#Been a while since I wrote a long post

[obey-me-headquarters]

hi! could u perhaps write about mc accidentally finding out about the boys’ hard limits? like, just something that triggers their fight or flight response. maybe like inflecting severe pain or something. idk… thank you and sorry if u can’t!

Summary: Reader finds out where their demons' hard limits lie.

Warning/kinks: Degradation, Mirror play, bondage, sensory deprivation, punishment, spanking (with your hand and with a paddle), public play (? You're at an orgy, so everyone around you is consenting), food play, safeword use. In general, there's some panic on the boys' part as they realize that they don't like what you're doing. Along with some of them holding in their safeword for a bit, but you reprimand them for it.

Word count: 8,500+

Reader is completely gender natural and their genital isn't described.

-

Lucifer:

You know that Lucifer has complicated feelings when it comes to his body. He hates that he's missing a set of wings, but he wouldn't go back in time and stop himself from tearing them out. Yet his preference towards wearing as many layers as possible stems from more of a fear of being vulnerable than a lack of confidence in his body.

If anything, he's a bit overconfident in his physical appearance, if someone were to ask you.

("Is it really overconfidence, or simply knowing what I'm worth?"

"It's overconfidence Luci, my beautiful stupidity prideful demon.")

Using mirror play in the bedroom has proven to be an excellent way to break down Lucifer's walls. Whenever the demon struggled to get into subspace all it took was bringing out a mirror and having him nakedly kneel in front of it while you remained fully clothed for him to fall straight into subspace.

Something about him being so vulnerable while you remained untouched and fully clothed did something to him. Made him feel small and submissive. You didn't quite understand, but you definitely saw the appeal.

So, when Lucifer struggled to get into subspace one evening. When collars and putting him over your knee didn't do the trick, you brought out the mirror. It was full length and wide, able to reflect nearly half of the entire room, but you doubt that Lucifer would pay much attention to anything besides you or himself.

As you place Lucifer in front of the mirror he snaps at you, barring his teeth into a snarl and you know that tonight is going to be a difficult fight of trying to get him to relax enough to slip into subspace.

That proves true when you watch Lucifer struggle to fall into subspace. His pride battling his desire to be vulnerable and let you take control, you watch as he relaxes, before tensing up and snarling, before relaxing again, creating a vicious cycle.

Determined to break it, you decide to try something else that always makes Lucifer squirmy and lightheaded:

Degradation

"God, you're pathetic," you hiss as you pace around the demon. "Look at you, snarling at your own reflection like a wild animal. You know, sometimes I think you're no better than a wild animal with how much you fly off the handle."

Lucifer blushes at your words, but his pride is still roaming, and it doesn't let himself relax just yet.

"How dare-"

"Shut up!" You snap, wrapping a hand around Lucifer's mouth to silence him.

"Shut your dirty, lying, cheating mouth! How dare you think you can talk like you have something worthwhile to say."

Lucifer's breath catches in his throat, as the haze of vulnerability starts to creep up on him. Seeing his desire spark in his eyes you smirk and continue.

"Come on Luci. We both know that you never said anything worthwhile in your life. That at the end of the day, you're worthless. No, no, you're less than worthless. You only seem to make everything worst, don't you?"

Lucifer feels his pride crumble at your words, washing away as he starts to feel truly insignificant.

"You can never do anything right, can you? Not for Diavolo, not for your brothers, and certainly not for me."

The mention of disappointing Diavolo and his brothers strikes something inside of Lucifer, something he wasn't prepared to feel. Yet before he can examine what he's feeling, you continue.

"You're constantly fucking up, disappointing everyone around you. I wonder how long it'll be before everyone around you sees what I see. Do you know what I see Luci?"

Breath catching in his throat, Lucifer shakes his head.

You raise his chin with your index finger and direct it to the mirror, and Lucifer flinches when he sees himself.

He knows he would look vulnerable, and normally he would take great delight in how small and weak he looks compared to you, but coupled with your words, instead of feeling small and submissive and safe in your gaze, he feels like dirt. Normally when he drops down into subspace he feels soft and cared for, now he can't help but feel worthless and exposed.

Your sneer doesn't help as you take in the kneeling demon.

"Ugh, look at you. Can you believe that you used to be considered the star of the Celestial Realm?" You grab onto Lucifer's chin and force him to look at himself in the mirror.

"Well, can you?" You demand.

"N-no." He asks barely a whisper as tears spring to his eyes.

Immediately your hand drops from his chin as you stare at your demon in alarm. You're used to Lucifer being shy, especially as you break his pride down, you're used to his tears, but you never heard your demon sound so broken before.

"Luci, darling, are you ok?" You ask softly.

"I, I can't believe that I used to be the star of the Celestial Realm, Master. I am, sniff, I am worthless." Lucifer ignores your concern as he continues to cry, tears dripping down his cheeks.

Immediately you wrap your arms around him and pull him into your chest. "Hey, hey, shhhhh. It's ok baby. I don't think you're worthless. Demonus, ok? Demonus, the scene is done, it's over." You repeat your safeword a few times so Lucifer knows that the scene is over.

As you continue to hold Lucifer against you, mumbling praise and assurances slowly the demon starts to calm down. When his tears finally stop he leans away from you for a moment to catch his breath.

"Sorry, I- sorry. I don't know what came over him." He says, looking everywhere but your face or the mirror.

"It's ok sweetheart, you know you never have to apologize for needing to stop the scene. You know that right?"

"Yes, I'm aware. I just, didn't expect to react that way."

"If you're willing, do you mind telling me what caused it?"

Lucifer sighs and collapses back into your hold, and you think for a moment that he's going to shrug the whole scene off, but after a beat of silence he answers:

"It was the degradation. Normally I like it, love it even. But as I fell into subspace, hearing you talk about me like that made me feel vulnerable, and not in a good way."

Blinking, you will your tears away for now. Later, when tensions are lower, and everything isn't so raw the two of you will have a more in-depth conversation about this and will be able to apologize. Now your demon needs you.

"Thank you so much for telling me, baby. I just want you to know that I didn't mean a word of what I said. I, and I'm sure everyone else, rely heavily on you. We don't think you're worthless at all."

"I know," Lucifer states, a bit of his prideful overconfidence returning.

"Now, why don't the two of us stop laying on the floor and listen to a few of my records instead? I got this new one that curses those who listen to it to sing until their throat bleeds." Lucifer stands, reaching out a hand to pull you up.

It's a bit silly, seeing the still naked demon being so confident, but you hold all teasing remarks as you follow along.

-

Mammon:

You wanted to do so much to Mammon that it became a question of not what you'll do to him, but what he'll allow you to do to him.

And it turns out Mammon will allow you to do a lot.

Hence the list. After a very exciting night of thinking about every fantasy, kink, and wet dream you ever had, you came up with a list of what you wanted to do with Mammon, and are currently in the process of working through that list.

A lot of things on the list Mammon never tried (or heard about) before, which took a lot of talking, and a lot of easing him into certain kinks. The very kink you're trying out tonight being one he never tried before.

You gather up everything you'll need for tonight. A blindfold, noise-canceling headphones, and a pair of chains. You're a bit excited that the blindfold and headphones are magic, meaning that cut off all light and noise, as it was basically impossible to find a human realm blindfold that blocks out all light.

You could tell Mammon was getting excited too by the way he keeps eyeing the items, but in his usual Mammon way, he keeps that fact to himself.

It's adorable how he rushes to lay against the headboard at your command, as he's usually a bit of a brat and drags his feet before obeying your orders.

The chains are the first thing to go, seeing as Mammon and you were intimately familiar with them. As you lean over to secure the right cuff Mammon steals a kiss, leaning upward his lips ghosts over your cheek. With a grin, you pin him to the bed.

"Greedy boy~ we haven't even gotten started and yet you're already teasing."

"Guess it's just in my nature to be a little greedy." He teases back.

Rolling your eyes you give him one last real kiss on the lips before cuffing him to the bedframe. As you back to enjoy your work you can't help but feel giddy.

Pulling out the blindfold and headphones you turn to your demon with a grin as you present them both to him.

"Blindfold or headphones first?"

Mammon looks a bit caught off guard at being asked his preference, before eyeing them both critically. After a beat, he answers: "The headphones, I want the extra time to see you."

You huff at the flirt, not believing just how bold your demon can get under the right circumstances. (The circumstances being chained to the bed as you lay on top of him.) Leaning down you place the headphones around his ears and give him a moment to adjust.

"Wow, this is really weird! Woah! I can't even hear my voice! Am I being loud? I feel loud!"

Rolling your eyes you lean down and tap Mammon twice against the forehead - the signal you two came up with when you want to check in.

"I'm really to go! Just give me one last moment to look into your eyes -" Mammon stares into your eyes unblinking for a solid five seconds "- I'm good to go!"

Wrapping the blindfold around his head you plunge your demon into darkness.

And it is incredibly weird for Mammon. As a demon he has pretty good night vision, so even in complete darkness he can make out shapes pretty well. So being in complete darkness takes him a moment to get used to.

The warmth of your body grounds him, and it doesn't take long before he's relaxing into the plush bed.

Shimmy downwards, you try to make yourself comfortable sitting between Mammon's legs, sitting right in front of his cock. Leaning down you give the half hard cock a puff of air and watch as Mammon jumps at the sensation.

"Th-that felt weird. It felt like, a lot? Even though it was so little?" Mammon mumbles, and you wonder if you're going to get a rubbing commentary the entire night.

Maybe you should have added a gag to your myriad of tools.

Wrapping your hands around your demon's dick you begin to slowly pump it. Mammon gasps at the feeling, before moaning and leaning into your touch. Your touch is light and extremely slow, but the demon has always been extremely sensitive and it doesn't take much before he's nearly spilling.

"I'm cumming-"

Your hands fly away at his words, and he growls in annoyance. With a grin, he can't see you bounce off of the bed and begin looking through your toy chest. Normally Mammon would be peaking over, curious about what you'll pick out. But seeing as he can't currently do that, you grin as you realize that you're going to completely surprise him with whatever you pick.

As Mammon comes down from his high he realizes that you're no longer on the bed. The warmth he previously felt emulating from you is gone, and his heart quickens as he realizes that he's alone.

"Hey, what's the big idea? Where'd you go?" Mammon calls out.

You roll your eyes at the dramatics, too busy with shifting through the toy box. "In a minute, Mamms, I'm just getting a few toys." You answer, half forgetting that he can't currently hear. Mammon was just so loud, so responsive, that you momentarily let it slip from your mind that he didn't actually expect a response from you, and couldn't receive one.

Mammon tries his best to calm down. Surely you're just messing with him, right? Wanting to make him crack and beg for your touch? You do like to make him beg. Yup, that's it. You were just teasing him.

You are still definitely in the room with him.

Right?

Seconds become minutes to Mammon as he strains his ears to hear you. Normally he knew exactly where you were and what you were doing, even when he was kneeling and staring at the ground his demon senses allow him to hear everything. Now he has no idea where you are or what you're doing.

"Ok, fine, fine! I give! Can you please touch me?" Mammon whines.

Picking up the fleshlight you want to use on him you intend to do just that. Only to realize that the demon forgot to clean it. Gagging you put the toy aside to clean later, and decide to punish your demon by continuing to ignore him by looking through the toy box.

"Come on, please." His voice takes on a real edge of desperation as he starts to spiral.

What if you left? What if you got bored of him and decided that you didn't want to play with him anymore? Is he all alone, begging to an empty room because he wasn't good enough? He begins to fight against his chains in earnest now, instead of the teasing, testing pulls he's used to. But he finds that they're locked up tight and that he can't break out of them.

Will you hear his safeword if he says it?

Finally finding a suitable and clean toy you stand up and stretch. Glancing over at your boyfriend, you notice that he's strangely calm as he's no longer begging or struggling against the chains. You believe that he's just pouting and the second you touch him he'll start whining about you taking forever.

Before you can reach him, Mammon mumbles out a soft, broken, "Goldie".

Dropping the toy in your hand you rush over to him and immediately remove the headphones before moving onto the blindfold.

"Hey, hey it's alright. I'm right here." You mumble, hands shaking as you lean up to undo the cuffs.

Mammon has never safeworded before, and you're kinda panicking at the moment, but you do your best to remain calm as you rush to take off the chains.

The second Mammon lays eyes on you he lunges at you, pinning you to the bed in a hug. His arms are firm, yet they shake as they hold you. It takes you a moment to realize that the wetness you feel on your neck is from Mammon, but once you do you coo in sympathy.

"I thought you left me," Mammon whispers into your chest.

Blinking back tears you lean down to kiss the demon's forehead.

"I would never leave you alone like that Mamms. I just wanted to get a toy from the toy chest. I'm sorry, I should have communicated that to you."

"It's alright just... I don't think blindfolds and noise-canceling headphones are for me."

"That's OK, that's alright. Sometimes we're going to find stuff we don't like."

-

Levi:

Levi is an extremely obedient sub. In your many months of dating each other he never once received a punishment. You two set out rules together, with him not being allowed to touch himself without your permission and him being required to leave his room and go to RAD a certain number of times each month.

You had expected a rule to be broken at least once, so you were very surprised to see that it never was. Levi was just obedient, and even when he didn't want to do the thing you ordered him to do, he did it. (Even with an excessive bit of whining)

So you were content to never punish your scaly demon.

Levi wasn't.

"Why do you never punish me," Levi asks, pouting in his bathtub. His face is partially hidden by the pillow he's clenching to his chest.

"Because you never actually break a rule or be a brat?"

"Hmmmmm," Levi pouts. "It's not fair! You punish the others! Yet you never punish me. Is it because you don't want to? Because you could never bring yourself to punish a gross otaku like me?"

Holding back a laugh you crawl into the bathtub. Really, only your Levi could be envious of those you've punished.

"Well, if you're so interested in being punished, why don't you do something bad?"

Levi's eyes snap towards yours, like he never actually considered that option. "Gahhhh?!? Be, be bad? How could I, wouldn't you hate me forever?!"

Softening you reach across the tub to cup Levi's face in your hands. Moving his shocked face towards yours you pepper his face in kisses.

"Nope! Levi, I could never hate you." You say softly, stopping your kissing momentarily to gaze sincerely at your boyfriend.

Levi blushes at the look and hides his face in the pillow that's currently squished between you two.

"O-ok, if you say you wouldn't hate me, I'll, I'll try being bad!"

-

You walk towards Levi's room with a pep in your step, excited to continue playing the new RPG the demon recently brought. You only stopped playing last night as your eyes burned too much for you to continue looking at the screen.

As you cheerfully open the door to Levi's room you immediately notice that something is off about the demon. Instead of excitedly smiling at you and handing a controller over to you, he's curled up on his gaming chair and nervously fidgeting with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

"What's wrong?" You ask. Standing over your boyfriend you check him over. Did Mammon steal something of his again? Was an anime he liked canceled?

Levi shakes off your concern and reaches for a controller. "N-nothing is wrong! We don't we start playing?"

He shoves the controller into your hand before scurrying off to turn on the game console. Unsure of what else to do to help your nervous demon you follow along, thinking that he'll open up once you start playing.

As the title screen of the game pops up you see Levi nervously staring at you in the corner of your eye, and you debate asking again if he's alright. Before you're able the title sequence stops and you press the "play" button. A column of saves pops up, and in your confusion, you momentarily forget about Levi's nervousness completely.

"Levi, where's my save?" You ask, flicking between the different saves, yours mysteriously gone.

"Oh well. Um. I sorta maybe, deleted it?" He says in a whisper so quiet you have to strain to hear it.

Snapping your head towards him you watch as Levi nervously fidgets. His left arm is covering his face in a classic sign of Levi's nervousness as a blush paints his cheeks.

Wait. Blush?

All of a sudden your previous conversation about punishment from yesterday comes back to you. You honestly didn't believe that Levi would gather up the courage to do something "bad", so you're momentarily impressed that he did.

All previous concerns about your save fly out the window, as you're sure that Levi backed up the save and is only pretending to have deleted it to elicit this punishment. Stalking forward you wrap your arms around your demon's shoulders and force him to face you.

"Oh, did you know? I didn't know my little demon could be so.... naughty~" You tease.

Levi's face darkens, at both your close proximity and your words. His mouth opens to defend himself but no words make it out. You watch as Levi reboots himself as you teasingly rub circles onto his shoulders.

As moments pass by and Levi is nowhere closer to calming down, you decide to pick up the lead again. "Does my demon want to be punished? Is that it? Were you sitting here in your room wondering what you could do to make me mad and pull you over my knee?"

Wordlessly Levi nods and confirmation, and you can't help but laugh a little. Even when being punished your demon can't help but be good for you.

Returning to your chair once again, you pat your chair and pat your thighs expectingly. Rushing to comply Levi lays across your thighs, and you give him a warning smack of what's to come.

"Ah!" Levi cries out, more in surprise than any real pain, as it will take a lot more than a little smack to hurt a demon Iike him.

It's not the first time you had Levi over your knee, though the previous times were more to explore a curiosity than for a punishment. Yet the previous experiences fill you with confidence, as you know where to smack to tease him, and where to smack that will cause him real pain.

As Levi gets himself situated on your lap you pull down his pants in one quick motion, jeans and all. The demon shivers as cold air meets his rear and you laugh at the pout he gives you in response.

Testing out the waters you give the bare ass a firm smack, and delight in the way Levi flinches at being caught off guard.

"Ah hmmm!" Levi moans, thrusting back for more.

"I expect you to count and thank me after each hit Levi-chan." You say sternly.

"O-one! Thank you, Master!"

Grinning you continue, giving your demon a few more smacks. You didn't give him a number on purpose, as you want to see how many smacks it'll take before his ass is a bright red and he's sobbing out for mercy.

As his ass gets redder and redder Levi begins to squirm against you, thrusting his hips against your thighs. You sigh in response, deep and disappointed, and the sound snaps Levi out of his pleasure filled hazy.

"No grinding against me. This is a punishment, remember? You're not supposed to be enjoying this."

Your tone is harsh, and it sends Levi flinching. You never sounded so.... frustrated in a scene before. Levi is used to you being teasing and gentle, always there with a soft word and a teasing touch. The idea of you being upset with him sends him spiraling.

Tensing up Levi tries his hardest to sit still and obey you, believing that maybe if he shows you that he can be good, and is willing to listen to your commands, you'll praise him. (You'll still want him.)

The next few swings of your fast, delivered before Levi has the chance to count them individually. Because of this, he miscounts them.

"Fifteen, s-sixteen, seventeen! Th-thank you, master."

Slowly, as Levi catches his breath your hand trails upward before suddenly wrapping tightly around his hair. Pulling him upward you lean down to whisper in your best Disappointed Dom voice: "Are you sure you counted right?"

Levi feels his heart stop at your words. He did, right?! He wouldn't miscount - didn't mean to miscount! He swears! It was an accident-

Slowly you watch as Levi's breath starts to stutter, stopping completely before gasping in and out. Immediately you drop your hold and Levi begins to hyperventilate against you.

"Sorry, I'm s-sorry. Didn't -gasp- didn't mean to! Sorry!"

Instantly you pick the demon up and hold his back towards his chest, hopeful that the extra room will allow him to calm down, as you begin mumbling praise into his ear.

"Hey, hey, it's ok! I'm not angry, I promise! There's no need to be sorry, it's ok, I forgive you."

Eventually, Levi gets his breathing under control, and he collapses against you once he does. Shifting him slightly, you pull him into your chest and he immediately buries his face into your neck. You continue to whisper praise as you being to gently stroke his back, allowing Levi the time to compose himself.

"I'm sorry." Is the first thing he says when he does.

"I know baby, I know. There's nothing to apologize for, though, you know that right? When I was disappointed that was only a part of the scene, right? Like when you sometimes pretend to not like something when you do."

Mutely you feel Leve nod against you.

"I, I didn't actually delete your save. I have it backed up on my computer."

"I know, sweetheart, I know." You whisper before leaning down to kiss the top of his head.

"How about this, we continue sitting here for a bit longer, and then we both get something to eat and drink. Then we have a little chat about the scene before loading up my save?"

Levi grumbles at the idea of actually having to talk about what happened, but he nods against you once.

"Good boy. That's my good boy."

-

Satan:

You hold up a pair of handcuffs and Satan grins.

You two haven't played around with the idea of bondage much, there were other kinks that you wanted to try out first. Sure, you toyed around with pinning his hands down to the bed or ordering him to sit still while you edged him. But you two have yet to use any tool to bind him.

A distinct click echoes throughout the room as you fasten the cuff to his right hand before moving to his left. His hands are looped around the bedframe, stopping him from reaching down to touch himself or you as you play with him.

A wise choice seeing as you plan to edge him until he's sobbing.

The first edge passes through him well, only resulting in a choked-off groan before you give him a few moments to calm down. As you do Satan begins to pull at the handcuffs, testing out their strength.

As he pulls his hands back and forth he feels his heartbeat pick up for a different reason. A looming sense of dread slowly starts to creep in, but before he can focus on it you begin to stroke his dick once again.

Arousal floods through his system once again, but so does anxiety. As he chases his denied relief once more he pulls against the handcuffs, flinching when they make a loud clicking noise as they scrape against the headboard.

When you shift away to allow him to cool off the anxiety settles in replacing all thoughts of arousal. He begins to fight earnestly against the handcuffs, pushing and pulling them, trying to will them to break. But they're strong cuffs, made out of demon-resistant metal and almost impossible to break.

In your mind all you can see is Satan shaking against the bed, sneaking out the pleasure you've denied him. But in Satan's, he's reliving an experience he hasn't felt in thousands of years: entrapment.

Memories of heavy chains wrapping around his body, caging him in and denying his escape as he withers and shakes in rage. Memories of dark closets and being chained to this very same bed as he screamed out curses and profanities until his throat bleed.

He thought he was past this stage of his life, where he was angry and trapped. Caged like a wild animal.

"S-SHAKESPEARE!" Satan growls out your safeword - a safeword that has never been used before.

It takes you a second to realize what he said, but once you do you're on him in an instant. Reaching up you fumble with the keys to the handcuffs as Satan struggles beneath you. You whisper praise and assurances as you unlock the cuffs, but you doubt he can hear you.

The moment he's free Satan flinches backward, his back hitting the wall as he scrambles to get away from you. His eyes are wide, his pupils are pinpricks as he studies the world around him. Akin to a wild, caged animal he crotches down like he's preparing to lunge, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

You know he wouldn't attack you, yet you do your best to look passive as you raise your hands in surrender.

It takes a few moments, but eventually, Satan comes back to himself. He seems to realize where he is, and what's going on, as he composes himself.

"Baby, are you ok?" You ask in a low, gentle tone.

And Satan breaks.

He completely shatters as he rushes into your arms. You barely have time to realize what's going on before you feel your chest wetten as Satan begins to sob.

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry." You mumble, hands lightly touching Satan's head. When he leans into the touch you begin gently petting him.

"It's, sniff, it's ok. You didn't know I would react like that. I didn't even know I would react like that."

"Still, I saw you struggling against the handcuffs, I should have checked up on you."

Satan doesn't know what to say to that, too tired to try to argue with you so he simply hums in response. After a few minutes of sitting in comfortable silence, your hands threading through his hair, he leans up and rubs the remainder of the tears out of his eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it? Or would you rather we do something else?" You ask, rubbing circles into his back.

"Can we read a bit first?" Satan asks, and on a normal day he would cringe at how timid he sounds, but he's too tired to care right now.

One day he'll tell you about his "childhood". About this memories of chains and ropes, of dark rooms and confined spaces, of rage and curses.

But now he just wants you to hold him as the two of you pour over a good murder mystery, him free to move around and shift, and you with your hands wrapped around his waist.

-

Asmo:

You and Asmo tried nearly every kink known to man, and even some only known to demons. So you know when Asmo's limits lie, and he knows yours. You know when he's fake whining to get a rise out of you, and when his cries border on actually "too much", you can tell the difference between pleasure tears and pain tears, and after many many conversations you know what kinks he absolutely wouldn't want to try under any circumstances.

Fortunately, polygamy wasn't one of them.

It wasn't often the two of you invited another into your bed, you could entertain each other just fine. But sometimes you wanted to see Asmo dom another person, or Asmo wanted to show off his skills next to a less experienced sub, and gangbangs were just fun! You only had two hands, and sometimes you wanted to see Asmo be taken apart by a dozen.

The orgy the two of you are going to tonight didn't have a "main character", but it was hosted by a prominent sex toy brand owner, and Asmo said that the snack bar was "to die for". So you decided to give it a try.

Asmo was being a brat the whole car ride over, pawing at your jacket and trying to kiss you. Trying to save the poor Uber driver you tell your demon to behave, but Asmo only giggles in response as he tries, and fails, to undo your buttons.

You hope that once you got to the orgy Asmo would settle down, but he's  committed to being a brat. As you hand over your coat to the door demon, Asmo rushes ahead of you and sits down onto the lap of a demon he knows, who is very clearly in the middle of having their dick sucked by another attendee.

He tries to persuade them to let him take over and replace their sub's spot, but you're able to pull Asmo away by his collar and onto your lap.

For one glorious moment, you believe that this calms your demon down enough to start behaving, as he quiets down once as he gets settled. It wasn't long after that another demon started up a conversation with you, asking if you were the legendary exchange student, and how you felt about RAD.

While you talked Asmo absentmindedly sucks on your fingers. He tries squirming against your lap, but one smack to his thigh was a clear message for him to calm down.

Or so you thought.

When Asmo continues to grind against you and begins adding teeth to his sucking, you snap. If he was so determined to be punished tonight, he would get punished.

Rising you stand before Asmo wearing your best Disappointed Dom look. He giggles at the look, clearly happy that he thinks he's getting what he wants. That is a public spanking.

You have different plans though, and you walk towards a corner of the room no one is standing near. Snapping your fingers at the corner you command your demon:

"Asmo, over here now."

Asmo rushes off the couch to obey as he skips over. He eyes you a curious look as you force him to his knees, obviously not expecting his punishment to be somewhere so out of the way and private. You pay it no mind, and when he sinks to the floor and assumes a standard kneeling position you give him another command:

"You're not to move, and unless it's your safeword you're not allowed to speak either until I say your punishment is over."

He pouts as he feels the command take hold, staring up at you with pleading eyes. But you don't allow yourself to be swayed.

"Since you were so determined to be a brat and not be patient, this is your punishment. When I think you're finally to sit still I will release you."

You give him one last pat on the head before making your way back to the couch.

As you resume your conversation with the other demon about RAD, more demons start to join in. Some are curious about your life as an exchange student while others are more concerned with the reason why you're here.

A bold demon leaned in close and whispered something in your ear, causing you to blush and gently swat their arm. After that it was like the other demons suddenly remember that they were at an orgy and not a press conference, and began cuddling up to you.

All the while Asmo stews from his spot kneeling in the corner. At first, he was upset at you for hiding him, but now that you're getting more and more attention a prickle of envy runs through him. Not at you, but at the demons now vying for your attention. You should be focused on him - even if it was to punish him.

Normally Asmo wouldn't mind you getting cozy with a few other demons, under different circumstances he would have been delighted to sit back and watch as you had your way with a few of them. Now? When he's hidden away in a corner, forgotten?

Something stings in Asmo, and he desperately tries to whine out for your attention, but the command stops him. All that leaves him is the wheeze of his chest as he desperately tries to force words out of his mouth. Your safeword was on the tip of his tongue, and if you two were alone he wouldn't hesitate to say it, but something about being in a room full of demons stop him.

He's the Avatar the lust, and this is barely a punishment, what would the other demons say if they saw him use his safeword just because he was put into a corner? He knows that safewording isn't a sign of weakness, but he can't shake the thought of what rumors might follow him if he shows vulnerability.

But when he sees a demon crawl into your lap, and you kiss them on the lips, he can't help but yell out a desperate "Majolish"!

Immediately you push the demon out of your lap and rush toward Asmo. Your knees hit the ground with a loud thud but you pay it no mind you kneel before the now sobbing demon.

"All commands are over! Asmo are you ok, what happened?!"

Asmo doesn't waste a second as his arms shot around you and pull you close. As he sobs into your chest your hands slowly wrap around your demon, trying to piece together what went wrong. You don't get must time to think before Asmo's lips are on yours, kissing you desperately, which you quickly return with enthusiasm. Asmo calms down once you make it clear that you desire him, slumping into your chest.

When you break for air you timidly look around the room and breathe a sigh of relief as you notice that the surrounding demons are making an effort not you look in your direction. As you make eye contact with a demon they mouth out a "side room" while pointing at a closed door.

Understanding that this must be some type of aftercare room, or simply a private room couples can retreat into, you quickly pull Asmo up and lead him into the room. As you make it through the doorway you relax as you see that no one else is in there and gently push Amso onto the bed.

"Asmo, sweetheart, darling, we don't have to talk about what happened right away, but I do want to make you feel better. Can you please tell me if there's anything I can do?"

Asmo, whose been holding your hand in a death grip slowly nods as his other hand wipes at his tears.

"Yeah, yes of course. Just can you, can you hold me for a bit?" His voice gets quieter at the end. "Maybe tell me you love me?"

It's rare to see Asmo so shaken up, even after using his safeword, and something breaks inside of you. But you're determined to focus on him, and you nod.

"Of course baby, scout over."

Asmo does as he's told and you're quick to pull him into a tight hug before you begin to slowly rock him back and forth. All the while whispering praise into his ear about how much you adore him, and how beautiful he is.

-

Beel:

It seemed so simple when you suggested the idea: why not mix two of Beel's biggest pleasures and bring food into the bedroom?

You haven't had much experience with food play before, but after doing some research (watching porn on DevilHub and writing down things you found hot), you were confident you could make food sexy.

After discussing what will happen in the scene, you and Beel come up with a game plan. Beel was a bit worried about not being able to focus on sex when he was eating, so you proposed a solution: you will command Beel to sit still and tease him with food from Madam Screams. When he's a good boy and shows patience, you'll reward him by feeding him a piece of food and then stroking his dick. Trapping in a cycle of wanting pleasure, and being hungry.

