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angellesword · 4 years ago

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YOUR EYES TELL | JJK (02)

➭ You live in a world where people see in black and white. The solution to finally see the colors? It’s simple. You need to meet your soulmate and look at him in the eyes, but what if the person bound to you is already contented with the monochromatic world? What if…Jeongguk, your soulmate, is already in love with someone else?

Alternatively;

“A future without you is a world without color.”

Genre: soulmate au, e2l, unrequited love, heavy angst, fluff, lawyer au.

Pairing: Artist!Jungkook x Lawyer!Reader

Word Count: 2.7k

SERIES: CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 3

"Please, Joon. I just need to know if he's okay..."

Namjoon scratched the back of his head while looking at Red. The latter was practically begging him to spill things he's been forbidden to utter. He was sure he's just seconds away from telling her what she wanted to know, but then he's abruptly reminded of how heartbroken Jungkook was.

"Don't tell her I'm here," tears painted Jungkook's cheeks. "I don't want to see her. Not now." Or ever...

"He's not here, Red. I'm sorry," Namjoon sighed, trying to close the front door of his small apartment; regrettably, Red stopped him before the door shut in her sad face."I know he doesn't want to see me." She said with a shaky voice—causing Namjoon to purse his lips into a thin line.

"Right." He couldn't help but say. She deserved the snarky remark for hurting Jungkook beyond repair.

"But I'm worried about him. H-He was...so mad when he left."

'Who wouldn't?' Namjoon wanted to say, yet he kept his lips glued together. He needed to remind himself that although she hurt Jungkook, Red was still his friend.

"I'm sure he'll be fine wherever he is." Namjoon's caught Red's eyes. "Jungkook is strong, you know."

"I know." She looked at her feet; this caused the man inside the house to also look down. Namjoon was so busy shooing Red away that he didn't notice a big box on the ground. Judging by the looks of it, he deduced that this box belonged to Jungkook. The tower of sketchpads and other art materials was already a giveaway.

"Can you give this to him, though? I'm not sure when I'll get to see him again, and I know he can't live without this stuff, so..." Red picked up the box. "Please, Joonie..." She added when the older boy didn't say anything.

"Fine."

In the end, Namjoon gave in. He didn't have a choice. This was the only way to make her leave; however, he instantly regretted his decision when he spotted Jungkook sitting on the couch."What did she say?" Jungkook inquired eagerly; his eyes flew on the box that's juggling in Namjoon's arms. Jungkook saw his friend trip over a non-existent stone.

Namjoon was really clumsy.

"She wants me to give this to you." The older boy handed the box to Jungkook in exchange for his precious daughter.

"Ji-eun..." Namjoon cooed, bopping the nose of his three-year-old child. Ji-eun chuckled; her little finger was poking her father's deep dimple.

"Appa!" Ji-eun's eyes twinkled. She missed being in her father's embrace even though it hadn't been long since Namjoon left her with Jungkook.

Ji-eun couldn't help it. Jungkook used to be the fun uncle, but all he did now was cry and snort. Admittedly, she's getting tired of wiping his tears every second.

She wondered who made uncle Jungkook cry.

"Huh." Jungkook huffed as he examined what was inside the box. Namjoon was right. It's full of the younger boy's stuff.

"Is she really so eager to kick me out of the house that she personally brought my things here!?"Jungkook was seeing red. Profanities left his lips as acid dripped down his stomach. He's so mad at his ex.

"Language, Jeon," Namjoon warned, turning away from Jungkook. He couldn't let Ji-eun listen to the younger boy's dirty mouth. "Besides, you're the one who left."

Jungkook didn't know how to respond to that, mainly because Namjoon was correct. He was the one who left in the middle of the fight. In his defense, he was hurt. What Red was saying was too much for him—it was painful, the kind of pain he knew would forever haunt him.

"I love him, Kook."

Red's confession echoed in Jungkook's mind again. Red told him she loved her soulmate. Jungkook didn't want to believe her because how? How could she fall in love with another man just by looking at him in the eyes?

"We've been seeing each other for months now."

His question had been answered. Red was a cheater, and it's the last straw for Jungkook. He couldn't take it anymore, so he stood up.

"I hate you, bitch!"

The pain that crossed Red's face indicated that Jungkook had gone too far. He didn't mean it, but he's hurt, and this was the only way he could hurt her back.

Before Red could say anything, Jungkook was already out of the door.

It's two am in the morning. Jungkook was certain that the only awake person that he could bother right now was none other than Namjoon, his brother-in-law.

Thankfully, Namjoon's apartment was just a few blocks away from Red's home.

"Kook?" Namjoon squinted his eyes after opening the door. He's been awake for straight twenty-seven hours to the point that he couldn't tell if Jungkook was really in front of him or if he's just hallucinating.

"Hyung..." Jungkook broke into tears upon seeing his only family.

Namjoon let the crying boy inside his house.

"I ran out of tea..." This was Namjoon's excuse when he handed Jungkook Ji-eun's milk. Namjoon didn't even have time to buy his groceries since his daughter occupied most of his time.

Fortunately, it looked like Jungkook didn't give two fucks as he was already halfway finished drinking the warm milk.

It's been exactly fifteen minutes since the younger boy came knocking on Namjoon's humble abode. Jungkook had stopped crying, though he still looked a little shaken.

"Red found her soulmate..." Jungkook spoke right before Namjoon could ask what happened. Suddenly, the older boy found himself biting his bottom lip. He didn't want to pry about Jungkook's life, but then he's reminded of the wish of Hye-Jin, his late wife.

"Take care of my brother, Joon..."

"D-Do you wanna talk about it?" Namjoon asked before he changed his mind. This was the only thing he could do for Hye-Jin.

"What's there to talk about?" Jungkook hissed even though he's the one who started telling Namjoon things. The latter kept his head low. In times like this, he wasn't sure what to say.

It's not like he's better than Red. Namjoon also broke up with the woman he was dating right after meeting Hye-Jin. The only difference was that Namjoon's ex perfectly understood the situation. She knew that they weren't destined to be together.

"She cheated on me. She said she's in love with her soulmate." The bitter taste in Jungkook's mouth was still there. It only strengthened as soon as the word 'soulmate' left his lips. Jungkook continued pouring his heart out to Namjoon despite saying he didn't want to talk about it.

"She's going to regret leaving me. No one can love her the way I do!" Jungkook swore, but Namjoon's almost 100% sure he's wrong.

Seeing colors were different. It felt like everything was perfect. Namjoon couldn't deny that one of the many reasons he fell in love with Hye-Jin was because she helped him see the wonderful hues.

It's like the more he fell in love with her, the brighter the colors became. Even now that she's dead, Namjoon could still see colors. Granted that it kind of faded, it's still the best thing Namjoon was proud to experience.

The rule of the world was simple. As long as your soulmate was in love with you, the colors would always be visible in your very eyes. It would only become less bright if your soulmate died. However, the case of a one-sided love was different. People wouldn't be able to see colors if their soulmates didn't give them their hearts.

Some said that there were cases wherein people went blind when their soulmates started to hate them. Namjoon and Jungkook didn't know if it was true or just a myth. After all, they hadn't encountered people who apparently 'went' blind because of the mentioned reason."I'm telling you, hyung. She'll come to see me soon."

Jungkook was right. Two weeks after their fight, Red showed up. Unfortunately, it's not to beg her ex to come back. She only returned a box full of his stuff, a clear sign that she's officially kicking him out of their shared apartment.

"How can she do this to me? It's my house too!" Said Jungkook nine days after Red's appearance in front of Namjoon's apartment, it finally dawned to him that his ex was no longer a part of his life.

It's really over.

Jungkook realized this while staring dumbly at his ruined sketchpads. Ji-eun accidentally spilled a glass of water on her uncle's drawing.

The mixture of pain, anger, and frustration caused Jungkook to scream. He couldn't possibly be mad at a three-year-old kid; that's why he just directed his negative emotions to the fact that Red practically kicked him out of their home—his home.

He was aware that Red's name was written in the lease contract, but Jungkook paid this year's rental fee. He's broke at the moment. This being the case, Jungkook swallowed his pride to come to live with his brother-in-law. The thing was, it's getting hard for him to stay there. Namjoon had only one room, so Jungkook slept on the couch—wait, this wasn't about right. Jungkook didn't even get to sleep. Ji-eun's cries wouldn't allow him to do so. Aside from this, the little kid had also ruined her uncle's drawings countless times now.

"Seriously, Kook. You need to move out of your brother-in-law's house." Taehyung pouted his lips.

Jungkook couldn't decide if he could take his friend's advice seriously, at least not when Taehyung's tongue was basically down Jimin's throat.

"I can't afford to lease a new place." Jungkook scrunched his nose, eyes still focused on the disgusting public display of affection in front of him. "I only have forty dollars in my bank account."

"Oh, you poor thing." Jimin slightly pushed his boyfriend's chest to dodge his kisses and to be able to look at Jungkook.

Jungkook snorted. He didn't want to be babied, especially not by Park Jimin, who he met just a few months back.

Park Jimin was Taehyung's real soulmate. It was still weird seeing them together. All his life, Jungkook believed that Taehyung, his childhood best friend, was a straight man. Taehyung dated a lot of women before; he also seemed to enjoy being with them.

This was one of the reasons why Jungkook hated the idea of a soulmate. It was a complete bull. It was unfair to let fate decide who you'll end up with. Jungkook witnessed Taehyung's struggle after meeting Jimin. He was happy that he could finally see colors and that it didn't take him long to like Jimin, but Taehyung was so confused.

Like Jungkook, Taehyung also thought he was straight, but then his world suddenly turned upside down. Before he knew it, Taehyung was crying. He was too overwhelmed with what was happening, and Jungkook hated it. The latter didn't care about genders; he supported those who didn't identify themselves as heterosexual. Jungkook hated that people had to limit what they thought their gender was just because of the concept of soulmate. Again, it was not fair.

"But I can help you..." Jimin added as he took a bite of his frozen yogurt. They were currently inside of an ice cream shop. Jungkook had to get out of Namjoon's home since it was getting hard to look at his ruined works. He called his best friend to help him destress. Jungkook just had to let his frustrations out. Luckily, Taehyung and Jimin were more than happy to treat their younger friend some frozen yogurts. Jungkook ordered three of the said dessert.

"No, Jimin." Taehyung said as if he'd read his boyfriend's mind. "Jungkookie isn't going to suck your dick for money."

"Aw." Jimin's lips protruded into a sulky pout, making Jungkook roll his eyes. Sometimes he couldn't believe the couple's relationship. Jungkook knew that Jimin was only joking, but Jungkook thought he couldn't let the love of his life think about someone else's body. He was pretty possessive.

"We can call Yoongi-hyung, though. I think he's in the mood for some dicks—"

"Guys!" Jungkook groaned, cutting them off. His eyes were widening too. "Can we stop talking about dicks for five seconds? I have a serious problem here."

"Oh, right!" Jimin's eyes lit up. He also cleared his throat—an action that made Jungkook sigh in relief; at least he's getting serious now. "You need to find a roommate, Kook. Lucky for you, I have a friend who's looking for a housemate. I think she could cut you off some slack."

The younger boy's scoff was almost instant. "Cut me off some slack?" He narrowed his eyes at Jimin. "I don't want to owe anything to anyone. You know that."

Jimin shrugged his shoulders, taking another bite of his frozen yogurt. "It's not like that. You'll actually be the one doing her a favor. She's in dire need of a roommate, Kook. She wouldn't mind if you couldn't pay rent right now, as long as you're willing to keep the house clean and look after her cat. You can do that, right?"

Of course, Jungkook could. He was an artist; he spent most of his time inside his home, silently drawing whatever came into his mind.

"Huh." Jungkook was still skeptical. "Can't she just hire a maid?"

"Wish it was that easy. She's a mess. Not even her maids can tolerate her shit. Besides, her cat is a total bitch. She scratches anyone that's not her owner."

"I'm not sure..." Jungkook scowled. He wasn't sure if he could live with a stranger. Jungkook was a shy boy; it actually took him a long time to even say 'hello' to Jimin.

