#I remember feeling very self conscious about looking too childish as a teenager because of how teen girls looked in all media back then

[suchscary]

[dxmedstudent]

When k started online dating several years ago after a bad patch, I was looking to reconnect with my hobbies - a difficult thing at a time when I was struggling with postgraduate qualifications and 12 hour shifts.

I was keen to start reading some Pratchett - put off repeatedly due to it being a rather mammoth task.

I remember he asked why I had thought to start reading Pratchett as that was really "something for teenagers". Or something to that effect. Tge implication that there was something... unusual in a woman of my age wanting to read his work.

I remember not really knowing what to say. I was a bit baffled, because I'd seen people of all ages talking lovingly about Pratchett's work. I'd read enough excerpts to feel that it gelled with my sense of humor. Good Omens basically got me out of the aforementioned horrible time in my life. And I'd read enough Douglas Adams to not conflate humor or silliness with bad writing.

Now, I unashamedly read manga and I don't think YA is just for kids. I don't think we should feel shame for reading fanfiction. I think we should enjoy a wide range of media.

Maybe this guy was perfectly fine, I'm sure he didnt necessarily mean it pejorativey, but I just didn't feel like hanging out with someone who I'd have to defend seemingly "childish" indulgences to. I'm not saying that's the only reason that we didn't meet again, but the tone of that conversation left me feeling that this was not my person.

I later met another guy, as you do. Right from the start, we talked at length about our favourite media, and I shared some anime recommendations. He offered to lend me his copy of the first couple of Pratchett books and went to look for them. Alas, he couldn't find them, he had a lot of books on his shelves, to be fair. But he was excited to share a series he loved with someone who was new to it and talking about the things I enjoyed and wanted to share was so easy. There was no pretention about what media is "for kids" or "for adults" or what media men are meant to consume.

Reader, I married him.

Now, you might think that marrying him was an unnecessarily convoluted way to ensure I get to have all the Pratchett books, and I'd probably agree.

But I did get a best friend to discuss all the things I like with, so I think it was a good deal overall. Looking back, given how careful he is with his possessions, I feel pretty flattered and amused that he was infatuated enough to offer out his books.

I still haven't gotten very far through the books (residency took priority), but I love that they are sitting by like old friends, waiting for me to pick up where I left off.

One of the weird things about medical training that we don't really talk about is that, in the pursuit of being a competent clinician, you miss out on so much of everything else through simply having little time. There are so many films or series or books I just never got around to enjoying. I used to feel kind of self conscious about all the things I have wanted to do but never gotten around to.

But I love sharing my life with someone who is always delighted to show me a great new thing that I haven't yet enjoyed.

It's never too late to pick up something new. And I hope this will open up Pratchett to a new audience.

Okay so this is a big deal

To me, and to a significant subset of Sir Terry's fans (including most of you who've found this by the tags), his writing is serious commentary on the human condition - politics, prejudice, self-control, revenge vs. justice, religion, idealism, faith in people vs. cynicism, and more - dressed up with fantasy settings and a hefty leavening of humor to make it fun to read. And it is WILDLY fun to read, actual laugh-out-loud or at least a snicker averaging about every page.

But there's this common idea among the "important literature" people that fun and funny books are not also worthwhile or important in the same way.

This is a Discworld book being released WITH ACADEMIC COMMENTARY and AS A PENGUIN CLASSIC. That's a HUGE amount of recognition.

[dats-hq]

Nostalgically looking through Digimon Survive prerelease footage and noticing that Saki looked a LOT younger in the early builds. Makes me wonder if her character was also going to be substantially different. Mild spoilers for Saki’s character ahead.

I've seen a lot of people say that Saki doesn’t really feel like a 12-year-old. I believe this is intentional. There’s dialogue in the game that alludes to the fact that Saki looks a bit older than she actually is, which means that this is something that’s true in-universe that the characters take notice of.

I think Saki makes a lot of small choices, conscious or unconscious, to make herself seem just a little bit older. The way she carries herself, her makeup, stuff like that. She tries to come across more like a teenager than the pre-teen she actually is. There’s a lot of different reasons why that could be, but given that her central character conflict is about being honest with her emotions, I think she suffered from a series of small invalidations over the course of her life that has led to her wanting to construct a persona that would be taken a bit more seriously.

Not to get too personal, but when I was younger, I had to go to frequent doctor’s appointments for a medical condition, much like Saki. Something I remember from that time is that that it felt like I was constantly being reprimanded for things I felt no fault at all for. A lot of doctors and nurses were very rough with me and ignored me when I said something hurt, and my mom once told me she was embarrassed to be seen with me because of “how much of a scene” I caused every time. (This was mostly just me crying when the nurse took 10+ pokes to find my vein).

All that said, I think Saki probably had similar experiences at the early stages of her sickness, and was chided for being too “childish” for complaining about the doctor’s appointments, which made her think she’d be taken more seriously if she seemed a bit older. Along with other experiences, she came to believe that her authentic self was fundamentally “wrong” somehow, and thus began the character arc we see in-game. Given that she’s heavily implied to be some flavor of sapphic, this may tie into that as well.