The start of the scene went according to plan, with Beel able to control himself as he sinks to his knees in front of you. You dangle a curly fry in front of his face, and Beel drools at the sight.

Teasing him you press the fry against his lips and tell him by a good boy and hold it there. Like a dog, Beel obeys and holds the treat against his lips and makes no move to bite. While your other hand sinks to the edge of his boxers.

Palming his dick Beel lets out a guttural groan, the motion causing the fry to ever so slightly push past his lips and he gets a slight taste of the slaty goodness before you rip it away. The glutton barely has time to mourn that loss before he sinks into pleasure once more as you pull his dick out of his underwear.

Already hard and dripping Beel's dick bounces against his stomach, and you coo in delight.

"Oh baby, you're already so wet for me. Excited already?"

Beel moans in response, unable to think clearly as it was growing harder to think through the pleasure filled haze of his mind.

Wrapping your hand around your dick you give it a firm tug, just how he likes it. All thoughts of food and hunger spill out of his mind as you begin playing with his dick.

Until you press the curly fry against his nose and he breathes in the scent. Hunger overtakes him once more as he tries to lunge for it, but you move it away before he's able. Pressing a firm finger against his slit Beel groans as he's stuck in a tug of war between his two different desires. Food, and sex.

As you deny him his treat once again a growl rumbles through his chest and you pause. Beel has never growled like that during sex before. Smiling you continue to jack him off, but Beel is less excited about his rough growl. He normally tries so hard to keep his hunger rage away from you, what if he loses control?

You don't give him much time to worry about concern as you pump him toward an orgasm. Yet the moment Beel feels like he's going to tip over, your hands retreat and he's left wanting.

As a reward you pop the fry into the demon's panting mouth and he instantly inhales it. But it doesn't provide him much relief as he just feels hungrier.

Beel is used to fighting off his hunger and he's used to you edging him. But dealing with both at once? It's an overwhelming, all encompassing desire he never felt before.

And he's not sure if he likes it.

As you lean down to touch his dick once again Beel lets out a throaty whine, sounding more desperate than you ever heard him before. Horny, but worried you glance up at your gentle giant.

"Are you doing alright, buddy?"

"Hungry- no, horny. I can't, I don't know. I want to stop." He rushes out the last part quickly, but you hear it all the same.

"Oh! OK, alright. Yeah, we can stop no problem. Um, which one do you want first? Do you want me to get you off first or do you want to eat first?"

Beel moans hopelessly at the question, and you mentally berate yourself for even asking. It's not like he can't do both at once.

Shoving a handful of fries into his mouth you begin pumping his dick in earnest now, determined to actually get him off this time. Every time Beel moans in hunger you're quick to feed him more food, and Beel is treated to the sensation of eating while getting pleasure.

It doesn't take long for him to cum, shooting into your hands and getting a bit of your chin as he does. As he breathes out a sigh of relief he lays boneless against you, and you remember to finally undo the sit still command you previously placed on him.

Patting his back with one hand the other reaches over to grab a nearby drink and you hand it to him to help wash down the food. After he downs it one gulp he leans back to give you a dopey, but incredibly fond look.

"That was nice. I liked it when you feed me while jacking me off."

Grinning at the honesty, you lean in and kiss your demon.

"Thank you. I liked how desperate you were and how to relied on me to give you everything you wanted. What about the teasing?"

"I.... didn't like that. I was afraid I'll get too needy and hurt you." Beel says the last part ashamed and you're quick to lean up to give him another kiss.

"I get that, it seemed like a lot. If you want to do this again I would tease you again, I promise."

Beel grins, and you momentarily mourn your wallet at how much food you'll be buying in the future. But that fond look is enough to banish all mournful thoughts in an instant.

"I'll like that."

-

- Belphie:

Belphie being a brat isn't a new development for you. He's been a brat since the first time you bedded him. Which resulted in a lot of punishments. A lot.

You almost believe that Belphie prefers to be punished than his regular scenes, and that makes you want to up the ante and show him a real punishment is like. Maybe you'll finally convince him to be obedient for once.

So you got a new toy you wanted to try with him, a paddle. It's a thick, strong paddle. Made in the Devildom because you don't think a human realm one will survive Belphie's ass.

Yet the demon doesn't so much as cower when you present the toy to him after he caused you to sleep in and miss class again. Well, you'll show him. You'll have him pleading for mercy in no time.

The Avatar of Sloth, true to his name, doesn't put up any type of a fight as you pull him across your lap. Only grinning when you pull his pants down and you notice that he's not wearing any underwear.

"You were really committed to being a brat today, weren't you?" You tease, giving the demon a quick pop on the ass with the paddle.

Belphie moans at the sensation, and giggles a cheeky "no". Wasting no time with foreplay you get right into business by delivering a fury of blows to the demon's plush. You don't bother to tell him to count them, knowing that he wouldn't, or that he'll miscount on purpose.

Moaning at the feeling Belphie arches his back as he leans into the swatting, enjoying the pushing sensation.

Yet, as time continues and you keep hitting and his ass gets redder and redder Belphie starts to feel weird..... tender. You normally don't cause him to feel this raw until much later in his punishment. When both of your hands sting with the amount of blows you dealt, the two of you are out of breath and ready to tear each other's clothes off.

As you strike down the paddle once again, Belphie feels something he hasn't felt in a very long time:

Pain

Sure, your spankings hurt before. But it was more of a force, a push, a physical reaction to movement than any real kind of pain.

And Belphie is not prepared to handle real pain. As the spoiled youngest of the Avatars, he's used to not having to lift a finger. This made your punishments even more exciting as Belphie felt the closest he did to pain he felt in a long time, without actually crossing over into actual pain.

He may not be as physically resistant as Beel or Lucifer, but he's still an Avatar, a high class demon who can take a lot before anything even fazes him.

Which makes this situation laughable.

A simple human like you, causing him, a ruler of the Devildom, pain? It's impossible, it should be impossible.

Yet here he is, forcing back tears as a flimsy wooden paddle causes him pain he hasn't felt since the Celestial War. He wants to laugh, but he wants to cry even more.

The safeword is on the tip of his tongue, but he refuses to cave. He's been spanked dozens of times before, why should he admit defeat over a stupid paddle? He knows you'll disagree with him framing it like that, but you're too busy creating welts on his ass to argue with Belphie's mind.

When you show no signs of stopping or slowing down, Belphie starts to crack. For once he just wants a punishment to be over and for him to apologize and for you to hold him in your arms.

When you strike down once more, Belphie cries out a "No!" That's a little too desperate, a little too panicked, that snaps you out of your rhythm

"Baby?" You ask, placing the paddle next to you. "Are you ok? Do you need a breather?" You know not to suggest stopping, as Belphie will scoff at the notion before edging you on, but something about the way he's flinching makes you want to pause the scene for a moment.

"No," Belphie sniffs, hand reaching upward to rub the tears out of his. "No I'm fine, keep going." He insits, but you notice the way he leans away from you as he says it. Belphie may be a brat, he may pretend to huff and hate punishments, but he never shifted away from you during a scene pause.

Placing down the paddle beside you, you host Belphie up and press him against your chest. The moment you do he's hiding his face in your shirt, an act of shyness that's out of character for the demon.

"Belphie, baby, are you ok? We can stop if you want to."

Belphie sniffles against your shift and you raise your hands to rub comforting circles into his skin.

"I'm fine, just.... I'm not letting a stupid paddle break me." He mumbles out the last part, but you're able to catch the gist of it and you frown.

"You know that's now how that works. You're not admitting defeat, or saying you're not strong enough if you use your safeword."

Believe grumbles out a response you don't catch, but you doubt he's agreeing with you. Shifting his head upwards you create eye contact between the two of you, and don't relent until he's staring into your eyes.

"What if I didn't want to do something and so I used our safeword? Am I breaking then?"

Belphie pouts, knowing that he'll never think any less of you if you were to use the safeword. So reluctantly he shakes his head.

"Well, why's it any different for you? Because you're a demon?"

He flashes pink at being so easily read, and he keeps his mouth shut as he shrinks down.

"No, but......" Belphie trails off, unsure of what to say. Smiling softly you lean forward to press a kiss into his lips, one he's quick to mirror.

"Alrighty, so no more holding in your safeword, ok?"

With an exaggerated sigh, Belphie nods before cuddling up to you. As you lay down with your arms wrapped around him, careful to shift him so his tender ass isn't touching anything, you begin stroking his hair. In the following silence, all that can be heard is the steady rise and fall of both of your chests before Belphie says determined:

"I'm going to burn that paddle though."

-

[deiaiko]

#20.8 Spar

"Are you up for a spar, Viole?" Novick asked after they finished snacking on the garlic bread. He was always competitive, especially when he was introduced to new people. However, Dan and Gyetang also looked excited to join. From what Agni caught, they were curious as to how talented Viole could be to have  earned his status as a slayer candidate, which was understandable.

Still, Agni huffed in amusement. His team still chose to train even though he had called today off. Though Agni wasn't against it. He felt like it'd be good for both him and Grace, since exercise always took their minds off things. Bam seemed a little reluctant, but he went along with it, especially after Grace said it'd be a good bonding experience.

Everyone moved to the training area and they made a quick bracket match. Grace reminded Agni not to overexert himself in this spar, even though Agni insisted that he was fine. But he understood why Grace was worried, since he would be too if Grace were in his place.

The first round was Dan against Gyetang. Both of them had improved a little bit from the last time Agni watched their spar. Gyetang was able to read Dan's movement the moment the spar began, and act accordingly to counter his attack. Though in the end Dan still gained the upper hand once he was able to render Gyetang's fuuma shuriken useless.

The second round was Grace against Agni, which would have ended fairly quickly if Grace used his reverse flow control. But since he didn't, he and Grace had shinsu enhanced martial art combat instead. Agni could tell that Grace was avoiding hitting his leg. In a real fight, Agni would use that to his advantage, but on this occasion he appreciated Grace's thoughtfulness. However, none of them went easy with the other, so they dragged out the fight until Agni ran out of stamina.

The third round was Bam against Novick. Despite it being the first match, Novick went all out on Bam by using his ultimate moves as a start. Still, Bam kept up with him, though he kept on the defensive. It wasn't until Novick and Grace encouraged Bam to attack that things finally got more interesting. Novick was slowly pushed onto the defensive, though Agni knew that Bam was still holding back. However, all of Novick's attempts at challenging Grace seemed to pay off, and Agni could see that he was still able to keep up. However, Bam's attack pattern was different from Grace, and one of his bangs took Novick off guard, allowing Bam to subdue him. Even though Novick was clearly still okay enough to keep going and break himself free from Bam, he raised his hand in surrender and ended the round.

Since this spar was for the team to get to know Bam, and everyone knew that Grace was the strongest, the fourth round was voted to be Bam against Dan. Having seen the first round, Bam was able to predict Dan's attack. However, that didn't mean that Bam was prepared to go against Dan’s speed. Bam tried to use reverse flow control on him, but Dan was too slippery to get caught in it. He was used to having to deal with Grace's, so he was able to read Bam's aim. Dan didn't waste time and successfully pinned Bam down to the ground the moment Bam let his guard down. However, it seemed to trigger a fight response from Bam, and he summoned a bang behind Dan. Agni intervened by creating a barrier to null the shot which could cause serious injury, but the bang had already been snuffed out before it exploded. Agni looked at Grace who exhaled in relief with his hand half raised, before calling the match over. Everyone else was too stunned by the outcome until Dan offered a hand and pulled Bam up to his feet. Then Gyetang and Novick finally cheered and congratulated them both.

As they waited for Bam to cool down after two matches in a row, Novick challenged Agni to a spar. It was understandable, since Agni usually was too busy to join their afternoon routine. However, Agni was still worn out from his previous match and a little under the weather, so he aimed to end this one as soon as possible, especially because Novick was a tank which would put Agni at a disadvantage if the match was dragged out. As soon as the match began, Agni activated his lighthouse flow control to stop Novick and teleported behind him. He froze Novick's limbs before he was able to reinforce himself with shinsu, and pointed a knife at his neck.

"Not going easy on me, huh?" Novick chuckled as he admitted defeat. 

Agni melted the ice on Novick's limbs and stepped away to the spectator seats. "I would be at a disadvantage, otherwise."

Since it ended too fast, Novick challenged Dan next. Compared to what he had with Bam and Agni, he went relatively easy on Dan. But in the end, Novick still came out as the winner since Dan was built for agility, not power.

As if saving the best for last, Novick finally challenged Grace for a spar. It went as it usually would. Grace was just humoring Novick, but at least he managed to make it believable and kept Novick on his toes. Agni had seen what Grace was actually capable of, after all. Practicing with them like this was actually wasting potential on Grace's part. He would grow stronger quicker if he faced an opponent that was on his level or above. But Grace looked like he was having fun, so who was Agni to ruin it?

The last match was Bam against Grace, which everyone had been looking forward to. Grace assured Bam that he could go all out with him, which prompted Agni to reinforce the barrier that surrounded the training area even more than usual. At first, neither of them made any move to attack, but it was interesting to see the differences in their mirrored stances. 

"You can have the first move," Grace taunted.

Bam summoned two bangs and released them toward Grace. They were easily blocked. 

"Is that all? I know that you can do better."

Agni thought it was harsh of Grace to say that. A regular on this floor that could control two powerful bangs was already considered a prodigy. But Agni understood the frustration. He himself had been far harsher on his younger self. Their teams were far behind, and would not survive had they lived during wartime. It was a scary thought.

Grace decided to step forward, and Bam switched to his reverse flow control stance. However, nothing happened as Grace kept on closing their distance. Bam frowned and ran forward, pressing his palm in front of Grace's chest. Grace didn't move away from the touch, looking at Bam with anticipation.

"Go on," Grace said when Bam hesitated a moment too long.

Bam bit his lip, before releasing his flare wave explosion. Grace's eyebrows twitched in pain. Even though Agni could feel the wave, it was not as destructive as he had predicted, even with his lowered standards.

"One more time, but you have to give it your all." Grace very rarely used his strict voice, but when he did, it was a clear warning that he was displeased. "If you refuse to, then I will start to go on the offensive."

Bam inhaled sharply and forced himself to release another flare wave explosion that was finally close to the level that Agni predicted Bam could do. Grace covered his mouth and coughed, and Agni saw a glimpse of red. However, Agni kept firm on his seat, since Grace was smiling at Bam.

"That's right, don't hold back." Grace jumped back to create some distance and got in his defensive stance again.

Bam got more serious after that, and his bangs were formed with more concentration. Grace carefully landed a few blows and slowly shifted to offense, while still creating some openings for Bam to take advantage of. Their exchanged blows got fiercer, and it was finally clear that they were having fun.

Not too long after, Bam was starting to run low on stamina, but at one point he managed to sneak behind Grace and hit him with another flare wave explosion. However, Grace saw it coming, so he repelled some of the waves to decrease the damage that he took. Unfortunately, it fired back at Bam and injured his arm. They decided to stop the match then, as Bam seemed really close to passing out. Grace held Bam's shoulders to steady him on his wobbly feet, and gently lowered him so they both sat down on the floor. Agni approached them just in case his help was needed.

"Are you okay?" Grace asked, getting more frantic when Bam suddenly looked like he was having a heart attack. Agni froze in his steps when a red exoskeleton grew and enveloped Bam, healing his injured arm. But Grace seemed less surprised and just comforted Bam until the exoskeleton disappeared.

Agni squatted down next to them and whispered to Grace, "What the heck was that?!"

"Blue Thryssa, incomplete form." Grace looked thoughtfully at Bam, who was staring back at Grace with a confused and scared look. "Your wound healed now, see? It's fine."

"Are you sure?" Bam rubbed his healed arm. He winced, "It's, uh…talking to me?"

"Hmm, maybe I can help you understand it." Grace sat down cross-legged and got in his meditative state, placing his palm on Bam's back.

Everyone else had come closer around them as well, curious about what was happening. A moment later, a transparent blue horn started to form on Grace and Bam's left temple. It surprised Agni because he thought Grace had lost the powers that he had absorbed when they traveled back in time.

When Grace opened his eyes, he gave Agni a look that said they would talk about it later. Bam came back to his senses a moment later. Dan and Gyetang could no longer contain their curiosity and began asking Bam and Grace questions, but the topic soon drifted to more general conversation because Bam was just as lost as they were. Agni called the sparring session over and Dan went to prepare dinner. Bam and Gyetang joined him in the kitchen, and the sight of them getting along together was heartwarming. 

Agni took a seat in the cafeteria, and Grace followed to sit next to him. Agni released the fish from his lighthouse bowl to roam around the kitchen, while Grace exhaled and stretched his arms. All the bruises on his skin were almost healed already.

"Well…?" Agni prompted Grace to start talking.

"Hm." Grace leaned back on his chair and rubbed the back of his neck, "After seeing what Bam is capable of, it made me think about how far I've come."

There was sadness in those golden eyes that tugged at Agni's heartstrings. Both of them had been broken so many times that no amount of fixing could bring both of them to what they used to be. Velt came and swam between them, nuzzling onto Grace's arm before settling on Agni's side. Her company was appreciated, and Agni gave her a few pats. Grace smiled as he watched them.

"About the Blue Thryssa though…" Grace stopped himself when Novick approached them and took a seat nearby.

Agni and Grace shared a quick glance. Honestly, Agni would prefer to talk in private with Grace when they brought up their time travel stuff, but it wasn't like they were actively trying to hide it either. Novick also didn't seem to mind, as his attention was more at whatever was happening in the kitchen.

Grace shrugged and continued their conversation, "It was like…I felt my own Thryssa resonate, and it said it doesn't have any recollection since, you know. It felt like I had just woken it up."

Agni hummed thoughtfully, "Could it be that you didn't actually lose them?" 

"Maybe? I couldn't feel any others though." Grace tried to do something with his left hand, then frowned when nothing happened. "I can't transform it either."

"Oh, hm." If Agni recalled, the transformation was when they were with the beastkin. "I guess you have to get yourself or Bam to get it from Doom."

"I thought the same."

"Well then, guess I will have to update our plan soon."

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[mangoisms]

superposition ━ miyuki kazuya in which miyuki isn't the fool in love with his childhood best friend. it's you.

━ completed

━ wc: 27k

━ warnings: none

━ you can read this on ao3 as well

You met Miyuki Kazuya when you were eight-years-old. You didn’t know how to feel about him.

You were introduced to him simply because he was the same age as you and you happened to live a few houses down from each other. It had been an attempt to get you to socialize more, as the move from your home country had severely jarred you. Here you were, in an entirely different city and country with strange new customs and environments. The small, eight-year-old you didn’t like it very much.

The move had all been done in favor of the bakery your parents ran, recipes based on traditional dishes you grew up with. The bakery was right next door to your home and always seemed to be busy. Your father was almost always there, running around, making sure customers were happy while your mother played the entertainer.

They must’ve gotten tired of having to split their attention between you and the bakery because that morning before the bakery opened, she dragged you into the yard, where a short boy with brown hair and glasses waited.

“This Miyuki Kazuya. He lives down the street with his father. Go on, say hello,” your mother tried to coax you out from behind her legs, but you stayed there stubbornly, the fabric of her skirt balled up in your small hands. Your strength was no match against hers, though, and she pried you off her skirt, leaving the two of you in the yard of your house alone.

The boy peered cautiously at you. You realized he was smaller than you and relaxed slightly. Smaller kids were easier to deal with, right?

“Do you know how to play baseball?” he asked suddenly, watching with wide, amber eyes.

You pursed your lips. “Not really. It’s hard.”

Miyuki blinked in surprise. “Hard? No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is,” you countered stubbornly.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is!”

“Can you throw a ball?”

You stopped, confused at the sudden question. “Of course I can,” you huffed, now affronted. What kind of question was that? Who didn’t know how to throw a ball?

“Then you can play. Come on, let’s go. I left my glove at my house.” He turned and began walking down the street, not bothering to wait for you.

He was annoying, you thought, but you were a little curious, so you followed him down the sidewalk to a two-story home a few houses down from yours, right next door to a factory.

“Wait here,” he instructed then dashed into the house, giving you no time to protest. You pouted, crossing your arms over your chest. Who was this boy? He was so demanding and know-it-all. And you barely knew him, who was he to tell you what to do?

While you were tempted to not listen to him, you stayed there, waiting impatiently for him to return. You glanced around. The factory next door had the sounds of work going on, but you couldn’t see anything and the windows were far too high for you to see. You squinted to read the sign. Miyuki Steel. Did his family own a business, too?

You looked back to the door as he dashed out of the house, baseball glove and ball in hand. He held up a hand, signaling for you to wait as he ran to the factory and popped his head into the doorway.

“I’ll be home in a little while, Dad!”

There was no audible response, but he turned back around anyway, walking back towards you. He tossed you the ball, which you clumsily caught with a scowl on your face.

“Does your family own a business, too?”

“My dad,” he corrected. “He makes machines. It’s cool.”

That was kinda cool, but you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing you agreed.

“Are you gonna work there, too? When you’re grown-up?”

“No way. I’m gonna be a professional baseball player.” He turned to grin arrogantly at you. “Hey, hurry up. We need to get a good spot at the park.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you muttered, mood souring quickly at his bossiness.

Miyuki shrugged. “That’s what catchers do for their pitchers.”

“I’m not a pitcher,” you protested, following him reluctantly across the street after you glanced both directions, something he��d totally failed to do before crossing. “I wanna be a doctor.”

“That’s boring.”

You scowled, stopping on the sidewalk and dropping the ball unceremoniously onto the ground. “I don’t want to play, then.”

“Fine, then.” He continued walking towards the park, barely sparing you a glance.

You stood there for a second, casting a glance at the baseball still resting at your feet, then at your house that was quite a ways back. Squinting, you could see the bakery right next to it, the door swinging open and closed as people entered in quick succession. You recalled your mother’s words before Miyuki came over.

“Honey, please . . . Try to make some friends, okay? Kazuya is a good kid. He’ll grow on you.”

Initially, you’d been confused. Shouldn’t she have said something like ‘you’ll like him’ instead of that? But now, you understood. He was infuriating.

Yet, you remembered the loneliness of the first few days, stuck inside the house with nothing to do. Your older sister was always in her room, not willing to play with you. Apparently, she’d outgrown you, which didn’t make much sense. Sisters were always there, weren’t they?

Then, there was the situation with your parents and the bakery. On top of that, they were also preoccupied with your mother’s pregnancy. Rather, your father was constantly worrying about her, even though she was only six months pregnant. The baby only came when she was nine months pregnant, so why was he so worried about it?

You frowned, staring at the red stitching on the baseball. Miyuki’s bossiness . . . Well, it could be something you worked on, right?

You picked up the ball and ran after him.

“Wait up!”

You decided that he may not be the ideal friend, but he was there, and that was all that mattered.

Your younger brother was born two months later in the winter of December on a particularly cold day. By then, Miyuki had stuck to your side like a parasite, always asking for you to pitch to him, always asking for you to help him out if he ever got scraped up. And you did it, not necessarily because he was being annoying about it — which he was, but you were beginning to grow immune to his pestering — but because it was fun.

(Well. Disinfecting bloody knees wasn’t fun, but the cringe you’d get out of him when you poured hydrogen peroxide over the cut was always satisfying. Served him right for running around like an idiot.)

For your little brother’s one-month anniversary, friends and family were invited over. Aunts and uncles preened over you (“You’re growing up so fast!” and “You look exactly like your mother!”). It was horrible, so you managed to sneak Miyuki in and made a getaway to your room to play video games.

As you walked down the hallway, his attention was grabbed by your little brother currently napping in his nursery. (You didn’t understand why the party still went on even while he was asleep. This was all for him, wasn’t it?)

“He’s not that cute,” Miyuki muttered as he looked over the bars of the crib.

You nodded somberly. “He isn’t. He looks like a wrinkled grape. Mom said that’s just how little babies look, though.”

“So, you looked like that at one point, then.”

You scoffed. “So did you.”

“Of course I didn’t. I was a cute baby.”

“Sure.”

He reached out to tug on a piece of your hair and you batted his hand away with a scowl. “I won’t pitch for you anymore,” you said warningly.

“Fine, fine,” Miyuki snickered. “Come on. I wanna play Mario Kart today.”

You two snuck out of the nursery and into your room to play games for the rest of day, at least until he had to go home. Or until your mother discovered him.

Your name is called, just as your mother opens the door, in the middle of saying, “— come downstairs we’re all going to have din —"

She stops, blinking in surprise at the sight of Miyuki on the floor. “Hello, Kazuya.”

He stood up quickly and bowed.

She smiled, but it looked strange. “Would you like to join us for dinner? Perhaps you want to invite your father as well? Oh, does he know you’re here?”

Miyuki nodded but didn’t say much after that. You took over.

“He’ll stay. You should invite your dad, too. If he’s not working.” Both of you knew the answer to that, but your mother was still watching you two interact, a curious look in her eyes.

“Well, you know where the house phone is. Come down in a few minutes, alright?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She shut the door. You look down at him. “Working?”

He nodded. “All day.”

You shrugged, pulling yourself off your bed. “That’s okay. You can be with us.”

“Let’s play catch afterward.”

You rolled your eyes as you two exited the room. When you passed your brother’s room, the crib was empty. You could hear your family members cooing downstairs and figured he must’ve woken up.

“Thought you wanted to play Mario Kart?” you huffed as you walked down the stairs.

“I changed my mind.”

“You’re so annoying.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s not a compliment.”

For the last few years of elementary school and your first year of junior high, you two were joined at the hip. Junior high also meant that Miyuki was getting serious about baseball. He’d received his first catcher’s glove from his father for his birthday that year. Not that using the one from the school hindered his performance anyway.

Being on the team meant he constantly got into fights with the older boys, so you slowly transitioned from cleaning up scrapes he received from rolling around to bandaging and icing bruises he received from fights.

You’d been making your way to the baseball field to catch Miyuki. You’d already heard of his loss from the other students part of the medical club and worried about his well-being, but when he dashed up the hill, he was grinning widely. Your eyes immediately went to the cut on his face.

“Where’d you get that?” You asked, gaping as he ran up to you, baseball gear over his shoulder.

“Never mind that. I can’t believe you missed today’s game. It was so good.”

“Miyuki, didn’t you guys lose?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point. Their catcher outplayed me!”

You surveyed him carefully. “Did you get a concussion?”

“What — No, I’m fine,” he shook his head, his cap moving precariously with his rapid movements. “You’re not listening to me right now. He was some foreigner, I heard his dad was in the Majors here after coming from America.”

“And this is good because . . . ?” you trailed off, confusion clear in your voice.

Miyuki’s grin turned competitive. “I finally have a challenger.”

You scrutinized him for a few more seconds, long enough for his grin to fade and for him to fidget under your gaze. Finally, you clicked your tongue in disapproval. “Is everything a challenge to you?”

“How else am I supposed to be the best?”

You scowled. “Maybe not get hurt? Also, how did you get that cut? Are you the boys beating you up again? They better not be.”

“I tripped and fell on my way up here.” As usual, he looked utterly unashamed. You had to wonder: did this boy even feel shame? You pinched the bridge of your nose, turning on your heel, setting off for the school.

“Dummy. Come on, let’s go.” You didn’t wait for him, knowing he’d keep up with you without any protests.

“Those fights were never my fault, either,” he disagreed. “Age doesn’t matter on the field and I was just saying it like it is.”

You rolled your eyes, though you agreed. You’d never been fond of the way his older teammates pushed him around; even if Miyuki could be painfully blunt sometimes, you didn’t think there was any reason to get violent with him. And even then, sometimes he didn't even need to say anything for them to get pissed off.

You really didn't like his teammates.

He never fought back, either; said everything should be resolved on the field. You agreed, but the other boys would never think like that. They’d only continue to beat him up because they felt insecure, or he said something about their performance — something that was probably true. He could be brutal but he wasn't cruel.

“Also,” he continued as you two reentered the school and walked to your locker where you held a first aid kit (specifically put there because of Miyuki), “there was a scout there today, from Seido High School.”

You unlocked the locker, rummaging through it for the kit. “And?”

He told you about his encounter (you snorted when he recalled her comment about his height) with her and when he was finished, leaning against the locker as you tended to his cut, he looked thoughtful.

“You think he’d go to Seido?”

“Who’s this kid again? Do you have a crush?”

Miyuki puffed out his cheeks, glaring slightly at you. “No way. He’s my competition. I can’t like the enemy that way!”

You laughed, reveling in this brief moment where you were the one annoying him. “Alright, alright. I don’t know, Miyuki. Seido’s a good school, I think, especially if you wanna get serious about baseball.”

“Should I go?”

You pressed the gauze to his cheek, shooting him an apologetic look after he winced from the pressure. After, you began cleaning up and putting the kit away again. He was awaiting your answer still, watching you with analytic eyes. You shrugged.

“It’s up to you. Seido’s a powerhouse school, so I think you’d be fine, especially since you’re so damn competitive. I just thought you meant you’d challenge him from another school, assuming he went to Seido,” you told him honestly. “But also, we’re barely first years.”

He nodded, but he still looked thoughtful. Too thoughtful.

You shut your locker and shoved him forward, making him stumble on his feet.

“Hey, what was that for?” he yelped indignantly, catching his balance and readjusting the bag on his shoulder.

“You’re thinking too hard,” you replied. “Hurry up. You need to shower because you stink and my mom wants to try out a recipe with you.”

“You’re picking up too many of my habits,” he said, mock-disapprovingly, as you put on your backpack again and fell in step beside him.

“Is Miyuki Kazuya admitting he has flaws?”

“Never mind. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

In your second year of junior high, your brother turned four-years-old. You also finally hit fourteen, along with Miyuki. With that, many changes came. Odd changes. Body changes. You wouldn’t lie. It was weird.

The counselors seemed to notice the sudden plight you all had. Girls stuck closer to each other, gossiping about boys and the like. Boys were suddenly coming in wearing heavy cologne, trying their hardest to appeal to others. You thought it was stupid. So did Miyuki.