"Just think about it, Jungkook..." Jimin smiled warmly at the younger boy. "I swear she's a decent person. Yes, she's messy, but aside from that, she's fine. She doesn't pry on anyone's life; she's quiet, just like you, and oh! She likes banana milk too! I swear, Kook. You'll like her!"

For some reason, Jungkook's heart skipped a beat. He knew Jimin was kind, he's the type of person who always talked about the good qualities of a certain someone, but this was the first time he spoke about someone with such passion.

Jimin continued to talk about you, his lovely best friend. If you could hear him right now, you were sure you'd end up crying. Jimin was indeed the best friend you could ask. He's fiercely loyal.

"It's true, Kook. You'll love her." Taehyung talked about you with the same intensity. He had met you, and he instantly fell in love with you. You were smart and witty.

The couple continued sharing things they loved about you. Jungkook swore he's not easy to convince. The only acceptable reason why he's standing in front of your apartment was that Taehyung and his boyfriend knew the magic of words. They had done an excellent job convincing him.

Jungkook let out an exasperated breath when you still didn't answer the door after his ninth attempt to knock. Truthfully, he was getting pissed off.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea after all.

Just as when he was about to leave, the door suddenly opened with so much force. Jungkook was startled.

"I'm sorry, I was in the shower. I swear I heard you the first time you knocked, but I was panicking, so I slipped down the floor, and I..." You ran your hand through your wet hair, eyes widening when you saw your fingers covered in soap suds.

"Oh, my God!" You were panicking again. This time, you finally looked at Jungkook to see his reaction.

You were rambling about how this whole situation was so embarrassing, but Jungkook wasn't listening anymore. How could he focus on anything when his heart was beating this fast? Jungkook was pissed before he met your eyes, right now; the irritation he felt was rapidly boiling down to panic when he realized what was happening.

Colors.

Jungkook was used to seeing black and white, so imagine his confusion when the colors suddenly became visible in his eyes.

Nothing made sense to him, but one thing's for sure.

Jungkook had found his soulmate.

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oneinist · 3 years ago

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Recap #2: Two months in fandom feels like forever?!

Ao3/Fanfiction So I finally tagged my fics properly... After reading this educational post here. I understand why tags are important and honestly I was just too embarrassed in the beginning but I overcame it.

I got my first gift, squeals, read more about that under Umino hours discord server~

I’ve posted only a few drabbles (which are not limited to 100 words in my world but maybe less than 500 words? dunno). Unfortunately, I’m currently in a writer’s block deluxe so I have taken my refuge in drawing instead, hoping that one day the block will have dissolved on its own and I can get back to writing too. Also I am starting to come to terms with that long fic is probably not my thing, regardless of how much I want to, and I should stick to oneshots... *sobs*

Tumblr/Fanart This month I have been more active on Tumblr, figuring out n00b stuff such as Asks - I got my first and second ask too! Thank you ~~~ @hades-bitch and @kaoruhana08

I even tried my hand at adding and formatting my pages with some basic html (I would love to be able to create my own theme some day). As you can see I love lists. Almost all the pages I’ve added are lists.

The discovery of this month has been @ao3commentoftheday I am in love. It is a gold mine and it has already transformed the way I think and interact with fanworks, my own and other’s. I cannot recommend this blog enough. Also it has this fun event-ish thing for weekdays that I followed for a week and will continue to do sporadically: Motivaiton Monday, Trivia Thursday, Work in Progress Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday, Fic Back Friday, Spotlight Saturday and Six Sentence Sunday.

I also started drawing chibis. I even made 27 (!?!?!?) emojis/sticker, mainly Iruka sensei but some Kakashi in there too of course. I really really really want to draw like I write, meaning SMUTTY, so I have started to try at least.

I am adopting my motto from @sweetysamaa which is when something seems like it is impossible to draw, that’s what I should draw! and also this ao3 post here on treating yourself as well as one about allowing yourself to take joy in creating and not be hung up on quality but I can’t find it...

I am also baffled by all the new followers, THANK YOU 🧡

Just some sample of past creations~~~

Events

I finally got to working on my Kakashi Summer Bingo board and managed to finish one line before the deadline~~~ I am also working on my KakaIru Maze Challenge, but my writer’s block is affecting that one negatively. I am loving the theme and my prompts, I just have to get over this darn blockage!

Umino hours discord server So, around Tumblr and on KakaIru.rocks I saw references to the Umino Hours not understanding what it was until I came across one of the invite posts. Of course it had already expired even though I saw it in real time... But then I saw that they would let new members in at a certain time. I marked my calendar and got up at 5:45 in the morning, glued to Tumblr, refreshing now and then - ready to click when the post came up. I felt like I was cueing for concert tickets!

Now a month later, I am in awe, the people who run it, the people who take part in it - it is truly amazing. I had a bit of a hard time getting used to the format (new to discord) and some days my brain can’t handle the multiple threads and referencing - but most days it can (Also I found that discord has a lot of settings you can make to have it work better with your brain!!!!! Love accessibility).

I took part in my first server event Umino Hours Discord Server 90 Minutes To Gift Exchange you can find all the awesome fics here~ I received this wonderful gift from couturecosplay. I’ll be posting the art I did for it and also any other fanart (that isn’t a WIP) I have posted in the server after this I think.

<3 Kakairu <3 discord server And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, the awesome @goatbutter-writes creates a KakaIru discord server. Squeals again. You can find the invite here. Please come and hang out, talk about our headcanons be they sfw or nsfw, share fic recs and fanart and aaaall the good stuff~~~

My closing note will probably sound really sappy but I feel like the people in the fandom have filled a hole in my heart I didn’t realize I had, how very Naruto-esque. I didn’t understand how lonely I was until I was welcomed into it. Not only has Covid been a contributing factor but I also moved between countries a year before Covid hit. I have been apart from family and friends and not really ben able to form new friendships. It hit double hard in a way. But, I have my online found family now~~~ Lots of love to you all!!

#utterly self indulgent #nobody asked #reminescing #it's only been two months #but it feels like forever #spread the kakairu loove~~~

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stahlop · 4 years ago

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Making a Memory (3/?)

Once again, a big thanks to my betas @profdanglaisstuff and @thisonesatellite. This chapter was a bitch to write.

And thanks again to @gingerchangeling for her amazing artwork above!

Chapter 1 2

Ao3

The next two days felt like torture for both Hope and Alice. They had been told by the directors that they were lucky to be allowed to go into town and that they’d better behave themselves as they were representing the camp, to which Hope and Alice solemnly nodded. Henry had sent a text through Lori’s phone (another extra dollar to deliver the message) to meet at a coffee house in town at 11:00 to which Hope replied that she and Alice would be there (another dollar to text back).

Hope had told Alice that Henry had confirmed they were sisters but nothing else, citing that this wasn’t something he could tell them over the phone.

“Maybe they both got amnesia and only remembered the last relationship they’d been in and that’s why they think our other parent is different?” Alice had suggested. Hope had thought that could be a possibility but then…

“But what about the fire? Or is that where the amnesia came from?”

“Could be?” Alice said. “Maybe they both got amnesia from the fire and forgot the other and we just went with whichever one saved us.”

“But that doesn’t explain Henry.” Hope said, which was also the fly in the ointment to every theory they came up with. Henry was the outlier. The only thing that didn’t make sense. As far as Hope knew, she and Henry both had the same father and Henry had never said anything different. Why would he lie to her for so many years about having a sister and potentially a different father?

“I definitely think their memories have been altered or erased in some way.” Alice said. “My gut usually tells me if a person is lying, and Papa hasn’t lied to me once about thinking Milah was my Mama.” She frowned at the prospect that her gut could have been wrong about her Papa all these years.

“Is it always right?” Hope asked. “I mean, you told me that it seemed to hate me on sight when we first got here, but it’s calmed down now, right?” Alice nodded. “Wait! Did you say it mainly tells you if someone is lying or not?” Hope asked, realizing what else Alice had said. Alice nodded. “My mom has that same thing. She can tell when someone is lying. I’ve always chalked it up to being able to read people well, but maybe it’s something you’ve inherited from her!” Hope got really excited about that prospect. Another piece of the puzzle being put together.

“What was it like growing up with a brother?” Alice asked, changing the subject. Her whole world had been turned upside down and hearing about things she may have inherited from a mother she never knew existed still felt a little weird.

“It…” Hope paused looking for the right words to describe it. “It was different. He’s 15 years older than me so we weren’t close. I mean, we were close, but not the close that two siblings would have if they were only a few years apart. I know he tried to help out mom with me as best he could. He lived at home during college when he could have lived at the dorms, and he lived at home until I was around 10 before mom kicked him out. He only lives a few blocks from us and he’s been real busy with the book writing lately. But he always makes time for me when I need to get away from mom for a little bit. In fact, he paid for me to go to camp this summer because I’ve wanted to go for forever.”

There was a bit of silence after that. Neither one knowing what to talk about next. They’d exhausted their theories and both of them were a little leery about learning about the other one’s parent without finding out why they’d been separated and potentially lied to for their whole lives.

Hope spent the next day reading through Henry’s novel, as if it might hold potential clues for her, even though it was a work of fiction. Alice spent them drawing pictures of various things, everything from characters in the book to things that had happened around camp. Hope was a little jealous at how good Alice was.

Finally, the day to go into town arrived. Alice and Hope had woken up early and were the first ones on the bus. They’d be getting into town around 10:00 so they’d have a little time to shop around before meeting Henry. They were both so antsy the entire trip there. As they got off the bus, Mrs. Hatfield remarked about how well they were getting along with a knowing look. If she only knew her initial assumption of them being sisters had been spot on, and that was the reason they were getting along, not because of the stupid Get Along Cabin.

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Henry had not been all together surprised when he had received the phone call from Hope. He had been expecting it after all, just not so early. He’d thought he’d have another 4 weeks, once camp had ended to figure out how to explain the situation they had all found themselves in. It wasn’t every day, after all, that one meets their long lost twin sister that they never even knew existed (although Disney would have people believing it, but they messed up most of their retellings of fairy tales, why would this be any different). But here he was, with only two days to figure out what he was going to tell his sisters, one of whom he hadn’t seen since she was two.

He knew the situation was a mess. It had been a mess since the twins were born. It wasn’t as if any of them had wanted this situation to happen, but it had and they’d been living with it for the past, almost twelve years. Well, Henry had, anyway, it wasn’t as if anyone else involved in this knew what the hell was going on besides him.

The whole situation was bittersweet. He had checked up on Killian and Alice over the years, not that they knew that. He’d been discreet. Just happening to be in the same park as them even though it was nowhere near where he lived; jogging near Alice’s school as she grew up to be able to see her during recess. It had pained him to see her playing by herself in a trove of trees near the back of the playground away from everyone else. As she got older, she had the drawing pad, and he was happy that she had something she enjoyed doing. Henry had even gone to a few of her art shows and seen just how much like Killian she was in the drawing department.

It was a lot harder to check up on Killian, as he worked at the docks and it wasn’t like Henry could just hang around the docks for no reason. He’d thought about getting a job there when he was old enough, but his mother would’ve thrown a fit. She would have given him a talking to about wasting the scholarship money he’d been given for his fancy Creative Writing Bachelors to go work, what she would have considered, a dead-end job at the docks. He had to make it part of his morning run, except that when Killian moved into management, he couldn’t get a look at him at all.

Deciding to go into Creative Writing in college was a no-brainer. He knew he needed to get his story out, but he needed to do it in sections. Become one of those writers that had a book series instead of just one book. He wouldn’t have been able to get everything into one book as it was. The problem that he hadn’t anticipated was that no one wanted to publish it. He thought the alternative fairy tale genre would have still been a big seller, but it seemed that book publishers were more into dystopian societies again (a resurgence from when he had been a kid). It had taken him a lot longer to get Once Upon a Time out to the masses than he’d intended. The sequel would just barely be released before Hope and Alice’s fourteenth birthday and that was cutting it really close for what needed to happen.

