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dejayoonw · 4 years ago

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the most | taeyoonseok

part five: runaway

word count: 4k

song rec: runaway by eric nam

taglist: @purelyecstacy @joonies-babyy @soulstaes @vantaescupid

—

"Good morning, guys." you said groggily to the camera, rubbing your eyes to rid them of the sleep resting in the inner corners.

"Today I have plans with Hoseok, I mean Jhope from my last vlog. I think we’ve decided to go to a theme park since it's supposed to be really nice outside and I haven't been in so long. He says he hates rides but maybe we can get him on a few." you laugh remembering the conversation you had trying to convince him to promise to ride at least one ride at the park.

Over the last week you'd been texting Hoseok nonstop and even had a few late night phone calls. You couldn't lie and say you weren't excited for this date even if you were nervous and a bit confused. Hoseok turned out to be even sweeter than you thought, if that were possible. You’d really started to like him and that worried you, because your feelings for Taehyung had not changed.

You explained more about your plans for the day and that Jungkook was sitting this video out but would still be editing while you got ready, doing your hair and makeup in front of the camera. You let your viewers 'help' you pick out an outfit and ended the first clip when you finished cooking your breakfast.

"You know for someone who isn't sure if they even like the guy they're going on a date with you sure do look nice." Jin commented, helping himself to some of the fruit on your plate. You rolled your eyes at his remark. Since you and Hoseok had been getting along so well all week Jin had been teasing you any chance he got, you knew he did it out of love and was more than likely just trying to make you more comfortable.

"You're hilarious Jin and as much as I'd love for you to share your wit with the world I do like Hoseok so when he gets here if you'd please not do anything to embarrass me I would really appreciate it."

"Hey! Me? Embarrassing? I can't believe you'd accuse me of such a thing. I'm hurt, Yn, truly." Jin never failed to make you laugh and even though you were partly serious you let it go, knowing while he loved to mess with you he'd never do anything to really mess something up for you. Jin was one of the best friends you'd had since moving to Seoul. While Tae was surely your best friend, you were grateful you got the opportunity to move and meet new people, even more so that Tae came with you even if he did go on his adventures from time to time.

Thinking of Tae sparked a feeling of guilt in the pit of your stomach that you'd had since Hoseok asked you on this date. You weren't sure why you felt that way but it was hard to ignore, even though Hoseok was proving to be a pretty good distraction. Maybe the guilt wasn't because you were betraying Tae but because deep down you felt like you were leading Hoseok on. You couldn't ever see yourself not having feelings for Taehyung, you couldn't even remember a time when you hadn't.

You still had every intention of being honest with Hoseok and that scared you a lot because truthfully you had gotten attached to him in a way you didn't expect. He was funny and sweet and you couldn't deny how attractive he was not to mention he actually liked you. Yet still in the back of your mind Taehyung consumed your thoughts. All week he'd been acting weird, being shorter in his replies when Hoseok was brought up, not being as supportive of the date as the rest of your friends, things that had you second guessing whether or not he could possibly reciprocate your feelings but then the memory from all those years ago would come rushing back and you wrote off any of those stupid thoughts as a figment of your imagination, or him being worried as a friend.

"Stop overthinking. You're going to have a good time today with someone new. Focus on that and don't stress about it, you'll get wrinkles." Jin said, pulling you from your thoughts. You smiled softly at him, nodding once and deciding to actually take his advice.

"Hoseok and I are on our way to the uber now and I'm starting to feel a little bad guys, he seems so scared." you moved so that the camera was on both you and Hoseok, showing your viewers the unamused expression Hoseok had been sporting since Jin told your date about all the rides you'd forced him on in the past.

"Don't overreact." he said, the look in his eyes going against the words he was saying. It was obvious he was scared but he wouldn't back out or ask to go somewhere else. You had already wondered if you should ask to change the location yourself and seeing the way his face fell the second the camera was off him was all the convincing you needed.

"You know I had a dream last night about that arcade that we went to for Jeongguk’s birthday last year, that place was so fun and I haven't been since." you said to the camera so your intentions wouldn't be so obvious. "Actually I'd really love to smoke Hoseok at DDR one day."

"Impossible, have you seen my moves?" he fired back making you laugh.

"I'm notoriously amazing at DDR though, I even beat Jin and that like, never happens." you paused to look over at him to find him already smiling down at you. In that moment you felt your heartbeat quicken at how close you two were, for some reason it hadn't really clicked that you were actually on a date until that moment. "Can we go there instead Hoseokie, please." you gave him your best puppy dog eyes to hide the fact that in all honesty you'd rather be outside today, but for some reason you didn't want to ever see him look so scared ever again.

"Is that really what you want to do?" he asked, eyes narrowed, seemingly knowing what you were up to but being too happy about the change of plans to want to argue. Not to mention what hearing you say his name in that tone was doing to him, he could actually feel a piece of his heart soften so much that it had fallen off into his ass. You nodded, still looking up at him with the cutest expression and he of course agreed. It wouldn't have mattered if you said you wanted to murder every firstborn male in Seoul because Hoseok would've agreed to anything you said.

When you got into the Uber Hoseok told the driver about the change in location and you filmed the two of you talking about the games you were going to play and who would win what. Joking with him came so naturally that you'd forgotten this was a first date and not a fiftieth. You were surprised at how comfortable you were the moment he walked through the door of your apartment and even got a little giddy seeing how well he got along with Seokjin.

You zoomed in on Hoseok at the front counter, purchasing your tokens then laughed when he turned around with four full cups, almost dropping them all when he nearly ran over a random child. He made his way to you with a blush on his face from the incident, your laughter calming him a bit. The two of you had already decided to start with DDR, both eager to try and destroy the other.

"What song are you going to do?" you asked, filming Hoseok in all his determined glory. He was careful to pick a song he thought would be easy and you'd both agreed to play on the hardest level. "Ooh house music that's going to be hard." you teased laughing at the glare he quickly shot you before his round began.

"Ah! This is hard!" he looked genuinely shocked at the difficulty of the game and you almost couldn't even hold the camera still with how much you were laughing.

"Try using your hands!" you told him, all but doubling over when he crouched down, smacking the squares to the beat of the song. He did start to get a bit better when he was using his hands but it was clear that the song he'd chosen was not a good one. Once it was your turn you passed the camera over to him and tried to ignore the butterflies knowing he didn't care so much about you vlogging your first date.

You'd both agreed not to specify to either of your viewers that this was in fact a date since neither of you knew where it would lead. When you thought about dating, which was rare since you really only thought of Tae, you always hoped you'd find someone that wasn't offended or intimidated by your lifestyle. Hoseok was far from either of those, in fact he seemed to enjoy it, making jokes and even helping you out with angles since you weren't exactly the best at that aspect of it hence the reason you had Jungkook.

"I'd just like to say I'm sorry in advance for how badly I'm about to beat you." you jokingly told him before pressing start on the game. You'd chosen the song you always had, in fact you knew it so well you'd practically memorized the steps.

"You said you hadn't been since Guk's birthday!" Hoseok complained, shocked by how good you were at the game. Sure you'd warned him, but he thought it was mostly just for the camera. While his ego was a tad bruised he couldn't ignore the way his heart fluttered watching you have such a good time. You finished with a score considerably higher than his and an adorable bow, standing up straight with a smile beautiful enough to make his heart skip a beat. He barely had time to recover when your hand grabbed his, dragging him to the racing games.

After a long discussion of whether you should do three rounds or one on the racing game Hoseok finally gave in and agreed to three, you sucked at the game but unfortunately you also sucked when it came to losing anything. Even though you'd somehow passed him during the second round you still lost that game in the end, Hoseok was a lot better at this game than he'd let on and you playfully accused him of hustling you regardless of the fact that there wasn't even money involved.

"I think we need to do something to tone down the competitivness in this vlog," you glanced around for something you knew you'd be able to just have fun with when you remembered the karaoke room they had. "Karaoke! That's perfect!"

"I'm down, but fair warning, my best friend is a professional producer and rapper, shoutout to AgustD." Hobi shamelessly promoting his friend on your channel was something you never thought would happen but you couldn't be mad, he was too cute.

"No way, you’re friends with him? Taehyungie loves him." you'd done well not thinking about him throughout the date, but it was only a matter of time.

"Ah he's the travel vlogger you're friends with right?" you smiled, happy that Hoseok knew of your best friend. Taehyungs only dream growing up was to travel the world and that's exactly what he's doing, and he's able to make a living doing it. Hearing that people know him just for doing something that he loves never fails to make you happy.

"Yeah, he's my best friend. I've known him since we were seven." it was hard to avoid the places your mind always wanted to go when Taehyung was mentioned but out of respect for Hoseok you were doing your best. You wanted to be honest about your feelings but you weren't sure when the right time would be. The car ride wouldn't have been right since you took an uber and you weren't alone. It was then you realized the two of you were alone in the karaoke room.

"That's great that you guys are still so close! It must be so cool being friends with someone for that long. Does he live with you and Jin?" you turned your camera off, turning all your attention to the conversation.

"Yeah, actually he and I moved here right out of school and met Jin through an add. Jin was accepting two roommates and we were the first and only ones he interviewed." you weren't sure how you were going to bring up your feelings for Tae, but you wanted it to come naturally.

"Well I hope I can meet him soon, I can introduce him to Yoongi too if he wants." you couldn't help but brighten up at the idea of Tae meeting someone he loved so much. You recalled the countless hours your best friend had kept you up making you listen to new songs by his favorite rapper on soundcloud.

"He would absolutely love that! You have no idea how much he loves his music I swear he never shuts up about it."

"This is going to sound so cheesy but hearing that he has such dedicated fans makes me so happy, like they're not my achievements but I'm almost more excited about his than I am my own." the more he spoke the more you realized just how similar the two of you were.

"Okay but no lie that is exactly how I felt earlier when you knew who Tae was." you confessed. you wondered if Hoseok had ever felt anything for Yoongi before, or if they were just really close. Either way it was clear that he cared about him.

"Wow, we're such good friends. They're so lucky to have us." you laughed at his jokes and agreed. Building up as much courage as you could you decided to finally spill your secrets and hoped that he wouldn't be angry with you.

“I've never felt as happy as when I'm with Taehyung, even just thinking about him puts me in such a good mood and it kind of makes everything confusing and difficult for me. I know this isn't really great first date etiquette but I'm actually so in love with him." you paused to let him take it all in. It was clear that you had caught him off guard but he didn't seem angry, at least not yet. Deep down you knew that he wouldn't be mean to you even if he was upset about it you could tell it wasn't in his nature to be mean. "I guess I just, I don't know I wanted to be honest with you because I really don't want to hurt you. You're such a great guy and honestly I really do like you so much, I just also happen to have some feelings for Tae."

"Wow." he took a breath keeping his eyes locked on the floor. There was no way he was going to be okay with it. He might still be your friend but no one in their right mind would take this kind of baggage on. "I'll be honest I wasn't really expecting that."

"I know, I'm really sorry that I didn't just tell you to begin with but I just, nothing is ever going to happen with Taehyung and I, I mean he doesn't feel that way about me."

"How? I don't mean that in a fuckboy 'ohmygod how has he not fallen for you if I was him I would've jumped at the chance' but how the fuck has he not fallen for you if I was him I would've jumped at the chance." you laughed lightly, earning a cute smile from him. His happy personality and teasing tendencies helped to lighten the conversation in a way that you were so thankful for.

"He just doesn't see me that way. We're best friends, we're not supposed to fall for each other. He's seen me at my absolute lowest, ugliest point, if there was any chance before then it would've been ruined after that." you tried not to dwell on the painful memory, quickly moving on from all the reasons Tae would never want you. "I want to try this, I want to move on from him and fall for someone that can love me just as much. But the last thing I want is to hurt you, so if you don't want to be involved in this I completely understand. Regardless I really hope that we can be friends because I wasn't lying when I said I liked you."

"Let's do it." you blinked dumbly at him not sure if you'd heard him correctly. there was no possible way he had already made up his mind and it wasn't to tell you to fuck off.

"Wait, what?" he smiled at you chuckling lightly.

"Let's try this. We don't have to put any labels on it yet, I like you, you like me, we can leave it at that for now until you're ready for more. I'm willing to wait."

"I half expected you to laugh in my face and walk out." you told him honestly. Even now you couldn't believe that he was serious, you just knew he would call you later on and tell you never mind or that it was all one big joke.

"You were honest and upfront with me and I respect that a lot. It just proves that you're even better than I thought you were." he told you. You weren't sure what to say anymore, you'd had a great date so far and somehow not even confessing your love for someone else had ruined it.

“This has been so much fun, I’m not ready to go home yet.” you whined, hanging onto Hoseok’s arm while the two of you walked along the sidewalk together.

“Well we could go watch a movie at mine, but Yoongi and Jimin are there having dinner because Yoongi lost a bet.” Hoseok said. “Oh wait, I know this place close to yours actually, it’s a bar that me and the guys go to sometimes, do you want to go get a few drinks before we call it a night?”

“That sounds great, let’s go.” you said, taking his hand in yours. The walk to the bar wasn’t far and the two of you spent the majority of it just gazing at the stars and the lights around you. It was nice, being with Hoseok. You felt safe with him, like you could fully open yourself up to him even though you’d only known him a short while.

Once at the bar the two of you ordered your drinks and talked about your lives, your ambitions and your past. You learned that he had always dreamed of being a dancer. He’d started out as a street dancer when he met Jimin at an event, the two had really hit it off & from then on they built their company together. It was really nice hearing Hoseok talk about his passions. You only wished you had something like that. You’d never really found anything you loved that way.