That didn’t mean you two were exempt from the mandatory conversation with the counselor about the ‘changes in your body’ and the ‘strange way you may be feeling,’ whatever that meant. Truth be told, it was almost scarring.

“Tell me, have you noticed a change in your feelings to other boys? Perhaps even girls?”

You blinked demurely. “Not really.”

The counselor wasn’t satisfied, her lips turning down for a split second before she fixed into a proper smile. “No to the girls?”

“No to both of them,” you corrected politely. “I don’t really notice or care about those sort of feelings. They’re not necessary.”

“Not . . . necessary?” She asked, confusion as clear as day on her face.

You shrugged. “That’s what my older sister says.” Your elder sister had graduated high school last year and stayed home to help out with the family business, apparently finding some happiness in the kitchen baking pastries. You weren’t so keen on staying here, at least not in this part of Tokyo.

Your mother and father would probably have you stay back happily, too. As your third and final year of junior high grew closer, teachers and parents were suddenly awaiting your decision on a high school. You wished they’d just leave you alone.

“Alright,” she conceded warily. “But what do you think?”

What did you think? Now, that was the million-dollar question.

You shrugged again. The counselor was beginning to look annoyed.

“Well, regardless of that, you should know that some of the . . . urges you may get aren’t things you need to act on.” . . . Wait, what?

You stared at her. “Uh . . .”

“I’m sure you know what sex is —”

You blanched. “Sensei!” That was what this was about? No, you already knew about that, probably too much. The other girls in your grade hadn’t hesitated on divulging private details about their close encounters with other boys and it was far too much information you ever wanted to know about anybody else. You didn’t judge on what they were doing, that’s not it, it’s just — too much information.

“I already know about that stuff,” you hurried out, feeling your face begin to heat up. “A-And I know I shouldn’t do any of that until I’m older. I know.”

She scrutinized you and you wondered if this was what Miyuki felt like whenever you gave him that look. If so, you were going to stop. It felt like she was seeing right through you.

Finally, she sighed and nodded. “You have a good head on your shoulders, so, I trust you’ll know what to do if you’re ever faced with something like that. Remember, though, you can always say no to unwanted advances, alright?”

You nodded firmly, finding familiar ground. Yeah, your father had given you that particular talk, too.

“Girl or boy, you always ask consent and they should, too. Don’t be afraid to say no and don’t be afraid to get out of there if they don’t agree.” You weren’t a pushover. Hell, you couldn’t be one if you had to deal with someone like Miyuki. But even he seemed more aware of the kids that were suddenly looking at you with renewed interest.

“They ought to keep their eyes to themselves,” he’d muttered, stepping around to your other side to block you from the wandering eyes of a group of third years.

You only sighed, burying your nose deeper into the book on medicine you’d been obsessed with at the time. Oh, you could definitely take care of yourself and if need be, fight for yourself, too, but if Miyuki was willing to be your defender for now, who were you to deny him? It wasn’t like you doubted your ability to defend yourself. But he was already there and you weren’t going to waste that opportunity. Basic strategy in your opinion.

“Alright, then, we’re done here. Send Kazuya in, won’t you?”

You nodded and scrambled out of your seat, desperate to get out of that situation. Your face still felt irritatingly hot but you ignored it. You exited the office, spotting Miyuki in the waiting area, a sports magazine in his lap.

“You’re up, Miyuki,” you said, stealing the magazine off his lap, much to his chagrin.

“Hey, I was reading that —” he made a grab for it but you stretched your arm behind you, holding it at a distance. He stood up and you were momentarily surprised, stunned if you were being honest. So surprised you let him pry the magazine out of your hands.

“There’s a good article in here about the catcher that the SoftBank Hawks just recruited, I want to take a picture of it. You have your phone?” He held out his hand expectantly and you had the briefest of common sense to hand your phone over to him. His fingers brushed against yours and you pulled back, as though you’d been electrocuted. He didn’t notice.

You stared at him. When . . . When had he gotten so tall? Only last year he’d been the about the same height as you, if only a few inches taller, but it hadn’t been noticeable. When you’d been kids, you’d always been the one taller than him, but you kept growing and seemed to have stopped now.

Miyuki, though . . . He was easily five to six inches taller than you. What would that be? Five foot nine? Maybe even five foot ten? When had this happened? Was this recent? Or had it been gradual and you just hadn’t noticed?

“I’m gonna need to use your phone later to read this. Thanks. Hey, what does she want, by the way?” He’d handed you your phone back without glancing back and set the magazine back down on the coffee table, but once he’d turned around, he stopped and frowned at you, saying your name. “You good?”

You snapped out of it. “I’m fine, sorry. Just got distracted.”

“With what?” Of course. Miyuki Kazuya never knew when to drop something. He eyed you with barely-hidden suspicion.

“It’s nothing. Have you gotten taller recently?” Curse your loose tongue. You couldn’t help it, though. You had to know.

“Have I . . . ? Oh. Yeah,” he grinned, looking smug now, but there was something different because now you had to look up at him. It felt weird. Strange. “Five foot nine and half, last time I checked. Had to donate almost all of my pants. What about you?”

You scowled, your strange feelings disappearing as quickly as they’d come. “Shut it. Hurry up before Otsuka-sensei comes out here and beats you up.”

His obnoxious laughter followed you out of the main office. “She wouldn’t! I’ll see you in class, don’t eat lunch without me!”

You paused to look back at him. “What if you take too long?”

He grinned in a way that irritated you. “Guess you’re not eating lunch!”

You scowled deeply, swallowing down the curse words you felt compelled to throw at him, only holding back because of the receptionist currently eyeing you two in disapproval.

Prick, you mouthed.

He winked. Bastard.

Saying others didn’t have high expectations of you would be a lie. You were one of the top students in your grade, well-known for taking excellent notes and passing all your exams. Of course, others merely assumed you were just naturally intelligent, but it didn’t work that way.

There were far too many times when you had to split time between working register at the bakery and studying for a test. And many more times when you had to turn Miyuki down for some time to yourself. Honestly, though, you were sure you’d have run yourself into the ground if it hadn’t been for Miyuki’s pestering sometimes.

“I need to study, Miyuki,” you grumbled, switching between reading your textbook and taking inventory behind the counter. He was leaning over it, glove and baseball in his hand with his hat worn crookedly as per usual.

“You’ve been studying for the past three days. A break won’t kill you.”

“It might.”

He huffed petulantly. “You’re ignoring your best friend in favor of school? How cruel.”

You sighed shortly. “Don’t pull that.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m sure your little brother would be more than happy to pitch to me —”

“You realize he has the arm strength of a toddler, right?”

“Or maybe Mei would be willing to do it. He has been begging me to catch for him recently . . .”

“Narumiya . . .” you grumbled out, mood souring further. Narumiya Mei was from downtown Tokyo, living it up in the more expensive districts at his junior high where he dominated as the ace. Apparently, Miyuki and Narumiya had gone head-to-head during a game in the first semester of your second year and Narumiya liked Miyuki’s style of catching, even though your junior high’s team had lost phenomenally.

“I’m sure he won’t mind taking the train here . . .”

You clicked your tongue, flipping to the next page of your textbook. “Miyuki, you and I both know you can’t handle him for long periods of time. It’s literally impossible.”

He cracked a genuine smile. “Give him more credit.”

“No,” you refused stubbornly. Narumiya could be so condescending sometimes. The first time you’d met him, he hadn’t hesitated to throw an insult at you and worse, Miyuki hadn’t felt the need to defend you from it. That had been your first serious fight.

“Yes, Miyuki, I can defend myself, but I hardly knew him. Why couldn’t you step up for me? Just that once?”

“You’re making this a bigger deal than it actually is.”

“We’re friends, aren’t we? Friends defend each other, especially best friends, so what the hell?”

“If that’s all you’re going to talk about, I really don’t want to play with you, then.”

You had thick skin. You had to, being friends with Miyuki and all. And okay, fine, you were hurt when he had dismissed you so easily. Sure, maybe you were making this a bigger deal than it should’ve been, but nothing had quite hurt as much as it had when you learned that he’d went to catch for Narumiya after you had abandoned him. (Or rather after he’d abandoned you.)

Your older sister had been pissed to find you sniffling about it later on that day, vowing to kick his ass. You only barely managed to restrain her. Miyuki wouldn’t like someone else coming to speak or fight on your behalf. You both were mature enough to discuss it. Or so you hoped, anyway.

One week of no contact between you two had you almost caving and giving into him, but to your pleasant surprise, he approached you first. More specifically, he’d taken the painstaking time to jump the fence into your backyard and toss pebbles at your window until you finally opened it, almost taking a well-aimed pebble to the face in the process.

Of course, he didn’t outright apologize. Instead, he’d asked: “Can we play catch?”

“It’s two in the morning.”

“It is,” he agreed, then held up his glove and ball. “Please?”

You’d sighed, turning back into your room to change out of your sleeping clothes into something more suitable for going out in the muggy July night. It was easy to sneak out, your parents and siblings all fast sleep and immune to any quiet noises you might’ve made on the way out. Miyuki was waiting for you on the sidewalk in front of your house when you exited; you shut and locked the door quietly behind you.

Silently, you two began the trek to the park down the street. You found yourself tensing whenever a car would pass, ducking your head to hide your face. When the third one came round, you finally spoke. “What exactly am I breaking curfew for, Miyuki? My parents would kill me if we got taken home by a police officer.”

You lifted your head once the car was out of sight and turned to look at him. He had a pensive frown on his face. “I . . . I’m sorry.” He didn’t make eye contact with you. (In the present day, you distantly wondered if he’d been taller than you at the time, too. He had, but only by a few inches, not as tall as he’d been during the talk with the counselor.)

You were speechless. Miyuki Kazuya didn’t . . . apologize. Quite honestly, you were beginning to think you had made a bigger deal out of it than necessary. But perhaps that had been a trick on your own part, anything to try and talk with Miyuki like normal again. Up until now, you two had been close, though baseball was starting to take up a lot of his time and the medical club at school had begun helping third years find good high schools with medical curriculum programs so you were constantly staying after school.

He continued to avoid your eyes. “I should’ve defended you. You were right. Mei was being an ass and you don’t deserve that. Only I can be mean to you.”

The last part almost sounded like a defense mechanism, a way to stop this conversation from becoming too heavy. You appreciated it more than you thought you would.

You elbowed him in the ribs. “Is it physically impossible for you to say something nice?”

“Yes.” Miyuki nodded unabashedly. You scowled, but there was no heat behind it.

“Fine, I accept your apology. I’m sorry, too. I did kind of make a big deal.”

He shook his head, adamant now. “I was being a dick. You were right.” He looked at you, a little more meaningful. He elbowed you back. “Now, come on, I’ve been missing my favorite horrible pitcher.”

“Keep saying stuff like that and I won’t pitch for you.”

His laughter echoed off the houses, his eyes looking golden underneath the tawny glow of street lamps —

“— attention to me. Hey!”

Tan fingers snapped in front of your face, making you jump as you were abruptly brought back to the present. Right. Studying, an annoying Miyuki (as usual), the impending end of course exam for your English class. You regained your bearings, finding a frowning Miyuki in front of you. The furrow of his brow told you he was concerned.

“Sorry. Just got lost in thought for a little while,” you chuckled, a little embarrassed. Despite yourself, you noticed how the warm glow of the setting sun accented the golden flecks in his eyes, which were studying you seriously. You tried for a reassuring smile, but he clearly didn’t believe you.

He called out to your mother. “I’m going to be taking her out for a few! She’s been working hard!”

You gaped at him and barely managed to slip a bookmark into your textbook before he shut it and slid it underneath the counter. Your mother popped her head out of the kitchen, smiling in that perceptive way of hers.

“Of course, Kazuya. Be back by six. You’re more than welcome to stay for dinner and bring something to your father if he can’t make it.”

He grinned at her, in that charming sort of way he always did for your mother and older sister. “Yes, ma’am!”

You sighed, taking off the bakery apron and reaching for your own baseball cap. You both had gone to a SoftBank Hawks game for his twelfth birthday and bought matching caps for it. It was one of your favorite memories.

You didn’t truly care for baseball — definitely not like he did — but it made him happy, so you never really minded playing a good game with him.

By no means were you a legitimate pitcher, and as you two grew, you worried that your horrible pitching would hinder his performance since you didn’t provide a true challenge, but he had constantly said he liked playing with you for fun.

“Competitions are fun, too,” he’d agreed with your initial argument. “But I don’t have to be strategic or hard-working with you. It’s always been better with you.”

You weren’t sure you believed him, as you’d see the way his eyes lit up whenever he was out there on the field, hitting home runs, calling pitches (honestly, baseball was the perfect sport for him to show off his bossiness; you always pitied the pitchers assigned to him).

But, as you two walked to the park, you listening to him ramble about some baseball game, you figured he’d been playing catch with you this long, hadn’t he? That had to count for something.

Third year meant picking your high schools, pulling all-nights to study for entrance exams and most importantly, keeping up your grades — all the while dragging a reluctant Miyuki right behind you.

“What if you can’t get a scholarship? What if you do get one but it’s only for baseball? They’ll really be paying close attention to your grades then, you know,” you’d lectured him for the umpteenth time since the first semester began. “Having good studying habits won’t hurt you.”

“Yes, it will,” Miyuki grumbled petulantly from his spot next to you on your bed, laying down with his arm tossed over his face. You rolled your eyes, picking out a pencil to use for your assignment that you were about to do.

“You have no problem swinging three hundred times a day but when it comes to notes, what is it? You can’t read now?”

“I’m illiterate.”

You climbed over his legs to retrieve your notebook from your backpack on the floor, then threw it onto his stomach, making him jump at the sudden impact. You climbed back over to your spot against the wall. “Read those. I dumbed it down for you.”

“Thank you!”

You shook your head, grinning despite yourself. He was a real loser sometimes.

The two of you lapsed into a comfortable silence, punctuated by the sound of your little brother’s laughter from downstairs. He was probably watching one of his kid shows again. When the bakery began to get busier with the new school year, TV had become a fixation for him, a surefire way of keeping him in one place.

You unfolded your legs out from beneath you, resting them over Miyuki’s legs. He didn’t protest. Not that he ever did, really. Much to your pleasant surprise, Miyuki could be incredibly affectionate, always wanting to maintain physical contact with you. Whenever your class was taken on long field trips, his head always found your shoulder, though you knew it had to be uncomfortable for him because of the height differences between you two. He frequently draped an arm over your shoulders, if only to lean heavily on you and cause you to stumble — much to his amusement.

It was strange. He’d done those things often when you were kids, and they’d only increased in frequency as you’d gotten older, but . . . Why exactly were you noticing? Who cared? Miyuki sure as hell didn’t.

Maybe it was because sometimes, on those long field trips, when the hum of the engine, the feeling of his warm body next to yours put you to sleep in an instant, you’d wake up with the phantom warmth still lingering, finding yourself missing it. Or when you couldn’t help but notice the pleasant scent of something sweet and a little spicy whenever he’d lean on you and it’d be so overwhelming — his weight, the warmth, the scent — that your knees felt a little weak.

You pressed your mechanical pencil harder onto the page, finding your heart beating at what seemed like an unhealthy speed. That wasn’t good. Why was your heart doing this now? All you’d been thinking of was Miyuki.

“The heart should always be beating steadily. The only time it doesn’t is when you’re high on adrenaline, you’re exercising, or —”

“What about when you have a crush, Miss?” You couldn’t recall who had asked that, but it had probably been some annoying underclassmen. A few of the other kids present giggled while the upperclassmen rolled their eyes.

The nurse smiled indulgently. “Or if you like someone.”

“Have you thought about what high school you’re going to?” Miyuki’s voice brought you out of your internal strife. You almost breathed a sigh of relief, desperate for that distraction. You turned your attention back to your assignment since you’d neglected that, too. Then, you realized what he was asking.

“Not really.”

You had.

Miyuki hummed quietly. You could see him glancing at you in the corner of your eye.

You wrote down the answer to an equation. “You?” you asked.

“Sort of . . . I think I might head to Seido.”

You couldn’t say you were surprised. That guy — Chris, you’d learned his name was — had really gotten Miyuki going, a “potential rival” to keep him on his toes.

“Oh?” you asked, feigning surprise.

“Yeah. I got an offer from them. Full ride for academic and baseball.”

“Studying pays off, doesn’t it?”

“I can’t believe you don’t have a school in mind already,” he said, ignoring your jeer. He laid the notebook flat across his chest and turned his eyes up toward your ceiling. “What have you been doing in the medical club all this time?”

You snorted. “Helping the last third years get into good high schools. I don’t know, Miyuki, I just haven’t really thought about it that much.” Now, you were blatantly lying to him. Oh, you’d given high school a lot of thought. The idea of going somewhere far away — such as Hokkaido — detested you, and you knew Miyuki would love it if you’d go with him to Seido. In fact, any moment now —

“Why not Seido? They have a great academic program, you know. They’re always in the top ten national rankings every year for academics.” He was trying to be nonchalant about it, but you could hear — and understand — the message under his words. Let’s do this together.

Your grip on your pencil tightened. The idea of being away from him was painful.

But was that the best idea?

You managed to stave off his questions, only promising to tell him your choices when you managed to find a few good schools. He left after dinner, taking a plate for his own father and your notebook, promising to read them. (You didn’t believe him.)

When you went back up to your room, you went over to your dresser, pulling open the bottom drawer. It was the one with undergarments — one that Miyuki would never touch since he knew what was where. You brushed aside the articles of clothing and took out the thick envelope.

Mimayama School for Medicine and Science

It was in Kyoto, a huge campus that spanned an entire block and was the height of a skyscraper. It was a well-renowned school, one that had perfect statistics and scores in all subjects. The ideal high school. But it didn’t have a baseball program. Not to mention that there was a three-hour train ride from here to Kyoto.

Your grip on the envelope tightened, denting the thick cardstock. The fact that you’d been invited there was something to celebrate, but you hadn’t told your parents, having managed to steal the envelope before they could see it.

Maybe you would’ve celebrated if you lived a different life. One where Miyuki wasn’t there.

You felt guilty for thinking like that, but your sister’s words echoed in your head.

“Don’t allow feelings to influence important life decisions. Don’t think about those sorts of things. You don’t need them.”

You’d been a first year when she’d said that to you, strangely enough. It’d been the same thing you’d repeated to your counselor during that horrible conversation about puberty. And you’d firmly believed it, though there was one exception.

Don’t let others influence your feelings. Except Miyuki.

He was your best friend, after all. You’d be cruel to not feel anything.

What were you going to do, then?

Your answer seemed to come sooner or later. More specifically, the day Miyuki got into a fight.

It had been a cool October day, baseball season already over for Miyuki so he had no choice but to hang around the campus after school while you went to your regular club meetings.

The meeting had been adjourned earlier than usual so Miyuki wasn’t leaning against the wall like he usually would. The last text he’d sent you said that he was in the library, so you began walking over there. As you neared the doors, you passed a few girls, talking rapidly to each other.

“. . . fight. That’s so weird, I’ve never seen him lose his temper.”

“I know! He’s almost always antagonizing someone else, I can’t believe Tanaka was able to get Miyuki so riled up.”

You froze and turned to them, recognizing them as a few fellow classmates.

“Wait, what happened?” You stepped toward them, drawing their attention. They became fidgety and sheepish under your eyes, avoiding eye contact.

“Um . . . Miyuki got into a fight with Tanaka a few minutes ago outside the library.”

What?

Miyuki didn’t fight. He couldn’t fight. Well, no, you were sure he had a few good moves on him, especially since baseball kept him in prime shape and there were his unfortunate experiences with his more violent seniors on the team but they were long gone. Since he was a third year now (and considerably taller and more muscled), no one would dare to mess with him. Especially because he’d proved his worth on the field, that he had a right to say the things he did. It’s just that you knew he hated being at the tail-end of those confrontations. Having to take the hits, while refusing to say anything to any of the adults because they wouldn’t do anything. The violence of it. Violence has no place in baseball, he’d once said. Anything someone needs to say can be done on the field.

More than that — he couldn’t fight without risking expulsion. It would look horrible on his record and — he wouldn’t be able to go to Seido.

“Why?” you recovered quickly, not caring that you were being demanding now, probably too harsh if anything.

“We don’t know . . . We just heard it from some other kids.”

“Where is Miyuki now?” He probably wouldn’t answer your texts. If anything, it’d be exactly like him to hide this from you.

The girls shared glances again. “Um, I think he went to the boy's bathroom by 3-B.”

“Thanks,” you told them shortly, then turning on your heel and heading towards the hallway for third years. You made the decision to not retrieve your first aid kit. You’d lead him back to your house instead. He didn’t need to be around the school with visible injuries.

Once you were at the boy’s bathroom, you hesitated. What were you supposed to do? Could you go in there? Would he allow you to even see him? Maybe you could wait. He had to come out eventually.

You leaned against the lockers next to the wall, wondering what on earth happened. Even disregarding his dislike of violence and the huge risk that comes with fighting, like those girls had said, he wasn’t someone who got riled up easily. He was the one riling people up. But the fact that it’d been Tanaka made some sense; Ichiro Tanaka was the asshole in your class, always finding someone to pick on, always making unwanted advances on girls.

Miyuki may be an asshole in the sense that he could pick you apart and annoy you to death, but he had honor. (Plus, he’d never shown any interest in any girls or boys in your class ever.)

You rubbed your forehead tiredly, pulling out your phone to text your mother that you might be home earlier than usual. Just as you’d sent off the text, the door to the boy’s bathroom opened and Miyuki stepped out, his backpack slung over his shoulder, still not noticing your presence until you’d reached out to tap his shoulder.

You could see him tense, muscles stiffening. He was hesitant to turn around and you were about to call him out on it, but he turned before you could say. Your eyes widened as you took stock of his injuries.

“Are you okay?” you gasped, any thought of scolding him thrown out the window at seeing the busted lip, the cut on his temple, and the blossoming bruise on his cheek. A quick glance at his hands showed you the cuts on his knuckles, though they were only on his left hand. You knew he caught and threw with his right. At least he’d had that foresight. “What happened?”

He avoided your eyes. “I may have gotten into a fight with Tanaka.”

You huffed, glad to see he was acting normally. Well, as normal as Miyuki could ever be.

“No shit. I know that part already — though I don’t know why — but what did Tanaka do to you?” There was the underlying question in your words, one you wouldn’t outright say because it would probably appease him. Did you win?

Miyuki picked up on it anyway, smirking but then wincing at the pain he was probably feeling on his lip. “I won.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. “You — I can’t believe you. Come on, let’s do this at my house. We don’t need someone seeing you.” You two began walking towards the exit. You shot him a worried glance. You couldn’t imagine the potential repercussions this could entail. You didn’t want Miyuki to be stuck here. You wanted him to leave, to go to Seido and become the best damn catcher to play high school baseball.

As if sensing your thoughts, he spoke. “No one’s going to say anything. Tanaka’s looking for a volleyball scholarship at some school in Hokkaido and his lackeys have their own scholarships they need to worry about, too. It was an unspoken agreement.”

You sighed heavily. “I don’t want you to throw away your chances at a good baseball career, Miyuki. Especially not over a fight, which, speaking of, is very unlike you. So, regardless of that . . . what on earth happened?”

He stayed silent. You pursed your lips and led him to your house. It was easy to sneak past the bakery, where your parents and older sister would be preoccupied with the dinner time rush. The house would be empty, too, since your little brother was over at a friend’s house for a playdate.

You ushered him up to the bathroom on the second floor, dropping your bags off in your room beforehand. You shut the door behind you and locked it for good measure, then opened up the window to let some fresh air in. Miyuki was still silent, appearing introspective. For once, you were unable to find out what he was thinking.

You made him wash his face and hands first, taking his glasses and setting them on the counter behind you so they wouldn’t get wet. Once he was finished and resituated on the closed toilet seat, you began tending to his wounds, first going back downstairs to grab an icepack and wrapping it in a towel so it wouldn’t be too abrasive against his face. You worked on disinfecting the cuts on his knuckles, which weren’t too bad. You had one hand cupping his, the back of his hand facing up as your fingers pressed against his palm to spread out his hand.

He grimaced at the burn of the hydrogen peroxide but didn’t say anything. When you moved to wrap up his knuckles, you closed your hand around his fingers, trying not to focus on how the calluses rubbed against your skin. You moved on to the gash on his temple, murmuring a soft “sorry” when he winced from the burn. He had to keep his glasses off, but his eyes were on the floor.

You’d been applying an ointment to the cut when he spoke again. “Tanaka said something . . . Something I’m not repeating.” You paused, your eyes briefly flickering to his bandaged hand in his lap that clenched into a fist. “I couldn’t let it slide. I know . . . you know how I feel about fighting but . . . it was about you. And I’m not going to let him, of all people, talk about you like that.”

He sat up straighter, his eyes meeting yours. You froze, golden irises searing into you in a way that made your heart race. The lack of glasses made it all the more intense, your stomach doing flips in nervousness.

“Miyuki . . .” you muttered, feeling your face heat up. “I —”

“Don’t say you don’t want me fighting because of you. I did it because you’re my best friend and no one gets to speak about you that way. No one.”

Miyuki was passionate about baseball. About his cooking. About the SoftBank Hawks. But never about you. Yet, here he was, speaking so strongly that you felt a little weak at this display of anger and . . . touched.

You pursed your lips, breaking eye contact with him to turn to the sink and take out a bandaid to put over the cut. You carefully covered the wound then took out another disinfectant wipe to use for his lip. You actually hesitated before you started your work, but it had to be done.

You brushed his chin with the back of your hand, avoiding grabbing it. He turned his head up with no qualms, but his eyes stayed on your face. You attempted to disinfect the cut on his bottom lip, but it proved to be more difficult than you thought. It could also be because your heart was racing and your face was itchy with heat. You swore silently and grabbed his chin with your hand to better clean.

You hated this. Here you were, close to his face, staring at his lips as you cleaned them. At least you had an excuse to stare, though.

You caught your train of thought and almost swore out loud. Where was that even coming from? When had you begun thinking of him like that? Yeah, Miyuki was good-looking, almost unbelievably so, but it wasn’t anything new. So why now?

You realized far too late that you’d stopped moving the wipe on his lip, the white cloth blossoming red from the blood still leaking. He winced from your grip and you wrenched your hand back, uttering a soft “sorry” again. You turned back to the sink to grab the ointment, only squeezing out a small amount so that it wouldn’t be noticeable.

With shaking hands, you pressed your fingers to his jaw to angle his face once again, concentrating on anything but the feeling of his smooth skin underneath your fingers. You spread the ointment over the cut, trying your best to be gentle but also ensuring that it wasn’t showing.

In a desperate attempt to distract yourself and to break hold from the heavy atmosphere you’d found yourself in, you lifted your head to look at him again, but before you could even think to speak, the look in his eyes made you stop. Your brain short-circuited at the look he was giving you, whether it was on purpose or not, you didn’t know. You stood there frozen, still invading his personal space for the most part.

For a moment, it felt like time had stopped. His eyes looked warm underneath the light coming in from the window, casting shadows over the curve of his nose, making him look so much more older and — and handsome.

Then, like a warning siren, your sister’s voice echoed in your head.

“Don’t let feelings cloud your judgment.”

You sighed shortly, the loud noise shattering the moment. “Honestly, Miyuki.” You shook your head, turning around to toss the q-tip into the trash along with the other used supplies. You heard him make a surprised noise at your sudden movements.

You picked up his glasses off the counter and handed them back over then took a few steps back, leaning against the wall opposite to him, putting a respectable amount of distance between you two.

“I appreciate what you did,” you said, managing to keep the shakiness out of your voice. He’d put on his glasses again, his eyes now impossible to read. “But, god, I don’t want you to not be able to go to Seido . . . That is where you decided to go, right?”

He shrugged. “Probably. Don’t worry. I mean, I don’t regret what I did. Not at all. But I do understand what you’re saying and I’m not planning to make this a regular thing.”

You scowled, feeling the atmosphere around you lighten up. “I sure hope not. You don’t need to be batting with cut up knuckles like that, you dummy.”

“I know,” he said quietly, before trying for a smirk, though it came out more like a pained grimace. “Besides, you’re here to fix me up, aren’t you?”

You huffed, turning your nose up at him. “You’re so annoying, Miyuki.”

“Thanks.”

“Shut up.”

But even as he began talking about the studying he’d managed to accomplish before he’d left the library and ended up face to face with Tanaka, you thought about your plans for high school. These feelings . . . Whatever they were, they weren’t needed. Not right now. Not right before you two were picking out your high schools. You couldn’t allow them to cloud your judgment.

At the same time, though, going to Seido with him . . . That seemed amazing. Another three more years seeing him, going through all the high school experiences, cheering him on at baseball games, it was all too dangerous. Far too dangerous.

It was dangerous because here you were, at risk of feeling something more than platonic feelings for a boy you’d known since you were eight, where you already know your feelings will never be returned.

First semester of your third year wrapped up quickly after that. With the start of your second semester, you received many offers from different schools all over the country. Your parents and sister were proud.

“That’s our girl,” your father had grinned, reaching out to ruffle your hair, much to your displeasure.

“Hey, make sure you choose a good school,” your sister said, giving you a severe look. You fixed your hair, not meeting her eyes.

“Wherever you want to go, honey, we’ll support you.” There was a heaviness in your mother’s tone, as though she didn’t want you to go far. You’d gotten an offer from the high school in this area, but you weren’t satisfied with the curriculum. Staying here would mean ending up like your sister (no offense to her, of course, since she was happy). You wanted out of Old Town Tokyo.

Miyuki had gotten a lot of offers, too. Schools everywhere wanted him as their catcher. The powerhouse schools, like Inashiro, Teito, Seido (of course), even several schools from Hokkaido. It wouldn’t be hard for him to make it as a pro. You were proud.

But he was set on Seido, and he was pressing you for your own decision, too.

“I have to start planning. It’s going to be busy when we start up,” he’d told you, trying to convince you to spill which schools had sent you offers.

“I’m still thinking,” you’d lied. “But if you really want to know, I’ve gotten one from Sakurazawa High.”