Given that she was drawn to look a fair bit younger in the beta, however, maybe she was originally going to have a fairly different character. At the very least, she probably wouldn’t have been considered to look older than she is in-universe. Given the way this game is written, that probably would have had some difference. Very little in Survive comes across as superfluous fluff unrelated to characterization to me.

[horrorslashergirl]

A yandere Chromeskull with a reader who grew up in a emotionally neglectful home making her really touch-starved and very accepting of the affection Jesse is offering her. 😊

I don’t know if I made him yandere, but I certainly didn’t. Sorry....

Chromeskull x Reader- Don Julio and Childish Flaws

The black Bentley stopped into the parking lot of an expensive restaurant in Jacksonville and Jesse Cromeans got out, adjusting his Versace black dress-jacket, making sure he was as presentable as ever after all looks were very important to him, the power designer clothes and a Rolex were mind-numbing and people would say he was a narcissist, but like hell would Jesse go for cheap at the corner shops.

Fuck what people think!

It was very amusing to him, because people always threw themselves at him, be it for his status, money, tattoos, or very influential power he had. So, of course, it was funny when they accused him of being a prideful egocentric jerk because the next five minutes they were on their knees sucking on his cock.

He smirked at the memories of having a piggy choke on his cock in a bathroom at a gala party.

Despite all of this, something made him think twice about his life and that had to do at the last rich party that one of his partners in business threw. It all started with discussions about wives and marriage.

Jesse rolled his eye at the word wife. He tried marriage and didn't end well...on his deceased ex-wife's part. Hearing all the men at the party talk about their pregnant wives, following weddings and what-not domestic life made his chest constrict and it wasn't the alcohol.

Talk about a middle-age crisis, but that's what got Jesse to be so thoughtful in the past month.

Everyone was getting married, creating a family, and here he was adjusting his silk tie in the black tinted window of his car.

Before his ex-wife and after, he filled that void with piggies of all type, because you don't want a woman to bicker day and night about where you've been, how was work or simply sticking her nose in your business.

It all changed when each night before he went to sleep and in the morning when he woke up, he would look at the empty side of his California king-sized bed.

Now, he should be nervous, because it wasn't his first date with you, but he wanted to make sure everything is perfect, always put on a good impression, and make sure that your ego is being rubbed on.

Maybe that's the reason why this was the fourth date with you, because all his associates, when they found out about the two of you, have said things that made Jesse feel like a king....a winner.

'She's so young. Way to go, stud!'

'She's twice your age! You lucky bastard.'

'Wish I was in your shoes, man.'

Yes, all those words made Jesse's chest puff with haughtiness.

Back to where we are...After doing a once check-over he walked to the front entrance of the restaurant where you waited for him. He could help, but swallow down as he took in your appearance; a nice black Chanel dress with silver stilettos, make-up, and hair perfectly done.

A true beauty, so much more revigorating than the silicone boosted piggies he used to fuck or kill, of course, killing was the last thing he wanted to do to you, maybe kill your mind with nerve-wracking orgasms, but that's perhaps for later.

"Hello, Jesse." You greeted him with a big smile and he returned it with a toothy grin, walking towards you, then he kissed your cheek, a slight blush on them.

'Shall we?' he signed, and you gripped his arm, the two of you step inside and into a private lounge, drawing the chair out for you to sit on.

"What a gentleman." you said with a cheeky smile.

He sat down opposite from you, and a waiter came in to give the menus, asking what you wanted to drink before you would order food. You went with a Don Julio because this time it was your turn to choose the drink.

'I had this drink just once. Crazy night.' Jesse signed as he looked through the menu. After a little time, you both ordered the same thing, then the drinks arrived and you both cheered for tonight.

"So? How's work?" you asked, taking a small sip of the strong liquor.

Jesse was a little tense because to him work had two meanings; basking in mountains of paperwork or chase down women in skimpy clothes with two twin knives.

'Could have been better.' he signed a little reluctantly, avoiding your gaze.

"I can understand that. I am still working on my novel and I kind of have a writer block. It's like a black void of nothing." you told him with a sigh, noticing that the conversation wasn't going anywhere.

This was awkward and you resumed to spin the alcohol in your glass, trying not to act offended by your date's ignorance.

Jesse cursed himself, noticing that his cold attitude wasn't making you feel any comfortable, so one of his larger hands took one of yours, rubbing your knuckles soothingly, his face into a sad furrow.

'Sorry, doll. I'm not that used to this kind of....dating.' he signed, your eyes observing him more.

Yes, in the past dates you had with him he pretty much told you about the awkwardness of formal dating to say so and you could understand. It was so much different from booty-calls and paying a hooker to jump on your dick.

You figured a man of his status was very confident, but here he was acting like a virgin high-schooler. That thought made you giggle and his gaze bore into your skull.

"Sorry." you apologized with a cough and gave him an assuring smile.

"Remember what I said on our first date? Just be natural, yourself, don't try to please me with all the gentleman act, although it's very sweet of you."

