basically any computer-automated system these days to get that sweet, sweet VC money.

First of all, here's an article talking about BakeryScan. I'm pretty sure it's the article in the original screenshot.

The "AI" being talking about in this article began being developed in 2007 - back when ideas like Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Neural Networks (the mathematical and computational ideas on which modern generative models are built) were only just beginning to enter the public conscious. Remember DeepDream, the first "AI" image generation that took the internet by storm with its trippy dog images? That came out in 2015. AlexNet, which is considered to have kicked off the current AI boom using deep learning on GPUs, gained recognition in 2012. The ImageNet dataset, a foundationally important training and bench marking tool in computer vision, wasn't even published until 2009.

[E]ven if Kambe and his team could have photographed thousands of pastries, they couldn’t have pulled a neural network off the shelf. Instead, the state of the art in computer vision involved piecing together a pipeline of algorithms, each charged with a specific task. ... They started by trying to get the cleanest picture possible. A document outlining the company’s early R. & D. efforts contains a triptych of pastries: a carbonara sandwich, a ham corn, and a “minced potato.” This trio of lookalikes was one of the system’s early nemeses: “As you see,” the text below the photograph reads, “the bread is basically brown and round.” The engineers confronted two categories of problem. The first they called “similarity among different kinds”: a bacon pain d’épi, for instance—a sort of braided baguette with bacon inside—has a complicated knotted structure that makes it easy to mistake for sweet-potato bread. The second was “difference among same kinds”: even a croissant came in many shapes and sizes, depending on how you baked it; a cream doughnut didn’t look the same once its powdered sugar had melted.

These engineers were not pulling up TensorFlow to tune an existing image-recognition software to differentiate pastries. They were basically building something from scratch:

Kambe argued [at a 2018 conference] that there are tasks for which deep learning is still impractical. A few years earlier, BRAIN had tried replacing their hand-tuned system with a deep neural network. The new system managed to recognize pastries just as effectively, but the catch was the amount of data it required. A Japanese bakery, Kambe said, might introduce a new pastry variety every week, but the deep-learning system required thousands of training examples. Where would all the pictures come from? Show BakeryScan a pastry never seen on Earth, and it’ll recognize the next one of its kind about forty per cent of the time; according to BRAIN, after just five examples, it is ninety per cent accurate, and after twenty it’s nearly perfect. Moreover, whereas deep-learning systems are relatively inscrutable—you can’t look at a neural network and say exactly why a decision emerged from it—BakeryScan’s judgements, based as they are on a hand-engineered system, are more articulable. If the system misidentifies something, you can figure out why.

(Which is not to say that deep learning is useless:

Because of COVID-19, many pastry shops had violated one of their golden rules and begun wrapping items individually in cellophane. This helped ease customers’ fears, but the unpredictable reflections from the plastic threw off BakeryScan’s algorithms. It turned out that, for this problem, they had a big data set. For years, they’d been collecting images from customers like me, as we checked out; they also had more recent pictures, in which the same pastries were covered in cellophane. They had trained a neural network to see through the plastic. Deep learning took the wrappers off; BakeryScan did the rest.

But the main point is that nowadays, when we see the marketing term "AI", we imagine general artificial intelligence: A tool that's trained once, and can then go do any task you set it. (BTW, no such technology currently exists; ChatGPT can generate what plausibly reads like a business plan because it's ripping off a lot of real business plans and can generate plausible sentences, but it cannot ingest information about your particular business and the market, think about that information in a business context, and create for you a real business plan. It is not a knowledge model!)

This article (and the original tweet) came out in 2021, which I suspect is why they call these systems "AI" - it's the big buzzword. A few years ago, we probably would have called BakeryScan "an algorithm". (It's actually a cascade of algorithms, but we can have a little simplification. As a treat.)