“Oh, I know them. They’ve lost in the first round of the West tournament for like, twenty consecutive years.”

You shot him a glare. “Is that all that matters?”

He chuckled, holding up his hands in a sign of surrender. “They have great academics, don’t they? But, you know . . . I’m fairly sure that Seido is equal in terms of national academic ranking . . .”

That was another thing. You knew Miyuki wouldn’t ever hold you back, just like you wouldn’t hold him back. It felt like some sort of crime to ever try and stop him from pursuing his interest in baseball and vice versa for him and your desire to be a doctor. But you knew, just like he did, that Seido was a powerhouse school in both academics and athletics. Going there wouldn’t hinder your performance nor his. Not to mention, you two would be together, right?

Except, it sounded horrible. The past few months had been stressful, because not only did you have to deal with the looks your mother was giving you about choosing a school way outside of Old Town Tokyo, but you also had to stave off the counselors who wanted your decision, along with Miyuki. Then there were your feelings for him. You weren’t sure what they were, but you knew they weren’t good. They were the type of feelings to inhibit you.

You couldn’t be a good friend to Miyuki if all you were thinking about is how much you wanted to hold his hand and have him tuck you under his arm like so many other couples did. If all you thought about was how happy he looked whenever he was talking about baseball or talking about Seido and competing for starting catcher. If all you thought about was how pretty his eyes were and how handsome he looked whenever he genuinely smiled.

You weren’t being a good friend. And you needed to fix that.

That night, you mailed the application to Mimayama. Two days later, you received your acceptance letter.

“Mimayama? That’s so cool!”

“Wow! You’re serious about being a doctor, aren’t you?”

It had meant to be a secret. You’d only wanted your family to know and no one else. You’d tell Miyuki when you had to. Preferably right before he left to Seido, or maybe when he was there already. Clearly, that had been too tall of an order.

You’d notified your counselors of your acceptance and subsequent admittance into Mimayama, much to their happiness. Apparently, no such thing as student-to-administrator confidentiality existed because your homeroom teacher found out immediately and after publicly congratulating you, a group of girls had approached you, gushing over your acceptance.

Luckily, not many people had been there yet, though a few of your other classmates had eyed you curiously. Miyuki was running late, something or another about sleeping in. You didn’t know — didn’t care, since that meant you had time to do damage control.

“Listen,” you began, trying to look as serious as possible. The girls leaned in eagerly. “Keep it to yourselves, alright? Don’t tell Miyuki or anyone else. I don’t want to start unnecessary rumors. It’d be horrible if people thought I was boasting about it.”

They nodded, agreeing immediately. “Of course! But why not tell Miyuki?”

They were looking harder at you now, more analytical, more perceptive. It reminded you too much of your mother and sister. You came up with a quick lie.

“It’s a surprise for him. I’ll be telling him later on. We’re going to different schools —” those words left a bitter taste in your mouth and a numb ache in your heart “— so I’m trying to prepare, you know?”

They soaked it up. Of course they did. Miyuki was popular with girls and they’d always wondered about your friendship with him. Saying all this to them was probably enough gossip to last for the rest of the year.

“Totally! We’ll be quiet, promise!”

You smiled at them, glancing over at the door just as Miyuki stepped into the room, looking like a total mess. The girls turned back around and began whispering to each other, sending occasional glances towards him then to you.

You ignored them in favor of watching him shuffle over to the desk in front of yours. He collapsed dramatically into his seat, laying on top of your desk instead of his own. You raised an eyebrow.

“Are you done?”

“I’m tired,” he muttered. “Exhausted.”

Now a little concerned because a tired Miyuki wasn’t a good thing (though he was absolutely adorable), you leaned forward. “Is everything okay? Did something happen?”

He lifted his head and you clicked your tongue at the circles underneath his eyes. His hair was messier than usual, leaving you to contemplate whether or not he’d actually brushed it. “I was finishing the application to Seido. Mailed it off this morning.”

“When was the deadline?”

“Tomorrow.”

You rubbed your forehead, exasperated. “Miyuki . . . You’re so lucky you don’t have baseball anymore.”

“Not until next year.” He yawned and you tried your best to not think that he looked so adorable all sleepy and tired. This was a bad thing. He needed his sleep. “It was worth it. Hey, Mei wants to talk to me today after school. D’you want to come along?”

You pursed your lips. Well, you still weren’t fond of Narumiya, even after he’d begrudgingly apologized to you. He was Miyuki’s friend — sort of — and you’d wanted to lead Miyuki straight to his house so he could take a nap after school. This would just have to be done before, then. “Sure, but after, we’re going back to your house and you’re taking a nap.”

He grinned lazily at you. “Thanks.”

You turned away, ignoring the burn in your cheeks. “Whatever. Try not to fall asleep in class.”

He did end up falling asleep. And of course, you covered for him despite your earlier words. You had to wonder. If these feelings weren’t there, would you have done it? You glanced at him from the corner of your eye as you two made your way to the park. (After school, you’d dropped off your bags at his house since his was closet and began towards the place that Narumiya wanted to meet up at.) He yawned again, something he’d been doing frequently today, and you decided yes, no matter your feelings, you would gladly take cover for him.

Maybe that was where the problem had started.

Miyuki had always been the best in baseball, striving to work hard and prove himself, calling for aggressive plays and focusing even if something hadn’t gone his way. Despite his tendency to laziness when it came to exams and such, he was a diligent student.

In some ways, you wanted to be like him. Charismatic and charming when it counted, quick-thinking in difficult situations. After all, that was how doctors needed to be, right? They needed to be decisive, no hesitancy in their movements. You had someone’s life laid willingly into your hands and you couldn’t disappoint.

Had this admiration planted the seeds for your feelings?

You didn’t know and you didn’t have time to think it over as you came to the park. You fell a little behind as you realized there were other boys present, all from different leagues, though you knew they were part of Narumiya’s friend group. If Miyuki noticed you partially hiding, he didn’t say anything about it.

“Well, well, what’s with the gathering of the all-stars?” he asked, announcing his presence to them, in that conniving way of his. The boys turned to him, a few curious eyes glancing over to you, but you resolutely stood silent with your arms crossed, not offering your name. Thankfully, Miyuki didn’t offer to introduce you either.

He began listing off their names and leagues (you wondered briefly how he knew that, but of course, if it was baseball, it was important). When he finished, hands still casually in his pockets, he turned to Narumiya. “Did you call them all here, Mei?”

Mei grinned. “Yeah. And you, Kazuya. If you come with me, I can form my ultimate team.”

You raised your eyebrows. Well, you were surprised at this turn of events, but it wasn’t exactly far from something Narumiya would do. Miyuki laughed, sounding surprised as well.

“I don’t really care if you’re not the catcher, but Narumiya wants you,” the one named Shirakawa said, probably trying to help Narumiya convince Miyuki but it just sounded like he was bored and would rather be somewhere else.

“Inashiro invited you, too. Right, Kazuya?”

It was strange. You’d never been the possessive or jealous type. Miyuki had his fangirls — of course — but he’d never paid attention to them. Hearing Narumiya call Miyuki by his first name made you tense. Miyuki, you could understand — he called everyone by their first name, whether it was welcomed or not and you’d been calling him by his last name for as long as you could remember, more by habit now rather than respect. He’d never asked you to call him by his first name, either, so that’s the way it’d always been.

But here was the ever-so-condescending Narumiya Mei, speaking so casually with your best friend. It made you uncomfortable, but you pushed that away. This wasn’t the time nor place.

“So, why don’t we make the ultimate team together? If we all get on the same team, we could take nationals.” That was what this was about then. Barring your brief discomfort at hearing Narumiya call Miyuki by his first name, you felt a little proud that even such a self-centered pitcher like Narumiya and the others knew how valuable of a catcher that Miyuki was.

“Inashiro’s coach has a lot of experience under his belt and they have the best equipment in Tokyo. It’s a great environment, too,” Kamiya added.

“Not to mention, you won’t have to play against Narumiya. You’re in, too. Right, Miyuki Kazuya?” Shirakawa, as much as you hated to admit it, had a point. You’d seen Narumiya pitch. He was head and shoulders above a lot of the pitchers in your year. That was probably why he was so arrogant. But the guys made it sound like Miyuki would actually be averse to going head-to-head with Narumiya, when in fact —

“I’m sorry, but I already got an invite from Seido a while ago. I can’t join you guys.” His hand came up to his neck, a sign that showed he was a little uncomfortable being cornered by so many.

“What? Are you being serious right now?”

Narumiya stood up from his crouch. “Seido, huh? They’ve only gone to nationals once since their old coach quit. Compared to what Coach Kunitomo has achieved, Coach Kataoka is just way too green.”

You shifted on your feet, turning your eyes back to Miyuki. He scratched his neck in a shifty movement. It was coming any moment now. “Well, it’s not really about that,” he began. “Inashiro’s a team with a bunch of all-stars like you guys, right? So . . . I want to face you as an opponent.”

Of course. While the others were visibly shocked, you bit back a small smile. You’d seen it coming from a mile away. Sure, Narumiya could probably prepare a team to take nationals on with Miyuki and his other friends, but Miyuki wasn’t like that. He didn’t want the easy out. He wanted to work for it. You recalled his words from first year, after his loss against that second year catcher, Chris.

“How else am I supposed to be the best?” How else, indeed. There would be no better way than to face Inashiro than on a different team, still at a powerhouse school with a competent team where Miyuki would fit right in.

“Are you stupid?”

“Oh, you’re too kind.”

“It’s not a compliment!”

“Kazuya.” Narumiya didn’t look too surprised. Well, you could give him props for trying. “I’m gonna ask you one last time —” and for being so annoyingly persistent as well.

“Sorry. No.” Miyuki didn’t sound too apologetic.

Narumiya looked a bit irritated and his eyes shifted to you. “You’ll regret it, Kazuya. Is it because of her?” He calls you out, by your first name. “Are you going to Seido as well?”

You glared at him. “I don’t remember giving you permission to call me by my first name, Narumiya. And let it go.”

Shirakawa and Kamiya snorted as an affronted look passed over Narumiya’s face. “Hey, you’re always so mean to me —”

You turned your nose up, ignoring him. He didn’t know when to quit.

Most likely in an attempt to defuse the situation, Miyuki took a step back and said his goodbyes, then turned around and guided you away from the park.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” he confessed when you two were a reasonable distance away from the park, well on your way back to your own neighborhood. “But it was a very Mei thing of him to try.”

“Exactly what I thought,” you agreed. “He is right, too, you know. You’d probably be able to take on nationals without any problems.” Miyuki opened his mouth to protest but you elbowed him in the ribs, continuing with a small smile. “But I know. Challenger. I get it. It’s a surprisingly level-headed decision coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” You coughed to hide your snickers at the look on his face.

His house was empty as usual, his father most likely next door in the factory working on whatever project that needed to meet its deadline soon. You’d never asked about Miyuki’s mother, but you never had to. You’d seen the picture frame of a handsome, younger Toku Miyuki and a beautiful women standing next to him, a small bundle in her arms, standing in front of the factory. It didn’t take a genius to know that his mother had probably passed when he was younger.

Upon the entrance to his room, you went to his drawer where some casual clothes of yours were kept — purely for practical reasons since he had his own clothes in your dresser, too, along with many sweaters you’d kept. When you came back from the bathroom, he was already sprawled out on his bed, changed into comfortable clothing.

You went to take a seat in his desk chair, but his tired voice stopped you. “Hey, what are you doing? Come here.”

Your heart skipped a beat in your chest. You two had slept in the same bed when you were kids every now and then, but it had stopped when you’d gotten older. Well, you had gotten more aware of it every time you had shared a bed — of him right next to you. Evidently, he’d never cared because he had no problem taking a nap whenever he crashed your room.

You climbed over him so you were next to the wall. His bed wasn’t big, only a full-size, so it was enough for you two but no more than that. He stretched, yawning quietly. You hesitantly laid down next to him, facing him with a reasonable amount of space between you two. He turned to face you, blinking sleepily as his face was pressed into the pillow, probably putting the edges of his glasses into his face uncomfortably.

“You’re gonna break your glasses,” you muttered disapprovingly, reaching out to pluck them off his face. He squinted, readjusting to the absence of his glasses as you leaned over him to place them on the nightstand. You made sure that you didn’t touch his body as you did so.

He hummed quietly, drawing up the blanket to his waist. You abstained from it. He radiated enough body heat on his own, plus your internal temperatures were always high when you were in close proximity with him.

“You never said.”

His sleepy voice brought you out of your thoughts. Miyuki was clearly having a hard time staying awake, so you indulged him. “Said what?”

“Where you’re going. When we saw Mei. You didn’t deny it, but you’re not going there, are you?” His eyelids fluttered and you found yourself enraptured with the way his eyelashes just barely ghosted his cheeks. “I’m not going to be mad if you don’t, if that’s what you think.”

You tensed. He scooted closer to you. “I . . . Well, Seido’s a great school, Miyuki.”

His eyebrows furrowed, his eyes finally shutting, but he didn’t drift off. “You’re confusing.”

“What . . .?”

“I don’t want to hold you back from a good school. That’s what you deserve, especially for putting up with me this long —” your heart broke just a little at that admission. Did he think he was a burden to you? “— so I won’t be mad. Just tell me where you’re going.”

“I . . .” I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you why. I’m leaving, not because it’s a good school, but because I need to leave you. I can’t be around you. If I tell you now, I just might back out and go somewhere near you. “I’m still weighing my options, to be truthful.”

He hummed again, a sign he was still listening, so you pushed on. “I got an invitation from Oya, too, in East Tokyo. They’re a public school and they have a good academic program. If I remember correctly, they went to Nationals five years ago.”

“Not bad,” he mumbled. “Make a decision soon, though. I take it that means you’re not going to Seido, then?”

You were surprised that he was still managing to make logical conclusions despite being on the verge of unconsciousness. “Yeah, probably not. It would’ve been great to be with you, though,” you lied. It wouldn’t have been great. You would’ve suffered from your unrequited feelings, having to see him make it big in high school baseball, watching the entire nation fall in love with him.

He nodded, eyes still shut. “That’s okay. Just tell me where you’re going soon, okay.”

“I will.” Another lie. You were on a roll today, weren’t you?

He drifted off after that. You knew when he’d fallen asleep because you could feel the bed dip as he became dead weight, utterly relaxed, his breathing deep and steady. Your eyes roamed his face as you become more relaxed, finding comfort in being so close to him.

That fight had left an unnoticeable scar on his temple, usually hidden by his glasses, then the cut on his lip had healed up finely so there was no trace of it — at that point, your eyes lingered too long on his lips — and the cuts on his knuckles weren’t that noticeable either, probably something he could blame on his gloves.

Your heart stuttered in your chest as he shifted even closer to you. You had nowhere to go, your back pressed against his wall. You sighed quietly, shutting your own eyes to take a nap of your own. Whatever. These last few months were ones you had to treasure because the likelihood that you’d see him during high school was little to none. Really, the chances of him wanting to see you would probably make it even lower.

You fell asleep, weighed down by your decisions and restless for what the future might hold for your friendship with Miyuki.

(Those thoughts really didn’t bother you when you woke up lying on his chest and he had his arms wrapped tightly around your shoulders. You were mortified, though.)

Graduation from your junior high had come and gone with no problems. You were in the top ten, sitting comfortably as number two while Miyuki sat as number ten; you weren’t surprised by his rank, by any means.

You’d avoided packing your own things, too. You would need to be in Kyoto by April 10th. They started the school year much later, for whatever reason, but it just meant that you’d be seeing Miyuki go off on March 28th, three days before the first day of school. And you’d managed to avoid telling him your final decision.

It all seemed to be catching up because the walk to the station was filled with an uncomfortable silence. Miyuki had said his goodbyes to his father and your family, your little brother strangely sad at the disappearance of his “Miyu.” (A nickname that had you rolling in laughter when he’d come up with it and always managed to make Miyuki’s face turn red.)

His train would be leaving in ten minutes. You both sat down on the bench at his platform.

“So,” Miyuki prompted. “Which is it?”

When you looked at him, his eyes were hard. He was irritated. Rightly so. You’d been dancing around your own leave for several months now and here he was, about to leave to Seido and he still didn’t know. You’d briefly contemplated allowing him to stay mad at you. Let him blow up. Perhaps it would give you the shock you needed. But he didn’t deserve that.

You sighed softly, guilt eating away at your insides. “Mimayama.”

You felt him tense up beside you as he made a strangled noise. “In Kyoto?”

You nodded, turning your eyes to the ground. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds and you clenched your hands into fists, ducking your head lower.

“That’s a good school.” His voice was leveled, cool and indifferent. Somehow, it hurt more than having to hear anger. “They’d be stupid not to accept you.”

You hummed softly.

He sighed shortly. “I don’t — what the hell? Why did you . . . What did you even gain from that?”

There it was. You turned back to look at him, then balked at the hurt on his face. “I . . . didn’t want to worry you.”

“You worried me more by not telling me,” he replied shortly. “That’s so far away.” Are you going to be okay?

That was more than you deserved. You’d been such a shitty friend for the past two years. Here he was, still trying to be a good friend.

You tried for a smile. “It’s not Hokkaido or anything, Miyuki. I’ll be fine. And I’m sorry . . . I just — I didn’t know. I don’t know.”

He stared at you. You met his eyes head on. You had to show him that you’d be fine. This was what you needed. You had the reckless urge to transfer back to a school here in Tokyo, if only to be close to him, but it was muted. Doing this was for the best of your friendship.

“I’m still mad.” Understandable. “And I’m leaving now. Baseball starts up immediately so I won’t have time to talk to you, especially since you’ll probably be busy with school, too. Solving this won’t be as easy as it was when we still lived here, you know.”

Would it even be solved?

“We’ll figure out a way,” you said, despite yourself. Something had changed. Your distance in your friendship had been noticeable. A child could notice. Whether it had been conscious or unconscious was up to debate. Evidently, though, it had hurt Miyuki and that was the last thing you wanted.

. . . Right?

You were moving all the way to Kyoto for the sole purpose of burying those feelings for him. Focusing on school. Rebuilding . . . Rebuilding your friendship. Right, that’d been a priority, too. But could it be done? You’d messed up.

“Well, let’s not spend our last few minutes together arguing or mad at each other.” Miyuki’s voice brought you out of your thoughts. He stood up, holding out a hand for you. You accepted, trying to imprint the feeling of his calluses and the way his palm felt against yours into your mind.

He wouldn’t give up on your friendship, though, would he?

The train pulled in, the draft carrying stray pieces of your hair, hydraulics hissing loudly as it eased to a stop. You were stunned as Miyuki pulled you in for a hug. It was tight, almost painful, but he was so warm and that sweet and spicy scent was overwhelming you in the best possible way that you couldn’t help but hug him back just as tightly.

“Don’t forget about me over there,” he murmured into your ear, warm breath tickling your sensitive skin. You suppressed a shiver.

“I-I won’t.”

He stepped away, sighing softly as the doors unlocked and popped open for the cabin in front of you. He picked up his bag. “I’ll see you later. We’ll talk.”

You nodded. He hesitated to leave, a strange look passing over his face as he fought with himself over something, but then it was gone just as quickly as it had come. He turned away and there was something foreboding about seeing him walk away from you. A cold feeling blooming in the pit of your stomach.

This wouldn’t be the last of him. You’d go to school in Kyoto, get over your feelings and rekindle your friendship with him. Things would get better. They would.

They had to.

Interlude: start

Miyuki wasn’t sure what was going on.

You’d been distant for the last few months, clearly having something on your mind and he’d waited patiently for you to come to him. But you never did.

Instead you sent him off, finally telling him where you were going. To the Kyoto Prefecture, of all places. Was he mad? Yes, and he sort of had a right to be.

He had to wonder. Had all those times he’d pestered you for your answer, had you lied to him? Applying to Mimayama and getting accepted wasn’t a last minute choice. Prestigious schools like that always had application deadlines earlier than other private and public high schools.

So, why hadn’t you told him?

It was something that plagued him for the entire train ride to Kokubunji, even when he made it to Seido High and received his dorm number.

Had you . . . figured it out?

He’d tried his best to hide his feelings and he felt that he’d been largely successful. You’d acted normally as you would and this felt like too much of a secret for you to hide if you knew. You weren’t one to hide what you were thinking, especially when it came to him. But falling in love with your best friend wasn’t normal, was it?

He couldn’t help himself. He’d never say it, but you’d stood beside him for the past six years, you were always so supportive, so patient even when he didn’t deserve it. So how could you even possibly begin to feel the same way? He wouldn’t openly admit this either, but he had more flaws than he had strengths.

Sure, he was . . . conventionally attractive and he was great at catching, but what else was there? It wasn’t like he’d be the type of guy to shower you with gifts or anything. Compared to so many other people, he wasn’t good enough.

He sighed heavily, continuing to unpack his things. His roommates were two third years but they were out, probably practicing. For once in Miyuki’s entire life, he didn’t feel the urge to practice.

Despite himself, despite wanting to give you the benefit of doubt, he wondered, had you attended Mimayama in an attempt to run away? From him?

Immediately, he felt guilty for thinking that way. Mimayama was an excellent school within itself, one you’d thrive in. He couldn’t be so selfish to assume that you’d gone there just to avoid him. You were trying to get a good curriculum. He was trying to get better in baseball. You both had your own agendas.

It wouldn’t be like you to allow your feelings to influence your decisions. Especially when it came to such an important decision.

His previous question came up again. Why wouldn’t you tell him? Were you scared he’d be mad? Or were you trying to protect yourself from something else? Did you think he’d try to convince you to stay?

His frown deepened. Well, that was a good question. Kyoto was so far away . . . If you’d stayed in Tokyo, it would’ve been easier to see you but now that you’d be all the way in Kyoto, the chances of seeing you were slim to none. You’d probably only see each other during winter break.

Regardless of that, though, he was sure he wouldn’t have tried to stop you.

Did a small (or very large if he was truthful) part of him want you to go to Seido with him? Yeah, but things don’t always work out. Friends don’t always get to stay together. Apparently, you had realized that sooner than he did and taken advantage of it.

But your reluctance to tell him was what had gotten on his nerves. He deserved an answer from you. (Right?) One that hadn’t been last minute, one where you two could discuss it. One where he could begin to make plans to see you, arrange methods to talk during the school year. But here he was, sitting on the barren side of the dorm with no real plans to see you again until December, irritated at you.

Until he had a proper answer from you on why you’d done it (because he deserved that too), he’d give you the space you needed to sort out your thoughts.

Besides, come April 10th, there would be three hundred miles between you two. Space would come easily.

Interlude: end

Things seemed to be fine for the first few months. You and Miyuki kept up moderate contact, calling and texting when you were able. There would be odd bouts of absence on his part, something he’d blamed on baseball practice and you could understand. As far as you knew, Miyuki had been able to secure the position as starting catcher with little to no problems. The way he felt about it was a different story.

“Chris . . . He injured his shoulder. He was removed from first string. I took his place.”

You pursed your lips. “That stinks. I’m sorry, Miyuki.”

Going to Seido to get that spot as starting catcher had been Miyuki’s main goal. And he’d already achieved it within three months of being there.

You knew he’d wanted to go toe-to-toe with Chris to properly fight over the spot. It probably didn’t feel too good to have it conceded to you.

“Starting catcher is starting catcher, I guess. There’s nothing I can do about it. Just have to get to Nationals and win.”

“You can do it,” you said, putting as much encouragement into your words as possible. You absently read over your textbook, waiting for his reply.

“So . . . You must have come up with a good reason for not telling me about going to Mimayama, right?”

Surprised, you dropped your pencil, his words catching you off guard. You hadn’t necessarily forgotten about his promise to figure things out between you and you were fully prepared to apologize, but explaining why was an entirely different ordeal.

You had been silent for too long, because he sighed shortly on the other line. “Come on. Did you think I’d be mad? That I’d try to stop you?”

You tried to think, tried to formulate an adequate answer. Would lying save you? Could you continue on in your friendship after lying to him about it?

“I just . . .” You were at a loss for words. You hadn’t expected him to bring this up. But of course, in classic Miyuki fashion, he would want to catch you off guard. Make sure that you wouldn’t be able to lie. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” he scoffed. “It’s not that hard.”

You bristled. “Well, damn Miyuki, you said you wouldn’t have gotten mad and maybe you wouldn’t, but look at you now.”

“I have a right to be mad now,” he replied waspishly. “You lied about it for how long? How many times had I asked you? I know Mimayama has the earlier deadline for applications because it’s a private school. You made this decision and you didn’t tell me about it. I thought we told each other everything. I mean, that’s what best friends do, right?”

“Since when have you ever cared about how other friendships function? You’re only doing this because you’re mad. You’re not thinking straight.”

Miyuki laughed suddenly, in a callous manner he’d never used with you. “I’m not thinking straight? Well, we both know the answer to that,” he sneered. “Me and you are best friends just like anyone else, but now that I have a genuine problem with you lying, suddenly I’m the one who’s needlessly comparing ourselves to other people, right? I’m the wrong one here, yeah?”

“I didn’t say you were,” you disagreed. “It was just — I don’t know. I didn’t tell my family for a long time, too.”

“I get it. It’s a personal decision. But lying to me about it is where I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to!” you snapped, finding yourself fed up with his attitude. “It was . . . a personal decision, just like you said. I had to come to terms with it myself, too, you know.”

It wasn’t a lie, by any means. The day after his fight and after you’d filled out the application, you had stood by the mailbox so long, envelope in hand, the next door neighbor had come out to ask if you were okay.

“You could’ve told me that you’d made a decision. I was worried you’d end up stuck there with how much you were pushing it away. I would’ve respected your boundaries, you know.”

His voice had quieted considerably and you weren’t sure how you felt about it. Did it mean he was calm now? Understanding? Or was his anger and hurt phasing him so much he couldn’t muster the energy to be loud? You hated this. You hated not being able to see his face, being able to gauge what he was feeling. Relying on his tone was getting you nowhere.

“I . . . know.” Maybe it’d been irrational, but your decision had been the one thing he hadn’t known about. You could be so weak when it came to him. If he even knew that you had made a decision, it felt like he already knew where you were going, as though he could see right through you.

You and Miyuki could read each other like the back of your hands, unwillingly or willing. You knew his ticks, his dislikes, his fears, and vice versa. Alongside your feelings, the choice to attend Mimayama had been one of the few things you’d ever kept from him.

“Then why do it? That’s all I’m asking for. That’s it. Just an explanation and we can be done here.” He sounded almost desperate. It was disconcerting. Miyuki Kazuya wasn’t desperate; he didn’t beg. He was above that. But his voice —

You pinched the bridge of your nose, inhaling shakily. This was too much, it was all too much. You’d regret it later on, maybe, when you finally got your head back on but you couldn’t stand it right now. He couldn’t know.

Under no circumstances could he know that you were in love with him.

“I can’t do it.”

Miyuki was silent, for one, two, three seconds, then —

“I guess we’re done here.”

You tried again. “Miyuki, I — ”

The call ended abruptly as he hung up first, not even sparing you a chance to talk. You stared at your phone. Maybe that was what you deserved, though. You weren’t being the greatest of friends, but you just wished he would let it go. Why was it so important? Did it truly both him that much? Regardless of whatever it was, he wasn’t going to be letting it go anytime soon — that much was apparent.

The abrupt hang-up had hurt a lot more than you thought it would. (You certainly wouldn’t admit it out loud, though.) Miyuki wasn’t exactly the gentlest person and he could be mean, but he’d never been that way with you.

Something told you that this was only a small dose of what he could do, that he wasn’t completely shutting you out. Not yet.

You tossed your phone behind you, not minding the rough thump that came after. You dropped your head onto your textbook, sighing heavily. There was the slightest of stinging behind your eyes, but you shook it off, squeezing your eyes shut tightly. It wouldn’t do well to be crying. Dinner would only be in thirty minutes and you didn’t want to explain to your classmates why it looked like you’d been crying.

You dug into your nails into your palm, the pain relieved you from the burn in your eyes. The urge mercifully passed.

You sat back up, taking a deep breath. This would have to be dealt with later, you promised yourself, turning your eyes back to your textbook in a vain attempt to start your assignment again. All you two needed was space, some time to cool off and regain your bearings. Then, you’d solve this.

You didn’t solve it.

Baseball took up a handful of his time, so when you sent a wary text to him three weeks after your phone call, you didn’t receive a reply back. You then found out that that exact day, Seido had been at a game and had won, qualifying them for quarterfinals. Of course he wasn’t going to reply. He was probably busy basking in that afterglow of victory.

So you let it go.

But then, Seido was eliminated. You got that news from your classmates, a girl who apparently had a cousin attending the opposing school. When you’d asked, she had said proudly, “Inashiro.”

It felt like too much a cruel joke. But when you returned to your dorm and looked up the game, sure enough, Inashiro had won. The game had been four to three. Narumiya was their star — their ace. If you hadn’t had any real reason to dislike him before, you certainly had one now. You sent an apology to Miyuki, trying your best to be comforting.

His reply — albeit cold — had been relieving. Things weren’t as bad as you’d thought they were.

But then he didn’t contact you for the rest of the summer. And that was where the space between you two grew. It wasn’t only physical anymore — he’d stopped contact with you completely.

Summer passed and you descended into autumn, where temperatures dipped and the trees began to lose their leaves.

There was still no contact between you two.

You sent him the occasional message, just a random update about this or that, fooling yourself into thinking that he was just busy. The fall tournament was coming up and if they made it, they’d have a spot at the Spring Invitational. It was another chance for Nationals. But your messages stayed silent, save for the messages coming from your family.

Seido lost during the semifinals at the fall tournament; you sent him a text.

i’m sorry about the fall tournament… you guys played a really good game. text me back when you can.

Maybe he felt your desperation, somehow, through the screen and even though hundreds of miles separating you two.

You sat up abruptly as the little words underneath your message changed from Delivered to Read. You waited, your heart racing in your chest. But no message came.

You tried to rationalize. He’d just lost. Their ticket to Nationals was a pipe dream once again. He wouldn’t be up to talk immediately after, right?