Be himself? If he was acting like his true self he would have the waitresses gutted from throat to groin, and the waiter's dick cut off for giving you a not so professional look.

'It's all new for me.' he signed with a shrug, your hand coming to grasp his, and he did what you told him, brought your hand to his lips that brushed the skin of your hand, making you close your eyes, a content sound escaping your mouth.

Jesse also learned something interesting about you in the past dates, that you were touch starved, the simplest touches of affection making you putty in his arms, from rubbing your shoulders soothingly, to holding your hand and kisses on the cheek, you always leaned on for more, but the dates always ended when things got more interesting.

He broke the loving gesture when the food arrived and you eat in silence, continuing to drink and pretty much have a good time, acting all-natural thanks to the strong drinks that went on and on.

"And like I said, my parents, were always working and the divorce didn't help that much. My grandmother used to raise me more, but she died and I pretty much had to live with the fact that affection is a luxury I cannot afford." you blabbered, taking another sip of your drink, brows furrowing at the thought.

'I can give you that luxury.' Jesse signed, moving his chair closer to you.

That caught your attention. Your past lovers always said you were way too clingy and they needed 'space', so you didn't have that much luck when it came to a stable relationship, and you weren't that desperate to resume to cheap one-night stands that would leave you even more touch-starved in the morning after.

You could feel yourself blush more as Jesse looked with intensity at you.

"Don't make empty promises." you murmured and you squeaked when a hand touched your thigh, thumb brushing your bare skin.

'I am serious. This is our fourth date and I really love your company. You're different.' he signed, and you nibbled on your bottom lip nervously.

"I know, I enjoy spending time with you, Jesse....But, I mean...I am kind of young and perhaps I don't know what I want from life and I certainly don't want to burden you with my childish attitude." you explained, feeling all of sudden more self-conscious.

'I always liked them younger. Far more exciting than the stuck-up hags my age that doesn't have a sense of humor.' he signed with a smirk, making you giggle and automatically move closer to him.

He certainly had a strange and dark sense of humor, but it was growing on you, and for a 40-year-old man he sure acted like a teenager, which was unique.

"I know I can be sometimes clingy..." you whispered, his brown eye moving from your eyes to your lips and back up.

'I certainly don't mind. I love my baby girl to be hungry for his daddy.' he signed ravenously with a cheeky grin and you slapped his shoulder lightly.

"Don't speak like that! You make it sound like I have daddy issue." you muttered, glaring at him, your faces so close to one another.

'You do, princess. But let me tell you, I won't neglect you and everything you want I can get you; clothes, jewelry, cars, luxurious vacations. Just say your price.' he signed slowly.

Maybe he was desperate, but Jesse Cromeans is never desperate, but one thing for sure is that whatever Chromeskull wants, Chromeskull gets.

You hummed in thought, then moved your lips to his ear.

"How about cuddling tonight after this dinner, and maybe watching a home movie? I do need inspiration for my book and there is this new horror movie." you whispered, your hand moving to his black-clad thigh, giving it a squeeze.

Jesse was grinning like he won the lottery, his arms coming to wrap around your waist, pulling you into his lap. You giggled at his childish self, perhaps more so than you.

You poured another two glasses of Don Julio, handing him one.

"For the start of our relationship?" you asked, raising your glass in salute as he did the same.

'For the two of us.'

[botwstoriesandsuch]

Yo what if the Champions’ spirits stuck around long enough to train the next gen? Hcs for that?

*blows dust off of ask* Sorry this took so long, hope you weren’t too comfy sitting in my inbox there. Alrighty! Time for some

Training Montages *Rocky Theme Plays* (Headcanons)

Credit to @champion-of-the-sky​ for some help with the hcs

Ok, the first part of this post it just gonna be some of my thoughts into how the Divine Beasts actually work, because that’s kinda of necessary information if you wanna train them. So here is another one of my big boi head canon posts because sometimes I can’t shut up.

So firstly, the Divine Beasts can draw immense power from Hyrule which is stored over time and charges their giant laser thingys (Naboris draws power from the earth and makes electricity, Ruta takes in water from the atmosphere, Rudania is fire boy, Medoh has wind and thermal (from the atmosphere) generators, etc. etc.)

The Ancient Sheikah were like “hey wow these are really powerful beasts so maybe we should make sure that no one unworthy gets their hands on them”

Their solution was to have a spiritual bond between the beast and the pilot. Each Divine Beast has their own “soul” or personality and can judge someone of being worthy of piloting them. And only that person would have the power to use the Divine Beast to its full potential (AKA use the giant Anti-Ganon lasers)

Ergo, the Champions

When the died 100 years ago, their spirits stuck around because Ganon need to trap their spirits in order to get the Divine Beasts to actually work

[And then this would be a good segue-way into that cool idea where the Link has to fight the Champions taken over by malice, instead of the blights. BUT we’re not talking about that today]

Ok, so you know the story. Link frees the Divine Beasts from Ganon’s grasp. The spirits of the dead Champions command a legendary blow against the blight of Hyrule. Zelda and Link help save the day. Yay!