It started getting late and Jin had texted you a few times to see how it was going so the two of you decided to let the date end there. You were both thoroughly buzzed when you did decide to leave so Hoseok offered to walk you the short distance to your apartment before calling himself an uber.

“That song they were playing at the bar was so good, I can’t get it out of my head.” You said before running out into the empty road, screaming the lyrics to runaway by Eric Nam.

“Yn! Get out of the road you’re going to get hit!” Hoseok said, although his laughter made it hard to believe he was serious. Even he could see that it was far too late for this road to be very busy.

“Come dance with me, isn’t that your job?” you said, continuing your little song, starting to spin in circles and dance like you were insane. Hoseok watched you for a minute from the sidewalk, thinking you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen before joining you.

It may not have been what he expected, but this had been the best date of Hoseok’s life. It almost scared him just how much he liked you already. He’d only been in love once before and it had been messy, but that was a story for another time. Right now he was happy, happy with you.

#the most; fic #taeyoonseok!poly #dejayoon #bts social media au #bts au #bts sm au #taehyung social media au #taehyung sm au #hoseok social media au #hoseok sm au #yoongi social media au #yoongi sm au

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catboymingi · 4 years ago

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poisoned apple - veninder chap. 11

navi/masterlist

story masterlist

pairing: mingi x reader

genre: angst, fluff; best friends to lovers

word count: 5.6k

warnings: a little language, non-consensual kissing, insecurities

camilla har hadet mig / lige siden at jeg lavede dig / det’ ik’ camilla jeg’ forelsket i - camilla hated me / ever since i got with you / it’s not camilla i’m in love with

you noticed that mingi had chosen the wrong recipe soon after, because it started talking about bread when you hadn’t intended to bake bread, and though he wanted to apologise you wouldn’t let him, pecking his cheek as you told him it was okay and that from then on it was mainly guessing and that you’d be able to improvise a cake, smiling brightly as you put the different coloured layers in one by one because you were kind of convinced the colour would become a weird, mushy brown if you tried to layer now already, even though that most likely wouldn’t have been the case. but neither of you was good at baking and you had all the time in the world, so layer after layer was baked, and then you had to attach them to each other with frosting, and then you put frosting on the outside of the cake and each other’s faces, and then mingi got out his secret weapon, a couple of birthday candles he’d bought for this occasion, telling you “happy 1 month” on the cake as he kissed you again, still shy but still so sweet, and this time he tasted like lemon frosting.

“you’re sweet too”, you informed him after you licked the remainders of lemon frosting that he’d left on your mouth off your lips, and he smiled awkwardly, so adorable that this time it was you who pecked his lips because you couldn’t stop yourself, even though you were shy, too.

“muruni”, a fond whisper as you looked up at him, eyes so full of adoration that he almost wanted to cry with happiness.

“murusi”, he confirmed, his arms around your waist while yours were around his neck.

“are we allowed to get food again or are you still busy?”, yeosang’s voice interrupted your loving staring into each other’s eyes, reminding you that you’d blocked the entire kitchen for several hours now.

“sorry, come in!”, though you wouldn’t let go of your boyfriend, just turning around in his arms so they were connected in front of your body rather than on your back and putting your hands on top of his to keep him in place.

“how’s the cake going?”, the smaller boy (though he was still a little taller than you) asked, getting some water as he stayed in the kitchen with you to talk a little.

“we haven’t tried yet”, you admitted, and mingi told him: “if this wasn’t because she’s managed to stick with me for a month i’d offer you to try.”

“i don’t think i want to risk trying that anyway”, yeosang teased, and if you hadn’t held the tall red-haired goofball’s hands in front of your body he probably would have started a food war with his friend because this was your anniversary cake and it had to be good and implying it wasn’t was an insult to his manliness.

“i want to risk trying that”, you informed your boyfriend before you’d find yourself having to comfort an angry mingi because someone dared to insult his cake, and his face lit up because at least there was someone that appreciated his baking.

so he quickly got out the dishes needed and the two of you brought your things to the table, sitting down next to each other with the tall boy saying he’d feed you if that’s okay, “for maximum cake enjoyment” as he claimed, because he was your boyfriend now and while feeding you was a boyfriend thing that wouldn’t have to stop him anymore.

despite the process having been a mess and despite both of you still looking like you fell into the dough during preparations the cake was good, very filling but very good, and you put the rest of it into the fridge as you started cleaning up, something that was very much needed because you’d not been able to control yourselves and your silliness during the baking and left a whole mess that you couldn’t have the other boys deal with if you didn’t want them to make it impossible for mingi to have a restful sleep, always fearing they’d come have him deal with the consequences. plus, you didn’t want to have them deal with your mess because it wasn’t exactly kind, and cleaning up with your boyfriend proved to be fun, actually, almost as fun as causing the mess, something he’d never admit out loud but that he did agree on.

it felt like your relationship continued to be perfect, despite the anxiety you still dealt with, despite knowing that your friends would try to ruin it at any moment. he was kind, he was gentle, he made sure everything was always as perfect as it could be, and he kept his cute notes and his cute dates up, he acted even cuter now that you were still dating, kissing your cheek randomly and kissing your mouth once he’d realised he was allowed to do that even in public and constantly wanting to be around you. it was almost annoying, but the two of you were still your own individuals, still spent time apart, were trying hard not to become one of those annoying couples that only ever cared about each other and nothing else. you continued your pyjama parties - that had become a biweekly happening because it was just so fun -, you continued getting lunch with the boys and engaging in their stories just as much as they engaged in yours, you continued acting like best friends that just so happened to also kiss every now and then. and were you anything else, really? your relationship had a label, but not too much had changed - you’d been close and touchy before you started dating, too. it was just an upgrade to what you’d already had, really.

it was mainly owed to this that the boys weren’t uncomfortable or upset at all about the new (or at this point not so new) development, even though you were stuck to each other every time you were somewhere together, refusing to not be touching in some way. mingi had admitted to them, once, in their group chat late at night when they’d been teasing him, that he was scared you’d run from him or vanish into thin air if he wasn’t touching you in some way, grounding himself in some way, and though it wasn’t very logical it was very cute, so they accepted it, thinking the way he was always asking you to be on his lap was adorable.

they could see it made you happy, too, being so close to your boyfriend all the time, being held whenever he had the chance, so they could complain even less. they still remembered the way you’d looked and acted in the beginning of your friendship and even after that party whose only achievement had been getting mingi to finally confess his feelings, and they didn’t want to see you anxious like that ever again.

they didn’t know about the anxiety you had deep inside you, though, hidden away from even your boyfriend.

you’d agreed on a date, mingi and you, at a café, a study date, and he arrived before you because he was closer when you’d agreed on the time and because he’d bought you a tiny teddy bear that he wanted to give to you because he was still your teddy bear even though he was also muru now, a small token of his affection, something you’d be able to hold when he wasn’t there, a small portable mingi.

there he was, waiting, excited to give you the little bear, but before you arrived one of your old friends did, coming over to him and sitting down next to him, giving him that fake smile he’d come to hate.

“you’re really trying to be a good boyfriend, huh?”, asking with an awfully sweet voice that made him want to run because he knew this meant trouble. he kept looking to the door, not wanting to give away too much but wanting her to leave because you’d come any moment now and he didn’t want her to still be there when you’d be coming in.

but she just kept talking, telling him how she wished you’d respected her dibs back then because he really was very handsome and a real sweetheart, too, from the looks of it, and she’d just love to ruin him someday. he wanted her gone, immediately, but he didn’t want to physically hurt her, he wasn’t like that, he wasn’t the kind to get physical towards girls or anyone, really. maybe he should have at least pushed her further away from him, though, because suddenly she leaned in and pressed her lips on his, kissed him when he had shown in absolutely no way that he’d ever be interested in that, she just kissed him and he was so shocked that it took him a moment to realise what was happening and to push her away. and that moment was enough for you to come in, to see it, and to turn around on your heel because you couldn’t stand to see this, couldn’t stand to see him, in that moment.

so instead of going on that sweet date with him almost two months into your relationship you went home to cry and think that your relationship was over now, because there was no way he’d ever want to be with you when things like this happened.

you cried and ignored your phone, ignored the messages you got from mingi, from the group chat, from the boys, ignored mingi’s calls, too, just cried and showered and put on your softest pyjamas and cried some more, looking like a raccoon because you couldn’t be bothered to really wipe off all the makeup you’d worn and you’d just half-assedly gotten rid of the worst of it in the shower. you hated life, you hated this, you hated everything, you wanted a hug but you didn’t know what to do because if your relationship with mingi was over now your friendship with the boys would have to end, too, just like you’d told mingi during that very first confession, and it scared you, horrified you to think that you’d be entirely alone. you wanted nothing more than to just sleep and wake up and realise all this had just been a bad dream.

eventually, though, you did open your messages, reading all the worried “y/n??”s and telling the boys you were okay before replying to mingi, or rather ignoring what he’d said, ignoring his worried messages and just telling him that you needed to talk.

[10/10 halattava]: ill come over rn, okay?

[y/n]: okay

and then you waited, waited for your now still boyfriend but soon maybe ex, trying not to cry because you’d hate it if he saw you crying your eyes out as soon as he arrived.

mingi was there soon after, knocking on your door and waiting patiently for you to let him in, which you did wordlessly, and as soon as he entered you made your way to the bed, not wanting to stand next to him awkwardly and not wanting to risk him trying to kiss you. he noticed the way you were avoiding him, and even though he wasn’t sure why he wouldn’t try to make you do anything. he just wanted to know what was wrong, but he also felt like he had something to come clean about.

“i know you wanted to talk, but i have something to tell you, too”, he said quietly, feeling so guilty about what had happened earlier even though he’d pushed the girl away immediately. he wanted to tell you. he had to tell you. but he wanted to give you the option to speak your mind first.

you didn’t seem to want to, though, looking at him with a pained expression when you asked him “what is it?”, and he felt like you already knew. but still, he had to tell you, he wanted to be open and honest and fair with you, he wanted you to hear it from his mouth, not anyone else’s.

“i have a teddy bear for you”, remembering the little gift he’d gotten for you to give you today, holding it up for you to see, “but that’s not important, just… sorry. your friend kissed me today. and i let her, at first. i’m sorry.”

he heard you sigh, and he wanted to explain himself to you, wanted to tell you just what and how it had happened, but the choice of how many details and how many excuses you wanted to hear was yours. this was what had happened, objectively. there was nothing that would change this fact.

“why’d you let her?”

“i was shocked. i didn’t really realise what she was doing at first, you know? so i didn’t push her away as fast as i should have.”

and you believed him. the fact that he’d told you without you confronting him, and the fact that he hadn’t tried to make any excuses first thing, it showed you all you had to know. and while of course you weren’t feeling good about it you weren’t angry at him; how could you be? especially with how the people that used to be your friends had been acting in general - you knew that even if he hadn’t been so surprised he couldn’t have stopped her from giving him at least a small peck. no, you weren’t angry at him, but you couldn’t help but be scared that he was going to leave you, not for her, but in general. that he was going to be tired of all the issues your past bad decisions in the friend department brought into your relationship.

and he could tell that you were worried about something, though he wasn’t sure what exactly. he didn’t know whether or not you were angry, so instead of coming to sit right next to you as he usually did he asked you if you wanted him to leave, because as much as he wanted to be close to you he didn’t want his presence to cause you any hurt. you shook your head, though, vigorously, not wanting him to leave, not when you were scared that if he did he wouldn’t come back.

“come here”, you all but begged him, and he immediately complied, sitting down on the bed next to you and opening his arms so you could have him hold you, if you wanted to. and you did, all but climbing into his lap, holding on to him as if your life depended on it.

“i’m sorry.” he held you tight, feeling that there was something really wrong, and even though it may have been selfish he wanted to be the one to comfort you. so he said it again, “i’m sorry”, murmured against your hair.

“don’t”, you told him, moving away from him just enough to be able to look at him, hands still grabbing at him with all your power, “i’m not angry.” and because you could tell by the look on his face that he was confused, you elaborated: “i’m not angry at you, really. i’m just scared that it’s too much. for you, i mean. that you’ll go find someone who won’t cause all these problems.” your voice cracked during that last sentence and it broke his heart.

“i won’t. i won’t go find someone else, i don’t want to go find someone else. even if things are all rainbows and butterflies with them all the time, i don’t care. because i’m not in love with anyone else, i’m i-”

he found himself surprised when you put a hand on his mouth with an unexpected force, stopping him from telling you what part of you longed to hear but what you didn’t want to hear now.

“don’t say that. please.”

he nodded and you slowly took your hand away, scared he might still say it. but he didn’t, instead looking at you with softness, but also worry in his eyes.

“what’s wrong? are you okay?”

you nodded slowly, trying to think of a way to explain why you’d reacted like that.

“i’m sorry, it’s just… i don’t want you to say that when i’m scared you’re gonna leave me. i don’t want that to be the first time you say it.”

with anyone else, you’d be embarrassed about admitting this, but not with mingi, because he understood you, he knew how much all kinds of firsts meant to you, and if the current situation would taint this first for you he was going to wait with saying it. not being able to say it now would never make as much as a difference for him as him waiting until it felt right for you would make for you, and he accepted and respected that this was something you cared much much more about than he did, the ‘formalities’ of how things happened for the first time in your relationship. so instead of saying anything he pulled you closer again, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head while he soothingly rubbed your arm.

“i’m not going to leave you, though. you’re stuck with me now.”

and even though you were still clinging on to him desperately he could feel you smile against the skin of his neck, and he smiled as well. this was all he could ask for, being the reason you were smiling, being the one to cheer you up when you were hurt or anxious, and as long as he could do that he definitely would.