It sounded foolish, even to yourself.

As though your problems with Miyuki weren’t enough, you got into an argument with your mother.

She had apparently believed that once you graduated high school, you’d come back home to work in the family bakery. That was the last thing you wanted to do.

Summer break had been an awkward affair because of it. You had envisioned summer break as time away from working and from the stress of high school, but your mother had other plans.

You were forced to be the cashier, much to your displeasure. Your father had patted your shoulder consolingly, while your older sister told you to stop complaining so much. Your younger brother — already seven-years-old — could only giggle at your predicament while he went to his friend’s house to spend the night. You were almost envious at his freedom.

You had no idea if Miyuki was back in the neighborhood since he wasn’t taking the time to answer your texts. You knew that if he had come back, he had no business to be outside of his house, either, so you decided that you would probably never know.

The fifth day of summer break started bright and early with you on the cash register. It had been slow, though, the heat of the sun discouraging people from walking out and about. The wall-length windows of the bakery did nothing to hide the sun, either, and the air conditioner was mostly focused on the table area rather than behind the counter.

The heat had started to make you sleepy but before you could actually doze off on the job and piss off your mother, the bell above the door rang, signaling a new customer. You straightened up, trying to blink the sleepiness away.

Thankfully, you didn’t have to try too hard, because the newest customer turned out to be Miyuki Toku.

“G-Good morning, sir. What can I get for you today?” Your voice was steady, thankfully.

He stared up at the menu, dark eyebrows furrowed and eyes narrowed behind his glasses. He was dressed in work clothing, grease staining various spots, a black baseball cap tucked over his hair. It was no wonder Miyuki himself was so handsome. His father was a handsome man for his age, the only sign of his age being the lines around his mouth and forehead, and the slightest hint of grey in dark brown hair and in his stubble.

“Two coffees and three sweet rolls,” he finally said, his eyes flickering to you.

You dropped your eyes, hurriedly ringing up his total and scribbling down the drink order to hang up for your sister to do. His eyes were the exact same shade as Miyuki’s. Of course they were, they were father and son, but it . . . made you miss Miyuki even more.

You handed back the money and grabbed some wax paper to pull out the sweet rolls from the display case of pastries. As you put them into a paper bag and folded it up neatly, he lingered near the pick-up counter. You wanted to ask him if Miyuki was back, but would that give you away? Maybe he already knew of the fight, if Miyuki had told him, but that sounded far-fetched. Miyuki wasn’t that open with his father.

You glanced around the bakery; all the customers were satisfied at the moment and nobody was waiting in line. You glanced back at Miyuki's father. He was looking over the display case with uninterested eyes. It wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“I-Is Miyuki back in the neighborhood?” you asked before you could lose your nerve, handing the paper bag over to him then stepping back behind the cash register, as though it could protect you from any unwanted questions.

He seemed surprised that you were speaking at him, brown eyes widening briefly before he cleared his throat. “No. He’s still at Seido. The coach keeps them for summer break.”

“Oh.”

That sucked, but knowing Miyuki, he was probably using that off-season time to get better.

“Have you been speaking to him?”

Now, you were the one surprised. When you looked back up, he was watching you with scrutinizing eyes. It reminded you so much of Miyuki that you had to avert your eyes. “Not really, sir. We’ve just,” you cleared your throat, “he’s busy. I’m busy. Our schedules don’t line up very well.”

“Mimayama, right?”

You looked back at him, furrowing your eyebrows. How did he know?

“Kazuya told me. That’s a good school,” he paused awkwardly, but before he could continue, your sister called out his order.

He picked it up and lingered in front the counter, shifting awkwardly before finally saying, “Well . . . keep in touch with him.”

You barely had time to get out a ‘have a good day.’ Did he know of your fight? There was no way that Miyuki could’ve told him, right? And if he did, then why was his father so nice? You knew Miyuki wouldn’t mince words and he probably wouldn’t hold back if he was talking about your argument.

“Hey.” You jumped as a wet towel smacked your back. “Stop looking so sad. It turns people off.”

You scowled, turning around to face your older sister with an insult on the tip of your tongue, but it died quickly at the semi-serious expression on her face. You both stared at each other for a few seconds before she slapped the wet towel onto your shoulder again.

“Loser.”

“Shut up!”

It was his birthday. He was officially sixteen-years-old.

You typed out a quick message. Maybe your conversations were beginning to be made up of your outgoing texts and nothing else from him, but you weren’t going to abandon him on his birthday. (Though, a small mocking voice in your head told you he had an entire team to spend his birthday with.)

You’d sent the text and went to put down your phone on your desk, but to your pleasant surprise, it buzzed a few seconds after, signaling a text.

It felt almost too true to be good. You unlocked your phone quickly, fumbling for the messages app. But when you clicked on his name, the message waiting for you wasn’t what you’d expected.

Error 1404. The number you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. For further inquiries, please contact —

Had he blocked you?

You tried again, but the message continued to pop up in reply to every text you sent.

You stopped trying, the words of the text seeming cold and callous, almost taunting.

Was he this petty? You had never believed him to be petty. Cruel, sometimes, sure, but never petty.

You tried calling. It rang two times before an automated message picked up.

“We’re sorry, but the person you are trying to reach is — ”

You hung up. This couldn’t be a coincidence. But why . . .?

You scrubbed your hands over your face roughly, feeling the familiar burn behind your eyes. Nothing was seeming to go right for you. Sure, you were at a school where you were put to work, but you were fighting with the only friend you had, with your mother about your choices for the future, with yourself over some stupid feelings.

Had it bothered him that much? Was this something to end your friendship over?

Evidently, to Miyuki, it had been.

December and January marked record-breaking lows with surprisingly heavy snowfall. You stayed on campus, burrowing in your room through the beginning of December to study hard for exams. Winter break brought you back home, where your sister had staged an intervention, surprisingly enough.

“What’s the deal with you and Miyuki?” she asked suddenly one day, when you two were in the kitchen at your home, making dinner for that night.

You continued your work, undeterred and unaffected. “What do you mean?” you asked tiredly.

She reached over to swat the back of your head, gaining a glare from you.

“Don’t glare at me, brat. You’ve been all mopey since the summer. I know something is going on,” she huffed, giving you a glare of her own.

You were prepared to shrug her off, turning to her to tell her off, but she was wearing that expression again. The one you’d seen during summer break after your run-in with Miyuki’s father. She looked serious. You hesitated.

You’d been dealing with this all on your own, with no one else to talk to. You definitely didn’t have Miyuki — not that you’d tell him about it, anyway — and certainly not your parents. Your mother would probably disapprove of your feelings since Miyuki wasn’t the type of guy to settle back down in his hometown and your father would disapprove because this was someone after your own heart.

Your sister was the next best thing.

That was how you found yourself telling her about the argument, about his lack of communication, and because you couldn’t avoid it, about your feelings for him.

She remained silent while you spoke, a pensive look on her face. When you finished, you shifted nervously on your feet, glancing at her in the corner of your eye.

“This is because of me, isn’t it?”

You blinked. “What?”

She paused from cutting up a vegetable, laying the knife down on the cooking board and turning to look at you. “What I said to you when you were in junior high. About focusing on yourself and not letting others influence your decisions.”

“I guess . . .” you murmured, agreeing reluctantly because you didn’t want her to blame herself for it. Luckily, that wasn’t what happened.

“You’re an idiot,” she muttered, grabbing the dish towel and hitting your shoulder with it. She tossed it back onto the counter before turning to you. “An absolute idiot.”

“What the hell — ”

“You played yourself, kid! I get it. These feelings are scary and new but running to Kyoto is not the answer!” she hissed urgently, looking annoyed.

Your hackles were raised. “You literally said — ”

“I know what I said, you fool! You had good intentions, but look where that got you.”

You winced. That was fair.

She groaned loudly. “Did it ever occur to you that you were letting your feelings influence your decision when you decided to go to Mimayama?”

You stared at her, eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“For as smart of a kid you are, you’re kinda dumb when it comes to feelings.”

You scowled at her. “Feelings are dumb! It’s easier to memorize algebra equations than it is to handle what I’m feeling!”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Listen to me. I understand that you thought putting distance between you two and lying to him about your choice would help, but you were blinded by your own feelings. In your desperation to forget, you made a rash decision. I know Mimayama is a good school and worrying about your education is worthwhile, but are you even happy there?”

You stilled. “Happy?”

“You’re hopeless!” she bemoaned.

“Hey, it was your advice! Don’t get mad at me,” you protested, unwilling to take all the blame for this.

She grimaced. “Fine. I’ll take half. But it’s redacted as soon as we fix this.”

You balked. “Fix this? No, there will be no fixing here. I’m going to suffer the consequences of my actions — and partially yours — for the rest of high school and that’s it.”

“You don’t even know if he feels the same,” she pointed out.

“He doesn’t,” you said firmly. “Why would he? After everything I’ve messed up on, I refuse to let him know. It’ll only make things worse.”

“It’s called taking a risk,” she muttered, finally turning back to finish chopping up the vegetables. “You won’t know if you don’t try.”

“We’re not even talking to each other anymore. I think,” you grimaced. “I think he blocked me.”

She paused mid-slice. “I’m going to murder that boy.”

“No, you will not!”

“This is better than homicide,” your sister muttered gleefully as you two watched your mother wrap up a plate of food. “So much better.”

Your mother faltered in her actions briefly, having heard your sister’s words, then resumed quickly. She was probably used to it.

Your little brother was waiting impatiently by the door, some action figure grasped in his tiny hands.

“One of you take that to the Miyuki’s. It’s a holiday gift. Dress appropriately!” With that, she left the house, your younger brother following after her, the door shutting firmly behind them.

“I’m not taking that,” you said immediately after. It’d been several days since you had told her about your problem and she hadn’t brought it up since. Maybe for good reason, too. You had time to think over what she said.

Her question about whether or not you were even happy at Mimayama was . . . conflicting, as much as you hated to admit it. What did it matter if you didn’t like it? It was a good school, one that would boost you ahead. It was giving you experience in the medical field, experience you couldn’t receive at a regular high school.

But at the same time, there were regular high school experiences that you were missing out on. Mimayama rarely had dances or anything of the sort, typically hosting an end-of-the-year banquet for the third years to congratulate them on their progress, but that was the extent of their dances. They had no sports programs, save for a volleyball team that was in sore need of motivated players and a better coach. All the students were always so competitive, constantly fighting for the top rank, making passive aggressive comments about grades. It was tiring.

It also made you think. Had Mimayama been the best choice?

“You don’t even know if he’s back,” she countered, drawing you out of your revere. “Pretty sure all the sports teams had one week less of winter break than regular students.”

“I don’t care. I’m not — ”

You stopped as you heard voices outside. It was your mother, very distantly. She was saying something, but the words were muffled by the door.

Your sister pushed you away to go towards the front window that overlooked the yard, peeking through the curtains. She gasped, making you take a wary step forward, but before you could ask her, she was turning around, grabbing your wrist and dragging you upstairs. You allowed her, figuring it was a lost cause to try and stop her.

“What’s going on?” you grumbled. She turned into your parents’ room, yanking you over to the window that overlooked the street.

You both kneeled on the ground under the window and she pointed up at it, grinning.

“He’s here,” she said in a sing-song voice that made you want to cover your ears.

You cautiously looked out the window, at first finding nothing to look at, but then your eyes latched onto the figure currently taking his bags out of a taxi’s trunk. Your heart kickstarted in your chest. Miyuki.

It was a bit far away, but you could recognize him anywhere. He looked taller, lean with muscles he didn’t have before. His skin looked tanner, too, no doubt from all the time he’d have spent in the sun. He was dressed in a black hoodie and jeans, looking far too good for someone who probably just threw that on without giving it any thought.

You dug your nails into the windowsill. A small, childish part of you wanted to run downstairs and out the door to tackle him into a hug. You were craving the feeling of his arms around you and feel his usual tight, almost vice-like, grip. You bit down on your lip.

“You look like a love-struck fool,” your sister whispered, sounding awed. You shoved her, making her wobble precariously from her crouch, then fall over, hitting the ground with a loud thump.

You continued to stare out the window, and you were grateful for your hyper-fixation on him, because you were able to catch the slight movement of him turning his head towards your house. You fell away from the window, the curtains fluttering back to their place.

“What?” your sister grumbled, rubbing her elbow. “That hurt, you know.”

“I don’t care,” you muttered. “He looked. If he saw me, I’m going to die.”

She scoffed. “Don’t be so dramatic.” She laid down on her side, propping up her cheek with her hand, shooting you a cheeky grin. “So? You wanna give them the food, now?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? Why not?”

You shot her an irritated side glance. “Seeing him doesn’t make me want to ‘try things out,’ as you say. What part of ‘we’re not talking anymore’ do you not understand?”

She scowled. “So, you’re giving up?”

You looked away. “I guess so.”

It was silent for a few seconds before she huffed quietly. “Well, I’m not. Stay here. I’m gonna give them the food. When you hear the door close, look out the window, but stay hidden.”

You stared at her as she got to her feet and left the room. This . . . couldn’t be good.

Nonetheless, when you heard the door shut from downstairs, you peeked out the window again. You caught sight of her walking down the sidewalk, her jacket and beanie on to fight against the freezing cold, the dish cradled in her arms. At that point, the taxi was gone and you suspected Miyuki had retreated into the warmth of his home.

When she walked up to the house and rang the doorbell, she sent a furtive glance to you, making brief eye contact before turning back forward. The door opened and she looked surprised for a split-second before schooling her expression into one of ease. You squinted, trying to make out who she was talking to.

She took a half-step back and you finally saw that it was Miyuki who’d answered the door; he leaned out of the house, nodding and saying a few things before accepting the dish with a gracious bow. Your sister returned it and turned around, walking back towards the house.

You dropped away from the window, making sure to fix the curtains carefully this time, then dashed out of the room and down the stairs. You didn’t have to wait more than thirty seconds before she was entering the house again, letting in a burst of icy air. Once she had locked the door and began taking off her shoes, jacket and beanie, you cleared your throat.

“Well?”

She looked at you, grim, and you prepared yourself for bad news, but then she said, “He’s cuter than I remember him being.”

“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

She shrugged. “You two would be cute together. His looks cancel out any ugliness you have.”

“Again. That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

She sighed. “What do you want to hear, kid? I don’t know . . . He seems more mature now. Are you two really fighting about this as bad as you say?”

You glared at her, irritated that she was doubting your words just because he seemed ‘more mature.’ “I have no reason to lie. It’s not like you’ve ever liked him that much, anyway.”

“That’s true,” she murmured. “But he made you happy, so that was all that mattered to me. He’s not doing that for you anymore.”

You toed the edge of the carpet with your foot, avoiding her eyes.

“If you’re truly incessant on not making up with him, then find something that makes you happy,” she continued. When you glanced at her, she looked serious again. You decided you didn’t like that look on her face. She coughed.

“If not, I refuse to see your mopey face around here.”

“Comfort me or insult me! Pick one, dammit!”

As much as you hated to admit it, your sister had a point.

So when you returned to school, you tried to find something that made you happy. Either an end goal, or even another friend.

You found that continuously telling yourself to find something made things a little bit better. You didn’t think about the absence Miyuki had left you. You thought about ways to raise your grade or make the other kids mad about your success.

You even found a friend — a quiet girl in your class who was pretty low in the class rank named Arakawa Akemi. You didn’t care about the rank stuff too much. (Only when it could be used to make your snobby classmates angry.) If anything, had she been in a regular high school, she probably would’ve been top of the class.

So, your first year ended with a secure friendship and excellent grades. Your relationship with your mother had gotten better, mostly because of the shining commentary that all your teachers had about you and your behavior during the afterparty of the third years’ graduation ceremony, where students, families and parents mingled. Your sister was annoying as ever — though a bit proud — and your brother was merely happy about seeing you again.

You knew, when your second year started up in full force, that your friendship with Miyuki was gone at this point. He hadn’t seen you at all during winter break and didn’t make an attempt to contact you at all. You hardly ever saw his father, so you couldn’t ask him about it, either.

You were sad at this realization. Almost seven years of friendship flushed down the drain. And the worst part was that your feelings hadn’t even faded with that.

After the Spring Invitational, Miyuki had gotten . . . famous. He was known nationally, media calling him the ‘catcher of his generation.’ Known for his aggressive plays, people loved him. When you’d seen the magazine with an article about him in it, you were proud.

Despite his lack of communication, you were still proud that he was doing what he loved. And he was good at it. You could never be angry about him doing well in what he loved.

When you’d seen his picture in the magazine, your heart still beat like crazy and your stomach still did flips. You hated it.

Even without almost a year of no contact, you were still infatuated with him.

You found yourself busier than you’d anticipated when second year started up again. You were required to put in volunteer hours at a hospital, so you’d found yourself preoccupied not only with homework, but work from the hospital as well.

The busy schedule was good; it helped you keep your mind off things, especially when the Summer Tournament started up and Seido blazed through the first rounds, then qualified for the quarterfinals. They were constantly making news articles, something or another about their new first year pitchers that were blowing competition away; usually those articles had companion editorials about Miyuki and how quickly he was improving. You tended to stay away from those.

You felt guilty for avoiding the games as much as you did, but at that point, there was no real need for you to keep up. It wasn’t like Miyuki would be calling you afterward to ask for your opinion on it.

The way you saw it was that if there was no Miyuki, then there was no need for baseball, either.

Unfortunately for you, however, your classmates happened to be avid baseball fans, so when you came to class the Monday after the weekend of the finals, you weren’t surprised to hear them talking about it.

“ . . . what messed up their game.”

“Yeah, after that deadball, there was no way they were getting their momentum back.”

“It’s all that first year pitcher’s fault. Sawamura, right? If he hasn’t fallen apart, maybe they would’ve been able to continue.”

You listened curiously, only brought out by a nudge to the arm. Akemi was giving you serious side-eye. “You could look it up, you know, or even ask,” she murmured.

“Look what up?”

She elbowed you again.

You sighed, leaning forward to tap on the shoulder of your classmate sitting in front of you. He turned around, his eyes widening at seeing you interact with him.

You gave him a polite smile. “Are you guys talking about the finals of the summer tournament for West Tokyo?”

“Yeah. Between Seido and Inashiro.”

You sat up straighter. You hadn’t realized that it’d be between them, but of course, it made sense for them to be the finalists. Two of the three baseball powerhouses in West Tokyo.

A queasy feeling had settled in the pit of your stomach, but you pushed on.

“Who won?”

“Inashiro. Their ace, Narumiya Mei, was a complete monster but honestly that first year pitcher — Furuya, right? — was insane . . .”

You sat back, staring at the plastic of your table. Akemi hummed softly and leaned to show you her phone. It was an article, presumably on the game. You read the headline.

Seido loses to Inashiro by 4-5

The article was detailed, filled with baseball jargon that you didn’t bother trying to decipher. You latched onto a few pieces of important information; Seido batters unable to get a hit off Narumiya for the majority of the game, the deadball by that first year pitcher Sawamura Eijun in the bottom of the ninth inning and Seido’s ultimate loss. You sighed heavily.

“Great.”

Akemi shut off her phone, watching you carefully. “That’s it?” she asked quietly.

You’d told her about everything that had happened between you and Miyuki. Mostly as a precursory warning that apparently, you could be dumb when it came to your friendships; you’d try to be better with her, but fair warning and all that. Though, you had to give credit to yourself, since your errors were really because of your feelings and while Akemi was pretty and very kind to boot, Miyuki still held your heart.

But that was it.

You shrugged, pointedly looking away from her. “What am I supposed to do? It’s not like I can talk to him anymore.”

Akemi said nothing else on the matter, looking forward when the teacher entered and started up class. And you didn’t bring it up again, either. But you still had to sit through the excited murmurs of your classmates, biting down the urge to defend Seido whenever someone would badmouth the team for whatever reason. (At that point, you were irritated with yourself. You didn’t even know anyone on the team except for Miyuki. Why should you feel the need to defend them?)

The majority of summer break — wherein you stayed at school for extra classes — was filled with talk of Nationals, mostly about Inashiro blowing through the rounds until the finals, where they ended up as runner-up. For the half of the last week of break, you headed back to Tokyo, where you visited your family and managed to avoid working in the bakery under the guise of needing to study (which you actually did need to do).

You knew Miyuki wouldn’t have been back, probably training with the rest of his teammates. When you passed his house on your way to another café to study at (since you’d probably be roped into doing some form of work if you went to your own), you pointedly avoided looking at his home and the factory.

It was time for you to move on.

Despite your best efforts to hide behind the menu, Narumiya’s face lit up upon recognizing you.

He grinned brightly; there was less baby fat on his face than you remember. He looked taller, too, adding to his maturity.

He calls you out — by your surname, thankfully. You didn’t think you’d be able to handle if he called you by your first name. You’d probably walk straight out of the café . . .

“It’s so good to see you! How are you?”

You sunk in your chair as other customers glanced at you, irritated. Narumiya was unbothered by their glares, taking a seat across from you even though you hadn’t invited him to do so. He was just as annoying now as he’d been two years ago.

“I didn’t say you could sit down,” you said, annoyed.

“We need to catch up!”

“We don’t.”

He grinned. “Have you gotten meaner over the last few years?”

Your grip tightened on the menu briefly, but you took a deep breath, turning your eyes back to its contents. You would ignore him for however long you needed. He would get the message sooner or later.

“Are you meeting Kazuya here? I’ll wait with you. Maybe he and I can catch up, too.”

“No,” you replied stiffly. “I’m here to study in some peace and quiet.”

You looked at Narumiya over the top of the menu, then glanced pointedly at your bag sitting in the third seat between you two. He followed your gaze and made a small noise of dissatisfaction.

“How boring. Do you keep up with him?”

You studiously ignored him, turning the page of the menu.

“Is that a no, then?”

You continued to ignore him.

He huffed petulantly. “Come on, don’t tell me you’re still mad about what I said? I was some annoying first year brat in junior high. I’ve changed.”

You looked over the menu again, eyebrow raised in doubt.

“I have!” he protested.

You rolled your eyes. “Whatever. Can you please leave now? I need to study.”

“Study for what?” he frowned, then. “What school do you go to? Shouldn’t you be on break?”

“You’re asking too many questions.”

“Then sate my curiosity and answer them!”

You huffed this time, finally surrendering to your fate. “Fine. I’m going to Mimayama right now and I took extra class over summer break. We always have homework.”

“Mimayama, huh?” Narumiya looked at you closely. “All the way in Kyoto?”

“Yes.” You turned back to the menu, but your head was beginning to ache from switching between squinting to read the small text and looking up to Narumiya. Or maybe that was just Narumiya . . .

“Is that why you and Kazuya haven’t been talking?”

“I didn’t say anything about that,” you said, feeling a frown form on your lips. “It’s none of your business, anyway.”

“Come on! When’s the next time we’re gonna see each other?”

“Never, hopefully.”

He pouted. “You don’t mean that. Come on! Tell me about it. Who would I even tell?”

“Your friends. Your sisters. Miyuki.”

Narumiya laughed, but it sounded forced. “As if I still talk to him too.”

You looked at him this time and he had a bitter smile on his lips. He suddenly looked tired — worn out. You couldn’t imagine from what, though.

His smile tightened. “You’re not the only one with problems.”

You pursed your lips. “Evidently. If you listen, I’ll listen too.”

He frowned, looking away, clearly not liking the prospect of airing out his vulnerabilities.

“It’s a fair exchange,” you added before he could refuse. “And I’m the last person to judge, if that’s what you’re worried about. I wouldn’t judge even you, Narumiya.”

He grumbled. “At least call me Mei.”

You did your best to offer advice but he waved you off.

“I’m doing it because it was fair and I needed to vent. Don’t worry about me. I’ll deal with it.”

You eyed him disbelievingly. “I have no problem helping you, either . . .”

Another lazy wave of the hand. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. I’m fine. Now, what’s the deal with you and Kazuya?”

Mei leaned forward, unabashedly stealing a fry from your plate. You two had ordered your meals before Mei dove into his problems concerning pitching, the team, and the first year catcher he had to deal with now.

You listened intently, finding yourself sympathizing with him, much to your own surprise. You knew, rationally, Mei had his own problems — of course, he was only human — but for him to be this open, you appreciated it. It made you feel at ease. Maybe Mei wasn’t as bad as you’d painted him to be.

You pushed your plate to him, appetite having disappeared, but he pushed it back toward you, pointing at the food with an intense expression on his face. “Eat.”

“I can’t talk and eat at the same time,” you pointed out.

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeing you with narrowed eyes. “You can take breaks and eat.”

“Is the famous Narumiya Mei worried about me?”

“Never mind, you can starve!”

You smiled slightly and launched in your story, punctuated with breaks to eat or drink some water. Mei listened to all that you had to say, only interrupting to ask a question to prompt more details. He didn’t seem to judge, but you couldn’t tell for sure; his facial expression stayed composed throughout your talk.

When you finished, you found yourself suddenly conscious of his eyes on you. You squirmed a little in your seat, poking tentatively at the cold fries on your plate. You looked back up when he sighed, slouching in his seat.

“We both can’t catch a break, can we?”

You snorted. “No kidding.”

“If it makes you feel any better, if I was in your place, I might’ve done the same thing. I mean it’s not the right choice, but solidarity or whatever.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Anyway,” he cleared his throat, evading your glare. “It’s fine. We can actually do something about your problem.”

“You know, we can also do something for you too — ”

He waved you off. “I’ll deal with it eventually. But you . . . We can do something here.”

You didn’t like the look on his face, the conspiratorial smile on his lips beginning to grow as you shook your head. “N-No, definitely not. Besides, why would you want to help me? I’ve been pretty mean to you these past years . . .”

Mei shrugged. “That’s how most of my friendships start.”

You sighed. “Regardless, I’m not — we’re not doing anything about it. I just told you to vent. We’re finished with that.”

“You’re giving up, then?” he asked, unintentionally echoing your sister’s question from last year.

“I . . .” You frowned. “If it’ll save me the heartbreak, then I guess so. He’s not even — not even talking to me, Mei. His message is loud and clear.”

“Well, he’s dumb. You and I both know that. Why should you listen to him? You have to try.”

“I can’t.”

“You don’t want to,” he corrected. “What do you have to lose? Your friendship is already in shambles, you’re going to school all the way in Kyoto so you won’t have to see him if it goes rotten and it’s not like you two live that close. Maybe telling him will fix things.”

“And what if it makes it worse?” you asked sharply. “I’d rather we leave it like this.”

“Assuming for one moment that he doesn’t feel the same — ”

“He doesn’t.”

Mei ignored you. “ — then telling him will yield the same ending to your friendship as it did before. Except now it’ll be official. It’s a better way to break things off, anyway.”

“I have no business to mess his life up like that,” you said stubbornly.

“You want to reconcile, don’t you?” He suddenly asked, scrutinizing you.

“What?”

“Reconcile with Kazuya. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? But it’s not that easy. He’s going to want an explanation and he can be cruel. He’d probably make you choose between him and not explaining.”

You avoided Mei’s eyes. He was right. Miyuki wouldn’t accept you with open arms. He’d be affronted and demand an explanation. Rightfully so.

“So, what? I don’t tell him and we break things off or I do tell him and my feelings aren’t reciprocated so he breaks things off all the same to save us from the awkwardness?”

“Or you somehow manage to reconcile but still keep it to yourself. It’s unlikely, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if this bothered Miyuki. You’d probably do him a favor if you told him,” Mei finished, lacing his fingers together on the table.

“A favor,” you snorted disbelievingly.

“Now,” Mei continued, ignoring your tone, “let’s say he does have feelings for you. Which he does. Honestly, did you see the way he’d look at you when we were in junior high? It was gross.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mei rolled his eyes. “Because you’re just that unattractive or what?”

You shifted, uncomfortable. “I don’t deserve him.”

“Shut up.”

You blanched. “You — ”

“You and Kazuya are perfect for each other. That sounds like something he’d say about you, too. I’m not here to listen to you depreciate yourself. I’m here to help.”

You softened as he aimed a displeased frown at you. “Thanks, Mei,” you said, truly meaning it.

“You’re welcome. I’m great, aren’t I?” he preened, a happy grin replacing the frown. “Now, assuming he liked you — which he does — he’d want to know if you felt the same. So, telling him maximizes the possibility of reconciling your friendship. Plus, maybe you get a boyfriend out of it, too.”

“Boyfriend!”

“Obviously. That tends to be what happens when two people like each other.”

“Don’t get sarcastic with me, Narumiya Mei!”

Mei’s words left a significant mark on you.

You left the cafe thinking over the possibilities (sparing no thought to the homework that hadn’t been completed). But the thought of confessing seemed . . . strange. Could you be so forward to actually go after Miyuki and tell him? He’d probably avoid you as much as he could.

You weren’t looking to make a fool out of yourself, either, so you certainly didn’t want to try going to Seido. Going to his house and cornering him there seemed to be your best option, but the next break where he’d be home was Christmas and that was four months away. That was okay; there was plenty of time to work things out.

But it also gave you time to back out.

You chose not to discuss this with Akemi, knowing she’d encourage you to tell him as well. For now, you just wanted to make your own decision without outside influences (excluding Mei since you’d made the unfortunate decision of giving him your LINE account).

The rest of August was split between school, Akemi, Mei and your deliberations. Mei constantly kept you updated on the start of the fall tournament, finding every chance to talk about Miyuki — which led to Mei’s usual declaration of taking Nationals next summer. You continued to mull over the decision of telling Miyuki, always finding yourself becoming anxious at the notion of facing him again.

At the same time, you missed Miyuki. If things didn’t go well, at least you’d spoken to him one last time.

It was a decision that demanded great thought. No one was going to have a part in influencing your choice (not even Mei). You couldn’t half-ass it or do it on the fly. You needed to have some organization when it came to deciding.

The call was what threw your entire plan off its axis.

You’d been in the middle of composing a text to Mei, demanding to hang out since he’d seemingly dropped off the face of the earth following Inashiro’s loss to Ugumori. You knew it had to do with those problems he’d told you about in August and you weren’t going to let him deal with it alone.