Henry had done the best he could in helping his mother raise Hope. He knew it was not the life she had imagined when she’d found herself pregnant. He still remembered with distinct clarity when she’d come rushing out of the bathroom waving around the pregnancy test. Explaining to Killian what the two lines meant, and then forcing Henry to go buy her a digital test just to make sure the cheap ones she’d bought over the internet weren’t faulty. They’d been so excited to start their family together. And when they found out they were having twins, well Killian had practically spun Emma around in excitement (a little hard because they didn’t find out about the twins part until she was almost five months along and she was already huge. Alice had apparently been shy even in the womb as she was hiding behind Hope in the ultrasounds; their heartbeats always perfectly in sync with each other). And then...everything happened.

Maybe it would be better if Henry tried to write what he wanted to say down. He’d always done better with an outline, a plan, an operation. Operation Gemini was on!

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The girls were already waiting at a table in the coffee shop when Henry arrived; three hot chocolates set at each place, all with whipped cream and cinnamon Henry noticed. As soon as Hope noticed him, she immediately stood up and ran to give him a fierce hug.

They stood there, hugging at the entrance, for what seemed a long while. Had it really only been two weeks since she’d gone off to camp? It felt almost like a lifetime. Even though Henry had moved out of the apartment, he still came by to see his mom and Hope every day. It was just the kind of family they had. Very close.

Henry had moved them off to the side so as to not block the entranceway, and he felt Hope shuddering in his arms. She was silently crying Henry realized as he stroked soothing circles on her back, something that always calmed her down as a little girl. He looked over to the table and noticed Alice sitting at the table waiting for her world to drastically change and all she looked like she was feeling awkward while she waited for them to finish their emotional reunion.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying.” Hope wailed softly. “I just have so many questions and emotions from discovering that I have a sister, and it has finally hit me now that you’re here, Henry.” He was making this all real. And no matter the answer, no matter what he told her, Hope and Alice had to keep an open mind, because Henry knew the reality of this situation was going to change things forever.

“It’s okay, Hope.” Henry whispered into her hair, something else he’d always done when she was younger. “I promise, everything is going to be okay.” He kissed the top of her head for reassurance. Hope seemed to snap out of it, and she broke away from Henry and dried her eyes on the back of her hands. Henry pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and gave it to her.

“Always a gentleman.” Hope said as they walked over to the table. Alice, who had watched the whole exchange, looked at Henry with wide eyes. Henry wasn’t sure how either of them were going to handle what he was about to tell them, but Alice, despite the wide eyes, seemed overly calm about the whole situation.

“It’s nice to meet you, Henry.” Alice said, putting her hand out for him to shake it as he sat down at the table. Henry could tell she wasn’t quite sure what else to say. He could only imagine how she must feel, having grown up an only child and now she supposedly had a twin sister and an older brother.

“We’ve met before.” Henry said sadly, taking a good look at her while he and Hope took their seats. It was like looking at a punk rock version of Hope and it was a little strange. “But I haven’t seen you since you were two and mom and Killian were still dressing you in matching outfits.” He laughed, remembering how their mother, of all people, liked dressing them the same and Killian absolutely hated it. They’re individuals, Swan, not dress up dolls! Everyone nervously took a sip of their hot chocolate.

“Can we just cut to the chase.” Hope said. Henry chuckled at how much like their mother she was. Besides looking like her, just with a fuller face that he chalked up to still being a child, she had inherited her personality, and was always straight down to business. No pleasantries, no small talk, just get straight to the point.

Operation Gemini hadn’t made it much past the notes phase when Henry tried to figure out how to explain things to them. Giving a speech was not the way to go. This wasn’t a book that he could plot out an outline and hope that everything went the way he wanted it to (at least not yet). And he knew these two girls were much too smart to not ask questions about everything he presented to them. He needed to know what they knew or had hypothesized for themselves before figuring out what and how to tell them about their pasts.

Alice,” Henry said turning to her, “tell me what you’ve been told about your mother.”

“Uh,” Alice had not expected to be put on the spot, “her name was Milah.” Henry nodded in agreement, since he already knew that was who she thought was her mother. “She and Papa were together for about five years before they got married and had me. I’m named for my Papa’s mother. She died in an apartment fire when I was two which is also how Papa lost his hand. We…” Alice’s voice drifted off when Henry took out a notebook and started writing everything she told him down. He wrote at a very alarming rate, and it would look as if the words were magically appearing on the page, or at least, it would look like that to Alice, if she believed.

‘H..how are you doing that?” Alice asked, fascinated. The pen he was using looked like an old fountain pen, the kind that required ink. Alice looked around but she saw no ink. He saw her look closer at the notebook which was an old, leather bound notebook with parchment inside. Henry held his breath. Could she see? Henry looked at Hope who was looking at Henry intently the same way Alice was, but he could tell that all Hope saw was a normal pen and notebook.

Henry looked up at Alice with a quizzical look on his face. “How am I doing what, Alice? What exactly do you see?” From his tone, he hoped that Alice could see he truly wanted an honest answer. She looked hesitant for a moment, took another gulp of her hot chocolate, but then drew a deep breath before telling him exactly what she saw.

“You have an old fashioned fountain pen, but it seems to not need any ink. And it’s putting the words on the parchment for you.” Alice gulped. Henry knew that what she had said would sound crazy to anyone else, but not to him. She looked over at Hope who was looking between Alice and the pen and notebook. She definitely was looking at Alice as if she just said the craziest thing ever. A wide smile crept over Henry’s face and tears sprang to his eyes. He wanted, more than ever, to just wrap Alice up in his arms like he had when she was a baby, and give her the biggest hug imaginable. He put the fountain pen and notebook aside.

“Alice,” Henry said as he took both her hands into his, “I need to ask you something, and please answer honestly. No false modesty for my sake, please.” Alice nodded. “Now, I know Hope hasn’t read my book because she says it’s not her style,” Hope rolled her eyes at this statement, crossed her arms and mumbled “I've read some of it,” Henry gave a small laugh at that and focused back on Alice, “but have you read it?” Alice nodded, unsure of where Henry was going with this. “And tell me, my dear Alice, what did you think of it?” He continued.

Henry watched Alice closely as she tried to figure out where to begin.

“It felt like I was reading about people I’d imagined my whole life. Like they’d been living in my head with no way out and then, bam! There they were on the page in front of me. And then I started drawing. Oh, I’d drawn mostly landscapes, places that were right in front of me, but I’d had these images in my head for so long of people, that about a year before your book came out, I’d started drawing them as well. And then there they were in your book. I have sketches of Snow White and Red from before your book even hit the shelves, and at first it scared me, because Papa has always said I might be psychic, just knowing little things here and there, but there it was for me to see. These people who I’d been imaging. I’d never known their story, and here it was laid out for me in the pages of your book.” She took her hands away from Henry’s and put them in her lap as a few tears, Henry couldn’t tell if they were happy or scared tears, slipped down her cheeks. Henry was still staring at her intently, his smile even wider if that were possible. He watched her put her one of her hands under her hair and rub the back of her neck, just like Killian always did.

“Why did you ask her that?” Hope asked breaking the silence that had enveloped them after Alice had finished her revelation. Alice almost looked embarrassed about Hope asking. She’d just bared her soul about all the thoughts that had been in her head, probably for years, and how Henry’s book had opened the floodgates, and Hope’s only response had been to ask why Henry had asked that particular question? Of course Hope would be the non-believer. Like mother, like daughter.

“That’s actually a very good question, Hope.” Henry said, his smile never fading. He beamed something that he hoped conveyed pride at Alice before looking over at his sister.

“I was going to start out telling you something different. I went over this in so many different ways the past two days, but I think I’m going to have to start with the storybook.” Henry said as he went to grab something out of his satchel. Hope rolled her eyes and scoffed.

“Henry, you cannot tell us we are sisters and then just go off about your fairy tale book. I get that she’s a fan, but there are more important things going on here besides your book.” Hope said, exasperated. Henry paid her no mind. He placed two books on the table. One was a much bigger, much older looking copy of his book, made from what looked like real leather and gold leaf. Like something the publisher might sell as a collector’s edition. The other looked like his current book, only it was white with a picture of an apple tree on it in a golden frame. It also said Once Upon a Time, but not as ornately as the last book. The O was in red while the rest of the letters were in brown. Underneath the title read the words: Emma’s Story.

“Is...is that the new book?” Alice squeaked out. Henry’s smile grew even wider if that was possible.

“It sure is, Alice.” He said quite happily. “And, actually, Hope, these books will tell you everything you need to know about your past.” Both Hope and Alice looked at him. Hope’s expression was one of disbelief. She’d always held their mother’s belief in the practical, everything had a logical explanation, even if lightbulbs tended to pop when one of them were angry, or they’d find random candles lit without any explanation for it when they really needed to relax. Alice’s eyebrows were practically in her hairline for how high she had raised them. Henry could see that she was more open to what he was trying to tell her.

“They’re all true?” Was all that Alice could get out.

“Yes, Alice,” Henry nodded, “they’re all true.” Alice smiled with tears starting to form in her eyes.

Hope looked from Henry to Alice completely confused. He could see she was trying to comprehend what he was trying to tell her, that the fairy tales he had written about were supposed to be real, but her brain did not compute that. Fairy tales weren’t real. They lived in the real world and magical things simply did not happen. And now Hope was getting angry, because Henry still hadn’t provided any explanation to how she and Alice had become separated and why they had been told lies their whole lives about who their parents were.

Henry sighed. “Look,” he said, running his fingers through his hair nervously, “this book here,” he pulled out the larger copy of his book and placed it on the center of the table, careful not to knock over any of their half drunk mugs, “is not just some fiction I made up.” He couldn’t believe he was in this situation where he had to explain this all over again. “Every story in this book actually happened. It’s the story of our grandparents and what they went through to eventually end up in this world.” Alice took in a breath of air while Hope looked at Henry like he was insane.

“Henry,” Hope started, “fairy tales aren’t real. What you’re saying is ludicrous, and you’re beginning to really scare me.”

“So, the Emma at the end of the book,” Alice said in barely a whisper, “she’s your mom? She’s actually the real daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and the savior destined to break the Evil Queen’s curse?” Henry knew it was a lot to take in, he knew it sounded insane, but he could also see that Alice believed every word that Henry was telling her. Hope just stared at both of them with a look that said she felt like she was the only sane person at their table.

“She did break the curse!” he said excitedly. “That’s what’s in this book. How our mother broke the curse and the various things that happened afterwards until she came to the Final Battle. And then….” Henry took a breath trying to stave off the catch that was starting to form in his throat. “We were separated. That’s how this book ends. With our separation.” He grabbed the almost empty mug in front of him and drained the last dregs of hot cocoa that were in there, grimacing at the grainy texture of the chocolate that had coagulated at the bottom. When he looked back at his sisters (he had never been so happy to add that extra ‘s’) he could see that Alice was thoroughly convinced that he spoke the truth, but Hope was still looking at him with a mix of incredulousness and a slight hint of murder. He could see her wanting to object again but cut her off when he continued with what he had to say.

“The final book. The final book of my series has not been written. I have no idea how it will end. Both of you need to help me write it because it’s about us, all of us. You two, me, mom, and Killian. It’s about what happened to us and a terrible danger that we will have to face.” Hope’s face immediately tensed at the word danger; Alice’s face lit up intrigued. He continued. “It won’t be easy. I am putting us all in jeopardy, but I don’t have a choice. This is something that we’ve known about since you two were born and I’m the one who has had to carry the burden of it for the past almost 12 years.” Tears were falling from his eyes and Alice handed him a napkin as Hope had never given him back his handkerchief from earlier. Alice also had tears falling as she had listened to what he had told him. Hope just looked frustrated.

“Henry,” Hope said, breaking in again, “are we ever going to get any answers, or are you just going to parade your books around to Alice and let her fangirl over them. We’ve been here,” she checked her watch,” for an hour and you’ve given us nothing but fairy tales. Not even that, you’ve just given us the books to decipher an answer out of! We have to meet back on the bus to camp in an hour. Are you going to be able to tell us everything we need to know by then?” She gave Henry the look, the look he’d seen too many times on his mother that showed that he wasn’t telling her the whole truth and she was getting tired of it. If she’d been standing, Henry was sure she’d be stomping her foot like the tantrums she used to throw when she was younger.