“i still have the bear for you, angel. do you want him to join?”

you nodded against him, refusing to let go, so he tried carefully to fetch the bear from where he’d dropped him to the floor when he came over to hold you tight, leaning over and trying not to squish you, ending up in an incredibly awkward position, but it was better than having to kick you off his lap.

“this is small mingi”, he then informed you, showing you the little bear with a red bow, “and he’s going to cuddle with you when i have to sleep in my own bed by myself.”

“pikku mingi”, you told him, taking the little bear from his hands when he’d sat back up and pressing him tightly to your chest.

“hm?”

“it means really tiny mingi. that’s him”, holding the bear in front of his face so he could now take a look at pikku mingi, as if he hadn’t seen him before.

“this is our child”, you continued, stroking the little bear as his apparent father looked at his new little family.

“i think i’d know if we got you pregnant”, he teased, and you covered pikku mingi’s ears as you hissed at him: “not in front of the baby!”

“sorry, sorry”, kissing your nose because he was glad you were joking now, though it was very obviously jokes to distract yourself from how bad you’d felt just a moment ago.

“i have the best family in the world”, kissing the bear’s head before leaning in to kiss you, offering some comfort through his soft touch and the adoration you were able to feel whenever he kissed you.

“you’re the best”, you whispered against him, holding him close because you didn’t want even a single centimetre to be between the two of you. “you’re beautiful and you’re the best.”

even though it was you who needed the comfort right now he was glad you were still obviously happy to be with him, because that was something he feared quite often, that you’d get tired of being with him because of the issues it brought. he had much of the same fears as you, fearing the other would leave because things were hard the way they were right now and because you didn’t know how to make things easier, fearing that things would be over way too soon just because you’d rather not risk getting hurt.

“you’re beautiful”, he countered, a small peck to your lips again, “you’re beautiful”, peck, “kind”, peck, “and amazing”, kiss.

his hands were in your hair, in your incredibly red hair, and yours were in his incredibly red hair, and you decided you wanted to wash his hair now.

“let’s wash your hair”, you half suggested, half ordered, and he nodded.

“i want to wash your hair because it’s so soft.”

“with shampoo? will i smell like you?”

he was excited about that thought, about the thought of smelling like you even if it would make the colour fade more easily if you added shampoo.

“if you want”, smiling at your beautiful boyfriend, and he most definitely did want, nodding at you with his bright red hair bobbing up and down as he moved his head.

you moved off his lap, putting pikku mingi on your bed and patting his little head before you got out the dyeing towel and moved to the bathroom, telling him to take off his shirt as you already turned on the water, making sure the temperature was nice before he’d get in, asking him to feel if the temperature was okay before he’d lean in.

“it’s good”, he confirmed, then leaned over on all fours, the head and half his upper body in your shower as you kneeled next to him on the cold tiles of your bathroom floor.

“i’ll wash your hair now”, soft ministrations as you ran your fingers through his hair, made sure to wash it decently, massaging his scalp with the shampoo as he smiled with his eyes closed, enjoyed the feeling of your hands in his hair.

“done”, you let him know as you dried his upper body first, then put a little towel turban on his head so he wouldn’t drip all over your floor, and he smiled at you brightly when he sat up.

“can i hire you as my hairdresser?”, he asked and you smiled, glad he’d enjoyed it at least as much as you’d enjoyed playing with his hair.

“if you want i can blow dry it”, you offered, the last option you had for playing hairdresser now that his hair was washed and he didn’t want a new haircut, and he nodded so enthusiastically that the towel turban fell off.

“okay, we can do that in my room again, sit down on the bed, i’ll be right there”, the short moment you’d promised turning into a slightly longer moment as you looked for the blow dryer, a machine you barely ever used yourself because it didn’t exactly make your curls look the way you wanted them to. but then you’d found it and joined your boyfriend in your bed after you’d plugged it in, smiling widely at his excited expression as you ran your fingers through his wet hair, ignoring how small drops landed on your blanket. this was domestic, this was nice, and you didn’t want to be sad. so you dried his hair, and then you cuddled, and then you talked some more about the anxiety both of you held deep inside you, because you knew ignoring it wouldn’t work out and would only make things worse, and he promised that you were the only one for him and you told him that you’d never want anyone else and you agreed to try and talk about your fears when they arose, and to always tell each other about everything you thought might be tell-worthy, and then you kissed each other, he was on top of you and tickling you a little to make you laugh and then he was kissing your smile and your entire face, and when he was so tired that he near collapsed on top of you you switched positions so that you were on top of him, clinging to his large, soft body, and you fell asleep like this, pikku mingi on his chest, in your arms and with his arm wrapped around the two of you, his little family.

much to your old friends’ dismay did their little stunt not actually ruin your relationship with mingi, quite the opposite, and instead of causing a fuss he went up to the girl that had kissed him the next day, telling her that she must have missed it but that he was dating you, so he was very sorry to have to let her down, sending the same fake smile her way she’d always send your way, you holding mingi’s hand the entire time to make obvious just how ridiculous it was to think that she’d missed it, and by now your coursemates had caught on to the girls wanting to ruin your life, something there wasn’t really proof for yet but something that definitely was the case, and something that caused others to avoid them because everyone remembered how you’d always tried to be nice even when the girls had been horrible, staying behind to make sure their victims were okay, and now you were their victim, something that got you sympathy and the girls even more negative attention than they were used to. and by showing that even being their friend wouldn’t keep you safe if you acted wrong other people seemed to realise that trying to act nice towards them wouldn’t help.

and, what you were proudest of, the way mingi stood up to them seemed to motivate other people to stand up for themselves, too, so that their little empire where you didn’t even know how they’d managed to build it was starting to crumble, slowly, but you saw, you noticed, you noticed how their fake smiles slowly faded more and more. and you had mingi there to celebrate the small victories with you, the moments you managed to stand up for yourself. you were so grateful for him, for the boys, for these people that genuinely supported you all the time, supported your dreams and what you wanted for your life.

“angel?”, one of the boys in question interrupted your thinking during lunch at their place on the saturday of yet another pyjama party, “i was wondering if you’d like to do something on monday. you can choose what we do, too.”

monday was the two months anniversary, something you were so glad you’d reached, and of course you’d like to do something with him then. though you didn’t exactly have any ideas - what was there to do that you hadn’t already done?

“can you pick? surprise me again. i’m bad at deciding”, you asked him with the biggest puppy eyes and he nodded, kissing your cheek quickly because he couldn’t resist, because you were so cute and he was so absolutely in love with you.

“i’ll think of something”, and lunch continued with everyone joking, and then you had the pyjama party with so many games that you were becoming better and better at, and at night, when you were in mingi’s arms again, he kissed your head and told you: “let’s go to the zoo. we haven’t done that yet.”

“let’s go to the zoo”, you replied, nuzzling close to his chest because you were exhausted, wanted to sleep in your teddy bear’s arms and not think about anything but how wonderful and warm and perfect he was.

“on monday”, he confirmed, and you hummed, and then he said goodnight, and you said goodnight, too, already half asleep, no longer holding on to the state of being alive once you’d said your goodnights, slipping away into the land of dreams just minutes after.

you spent the next days excited for your zoo date, near vibrating on monday during lunch, wanting nothing more than to just leave already but you couldn’t, had to go to your class first, but at least he’d pick you up in front of your classroom and then you’d go right away. you’d come to university a little dressed up for this occasion, because you wanted to look good for your anniversary, and as the boys had noticed on your last anniversary it was impossible for you to not be smothering each other in love, so this time they knew not to expect anything different. it was kind of cute, too, seeing you be so absolutely in love with each other.

it was even cuter when you kissed mingi goodbye after lunch and almost hurried to your class like a schoolgirl, wanting for it to be over as soon as possible so you’d get to go on the date with your boyfriend that he’d planned for you and that the boys had secretly gotten the mission to supply the food for because some of them had shorter class than you did so they had the chance to go get something, and because it was two of their closest friends they’d gladly supply the food even when they wouldn’t get to share it. they wanted your happiness just as much as you two wanted each other to be happy, and they’d become your biggest hype squad and, sometimes, on very rare occasions, personal therapists.

you mainly messaged san, still a little closer to him than to the other boys, asking if mingi had ever hinted at not wanting to be with you when they were alone, because while he always seemed so happy to be with you you also knew he was good at acting and it scared you a little, and mingi messaged yunho or their group chat to ask about how to make everything perfect for you even when you just came over to dye his hair. he always wanted to be perfect for you, and sometimes those screenshots were used as evidence by san to let you know that, while he understood your worries, there was absolutely zero reason to ever worry about mingi not liking you at all.

today, however, no secret receipts of mingi being whipped as hell for you were needed - you were excited, you were happy, and you’d told mingi to take care of pikku mingi for the night because you wanted him to join you on your date but didn’t trust the girls to not break him if he was in your bag, something he gladly did, taking care of his little son and making sure he had the most comfortable time in his bag.

and then class was over, and mingi was standing in front of your classroom, smiling at you brightly with a small hand-picked bouquet of flowers from the sidewalk because he hadn’t had the time to get you actual flowers, but he wanted to give you something. he was adorable, and people were secretly convinced you were the cutest couple ever just because you were always so genuinely happy to be around each other.

and when mingi kissed you, only one arm wrapped around you to not smash the so carefully hand-picked flowers, your smile was so bright that no one on the entire planet could ever doubt that you were absolutely in love with him.

“let’s go, muruni”, taking the flowers and his hand and dragging him along with you even though you didn’t know the way. you knew how to get out of university, at least.

he knew the rest of the way, luckily, so you arrived without getting lost, and then he got the tickets for you, something you would have complained about if it hadn’t been your anniversary and if he hadn’t looked so sweet with his now slightly faded hair - it was about time to redye it, something you’d do that night, you’d agreed - and if you weren’t so completely in love.

“which animals do you want to see first?”, showing you the options on the little map he’d gotten, and you again couldn’t decide, so you told him to just lead the way.

he gladly did, leading you from animal to animal, taking candid pictures of you and taking selfies together - one of those would be his new background picture - and kissing you whenever he felt like it, which was at least with every new animal.

you went on for ages, pointing at animals and saying how absolutely adorable they were and him thinking that none would ever be able to be more adorable than you were, even when you looked so scary on the outside.

you’d reached the pandas now, and it seemed like these were your favourites so far, judging by your expression and how excited you seemed to be. “these are so cute!”, you told him, pointing at the bears, and he couldn’t help but grin widely, and when you said, voice full of adoration and excitement: “i love them!”, he saw his chance, pulling you close by your waist to kiss you and whispering against your lips: “can i say it?”

“say what?”, because you weren’t really sure what he meant, confused and too excited about all the cute animals and your cute boyfriend being right next to you, so close to you with his beautiful eyes focusing on you, your face, your every expression.

“what you just said. but to you”, and then you realised, a smile breaking out on your face as you nodded, pecking his lips quickly, and then he said it, those magical words that he’d almost burst out so often but always stopped himself.

“i love you”, he told you, still so close to you that you could feel his breath on your lips, forehead against yours, and “i love you, too”, you replied.

this moment was perfect, he decided as he lifted you up into his arms to kiss you with your legs around his waist, ignoring the cute pandas for a moment, because he loved you and you loved him, too.

14 notes · View notes

strifescloud · 4 years ago

Text

the sky overhead will burn, but not for long

5.7k words, akashi kuniyuki/tsurumaru kuninaga, toumyu compliant-ish / post kishou hongi

semi-sequel to soft hands by akame_no_youkai

It’s an omamori, just like the one he had given Tsurumaru weeks ago, only this one is bizarrely, charmingly misshapen. The pale fabric gleams beneath the moonlight just as Tsurumaru does, and there is an odd lumpiness to it as Akashi turns it over in his hands.

He thinks, as something heavy lodges itself in his throat, that he can see Tsurumaru’s crooked, brilliant smile in every uneven stitch.

“It’s not as nice as the one you made me - but, you know, ever since then you keep getting hurt in all kinds of silly ways.”

read on ao3

Akashi’s arm heals - slowly, painfully, but it does heal, the frustratingly tedious process of his flesh knitting itself back together stretching on for days into weeks into losing count of how long it had been.

It leaves a scar, and he wonders if he is the first among them to keep his flesh marred in this way, an imperfection left in his skin that didn’t reflect the metal he had been born from. He stares at it sometimes when no one else is looking, shrugs off the odd comments he gets from the others - I just wasn’t motivated to go get it fixed, and look what happened before I knew it - and quietly runs his fingers over the shiny, uneven skin. It doesn’t hurt anymore aside from the memories it draws to the surface, and there’s something about it that sticks in his mind, the way their new bodies were so delicate and easily wounded, failures painted on their skin that couldn’t be erased as easily as scratches on a blade’s surface.

His second scar comes from an unfortunate farming accident that really isn’t Kuwana’s fault, even if he apologises like it is - and Akashi would find some humour in the utter disarray of Koryuu’s hair when he starts dragging him to the infirmary and Kuwana’s fluttering panic if he wasn’t focused on the pain in his leg, blood dripping down onto the floor of the citadel and oh, someone will have to clean that later.

He’s still staring at the floor, at least it was my leg this time, but now my pants have a hole in them when a familiar voice cuts through his thoughts.

“Akashi?” Tsurumaru asks, disbelievingly, “Weren’t you on farm duty today?” Akashi laughs, the pain from the gash down his calf seeming to recede for a moment at the sound of Tsurumaru’s voice, even if he’s sure it was his imagination.