It was almost funny how much your friendship with Mei had grown in such a short time. While he could be unruly, irritating and arrogant, he seemed to have a softer side when it came to you, toning down his need to get a rise out of someone. It reminded you of Miyuki, but you shelved that thought quickly. It was a comparison that had no reason to exist.

Dutifully ignoring the review for your English class on your desk, you’d been in the middle of typing out a word when your screen changed from the conversation between you and Mei to the call screen. You eyed the number warily. It was from Tokyo, but it wasn’t one you recognized. Your thumb hovered over the decline button but you huffed and answered it. If it was a telemarketer, you could nip them in the bud right now before they got the idea to call you back.

“Hello?”

“Er, is this — ?” The voice on the other line proceeded to give out your full name.

“Yes, this is. May I ask who I’m speaking to?”

“Uh . . .” Another person on the other end said something, but it was too quick for you to grab onto. “I know that, Zono! Shut up!”

Your frown deepened. “I’m . . . hanging up now.”

You went to pull away but the guy spoke again, hurriedly. “No, no, hold on! My name is Kuramochi Yoichi, I’m the shortstop for Seido’s baseball team.”

What the hell was a player from Seido doing you? You glanced at the calendar mounted in front of you, finding the words Seido vs. Yakushi final @ 1 marked down for today. So, the game must’ve been over then. Didn’t these boys have better things to be doing right now?

“How’d you get my number? And what’s the reason for calling me?” you asked, trying to sound as polite as possible. You were a bit irritated, though.

“You know Miyuki, right? Miyuki Kazuya?”

“Unfortunately.”

Kuramochi coughed, though it sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Right. Well, he sort of mentioned you today, before we went to the hospital, so I figured I should give you a call — ”

“Hospital?” you interrupted sharply. “Why are you going to a hospital? Did something happen? Was he injured?”

“Eh, he was but it’s not too serious. I think. So, yeah, he said to not call you otherwise you’d ‘kick his ass for getting hurt’ so I thought why not? Let him suffer a little bit for trying to hide his injury.” Kuramochi sounded nonchalant about the entire thing, so maybe it was okay, but you were still confused.

“Explain.”

“He was tackled at the plate by a pitcher from Seiko High in our semifinals and trust me, he wouldn’t have said anything unless someone else had noticed. I’m not sure if anyone else noticed, but if they did, they didn’t say anything. I told him . . . Well, I told him not to fall apart until after we’d won,” Kuramochi admitted sheepishly. You pursed your lips in disapproval.

“If he showed any sign of bringing the team down, I’d tell the coach but he didn’t for the most part. Unfortunately, another one our teammates noticed and brought everyone’s attention to it so the coach knew by the middle of the game.”

“Did he continue to play? Or was he benched?”

“No, he played the entire game. Miyuki’s our cleanup, too, so it wasn’t a bad move — ”

“Are you discounting the fact that he struck out a few times?” the other guy on the other end of the line asked.

“Shut it,” Kuramochi snapped. “It was better for our team morale, too. That bastard is aggressive. We might not have won if he’d been benched.” Then he coughed, seeming to suddenly realize that he’d called Miyuki a bastard with you listening. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you muttered tiredly, rubbing your temples to stave off the incoming headache. “So, what? He was taken to the hospital?”

“Yeah. We got here like fifteen minutes ago. He was . . . pretty out of it. Probably from the pain. We’re waiting for him right now. But, uh, I guess I called to see if you’d like to come and see him. Don’t worry about his father, I know someone else took care of that already.”

“Where are you guys?” you asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

“Tokyo General.”

“And how did you get my number again?”

“Miyuki’s phone.”

Kuramochi must’ve copied the number from Miyuki’s and into his own. You were surprised that Miyuki had even kept it. You sighed heavily, turning back to the conversation. “You do realize we don’t even talk anymore, right? Has he even told you about me?”

Kuramochi was silent for a few seconds. “Not really, but he’s always closed off. I did notice the lack of conversation for you on his messages, though. I don’t know, I just thought I’d tell you. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to see him, but as soon as we get his room number, I’ll text you from this number.”

“That sounds fine. Thanks, I guess.”

“No problem. Sorry for bothering you, though.” He hung up quickly before you could reply. You dropped your hand holding the phone into your lap, staring at the calendar. You had two finals this coming Monday and you needed to study. But was this your chance?

The way that Kuramochi has phrased it . . . It sounded like Miyuki was joking about it. In his pain-induced haze, had he forgotten about the ruins of your friendship and joked about you? Or was he conscious about what he’d been saying?

It was all so confusing.

You gritted your teeth at the oncoming headache and stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the wooden floor. You packed up your notebooks that you needed for studying, grabbing your wallet as well. A quick search told you that the next train to downtown Tokyo would leave in thirty minutes. You bought your ticket, sending a silent mental apology to your father who’d see the purchase and probably freak out.

The dormitory wasn’t too lively, meaning you could make your escape unnoticed. You notified the resident assistant of your leave — one of the teachers for your year — and she let you off without much problems, only stressing for you to be back before curfew tomorrow. After boarding the train with no problems and sending Akemi a message about your impromptu leave, you dove into your studies but found that you couldn’t concentrate. You had too many worries, too many thoughts.

This was going to go very well or very horribly.

After the three-hour train ride from Kyoto to Tokyo, you arrived at the hospital at six. You had met Kuramochi in the lobby of the hospital and he led you to the in-patient wing.

Kuramochi was an interesting individual. He was stiff, overly-polite in a way that said he was trying too hard. He probably felt uncomfortable actually seeing you in person.

“Does he have to stay overnight?” You asked, fingers tightening over the strap of your bag. When studying had escaped you, you obsessed over what sort of injury he could have. Was it sprained ribs? Had he torn a muscle? Or was this worse?

“Eh, only one night. He kicked up a fuss about it but we pointed out that he’d fainted from the pain. Better safe than sorry,” he explained as you two stepped into the elevator. He pressed the button for the second floor.

You looked at him sharply. “He fainted?”

Kuramochi grimaced and nodded. “Like I said, he was pretty out of it. He’s fine now. Conscious and all that.”

“What about his father?”

Kuramochi reached up to scratch the back of his neck. “Said he’d come tomorrow.”

You sighed softly. Yeah, that sounded like him.

There was a soft ding as the doors slid open, Kuramochi stepping out and briskly leading the way. His cleats were loud against the tiled floor, disturbing the quiet environment of the second floor. Your stomach twisted uncomfortably.

You made it to a room but just as he’d lifted a hand to pull the door knob, you stopped him.

“Wait.”

He looked questioningly at you, his hand paused in the air. “What?”

“I don’t think this was a good idea . . .” You fidgeted with the strap of your bag, swallowing thickly. Your heart was beating like a drum in your chest and you had the ridiculous thought that everybody could hear how loudly it was beating.

Kuramochi scanned your face and he became serious, seeming to sense that you were genuinely doubting yourself.

“Whatever happened between you two,” he said, hushed. “It’s fine.”

“It was my fault,” you mumbled. “Why we stopped talking.”

“Somehow, I doubt that. But I don’t know your story. Listen,” you looked at him, finding him meet your eyes earnestly. “Now is the best time to fix it. Whether it goes well or not, I don’t know. But at least you tried, right?”

What do you have to lose?

You took a deep breath, steeling yourself. “You’re right.”

“You look like you’re about to throw up.”

“Thanks.”

Kuramochi stared at you, then nodded to himself, as though he’d just realized something. “It makes sense now,” he mumbled under his breath, making you frown.

“What — ”

He opened the door before you could ask what he’d meant and you instinctively jumped behind him as several voices floated out of the room.

“Ah, Kuramochi. Is everything okay?” a woman asked.

“Yeah. Just had to pick up one of Miyuki’s visitors,” he replied, staying in the doorway, probably sensing you hiding behind him.

“Is it — ?” another voice asked, sounding like the one you’d heard on the phone.

Kuramochi didn’t respond, simply stepping into the room, leaving you standing in the doorway for everyone to see.

There was only another guy your age in there and he looked utterly panicked at your presence. There was an intimidating man as well, dressed in the Seido baseball uniform — the coach presumably — and then a woman standing next to him, dressed in formal clothes. You turned your eyes to the hospital bed, but instead of meeting those familiar brown eyes, you were met with his bowed head, his eyes averted to his legs. You noticed his clenched fists on his lap and felt your heart drop to your stomach. He was angry.

You bit your lip then bowed to the two adults, introducing yourself, “I’m an . . . old friend.”

The two adults looked at Miyuki for confirmation. The air was uncomfortably tense. You saw him sigh minutely before he nodded.

With his confirmation that you weren’t some stranger trying to sneak in, they introduced themselves as the coach and scout of Seido; the other guy introduced himself as the Zono you’d heard from the phone before. You accepted them politely, but a stifling silence ensued afterward.

You snuck glances at Miyuki in the corner of your eye. He had raised his head, but his eyes remained on the white wall in front of him, eyebrows furrowed.

“Well, we should head out, then. Miyuki, will you be okay here?” Takashima asked, turning to look at him.

“I’m fine.”

His voice had dropped since junior high, but he still sounded the same. Just like the Miyuki you once knew. Except he sounded tired. You felt guilt bubble in the pit of your stomach, knowing you were probably going to stress him about more.

One by one, they all exited the room. Kuramochi had hissed something to Miyuki before he left, sending you a nod of solitude. When the door finally shut, you weren’t sure what to do with yourself. You shifted on your feet awkwardly. The silence was absolutely unnerving. You briefly considered just fleeing and never coming back, but that would be too cruel. Why should you show up abruptly then leave just as suddenly?

Yet, Miyuki still hadn’t spoken.

You took a deep breath, ignoring the racing of your heart, preparing to say something — anything.

Miyuki beat you to it. “Why are you here?”

Hurt pierced your heart. You faltered at the cold tone in his voice, the apathy, the indifference. Miyuki raised his head to look at you and any remnants of a response flew out of your head. He had matured, baby fat disappearing from his face and leaving someone else behind. Miyuki had grown into his looks. Those familiar brown eyes that had often glowed with mirth were hard, almost unrecognizable, burning into you with searing intensity.

You fidgeted with the strap of your bag, dropping your eyes to the floor. “Kuramochi called me. Said you were here so I — ”

“You thought you could come and visit like we were ‘old friends?’” Miyuki finished for you callously.

You dropped your head, trying not to let his words affect you. He was angry and Miyuki never spared his words much thought when he was angry. You certainly deserved his ire, anyhow. You’d been such a shitty friend.

You took a deep breath. “Not really. I know I haven’t been a good friend to you. I just thought . . . I don’t know. I thought you deserved to finally hear an explanation from me, but like I said before, it . . . might not be something you want to hear.”

Miyuki didn’t say anything else, turning to look at the window. You took that as your cue to continue, dragging a chair over to his bedside. You managed a reasonable distance away from the bed, dropping your bag onto the floor with a sigh.

“It’s taken far too long for me to explain myself. I understand if, even if you know, you’ll want to go our separate ways, though my explanation sort of ensures that you probably won’t want to talk to me, anyways.” You glanced up at him and he was still looking out the window, but his eyebrows were furrowed now. He was troubled.

You pushed on, dropping your eyes to your lap. “My reasons weren’t entirely for educational purposes, but I think you’ve picked up on that already, right? It was . . . Well, it was partially because of my sister’s advice, I guess. She didn’t say to leave because of you or anything, just that I had to prioritize my education when it came to picking a high school.”

You’d raised your eyes to his face and saw him raise his shoulders, the furrow of his eyebrows deepening in a way that told you he was ready to protest. You continued speaking before he could. “Seido is a great school. Looking back on it now, it probably would’ve benefitted me as much as Mimayama has. Plus,” you dropped your eyes back to your lap. “You would’ve been there, too.”

“What’s your point?”

You flinched at the sharpness of his voice. It cut deeply, making you feel small and insignificant. Still, you ventured further.

“That was the problem,” you mumbled. “You’d be there and I’d be with you. She — my sister — said not to let my feelings influence my decision. At this point, I’ve clearly missed the mark that she was aiming for. I just,” you paused, leaning forward to brace your elbows on your knees, rubbing your forehead tiredly. Your heart felt like it was going to break free from your ribs.

“I wanted to go to Seido with you. But if I did, I would’ve picked that school because I was in love with you. So, I went to Mimayama because I thought that by leaving, I could get rid of these feelings and we could continue to be friends.”

Finally saying it felt so relieving, like the pressure on your chest had lifted and you could breathe freely. The constraints of your secret were gone. But that left you to deal with the aftermath.

You didn’t raise your head as the silence seemed to echo, broken only by the occasional voice outside the room and the ticking of the clock. Miyuki still hadn’t said anything.

Your liberation ended with the cold revelation that no, he didn’t feel the same and you’d ruined your friendship permanently.

You squeezed your eyes shut, feeling a few tears slid down your cheek. You rubbed them away roughly, though fresh ones replaced them immediately. Your chest and throat felt constricted, making breathing steadily a little difficult. You heard the sheets rustle as he moved.

“Why are you crying?” Did your ears betray you or had his voice softened? He still sounded tired as hell, but he didn’t sound irritated. If anything, his tone was almost exasperated.

You brushed away the fresh set of tears but they just kept coming. Was this two years of pent-up frustration coming to the surface? Or was it because of the imminent end of your friendship?

“I just ruined my friendship,” you muttered, sniffling. It didn’t look like your tears would be stopping anytime soon, so you decided to save yourself the embarrassment; you stood up then grabbed your bag and stood up quickly, covering your face with your arm. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have — ”

“Wait,” he called quickly. You stepped back as you heard the hospital bed creak then a soft ‘fuck’ reached your ears, making you drop your arm away from your eyes.

Your eyes widened once you saw he had sat up and shifted, moving to stand up in front of you. “Don’t get up, you’ll hurt yourself more!” You put a hand on his shoulder, trying pushing him down, but it was all in vain. The strength he had gained over the years — and more recently as the cleanup for Seido — was no match for your own. He stood up and you found yourself trapped with him in the space between the chair and the bed.

You froze. With this proximity, you could lean your forehead on his chest; in fact, you could almost feel the warmth he radiated. You dropped your eyes immediately. Funnily enough, your tears were quickly drying with this new distraction.

Miyuki pried your fingers off his shoulder and your heart fell to your stomach, but instead of dropping your hand, he clasped your hand between his own. His grip was tight and unyielding. The message was clear. You weren’t going anywhere.

(And to be completely honest, you didn’t want to be anywhere else.)

You saw his chest lift and fall as he sighed, the warm air brushing over the crown of your head, tickling stray pieces of flyaway hair. There were too many things going on at once. You felt the coarseness of his palms against your hand, callouses rubbing against the skin roughly, the distinct scent of a generic detergent brand printed on the cotton t-shirt he was wearing. But it was all so Miyuki that you couldn’t complain.

Being this close, hearing his steady breathing, he was here. That familiar comfort you’d always found with him was slowly returning and that was dangerous. You didn’t even know if he still wanted to be your friend. But maybe . . .

“You’re right,” he finally said.

“About what?”

“About ruining our friendship.”

You flinched, taking a step back and running into the chair. It scraped loudly against the floor. Well, then. At least that had been solved, right? You felt the tears that had dried begin to well up again, the hurt piercing your heart like a knife once more. You tried to pull your hand away but he was too strong for you.

“Miyuki — ”

“I don’t want to be your friend if you feel like that.”

Your mouth quivered. “I get it, you don’t need to — ”

He released your hand but before you could step away, his hands were cradling your face, tilting you towards him. You had no choice but to look at him. You inhaled sharply, feeling exposed underneath his gaze. But more than that, his eyes held an unspoken tenderness that hadn’t been there before. His thumbs gently brushed away the stray tears that had escaped.

“I’m not . . . good with this,” he said. “But I don’t want to be your friend because I — ” He stopped, almost seeming to pout at his lack of articulation. You had an inkling to what he was trying to say, to what he was hinting at and it made your chest tighten, made your palms sweaty and your heart race.

“Why?” you blurted out, feeling like you had to know why he would chose you, out of all people, and also because you weren’t sure you could deal with the implications of his words so soon.

Miyuki looked genuinely confused. “What?”

“After all I did . . . Not talking to you . . . Honestly, I understand why you blocked me — ”

“Blocked you? I never blocked you,” he frowned.

“I — Your number didn’t work when I tried to text you for your birthday last year,” you clarified. “No call, either.”

“Oh. Oh.” He seemed to understand and winced, a guilty expression passing over his face. “I got a new phone a few days before that. I broke my old one — ”

“How do you break a Nokia?”

He grinned, tugging on your cheek playfully and your heart skipped a beat at the sight of his grin, so warm and full of mirth. You felt like a little thirteen-year-old again, experiencing the first adrenaline rush of your feelings.

“My teammates broke it,” he corrected. “Dad got me one, said it was partially a birthday present, too. I got a new phone number but I . . . Well, I never texted you my new number. I had yours, I just didn’t . . .” he trailed off and the happy bubble you two had found yourselves in popped.

It hurt, but you understood. Miyuki was the type to need to know — he needed to know why you had avoided telling him for so long, why you wanted to go all the way to Kyoto for school; he was analytical in every aspect of his life. You weren’t going to be excluded from that particular quirk.

But you also wondered what would happen now. If his terrible word phrasing from earlier said anything about it, Miyuki seemed to think of you as more than a friend — but it had been two years since you two had spoken or even interacted face-to-face.

“Hey.”

You blinked, refocusing on him. He was frowning, eyebrows furrowed as he squished your cheeks together. You struggled in his grip, feeling a scowl quickly form on your lips. “Your hands are probably filthy, stop that — ”

He sighed and dropped his hands from your face, stepping back to lean on the hospital bed fully. You were . . . disappointed at the ensuring distance, no longer finding his natural warmth at your disposal. You chided yourself; Miyuki had an injury. He shouldn’t exert so much energy. You weren’t sure about the extent of his injury, exactly, but if he had fainted from the pain, then it had to be worrying, right?

You scrutinized his appearance, too caught up in your worries to be shameful. At least that was one thing that never changed. (And would probably never change.)

“You should sit back down, Miyuki.”

Miyuki huffed softly. “It’s just an oblique muscle tear on my right side. And I’m not made of glass, you know.”

“I know.”

“And hey,” he caught your attention again. “Why do you always call me by my last name? Even Mei calls me by my first.”

You shrugged, shifting uncomfortably at the sudden question. “I don’t know. It was just a thing I always did. Besides, this is Mei we’re talking about.”

He snorted. “That’s true. Wait,” he frowned at you. “Since when do you call Mei by his first name? This is just unfair.” He pouted a little and you huffed.

“I’m relieved to see that you haven’t changed, and well, we’ve sort of . . . become friends.”

“You know we lost our ticket to Nationals because of Inashiro, right?”

You rolled your eyes. “Well, you’re going to Koshien Stadium now, aren’t you? It’s basically the same thing.”

“It’s not.”

“Mei and I are friends, I guess. He was the one who encouraged me to — to talk to you. Try and rekindle our friendship.”

“What exactly did he say?”

You pursed your lips, narrowing your eyes at Miyuki. “Why do you want to know?”

Miyuki shrugged carelessly. “Mei’s the type to incite action in someone else. Would you have come if you hadn’t spoken to him?”

You made a choked sound of disbelief. “You’re assuming — ”

“You said you were in love with me, didn’t you?”

The abrupt reminder of your confession was like a slap to the face. You shut your mouth silently, feeling embarrassed at being put on the spot like this.

Miyuki looked thoughtful. “Whatever he said must’ve resonated with you. I imagine your sister had a hand in this, too. She doesn’t like taking the blame, does she?”

You were worried about nothing, apparently. Miyuki seemed to remember all your ticks now as he had two years ago. In fact, just being with him for these past few minutes have been refreshing. It was like coming home.

Miyuki huffed softly at your lack of response. “Look, I . . . I’m sorry. For everything.”

You stiffened. “What are you — ”

He says your name lowly, cutting you off short.

There was an edge of rawness in his voice, a vulnerability that you hadn’t ever heard before. You swallowed your response, watching him tentatively as he dropped his head, turning his eyes to the ground.

“These last few months were difficult. Did you know I was made captain? The, uh, previous captain — Yuki — nominated me, of all people. You know how I am. As you might imagine, we had a few clashes, but things are coming together now. I mean, we won. Can you believe that?” Miyuki laughed, but it was cold and brittle.

You didn’t like how depreciating this was turning. He may’ve asked for your silence, but if all he was going to do was put himself down, then you would put a stop to it.

As if sensing your climbing ire, he looked back up and the anger simmered, fading to a dull roar as you met his eyes. There was a warmth in there you hadn’t ever seen before.

“We got through it. We’re here now. Things are looking up. This damn injury . . . It’s just a speed bump in a long road. But through it all, I kept going back to you. You never left my mind. I,” he paused again and dropped his eyes, seemingly embarrassed, “I missed you.” It came out like a mumble, a hesitant admission; expected for someone as emotionally closed off as Miyuki.

But you found it charming. His inability to respond in closely social situations, in times like this that were intimate. You knew him well enough to know what he was saying.

“So, I’m sorry. For ignoring you. For prying when it wasn’t my place. For being an asshole about it all, really.”

You took a deep breath. This was it. “I’m sorry, too. No matter what, you deserved to know the truth.”

“Well.” It sounded like Miyuki disagreed as he reached up to rub the back of his neck sheepishly. “It was a deeply personal reason.”

You snorted. “No shit.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve always felt the same.”

You froze.

There it was.

Your heart was going into overdrive once again and you found your breath stolen from you when he lifted his head to make eye contact with you. There was still that warmth in there that hadn’t been present before. But maybe it had always been there, you had just never seen it. Miyuki was a master at disguising his emotions and you supposed you couldn’t ever have idealized the concept of him having feelings for you to be able to actually notice it.

“And I think,” he continued quietly, “that we’re not ever going to be the same again. But that’s okay. So, let’s start off with you calling me by my first name, yeah?”

The air left your lungs in a rush and before you could even think to manage an agreement, he lifted his hand to your cheek, settling warmly on the curve, thumb brushing gently over it. He pushed forward and you knew, you knew where this was heading. You didn’t stop him. You weren’t sure you wanted to. Sure, there might’ve been some things that still needed to be discussed but you had settled your battles for the most part.

So when he asked, his voice soft in the tenderness of the moment, “Can I kiss you?” You found it a little hard to keep standing straight, so why wouldn’t you have leaned forward on him — totally mindful of his injury, of course — and met his lips halfway.

There might’ve been a number of things that ruined it for anyone else — having to watch his right side constantly so you didn’t hurt him, the bookbag still weighing heavily on your shoulder, keeping an ear out for the nurses and doctors — but there were other factors that made it perfect for you.

The warm and firm press of his mouth on yours, easily consuming all your senses with everything that was Miyuki Kazuya but retaining a gentleness that was also him. Always making sure you were comfortable. And the way his other hand had easily fallen to your waist to keep you in place was your anchor, powerful tendons of his arm underneath your palm that kept you from falling into the sea.

It was strange. He was both all-consuming and anchoring.

He shifted, angling a little more to slant his lips over yours, deepening and taking you down to the depths of the ocean. You followed willingly, reciprocating eagerly if only to prolong this experience. But the growing burn in your lungs was going to be a problem soon.

That was okay. He was back in your life now, wasn’t he? Miyuki Kazuya wasn’t a stranger, he wasn’t a friend; he was something more, a fixated presence in your life that caused you both immense happiness and irritation. No one was perfect, you knew, but even with all his faults and flaws, he came pretty damn close.

And he was right, too.

You had sort of ruined your friendship, though you supposed it was on his end, too. This was a two-way street, after all.

But as he pulled away, breathing a little faster than usual, his lips beginning to swell, you didn’t find yourself mourning the end of it. No, as he caught his breath and leaned forward again to claim your mouth, you found yourself looking forward to what he’d bring.

Your future was firmly entrenched with his and you wanted it to stay that way.

[djevelbl]

I think I'm taking up an old wip I did about Inky Mystery, but idk how I'm gonna continue it

[tielforest]

hey girlies

can i interest you with a smut fic about oabwan's first time on that couch?

[good-beanswrites]

🎬: About Es being a past prisoner and the secret 11th prisoner in your AU. But advance apologies if I'm overstepping into your AU!

I had this idea from a story that pretty much did the same thing. Going off there are novels/manga on Milgram and there being another Es and their own prisoners running another Milgram (but differently) I imagine this Milgram projects has been going on for a while, and our Es was from a previous project who might have gotten the worst verdict (or the most spared out of everyone), and was given this final task as a warden for the next group of prisoners. This is why they so readily agreed and had their memories wiped for this Milgram project instead of being weary on a shady project on judging an almost crime, they've already been through this.

(BTW is it bad and worrying for one of our ten fav prisoners to be the next Es if this is legit...)

Anyway, that's why Es is in Milgram in your AU, I guess? And the lore drop that Kotoko picks up on them being the 11th prisoner, I can imagine her also talking to Kazui since he's a policeman to see if she could cross out any theories on who Es is (Did they look familiar. Possible missing child. Any cases to do with an almost crime by a child other than the 10 of them here). Kazui knows Kotoko wants to investigate, but reminds her that, like in their prison while the trial is on, the facilities they're in have high security too. They do have the freedom to move about, but still limited.

If they're trying to investigate Es, maybe Fuuta, Kotoko and Mikoto can try to do the hacking on the comp Mikoto's allowed to use to Photoshop some shots for the MVs and photos (Fuuta and Kotoko seem to be able to search up info they need I think...). Yuno, Mahiru and Muu can work on charming the staff to see if they can spill more deets on Milgram. Not sure how much the group can gather, but oh boy fun times in Milgram can turn into another sort of stress in this AU...

No worries!! Like I said before, this whole au has been a fun collaborative project, so there's no overstepping :) I am sorry I won't be writing a lot on the ending until we get more info, but that's just the perfectionist in me who doesn't want to be proven wrong 😅 Still, I love tossing around and digging into ending scenarios, I really love this!

Because that would make a lot of sense why they're so willing to subject themself to the whole experiment! They remember how tough their experience was, and are confident they can care for the new set of prisoners while doing their job. I'm imagining they get the opportunity to return as guard, and get to have a nice talk with their own guard first. Once they fully understand what it's like, they're know they can handle it and sign up. It adds a bit of drama, too, since they must have been really young committing their crime in order to complete a years-long experiment prior to this one. They would have been like 10? Oof. (Now I wanna see their three trial songs 👀)

And like you said, that also brings up the question of the new warden. Though I think it's based on verdict results, I can just picture Jackalope keeping an eye on everyone during filming. He studyies their interactions and personalities, keeping his own set of notes on who would make a good successor. (I'm not going to go through every character but there are pros to any choice, it's very fun picturing them all taking the job.) Haha, on the other hand, maybe the reason Kotoko keeps bringing up her role as Es' partner/bringer of justice is because she did discover the truth. She drops as many hints as possible so she can be chosen next 😅

Ooh, I love her working with Kazui on an investigation! The fact that eh may know details on recent crimes (and almost-crimes) is super fun to work with. He's the last person who's going to spill a secret, so the group could go several trials without realizing Kazui had actually heard all about their situation this whole time.

(Getting sidetrack for a sec, I'm suddenly realizing that he and Kotoko may have heard things about the crimes in canon, too. They're a bit unclear about how much time passed between the murders and arriving to Milgram, so maybe he heard some things. I don't know how well-connected Tokyo police departments are, but Yuno, Fuuta, Muu, and Shidou are all nearby. There's definitely a chance he caught word of the vigilante nearby, and she heard about the odd policeman's suicide. Both of them could have heard about the tragic housefire, the disgraced doctor, or horrible schoolgirl murder nearby.)

Anyway, I like that idea of Kazui wracking his brain for any similar cases. Though, if he had, Milgram may have had the foresight to wipe parts of his memory, too. Maybe he does end up using his call to reach out to Hinako and have her look into it from the outside. Sadly, Kotoko seems the type to sacrifice her personal call to reach out to a connection who can help as well. I'll have to think about how closely Jackalope monitors those calls, hm.

I'm going crazy over prisoner investigation team !! Kotoko and Fuuta had the online knowledge to find some good info, and Mikoto and Kazui seem like they'd have a huge network of people they can ask for info and favors from. Haha, I'm torn whether Mahiru would have flirting down to a science or if she'd refuse to do it since it wasn't real love 😂 Still, she's very good at reading people and could definitely help the others charm and bribe their way into some restricted areas. Amane and Haruka can also charm with their innocence/cuteness (though I'm not sure Amane would). Shidou seems very organized, he'd have a plan and backup plan and backup-backup plan ready, no matter what happens. I think it's even funnier, then if Milgram had run several experiments prior. Jackalope would think this was just another runthrough, and for the first time the ten subjects decided to organize together and Cause Problems.

I think there's a beautiful irony in a story featuring ten prisoners planning a jailbreak to save the prison guard...

[zirkkun]

Reading ULR and I'm assuming that Chara has a Lust soul type because of their bloodlust; so how come Ace didn't become a murderous fellow when given the lust serum?

Because that's not quite how the Lust SOUL works! It's not related to bloodlust at all actually, but I suppose it can evolve into that if the owner of the Lust-trait SOUL has gained enough LV, now that you bring it up 👀 but that's for another time...

Each of the SOUL traits in ULR gives the owner a specific asset to their overall person that is intended to help them in life (but might not always do so depending on the person, their situation, and their relationship with said trait). Patience, for example, makes the owner willing to put up with a lot more than the other SOULs, whether it be wasted time, annoyances, being ignored, or even so far as consistent abuse without argument. This can be both an asset if they need to be in a place where patience is a virture, but it can also be a liability if they need to act immediately lest their life be in danger. It also tends to allow the owner to negate their emotions more easily and let them calm down faster.