Again, my main concern is an educational one: the term "AI" really is used to mean almost anything these days; I can't even say it's used to mean any system that uses machine learning through neural networks, because BakeryScan does not use deep learning! (Except to "see through" the packaging, but we're talking about the core functionality here.) When you see something useful like this described as an "AI", I beg you, do not fall into the trap of believing that what is happening is that we've finally found a good use-case for ChatGPT!

Since the time of room-sized computers run on punch cards, the best use-case for computers has ALWAYS been to automate repetitive tasks so that human time can be freed up to do more enjoyable and socially necessary tasks! But notice that the human job of engineering the system was not handed over to computer automation.

It's a testament to BRAIN's engineers' incredible feat that a system designed to identify bread can be re-tuned to identify cancer cells! This is a really cool story! Though it's only a success story for medicine if the system is fed good data, which still requires a lot of doctors to do a good job and identify cancer cells correctly. But as an early-detection system, I think that this is amazing.

Just remember that it was domain-specific knowledge and years of engineering, not under-paid offshore labor and environmentally catastrophic computing, that brought this story about. Thanks for reading.

[superbread22]

Bread Wholesalers in ahmedabad -Super Bread

Super Bread is a trusted name among Bread Wholesalers in Ahmedabad, specializing in high-quality white bread that’s both affordable and delicious. As a leading bread wholesaler in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, we pride ourselves on providing our customers with premium, freshly baked white bread made from top-grade ingredients. Each loaf is crafted with care, ensuring a soft texture, great flavor, and long-lasting freshness that sets it apart from standard options. Perfect for a wide variety of uses, our white bread is ideal for breakfast, sandwiches, or as an accompaniment to any meal.

At Super Bread, we understand the importance of consistency and quality in the wholesale bread market, which is why we follow strict quality control measures to ensure each batch meets our high standards. Our white bread is loved not only for its taste but also for its unbeatable pricing, making it a popular choice for retailers, grocery stores, and food service providers who want to offer their customers high-quality bread at competitive prices.

As one of the most reliable Bread Wholesalers in Ahmedabad, Super Bread focuses on timely deliveries and excellent customer service, helping our partners maintain a consistent supply of fresh, tasty bread. We believe in fostering strong relationships with our clients, providing them with the best possible products and services to support their business needs.

If you’re looking for quality and affordability from a Bread Wholesaler in Ahmedabad, Super Bread is your go-to source. We are committed to delivering the best bread products at the lowest prices, making us a trusted choice for white bread wholesale across the region. With Super Bread, you’re not only getting great bread but also a reliable partner who values quality and customer satisfaction.

For More Information:

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super@superbread.com

[bestbakeryindelhi]

Best Bakery in Delhi

Discovering the Best Bakery in Delhi: A Journey Through Sweet and Savory Delights

Delhi, the bustling capital of India, is known for its rich history, diverse culture, and of course, its food. When it comes to satisfying your sweet tooth or indulging in savory snacks, Delhi offers a myriad of options. But if you're searching for the best bakery in Delhi, there are a few gems that stand out from the rest. These bakeries not only serve delicious cakes, pastries, and breads but also provide an experience that makes every visit memorable.

Why Choose the Best Bakery in Delhi?

The term “best” when it comes to bakeries is subjective. What sets the best apart from the rest is their commitment to quality, freshness, and unique flavors. A top-tier bakery doesn’t just offer mouth-watering treats; it also ensures that every item is crafted with care and expertise. Whether you're looking for an indulgent chocolate cake or a freshly baked croissant, the best bakery in Delhi will never disappoint.

Best Bakery in Delhi Known for its delicious variety of cakes, cookies, and pastries, Gulati Bakery is a must-visit for anyone looking for the best bakery in Delhi. Its signature fruit cakes and soft sponge cakes are a favorite among locals and visitors alike. The bakery is a go-to spot for celebrations, with customized cakes for birthdays, anniversaries, and special occasions. The soft, melt-in-the-mouth textures of their baked goods, combined with impeccable flavor, have earned them a loyal following over the years.