“You should have joined us, Tsurumaru-han,” He replies dryly, waving his hand airily, “it was full of surprises.”

That draws a laugh out of Tsurumaru as well, and there’s a brief exchange Akashi doesn’t really take in as Koryuu’s arm leaves his side and Tsurumaru’s takes its place. It frustrates him a little, that everything feels a little like a dream except for the warm blood that drips down his skin, and Tsurumaru laughs again so he must have said that out loud. Damn.

“That will happen when you’ve got a hole in your leg that big.” Tsurumaru says, and there’s a reassuring tap of fingers on his elbow as he’s pushed to keep moving forward. Yagen clicks his tongue at him when they arrive at the infirmary, waving Akashi forward to sit on one of the beds, but when he reaches for a healing token Akashi frowns at him.

“Can’t you just bandage it up?” Yagen furrows his brows at him and Akashi looks down, “Come on, spare me the speech this time. It won’t kill me, so just let it heal on its own.”

Tsurumaru is still lurking somewhere in the doorway, and Akashi doesn’t look at him either.

“Fine,” Yagen allows, reaching for a different box of supplies, “I figured you’d say that, anyway.”

The sutures burn and pull at his skin, Akashi watching intently as the flesh is knit back together, and Tsurumaru is still there. Akashi brushes past him when he finally leaves, limping slightly and intent on sleeping until the pain subsides, and he is not followed.

Some time after, Tsurumaru is called to a mission - a short one, at least, but Akashi frowns at him when a blur of white bursts into his room to say goodbye.

“Lucky you, not called out this time - or not so lucky, I guess.” Tsurumaru grins and pokes at Akashi’s still-bandaged leg, and though he barely feels the pain Akashi groans and rolls away on his futon.

“It huuuuurts,” He whines petulantly, levelling an exaggerated frown at Tsurumaru’s bright grin, “don’t assault an injured man.”

“There was an easy solution to that, you know.” There’s a hint of seriousness hidden behind Tsurumaru’s perpetually lighthearted tone, which Akashi pretends not to hear.

“Nothing wrong with doing things the old-fashioned way.” He says in lieu of the answer Tsurumaru was searching for, ignoring the piercing golden gaze that rests on his face. Tsurumaru’s hand returns to his arm and it lingers, the other sword oddly silent as if searching for something to say, but finally he just gets up and leaves, shooting him a salute and another too-bright grin on his way out.

Tsurumaru returns from his mission unharmed, a few days later and looking exactly the same as when he left. Akashi, however, manages to spill boiling water all over his right hand in a quest for tea late at night, and the burn it leaves across the delicate skin itches furiously for days. The skin turns an angry red, a constant heat radiating off it, and when Tsurumaru stops by on his return he laughs even as he picks up Akashi’s hand in delicate fingers, thumb brushing gently across the back of Akashi’s knuckles.

“You haven’t had much luck lately, have you?” He says with a laugh, Akashi rolling his eyes at him and snatching his hand back.

“Guess you took it all. Look at you, not a scratch on you.” He replies, and it’s true - Tsurumaru gleams even in the dimmed light of Akashi’s room, somehow both looking gentle and carrying a deadly poise in his shoulders as he sits, and it makes something odd settle in Akashi’s throat so he turns his eyes away. Tsurumaru laughs at his words, and even without looking back Akashi’s mind conjures up the sparkle in his eyes that always accompanies the sound.

It’s comfortable, the silence they fall into, even as Akashi falls back on his futon to stare at the ceiling, sprawled ungraciously and trying not to scratch at the burning pain on his hand. The silence stretches on into something, bordering on territory they had both not been talking about, and Akashi feels the urge to break it.

“It’s so itchy,” he complains, voice stretching into a whine he knows is just short of obnoxious, “why do healing things always itch. It’s awwwful.” Just thinking about it makes it worse, really, and his other hand makes an aborted movement to finally scratch at the aggravating sensation before he remembers.

Then fingers close around his unmarred hand again, and that something feeling is back.

“Don’t scratch at it, then, you’ll make it worse.” Tsurumaru says lightly - almost too lightly, Akashi would think, if he wasn’t aware of how casual Tsurumaru sounded no matter how dire the situation. The other sword isn’t looking at him, and Akashi wonders if that strange sensation takes root in Tsurumaru’s chest too, if they’re both afraid of it. He closes his fingers around the hand that has taken his, ever so slightly.

“I guess that omamori I gave you worked, huh?” He says, because he may as well. Tsurumaru finally looks back at him, smile smaller and unfamiliar - and there’s some weird feeling that crawls under Akashi’s ribs at the sight, because Tsurumaru’s looking at him like that and he doesn’t know how to unravel it, “You haven’t been hurt once since.” Tsurumaru’s fingers shift around the loose grip he has on Akashi’s hand, but his expression only brightens. Akashi worms his way further onto the futon, trying to get more comfortable but still not removing his hand from Tsurumaru’s almost nervous hold, “How I envy you.”

The laugh he gets in answer eases the odd weight in his chest, but it doesn’t fully leave until Tsurumaru exits his room much later, finally taking the strange atmosphere with him.

At some point, Akashi wonders if he really had given Tsurumaru all his luck - he is plagued by minor mishaps, paper cuts and tiny burns leaving tiny slivers of scar tissue across his hands. One day on kitchen duty, Tsurumaru bursts in the room with a loud bwah that makes him jump, pricking his finger on his knife and cursing exaggeratedly at the other sword in high, strained tones.

When he puts his injured finger in his mouth, heedless of the metallic tang of blood, he tries not to notice the intent golden stare that follows the movement.

His poor fortune strikes its hardest, though, when they’re finally sent on a mission together.

The attack comes at dawn, the footsteps of the History Retrograde Army softened by the blanketing quiet of snow across the mountains, and by the time they notice the approach it’s almost too late.

But, Akashi thinks as he shifts out of the way of an oncoming blade, trying to put a tree between him and his assailant to gain some ground, it could probably be worse. Somehow.

He manages to take his enemy’s head clean off, not sparing a moment to watch it sink into the snow before he is spinning around again, trying to see where to move next. The tides were turning in their favour, he thinks - hopes - and he can hear the heavy sweep of Taroutachi’s blade as it cuts through their foes, Taikogane’s enthusiastic war cries, Kotegiri’s triumphant shout.

Akashi’s heart doesn’t slow, though, because he can’t see Tsurumaru anywhere.

He turns, scanning the expanse of white for a glimpse of gold - because of course, they’d made enough jokes on the way here about Tsurumaru blending in with the snow-covered landscape that he knows he won’t spot the usual flutter of sleeves, spread wide like wings - and thinks he barely sees a glimmer between the trees, moving towards it as quietly as he can. The clashing of blades rings across the sparse forest, but the echo makes it hard to know where it’s coming from, and while he can hear the others he hasn’t heard the clear voice of Tsurumaru yet.

He takes another step forward, and another, and another - there he is, locked in combat but a brilliant smile splitting his face still, lightly springing out of the way despite the way his feet sink into the snow. If Akashi could spare a moment to admire it, he would, but even the effortless beauty in the way Tsurumaru moves doesn’t draw his attention from the enemies that still storm through the woods.

Akashi sweeps in to catch a strike at Tsurumaru’s side, ears ringing with the clash of blades that almost drowns out the way the other laughs.

“Feeling motivated, Akashi?”

Akashi guts another opponent, kicking the twitching body away from him as he spins to catch another strike, letting out an annoyed scoff. The swarm of the History Retrograde Army seems endless, far outnumbering the mere six of them - though really, Akashi thinks as he scans the approaching enemies, backing up until his back pressed against Tsurumaru’s, perhaps he should think of them as two. He can’t see the others through the thick trees and cover of snow, so they can’t rely on their aid.

“Motivated to get the hell out of here.” He drawls, fingers flexing as he moves his sword into his left hand, Tsurumaru’s presence warm at his side as they press back against the approaching enemies. Even in the heat of battle there’s a part of him that revels in it, how well they fight together, their instincts aligning - that is, until they don’t.

It’s a tiny slip, but a costly one. Tsurumaru is tired - Akashi can see the beginnings of sluggishness in his blows, though his sword does not waver. He had been fighting alone for a long time before Akashi came, and it had caught up to him now, and that’s probably why he doesn’t see the blade that swings towards his back.

Akashi does, however, and panic digs its icy claws into his mind.

They hadn’t talked about what was going on between them yet - a touch stolen here and there, a hesitant hand curled around his, a charm sewn with careful fingers - but whatever it was, Akashi felt it spur his legs into action, putting himself between Tsurumaru and the cold steel, the thought of gold eyes filled with pain chilling him more than the ice around them.

It’s almost funny, he thinks, how he feels the warm blood spilling down his chest more than the wound itself.

He pushes back against the monstrous foe in front of him, who seems almost frozen in shock at the way Akashi had just thrown himself into his blade’s path, shoving his own sword through its gut with a pained grunt. It topples backwards as he wrenches his sword out, Akashi stumbling backwards as he pressed his hand to the gaping slash across his torso.

His hand comes away drenched in blood, dripping onto the ground beneath him. Not good.

Blearily, he thinks that the red splashed across the pure white snow reminds him of something.

“Akashi?” He hears beneath the clang of steel against steel, Tsurumaru finishing off the last of the enemies that remain. Akashi drops to his knees, breathing heavily, sinking into the snow.

“Is that all of them?” He rasps, and something in his voice must make Tsurumaru turn around. The silence is deafening as a hand wraps around his shoulder, Tsurumaru kneeling in the snow beside him.

“Hey, Akashi! Hey, come on.”

“You actually got me to make an effort.” Akashi jokes, though he feels like he can barely get the words out between the flare of agony in his chest and the weight of golden eyes, brows drawn together in concern, “Good job, Captain.”

“Stay with me, Akashi.” There’s a note to Tsurumaru’s voice he so rarely hears, and he wants to savour it - wants to unravel whatever it is that lends its strength to the grip on his shoulder, whether it’s the same thing that made him throw himself between Tsurumaru and the oncoming blade.

But his eyelids feel so heavy - blood loss, he thinks, what a human way to go, both free in their new bodies and at the mercy of their limitations. He probably won’t die here, really. Sword warriors were much more resilient than an ordinary human, after all, and could be repaired far easier.

But as he falls onto the frigid ground, unable to keep himself upright any more, he thinks it wouldn’t be such a bad way to go - with Tsurumaru’s face framed in the dawn light above him, and shock numbing the pain.

He must have said something aloud, because Tsurumaru’s face shifts into something he can’t read.

“Save it for when we’re back at the citadel.”

Akashi’s eyes slip shut.

“Hey, Akashi!”

Distantly, he can hear more voices calling for them.

He awakens to the sight of the infirmary - and he should feel relieved at the sight of it, if not for an odd sensation that flits over his skin, familiar and unfamiliar all at once. He sits up, groaning at how his bones creak and ache, and there is a familiar face at his bedside. Tsurumaru is there, turning the omamori Akashi gave him over in his fingers, though he looks up and immediately hides it away in his sleeves when Akashi lets out another involuntary sound of pain.

Honestly, Akashi can think of no sight more welcome after a near-death experience than the brilliant smile that blooms on Tsurumaru’s face.

“Oh, good! You woke up pretty fast.” And that set a tension across Akashi’s shoulders, because he remembered nearly bleeding to death, and that seemed like something you don’t just wake up from a few hours later.

He looks down at his arm, where his first scar was, and there’s only smooth, unmarred skin.

Of course, the saniwa’s magic restored their forms to their original states, fully repaired just as if they were still a blade, scratches and imperfections being buffed out of the steel. But something about the sight of his arm without the scar he’d grown used to bothers him in a way he can’t name, even after Tsurumaru’s hand closes over his forearm where it used to be.

“Yeah, so, we had to heal you the fast way.” There’s an artificial note to his usual nonchalance, and Akashi’s not sure when he learned to tell the difference.

“I can see that.” He doesn’t really want to let Tsurumaru know it bothers him, but he brings his other hand up closer to his face anyway, inspecting the smooth skin - now free of all the tiny cuts and burns he had accumulated in his new life, his human life, as pristine as the day he manifested.

“Next time, try to stay out of the way of the oncoming swords.” The lightheartedness is too measured, so Akashi shakes his arm out from Tsurumaru’s grip, smiling humourlessly.

“Sorry, Tsurumaru-han. Should have brought someone else on your mission - my lack of motivation really is my selling point, you know, so you shouldn’t have expected anything out of me.”

It is easier for him to fall back on familiar words, to raise a wall between himself and Tsurumaru again. He’s not angry with the other sword - far from it, when relief has settled in his bones at the sight of him unharmed. But he doesn’t know how to deal with this, deal with him, Akashi’s carefully-constructed facade cracking like damaged glass and Tsurumaru’s eyes piercing through the widening imperfections.

He can’t really remember a whole lot aside from pain and blood on the snow, but from the look on Tsurumaru’s face he must have said something - and the significance of that weighs heavily, for two people who so rarely said things they meant.

“Thanks for saving my life, Akashi Kuniyuki.”

That, too, is probably very honest.

“Couldn’t have our captain dying on us.”

Akashi, they both knew, was not.

Yagen comes to kick both of them out - Tsurumaru for being “a nuisance” (and Akashi can’t stifle his derisive sound at the words, even when Tsurumaru shoots him a betrayed look) and Akashi for no longer being on the brink of death.

Even though the healing process was instant, Akashi gives himself a few days to recuperate. The saniwa’s magic left an uncomfortable tingling across the skin for some time after its use, which was enough of a reason for his self-appointed vacation for anyone who came by.