For Lust SOULs, they tend to find themselves more attached to folks more quickly, not necessarily in a sexual or even romantic way, but more like how Asriel explains at the end of Undertale that you seem so quickly attached to the people of the Underground despite not knowing them for very long. Their added asset is having better fertility than other SOUL types, which is why Sage (Gaster) ended up being so exited about the fallen human possessing a Lust SOUL. Additionally, Myriad (Asgore)'s SOUL is attributed to Lust, so when even he and Ash (Toriel) couldn't bare a child, the whole of the ULR Underground began to lose hope for their future. (comic part where these are both mentioned)

The Lust serum was developed in order to restore the magic of the ULR Underground, because aside from not being able to have children anymore, they also are struggling to communicate, eat, and just generally survive. I guess you could think of it being one step away from a Horrortale situation, but that wasn't entirely my thought process while making the AU since I didn't know shit about Horrortale until recently. Sage wouldn't have developed the serum, though, if he thought it would make anyone go crazy and murderous since their species is already dying. If that happened, it would be entirely unintentional results. He sincerely wants to help.

When Ace took the Lust serum sample, the dosage was too high, causing his SOUL to possess more magic than it's supposed to and dyeing it red. As a result, he's overall having similar symptoms to monsters' heat cycles in this AU, which functions similarly to human menstrual periods but shows up differently due to monsters being made of magic instead of physical material. It didn't make him bloodthirsty more than it made his body overheat, bones become hypersensitive, and constantly trying to dispell the excess magic. He can only temporarily relieve this with various, as they say in the Sims, woohoo-ing acts, but again it is merely temporary. It also made him more emotional than before, since his normal assigned SOUL trait is actually Patience, and despite his grouchy outer surface he gets attached to people at the slightest bit of affection. And I mean attached, you are gonna want to do anything you can to get this lost puppy from clinging to you all the time if he gets to that point. (Not in a yandere way, he's not super jealous and more often than not doesn't like it when he gets jealous; but he will throw everything else away.)

I feel like I might have tangented a little from your question so if I missed something feel free to send an ask again, I'm more than happy to answer 😂 but I hope this explanation makes sense!

[ripcarrotchan]

taro buys jiro a weird-looking kitty plushie

(this is a scene from my fic about taro and jiro going to the park and jiro getting a plushie! ;;w;;)

[chimeric-art]

One would think, with the cacophony of chimes and bells sounding every hour in a clock shop, that the passing of time would be impossible to ignore. And yet Amelie had ceased to notice the metered chaos of the shop, especially when she was absorbed in her work--she had no clue what hour, day, or season it was. All she knew were the tiny teeth of clockwork gears and twist of screws as time stretched on unnoticed.

Her companion, on the other hand, was painfully aware that it was well past 3am. Silky found her eclipsing focus both endearing and obstructing. He was affectionately banished from her "workshop"--the small space behind the shop counter, its mess hidden from the storefront by a simple drape--due to...past incidents. Expensive ones.

This did not stop him from making as much of a nuisance of himself as possible.

"Silky," Amelie warned tensely--he had been drumming his heels loudly on the countertop, because of course he was sitting somewhere he shouldn't be.

"Yes~?" he returned with as much sweetness and innocence he could possibly muster.

"You don't have to wait for me to finish here," she pointed out, still not looking up from her project.

"But I want to be with you," he pouted over the clack-clack of his heels.

"That's fine, but I need you to be quiet." She sighed. "I have to finish this, the client is picking it up in the morning."

"But Ame~~" he whined softly, a look of sincere hurt on his face. She flinched, just barely, but it was enough for Silky to know he had won. Sure enough, she took a slow, deep breath and set down her tools, pushed away from her desk, stiff joints popping loud enough for him to hear. Grumbling under her breath about needy spiders, she massaged the back of her sore neck and opened a drawer to pull out a familiar coil of thickly woven puppeteer string.

Silky tried and failed to mask his anticipation. His long white braid thumped the counter like an excited dog wagging its tail.

Depending on whose hands wielded it, puppeteer string could be used for creation or destruction. Shadows tended to regard it with wariness, the way humans might pay special attention to a sharp knife--a tool, a weapon, a gift? It all depended on the puppeteer.  

Amelie would never claim to be a puppeteer, of course; she had no talent or interest in shaping shadows. The string was a gift from the king of shadows himself, as insurance just in case Silky lost control of himself and needed to be restrained.

Although they had not had to use it in emergency yet, they had agreed it best to practice her technique with handling the strings and tying knots--the string was sharp and could easily cut either of them if mishandled, one of the reasons Amelie tended to wear gloves while using it.

What they didn't expect during their practice was for such restraint to be strangely pacifying for the spider.

Obediently, he folded his legs underneath himself and clasped his hands together before him. With practiced ease, Amelie looped and tugged the string in meticulous patterns about his body, her stern, solid focus trained on him for a change. He shivered at the careful way she tightened the knots until they were just shy of uncomfortable--enough to hold him very, very still in his chosen position.

When she was satisfied she stepped back to appraise her work, and he relished in the way her keen gaze raked over him, searching for flaws, for mistakes, and--finding none--she softened and stepped close again, a gloved palm tenderly cupping his cheek.

"You're so pretty, Silky," she murmured, and pressed a quick kiss to the top of his head. Silky's whole body flexed against its bindings, fiercely yearning to reach out, capture, devour in response, but the knots held firm and left him maddeningly immobile as she stepped away. His eyes--wide with desire, flooded with shadow--followed her like a predator...and she met them with a smile.

And then she returned to her work desk. This time, though, she would occasionally break her work trance to glance at him (patiently, achingly waiting in stillness) with a mix of satisfaction and affection he felt to his core.

[goldpilot22]

like the undersea creatures that have lived their lives with 26,000 feet of water as a ceiling, creatures that quite literally melt when taken to the surface

[bitchcake]

ignoring his snaps for 7 minutes so i dont come across as desperate

[lemonduckisnowawake]

What if I theologized hanahaki? What then? Like if hanahaki was a symbol of unrequited love that desperately wants to be requited? Because God so loves us enough to want to be with us but also loves us enough to hold back lest His holiness turn us to ash because the flowers have become so embedded in us. So what if the flowers are a sign of our own rejection of God and the desperate craving we all have deep inside for Him...but also our way of melding with something that needs to go and thus being unable to be saved from it because we made it us in a sense? Like...

...

There’s a new wave of people who claim to be without the Flower Rot, also known as Hanahaki and Hua Bing.

These people claim that, without surgery, they have managed to completely remove the Rot. When asked what had caused this, one woman who wished to remain anonymous told the reporters, “It was…God, I guess. But He was also a man. He just…said that because the Rot’s too rooted in us, even if we wanted God we’d just burn with the flowers. But the only way’s to have His love take it away. So He said He’d take Rot and fade because He was a man, then come back because He’s God, and give us love to remove the Rot because He’s both.”

Her explanation aligns with similar ones from other witnesses with the Rot gone. They claim that the risk of fading with the removal of the flowers was taken by a man. But that His Godliness also signified that He could “grant His love” to permanently dispel the Rot.

As a refresher, it is quite unclear why the Rot suddenly began to manifest inside our lungs millennia ago. The most common legend is a tale of how humanity and God once lived in harmony in a garden. However, one day, man rejected God and told Him they could create a garden of their own. Though He offered a chance to repent from their rejection, having told them previously that such an endeavour would bring death upon them, they refused to acknowledge their wrong and were thus severed from His power and acceptance.

The proud declaration of humanity was not a nonsense claim, as they indeed found they could produce beautiful plant life for a garden.

However, that came with the cost of death, for these flowers grew inside them and were expelled through bloody coughs and sneezes.

Such is the duality of this universal Rot—a sign of divine rejection, some say, or a sign of our own ability to create beauty made more glorious through our own sacrifice, as others say. Of course, there are others who say this Rot is more complicated than simply a sign of our glory or a rejection from the divine, but those claims as much less popular.

In recent times, science has discovered that this Rot is simply a natural and inborn function of our body. “In fact, it’s inaccurate to call such a natural part of human experience a rot,” Doctor Kinuyo Yahagi of Hanahaki Research Association said, showing a bloodied purple iris of hers. “Yes, it is unpleasant but it is a fact of life, just like death and hunger and blood.” She then gave an animated explanation how there was a particular genetic wiring within our lungs linked to the brain’s rejection and affection chemicals. If the two are stirred in such a way, a pathway is made from the brain to the lungs triggering the genetic code and causing flowers to bloom.

“It can be removed by surgery,” a surgeon from the local medical center said. “However, studies have shown it is risky as it can affect your ability to love and process rejection, so it’s up to the patient to take the risk or not.”

Activists have cried that a difficulty in loving is not a sign of deteriorating humanity, and that those who choose the surgery are still acceptable.

“Hanahaki or not, we all still die, right?” a video of one academic debate records a professor speaking to one of the new Rot-less people.

The Rot-less person—a professor as well—nods thoughtfully. “Yes, but now, my death becomes a death without the disease signalling our separation from the divine, which is no true death at all.”

The ethics of removing the Flower Rot surgically still are debated, though much support for it has arisen in the past few decades. Research into these new rot-less people has also steadily increased, all done with the utmost legal and ethical restrictions to the volunteer’s rights.

“Hopefully, we’ll get to the bottom of this and find a better way to remove the disease,” Dr. Yahagi’s co-worker who wished to remain anonymous said. “Natural or not, it is still unpleasant. Why continue with something that is now proven to not be inevitable?”

[heloflor]

The issues with Movie Peach: A comparison of portrayals

Ok so I know it’s been literal months since the Mario Movie came out but I’m still a bit salty about the way Peach was portrayed in it, and honestly the more I think about it the more I find flaws in this “adaptation”, and I need to get it all out, hoping talking about it here will help me stop thinking about this shit and finally get over it. If you enjoyed her movie portrayal, good for you and feel free to ignore this post. For the others, here are the things that bother me about it.

(Very long post ahead! A bit over 11k words. It’s "cut" in several parts to make it easier to follow. I also made a Google docs version in case it’s easier to read. Tl;Dr under the cut because Tumblr does weird things due to the length otherwise)

Tl;Dr: Outside of a few personality traits that are the same but expressed differently, which is an issue all main characters in this movie have when compared to their game selves, the main issues with Movie Peach are her body language and the fact they removed the overly kind nature, more or less pacifist nature, wit and softness she has in the games and instead made her confrontational, a competent physical fighter and overly-confident, all of which make her OOC when compared to the games. This is especially insulting given the way Illuminations seems to look down on Games Peach and consider what they did with her in the movie to be an improvement, when Peach’s main issue in the games isn’t her personality but her lack of screentime to make said personality shine.

Setting a few things straight before we start, just to make sure we’re on the same page here:

1. No, it’s not about the pants. While an argument could be made about Peach only wearing pants in outfits that require it (adventurer and farmer in Odyssey, some events in Olympics, Strikers, swordfighter and Kung Fu in Showtime, biker in Kart, her cap/snow/moon outfit in Odyssey and detective in Showtime do have pants in a setting where it’s not necessary but both also give her a long jacket, making it look like she’s wearing more of a dress with long stockings rather than actual pants, same for Olympics ice skating) ultimately there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her wearing pants. Heck, one of her scraped Odyssey outfits has her wearing jeans, and it’s one of her best outfits! Also Showtime might have more outfits with pants that will make this argument null (I mean the concept art for Odyssey kinda already does with the jeans). All this to say, the people who claim Peach was “ruined” because she’s *looks at smudged writing* “wearing a biker outfit on a bike” need to chill tf out.

2. There’s also nothing wrong with the fact she can parkour. In all the games she’s playable, Peach can keep up with Mario without any issue (she does have a slower walking speed in Super Paper and 3D World but it honestly barely matters, and it makes sense given she has a dress). Plus, the movie establishes that she was raised here, so it’s normal for her to have the abilities needed to get around. Now I do take issue with her body language in the training scene (more on that later) and the mention that she first-tried it (I like when characters struggle and grow rather than getting everything right first-hand) but both of those things are unrelated to her platforming abilities. So if you see little to no mention of her being great at it later in the post, it’s because that’s not something I consider out of character for her.

3. I am beyond excited for Princess Peach Showtime. From what we’ve seen so far, this game perfectly encapsulates what makes Peach who she is, and I am so happy that she’s getting her own game again!!! As for the swordfighter and Kung Fu outfits, it’s mentioned later on in the post but yeah it absolutely works with her game personality. Again, the issue isn’t with the outfits, or in that case with some specific abilities that work with what we know of her, the issue is with the personality that goes with it.

4. While the post will likely give the opposite impression, in no way do I consider myself some sort of expert on Peach’s character. This is a character that was created 15 years before I was even born, and I have no rights whatsoever to dictate what Nintendo can or can’t do with their own characters or how they choose to portray them. It’s just that she’s a character I absolutely adored as a kid and, while I’m not sure if she’s currently my favorite Mario character (hesitating between her and Bowser), I’m still incredibly attached to that character and her potential, hence why I care so much. But by the end of the day, I’m just some random weirdo over-analyzing a character from a kid-oriented piece of media.

5. I have no issues with the strong female character archetype, or at least none outside of the common grievance of “stop giving us boring planks of wood with amazing natural abilities and instead give us great characters who happen to kick ass and be badass!”. In fact, was this movie a completely original piece with characters unrelated to Mario, I’d probably enjoy Peach’s character. My issue in this specific case is that this movie is meant as a faithful adaptation of a specific franchise, so you’d expect all the characters to be in character. And while all main characters have some traits that are missing or not exactly the same as their game counterparts (I could make a short post about it if anybody asks), it still works very well for what Illuminations was going for and they’re still recognizable. Peach is the only exception where her character feels very butchered. There’s also the issue that it feels like Illuminations looks down on Peach’s game portrayal and wrote her this way with a desire to “fix” her, when there’s nothing wrong with her in-game personality. More on that later. But yeah, it does feel insulting if they do look down on her game character.

(Also I know this is a whole other discussion but I’m really not a big fan of the way everytime a new female character is created she needs to be called like “girlboss”, “damsel”, “Marie Sue” etc. Can’t a female character just exist without being put in a box, like male characters do (obviously I’m talking outside of fandoms, I know men are put in boxes around here)? Also can’t sweet female characters, strong female characters and anything in-between just exist without people arguing over which ones are “better”? Just let women be women. And while I do understand the issue with how many movies do nothing with their women outside of making them the love interest, which is an issue, by that point we have so much diverse female rep that we should be able to write characters the way we want without having to compensate for the shitty portrayals. You want your female characters to be likable or great role models? Just make them interesting. Give them goals, an arc, interesting relationships, things they’re good at and things they struggle at. And if you want them to be soft and kind and raise a family? Go ahead! You want them to be badass as hell and kill without a sweat instead? Go ahead!

Also last thing about it but I find it pretty crazy how Disney specifically struggles so much nowadays with female characters in live-action. I mean Disney Animations Studios gave is tons of great women, both protagonists and antagonists, all with different personalities (Snow White is childlike and naive, Cinderella refuses to let her situation take her down and remains kind to those “below” her, Ariel is curious and passionate, Jasmine is stubborn and independent, Esmeralda is incredibly selfless while still having no issue standing up for herself, Megara is cynical and sharp, Tiana is determined and hard-working, Mulan is very smart and loves her father so much she’s willing to die protecting him, Rapunzel is spunky and has a natural talent to bring people together, Elsa is shy and introverted, Anna is impulsive and empathetic, Mirabel is probably the most relatable Disney protagonist, the list goes on), heck the Disney Princesses is their most popular brand that they didn’t buy out from the competition, and yet when you look at the remakes and the superheroes movies, they give us the blandest characters, whose “empowerment” messages are the most nothing thing when compared to the original animated movies. Mulan especially is a ridiculously good example of that given how fantastic the message of the original movie was in terms of female empowerment.)

Now, with all that out of the way, let’s get into why I dislike Movie Peach when compared to Games Peach:

1. The two biggest issues with Movie Peach

Starting with one of my two biggest issues but also the shortest to explain: her body language. To go over it quickly, just watch her scenes in the movie while focusing on her body language, mannerisms and facial expressions, and then go to her scenes in the Mario + Rabbids games along with the trailers for Princess Peach Showtime and do the same thing. You’ll quickly notice that Rabbids and Showtime have a very similar Peach, while the Movie gives a completely different vibe. In fact, on body language alone, they come off as two completely different characters.

Now there are small moments where her body language in the Movie works as Peach, such as her reactions when Mario is training or when she’s watching the fight between him and DK (at least when the camera isn’t fully focused on her for that second case). But overall, she’s still very different from the games.

To give more precise examples, notice the way Movie Peach always looks very confident when she’s about to start a fight. In comparison, the first teaser for Showtime opens up with Peach and Stella going on stage, and Peach comes off as someone who isn’t sure if she can do it but is willing to try her absolute best. Basically when I look at Movie Peach her face says “Alright, let’s do this >: )” while Peach in the first Showtime trailer has a face that says “Alright, I can do this”, if that makes more sense.

Then there’s also things like in the first Rabbids games with Peach showing up to the fight floating with her parasol Marry Poppins style. And upon being about to land, Mario extends a hand to help her even though she doesn’t need it, which kind of reminds me of the ending of Super Princess Peach where Mario is the one in distress yet Peach is the one getting carried bridal style by him because that’s just the kind of person she is. I just can’t picture Movie Peach doing the same.

Btw funny thing but while I disagree with the people claiming that Movie Peach is basically Daisy, since Daisy is very aloof about her role as ruler while Movie Peach takes it incredibly seriously, I do believe that Movie Peach’s body language would fit Daisy very well.

I guess it’s also worth mentioning how different her voice sounds in the movie? But then again I watched it in french and only saw some english-dubbed scenes through video reactions, and I can’t say I really care about the og dub enough to take a good listen. That being said, I’m not the biggest fan of her french voice when you compare it to what Peach sounds like (I do think the voice actress did a great job though, regardless of whether or not she sounds like Peach). And looking at trailers in different languages, the German version I believe has a much higher-pitched voice and it does feel a lot more like what Peach sounds like.

Second biggest issue is how great she is in combat and that’s the biggest one for me. Not only did they remove some of Peach’s traits (which we’ll get to in a moment) but they added something that is extremely out of character for her.

In the movie, Peach is a fantastic fighter, especially with hand-to-hand combat. She drop-kicks Mario, would have probably won against DK no problem had she accepted the duel, does a great job defending herself in the Rainbow Road scene, is very quick and agile when confronting Bowser at the wedding, and was single-handedly winning against a whole army, probably would have won had she not gotten distracted. She’s also clearly aware of those abilities, very often smiling during those fights, showing tons of confidence in her abilities.

On top of that, she’s very confrontational. She hears of Bowser being a menace and immediately wants to go to war. When a stranger gets a bit too close for comfort, she attacks. When encouraging her Toads before leaving, her posture when she gets interrupted shows a desire to fight. When they meet the first Kong and he glares at her, she immediately glares back. She also takes a fighting stance when he roars at them. When Bowser approaches, she’s willing to take him out all by herself and later on starts the battle at the altar. All-in-all, fighting is her first solution to pretty much every problem.

Peach in the games, however, is very different. If you look at her relationship with fighting throughout the series, three things will arise:

1. Peach doesn’t like fighting and only does so if there’s no other choice. In Mario 3D Land, she fights back against a pile of Goombas but looks incredibly uncomfortable doing so. In what we’ve seen of Showtime, she cowers when Stella uses her magic on her hair and then looks confused about having to be the hero for a second there.

In Smash Bros Brawl, the one cutscene where she truly shines has her stopping fights left and right and trying to befriend everyone while letting Sheik protect her if needed; she doesn’t even take a fighting stance when Mr. Game and Watch attacks (at least in the cutscene compilation I saw, could have been a glitch where her animation didn’t trigger considering she’s dusting her dress off instead, which looks like an idle animation; note that I haven’t played this game). Btw it’s both very funny and pretty embarrassing for the Movie writers that a fighting game of all things understood Peach’s dislike over fighting better than they did. On that note, this one Ultimate trailer with no music that got memed a lot features Peach and Zelda surrounded by a gust of wind, and while Zelda looks ready to fight, Peach instead gasps and looks at the wind, completely dropping her guard and forgetting about the whole “having to fight” thing.

Then there’s the Mario and Luigi series where she sends the twins to fight her battles, the first Rabbids game where you meet her very early on yet she only becomes playable much later in the game, plus in both Rabbids games she’s a support character whose role is to protect the others (of course she still has an attack like everyone else; also I’m in no way saying that a support character is “lesser”, it’s an essential role in making sure the hard-hitters use their turns to attack rather than heal).

In Paper Mario 64 she also doesn’t fight directly and in the last boss uses her wishes to strengthen Twink, playing support. Even in the Super Mario Adventures Comic, outside of dropkicking on the Koopalings, she never fights directly. When going back to the tower, she threatens to blow it up but doesn’t do anything when Wendy calls her bluff. There’s literally only one panel during the “getting the keys” fight in which she’s visible, and she’s in the background running around and looking surprised!

Oh yeah and while I might be wrong as I’ve only seen it in like, 2 cutscenes, Peach in the Rabbids games doesn’t seem to have a fighting stance, at least outside of cutscenes. So you know how the characters have some small animations, like “thinking” stances or “happy/cheering” stances or “sad” stances, you know the ones? Well in at least two scenes, while everyone is taking a fighting stance, Peach is standing with her mouth open in surprise. I know one of these moments is in the Last Spark Hunter DLC but I couldn’t tell you which is the other cutscene. I’m not even actually sure if it’s true for a second one but also for some reason I remember seeing it at least twice. 🤔 Btw random fun fact but Bowser also doesn’t have a cheering stance, at least not in this DLC.

I also know incredibly little of Super Mario RPG but doesn’t she use magic in this game, and is again the supporting character meant to heal the others?

Also also not sure if this matters much since other characters like Daisy do it too, but in Super Mario Party, and possibly other party games (?), during the minigames that require punching other people, she pushes them instead. You can see she doesn’t use her fist but her palms instead.

Lastly, because it does need to be brought up, yes Peach jumps on enemies without any hesitation in the platformers she’s playable in. This is basically the main reason why I called Peach “more or less pacifist” in the Tl;Dr. And honestly, the only counterargument I can give is the fact that those aren’t really fights, at least outside of bosses. You’re just kind of hopping on enemies’ heads and then they disappear. But in games that are more focused on the fight itself like the RPGs or the Smash cutscenes, Peach tends to either be less comfortable with fighting or have more of a supporting role.

Now, I could also point out how the vast majority of platformers Peach is playable in are co-op games (Bros 2 USA, 3D World, Super Paper, Wonder), and the stories of those games imply the whole group is going on an adventure together, meaning it’s possible Peach does less fighting and more exploring for example, leaving Mario and Luigi to do most of the fighting. And while this is an idea I like to explore in fics, I don’t want to diminish Peach’s abilities here. Plus Super Princess Peach and Showtime prove that she doesn’t hesitate when on her own.

And yes I know the real reason why she doesn’t hesitate in the platformers is because people want to be able to play as her and it’d be stupid to have a character who doesn’t have the basic abilities literally every character has, so it has less to do with her personality and more to do with gameplay. The RPGs on the other hand assign different abilities and roles to different characters, so they can make Peach the healer/support as a means to make her an active character while keeping her personality intact. Still, for the sake of argument and to avoid being a hypocrite, I consider the platformers as proof that she can fight directly when she needs to, with the RPGs and Smash cutscenes showing that this might not be her preferred choice.

All this to say, Peach is not much of a fighter. If she can prevent a fight, she will choose the more peaceful option. She’d also rather have other people fight instead of her or play support for them. But if it all comes down to it, she will fight. She’d rather not, but she will if needed.

2. Peach doesn’t know how to fight. Now this might be a flimsier argument but bear with me here. Basically, the first time I thought of this was due to the 86 anime and Adventures Comic, both of which have her defend herself using furniture, which does give the impression that she doesn’t know how to fight so she does the second best thing: throwing heavy shit to at least do some damage.

But even with those aside, Peach is definitely one to use unusual weapons. In Super Princess Peach and a few other games, she fights with a parasol. Her gun in Rabbids 2 is even shaped like a parasol. In Super Mario RPG, from what I’ve heard/seen, she uses a frying pan. And while I don’t know her Smash moveset, looking at her character descriptions from the wiki, the Smash games keep mentioning her using said frying pan along with turnips, her parasol, sports gear and Toad as a shield, with her hand-to-hand combat being her kicking while in the air. I also know what her final smash sort of looks like with the way the screen changes to look like a Peach-themed frame (and I think I remember hearing that peaches fall off the sky but don’t quote me on that).

She also uses magic, mostly star/wish-related magic, which seems to be healing magic for the most part? On that note, her specials in the sport games tend to be heart-shaped. And while it’s definitely undermined by the swordfighter and Kung Fu outfits, her main means to defend herself in Showtime is a ribbon. And who knows, maybe we’ll get some other wacky ways to attack in other transformations?

So yeah, overall, Peach doesn’t seem like someone who knows how to fight. She just holds onto an object that she’s comfortable with and wacks people with it. In a way, it goes with what’s said in the previous part. In platforming games, she jumps on enemies just like everybody else. But when it comes to more hand-related combat, Showtime is seemingly the first time where she’s getting some abilities on that front.

Now, there is the argument that Showtime is all a play, meaning her abilities are her playing a role. But I do think that, regardless if this is a play or not, her physical abilities in this game do come from her. So even if the fights are “scripted” to an extent, she’s still capable of executing those moves. Same deal with the possible argument that Stella might be giving her those powers/boosting her. Peach still is capable of doing them on her own, unless we’re explicitly told in-game that Stella gave her those abilities and Peach wouldn’t be able to do them without her. But then this would undermine her baking and detective skills, and we know how much Peach loves baking. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see once the game comes out.

3. Peach is physically weak, much more so than what the movie shows. This is actually why I saw her Smash descriptions because I went to the wiki pages for all the sport games to check her stats. And in all the games showing said stats, her strength is almost always below average, sometimes by a little, other times by a lot, with quite a few instances having her as one of the physically weakest characters. I can only remember one exception where her strength was around the same level as everyone else. Everything else, she’s below.

For those curious about which stats I used to check on that: every game that has a “strength” stat, I checked it. As for the others, for the golf games I looked for the ball distance a throw gives as it seems like the one that would require the most strength, and for some Strikers games it was the shooting stat. I didn’t take Mario Kart into consideration as I don’t think there’s anything in that series that would count (even weight doesn’t really have anything to do with it), and the baseball games were a bit more complicated. By that I mean that Peach in Sluggers for example (at least I think it was Sluggers) has a bad stat as a hitter, but good at pitcher. And both of those positions require physical strength I believe? Unless Nintendo considers pitcher as more of a technique-related skill and hitter as more strength-related? But yeah, just leaving this here in case it’s relevant. Literally the one time I don’t spend time looking at the other characters’ stats to see what they have in comparison, it’s the one time where I’m not sure what it means in terms of strength.

(Speaking of which, because I found those interesting, know that Mario is always the most balanced character, Luigi tends to be not as strong as his brother but has more agility than him, Bowser is always one of the strongest, DK and Wario swap between which one has the same strength stat as Bowser and which one is a bit weaker depending on the game, Daisy is a fast character in the Olympics games which I find funny considering Mario Kart Wii, and Waluigi tends to be on the weaker end due to being lanky apparently.)

And outside of the sports games, one of her Smash Melee descriptions calls her one of the weakest characters physically, and how using her is a test of endurance (again, a literal fighting game gets it), while that one long gone Doctor Mario mobile game has her attack stat in combat mode be at its lowest, while her defense on the other hand is pretty good (haven’t played this game actually, just stumbled across the page and looked up some stats, funny how well they’re tied to the sport games, like with Mario being balanced, Bowser having the most attack etc).

Now there might be more examples I’m forgetting, but all-in-all, there’s a pattern of Peach being weak when it comes to physical strength. And on unrelated news, the part of me that headcanon her as a Toad is very happy about that fact.

2. Other personality differences

And speaking of patterns! Here’s something the movie removed from Game Peach: her wit. Peach in the games is smart, resourceful and quick-witted. And while it’s not something the games really focus on, it’s absolutely there.

In all those sports games I mentioned, there’s one stat that’s always her highest, and that’s her technique. In all the games that have a stat called technique, she has the highest one. In almost all the games that don’t have stats but just put the characters in categories based on their abilities (all-around, strength, technique, speed etc), she’s put in the technique box, with only like one exception in an Olympics game that puts her in the speed category, switching with Daisy. In strikers, the golf games, the tennis games, and likely the baseball games, her best stats are the ones related to her control over the ball, which I’d argue is the most related to technique (don’t remember the exact names of the stats but it was something along the lines of passing the ball, giving effect to the ball, choosing the trajectory of the balls and being pitcher respectively). One of the Olympics games I believe even calls her quick-witted.

On that note, I like to think that this is why she makes for a great swordfighter and Kung Fu artist in Showtime, as those are skills that require a lot of technique and she’s good at picking up on it (also is there an Olympics games that has a fencing challenge that she’s playable in? Because that could explain it too).

As for outside of the sport games, you have the 86 Anime where she manages to outsmart Bowser though she doesn’t get away with it, the Adventures Comic with her outsmarting the Koopalings and even managing to escape the tower by making fast decisions on where to run to and using Wendy’s possessions against her (granted she got lucky with the cape, but still), Paper Mario 64 with her sneaking around the castle finding info to help Mario, same deal with Thousand Years Door (from what I’ve seen of it), Superstar Saga with her switcharoo plan, Partners in Time with her quickly grabbing the star against Elder Princess Shroobs, Dream Team with her and Toadsworth going through a few trials on their own (plus, depending on when she got captured, she might have been the one to think of hiding with Madame Broque), Showtime with the detective outfit, all the games where she’s able to send Mario items (like Galaxy) or attempts to run away (3D Land), and overall she’s seen as a great Princess loved by her Toads, which is a role that requires a lot of thinking to take the best decisions for her people.

On the other hand, Movie Peach lacks this wit. While she does have a lot of technique given how much she can do physically, she lacks the smart decisions that Games Peach is able to do. Or at least, she doesn’t think things through like, at all. I mean if you look at her decisions one by one:

- She intended on traveling to meet the Kongs all on her own, going on a fairly dangerous adventure without a single person in tow. The only reason she went with others was because Mario showed up.