Henry thought for a minute. There was no way he could tell them everything he needed to in an hour. Hell, would they even be able to function at camp after everything he needed to tell them? Would they even believe him? Alice definitely seemed open to it, but Hope, she was so stubborn. It was like trying to convince their mother all over again. And that’s when he made the decision.

“Look, Alice, do you trust me?” He asked, holding out his hand to her. She didn’t even hesitate, she took his hand and answered yes. “Hope, Alice, you are sisters. I am your half brother. Emma and Killian love each other very much, they just don’t remember, and I need your help to bring our family back together. But to do that, you’re going to have to leave camp and come with me. Can you do that?”

Alice nodded with no hesitation. Henry probably should have been a little more concerned that Alice seemed so willing to leave camp and go off with a perfect stranger who had just told her that he was her brother with no other explanation except that fairy tales were real and she needed to somehow get their family back together, a family that didn’t even know they were broken, but he saw the belief in her eyes and the trust she had toward him and Hope, and he looked past that concern. Besides, he was her brother, just because she didn’t remember him didn’t mean they weren’t blood. Both he and Alice looked over at Hope who was still looking at them like they were the craziest people she had ever met. Henry was about to apologize for ruining her camp experience when she finally spoke.

“Well, I guess you two don’t really leave me a choice. I gotta make sure you crazy, and yes, I mean the literal meaning of crazy, people don’t get into too much trouble. Someone has to make sure that when mom and Alice’s dad, ...our dad, whoever he is, find us that we have a sane person to explain we went willingly and Henry doesn’t get arrested for kidnapping or whatever.” Hope flipped her ponytail behind her shoulder as if she didn’t really care either way if they got in trouble or not, but Henry knew better. He knew she was coming along on this crazy ride to make sure Henry didn’t do something stupid and to be there for Alice.

Henry held out his hand for Hope since he was still holding Alice’s from earlier. She hesitated only a moment before grabbing it. Alice and Hope both gave a slight jolt, something most people would not have noticed or thought they had just had a shiver run through them at the same time, but Henry knew, he knew that was the sign that everything was starting. It was the sign that their family was coming back together.

Tag List: (Let me know if you want to be added or removed)

@profdanglaisstuff @thisonesatellite @mariakov81 @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @superchocovian @lfh1226-linda @ilovemesomekillianjones @cssns @itsfabianadocarmo @xsajx @qualitycoffeethings

#cssns #cssns20 #captain swan supernatural summer #csff #Captain Swan #captain swan ff #gingerchangeling #inspired by the parent trap

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ghostmartyr · 4 years ago

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how a life can move from the darkness [6/?]

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

Summary: Two drug addicts (Eren and Historia) meet in group and decide to be roommates to make their living situation slightly less weird. From there we do the slow burn found family dance mixed in with the struggles and agonies of recovery. Heavy on friendship feels, especially EMA. Eventual yumikuri.

“What the fuck did you do to this thing?”

Eren was in Reiner’s house for breakfast.

He’d been in Reiner’s house earlier, before they left, to drop off Ymir’s book on the dining table. It had felt like the safest way to handle it. He didn’t see how sharing either of the experiences of Ymir’s latest readers with her would do anything good. Ymir was socially aware enough to get what a silent return meant. She didn’t spend hours staring at her phone to send off a, “did you get home ok?” text that arrived when every possible recipient was asleep. She could read between the lines.

The only lines Ymir looked to be caring about were the gouges marking the formerly neatly divided pages. Where they had collided with a door.

There were a few other suggestive wrinkles Eren had not asked about.

Ymir wasn’t interested in that kind of tact.

“It ran into a door,” Eren said, reaching around Bertolt for the orange juice.

“If you were going to use that excuse, you should have spent it on your face. Let the tennis ball take the fall for this.” Ymir was flipping the pages back and forth in disgust. She hadn’t looked at him once after confirming that he had made it inside complaining range.

Reiner had snatched some bacon off the frying pan, and was munching on it happily by the sink. He hadn’t seen anything wrong with the book. Eren didn’t, either. He was surprised she’d noticed. After a day in his backpack, most of his borrowed books from Armin looked about the same.

“It isn’t an excuse,” Eren said around his glass, “it’s what happened.”

Ymir turned the book over and inspected some less explainable marks, about the size of a very tiny human’s fingernail, on the cover. “I suppose this time it’s also your roommate’s fault.”

Eren chose not to answer that.

Ymir chose to use her seventh or eighth sense of mind reading and finally took her eyes off her book long enough to run a scan on Eren.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Eren put his glass down with more force than he intended to, drawing a pointed look from Bertolt. “There are only a few marks on it,” he said. “Everything’s still legible.”

Ymir went on pretending Eren wasn’t in the room while aiming conversation at him. “Has she considered an anger management class? Or sticking to throwing things at you?” Ymir mimed taking aim at him with enough irritation that Eren had to stop himself from ducking. “Why’d she even have it?” she asked. “I thought Reiner gave it to you to stave off your raving curiosity about the wild world of fuzzy hand-holding feelings.”

“I was trying to keep busy,” Eren said.

Ymir flopped the book down on her lap. “Then how did Lady Throws-a-Lot end up with it?”

Eren retrieved a plate of toast for himself, and set to work buttering it.

“…You didn’t read it, did you?”

Bertolt, in some misguided attempt at help or more misguided attempt to make Ymir feel some sort of guilt for forcing her work on people, said, “That’s allowed.”

Ymir ignored him the way none of the rest of them managed with her. “So you tossed it off on your roommate, and she threw it into a door.” She draped herself over the back of the couch, a very deep scowl etched in her face. “Nothing like knowing your art’s appreciated.”

Eren might have felt bad. Only the book had reminded him and everyone who lived with him of some of the worst moments of their lives. Ymir could figure out how to suck up two people not liking her book. Bertolt didn’t exactly keep how he felt about her writing a secret, and they got on fine.

“Wait,” Ymir said suddenly, “is she the one who left that bitchy review on Goodreads?”

Eren didn’t know what Goodreads was. He also didn’t think any of Historia’s thoughts on Ymir’s book were printable.

“She is.”

Eren swallowed his toast. “I have no idea. Is it that weird for you to get a bad review?”

“It’s weird for her to care several days later,” Bertolt muttered.

“It was a pretty bad one,” Reiner interjected. “Most of the people who don’t like her stuff drop her star average and leave it at that. This one went on for paragraphs about where the book went wrong. Being bothered by that isn’t so weird.”

“I’m not bothered,” Ymir said loudly. “Except by Eren’s bad taste existing in a second person on this bitch of an earth. Is that how you ended up living together? ‘Help, keeper wanted. Must have no standards.’”

There was something wrong in the world that in all their time knowing each other, Eren was the only one who’d had something thrown at him. “…That isn’t what happened.”

“Say that again, but in your believable tone of voice.”

Eren crammed the rest of his toast in his mouth and chewed as slowly as he could, keeping his only eye contact with the stove and Bertolt’s tiny, oddly encouraging smile.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ymir slide the book over the coffee table and yank out her phone from her pocket, tapping faster than Eren did when he was successfully holding back from throwing his at something.

Reiner, dipping his head in the sink, looked over at her. “What are you doing?”

“A public service,” Ymir said mildly.

“The last one of those you did put you in jail,” Bertolt said.

Ymir’s fingers stopped moving, and the cloud of irritation surrounding her took a dip into something Eren didn’t think he’d want to handle after a full three meals, forget the middle of the first one. The house suddenly felt too quiet for four people. It was the kind of quiet that fell at meetings after someone opened up more than anyone was ready for.

Reiner had turned the water off, but didn’t grab a towel for his head. He stared down the drain, dangerously pale after the heated flush his workout had treated him to.

“Juvie,” Ymir corrected, tapping a full word out. “Court says I’m a delinquent, not a felon.”

Reiner let out a loud laugh they could all hear the panic in as Eren silently handed him a towel. Bertolt didn’t turn around from his place at the stove.

Eren finished his toast.

He’d never be able to tell Armin, and it wasn’t a good idea to bring it up, anyway.

But like he was about everything else in the known universe, Armin had been right. Moving out was the right call. He had too many ghosts in his head to keep sharing rent with the others.

He didn’t envy Reiner.

----

The thing about Mikasa, the thing that had driven him up the wall for years and years and still could kick off a good sulk if it happened at the wrong moment, was that she was the most amazing athlete Eren had ever met. There wasn’t a sport she couldn’t star in. There wasn’t a race she couldn’t win. There wasn’t a tournament she’d been in that hadn’t handed her some kind of trophy.

Zeke wasn’t going to just pass up on that.

Which was fine. Zeke cutting contact with Mikasa because Eren did had always been an unexpected help, so having it ripped away just as unexpectedly was fine. Zeke hadn’t exactly promised to help pace out Eren’s return to his friendships. Or ever brought it up at all.

All that meant was they were a trio today. Eren, Mikasa, and Historia. Playing catch until the inevitable moment where batting practice started and Mikasa would look at him wondering why his favorite part of practice had turned into something he didn’t make an attempt at.

Eren had done too many pathetic things for lurking behind the park bathrooms on his cellphone to rank anymore. That didn’t mean he was impressed with himself over it.

“You sure you can’t make it?” he asked, pressing his palms into the coarse cinder block wall. “Zeke runs his practices pretty long.”

“The test’s tomorrow,” Armin was saying, sighing. “I don’t want to spend all this time tutoring her only for nerves to ruin it. Sasha thinks she focuses better when I’m here, and…”

He trailed off, guilt and embarrassment saying what he wouldn’t. “She does?” Eren finished for him.

“I’m really sorry.”

“No—don’t—” Eren bit down on his hand to keep from shouting in frustration. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to take Armin apologizing normally again. “No one’s going to drag you out of tutoring to make you watch some boring practice. You’re where you should be.”

The other line stayed quiet for a stretch, catching the hum of the bus Armin was on. Eren made himself not think about that, and didn’t fail completely. That was basically a success.

“Eren, if you need me to be there… for whatever reason, you know I’ll be there.”

Eren’s heart clenched. “I’m fine, Armin.”

Wait, crap, he’d said that before.

“For real, this time.”

Phones were okay, sometimes. He couldn’t see all the memories darkening Armin’s face before he took his breath and changed the topic.

“Maybe we can see a movie to make up for it. If Mikasa gets you to herself, I should too. There’s a new zombie one that just came out. We could go?”

“You hate zombie movies,” Eren said flatly. “You don’t need to baby me, Armin.”

“…I know. Part of me…” Eren braced himself for the hit, but it still hurt. “Part of me is still scared you won’t pick up when I call. I just…” Armin sighed again. “I wish Sasha didn’t have a test tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t want to miss being with you.”

Eren had his forehead against the wall, and his heart hurt better than anything had in a long time. Even when Armin’s embarrassment caught up with him and he started stumbling through his words instead of reciting them off the script in his head.

“So I mean it on the movie. Any time I’m not in class. Or, well, if you wanted, Thursday’s professor isn’t very engaged with the material, so I wouldn’t mind—”

“A movie sounds great,” Eren said.

“…It does?”

“Yeah. It does.” Eren swapped hands. “Only I probably don’t want to watch zombie flicks either. Blood is…” Too much like the images flying through his head whenever he tried to pick up a baseball bat. He pressed harder against the wall, probably scraping his forehead and creating more questions for Mikasa to ask.

“We needed to update our movie list anyway,” Armin said.

Eren frowned sourly. “There’s nothing wrong with our list.”

“There’s a lot wrong with our list.”

He said that every movie night. “Bad special effects are fun, Armin.”

“They’re bad, Eren. Every time we rent one we’re encouraging them to be lazy.”

“Name one movie that’s come out in the last five years you approve of.”

“High standards aren’t a bad thing!”

“If we followed all of them we wouldn’t have a list.”

Eren could hear Armin’s near-silent sigh, and his mouth hurt from smiling.

“You’re sure you don’t need me?”

“Yeah,” Eren said. “Not with this, anyway. You’re still good to have around.”

“Do you want to—” Armin audibly cut himself off.

Talk about it?

This it?

No. Never.

Eren wasn’t looking forward to finding out when that absolute turned out to be just as wrong as all the other ones he’d snapped off during recovery.