And he doesn’t avoid Tsurumaru, not really - and that’s what he tells Kotegiri when he comes calling, Tsurumaru-san was looking for you, you know, and Akashi does know, because as Tsurumaru said he wasn’t the only one that was good at lurking.

But if they happen to miss each other, because Akashi decided to wander back to his room right before Tsurumaru found him napping on the engawa, that was just an unfortunate coincidence.

He’s not even sure why he does it, really, except that the feeling that had taken root in his chest was terrifying - the way it threatened to force honest words out of his throat now that he’d already let them loose, how it felt as though the blow he’d taken had split his ribcage open and displayed his heart for the world to see, the way it made him feel so vulnerable.

When he cares to think on it - which he doesn’t during the day, but something about the silent creep of night as he stares at the ceiling leads his thoughts down a path he prefers not to walk - he wishes a little that he hadn’t been on that first mission with Tsurumaru at all.

Because he had tried, since manifesting, to steel himself against the weaknesses that he had watched humans be torn apart by for centuries. And then Kotegiri had stepped in front of a blow meant for him so Akashi took one in turn, and his arm had wavered under that hopeful gaze when it came time to shatter the corrupted blade, some part of him marvelling in the aftermath at how weapons could now feel grief.

And then Tsurumaru had come out, drenched in blood, and the odd weakness that had shivered across his skin at the sight was the same force that had moved him almost against his will to stop it from happening again, that day in the snow. So Akashi had indulged himself in humanity, for a bit - letting himself feel, and letting himself be hurt and scarred. But his clear skin was a reminder that he was still a sword spirit, in the end.

(But if he was still just a sword he wouldn’t be so haunted by the way Tsurumaru’s fingers had been a little cold every time they brushed his skin, the concern that had marred the usually carefree face.)

One of the perils of sleeping all day is finding himself too well-rested at night, with only his thoughts for company as he stares sightlessly into the darkness, leading him nowhere as he goes in circles, but they keep him awake nonetheless. He had grown so exhausted by conflict when he was a blade, and now it seemed to live within him, thoughts turning around and around endlessly without reaching a conclusion.

So he’s already awake when quiet footsteps creep past his door, measured and careful, and from the way they avoid that one creaky floorboard he thinks he knows who it is. The measured footsteps begin to fade, passing by his room without missing a beat, and Akashi is curious enough to haul himself out of his futon. The night air is cooler than he thought and he suppresses a shiver, cracking open his door just enough to see a wisp of white fabric disappear around a corner. Expected, but it sparks his interest anyway.

He waits just longer than a moment, letting the footsteps fade beyond his hearing, before he carefully slips out of his room and follows them - whatever brings a phantom past his door at this hour is far more interesting than staring at the walls, and the distraction is welcome. Akashi steps delicately over the problem floorboard, shuffling as quietly as he can down the hall and suppressing the yawn that threatens to escape. It is otherwise silent in the citadel and there are no signs of movement, but if he’s right about who it is he knows where to look.

Sure enough, as he rounds the corner to exit the citadel, he can see Tsurumaru perched on the edge of the engawa. He’s not dressed for battle - Akashi thinks he had seen Tsurumaru out in the fields with Otegine earlier that day, a task that should have left him exhausted, and yet even from afar Akashi can sense an odd energy to him, restless and yet still as he stares up at the sky.

“Tsurumaru-han?” He calls quietly as he approaches, letting his voice sound much sleepier than he actually feels. Let Tsurumaru think he’d woken him, that guilt might let truth slip through the cracks a little easier.

“Akashi?” Tsurumaru replies in the same cadence, unmoving. Akashi shuffles closer, seating himself on the engawa with a quiet sigh as his bones protest at the movement, and follows Tsurumaru’s still gaze to the wide, bright moon.

“You woke me up.” Akashi half-whines, glancing beside him at Tsurumaru’s profile. The moonlight across his figure makes him almost glow in the darkness. There’s a loneliness in the wistful set of his brow and the way he stares up at the sky, an ache settling in Akashi’s chest setting in at the sight and he wants to reach out, but even though he’s only inches away from Akashi’s hand the ethereal glow makes him feel miles out of reach.

Akashi’s breath stills, and he thinks he understands why humans would disturb the dead in search of an eternal beauty - to rescue it from beneath the darkness of the earth, or to covet it for themselves.

Tsurumaru’s eyes finally tear away from the sky to meet his, a familiar yet muted spark of mischief dancing in them, and Akashi knows he’s been caught.

“Did I? Sorry, sorry.”

Even before that day in the snow Akashi hadn’t truly known what this was between them - they didn’t talk about it, but they never really talk about anything, not in words they mean - but he feels like he has to reach out, placing his hand over Tsurumaru’s own where it rests idly on the edge of the engawa, keeping him from taking flight. The skin is icy to the touch, but still he leans closer, letting their forearms and shoulders brush together in a way they both know isn’t accidental.

His thoughts mere minutes ago feel foolish now, right next to Tsurumaru with the unfamiliar weight against his shoulder.

“I thought you were good at sneaking around. How are you going to surprise anyone like this, hm?” Akashi prods, and Tsurumaru laughs instead of answering. He’s looking back at the sky, and Akashi wonders what he sees that makes the moonlight seem like such a burden on his shoulders.

“You’re not hurt again, are you?” Tsurumaru’s question comes after such a lengthy stretch of silence that it surprises him, something he can’t identify hidden beneath the words, “Haven’t seen you for a couple of days - I thought maybe you had been laid low by a terrible papercut.”

Akashi snorts inelegantly, and he feels a slight tremble of laughter from the other sword at the sound.

“I’m not like you. I don’t have the motivation to go getting into trouble all the time.” He yawns for effect even though his facades feel pointless now, some comfort to be found in going through the motions.

“Honestly, what happened with Mitsutada and the potato peeler wasn’t my fault.” At Akashi’s questioning noise, he continues hurriedly, “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be a surprise for you later.”

It’s also comforting, he thinks, that Tsurumaru falls back on his masks too. They’re cut from the same cloth, the pair of them, so old and tired that honesty seems to have slipped from their grasp.

Tsurumaru suddenly lurches to his feet, and Akashi wobbles and steadies himself with his hand on the engawa at the sudden loss of the weight against his side.

“Going somewhere?”

Tsurumaru’s hands close firmly around his bare arm, and Akashi suddenly realises he is only in his sleeveless shirt, having left his jacket back in his room. The other sword tugs at his arm until Akashi reluctantly stands, making a protesting whine as Tsurumaru continues to pull insistently at him.

“C’mon, c’mon!” The light in Tsurumaru’s eyes is genuine now, Akashi thinks, and it’s enough to compel him to follow when Tsurumaru’s hand slides down his forearm to tangle with his fingers, leading him out into the darkness.

“Come where? ” The exasperation in his voice masks the excited thrum of his heart. They’re both barefoot and foolish and the wind is cool against his skin, and they’re not quite running but there’s a purpose that moves Tsurumaru’s feet quickly enough that Akashi has to work to keep up, trying not to let the grip on his hand slip away. He’s not answered - they keep moving forward, up and through the trees and down through the grass, and when Tsurumaru eventually stops it’s so sudden Akashi has to steady himself against the other’s back.

Honestly, Akashi hadn’t ever bothered to go far enough outside the citadel to find the lake here.

The moon is full and bright and it lets him see the small valley perfectly - the soft sway of the grasses in the night breeze, and the way the still water mirrors the vast night sky and the bright full moon, and it’s so beautiful that for a second he feels like he can’t move.

“It’s pretty, right?” Tsurumaru is suddenly behind him, mouth right next to his ear, and Akashi jumps a little despite himself. It draws a brilliant laugh out of the other sword, the sound echoing in the stillness of the night, and that weird feeling in Akashi’s chest feels heavier than ever.

Being human, Akashi thinks, suddenly aware of how his feet are cold and probably filthy and the way the breeze raises goosebumps on his skin and how his heart aches with something he’s not ready to name, is so damn hard.

“I wanted to give you something.” Tsurumaru interrupts his thoughts, and Akashi gives him a bewildered look.

“You couldn’t give it to me back there?” Akashi grumbles, but it’s as empty of real feeling as the too-casual shrug Tsurumaru gives him in response.

Tsurumaru grabs his hand again, pressing something into his hand and closing his fingers around the shape, the scrape of fabric against his palm.

When Akashi brings his hand up, fingers opening, he can’t help but smile at what he sees.

He thinks, as something heavy lodges itself in his throat, that he can see Tsurumaru’s crooked, brilliant smile in every uneven stitch.

“It’s not as nice as the one you made me - but, you know, ever since then you keep getting hurt in all kinds of silly ways.”

“Making sure you don’t get hurt isn’t-” The words force themselves out of Akashi’s throat against his will, and he snaps his mouth shut, immediately cursing his thoughtlessness.

“So maybe that’ll give you a hand, since you’re not exactly motivated to keep yourself out of trouble either.” Tsurumaru continues as if he hadn’t spoken, and the smile that blooms on his face is so beautiful Akashi can’t help but feel his lips curl in response, even as he looks away to try and hide it. But he can still hear the nervous tremor of Tsurumaru’s voice, so perhaps they know each other too well by now to try and hide things - or perhaps they were too similar from the start.

“Tsurumaru-han,” Akashi begins, turning back to him - and Tsurumaru is suddenly very close, still smiling but more subdued, one hand on Akashi’s arm.

“I hope you don’t mind if I steal something, just this once.” Tsurumaru says, before leaning forward and kissing him.

It’s odd, is all Akashi can think at first, because he’s never done this before, and sometimes he still feels like he’s getting used to the way their human bodies are strange and fleshy and yielding in a way that steel never is. It’s not cold like Tsurumaru’s hand against his skin, but rather sends a shock of warmth down to his bones, and the lips against his are soft and gentle like they’re trying not to scare him away - and he is scared, he thinks, because his heart pounds deafeningly in his ears, but he doesn’t want to pull away either.

When Tsurumaru finally pulls back Akashi is still, trying not to let his face betray how suddenly lost he feels, and somehow he both loathes and craves the vulnerability that crawls across his skin.

“Okay there, Akashi?” Tsurumaru asks him, and Akashi lets out a great sigh that lifts a weight from his shoulders.

“Yeah.” He replies, and he feels like it’s okay to lean forward further into Tsurumaru’s space, folding them together even as they stand there in the moonlight, some kind of timid embrace, “Yeah, fine.”

There’s a lot of whirlwind thoughts that race through his mind, like you can kiss me again if you want but I’m not ready to ask you to and I think I know what this feeling is but I don’t want to say it , but he settles for flexing his fingers where they rest on Tsurumaru’s side and swallowing the words that threaten to escape. Tsurumaru’s hand rests gently on his back in answer, and he’s abruptly reminded that though they were both wielded for centuries, Tsurumaru has many years on him.

“Can swords fall in love?” The question is like a shock of ice down Akashi’s spine, but he still doesn’t move away, shrugging with as much deliberate indifference as he can muster.

“Humans can.” He answers evasively, and Tsurumaru hums at him consideringly, the hand on his back trailing over bare skin as it moves down his arm, coming to rest comfortingly on the smooth skin where his first scar had once been.

“Are we human?” The sigh Akashi gives is exasperated, and Tsurumaru laughs quietly again, “Sorry, sorry.”

“I don’t know,” He’s not sure he really feels the frustration in his voice when he’s still wrapped up with Tsurumaru like this, but even if the other sword knows he needs him to understand, “somewhere in between, I guess.”

He’s still clutching the omamori Tsurumaru gave him in his now-cold fingers.

“Well, we can figure it out as we go.” The words are flippant but reassuring, and Akashi remembers that Tsurumaru manifested far earlier than he did, too. Something about it emboldens him, and he taps on Tsurumaru’s arm until the bright eyes turn back to him. Their gaze is questioning but endlessly fond, and Akashi summons the courage to lean forward and brush his own lips against Tsurumaru’s cheek, trying to ignore the swoop in his stomach that feels like being exposed, like the realisation that you’ve left yourself open to a blade in the back.

He eventually lets Tsurumaru take his hand again, lead him back to the citadel, and he does not protest when he is taken back to his own room. Tsurumaru flops down on his futon like he belongs there, and even though Akashi complains about all the dirt they must have tracked inside he doesn’t have the heart to kick him out.

They sleep curled beside each other, some distance between them still but their fingers loosely intertwined.

And though Akashi is woken by a delighted shriek the next morning when Kotegiri comes to ask him something - and he has to throw a pillow at the offending wakizashi and swear him to secrecy, ignoring the way the sparkle in the wide green eyes makes him feel uncomfortably known - there is still something about waking to Tsurumaru next to him, yawning and stretching with a lithe grace that Akashi’s weary bones envy, that lets him feel content rather than annoyed.

Tsurumaru’s right, he thinks. They’d figure it out as they go, together - this tender distance between them, and the terrifying depth of humanity too.

#touken ranbu #tkrb #akashi kuniyuki #tsurumaru kuninaga #strife writes

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umaspirateship · 5 years ago

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“All Was Quiet”

@descendantssecretsanta gift for @malicebertha

After Christmas, Mal thought, it was like the whole castle had fallen into a deep sleep. The decorations were still up, the fires still roaring in the fireplaces, the snow still settling on the ground. Even the lake was silent, the water rushing soundlessly beneath a thick layer of ice. She’d made the trek out there, wrapped up in a thick coat, scarf, and hand-knit hat, after lunch, and watched as the sun, from where it peaked out behind the clouds, threw sparkles over the ground.