The rich and decadent cakes, brownies, and cookies are loved by dessert enthusiasts. The Black Forest cake and New York-style cheesecakes are highly recommended. Beyond cakes, their savory snacks, such as quiches and sandwiches, offer a delightful balance to the sweet treats on offer. With its cozy vibe and contemporary décor, it’s a great place to enjoy a casual meal or dessert.

Paul’s, Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj Known for its French flair, Paul’s is a Parisian-style bakery that stands out in Delhi. Located in Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj, this bakery brings the best of European patisserie culture to the capital. From buttery croissants to decadent éclairs and tarts, Paul’s is a haven for those who appreciate fine patisserie. Their fresh breads, made with traditional techniques, are also a major draw for bakery lovers. If you're seeking sophistication in your baked goods, Paul’s is an excellent choice for the best bakery in Delhi.

Baker’s Oven, Pitampura If you’re a fan of rich flavors with a local touch, Baker’s Oven in Pitampura should be on your list. Known for their creamy cheesecakes, puff pastries, and soft cakes, Baker’s Oven has become a favorite among Delhiites. Their attention to detail, combined with quality ingredients, makes them stand out as one of the best bakeries in Delhi. Don’t miss their famous chocolate mousse, which has garnered rave reviews for its velvety texture and deep cocoa flavor.

Conclusion: Where to Find the Best Bakery in Delhi?

Whether you're in the mood for a classic croissant, a rich chocolate cake, or a delicate pastry, Delhi’s bakeries have something to offer everyone. The best bakery in Delhi isn’t just about the products they sell; it’s about the experience of walking into a place where passion and creativity blend in every bite. Whether you visit one of the iconic spots like Wenger's or a trendy new bakery, each of these establishments brings something unique to the table, making them worthy of the title "best bakery in Delhi."

So the next time you find yourself in the capital, treat yourself to some of the finest baked goods in the city – because nothing says love like a fresh, warm pastry straight from the oven!

[tripcraft24]

How to Spend 48 Hours in Dallas: A Perfect Weekend Itinerary

Dallas, Texas, is a vibrant blend of Southern charm, rich history, dynamic art, and tantalizing cuisine. Whether you’re a first-time visitor or returning to explore new sights, 48 hours is enough time to experience the best Dallas has to offer. Here’s a comprehensive weekend itinerary designed to showcase Dallas’s unique culture, food, and attractions!

Day 1: Exploring History, Art, and Authentic Texan Food

Morning

1. Breakfast at Houndstooth Coffee

Start your day with a cup of Dallas’s finest coffee. Houndstooth Coffee in Oak Lawn is known for its exceptional brews and laid-back atmosphere. Pair your coffee with a pastry or breakfast sandwich, and take in the morning calm before the day's adventures begin.

2. The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

Head over to Dealey Plaza, where you can explore one of the most significant moments in U.S. history. The Sixth Floor Museum offers a comprehensive look at the life, legacy, and assassination of President John F. Kennedy, including exhibits on Dallas in the 1960s. Don’t miss the vantage point on the sixth floor where the events unfolded in 1963, along with multimedia displays detailing the investigations.

3. Dallas Arts District

A short drive or a pleasant walk from Dealey Plaza is the Dallas Arts District, the largest urban arts district in the United States. Stroll through the area and admire the contemporary architecture of the Winspear Opera House and Meyerson Symphony Center. Check out the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), which houses over 24,000 works from around the world, and Klyde Warren Park, an elevated green space that bridges downtown Dallas and Uptown with food trucks, games, and free events.

Afternoon

4. Lunch at Pecan Lodge in Deep Ellum

No trip to Dallas is complete without some Texas BBQ, and Pecan Lodge is a local favorite. Located in Deep Ellum, Pecan Lodge is famous for its smoked brisket, sausage, and southern sides like mac and cheese, collard greens, and fried okra. Plan for a wait, especially during peak hours, but it’s worth every minute!