Armin would always be Armin, but Eren was only now coming back to being Eren. He couldn’t float on that expectation. He closed his eyes and bit out the truth. “I’m not sure I’ll handle Mikasa worrying about it. It’s nothing huge, but it… it’s a change from before.”

A change he didn’t want to go over with just one of them around. Armin wouldn’t say anything. Eren wasn’t sure Mikasa could resist. Then if she could, it would only be because Eren had lost it on her the last time she’d tried to be good to him, and he wanted that even less than he wanted the questions.

He wasn’t a fan of baseball. Batting practice had always been the thing that made up for it. He couldn’t just hide that falling apart.

He couldn’t come up with a polite way to ask Mikasa to stay out of his problems. That sounded like half their normal arguments from the first note, and they were too far from normal to survive bringing that fight back into the ring now.

Armin’s voice brought him back from his brooding. “I think you know more about change than we do, Eren. Just… try not to yell at her. It will be okay.”

“You think?”

“…Try really hard not to yell at her.”

“Right.”

----

Eren didn’t yell.

He didn’t even get a chance.

Mikasa’s eyes, fragile and dangerous like broken glass, followed him on his way to put his glove in the dugout. Historia, trying to be a good friend and not having any more of a clue than Eren did, had briefly attempted to walk between them, but she seemed even weaker to Mikasa’s aura than Eren was, and broke off on her own before any real difference was accomplished.

She’d stopped pulling down her sleeves. Shadows of track marks slid open with every throw she’d lobbed his or Mikasa’s way, and nothing fell to pieces. Better yet, off in their own triad in the outfield, no one asked invasive questions about it.

After the conversation with Armin, he’d been more jealous than happy for her, but that had to be some kind of good sign.

Then Yelena had signaled them for batting practice, and Eren hadn’t hid his furtive look at Mikasa well enough, and that had snapped Historia’s worried eyes to both of them, and there was something fucked about wanting the people he lived for to just go away and be gone for a second, but he didn’t yell.

Leaving Mikasa watching him in silence, weighing her worry against all of the horrible wrongs he’d put her through once and could easily drag both of them back into if they didn’t keep their mouths shut around each other.

Worry was winning out. It was written all over her face, worse than with Armin. Because worry always won because she was the responsible, good one, and Eren wasn’t going to yell but his head was screaming, wanting his pills like he hadn’t in weeks—when Zeke walked over and lobbed a helmet Mikasa’s way.

“Eren’s out for batting practice. You’re up first, Mikasa.”

Worry turned to annoyance like only Zeke could bring out in her, and Eren’s fists relaxed enough for him to feel his hands again.

She put the helmet on and took up a bat, looking back at him one last time on her way out, but not broaching the unspoken topic further.

“She reminds me of Frieda,” Historia said, technically sitting next to him, but leaving enough space that anyone else who wanted to sit next to Eren still could.

“Wow,” Eren said. “High praise from you.”

Zeke started with a fastball. Mikasa fouled it off. The crack of the bat hurt Eren’s ears.

“She worried too much. I could never make it go away.”

Another fastball, another foul. Zeke didn’t usually throw that hard for the first batter.

“I still can’t.”

Zeke was going to go for a curveball after he worked Mikasa into a rhythm with her swings. Zeke liked the game part of the sport, and he’d liked winding Mikasa up ever since her cousin had punched him in the face. Mikasa would get the hit in the end, though. Batting practice, not pitching practice. Zeke took his baseball seriously.

“Armin told me to try not to yell at her,” Eren said.

Historia didn’t comment. Her fingers were digging silently into her scarred arms.

“It was never just that,” he said, “but trying not to yell at her used to take a lot of pills.”

Zeke finally threw his curveball, and Mikasa sent it flying back over his head. Colt sprinted back to the center field fence, but he’d need to be several yards taller for that to matter any.

She ripped off her helmet so fast she probably ripped out some of her hair, and she didn’t spare Zeke any attention on her way back to the dugout, Eren being personally rewarded all of it. She slipped into the space Historia had left her without question and stared at him. He stared over her shoulder and thought about a life where it didn’t make him think of orange bottles that didn’t belong to him.

Historia leaned back against the splintery planks walling them all together, a tiny—sympathetic when she noticed Eren’s irritated scowl—twitch that could have really been a smile on her face.

Mikasa spoke, and it wasn’t what he expected.

“Are you still okay?”

It was the highest mark of Mikasa’s approval that she didn’t lower her voice out of Historia’s range to go with the rest of the dugout’s, and Eren would love her for that if he ever stopped feeling like an inadequate idiot whenever Mikasa unveiled herself in all her steady perfection. Eren kept his mouth shut because all he could think of was ways to hurt her, and she opened hers up and actually found a thing that could keep him from wanting to yell.

He would never deserve these people.

He could still try.

“It’s a Dad thing,” he said, the truth making his mouth itch and the lightning bolt of surprise Mikasa couldn’t hide making his heart and knuckles ache. “Not a drug thing.”

They all quietly watched Yelena step up to the plate, not-so-casually looking back at their shadowed corner before she hefted the bat over her shoulder. Eren thought about glaring, but Historia hadn’t noticed anything about Yelena’s overt curiosity, and Historia not noticing was fine for their stabilizing sanity.

“Does Zeke know?” Mikasa asked.

“I don’t think he’d want to.” The funeral was one of the clearer memories Eren had from afterwards. Zeke was a blur in it. He’d asked once how Eren was feeling. Then he’d left. Then he’d taken him to rehab.

Historia caught his eye sharply.

Eren shrugged at her and watched Yelena hit a clean line drive. There wasn’t much to say about it. Historia had been right. That wasn’t what she’d been getting at, but it was what was there. Mikasa was his Frieda. Zeke was just his brother.

His big brother, who watched bad movies with him when he had a lousy day and never talked about feelings. Not his, not Eren’s, not…

Not their dad’s.

Zeke wouldn’t want to hear about why his death took away pitching for his little brother.

----

“Frieda never wanted to talk about it either.”

Eren was eating his cheerios with what Armin used to call his morning glower when Historia plopped across from him with her bowl. Neither of them was having a cooking morning. Eren had stayed in his room the whole night, but Historia had already been up when he walked out, texting someone under Benjamin’s tank. He would have assumed Frieda, but Frieda kept some strange hours that didn’t include sunrise.

“I didn’t know you had friends,” he’d said, waving good morning to Benjamin.

Historia had stopped typing mid-sentence, stared at him long enough for Eren to wonder if maybe the reason she was up was because she’d never gotten any sleep, and said, “I don’t.”

It wasn’t a talking morning, either. He’d thought.

Historia, stirring milk into the cereal she wasn’t eating, had maybe changed her mind about that.

“Talk about what?” Eren asked.

“How I killed our father.”

The crunch of the cheerios in Eren’s mouth sounding like steel grinding on steel. He swallowed and dropped his spoon back in the bowl.

He sometimes thought the reason Historia didn’t talk during group was because her head couldn’t figure out when it’d been given the okay to talk about things, so she just took random guesses that landed these conversations wherever there was space for them. With some weird definition of space that included the other person being in an entirely different ballpark when she started swinging.

He was spending too much time near Zeke.

“She saw the police report, and everyone told her,” Historia said, “but I think she wants me to forget so badly she pretends she doesn’t know.” She poured more cereal out of the box on top of what she already had, not taking a bite. “I never wanted to talk about it with her, so I didn’t mind.”

“I don’t want to talk about it with anyone,” Eren said, morning glower in full bloom.

Historia closed the box. “You want Zeke to want you to.”

“Zeke had a bad relationship with our dad.” Eren jammed another spoonful of breakfast in his mouth and crunched through it on sheer will. “He doesn’t want to hear about it.”

“If he thought it would make you join batting practice he might.”

Armin used to flick cheerios at him in the morning when he thought Eren was starting the day with too much gloom. Eren thought about dumping his entire bowl on Historia’s head. He couldn’t do that, because she’d retaliate, and he had work. There wasn’t time for a second shower.

Following the spirit of belligerent aggravation anyway, he asked, “How’d you do it?”

“I stabbed him in the neck with a syringe of morphine.”

Eren stopped eating.

“Father had a drug problem,” Historia said. “He was an alcoholic, too, but none of the bottles would have worked unless I broke them ahead of time. The morphine was already set up.”

This was the problem with throwing his fists at one of Historia’s walls. There was always something ready to climb on through the crack and sink its teeth in. Eren let his hands rest on the counter. It made him feel less like he’d eaten an icicle instead of cheap cereal.

The marks on her arms were like tractor beams. Historia could glare at him all she wanted for it, she was the one who had death tattooed all over and kept talking about it. “…So you decided to kill yourself the same way?”

Historia contemplated her first spoonful of breakfast. “Petra says avoidance is only one coping technique.”

The snort that brought out wasn’t what Eren expected from himself. The icicle cracked, melting into something like the soup all of Historia’s stirring had turned her bowl into. He looked away from her scars and out the oversized windows that walled their apartment off from the rest of the world. Light was creeping in through the curtains, and they both should have finished eating by now.

He shoveled in another mouthful of cheerios. “Zeke gave it to me.” He swallowed and thought of blood drowning his hands and lost heartbeats and ticking anniversary watches and pills. “He’s the older one. I get all his hand-me-downs.”

Eren took another bite.

“I don’t want to talk about it, and he doesn’t want to hear about it,” he said. “We’re finally synched up.”

Historia’s phone buzzed across the counter with whatever notification it had from the person who wasn’t her friend. She snatched it up with a spark of annoyance so profound Eren was pretty sure she forgot all about him for a second. But she remembered to look up and give the conversation an option of ending.

“Okay,” she said.

Eren took it. Before he actually ended up late for work.

----

Ymir did not text Eren. She mocked him, she prodded every hole his t-shirts had and several they didn’t, she stole his jacket and wore it for a week when he accidentally left it at Reiner��s, she routinely told him how he was running his business wrong—but she didn’t text him.

Eren wouldn’t have guessed that she had his number.

Until he thought about what he knew of her as a person, which he tried not to do when she wasn’t in the room making him.

Ymir had texted Eren. In the middle of the night. With all of one sentence, followed by a series of tweets that Eren could feel a migraine building over.

Ur roommate’s a dick

Crystal Wick @Crys_Wickiland34 Replying to @distrustfund500 It’s a grand romantic gesture, sorry it went over your head.

distrustfund500 @distrustfund500 Replying to @Crys_Wickiland34 It’s idiotic.

Crystal Wick @Crys_Wickiland34 Replying to @distrustfund500 This from the person who throws tennis balls at people?

The last attachment was just a screencap of what Eren had to assume was Historia’s username.

tennisbomber500 @distrustfund500

No one had ever given Historia the Ymir 101 advice of ignoring Ymir. Because Historia had never been under any threat of meeting Ymir, and that should have been enough to save her.

Constructive emotional expression had come up at the last meeting. Petra probably wouldn’t call yelling at Ymir over a romance novel constructive or productive or healthy, but she’d never met Ymir either. Or watched Historia fall to pieces over things she never talked about. Unless the black eye counted, but that had been Eren on the ground.

Eren blinked at his phone for a second. The words were starting to blur. With a soft click, he gave up, closed his messages, and rolled over to go back to sleep, smiling a bit at the afterimage of the last text Armin had sent, demanding a blood oath promise to not name Benjamin’s new eel friend (if they got him one) Murray.

Ymir could stand to have someone annoy her for once in her life.