It was too quiet.

Mal wondered how her mother bore the endless quiet of the kingdom for a hundred years, how she wanted it to last a hundred more.

She’d gone to the Enchanted Lake again hoping that she’d be able to get her head back on the right way. Instead, she’d worked herself into a state, and soon found herself walking back to the dorms, furious.

There wasn’t anyone around, even, to appreciate her sharp and burning glares! They’d all left, to home, for the holidays. Which Mal hadn’t minded, at first. Ben had stuck around, after all, and had organized all the typical Christmas activities for them. They’d decorated the tree, drank hot cocoa, had snowball fights, and gathered around the fire to open presents. But now, in the silent hallways of Auradon Prep, it was almost like Mal could hear all of the voices of the people who had left.

Lonnie had taken off almost as soon as the final bell rang, hoping to catch the first train out in time to make it home before the blizzard hit. She’d stopped just long enough to give Mal a hug, and a small gift. “A token,” she’d said, “from my family.” Mal had turned it over in her hands a few times, trying to work out the details. “It’s supposed to give you good dreams,” Lonnie said as they walked together towards the front doors. “But it works as an ornament, too, if you tie a ribbon on the top.”

Mal had placed it on her nightstand, lying snugly on top of her spellbook, and wished for it to work. She kept it there, even after the tree went up, and looked at it when she couldn’t sleep.

She missed Jane, too, despite all the trouble she’d caused. Well. It had saved Mal from a lot of trouble, in the end, anyway. Jane had given her the chance to choose Good, and anything could be forgiven in Auradon. Besides, they’d grown close, and, by the end of the semester, found themselves studying together in the library to prepare for their Introductory History of Auradon final. Jane had even stayed a little after term ended, fluttering around the castle and wrapping things up before the holidays before Ben had rather passive-aggressively peer pressured her into going home to celebrate with her mom. Jane’s gift had come in the mail two days before Christmas and had come out of the plain brown mailing box bright blue with a giant bow.

“I’m not really artsy like you, or like Evie,” read Jane’s card, “But I hope you like it. It’s always best to be cozy during the holidays, and I hope I can help with that a little!” It was a pillow with cross-stitching splashed tastefully on the front cover. Little blue snowflakes fell in a white cotton sky, and little versions of Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos, were standing in the snow, making a snowman. On the back, in smaller text, read For Good Friends, Merry Christmas, Jane, 2015. She’d carefully handstitched the message on a small red cloth, and sewn it on the back. Mal liked the art, but almost liked the message even more. “For good friends.” She wished Jane had been there to give it to her in person, so she could thank her for real. Mal had never been good at communicating through letters, and even on the Isle would prefer to go in person than send a message through a middleman. And, now that she was feeling more confident about herself, Jane had a smile that could light up the room and could give hugs so comforting they were becoming famous among their friends. There were lots of things about a person, Mal thought, that you couldn’t really experience when they weren’t there.

Mal even, to her horror, missed Audrey. Audrey was bossy, and selfish, and thought everyone else was beneath her. But, then again, so was Uma, and Mal had been friends with her for a while before the ruthlessness of the Isle had torn them apart. Or, well. Before Mal had self-sabotaged their friendship. Even Mal herself was bossy, and selfish, a lot of the time. She’d keep things to herself, hide her plans, and always expected her orders to be followed, without explanation. She cared about her friends, but everyone else she mistrusted. She still wasn’t sure there wasn’t some secret con or scheme behind every dazzling bright Auradon smile. She respected Audrey for that, at least, that she was upfront about who she was. She was royalty, Audrey always snapped, and that meant making and using connections, to her own benefit. “You wouldn’t understand,” she’d tell Mal, whenever asked about some new element of Auradon court life. But Mal did understand and thought it fascinating. Mal had been top in her Evil Schemes class at Serpent Prep, thank you very much. Eventually, Audrey had given up shoving Mal away every time she bothered her in the hall. “You may not have manners,” Audrey would humph, obviously still mad, “But I do.”

It did get easier, being friends, after Mal and Ben had broken up. Mal wished it hadn’t happened. Or that it hadn’t impacted her friendship with Audrey so much. But suddenly, Audrey found that Mal wasn’t so different from her after all, since she wasn’t wearing her Ben-tinted glasses. Well. Mal said “friends,” because that’s what you called everyone in Auradon you talked to. But she still saw Audrey as her rival (and Audrey still saw her as a nuisance). It was thrilling and hilarious and exciting. Mal loved it. So it wasn’t that much of a surprise when, rather than give her a present, Audrey said, “You would just steal anything you wanted, anyway, so there’s no point in buying you a gift.” Mal replied, “And if you wanted something, you would have already convinced someone to buy it for you.” Audrey had rolled her eyes and stalked off, calling over her shoulder, “I’m leaving because I’m late for Calculus, so don’t think you’ve won!” Mal wished she was here, because then, at least, she’d have some way to release all this pent-up anger.

And Mal WAS angry. She was angry that her friends were far away, that she was alone. She was mad that it was so quiet, it put her off, and mad her feel like something was awfully wrong. She was furious that she’d never been able to experience an Auradon Christmas before and now, just after her first one was finished, she was spending time thinking about her mother of all people. Her mother who was still a lizard trapped in her room. Mal thought about going back to their dorm, but thinking about the little lizard lounging about in its cage next to her bed just made her spiral even further into frustration.

Mal didn’t know what to do.

“Woah,” came a voice from the floor lounge. “Where are you going so fast? You sure you don’t want to try out for the team?”

“No Jay,” Mal said, coming to a stop in front of the couch where he was sitting. “I don’t want to play tourney. It’s bad enough having to listen to you and Carlos and Ben blabber on about it all the time.”

“Hey, no need to be rude,” Jay said, grinning, “You love coming to our games, and you know it.”

“Whatever makes you feel better,” Mal said. She flopped down on the couch and sighed.

“Do you want me to leave?” Jay asked. “I can always go watch Carlos play that videogame he made me buy him.”

“Isn’t that a singleplayer game?”

“Yeah, well I said I was just going to watch, didn’t I? Plenty of people watch gaming videos on the internet.”

Mal rolled her eyes. “As exciting as that sounds, Carlos probably doesn’t want to be bothered right now. You know how he gets with new tech.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jay said. He fell silent, watching her thoughtfully as she glared at the wall.

“Got anything I can punch?” Mal asked after a while.

“Isn’t the holiday season supposed to be about goodwill and cheer?” Jay said, laying his head on her shoulder. “Who pissed you off this time?”

“No one. The air. My mom. I don’t know.” Mal laid her head against his and frowned. “Why is Auradon so goddamn confusing? I don’t even know what I’m angry about anymore.”

“Didn’t you like the holidays?” Jay asked. “I thought you had fun. At least a little.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“But?”

“What happens now, Jay?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Jay said, lifting his head from underneath hers so he could look her in the eyes properly.

“Now that it’s over,” Mal said. “I mean. Haven’t you noticed how quiet it is around here?”

“Yeah, I suppose. It’s weird being at school when there’s no one else here.”

Mal stood up and waved her hands around, “That’s it! That’s it exactly! Everyone kept going on and on about being home for the holidays, and it was fine, when we were busy, distracted, whatever. But now that the celebrations are over, everyone’s still gone, and we’re not home! We’re at school! It’s weird Jay!”

“Well, yeah. We’ll always be different. We’re villain kids, it makes us who we are.”

“But I just want to spend a holiday where things make sense,” said Mal. “I guess Maleficent ruined that for me, forever.”

“Not entirely,” Jay said. “Look, Mal. We’re at school, yeah, but we’re home, just as much as we’ve ever been. We have each other’s backs, that’s why we’re family. Do you want something to punch? Then I’ll find you something to punch. But personally? I think we should find Evie and Carlos first. Come on.” Jay stood and started heading down the hall. “I think Evie’s in her room, messing with her new serger.”

Jay and Mal found themselves dragging Evie and Carlos out of their rooms, away from their shiny new toys, and into one of the classrooms at the back of the library.

“Why are we here?” asked Carlos looking around.

“I wanted to pick someplace that wasn’t covered in Christmas decorations,” said Jay. “This is the closest place I could find.”

“Aren’t there still Christmas lights on the windows?” Evie asked, pointing.

“Like I said, somewhere that isn’t covered in decorations.”

“Okay, whatever man,” said Carlos, “But why are we here? I was almost to level nine!”

Mal sat on one of the desks and crossed her arms when Jay sent her a look. Evie, glancing quickly between the two of them, hummed. Carlos threw his hands up, “Well? What’s going on?”

Evie spoke first. “You know, I never thought winter break could be so lonely. We’ve all sort of grown to be independent people, I guess, since we don’t need to stay so close here. But, now that everyone’s gone, it just means I spend a lot of time stuck in my own head. I’ve made four dresses since Christmas, four, and they’ve all turned out a mess!”

“I keep feeling like I should be studying,” Carlos let out a little laugh as he spoke, “And I’m even starting to miss playing tourney if you can believe it.”

Mal smiled a little and said, “I’m starting to hear Audrey’s voice nagging me when I’m alone. You don’t think I’m going nuts?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Jay said, “I’m pretty sure that’s just a sign you care about her.”

“You jerk!” Mal said, leaning over farther so she could shove him a little. “You didn’t tell us why we’re here, anyway. Stop dragging on and get to the point.”

“I thought, maybe,” he said, “We could make this place feel a bit more like home? I know we’re still at school. Like, I literally brought us to a classroom. But. Any place can be home if we add the right touch.”

“Oh my gods,” Evie said, putting her head in her hands. “You’re going to make us play Villainous.”

“Yessssss,” Carlos pumped his hands up and down, “I’m going to win!”

“Remember rule one!” Jay said, grinning, as they chanted in unison, “Mal always wins.”

Mal smiled and pushed up her sleeves. This was better than punching something. It was better than stalking around the Enchanted Lake in the snow.

“It’s a good thing we’re in this classroom,” Mal said, “Because you’re all about to get schooled!”

Christmas traditions were nice and all, Mal thought as they raced around the classroom, (Jay nearly tackling Carlos when he won the crown for the second time) but in the lonely and quiet hours after the holidays, and before school was back in session, there was no place like being here, with her friends. Being home.

#descendantssecretsanta #repost #mal

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abalonetea · 7 years ago

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Sleepover Nightmare

Prompt – Cartman has a nightmare at a slumber party and Token gives him an awkward hug Characters – Cartman, Token, the guys Word Count – 879

For – @toydrill

Notes - i actually think that I might write more for this later??? I know that it's not exactly what you're prompt was, but this is the idea that came to mind when I read your message! Like I said, I really want to write a little bit more about them hanging out in the room together

It’s the middle of the night and Token’s spent the last hour in the kitchen, head phones pushed in tight and Circle Of Life blasting in his ears on repeat. The counters are a complete mess. Sandwich makings are spread out over the marble surface, mayonnaise and mustard smeared over the counter, potato chips scattered on the floor. Times like this, he kind of regrets inviting people over to spend the night. It’s a weird time for him. There are condiments dripping off his fingers. Token doesn’t think about the mess that he’s left, because the kitchen will just look worse by the time everyone’s done with breakfast the next morning. He still has his headphones in when he finally – finally – reluctantly – walks back into the living room. Even though there are plenty of spare bedrooms, the other kids decided to spread out blankets and sleeping bags, making a mound of flung out arms and half-covered legs. Token can’t hear anything over the bass throbbing in his ears. He keeps his eyes on the ground, trying not to step on anyone’s fingers. Someone slaps him in the ankle and Token jumps, nearly trips over his own feet when he spins around. “Sorry,” he says, just in case he messed up and stepped on someone with realizing it. The tips of his fingers are kind of fuzzy feeling. “There’s food in the kitchen,” says Token, before the head phones are even popped out. “You can eat pretty much anything out there.” Cartman rolls over onto his other side. His face is shoved into the pillow, hands curled into tight fists. The pale green fabric muffles the sobs but doesn’t hide them completely. His shoulders are heaving, body shaking, blanket tangled up around his legs. “Oh. Uh – “ Token glances around, but no one else is up. “Are you okay?” Cartman doesn’t answer. He twists again, curls up tighter around the pillow. Someone left the television on – Kyle, maybe – and the light catches on wet marks running down the side of Cartman’s face. Is he crying? He’s crying. He’s crying and something in Token’s stomach drops, pressure plummeting down into his sock covered feet. Nervous, Token takes another bite out of his sandwich. It doesn’t taste like anything but the potato chips make a pleasant crunch between his molars. “Cartman,” tries Token, again. When there’s no answer, he carefully sits down on the floor next to Cartman. There’s mayonnaise on his fingers. Token shakes Cartman’s shoulder, anyway. “Hey. You, uh, you should get up.” Cartman chokes on a sob. He jerks at the touch but doesn’t actually move anywhere. Cartman just presses his face harder against the pillow. When he talks, the words are barely able to be made out. “Go-to-sleep.” “Sorry. You looked like you were having a really bad dream.” Token doesn’t move his hand off Cartman’s shoulder. He’s not sure what to do with his sandwich, but eating doesn’t feel like a good option. “Are you okay?” “Fine,” hisses Cartman, smothering his face a little bit more. He’s still crying, the sort of awful sob that you can’t stop even when you really, really want too. Token ends up sitting the sandwich on the floor between two blankets. He cross his legs over each other. The bottom of one foot presses against the middle of Cartman’s back. “It’s okay. I, uh, I have nightmares too.” “I didn’t have a nightmare,” insists Cartman. “I said I’m fine!” As if trying to prove his point, Cartman shoves the pillow away and sits up. He’s still crying; tears running down ruddy cheeks, eyes blood shot, breaths choking and twisting into little whines while he tries to force himself to quit crying. “See? I’m fucking fine.” “Okay,” says Token. He wipes his free hand off on the leg of his pajama pants. “I’m fine, too.” Cartman scrubs at his face. “Fuck off, Token.” “There’s a TV in the spare room upstairs. We could go watch a movie, if you want.” “I was trying to sleep!” “I can’t sleep. I’m going to watch a movie. So, uh, I mean, you can come up with me. If you don’t think you can go back to sleep.” Token gives Cartman’s shoulder a squeeze before standing up. He doesn’t remember the sandwich. It’s late, and the night feels strange. After a moment, Cartman gets up too. His shoulders are still shaking, tears still dripping down rounded cheeks. He wraps the Terence and Phillip blanket around his shoulders. “You’d better pick a good fucking movie.” “I have the new Alien movie,” suggests Token. He’s less careful picking his way out of the tangle of limbs. “We could watch that.” Cartman nods, then shakes his head. “That series is lame.” Token’s pretty sure that Cartman had been raving about how much he wanted to see the new movie yesterday, but he’s not positive that’s who was talking. He shrugs. “I have a bunch of other movies. You can pick one.” Cartman scrubs at his face again. “Kay.” Token hooks an arm around Cartman’s shoulder. He’s a few inches taller. “Okay,” echoes Token, nodding. “Come on, man. It’s okay.”