HOWEVER! The Champions are still there, their spirits persist.Turns out their spirits cannot go away, because the Divine Beasts don’t really wanna go without an owner, considering they’ve been controlled by Ganon for 100 years, so fair.

Basically, the Beasts wont let the spirit of their old pilots go until they find a suitable successor

Enter, new gen Champs!

Daruk/Yunobo

Training with a Divine Beast is not unlike trying to form a bond with a real animal. In fact, the Beasts do behave with a mind of their own, so that might as well be an on point analogy

Daruk struggled with Rudania because its personality was very stubborn and blunt, much like the Goron race anyhow. As said in my other post, Rudania’s personality clashes with the playful and loving nature of Daruk

The only reason Daruk even got the handle on things was becuase Link forced him to spend a whole day in the Divine Beast. We can only speculate that from that time, Daruk must have somehow formed a mutual respect or protective bond with the giant lizard

So essentially, when he’s training Yunobo, he does the exact same thing

“You just gotta walk around for a bit, Yunobo. Get a feel for ol’ Rudania. They’re a grump, but you’ll get along.”

“G-get a feel? We’re surrounded by lava! What if I mess up? What if your Divine B—”

“Your, Divine Beast”

“Right, right… but what if it doesn’t like me and tips my into Death Mountain’s core!”

Daruk gives a hearty laugh. “Kid, you helped save ol’ Ruddy from Ganon, remember? You’ve already got a good bond going. So just walk around for a bit and just take ‘em all in. Good luck!”

And he slams the door behind him, leaving Yunobo in the dark

But he’ll eventually get around to forming a bond. But Rudania’s probably a little grumpy that they’ve gone from reckless pilot who laughs too much, to timid teenager gifted with a powerful champion ability that he is self-conscious about

Daruk is hella encouraging with Yunobos training. The kid will eventually be the second best with his Beast. Daruk is patient with Yunobo because he sees himself in him. And he also teaches him some cool tricks like if you tilt Rudania just right, you get a cool slip and slide ramp that’s perfect for the hot springs

Urbosa/Riju [not a lot for these guys bcs I’m lazy and this post is long anyway]

Urbosa would be playful with Riju when they train, making goofy jokes about things, letting out a quick joke to lessen and tension Riju might feel from her anxiety to lead her people. At the same time, she also explains things with good detail

Riju is third best with her beast. Occasionally, she’ll be intimidated by Naboris’ strength and power, especially considering she had an incident with Patricia the Sand Seal back when it was shooting lightning everywhere

However, she’s the one to ask the most questions, half of which Urbosa can’t answer. She’s got that childish curiosity that serves well in her understanding of Naboris

Mipha/Sidon [also not a lot because using your imagination can be hard]

Mipha and Sidon just act like siblings, much to both of their delight. It’s less of training, and more of catching up on everything over the last a hundred years on top of a giant elephant.

Because they’re siblings, Mipha pulls little pranks on her little brother on purpose. But neither are really annoyed by it, as they both laugh it off

Like Mipha will tell Sidon to stand in a certain spot to see how the parts of Ruta move. Then she makes Ruta move in such away to splash the poor prince in gallons of water

You’re gonna ruin his handkerchief Mipha!

Sidon is the best at managing his Divine Beast out of the four, for not only does he have a strong bond with the previous pilot, but he gets along well with Ruta’s playful personality

Revali/Teba

Local birds butt heads because they’re both egotistical idiots

Revali continues to be as dramatic as usual, while also maintaining his image by claiming that Teba will probably never master Medoh as well as him

Teba respects Revali given that he was his childhood hero. Yet at the same time Revali isn’t exactly what he expected, and he’s not down to take this sass from a teenager

Perfect storm of dumb banter, because both have reluctance in the whole situation

Teba gives out a groan, frustrated. “Argh! This damn bird wont start its propellers. How do I get it to work?”

“Perhaps Medoh is still tired. After all, you’ve been complaining none stop all day.”

“Right, my voice is the problem.”

“Why don’t you sing her a lullaby, she’s probably so sleepy.”

Teba scoffs, “You’re kidding. There’s no way that would work. Beside, there’s no way I’m sing—”

“Why don’t you hold your tongue, my dear apprentice,” another groan escapes Teba, “You’re going to hurt Medoh’s feelings with that attitude. Tulin is your son, yes? Surely you’ve sung a tune or two back in his fledgling days?”

“Sure, but I’m not gonna—”

“Medoh wants to hear you s i n g~”

Revali is strict with his training, and Teba probably struggled with Medoh the most out of the four, considering that before Link came along, he had the mindset of killing Medoh. 

Teba still repescts everything Revali is doing, making sure to call him “Master Revali.” And though he would never admit it, Revali’s feathers would always fluff with pride at the notion of it

Also he’s gonna call Teba his pupil/apprentice throughout the entire session

Angsty moment: when each Champion thinks their apprentice is ready, THAT’S the time they get their final rest and their spirits move on. Like, imagine Sidon wanting to Master Ruta to make his sister proud, but at the same time the day he does is when she is gone for good.