[next]

#drug au #fic #mine #long post

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watchtheblog · 4 years ago

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petty cache

thank you for coming to read my diary which masquerades as a blog but is actually just a vessel for disseminating my birthday wishlists. it’s like an event you show up to where the host tries to sell you a timeshare 25 minutes after some requisite, mindless song and dance.

welcome! if you’d like purchase a timeshare, scroll to the bottom. for the song and dance, look no further:

the other day i zoned out on zoom therapy and when my therapist asked where i “went” i had to lie because i had gone to the part of my brain that holds all the things i need to think about forever for no reason (i call it the petty cache — this is an umbrella term for the space that also houses my attitude cabinet) and dusted off a memory of a comment i saw on a stranger’s facebook three weeks ago that said “message me. i lost my password and i have good news to share”.

i don’t know either person, and that’s what i was thinking about. i spend $[redacted] a month on therapy and instead of focusing on one of my numerous unsolved mysteries, i was thinking about the nuances of this comment - like why they wouldn’t just share the news or message the person directly? or what losing their password had to do with anything? or why they would comment on facebook instead of texting or calling the person. did they not have their number? imagine not knowing someone well enough to have their phone number, but still wanting to share your good news with them!

all i want (for my birthday) is to know what the news is that this stranger has to share, and i’ll never know so i have to put that comment in my minutiae repository with all the other things that will plague me until i die from texting and driving, smoke inhalation as a result of purposely leaving a candle lit in my home overnight almost every night, consuming half a dozen hot dogs a week, or a now unnamed disease that will posthumously be attributed to my chronic inability to mind my own business.

i’m constantly concerning myself with things that are none of my concern - no matter how insignificant - because my brain is a commune of sentient pepperoni running instagram polls among themselves to discern if something is worth spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about. and guess what? it turns out absolutely everything that has ever offended, confused, bothered, intrigued, slightly inconvenienced, or merely happened to me is worth spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about.

because i devote so much energy to nonsense, i can often be found persecuting strangers for insulting me on the internet (and for other miscellaneous bad behavior). the information superhighway is my home so i have to protect myself (and my friends) here, and if that means spending 45 minutes to 48 hours trying to find every misstep you’ve made in your life until i have enough ammunition to spray a dozen simulated retaliatory bullets at your virtual head because you called me a “stupid bitch” on instagram, well… so be it!

i am relentless in my pursuit of wasting time, so if that doesn’t work, i will find the cold stone creamery you frequent, seek employment there, be hired on the spot, learn the craft, be promoted to manager, poison you on your birthday, gain access to your funeral, and tarnish your reputation by reading your shitty DM in front of the few family and friends whom i haven’t already made aware of the abhorrent way you conducted yourself online!

there are so many different ways strangers will try to hurt your feelings — an interesting genre of which come from men who (like me) have definitely never had sex before, and mistakenly think i care about the ways in which my body does not make them horny.

“no tits” one will say. and i’m like, how do you want me to respond to that? my boobs are indeed small, yes. did you come here to shoot facts back and forth all day? ok: you’re going to start balding way sooner than you’re prepared for, i bet your childhood dog is dead, your time on the internet should be supervised, your closet is full of vests, and you wait on line at nightclubs… good day?!

while i will obviously engage with anyone if they want to fight, i prefer when the unsolicited criticism is personalized, and not just thoughtless, lazily devised tripe.

a year and a half ago, a man who looked like he exhales smog DMed me to let me know - among other things in a paragraph long rant - he’d “lost brain cells” watching my story. knowing he had likely never had an adequate amount to begin with, it seemed like an emergency, so i started a group DM with his wife. because his message had come just three days after a “fuckkk [heart eye emoji]” response to a photo of my ass, i included a screenshot as evidence of his devolving mental state.

being - presumably - gainfully employed, neither of them responded.

luckily, the consolation prize for insulting me is that you gain residency in my brain and stay in my thoughts and prayers for all eternity, so i checked in on them a few days ago. they’d unfollowed and wiped their feeds clean of each other!!

because i’ve never “moved on” in my entire life, i fired up our long dormant group chat, and sent my condolences: “aw. sorry your trip to positano - where you were going to attempt to repair your ramshackle marriage - got cancelled because of covid and so you just got divorced instead :(” i wrote before being blocked by both of them.

then i headed right over to my therapist’s facebook and commented “message me. i lost my password and i have good news to share”

i spent an entire therapy session detailing this monomania before my therapist thoughtfully suggested i “pick [my] battles”.

to which i thoughtfully responded: yeah, babe. i pick every single one.

***

timeshare time! it’s the same list as this post, with a few additions (at top) (and edits based on availability).

places to donate food education fund pretty brown girl the okra project

some furniture stuff a side table a pointless, laughably tiny little thing this website is calling a “drink table” a lamp one of these benches i do not want this but it’s important to me that at least 2 other people know it exists

this plant that obviously does not need to cost $165 but idk how to shop economically

air pods

gifts from the previous post - all still v much in play!

a pair of shoes (size 8 or 38) one pair, another pair, yet another, these are on sale, these are not, and a final pair

a specific clutch with three color choices they allege this color is called sand but it looks white to me, pink, green for those who do not know what malachite means (it couldn’t be me. i learned it 3 hours ago when i began compiling this cursed list)

something everyone with money to waste needs this

dresses i’ll never be able to wear until there’s a vaccine because unlike someone tacky who knows me, i won’t be having a birthday party in the middle of a global pandemic (hi, you fool) white polka dot, not white polka dot, also not polka dot, a red dress, a skirt (aka half a dress), a black dress

this sweatsuit xs in this, small in this

is sephora cancelled? i want this hair dryer which i’m sure you can buy elsewhere if sephora is cancelled, which it v well may be

this item which you may think is cheap but actually it’s not soooo a hairpin

earrings one pair, another pair, and another

this dress which i’ll never wear anywhere even when there is a vaccine because… what?! but maybe. you never know. size 34. lol when i get this far into the list i’m always blown away by how insane it is that i do this every year to no audience. so i’m just laughing alone at that. :) i am v funny to myself. another dress i’ll never wear ;)

the nicest weighted blanket you know of i’m depressed!!!!! if you can’t tell!!!!!!!

every year i have asked for a weekend bag and every year i have not received one, so alas, we try again this is not a weekend bag actually but it will do. this is!

a peloton but just venmo me the cash (@merce212) because i have a hookup

an assortment of ridiculous things a $500 body scarf a $580 beach towel with an octopus on it for no reason besides “art” i cannot tell analog time but it’s never too late to start!! how mad would you be if someone bought you a roulette table for your wrist? be honest. (THIS WATCH IS FOUR YEARS RENT!!!!!!) they won’t say how much this costs :( i’m losing my mind and must be gifted a chanel watch or else i will perish. to put my salami on when i am eating salami in my bed “24k gold crocodile [?!!) teddy bear”. the website says there’s only one left, which begs the question “why did someone buy one of these rather than buying me a chanel watch?!!” *real ‘billionaires shouldn’t exist [unless they’re buying me a watch]’ energy* to put my new watch in this is ugly but it’s on sale :) idk wtf “secret box pendant” means but i wish this necklace was also a USB with every season and spinoff of 90 day fiancé on it hi yes i’m stupid but i draw the line at $1500 connect four…

#things i want #things I want for my birthday #lists of things #lists of things i want #my birthday #birthday lists #9/26; never forget #invidious consumption

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crampdown · 5 years ago

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Spacial Distancing Tag

I got tagged by @thespiritofvexation and @dabirdbowie (thaaaanks >w<)

Are you staying home from work/school?

Art School’s been closed since March 15th so yes. We’ve switched -more or less successfully- to online classes. Our final’s deadline has been delayed as well so at least I’ll have more time to work on it (art block’s still a bitch but eh...I’ll manage somehow)

If you’re staying home, who’s with you?

I’m with my family right now. My parents urged me to come home so I wouldn’t have to spend quarantine in my cramped little student’s flat. I literally took the last train home before they closed the borders (an experience I hope I’ll never have to endure again because being stuck for three hours in a nearly empty station in the dead of the night with no conductor or other train crew members in sight only a few other equally confused and frigtened passengers and not knowing wether the train would even leave or get canceled last minute due an earlier closed border has way too much “midnight ghost train” horror film vibes for my taste. Man what a sentence, pardon my rambling ...it’s just I’ve realized how much I needed to talk about it )

Who would be your ideal quarantine mate?

While I do miss my fellow art buddies, my partner in crime and my old friends (who I can’t even meet even though I’m back in me hometown) I think staying at my parent’s is for the best. We’re just used to each other’s habits and stuff...

Are you a homebody?

Normally I’d have little problem staying inside and stuff but now the weather is getting better and there are so many things I wish I’d be able to do. At least I can still go for little walks in the fields (probs to countryside village home...you win this round you lame ass Kaff)

Any event you were looking forward that got cancelled?

Well I...I had tickets for A Saucerful Of Secrets and Patti Smith, also a Comic Convention. I am of course a responsible adult and a serious student so I only cried for like five days.

What movies have you watched recently?

No movies but I’ve always been a sucker for documentaries (especially history, mystery, crime and so on...). Due to research for my comic project I watched lots and lots of videos and shows about diseases for at least half a year now (yeah the irony of the situation is punching me in the face quite nicely...that wasn’t the plan...is this karma? F).

What shows are you watching?

Cowboy Bebop, Carole And Tuesday, JJBA, Monster, Eizouken...haven’t watched that many shows in years...

What are you reading?

Oh no here we go again cause my current lectures looks like some deranged pandemic paranoid’s book list. Please believe me when I tell you I’ve purchased them all long before this whole mess started for my cOmiC boOk rEseArCh: “The Plague” by Albert Camus, “The Plague Dogs” by Richard Adams, “Pale Rider” by Laura Spinney and a nonfiction work on diseases in general. Also Pete Townsend’s autobiography “Who I Am” inbetween to cool down. I am however sad that I had to leave the majority of my novels and comic book collection back in my student flat. Well at least I’ve managed to take a volume of “Eno And Plum” and “Milk And Cheese” with me (I..I love these 90s indie comics ;w;)

What music are you listening to?

Nothing better than some good ol’ Blues in these daring times full of self pity and regret. Nah, but seriously I’m listening to a Robert Johnson sampler because I bought it on one of the last vinyl flea markets last month before every event had to get canceled. Also Supertramp because reasons.

What are you doing for selfcare?

Discord with my friends (we’re living on Cards Against Humanity, Hungergames Simulator and Ask Games :D), I’ve also been doing my workout routine again (dancing to my favourite songs included cause it really helps). And then I also draw everyone’s favourite virus as the annoying punk ass jerk they are...because I’m petty like that (it helps ._.)

Oh and of course this site here...

I’m gonna tag @raptorcat1960 @catfacedcryptid (If you’re up to) and anyone else who wants to :)

(stay safe everybody! <3)

#I'm trying not to sound too frustrated but well...#according to the news it's only getting worse #tag game

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lizzybeth1986 · 5 years ago

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Quick Thoughts on TRH Book 1 Chapter 9

• So in some ways this chapter is a refreshing change from the Walker Ranch, for the other...it does seem a little shoehorned-in and last minute to me. And...if the only chapter where Hana gets substantial content is one that sounds kinda last minute - that's usually not a good sign.

• Here is what you can block if you don't want to see this on your dash: #trh quick thoughts, #trh qts, #trh qt reblogs, #long post.

• TW: Discussions on controlling parenting, brief mention of infertility, rambles about my visits to my therapist and what I learned there - also connected to controlling parenting.

• Screenshot Credits:

Hana: The Abhirio YouTube channel and @youruinedmylifebynotbeingreal

Drake: The BizzysChoices YouTube channel

Maxwell: @itsbrindleybinch and @ladatheimpaler

Liam: @callmetippytumbles and me.

• I was happy to see Olivia but could the writers just...not make Hana sound so confused, to make Olivia's route look more appealing? Olivia may be more at home with some of these tactics but if Hana did as much research as her eloquent monologue on the Auvernese Hot Stones suggests she did, she wouldn't just be standing there going "me scared". I know logically Olivia's option needs to be the one having an edge, but there are ways you can work around that better.

• Title: Ladies' Night

Alternative Title: This is How Hana Does Her Research:

And This is How Isabella Does Her Research:

• "Just us girls", Isabella says. I'm going to get a headache from the number of times she says that while trying out new torture techniques on me.

• Liam warns the MC that this might be a test, Hana offers to come with the MC, and whoever her LI is, seems reluctant to send her off (though I have yet to see the Maxwell version of this, since in his friend route he seems encouraging of it once Hana steps up to be with us).

• Let's be honest, Hana is coming because she knows that more often than not her advice has been the only thing that had saved our asses. She KNOWS.

• Hana is also the genius who found the loophole in that message.