#south park #token black #eric cartman #sleepover nightmare #younger years #td tag #Katie writes south park #prompt fill

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creativitytoexplore · 4 years ago

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[HR] Every day a sun sets over Los Angeles (1/2) https://ift.tt/3prOoau

He was going to Santa Monica.

Santa Monica is where many people go with dreams of making it in Los Angeles. You see them wandering the streets, loitering outside convenience stores, washing up in restrooms, looking to scrounge money or get a job. They intermingle with drug addicts and Iraq war veterans. Some are drug addicts. They carry guitars on their backs or screenplays in their back pockets or ideas in their heads. If only you would listen. If only you would give them a chance…

Needless to say, most of them don’t make it.

He didn’t have a guitar or a screenplay or—as far as I could tell—an idea, only a peculiar set of headphones and a bus ticket, which he’d thrust at you if he noticed you speaking to him.

Detroit–Santa Monica. One way.

I got on near Joliet, Illinois, which is a little southwest of Chicago. The bus was late, and I remember waiting at dawn in a nearly empty parking lot, with only a single car—its lone occupant either sleeping or tripping in the driver’s seat—and the faint buzz of the I-80 for company, thinking, what the hell have I been doing with my life?

I was thirty-one, with a high school education and a few college courses to my name, a patchy low-wage employment record (currently between jobs), no girlfriend and almost no stable relationships.

Two nights ago, I'd had a big fight with my parents and they'd either kicked me out of the house or I’d left in anger. I don’t remember. Either way, I’d packed a duffel bag full of random stuff and decided to take Horace Greeley’s advice and go west. One of my only friends lived in Los Angeles and said I could crash on his couch for a while. After spending one night sleeping outdoors, I very much didn’t want to do that again.

So here I was: bus ticket in hand and waiting for my carriage ride to salvation.

It arrived.

I didn’t expect it to be so crowded.

After storing my bag under the bus, I embarked. The driver looked me over with tired eyes, nodded in recognition and started the bus rolling while I was still in the aisle, trying to find a place to sit. Almost all the seats were taken. Only two were available: beside a fat guy in a leather jacket and beside him. I gravitated toward the former, but when I got close the guy looked up and told me to fuck off. “There aren’t any seats,” I said. “Then go sit in your momma’s lap,” he suggested.

I smiled like a coward and continued to the back of the bus.

I didn’t want to sit beside him.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of being on a cross-country bus, you know that it’s not exactly a gallery of America’s finest citizens. People take the bus because they don’t have cars and can’t afford to fly, which usually means they’re what civilization has chewed up and spat out. Losers, in other words, just like me. People who’ve for whatever reason been unable or unwilling to succeed at life by life’s generally accepted rules. Some have failed. Others haven’t tried. Looking down the aisle, I was looking at bums, idiosyncratics, deadbeats and visionaries—and I was unable to tell the difference. But there's wisdom in crowds, and if nobody wants to sit beside you, there’s a reason. As I got closer to him, I could name a couple: he smelled like an unventilated urinal, he was dirty and had the unmistakable aura of weirdness, which means unpredictability, like a drunk or a mental patient.

I sat down and said, “Hello.”

He didn’t react—just stared ahead, jerking his head to the music I imagined was playing through his headphones. None of it bleeding through.

I tried again.

And a third time.

Finally, he reacted: by thrusting his ticket at me.

Detroit–Santa Monica. One way.

Then silently he returned to staring.

I tried to maneuver my body into as comfortable a position as possible in the tight space allotted to me, and resigned myself to a long and unpleasant bus ride. I tried reading, listening to podcasts or staring out the window past his head. Although I never did learn his real name, in my head I was already referring to him as Sooty.

But a bus being a bus, you can never do anything for too long before feeling fed up. The book made my eyes water. I zoned out while listening to podcasts. And looking out the window became looking at Sooty: at his jerking head; his skin, dark and heavy; and at his odd headphones, which were either homemade or somehow adapted, because they resembled two heavily-taped cardboard boxes connected by a piece of rough plastic. They looked like they’d met cement and barely survived.

Or—the thought chilled me as it passed—they weren’t headphones at all, Sooty wasn’t listening to music, and Sooty was bobbing his head erratically to the inner sounds of his own insanity.

Did you hear the one about the guy on the Greyhound bus who decapitated a stranger with a knife, then started eating parts of him…

I awoke to deceleration. I must have dozed off because an hour had passed, and the bus was pulling into a service station.

Sooty was seated as before.

The driver announced that we had fifteen minutes to go to the bathroom and eat. “But there’s no food on the bus. Next stop won’t be for another three hours.”

Most of the passengers shuffled off.

Sooty stayed.

While using the public restroom, which stank of equal parts vomit and disinfectant, I wondered if Sooty perhaps peed in his seat, which would explain the smell emanating from him.

Getting back on the bus, I considered taking a different spot, but passengers had left behind some of their belongings like little tokens of ownership (“Move your ass, boy. Can’t you see my cigs is here?”) and I was too afraid of violating some rule of bus etiquette.

So down the aisle I went, sensing Sooty’s pungent scent and realizing there was something cloudy about him: about the space around him. As if the daylight shining horizontally through the large bus windows was evading him—almost dispersing in his presence. Then I saw that perhaps he wasn’t dirty at all. That it was perhaps this dimness which had attached itself to him, taken up residence in the pores and wrinkles of his skin like smoke.

I sat and took out my book.

Night befell us near Omaha, Nebraska.

A persistent headwind blew away the day’s remains like a carpenter clearing sawdust from a half-sanded tabletop, and the first stars emerged upon a canvas of fading blue sky.

On the bus, a series of reading lights turned on.

Ours remained off.

Sooty jerked his head to whatever was playing through his headphones.

In the saturating, inky darkness, his aura of dimness was less pronounced but more profound.

I tried to sleep, but found myself too on edge: too irritated by the hum of the bus engine, which almost but not quite fell into a soothing hypnotic repetition.

Increasingly, the other passengers dozed.

Some snored.

Sometime during the night I heard Sooty begin to moan, softly at first, but excruciatingly, as if a great hurt was being done to him deep within his soul. His eyes were still open, so I knew he wasn’t asleep, but I perceived him at a greater distance than before. Although I doubted he had ever been all there, now he felt absent. His sounds, while intimate to the point of discomfort, were otherworldly. On a few occasions, they became loud enough I was sure the passengers in the seats in front of us would hear, but they betrayed nothing, and mostly the moans swirled around us only, like fruit flies orbiting a pair of ripe melons.

“Are you OK?” I asked him.

He kept moaning.

I waved my hand in front of his face. “Hey, you alright?”

Nothing.

Open eyes and moans and sometimes the twitch of a muscle on his face. Like a dog dreaming. Maybe he was dreaming—

He thrust suddenly his ticket at me.

Detroit–Santa Monica. One way.

But this time he also turned his face, and beheld me with such immensity of fear that instinctively I recoiled.

In the passing headlights, I could see his skin beaded with sweat.

He stuck one arm below his seat, where I saw the frayed edge of a plastic grocery bag—heard the shuffle of paper—and he looked at me again, this time holding out something other than his ticket: a photocopy of a handwritten note, torn at one edge, the handwriting ragged but legible, comprised of an address in Dallas, Texas, and the words: in the basement is a light switch turn it off turn it on turn it off turn it on.

Unsure of what to do, but pressured by his pained expression, I took the note and slid it into my pocket.

He nodded—

Then grimaced, pressed his headphones hard against his ears and lowered his head between his knees, all the while moaning dreadfully.

The hum of the engine. The shadowplay of the headlights…

Half an hour later, he started grinding his teeth. I could hear enamel scraping.

Sucking in air.

When the bus next stopped, somewhere in the middle of Nebraska, as I and all the other passengers except for Sooty exited the bus to stretch our legs and visit the restroom, I told the driver that Sooty wasn’t feeling well.

The night air was vast and cool.

As I was making my way back to the parking lot, admiring the stars, I noticed the driver and two others coaxing Sooty off the bus—

Pulling him—

He didn’t want to go.

He resisted.

It was becoming a scene, and the other passengers were watching.

Two service station employees had joined them.

The bus engine was off and the night-quiet was pure but for the swish of cars speeding down the I-80.

As the driver and his two helpers finally ripped Sooty’s unwilling body from the opened bus doors, he screeched the only words I ever heard him say:

“Detroit–Santa Monica. One way!”

“Detroit–Santa Monica! One way!”

“Are you feeling OK?” the driver was asking him. “Have you taken anything? One of the other passengers—” That was me: I felt the gut punch of guilt. I had said… “—you weren’t looking so hot.”

“Detroit–Santa Monica. One way!”

“Do you need a doctor?”

“Detroit–Santa Monica! One way. Detroit–Santa Monica! One way!”

“It’s no use. He don’t hear you,” someone shouted.

“Does anyone know this fucking guy?” A few people looked my way, but I kept my head down. I didn’t know him. I had merely sat beside him.

“Can you take off your headphones?” the driver asked, miming the request. “Take off the headphones, please.”

Sooty had his hands pressed against his ears. He was becoming manic. Darkening. The lights from the service station fell just short of him; the lights from the bus stayed inside. Even the headlights from the highway seemed to bend around him.

“Detroit–Santa Monica. One way!”

“For fuck’s sake,” the driver screamed. “Take off those goddamn headphones!”

The driver reached for the headphones—

Sooty swatted his hand!

The driver’s two helpers grabbed Sooty from behind, each managing to hold one of his serpentine arms—

The driver reached again. “Just gonna take ‘em off for a minute.”

As he reached gingerly for them, Sooty craned his neck and his black eyes bore into mine. It was as if a tunnel had opened between us. I felt his note burning in my pocket. I felt like this was all my fault because if only I had kept my mouth shut. Why couldn’t I have just let him be? Because he seemed in pain.

The driver removed the headphones—

That’s when I saw pain truly.

We all saw:

As soon as Sooty’s ears were exposed—swollen, bloody ears—he shrieked, dropping to his knees, the driver leaping back, Sooty pounding with his fists: against the asphalt; against his own head. Pounding violently and shrieking and the bus windows burst into a rain of glass and someone else started screaming, then more people. I saw the lights of cellphones. Some calling, some recording. One of the passengers lost consciousness. Sooty crawled—if that’s what you call it when you use your legs to push your shoulders and face along the ground—forward, toward the driver, who was backing up, still holding the headphones. He dropped them on the asphalt and ran. The sounds of screaming were adamantine and the night itself had hardened into a terrible black gem.

Then Sooty rose to his feet.

Strips of flesh fell away from one side of his face.

And ran onto the I-80—

into the path of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler that eviscerated him on impact.

Skidding—

Squealing rubber. Honking. Interstate traffic grinding to a halt.

The screaming: a crescendo, and—

Silence.

Nothing but the sound of my heart beating. Eyes pulsing in tune with the twinkle of stars. The scattered bloom of realization.

Sooty is gone.

His body is no more.

All that remains of him are the headphones, still lying on the asphalt, ignored by everyone but me. Each step I take toward them makes my lights flash on and off. I didn’t know one could walk so loudly. So sluggishly. Like swimming through the night. Until I’m beside them, and I bend down and pick them up. And everything returns to normal.

From somewhere distant I hear sirens.

We spent the night on the bus, listening to the interstate through the frames where the glass used to be, trying to sleep. Feeling the occasional gust of wind on our skin. We talked to the police. They took our statements. They didn’t ask me too many questions, and I didn’t mention the headphones. I figured that if someone else did, I’d hand them over. But no one did. It was clearly a suicide. There were witnesses. Sooty was unquestionably unwell. “You know what kind of people we get on these trips,” I heard the driver tell one of the police officers.” I suppose I should have felt relieved I still had my head, but the truth is I felt unsettled on a subatomic level. Maybe it was the unreality of the Nebraska landscape, stretching flatly as it does to nothingness. Maybe it was that I’d never seen a man die. I’d seen a dead man, but that’s not nearly the same.

Sooty was; Sooty wasn’t. The horror was in the semi-colon.

Never have I been so uncertain about the coming of morning as I was aboard the bus that night. The possibility of permanent darkness terrified me.