5. Explore Deep Ellum’s Street Art and Boutiques

After lunch, wander the streets of Deep Ellum, Dallas’s art district known for its colorful murals, live music venues, and indie boutiques. Discover vibrant street art covering building exteriors, and pop into local shops featuring unique, hand-crafted items. This neighborhood is a fantastic spot for photos, and it has a youthful, artsy energy that contrasts beautifully with Dallas's more polished downtown.

Evening

6. Dinner at The Rustic

Head back toward Uptown for dinner at The Rustic, a lively restaurant that serves Texan-inspired comfort food in an open-air setting. Enjoy dishes like tamales, queso, and fried chicken under string lights while local bands play live music. Their cocktail menu is extensive, featuring local brews, wine, and craft cocktails that pair perfectly with the upbeat vibe.

7. Nightcap at Midnight Rambler

If you’re up for more, Midnight Rambler, located in The Joule Hotel, is a swanky cocktail lounge offering innovative, craft cocktails. The ambiance is dark and moody, perfect for wrapping up your night with a unique drink and a cozy, lounge feel.

Day 2: Nature, Shopping, and a Touch of Texan Luxury

Morning

1. Breakfast at Bread Winners Café and Bakery

Start day two with a delicious breakfast at Bread Winners Café in Uptown. Known for its generous portions and cozy ambiance, Bread Winners offers a variety of breakfast favorites, from chicken and waffles to hearty omelets and baked goods.

2. Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden

Next, make your way to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden. Spanning 66 acres along the shores of White Rock Lake, this is one of the most beautiful spots in Dallas, featuring seasonal floral displays, fountains, sculptures, and walking trails. The gardens are especially beautiful in spring and fall, and there’s a picturesque view of downtown Dallas from the Arboretum.

Afternoon

3. Lunch at Trinity Groves

For lunch, head to Trinity Groves, a restaurant hub located at the foot of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. This area is filled with unique dining concepts, so you can choose from various cuisines including Mediterranean, Mexican, and sushi. Consider Beto & Son for modern Mexican dishes like tableside guacamole and liquid nitrogen margaritas.

4. Bishop Arts District

After lunch, explore the Bishop Arts District, one of the most beloved areas in Dallas. This neighborhood is known for its eclectic mix of shops, galleries, and boutiques. You’ll find everything from artisan goods to unique home decor and handmade jewelry. Make sure to check out The Wild Detectives, a bookstore and coffee shop that frequently hosts live music and events, and Emporium Pies, where you can indulge in a slice of delicious, homemade pie.

Evening

5. Dinner at Monarch

End your weekend on a high note with dinner at Monarch, a fine-dining Italian-inspired restaurant located on the 49th floor of The National. This stunning restaurant offers spectacular views of the Dallas skyline and a luxurious dining experience. The wood-fired steaks and pastas are crowd favorites, and the ambiance is perfect for a special night out.

6. Views from the Reunion Tower

After dinner, wrap up your Dallas weekend by visiting Reunion Tower. Known as “The Ball,” this observation deck offers a 360-degree view of Dallas from 470 feet above the ground. The GeO-Deck provides panoramic sights of the city, and you can even enjoy a cocktail or dessert from the Cloud Nine Café as you soak in the Dallas skyline.

Additional Tips for Your Dallas Weekend:

Getting Around: Dallas has rideshare services like Uber and Lyft, which are convenient and widely available. If you plan on visiting multiple neighborhoods, consider renting a car to make the most of your time.

Best Time to Visit: Spring and fall are ideal times to visit Dallas, as temperatures are mild and comfortable. Avoid the peak summer months if possible, as Dallas can get very hot.

What to Wear: Dallas has a casual yet polished style. Pack comfortable shoes for walking, as well as a light jacket if you’re visiting in the fall.

In just 48 hours, you’ll get a taste of Dallas’s history, art, food, and culture. From its iconic landmarks to vibrant neighborhoods and local culinary gems, Dallas is a dynamic city that knows how to entertain and delight visitors. Enjoy your weekend getaway.