That looks like a good note to end off of! So yay :)

[lokiandbuckyaremine]

Just a Show...

Prompt: Can I request something where Sebastian is jealous cause his wife is part of “The Witcher” series and she have some smut scenes with Henry Cavill, but Seb is so childish and cute when he’s “angry” and lots of kisses and cuddles and sweetie🙈🙈 thanks 💕~ Requested by anonymous

Pairings: Sebastian Stan x reader, Henry Cavil x Reader

Warnings: Mention of smut, fluff, some language, sexy talk from Seb ;)

The tile floor of the bathroom felt cold under your feet, as you shuffled back and forth reading over the lines in your script. “He takes her to a room, where they held the weapons and pressed her naked body against the cold wall of the castle. He slowly drags his fingers up her thigh and--” Your script-reading was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Come in”, you acknowledged. Fixing your robe, you closed the script and walked towards the door to find Henry smiling back at you sheepishly. “Hey y/n, the director has been lookin for you.” You chuckled nervously and took one last glance at your hair and makeup in the mirror. “I figured as much. Just a needed a little time before we do this scene, ya know?” Henry nodded. “I know, you’re not the type to do this but I’m sure you’ll be one hell of a seductive sorceress.” He winked and motioned for you to follow him to the set.

Henry was a really nice guy and a very talented actor, but you were very sure that he had a crush on you ever since you starting working with him on “The Witcher” set. Though you always did your best acting and always wanted to impress, today’s scene made you uncomfortable because it was your first sex scene.

“Well if it isn’t my star actress and the hot witch hunter. About damn time you two showed up. Were you practicing in Henry’s camper?” Your director snorted at his vulgar joke and went to give you a hug. “Very funny Ian, but I was actually prepping myself in the bathroom then Henry came to get me.” Ian stepped back and took in your barely clothed state. He whistled and shot a wink to Henry. “Looks like you’re gonna have fun with this one, Cavill.”

Henry blushed and couldn’t help but eye your body up and down too. Feeling uncomfortable, you cleared your throat and started to walk towards the mini set that the sex scene would take place. “Can we please just get this over with?” You muttered, walking away. As the directors and crew were getting themselves ready for shoot, you and Henry both began to undress. Closing your eyes, hoping this would be quick, you took off your robe. When you opened your eyes, Henry was staring back at you with a slightly opened mouth. “Wow, y/n. You are really fuckin hot. Like shit, this might be hard to do.”

You rolled your eyes and began to feel very self-conscious. “Cavill, I’m married. Remember? Stop gawking and focus. i don’t have time for teenage boy crap.” Ian came over to you both and handed you and Henry a spray bottle. “This is some of that body oil shit to make your skin look shiny form sweat. It’s about to be hungry sex between a witch hunter and sorceress.” Your stomach was forming into a knot as you sprayed the oil all over your body. Once you and Henry were all set, you both walked over to the wall where he would make love to you and you leaned up against it. “You ready to do this, darlin?” He asked, smirking. 

You sighed. “Yea whatever.” You placed each of your arms around his naked torso when Ian yelled, “Alright. ACTION!!!” Henry began to make out with you and slid your hands up and down his chiseled chest. “My dear, sorceress. You are quite the sexy creature. I’m about to you show you what real magic is like.” You moaned at his character’s words and Henry began to slid his finger up your thigh. 

Both of you were panting and moaning, until a slammed door caught your attention. “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” Ian growled and yelled, “CUT!!! What the hell was that?!” You peered over Henry’s shoulder to see your very upset husband standing in the middle of the set, holding your lunch. “Babe?! What the fuck are you doing being naked with this creep?!” Feeling embarrassed and slightly relieved, you grabbed your robe and rushed over to your husband. “Seb! You are a sight for sore eyes!” He half hugged you and kept staring at you with anger and disbelief. 

You looked over to Ian who was tapping his foot and glaring at the both of you. “Sorry Ian, but can we postpone this. I’m really not feeling up to doing the scene today.” His eyes grew wide and he threw the script down. “Y/N! You are being paid to do this job. Get your ass back in that room, strip down, and get the fucking scene over with!” Seb grabbed your arm and spun you around, “Uh, baby, a word please.” 

You nodded and didn’t even acknowledge the fact that Ian was cursing and flipping you off as you walked off set. When you and Seb reached the hallway, he let go of your arm abruptly and slammed his hand against the wall. “Well, hello to you too husband of mine.” You rolled your eyes and leaned against the wall with him. Sebastian sighed and looked over to you. “Babe, when were you going to tell me you had to do a sex scene for the show? I thought it was just a couples of kisses or hugs here and there.” You giggled at his innocent thinking of “love scenes”. “Sebby, I’m an actress and it’s what I’m paid to do. Just like you. Plus I had no idea it was going to be this explicit until I read the scene today.”