I hated the absence of a ticking clock: of a mechanical reminder of the passing of time.

Someone snapped their fingers—

“Yes?” I said.

It was light out, and a kindly face explained to me that it was time to go. Beside our bus stood a new one, windowed and humming. The man speaking was the new driver.

We transported ourselves single file from one bus to the other, wordlessly maintaining the same seating arrangements, which meant I was now sitting by myself, but I refrained from taking the window seat: out of respect for the recently departed—or out of fear. Before leaving the old bus, I had reached below Sooty’s seat and removed the plastic bag from which he’d taken his note. The bag was filled with papers, and I set it beside me. The papers, I decided, would continue to Santa Monica. It was the least I could do.

Soon we left the I-80, heading southwest on the I-76 to Denver, then down the I-70 across the arid alien landscapes of Utah before finally turning onto the I-15 through Las Vegas to Los Angeles.

Passengers left the bus.

New ones got on.

It was in Utah that I went through Sooty’s plastic bag, paper by paper, only to discover that they were identical: a Dallas address and the words in the basement is a light switch turn it off turn it on turn it off turn it on. All were photocopies. There was no original.

Sometimes I took his headphones and turned them over in my hands, but low so the other passengers wouldn't see, and ran my fingers over theirs planes and edges, and remembered how passionately he'd screamed when they had removed them from his head; his bleeding ears, the shredded half of his face; the short, final punctuation of impact…

It was a long way from Nebraska to Los Angeles and it passed in an atmosphere of somber grieving. Although none of us would have admitted it, we knew that ultimately Sooty was one of us more than one of them—the tourists in Las Vegas, the commuters in Barstow and Victorville—so we grieved not only for the dead but also for the living, because in Sooty’s death we saw our own discarded lives.

We arrived in Los Angeles (City of stars / Are you shining just for me?) on a stormy weeknight.

Most passengers got off.

The rest continued south to San Diego.

The rain drummed. I retrieved my duffel bag and ran on aching legs to the nearest shelter, from where I bid the bus goodbye. Rolling away it resembled a giant metal cocoon. When it disappeared, I ordered an Uber from the bus depot to my friend’s house. While waiting, I put on Sooty’s headphones for the first time—aware only after the fact that there was blood on the cushions. No sound flowed out of them, only the dulled reverberations of the outside world. I took them off and wiped Sooty’s blood from my ears. The rain came down harder. The Uber came.

I knocked on my friend’s front door, but nobody answered.

I called his phone. Nothing.

It was the middle of the night and I was late, so I decided he must be sleeping.

The house itself was small, fit snugly between two others, on a street overgrown with houses the way a branch is overgrown with fruit. Burnt lawns, big cars in small driveways, the aroma of domesticity. Still, I was glad for his front porch because it kept me dry, and huddling in a corner I dozed.

He met me in the morning—opening the front door; there I was. “Christ, you look like absolute garbage!”

He made me coffee, toast and fried eggs, which I wolfed down while telling him about the fight with my parents and the trip to Los Angeles.

“That is some trauma-level shit,” he said.

“How long can I stay?”

He said it could be as long as I wanted as long as I got new clothes and took a shower. “Because you reek, dude.” I had to admit it was nice to feel the lather of soap on my skin and tile under my feet. Cleanliness can be a luxury.

He took me clothes shopping, and we went to Santa Monica.

We walked along the ocean. I carried Sooty’s plastic bag of photocopied notes, looking for a place to leave them. I couldn’t explain why it was so important to me. Perhaps I thought it would free me from the feelings of dread (“Trauma, man.”) that had clung to me since Nebraska. Eventually I left the bag on the Santa Monica Pier. It was busy even during the day, and when I looked back there was already someone peeking inside and retrieving Sooty’s cryptic last words to the world.

Back at my friend’s house, I pulled out Sooty’s headphones, determined to have a closer look at them.

“Those are ghetto,” my friend said.

I let him handle them. “Careful, there might be blo—”

“Gross!" He almost dropped them. “Absolutely fucking gross. Throw that shit out. I mean, do they even work?”

He returned them to me with genuine disgust. I cleaned the cushions with rubbing alcohol, scratching away bits of dried blood with my fingernail, and let them sit.

“Why are you so attached to these headphones anyway?” he asked.

I explained Sooty had been wearing them the whole bus ride. That he’d been bobbing his head as if listening to music through them. That he didn’t want to take them off. That when finally they did take them—

“OK, OK. In the spirit of healing, I know an electronics guy. Let's get him to take a look, and then we never touch those ghetto phones again. Deal?"

It happened that the electronics guy owned a pawn shop, and it took him five seconds to say, "These aren't headphones. You know how people call headphones cans? These are actual cans. Wrapped in cardboard and tape."

"It's settled," my friend said.

I protested that Sooty had been listening to something through them.

"Impossible. The only thing the guy could've been listening to was voices in his own crazy head." The pawn shop owner held up a small knife and motioned with it at the headphones. "May I?"

"Sure."

He made a few incisions, unfolded cardboard. "See? Nothing. No electronics. No magnets."

Although he was right about the electronics and magnets, the headphones weren't empty. They were filled with an intricate array of variously sized cardboard rectangles: notched, interlocked, and adorned with symbols. Most of them I didn't recognize. One I did.

An ankh.

"Yeah, that's weird," my friend said.

I grabbed the headphones before the knife could do more damage, careful not to upset the interior symbolic arrangement.

"Suit your crazy selves."

My friend was a session musician and spent a lot of time away from home. I lounged about, looking for rest that wouldn't come and trying my best to forget about Sooty. But I couldn't bring myself to throw away the headphones. I hid them, and examined them only when I was alone. Sometimes when I couldn't sleep. I convinced myself it was the change of time zones that was grating on me, but deep down I knew it wasn't that simple. I entertained the possibility my friend was right: I had been traumatized. That sound of Sooty grinding his teeth together. But whenever I googled doctors, I sensed another word was more accurate: haunted. No doctor could help me with that. Then I'd place the headphones on my head and sit, listening to their distorted, uncanny interpretation of the world, which even at the height of summer could chill my flesh and make me doubt the coming of the dawn.

A person may live for years in a restless, haunted state. Some do it their whole lives. It's a matter of adaptation, and humans are masters of that. For me, the state lasted three months. I found one part-time job hauling a/v equipment, a second with a moving company, and started making something of my life. I even contacted my parents. "I think I'll stay out here awhile," I told them. "Things are good, and I see a future for myself."

I opened a bank account.

I met a girl.

Then one day my friend suggested a road trip. "Anywhere you wanna go?"

"Dallas," I said.

I’d said it inevitably and without thinking. “Not somewhere closer. More fun. Vegas?" he asked.

“I have family in Dallas,” I lied. “I’d like to visit.”

We made the drive in two days, taking turns behind the wheel, and checked into a one-week rental. While my friend tweaked our itinerary, I ducked out under the pretense of meeting kin and headed for the address on Sooty’s note.

I was initially disappointed.

There was nothing remarkable about it: a brick house in the suburbs, slightly worn down but obviously home to a family, judging by the cars in the driveway and toys scattered about the yard. I watched it for a quarter of an hour before gathering the courage to knock on the front door. A man answered. “May I help you?”

The lie came naturally. “I—’m sorry to bother you, but I grew up in this house and I was wondering if it would be alright if I took a look inside.” The man blinked without answering. I continued, “My father died recently, and I…”

I let the unfinished sentence linger.

“Please,” he said finally, ushering me inside.

The place was busy: packed with the detritus of life. I heard a woman talking on the phone and children playing upstairs. I pretended to be overcome with emotion, and in a sense I was. My heart was pounding. “May I see the basement?” I asked.

“Of course,” the man said, leading me to a set of stairs. “One of the things that makes this place unique. You won't find many Texas homes with basements.” He sounded as if he was giving a tour. I imagined him as a salesman.

We descended.

“Yes. I’m from the north myself—”

He stopped.

“I mean I live in Illinois these days,” I corrected. “I miss Texas.”

We reached the basement.

“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” the man said. “I lost mine a few years ago. Colon cancer. I know how tough it can be.”

I scanned the room—cramped with unused things—for a light switch.

I saw two.

The man flicked one on.

And I raised a hand to my gaping mouth. The man bowed his head, mistaking my shock for melancholy. But I was not moved. I was staring at the wall, on which faintly visible was scrawled a large ankh.

“Do you want some time?” the man asked.

I nodded.

As soon as he was gone, I inspected the ankh. It looked neither painted on nor scratched. Burned perhaps—or something else. I ran my fingertips across it but felt nothing. The wall was smooth.

Next I flipped on the second light switch, which further illuminated the room.

Then I followed Sooty’s instructions:

Turning each switch:

off on off on

One of the light bulbs burst—

The man’s anxious face appeared at the top of the stairs.

“The bulb—”

“That’s fine,” he said. “Needed replacing anyway.”

I ascended the stairs and thanked him for his kindness. “By the way,” I said, “does it ever bother you: the ankh on the wall?”

“The what?”

“The cross on the basement wall.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He showed me out.

The world was as it had been: blue sky; sunshine; white clouds travelling. Nothing was changed—but I didn’t know what change I had expected, or why I expected a change at all. I had met a mentally ill man on the bus. He had fake headphones and a plastic bag full of papers containing an address, perhaps one significant to him; perhaps not. Walking along the street, I realized my own life was so devoid of meaning that I had placed my faith in whatever came along. Whatever insanity came along. The true meaning of life, its foundations, I had just started laying down in Los Angeles. That was real. As for the ankh—what ankh? It was but a trick of the light enabled by the power of suggestion. The homeowner had no idea what I was talking about, and he lived there. Light bulbs, I decided, sometimes shatter when you fiddle with light switches.

I didn’t want to go back to the rental so I wandered the area.

The streets meandered.

I entered a park and sat on a bench. Opposite me parents spoke to kids playing across monkey bars and down slides. Someone kicked a soccer ball. Beside the bench stood a garbage bin, and I resolved to throw Sooty’s headphones into it. I had been on a hunt for symbols, and here was a healthy one: to free myself of a psychological anchor. Trauma. Yes, my friend had been right: I was traumatized by what I’d seen. A truck had collided with a man of flesh and bone, snuffing out his life. Many people would be traumatized by that. But now I was over it. Now I could throw the headphones—

I decided to put them on: one final time.

That would be symbolic too.

I slipped them over my ears, closed my aching eyes and—

heard the most beautiful music in the world.

Dimly angelic: as if from another city: or from another galaxy: as if the first rays of light touching an incomprehensibly unknown darkness…

The kids played.

The clouds traversed the blue.

And I listened: enthralled and awed and utterly frightened both of the music and of being removed from it—

I willed the headphones off my ears and found myself assaulted by the real world.

The feeling dispersed.

The garbage bin beckoned, but I tossed nothing inside it.

One does not simply dispose of miracles.

Back in the rental, my friend asked about my family. I told him they were fine, and we spent the remaining days of our trip engaged in what he considered fun and I considered penance. I endured it gladly. At night, when he slept, I snuck outside and under starlight listened for hours to the music of the heavens.

I continued my night listening when we returned to Los Angeles.

The skin around my eyes darkened.

I slept only during the day.

“You don’t look so good,” my friend told me once. I didn’t doubt his worry, but I was fine: infinitely more! “Life is good,” I told him.

I lost my jobs.

“Are you eating? How’s things with what’s-her-name?”

“Yes. Good.” I didn’t remember her name either.

I barely remembered her face.

“Hey, you wanna come out with me and my friends tonight?”

“Not tonight, thanks.”

“Hey, you wanna come—”

“No, thanks.”

Weeks passed in a haze of moonlight.

“Hey, you—”

“No.”

One night while sitting peacefully on my friend’s porch, filling my head with the audio joy, I experienced a shock.

“Jesus Christ! Is this what you’ve been doing all night?”

My friend was holding my headphones, staring at me from above like some kind of man-mother and I said, “Give them back to me.”

“I thought you were over this shit, man. We agreed you’d—”

“Give them!”

“Relax, Smeagol,” he said.

“I want to listen.”

“There is no listening. Remember? These are not headphones. They’re junk, and junk goes in the garbage.”

“Just listen,” I said.

He shook his head but dutifully put on the headphones. “I’m listening—to… nothing.”

“It’s beautiful. It’s the most beautiful music.”

‘It’s nothing.” He took the headphones off and put his hands on his hips. “I’m gonna level with you, bro. I think you need help. Whatever you saw messed you up and you need professional help with that shit.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Then throw out the headphones,” he said.

“I will.”

“I mean throw ‘em out now.”

“I will.”

“You know what? Fuck it. I’ll throw them out and you’ll thank me for it later.”

He turned—and I grabbed for the headphones but missed, catching him in the back and nearly knocking him off balance. “Dude! Seriously.”

“I want them back.”

“OK. Here’s the deal,” he said. “These things are fucking you up. You can’t live here if you’re fucked up. So you can either keep living here or you can take the—”

I grabbed the headphones, turned my back on him and left.

I never saw him again.

Slipping the headphones delicately onto my ears, I pounded down the sidewalk—the pounding receding with every step: replaced by those glorious sounds: sounds so dim at first but now becoming a little louder, a little clearer, each day. Yes, yes, I thought. This is beauty. I didn’t notice that as I passed under the glowing streetlights, their light had begun to curve around me.

I roughed it for about a week, then called my parents and asked if I could come home to visit. I apologized for the past. “Everything here is great. Great job, great girl. I just miss you guys,” I told them, and in their spoken words I knew their happiness.

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#June 07 #2021 at 09:39PM

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