• DRAKE is the one suggesting Olivia as backup for our trip (I see a pattern here. Drake is the only one who recognized Olivia when she pranked him, now Drake is the first one recommending her name for this trip. What gives?).

• So I've played this chapter both with Olivia's diamond option, and without. Her duchy takes pride in its warriors and in shows of military strength, so she is more than used to their rhetoric. There is also an interesting juxtaposition given between fire (Auvernal) and ice (Lythikos), as one can see in the hot stones scene. The chapter is clearly set up in the expectation that you will buy this scene.

• Hana is fascinated by the architecture and modern glam of the place, but it is Olivia who hints that Auvernal may be facing financial difficulties, wondering what may be "hiding behind the glitter and polish".

• We finally meet Queen Isabella, and for a royal who wants to prove that they can do diplomacy as well as they can do blustering shows of machoism (like her husband), she seems to be failing big time.

• For all the "research" Isabella seems to have been doing on the ladies in the court, all she knows about Hana is that she has a penchant for horseriding, had a failed engagement, and wasn't chosen by Liam.

• What? Practically everyone has seen how well Hana performs at court. In my playthrough, her fighting skills both at the boutique before the wedding, and her role in defeating Anton, have become legendary. She became a Guardian of the Realm. If you're married to the MC she is a freaking duchess and I'm pretty sure the woman who married her would know deep down that Hana deserved that title more. Hana is a freaking fashion icon (as you can tell by what Ana says at her engagement photoshoot and when little Valerie from Lythikos tells her in Chapter 3). Like...like...this stuff is common knowledge. Isabella doesn't HAVE any other excuse besides "I suck so bad at reading up that my term paper would end in a single paragraph and be marked 'F'. Same goes for my pathetic excuse of a research team."

• Also why is Hana the only person getting dragged for not getting chosen? Even Madeleine and Olivia don't face this as much, and one of them was dumped twice by two Princes!

•

(Top three screenshots are mine, the second row is from @callmetippytumbles playthrough, and the third is from @youruinedmylifebynotbeingreal Hana playthrough).

The first choice calmly has the MC list Hana's best qualities, while the other two clearly call out Isabella on her clear lack of respect for Hana, who is a guest in her home that she should have researched about properly. The last option not only speaks of her best traits but also of her being the MC's wife (and by extension, a prominent duchess).

• Isabella and her pathetic excuse for an "apology". "I'm sorry, I didn't realize that would be such a sore subject". That's a non-apology, a "sorry you're so thin-skinned" apology. She isn't even admitting she's clearly wrong and hasn't done her homework. She's still saying that Hana is merely all of the things she mentioned - just snidely placing the blame on them for being so sensitive instead. Like...fuck you Isabella.

•

I think Olivia should remember that she's lucky Hana "happens to be the forgiving sort" too, because that's how she got away with saying exactly the same thing last book. I like Olivia, but...hypocrisy much?

• LMAO @ Isabella when she says Olivia that she recognizes her because "might recognizes might", and Olivia is like "funny. I don't recognize you". THIS TEA IS SCALDING.

• "There's more to Auvernal than Bradshaw's blustering", she says...after she's left a less-than-favourable impression two minutes into our conversation. Even Theresa Sutton from D&D Book 1 would do this better than you did, and there was literally no filter between her mouth and her brain.

• Isabella presents an over-the-top, flashy silver gown for the MC to wear, stating that wearing a dress from an Auvernese designer, in a modern Auvernese style, would signal to people the beginning of their "alliance" (jumping the gun there a bit, aren't you, Isabella?)

• Gaww at the LI reactions!

(Screenshots: Drake's from BizzysChoices' Youtube channel, Maxwell's from @ladatheimpaler, and Hana's from Abhirio's YouTube channel)

• Olivia's best moment in the chapter comes when she has to complete the saying "when all you have is a hammer" ("smite them with the hammer!" Olivia offers enthusiastically). They're talking about Bradshaw, who Isabella's telling us would rather strong-arm people into doing his bidding. Babe you're not exactly very different in that respect 🙄

• Isabella lays two major tests to us - one is to have us give her military troops (who greet the guests with a parade) an impromptu rousing speech, and the second is to withstand the punishing heat of the famed Auvernese Hot Stones massage treatment. Of course, she hides her plans behind her "all shared between friends!" demeanor.

• What Olivia does throughout is draw upon her knowledge of warrior mentality, to explain what Isabella has in store for you. This meeting isn't just a message sent to the MC to remind her who she is dealing with - it's a way for Isabella to gauge whether the MC really will count as an ally in terms that they are familiar with. Remember - Auvernal who is perhaps in not as great a financial state as they lead us to believe - perhaps needs Cordonia more than Cordonia needs them - so in their eyes the alliance is falling through anyway, but Isabella is also going to figure out who she is dealing with.

Which is why Olivia - who lives and thrives in a similar type of community - is able to capture the pulse of what Isabella is doing to them.

(First four screenshots are from a playthrough where I chose Olivia's diamond option, and second from a playthrough where I didn't)

Hana's own mentality differs to a large extent from this. She is competitive, she has the ability to put up a good fight and defeat an opponent (esp one who underestimates her)...but her larger attitude doesn't exactly favour war. In a lot of ways both she and Liam operate on similar mindsets - yes war is necessary, yes when the situation calls for it we can put up a good fight...but at the end of the day both of their belief systems lie in a King Fabian outlook of "safety is important but a society thrives when there is space for art and culture to thrive".

In some of Olivia and Hana's exchanges you can see that Hana is the more artistic and whimsical of the two - which is why her ace move at the end involves both introducing Isabella into an aspect of their own culture, and on wine, which Hana is more than fairly familiar with. Her interests lie elsewhere and so she may not be able to get into their heads and suss out their motives as well as Olivia can, but I'm pretty sure if she's researched so much that she knows about their Hot Stone spa treatment, she would have at least a more generalized knowledge of this than the screenshots suggest.

• We're now at a plaza where Isabella has arranged for the Auvernese military troops to do a parade for the Cordonian guests. It's both a way of convincing the MC to pick them, and it's a veiled threat if she doesn't.

• My failplay of the speech brought up this gem:

Poor Hana, having to cheer for us even when we fail. She's the real MVP!

• So basically getting the speech right is simple, whatever is rabble-rousing and reminds the troops that the Cordonians also admire strength and valour and bravery, works for them. If you fail in this task, then Isabella takes over and rouses the troops on her own before dismissing them.

• Isabella FINALLY admitting that Hana's a skilled diplomat and does amazing research. LMAO bitch she even knows what your favourite fucking vintage is and all you know about her is her failed engagement? Admit it Izzy, you're a failure.

• The next is the traditional Auvernese Hot Stone spa treatment, which Hana tells us is tied to the geography of this country. There is a fair bit of natural volcanic activity in Auvernal itself (no wonder they're a people that operate in metaphors of heat and fire!) and the hot stones used in this therapeutic massage treatment come out from that. (they're most likely referring to basalt stones, which are used in hot stone therapy in a lot of different cultures. And it's true, the heat and the medicinal nature of heated basalt stones are supposed to relax muscles, help with pain management, stimulate the circulatory system, among other things. In Ayurveda, the treatment is called Shila Abhyanga and is done with circular stones of different sizes).

• There is nothing therapeutic about this trip, though, sadly. Very often this kind of treatment is used at particular spots on the body (most of the time I've seen these stones placed along the length of the back). It's not "grab someone's forearm and burn it with a stone". Isabella's attempt is clearly to expose us to pain and see how much of it we can take.

• Some of the MC's "stronger" responses are 🔥 🔥 🔥 lol, like "I've read Twitter takes hotter than this".

•

The MC and Olivia has come far enough in their relationship - either as friends or as people who grudgingly respect each other - that Olivia will stand up for her even when she shows weakness.

• Interestingly, if you do succeed in this "test", the narrative describes Isabella's face as lighting up with a "small smile...and she eyes you as if seeing you in a new light" (the fail option shows her looking smug). Which...given her behaviour in the wine scene, I think requires closer inspection!

• One of my favourite lines this chapter is when Olivia tells Isabella that she can endure hotter stones but chooses not to, because "Lythikos warriors prefer ice in their veins". I can of like the juxtaposition of geographies used in their language - Auvernal seems to have volcanic activity, so heat features more in their language, Lythikos is situated close to the Alps, so snow, ice and winter are their signs of endurance. Basically both communities operate based on the logic that endurance to pain is what heightens your strength. "If you can breathe you can stand, if you can stand you can fight".

• Hana struggles with the hot stones, in a scene that reminds me of Book 1 where she struggled with her first bite of a Cordonian apple. Hana tends to be quite open when she has a strong reaction to something, and is often not able to hide it even if she wants to. Which honestly I find quite refreshing about her.

• Isabella in a fail play can be a real asshole, making snide remarks and then flipping the blame onto the people who react to what she says. When she insults Hana and the MC reacts, she doesn't bother to admit she is wrong - instead flips the blame on them so that it seems more like they're the sensitive ones. If you don't succeed in the hot stones test, and Hana and Olivia respond to her jabs, she tells them "there's no need to get defensive. It's all in good humour, of course", and makes them seem like the thin-skinned ones. Honestly it's that part of her attitude that is a problem, rather than the actual snide remarks. That she will create a negative situation then act like you were the cause.

• Now apparently it's time for petit fours (and I'm a little sore they only describe the vanilla buttercream coz I would have totally loved to see descriptions of those Auvernese sweets in detail!) and casual chatting. Olivia cautions us to figure out what the catch is, and Isabella is mildly impressed by the MC's directness, but she tells us about her intentions (to make the alliance official - including the parts where our child must be promised to one of their twins) either way.

• Isabella eventually softens as the conversations go ahead, confiding in the group that before the twins were born, conceiving was difficult for her. The MC has the opportunity to share a secret of her own (either homesickness, or feeling pressured into becoming a parent, or tiring of the politics and the pretence). Hana - married or otherwise - isn't allowed to say much here, to the surprise of absolutely no one.

• Olivia distracts Isabella at some point with barbed compliments post this confession session, allowing Hana and the MC to plan their next move. Most of this day has gone into Isabella testing us, seeing if we measure up, her games. Hana now gives us an opportunity to turn the tables on her.

• This is where Hana has a clear advantage. Just as warrior communities, battle strategy and defence is Olivia's forte - culture, cuisine and the arts are clearly Hana's. She knows about the Hot Stones on a cultural and geographic level even though the mentality escapes her, she has even read up on Isabella's preference for wine and has observed her closely enough to understand Isabella's competitiveness, and suggest a tactic that could help us gain an edge over her.

• The scene begins with Hana charming Isabella into showing them her wine cellar and suggesting a drinking game. In a callback to the Madeleine drinking game scene in Book 3, Hana mentions Cordonia's Most (which was what they played with Madeleine), but zeroes in on "Two Truths and a Lie instead". Here is what you see from each of the women:

MC:

Two Truths -

Being in love with Liam even when he was engaged to Madeleine/Coming to Cordonia for Liam then falling for her LI.

Second truth is dialogue dependent (never regretted coming to Cordonia/fended off her kidnappers with her own hands/impressed by Isabella (no)

Lie -

Never been blackmailed. Isabella however believes this one is true and loses.

Olivia:

Two truths -

Greatest fear is failure to be perfect

Counted every exit before entering the cellar

Wanted to kill the MC when they first met (Isabella assumed this to be a lie)

Lie -

Came to Auvernal unarmed because she trusts Isabella (she clearly didn't do her research with Olivia either).

Hana:

Two truths -

Greatest fear is failure to be perfect (Isabella assumes this to be the lie).

Always envied the MC

Lie -

Dyed her hair pink as a teen.

Isabella has two rounds of this. This is what the first round is like:

Two truths 1.0 -

Never wanted children

Married Bradshaw for money

Lie 1.0 -

Dismissed a servant for over-steeping her tea (what did you do then, kill him? 😱)

Two Truths and a Lie 2.0

Now, we don't know for sure which one is the lie, since that game is never completed (I suspect it's the one about being born into the royal family?) but we do know now that Bradshaw never actually has seen or done combat firsthand, even though he can strategize and order troops and he's won several medals for "combat". This is the state secret that the scene promises, which will give us an advantage in the future chapters.