He sighed again, and looked down into his lap. “I just, I don’t feel comfortable with you doing this sex scene with Henry Cavill. One, the guy is a hunk and every chick digs him. Two, the scene seems all too real. AND three, I don’t want anyone else to see those boobies except me.” You roared into laughter and gave a quick kiss to your husband’s cheek. “Stan, you are so cute and I love how you take possession over my boobies.” This got Seb to smile and he wrapped his arm around you. “Well yea, I married you. Therefore they are my boobies.” You continued to giggle and brushed his thigh with your fingertips, “So does this mean that your dick is mine too?” 

He blushed a deep red and his eyes clouded over with lust. “Oh baby, it’s yours whenever you want.” He leaned in to give you a steamy kiss. When you pulled apart you rested your head on his shoulder and he hugged you tightly. “Seb, I know that this makes you uncomfortable. Believe me it does for me too. But it’s just a show, just acting, and no Henry is not attractive.” Seb chuckled and kissed your forehead. “I know, but I get so jealous when you do these kinds of intimate scenes with other male actors. I should be the only one that gets to share those special moments with you.”

“Seb, you think they are special moments? NO way! Baby, when I’m on screen and I have a love scene to do, you ALWAYS pop into my head. I picture you every time I have to do a kiss or whatever because you are the only man that I could ever feel love and affection for. These other actors have nothing on you.” You kissed his nose and grinned up at him. You can tell he was relieved and his forehead creases disappeared. “How did I get to be the luckiest man in the world with such an amazing wife?” You shrugged and began to stand up, “Maybe it was the spell I put on you. Muahaha....get it? Because I’m the sorceress?” 

Seb stared blankly at you and shook his head, laughing. “Just get back in there and finish the scene, dork.” You shook your head ‘no’ and walked over to Seb, in a seductive manner. “Nope! Not going to finish the scene!” He looked at you puzzled and grabbed your hips. “Uh, why not?” You smirked and pulled at his collar. “Because you and I are going to finish the scene in our bedroom.”

Let’s just say, you never returned back to set and made the magic happen in the sheets with your Sebastian Stan. ;)

A/N: Oooooo. It is about to get really sexy with Seb :) Btw haven’t seen “The Witcher” yet, but I very much plan too ;) LIKE, REBLOG, AND LEAVE COMMENTS as always!

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[purplesurveys]

1165

survey by xxbieberburnham

A - Accidents

Have you ever been in a car accident? Very minor ones that only caused small dents, and nothing that wrecked either car or put someone in the hospital entirely.

Do you have a lot of scars? I have some, not a lot.

Have you been in a fist fight with someone? Nope.

Have you ever seriously hurt someone by accident? I remember striking my ex in the face accidentally while we were horsing around. She was wearing glasses at the time so she ended up getting a cut in the area in between her eyes.

Have you ever had stitches? No and like I always say, I hope I’ll never need to get them.

B - Beauty

Would consider yourself beautiful? Not beautiful, but I will feel pretty on some days. Not always, though.

Are you self consicous of how you look? These days not so much, because I don’t even get to go out in the first place and there’s been little need to fix myself up most days unless I’ll get on a video call for work. I don’t get self-conscious around my family either.

Do you wear a lot of make up? I never wear makeup.

Would you ever consider getting plastic surgery? Nope. I considered having my breasts done when I was a teenager, but the thought literally never crosses my mind anymore.

What do you think makes a person beautiful? Physically, I think it differs per person. More than that, it’s the things they do when no one is looking.

C - Consequences

What is the longest you've been grounded for? Maybe around a year? Due to issues at home and, honestly, poor parental skills on my mom’s end, I ended up being a rebellious problem child and wasn’t the easiest to temper or raise.

What would you do if you became pregnant? Keep it and try to seek support from family and friends.

Do you ever think about how your actions affect people? Always a people pleaser, y’all. Of course I do.

What do you think is the worst punishment someone could give you? I guess anything that involves taking away basic essentials, like cutting off access to food and water.

What is one thing you wish you didn't do because it wasn't worth it? Stayed in a relationship that I knew was going to end at some point. She always made it clear she’d end it one day and I was just too afraid of confrontation to face it sooner (and too stubborn to handle the truth).

D - Dealing

When you're mad at someone how do you show it? Cold shoulder.

Name a time when you had to be strong. The week of my grandfather’s death, wake, and cremation was on the same week of my entrance examinations for several universities, including the two toughest ones. I had already been in the headspace to just focus on the exams and shut out everything else for the meantime then the death happened, so my life turned into a rollercoaster of emotions quickly. I ended up entertaining relatives and fervently going through my review modules at the wake.  

Have you ever dealt with divorce? Well I’ve never been married and I also live in a country where divorce is illegal, so no.

When people don't accept you, how do you react? It will definitely affect my self-esteem to an extent. I imagine being bothered by it.

Have you ever lost someone to death? Yes. Just yesterday I found out one of grand uncles did from Covid. We are very close with that side of the family, so I am still in shock and have yet to process it.

F - Family

Is there anyone in your family you don't talk to? I barely talk to one of my uncles and only do so when we greet each other at family gatherings. Still, I haven’t looked him in the eye for years now.

If you had to choose: friends or family? Probably my friends.