- She meets that completely random guy that broke into her castle and is immediately willing to take him on said difficult journey after one day of seeing him train, all because he looks like her (this is the main reason why I would’ve loved to have Toadsworth in the movie, he could’ve told her not to go alone, thus giving an excuse as to why she would take Mario with her).

- When Cranky refuses to land his army, she just doubles down on what she just said. While her arguments make sense, she clearly didn’t know what to say and had no backup plan in case he refused, and only got the army due to Mario’s impulsiveness (granted I think she could’ve taken DK in a fight). And while yes, she’s surprised when Cranky first accepts, meaning she might have expected him to disagree, the fact she says “that’s it?” makes it seem more like she expected a deal rather than a direct approval. She didn’t come off as someone who expected him to say no, but instead expected a conditional yes and didn’t consider what to do in case of refusal.

- When Bowser arrives, she intends to face him alone, literally getting surrounded by Koopas the second Bowser steps out of his ship. Then she tells him to use the star now. She basically sent herself on a suicide mission here, and clearly decided to face him without any sort of plan. Was she hoping her looking badass and all would be enough to deter him or something???

- The wedding scheme. Now, this one is fine overall and does show she can come up with plans, but also a few people have pointed out how there could have been alternatives. She could’ve tried talking Bowser out of the sacrifices, try to accept the marriage and bide some time in order to strike when there isn’t a fricking army standing right next to her. But instead, she chose to blow up the whole thing, which was a crazy dangerous plan. It also showcases what I was saying about her being confrontational, when this is the first thing she can think of. Now of course, in the end it was the best idea due to Bowser wishing to sacrifice other people, meaning she needed to act now. But with the context of Peach not knowing about said sacrifices, it means she still intended on doing the most dangerous thing first rather than getting the marriage over with and destroying Bowser’s empire from the inside. Heck had she waited until after the marriage she could’ve gotten access to the Star during the night or something. Also, again, there’s no telling how Bowser would’ve responded had she asked him to spare those lives, at least for the time being.

So overall, while I wouldn’t call Movie Peach an idiot as she’s not, she isn’t that smart either. She keeps rushing into dangerous situations thinking her fighting abilities will be enough to solve the issue, exercising none of the caution and patience Games Peach has when trying to escape or snooping around. And it honestly sucks that Illuminations decided to take out what is arguably one of Peach’s biggest strengths and replace it with another type of strength that not only she doesn’t need but also goes against her character.

Now, before we get into the last thing bothering me, which is her kindness or lack thereof, I’d like to talk about a few minor traits that could’ve worked in the kindness part but can also be talked about separately. Those things are her snark/sass, her seriousness and her anger. Basically, those are traits that both Movie Peach and Games Peach possess, and as a result it doesn’t bother me when Movie Peach displays those.

Peach in the games can be sassy at times, especially in the competitive games. That sassiness can also be turned into playfulness a few times, like in Superstar Saga when she trolls Mario and Luigi about her voice and laughs about it, or during the escort mission where she makes comments about how “it wasn’t that bad” when you exit an area.

Like Movie Peach, she’s also fairly serious during dangerous situations. It’s just that, due to her personality, she expresses a lot of worry in those situations, which might take away some of her seriousness when compared to her movie self.

As for her anger, boy is it present in the games, but again it comes off as toned down due to her inherent softness. In the 86 Anime, she’s constantly talking back against Bowser and gets mad at him a lot, same for Paper Mario 64. In Super Paper Mario, it’s easy to get her angry. In the ending of Odyssey, she’s pissed off, and I actually love how when she gets on the ship she needs to take a deep breath to calm down enough to bring back a smile for Mario. That doesn’t mean she isn’t angry anymore, but again she’s incredibly kind and compassionate so she’s willing to put it on the side for now and focus on getting home. Also in the intro of Super Princess Peach, she’s absolutely furious after reading Bowser’s letter.

About her anger, I can’t help but wonder if this is what Miyamoto meant in an interview related to the movie where he apparently claimed that Movie Peach is how he’d always wanted her character to be. Because let’s be real here, this claim, if true, is corporate bullshit. Miyamoto has a lot of power at Nintendo, he could’ve made Peach like that from the get-go if that’s what he’d always wanted. Hell just look at Showtime where Peach is the same as she’s always been in the games, very much proving that claim is false. So again, I can’t help but wonder if by that claim, Miyamoto meant her temper. Or maybe he was referring to the Adventures Comic, which is the only version outside of the movie in which Peach is confrontational, but then again she doesn’t know how to fight in that comic so…

I’d also like to talk about her confidence, since earlier I mentioned how overly-confident Movie Peach is in her fighting abilities compared to the games. Now, that’s not to say Peach isn’t a confident person, far from it. In fact, there’s that character pic from the second Rabbids games showing off her weapon and her smile makes her look very confident (that pic is at the very end of that post btw, if by then you remember this part). But despite her confidence Games Peach definitely comes off as a very humble person, while Movie Peach is low-key showing off during those fight/platforming scenes.

All this to say, if you praise the movie for “giving” Peach those traits, she actually always had them. It’s just expressed differently in the games. This is also what I meant in the intro when saying how all the characters are a bit off when compared to their games selves, but it still works for the most part. The traits are there, but in a different way that does make it seem weird while still making the characters recognizable. The issue with Peach specifically is that they went further than just changing a few traits.

Also because I don’t know where else to put it, Peach in the games is definitely a lot softer and delicate than her Movie counterpart, but I consider this mostly linked to body language, hence why I’m not making a whole part about this. But it’s definitely something the movie is lacking about her.

There's also her stubbornness and love for baking, but those are also things I don’t really want to focus on. Given the situation the characters are in and the fact Illuminations doesn’t know how to write scenes where characters just sit down and talk, there really wasn’t any opportunity to have Movie Peach talk about cakes. Now I do believe that this lack is due to Illuminations considering Peach’s love for baking as “making her weak and feeble”, but again, even if it wasn’t the case the movie has a pacing issue so they couldn’t have talked about this anyways.

As for the stubbornness, I just don’t really have any example in mind and don’t really know how to explain it as a result, but I do believe that both the movie and games selves have it. I might actually be inclined to say Games Peach is more stubborn, but again I don’t really have any examples of that. I mean I guess there’s the Mario and Luigi series where she disregards Toadsworth’s concerns a few times (wanting to see the Toad village in Superstar Saga, using the time-travel machine in PiT, the intro of Dream Team with the trap door). From the little I’ve seen of it, Paper Mario TTYD also has her go against his wishes at the beginning?

Now, for the last difference between the two: her kindness. Peach in the games is one of the kindest sweetest people you’ll ever meet. I think I remember someone actually mentioning how her liking cakes so much is fitting given her personality, as cakes are sweet and soft and bring a smile to your face, just like she does (sadly I can’t remember where I read this, whether it was a tumblr post, a youtube comment, something said in a video or something else). And while Movie Peach is definitely kind, it’s not as much as Games Peach. Hell whenever I see people praise Movie Peach for her kindness, they say something along the lines of how the strong female character archetype usually doesn’t make women be this nice. So what Movie Peach is clearing is actually a very low bar of human decency that people were asking for. In other words, Movie Peach is nice the same amount a basic supporting character should be nice.

In comparison, Games Peach really is kind to a fault. She’s always warm and welcoming to any new person, is said in one of her Melee trophies to be such a forgiving person she’s willing to play against Bowser, which is a sentiment you can also see with the few times they’ve worked together, also that one cutscene in the Last Spark Hunter DLC where the Rabbids go to Bowser for comfort and when he lets that happen Peach gives him the softest smile. Even in games like Mario Odyssey where Bowser is trying to forcefully marry her, she seems to show concern for him after he’s defeated in the Cloud Kingdom. On that note, she’s also very nice to Junior, despite how awkward it might be for her (never raises her voice on him in Sunshine, has over 80% compatibility with him in the Gamecube Baseball game, plays with him in one of the Switch Online ads/explanations).

Also as mentioned before she’s willing to temporarily let go of her anger at the end of Odyssey to call Mario to come to the ship. I also made a post about four instances where Peach jumped into a dangerous situation without thinking because other people were in danger, whether she knew those people or not + whether they were good or bad people. Btw since earlier I mentioned how Movie Peach lacked wit compared to Games Peach, those four moments show that yes, Games Peach can be impulsive at times and do things without thinking them through, but those instances are specifically related to her kindness/desire to help others, unlike Movie Peach who just does what she think is best in the moment and never plans anything. Also ironic I bring back the wit since I consider Peach’s kindness to be her second biggest strength, on par with said wit.

On that note, I’m one of those people who make up animations in my mind while listening to music and recently was listening to Wander Over Yonder songs thinking about Mario (“I’m the Bad Guy” with the Shadow Queen tho, or “You’re the Greatest Reprise” with Kamek, Bowser, Luigi and Mario when taking the order of which characters speak/sing first, also you have no idea how much I hope someone will make an animatic of Bowser singing “You’re the Greatest���). And the funny thing is, while thinking of voices and how the actor for Wander would fit either Mario or Luigi very well, it got me thinking of how both properties have a very nice/positive cast where even the villains can be friends from time to time, and I ended up comparing Mario with Wonder and realize that Wonder is actual pretty similar to Peach in some ways.

Both Wander and Peach are people who value friendship and understanding over fighting. They both love helping others, though it’s a lot more amplified with Wander, and are both willing to give the villains a shot at redemption, perhaps a bit too much, trying to see the best in people. Now what’s interesting here is that, while Peach is intelligent and her governing a Kingdom shows a level of maturity, at times she comes off as naive or airheaded, and I can’t help but feel like her kindness is the reason for it, and comparing it with Wander explains it.

The short version is, if both of them received an invitation from their respective villain claiming they were willing to change their ways, both would happily accept and go meet the villain with a smile. The difference however is that Wander would have Sylvia looking out for him, ready to jump in any moment. While Wander will play dumb on the possibility of the villain setting up a trap, he’ll be very much aware of said possibility and will be able to escape it. Peach on the other hand will drop all defenses and completely fall for the trap.

And I think that’s the thing with Peach’s kindness, and why she comes off as naive. Unlike someone like Wander who keeps a level of realism over the villains’ intentions and plays dumb about it, Peach believes the best of everyone to a fault. I’m especially thinking of that scene in the Switch Tennis game, with Wario and Waluigi showing up and half-collapsing, leading Peach to immediately run to them, ready to help, forcing a Toad to step in and tell her to be careful. Peach knows that Wario and Waluigi are bad news, yet the second they’re shown in trouble, she forgets all about the possible danger and wants to help, straight up needing someone else to remind her of said danger. In a way, it reminds me of that statement Miyamoto once made about how easy it could be to capture Peach by just giving her cake. While I’m not the biggest fan of this statement as it comes off as mocking her character, when you think about it, there is some truth to it.

Now I guess we kinda went off-topic here but also it’s a good way to show the way Peach expresses her kindness in the games, and how the movie failed to convey that. Games Peach sees the best in everyone, to a point where it can become a flaw, while Movie Peach is a lot more guarded (see her attacking Mario when he got close or her body language around the first Kong they meet). Also, Games Peach is someone who doesn’t seem able to hate anyone, though it is mentioned in I believe a Mario and Luigi game that she hates Bowser. Even then, I don’t remember said hate being really conveyed. Don’t get me wrong, Games Peach can very much be mad at someone and/or dislike them, and I do believe she doesn’t have the best opinion of Bowser, but she never comes off as outright hating anybody. Movie Peach on the other hand absolutely hates Bowser. Just look at her face when he tries to flirt with her. There’s nothing but contempt in her eyes.

3. In defense of Princess Peach

Lastly, I want to expand a bit on that whole “Illuminations looking down on Peach’s character” thing and the way people see Peach in general, along with talking about how I feel about some of her portrayals because why not.

Thing is, to an extent, I get it. Peach’s character origin is rooted in sexism, with her being meant as the damsel in distress who’s constantly helpless. She was definitely meant as a character of her time, and I get why some might find her boring as a result.

But the thing is, even with that origin in mind, Peach has always been more than that. Literally one insignificant year after the first Super Mario Bros game, we had the 86 Anime which gave her a personality. And then we had Mario Bros 2 USA where she was a playable character, one of the earliest playable female human characters in gaming (she wasn’t the first but still definitely pretty early). And while the mainline games kept a status quo of her being captured, we had the Adventures Comic with her being able to escape all on her own, the Mario Kart series with her being playable in every single one of them, same deal for the sports and Party games. She was playable in Smash starting with Melee, she was playable in the first two Mario RPGs (Super Mario RPG and Paper 64). Despite her role as damsel in distress, she was far from being put on the side when it came to non-mainline games. She even got her own platformer where she had to save Mario!

In some small ways, Peach actually reminds me of Luigi. He was player two in tons of games and absent in almost all big 3D games, meaning most players didn’t get to play as him in the majority of mainline games unless they played in multiplayer. Or he was playable but under specific conditions (pushing buttons in the right order for Mario Bros DS, finishing the main story and doing one special world in Mario 3D Land, literally finishing the game 100% in Mario Galaxy 1). And the first time he had his own game, it was in the early 2000s, less than 5 years before Super Princess Peach (granted Luigi’s Mansion was apparently a console launch title, which is a bigger deal; also no I’m not including that Mario is Missing shit), and it took forever to get sequels. And while he was playable in the Mario and Luigi series, he’s barely playable in the Paper series, neither is he in RPG.

Overall, while he does have much more playable appearances than Peach, a lot of it is conditional in the mainline games and he definitely struggled to get recognition, to the point of it becoming a recurring joke in the Mario and Luigi series + Nintendo made a whole “Year of Luigi” event to compensate for his lack of time under the spotlight.

As for personality, Luigi is shy and quiet, easily frightened, and often gets himself in trouble, with a few games needing you to save him. He looks up to Mario for safety and confidence and relies on him a lot, Mario basically being his rock. So you can definitely draw some parallels between him and Peach.

Now where am I getting with those parallels? Basically thinking about it, it does bother me a bit that Luigi gets praised for being an adorable dork while Peach is called bland and boring for expressing rather similar traits/being in the same situation, and I say that as someone who absolutely adores Luigi! In the end, I’m just going to assume it’s due to the weird hatred against women some gamers and fandom spaces have for some reason.

Speaking of which, since people claim to have an issue with Peach’s personality and how bland she is and how the movie “gave her a personality”, I’d argue that there’s nothing wrong with her character, the issue is her lack of screentime.

The best example of that is with Smash Bros Brawl. For most of the cutscenes, she’s getting captured left and right and is basically a non-character. But then there’s that cutscene on the ship where she takes the spotlight, and that scene is great! It’s incredibly fun to see that character during a huge crisis just pulling out tea out of nowhere and generally being more focused on befriending people than protecting herself. Seriously, while I strongly dislike how little agency Peach has in this story, I absolutely love this scene! Btw can we get some justice for Zelda? No because if Peach got shafted by the story, Zelda got it even worse. Even as a kid I could tell from her design that she could’ve done more to help, but instead the only time she actually does something, it’s as Sheik. Girl is clearly able to fight for herself yet she’s useless for the whole thing, it sucks!

The second best example is with the first Paper Mario trilogy, which is also probably my favorite version of Peach. The first game especially did a wonderful job at showing that just because Peach is captured doesn’t mean she has to stand around and do nothing, she can still help. This idea of having interludes with her sneaking around the castle does wonders for her character and really helps in making her personality shine, from her kindness to her wit to her adventurous side to her ability to put her foot down when interacting with Bowser.

Another thing I really like about it is how much it puts some of the kidnappings into perspective. In Paper 64, she finds items by sneaking around and then sends them to Mario. Hey remember the few games where she manages to send letters with one-ups and other items? Same with Mario 3D Land where she’s put in some sort of dungeon, tries to escape, and is put in a cage under high surveillance. Notice how in most New Bros games she’s in a cage when you reach Bowser’s castle, implying all those instances might have been failed attempts to escape.

Basically, while Peach doesn’t get much screentime, some games kind of makes you realize that she does a lot more than you’d think. She tries to get away, she tries to find ways to help Mario. She doesn’t just sit there and lament like many claim. Heck you can also see it in the 86 Anime and Adventures Comic. And reminder that the anime was created one year after the first Super Mario game!

Now the last example I have of Peach suffering from lack of screentime is with the Mario and Luigi series which, outside of the 2023 Movie, is probably my least favorite version of the character, not due to her personality but due to how wasted she is. And between those games being RPGs, meaning they’re supposed to focus on the characters, and the fact that the first Paper Mario games did such a good job with her character, the lack of screentime in those games is particularly aggravating.

In Superstar Saga, she’s actually pretty great! She’s fun, we see her kindness, playfulness, wit and desire for adventure shine. I especially like the way we see her craving for more adventures but can’t go on her own due to how defenseless she is. As someone who made a timeline of the games and has the first Paper trilogy + all the platformers with Peach playable taking place after this series, it’s a great way to slowly set up Peach’s growth into someone who can eventually go on her own adventures as a hero. Honestly the only issue I really have with Peach in that game is the game itself making a joke out of her getting kidnapped all the time. Not the greatest example of meta humor, guys...

I’ve also seen about half of Dream Team and she’s fine in it. I like how they brought back her thirst for adventures. But unlike Superstar Saga, she does feel more like a plot device in this one. Like there’s this whole section where Bowser and Antasma got the dream stone and Starlow is making a big deal about them kidnapping Peach, leading you to try and hide her. Thing is, if it was any other villain, I’d understand the urgency, but this is Bowser we’re talking about here. Peach is going to be fine, why are we wasting our time hiding her when we could focus on the bigger picture!

And even before that there’s this whole section of finding an older Pillow to reach Antasma for no other reason than Peach getting captured, because apparently they couldn’t think of any other excuse to have us meet the main villain, or give a reason for Bowser to show up for that matter. So yeah, the way they used her in Dream Team does make her feel like more of an object than a person, at least past the intro of the game.

But then we get to Partners in Time and Bowser’s Inside Story, and oh boy do I hate what they did with her. In PiT, you could literally take her out of the story and nothing of importance would change. The missing time machine? Just have the whole crew be Toads, it’s enough motivation for Mario. Petey Piranha? Either put a Toad, Kylie Koopa (and remove her scene later on) or even Baby Bowser, I mean why not! Princess Shroobs’ fake-out? Either keep that whole thing in since it’s technically not Peach (just have the characters comment on how she’s supposed to be on vacation or something and how weird it is that she’s there but oh well we gotta protect her) or, if you consider that cheating, just remove the scene and find a better excuse to have Bowser show up and go to the volcano. Or have Shroobs disguise herself as someone else, that’s still a possibility. As for the scene explaining who Elder Shroobs is? Was Peach even necessary in this scene? I mean, it’s pretty obvious what happened, and Elder Princess Shroobs could even explain it herself while gloating. I swear when I saw a let’s play of this game and Princess Shroobs commented on Peach now being useless to her, my first thought was “She was useful to you? Didn’t you try to kill her like an hour ago?”

As for Bowser’s Inside Story, she’s nothing more than a plot device. What does she do in that game? 1. Gives exposition about the Blorbs. 2. Is in danger as a means to motivate Mario. 3. Gives exposition about the Dark Star. 4. Is in danger as a means to motivate Bowser. Oh and did I forget to mention that she’s unconscious for the latter half of the game? Peach in that game could straight-up be replaced with a non-sentient magical item and the plot would stay the same. And I honestly don’t know what’s more insulting between that and what PiT did.

All-in-all, the issue with Peach isn’t her character, it’s the lack of time devoted to her. When she has enough room to be a character, she’s great! When she doesn’t, she’s either boring or a plot device, and it sucks that this is what most people remember her for when she has more going on than just getting kidnapped.

And since I’m out there giving my opinion on Peach’s different appearances throughout the franchise (you can skip directly to the conclusion if you want, this part is pretty off-topic):

My views on the first Paper Mario trilogy and the Mario and Luigi games are explained enough I think.

I also really like how she’s depicted in the 86 Anime. I like how she keeps standing up for herself against Bowser and talking back to him, on top of the usual being kind to Mario and co + her trying to be smart to escape. For Bowser, it’s like early on she realized he’s not going to raise his hands on her, so she’s free to fight back as much as she wants, even if she doesn’t have the abilities to get out of there by herself. Idk, while the Anime itself isn’t all that amazing (it’s pretty funny in how bonkers it is though), I really like what they did with both Peach and Bowser. And it’s pretty fascinating how their modern personalities aren’t that far off from this very early portrayal.

The Mario + Rabbids games also absolutely nail Peach’s character. It’s honestly kinda crazy when you think about it that both the 2023 movie and Sparks of Hope were being developed at the same time, both worked on by a different company that Nintendo had some level over but ultimately mostly gave advice to, and yet the movie struggles to depict the characters properly while Ubisoft did a ridiculously good job at it. Seriously, remember earlier when I said every character in the movie was a bit off? If you want to see a comparison, go see the cutscenes of the Rabbids games. And even if you don’t care about characterization, still do yourself a favor and go watch those cutscenes, they’re amazing!

The Adventures Comic is an interesting one. While she’s very provocative and willing to fight, she also doesn’t know how to do so, and it makes her scenes very funny. Like I love how in the beginning she rants about how she’s going to defend her kingdom, then the next time we see her she gets attacked by Lakitus and gets kidnapped. Girl lasted 10 seconds out there. That contrast of her being all bark but no bite is just very funny, and it fits well with how comedic the story is overall. Also, the way she’s so willing to act is probably why people remember her as a badass in it. Because she does talk like a badass, but she’s not one because her actions don’t follow suit. Still, I don’t take that comic much seriously so Peach is definitely very fun in it, and that’s enough for me. And again, that comic does a good job at showing that Peach’s biggest strength isn’t her ability to fight, it’s her wit and good heart, shown respectively with her tower escape and her constant desire to actively help.

Also, about this comic and how people see it, even outside of the fact they’re not the same as she doesn’t know how to fight in it, I find it really weird that this comic is used as proof that Movie Peach is in character, considering how 1. Before the movie, this comic was the only time in over dozens of portrayals that Peach was shown as confrontational; in statistics we call that an outlier, 2. This comic was made in the 90s, you’d think a more recent portrayal could be used as proof but nope, Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Showtime are still different from her comic and even more so her movie self, and 3. That comic is outdated anyways considering the Koopalings are said to be Bowser’s kids in it, so unless Nintendo came back on their words after re-releasing this comic in the late 2010s, it’s still outdated.

The mainline games are...the mainline games. I’d also put the second Paper Mario trilogy and Luigi’s Mansion 3 in the same basket. When she’s on-screen, Peach is her usual sweet self, but those games also suffer from barely giving her any time to shine. I do enjoy her depiction in games like Odyssey, Mansion 3 and the intro of 3D World (mostly because those cutscenes are cute), but again all those games definitely suffer from having her on the back-burner for pretty much the whole thing, and are the main reason why people dislike her character.

I also can’t help but wonder if Sunshine is the reason why she’s seen as a “dumb bimbo” by some people, especially given the “Mama Peach” trainwreck of a cutscene. And I will say, Peach definitely feels very meek in this game. She clearly can tell that something’s off, yet she barely insists on telling Mario and Toadsworth. You’d think a princess would be more assertive than that, especially when the Mario and Luigi games show that she’s not afraid to go against Toadsworth’s wishes.

Going back to the kidnapping issue, ultimately I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with her being kidnapped, especially when it’s impossible in the mainline games to beat Bowser directly without a power up (the intro of Odyssey straight-up shows that Mario can’t win against Bowser in a fist fight) meaning it’s normal for Peach to be unable to fight back easily. Bowser is incredibly powerful all things considered (enormous physical strength, fire breath, every part of his body is a weapon, can use magic, necromancer, can jump incredibly high, has an army at his disposal, his car clown heavily negates his slow walking speed), to the point where even Mario and Luigi are kidnapped sometimes (Super Princess Peach, 3D Land for Luigi, and while it’s not Bowser, Luigi’s Mansion for Mario too). This also all kind of leads into a message about working better together or how it’s okay to ask for help, which reminds me of that Tumblr post about how Mario never travels alone.

That being said, Nintendo should definitely either do something similar to Paper 64 (or at least what 3D Land did with the letters showing her try to escape, that’s already a start), either have her only kidnapped in specific games like the big 3D games the same way Luigi isn’t playable in almost all of those, or reinforce her role in other Mario series like making Showtime the first of several games + bring her back under the spotlight in the Paper Mario series. Again, when thinking of Luigi and his time under the spotlight, you can definitely do a similar work-around where she still gets kidnapped in some games while being playable in others, whether those others are different game series or for example around half of the upcoming 2D platformers.

And call me an ass for that but, while I’d love to have her playable in almost if not every 2D platformer, I still maintain that the big 3D games should keep having her getting kidnapped. Again, outside of Galaxy (and even then for the first one it was very conditional), Luigi doesn’t show up in those either. And if you maintain a good balance between her being kidnapped in the big 3D games + a handful of 2D platformers all while making her a major character in the RPGs and even getting her own series, you’re basically keeping the status quo of the kidnappings all while removing the issue of a lack of screentime.

(Note that my main “issue” with having less kidnappings has to do with Bowser’s character. If Bowser doesn’t kidnap Peach, you need another excuse for him to be the villain. And given how his crush on Peach, the main reason why he kidnaps her, is the first thing used to make him more of a softie which I love him being, I don’t want to see him do more and more messed up things all while his crush gets forgotten. Then again, him being a dad is currently the main thing Nintendo uses to make him a softie, and Origami King still showcased his crush despite him being a teammate, with the two upcoming RPG remakes following the same trend)

Not very much to say about her depiction in the sports and party games. The characters don’t exactly have much personalities here, so other than more proof on how her body language should be, there isn’t really anything to say in terms of “I like/dislike the way they portrayed this character”...also I don’t own a single sports game and only have like 3 party games (DS, Island Tour and Super) so outside of watching the cutscenes there’s not much I know about those games.

Conclusion

Edit: Ended up making a table explaining the differences so putting it there as a good way to wrap up the comparison. While I won’t edit that part of the post as it’s a small thing, note that I ended up considering Movie Peach as not being someone who gets angry as all her “angry” moments are her being serious, and she also doesn’t come off as a stubborn person as she doesn’t have to argue in her choices and doesn’t have moments where people tell her something’s a bad idea yet she does it anyways.

+ Huge difference in body language, mannerisms and facial expressions

+ Huge difference in voice if you want to take it into consideration

+ Slight difference in facial structure if you want to take it into consideration

Finally, a few closing thoughts about this whole thing, and more specifically the fact that one of my two biggest issues is her fighting abilities. Thing is, when you look at her jumping on enemies in the platformer games, her abilities in the sport games, the fact she’s in Smash and the upcoming Showtime game, it’s very easy to disprove my arguments, since Games Peach very much knows how to defend herself. And while I maintain that she’s not that great of a fighter in the games compared to the movie and is more of a pacifist, I understand this view. And thinking about it more, I think the true issue with her movie self is the attitude Illuminations has about it.

As said much earlier, it feels like Illuminations doesn’t like Peach in the games. I also think I’ve seen somewhere that her VO made a comment in an interview about finally giving Peach some personality, something along those lines? Then there’s also the supposedly original script where Peach was the main character, and how Nintendo told Illuminations to rewrite it upon reading it.

And even outside of the production info, that disdain over her Games character is all over the movie. Toad keeps hyping her up, along with other characters. During the training montage, when she does the demonstration, the camera slows down to show just how “cool” and “badass” she is. You get the vibe that, even if Mario wasn’t here, she still would’ve gotten the Kong army and taken on Bowser all by herself. There really are moments where it feels like the movie is going “Hey look at what we did with Peach! Isn’t she awesome! Isn’t she so much better than that wimp that keeps getting captured!” The best example of that is when she saves Toad on Rainbow Road. Like, this was the worst offender for me.

Princess Peach Showtime, on the other hand, gets who Peach is. The intro shows her going on a stroll with her little pink parasol. She cowers when Stella uses magic on her. And while she has a swordfighter and Kung Fu outfits, said outfits are given just as much importance as her baking and detective outfits, the former showcasing the one hobby Peach has been into for years, and the latter showing off her intelligence. And even outside of those outfits, her main attack is magic, more specifically a cute little pink ribbon. Also, like mentioned way earlier, the fact that it takes place on a stage gives the impression that Peach is playing roles, though again it doesn’t diminish her abilities.

I think that’s why I can’t stand her fight-oriented attitude in the movie but can’t wait to play Showtime. The movie looks down on Peach’s character and feels the need to “improve” it by changing many things about her, while Showtime embraces who she is and simply expands on it by giving her a more action-oriented role with the abilities she already possesses. I think that’s also why her body language in the movie bothers me, as it goes into that direction of “making her stronger” by removing her mannerisms. Now, again, there are a few more things other than her fighting abilities that they did wrong with her character, there’s a reason this post is so long after all. But by the end of it, I think it really comes down to how much disdain Illuminations has for Peach.

And on that note, you have no idea how relieved I was when the first trailer for Showtime dropped and Peach was her normal self! While I know the movie is going to get sequels, meaning we’ll keep seeing this random badass woman cosplaying as Peach, it’s at least very relieving to know Nintendo is going to keep writing Peach the way they’ve always done. And I can’t wait to see what Nintendo got in store for this wonderful, adorable, hyperfeminine, incredibly kind, witty, soft, cake-loving pink Princess!

Thanks for reading!

(All pictures were taken from the Mario Wiki except the first one that’s from the 86 Anime and the Mario Odyssey one)

[irritablepoe]

ok i wrote a little over 1k words today, somebody tell me they're proud of me :')

[caramel-catss]

i played skyward sword for three hours straight just now. dizzy kirby emoji

[averbaldumpingground]

Welcome back, nice to see a post from you again. Hope you are well 🙂

Thank you, that is very kind of you. I've actually been on here this whole time, mostly lurking. :)