• Thoughts I had while reading this scene:

- The one from the MC about fighting her kidnappers is very much a callback to TCaTF. A major development for Kenna's character in Book 1 is to prove she is different from her ancestors - that she will fight alongside her people, not make them fight for her. The turning point of her story in Book 1 is when she tells Gabriel - her guard and guardian - that that instead of depending on him, she will fight the leader of the mercenaries herself.

- Also, LMAO @ Isabella believing our guards defeated Anton for us. Izzy my courtiers and I literally used scissors and shoes and clipboards to defeat assassins in a boutique. Mara and Bastien could never.

- As I mentioned before, the drinking game tradition is a callback to Madeleine's scene. But with less of forcing Hana to butter up to the woman who abused her for our convenience, and more space for her to actually talk.

- I'm going to take notes of those exits, thanks Olivia.

- There is a whole bunch you learn about Isabella here and there are hints that she feels stifled in this environment. Her first choices for the game revolve around truths about her married life: the fact that it was a political alliance and that she never actually wanted children (which adds another layer to the pain she speaks about when speaking of the struggle she had to conceive, because then it comes from a place of immense pressure and probably means that she felt extremely isolated and alone at the time). When Hana talks about how conflicted she is, it's Isabella who offers her ways to release that fury and energy (screaming, breaking glasses). Interestingly, she speaks of these things as what she does when she "feels the walls closing in".

- One thing to notice as well, is Isabella's reaction after she has realized she's spilled out the truth about Bradshaw's military merits. She shrewedly notes what our intentions must have been, and calls us out on them, but there is little to no anger involved in the moment. She only notes that "Cordonia gets more and more interesting", and while the game does not continue, Isabella does seem eerily calm in the aftermath. I don't have any concrete ideas yet what it must all mean, but there are a few ways it could go. She could either be pushing back in her own way against Bradshaw and the Auvernese royalty, or have another card up her sleeve that she knows we don't have a clue about yet.

- Hana gets to elaborate on her 'truths and lies' if the MC asks: she speaks about her envy for the MC emerging from the fact that the MC is confident, bold and questions her self-worth a lot less than Hana has learned to. The other two are tied to the aftermath of the controlling parenting she has grown up with. With the pink hair option, she speaks of her parents as if they are still there, still can control her choices, as if she cannot remove herself from the fear that she will disappoint them even if they are physically away from her.

Hana: Are you kidding? My parents will kill me!

MC: I think you're a little beyond their reach by now.

There's a lot said there in so little.

My favourite, though, is the one on 'perfection'.

I love the idea of perfection as being something to be frustrated by rather than something to aspire to. Hana speaks of this striving for perfection starting out as something she did to 'earn' Lorelai's love, and how that became something she kept doing over and over until it became her default - leading to the point where she can no longer be imperfect even though she has the opportunity and the support system (even if it's really not that great of a support system). And with a lot of kids who survive that kind of controlling, emotionally abusive parenting - that's normal. I guess I could simply sum it up as: You can take Hana out of Lorelai's home, but it won't be that easy to take Lorelai out of Hana.

I'll come back to this later, because there's some things I'd love to expand on with regards to this.

- Which Olivia opening up is promised if she is around, she doesn't really do that. Most of the stuff she says in this scene is pretty much standard for what she's shown so far. But I'm alright with that, because let's be honest the times when Hana is given even a scrap of space over Olivia, are rare. The writers will be only too happy to give her other opportunities.

- At the end of the scene, you get to address what Hana said earlier, while you are cleaning up the cellar. You either tell her you'd love to see an imperfect Hana (which is the lighter option, where they think of crazy things she can mess up, like burning toast, putting cutlery in reverse order, or playing every note on the piano wrong. Silly stuff. I know it's meant to be a joke...and maybe that's the root to why she doesn't get to actually be imperfect and affected and stuff. Because even in a scene about imperfections, it still feels like the writers won't take her actual conflicts and issues very seriously, and will not leave her the space to actually be a mess about things that would weigh down anyone).

The second option is more serious, and I really like it. The MC speaks about finding it harder to forgive Lorelai for everything Hana has gone through. Hana is still uncomfortable with the idea of resenting her mother, even though she's at the stage where she knows how wrong Lorelai is. She reasons it by speaking about how everything good came from Lorelai the same way everything bad came from the same mother. I'll be getting back to this bit soon as well.

- There is a tiny romantic scene following this if you're married to Hana, mostly kissing.

• Now that our work in Auvernal is over, it's time to get back to the ranch. BECAUSE MAXWELL BEAUMONT IS STRESS-DANCING AND THAT IS NEVER A GOOD SIGN.

(Screenshots: Drake's from BizzysChoices YouTube channel, Maxwell's from @itsbrindleybinch and Hana's from Abhirio YouTube channel)

- Alright so in Liam and Drake's playthroughs they talk to the MC directly. Maxwell's too, and he is panicking and speaking in capslock. In Hana's, Maxwell is still the one the MC is talking to, since he is the one in charge of this one thing.

- I love how Drake thinks Maxwell "stress dancing" means things must be better now but Liam knows it's a bad sign 😅

- BBBB. Maxwell could've just simplified things for himself and called it B-Quadrupled or B^4 or something. Be like Karan Johar, who saw three Ks and one G in his film title (Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham)...and said "yeah. Let's call this K3G".

• So now I'm guessing the aim for the next chapter is to keep it a secret until the time Bertrand is expected to be at his party. Or something. Idk.

• We're going...from deep conversations and political maneuverings...to this. Okay. Okay 😐

• General Thoughts:

- Okay...so the thing Hana says about perfection and wanting to please her mother. Phew. That dialogue hit me. Pretty hard.

(Please don't take anything I say right here as hard scientific fact, I am merely saying this as a client to a therapist who learned something from her, and am applying something I've learned into this sequence solely because it speaks to me on a personal level)

I've been going to a new therapist this year. A very accomplished hypnotherapist, fantastic in her field. We've been doing a mixture of talk therapy and hypnotherapy because I have a LOT of issues and they're all tangled together and it's all a big mess at this point.

One of the things we talked about was how centered my entire concept of "worth" was around smartness. Intelligence. Intelligence the way my parents perceived it, the way I saw it in school. At some point I said something...something related to smartness and worth and how you couldn't be anything if you weren't smart idk...and she stopped. Stopped and said, "that sounds like a parent tape" (wish I remembered what my exact words were).

Now, this conversation happened around a month ago, and I'm no professional in this field, so I'm paraphrasing what she explained, but she did talk about how some things get embedded in your subconscious as "tapes" or "files", and how at some points they become essential beliefs. It could be a simple moment that was nonetheless important to the child, that crystallized into a life truth for them, even into adulthood. And that would go for things that you picked up or learned from your parents as well. Learned behaviours and mindsets...that you grow up to believe as fact - and to remove yourself from them would be to remove yourself from everything you have ever believed to be true. It would be a destruction of a belief system, and building yourself back from out of that rubble would be scary.

- I wound up seeing Hana's inability to turn off "Perfect Hana" through that lens. I feel like she grew up with that "parent tape": I must be perfect to be considered worthy. I must be perfect to be loved. The only way I can gain my mother's love is by being her perfect daughter. And part of why she can't switch it off is because it became an entire belief system, the foundation on which her parents build this personality she has. If that is destroyed, the Parent Tape must be saying, then what will be left of her?

- This may explain why she continues to explain, justify, make excuses for Lorelai. Lorelai is a HUGE part of her life. Was a HUGE influence on who she was and what she became. Even when she is going in a direction completely opposite to what Lorelai initially intended, Hana does it by overcompensating, by stressing over whether she is being controlling merely for planning the perfect wedding, by worrying about what kind of parent she will be to her own child. While she acknowledges freely that her mother was wrong and pushes back when she is able to, she is not really at the stage where she can fully accept the sheer levels of damage Lorelai (and by enabling and encouraging this type of parenting, Xinghai) has wrecked on her self.

- In a lot of ways, Hana is still that child. The one who craved her mother's love. The one who grew up constantly questioning her own worth. And learning to validate that child and give her a peaceful ending is going to be a long, arduous, painful process.

- You can bet I have been thinking about this more than Hana's own writers have. By now I just know it.

- There was a part of me that CHEERED when I saw the MC (finally!) stand up for Hana. There's a part of me that...honestly...just shrugged and said "too little too late".

- I'm tired at this point. Really, really sick and tired of how people in the books are allowed to underestimate Hana and talk shit about her, and how little space the narrative gives to letting her either push back against that, or to allowing us to stand up for her. This chapter is one of the rare times that happened without the focus being on how wonderful the MC is. And I mean very rare.

- Married to Hana or not, the MC is the woman who let Madeleine get away with her bullying. Who didn't bother to look out for Hana, and continuously used her. Who didn't bother to find out how Hana was in NY after Hana had fought with her own father and left his house for her. Who (optionally) allowed Olivia to get away with talking shit about her, and who didn't ask Hana if she was comfortable before including her in a conversation with her bully. Who (optionally) can cry about not getting pregnant soon enough (today of course, that role was filled up by Isabella)

- Also isn't it ironic how Isabella, the same woman who speaks about not being perfect and allowing yourself the space to let out your emotions...is the same woman who chooses to talk ONLY about Hana's failures? Who sounds A LOT like Hana's own mother? So while those words about imperfection are true, the person speaking them is a truckload of trash.

- When it comes to a foreigner insulting Hana, then somehow it becomes magically appropriate for the MC and Olivia to pretend to be offended. But at home? In their own court? Hana rarely gets that kind of support. And she rarely gets the chance to push back either. An Olivia can call her a failure and claim "Hana hasn't so much as touched the ladder while I'm at the very top", and all Hana is allowed to do is glower in fury and then it's conveniently forgotten. By the MC.

Like sure it's nice that the MC gets to treat Hana with respect this time around, and pay her some attention. But where was this protectiveness when Hana needed it the most?

I'd have liked a moment like this earlier, or if the narrative actually was fair in terms of their treatment of Hana. But her issues, her feelings, her pain, has always been on the backseat. I'm not going to be grateful for scraps like these.

- That's the other thing. This chapter...feels a little last-minute. Not only is the gown in this chapter a very, very recent one (an anon pointed out it was added only a week or two ago), the chapter itself is all over the place. Isabella claims to want to show the group that there is more to Auvernal than Bradshaw's blustering...but in essence what she's showing us is pretty much the same thing. She is still issuing us veiled threats, and strong-arming us into becoming allies. Her tactics are still scare tactics and they are not as subtle as she or the writers believe they are.

- Even in this chapter where another person is allowed to feel pain over her years of not conceiving, Hana is hardly given space. Think about that for a second.

To me...if this chapter was a recent addition - that means the only chapter where Hana actually gets a tiny amount of space to herself...is a last minute choice. And that's not a good thing. In fact it reminds me of Book 2, where Hana was given an AWFUL scene in Chapter 8 (the fashion show scene, which focused more on Penelope than on Hana) and no appearances in the chapter after, and then given two good scenes (patisserie scene and library scene). Those two good scenes...came before they virtually ignored Hana and her background to focus on literally anyone else (after which Hana was not even seen in NY). Just because Hana gets a decent scene (a scene that isn't even hers, actually, a lot of it is about Isabella) once in 9 (NINE) chapters, doesn't mean that she's going to get good development from now on. For all you know this could be a carrot conveniently dangled to keep people satisfied for another 5-6 chapters of the same ol' focus on the male LIs instead.

- Wonder what Olivia is upto and what Liam might know.

- Also wonder why we didn't get a lot of info on Eleanor in her own home.

- Also for a country that is the maternal home of Cordonia's king, there's precious little shown about their interactions with him. In fact there's very little space Liam gets to actually operate as a King - either in this series or the previous one.

- This week, I will not be doing my usual QT for Book 1. There's an essay I've been itching to do, about Kiara and Penelope, and I'm going to devote my weekend to diving into that! Would anyone like to be tagged??

- Anyway! Until the next chapter, guys.

#the royal heir #trh quick thoughts #trh qts #long post #hana lee #olivia nevrakis #controlling parenting tw #infertility tw

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