Do you have any siblings? Yes.

How often do you spend quality time with your family? Pretty regularly now with Covid still on the loose. We have dinner together every night, then after that we usually hang out in the living room doing our own thing. Also breakfast on weekends.

G - Growing

How tall are you? Do you wish you were taller or shorter? I’m around 5′1″. I’m fine with this height.

Do you think you've grown up in the past year? So much. I think my surveys show that too.

Do you think you're mature for your age or still childish? I want to say I’ve matured in some ways, but I don’t think I’m fully there yet. For one, I’m still scared to learn how to cook lol and I can’t even light up a match.

Are you scared to think that one day you'll turn 30, then 40 & 50? Sometimes I’ll get in those moods because it makes me realize how fast life is and how quickly people turn old. But I hate getting stressed and mulling over things I can’t control, so I also immediately return to the present and just enjoy where I am now.

Do you believe you still have a lot to learn? I’m barely in my mid-20s, so I know that for a fact.

H - Hope

Love - real or not? I want to say it’s still real. Some people just get lucky early, I guess.

Are you a pessimist or an optimist? Realist.

Do you believe in fate or that everything happens for a reason? I believe whatever things that happen are consequences of, or are at least linked to, what’s happened in the past – wherever that falls under.

Do you believe that after we die, your spirit is still alive? I don’t believe in spirits, so no.

What gives you hope when you just feel like dying? My next paycheck. Hahahaha

I - Idols

Who is your idol? I don’t have any.

What makes this person an idol to you?

Has this person done anything good to help other people?

Does this person have good style?

What does this person do for a living?

J - Jokes

Tell me an inside joke between you and your friends. “Packs a punch” is one of mine and Angela’s long-standing inside jokes. I think I’ve shared this story before, but basically in one lunch break in high school I was tasting this juice that one of our friends brought; I remarked that it “packs a punch” which no 16 year old Filipino student uses in a casual setting, so it quickly became a hit in our circle and now Angela brings it back semi-regularly to tease me.

Are you usually the person to make people laugh or the other way around? It’s mostly the other way around but occasionally I’ll be able to blurt out a joke that ends up working well.

Do you cry when you laugh hard? Haha yes. That’s the best kind of laugh.

Do you get in trouble for laughing or talking in class? Almost never. I hated causing trouble, and if I was ever called out in class it was always a classmate talking to me that I was just too shy to ask to keep quiet.

Are you good at making jokes? Depends on the person. I hold back if necessary.

K - Knowledge

The prupose of school: learn, hang with friends or cause trouble? Learn and gain new experiences, then gain friends.

Do people refer to you as dumb, smart or average? I dunno, you’ll have to ask them.

What kind of grades do you usually get? I mostly bummed around in high school just because I didn’t think grades from that early on in life wouldn’t matter in the long run, but I still did well enough to pass all my classes. I exerted a lot more effort in college since that’s when educational backgrounds start to matter, and got even better results from there.

What is your favorite subject to learn or talk about? History.

L - Love

Are you currently in love? Nope.

Do people around you show a lot of love? The people in my life who’ve chosen to stay, yes.

Is love worth it? Not always, but yes, mostly.

Do you hate it when people say "I love you" & they've been dating for a day? It might confuse me a bit since I personally don’t take that phrase lightly; but I wouldn’t be one to judge.

Does it take a lot for you to say you love someone or is it just a word? Like I said, it takes a lot for me to be able to say it. The two times I dated my ex she was always the one who ended up saying it first.

M - Money

Do you believe money makes the world go round? Yes, and that it can buy happiness.

How much money do you have on you now? I’ve been using paper money less and less frequently now, actually. I’m all cashless these days, so my wallet is literally all out of bills and the coins there are probably just piled-up centavos I’ll never use.

Are you saving up for anything? My birthday treat. I already somewhat failed lolol - I got BTS coffees, Ivy Park shoes, and four boxes of wings just this week, but I told myself I am no longer touching my bank account until it’s time to pre-order food for my birthday.

Would you rather win 1 million dollars or find true love? Give me the million dollars. 50 million pesos would last me like ten lifetimes.

On a scale 1-10, how important is money to you? 10.

N - Nothing to lose

Would you ever go on a game show? If it’s a game show I enjoy watching, like Jeopardy or Family Feud. I might not be interested  if it’s anything else I’m not too familiar with.

Do you play the lottery? Never.

Ever been to Las Vegas? Nope.

Have you ever made a bet and then lost? Nah, I don’t really make real bets; I just use the saying with my friends but we never follow through with real money.

Do you give your all in a relationship? To a fault.

O - Openess

How long does it take you to open up with someone? It depends on how long it takes for me to be comfortable with them...some people can seem standoffish, so I’d be wary about opening up about my life to them out of shyness and uncertainty if they’d be down for such a conversation. Then others can be rays of sunshine who are very easy to talk to.

What does it take for you to fully trust someone? If they’ve proven to be reliable in crises. I’ve always said I’m more of a follower than a leader, so if I see that someone’s capable of handling any sort of issue that I can’t find a way out of, I will find it a lot easier to start trusting them.

Do you trust people too easily? Probably.

Are you comfortable with everyone? Definitely not. I like keeping my circle small.

Do you tell your parents and friends everything? Just my friends.

P - Positive

Is your outlook on life positive or negative? I like to keep it positive but still grounded to reality at the end of the day. I don’t wanna drag myself down with my mindset, but I also don’t want to give myself exuberantly high expectations.

Have you ever had a moment with someone & it didn't end positively? I’ve had very few negative one-off experiences with some strangers, but yes, they’ve happened.

Do you agree with: best to have loved than never loved at all? As negative as my experience turned out to be, I still think it’s better to experience love. I grew up in a lot of ways and also learned new things about myself because I loved.

Do you see most things as negative or positive? Idk, depends on how they realistically look like.

Has anything bad happened but something good came from it? Yes.

Q - Questions

When faced with a problem, do you solve it on your own or ask for help? Ask for help.

Do you like to take quizzes? Maybe not quizzes but surveys.

If you could ask the president one question, what would it be? When he plans to stop being a disgusting misogynist pig. And also if he has an actual Covid response action plan because I am not seeing anything fucking moving in the last year.

When someone does something wrong do you ask them about it or let it go? Depends on how close I am with them, or how attached I am to the issue.

Do you own plaid shorts? Not shorts but skirt, since I had to wear a school uniform in my old school and our school skirt was plaid.

R - Respect

How do you show respect for someone? I talk nicely about them, even (and especially) behind their backs. I also refuse to act or talk like a superior around them.

What can someone do to lose respect for them? If their stances on politics and certain advocacies are questionable; if I see them treating any employee under any industry shittily; and if they excessively badmouth people behind their backs.

Do you respect your parents, teachers or authority? Yeah. I’m afraid of getting into trouble and being reprimanded, and I always like looking good in superiors’ eyes so I’ve always been a bit of a goody two shoes.

If you're disrespectful to your parents, whats your punishment? I’m 23, have a full-time job, and give them a portion of my salary twice a month so they know they can’t really do anything about it anymore lmao. I’ve definitely noticed they’ve cut back on sermons directed to me. The most that can happen these days is that I would get a mild scolding, but that’s it.

If someone is mean to you, are you mean back? Of course, but I do it very passive-aggressively. I want to make sure I get the last laugh.

S - School

If you're still in school, what grade will you be going into? Not in school anymore and no plans to apply for a postgraduate course any time soon.

When will you graduate high school/college? I graduated high school in 2016, college in 2020.

After high school, what do you plan on doing? I went straight to college, as is the common practice here.

Do you like or hate school? I honestly enjoyed it for the most part; the only thing I really had a problem with was the demanding schedule and workload – back in college, I frequently had classes at 7 or 8:30 AM (which required me to start driving by 5 or 6 AM) and then I had extracurricular activities that would end at 10 PM at the very latest; meaning I was usually in my university for 17 hours every weekday. 

The upside to all of this is that I got to attend my dream school and was surrounded with my close friends, so despite the taxing schedule I have little to no complaints about my college experience, even in retrospect.

Have you ever been expelled or suspended? Never.

T - Temptation

Have you ever done something wrong but inside it was okay? Sure, I’ve definitely had my sneaky moments. Some of them I felt guilty doing and decided I’d never repeat, like cheating on a test; some of them I felt like needed to be a part of my youth years to enjoy life a little bit more and so I was ok doing them, like skipping classes to go see my girlfriend at the time or hang out at a bar with friends.

Has anyone ever pressured you to smoke or drink? I never like using the word pressured because my friends were nothing but. They did invite me to try out drinking and smoking, but they never forced me to do anything I was uncomfortable with. My decisions were always mine to make at the end of the day.

Did you ever cheat on someone? Never.

Do you give into temptation easily or are you independent? I think I’m a good balance of it? like I will say I’m influenced easily, but I still have the self-restraint to refuse things I’m adamant about avoiding.

U - Unique

Do you do a lot of things because your friends are? That’s the case sometimes, but not for all.

Do you follow trends or do whatever you want? Again, I can be both. It’s nice to like things that can be my own thing, and it can also feel cool to follow trends because it’s easier to relate to others who are into the same things.

Do you give in easily to peer pressure? No.

What makes you different from people your age? I dunno if there is anything that sets me apart. You’d have to ask other people.

V - Value

What's the most expensive thing in your room? Right now, probably the laptop I was given by my employer for work. I never use it though because my laptop works just fine, and I’m already used to how my own laptop works like and feels like; I have little time to get accustomed to a new laptop, given how hectic my work schedule is. It’s also an older MacBook Pro model, so I don’t want to use it even more than it’s already been used by past employees. I had to sign some contract that basically tells me I have to pay for it if I ever do some damage to it, and the current value is a little above P50,000.

What's more valuable: your life or the ones around you? Others’. But I’m also slowly learning to value my own as well.

What's something you value? Not because it’s expensive but it means a lot? Handwritten letters and notes from friends. Ever since I got a corkboard for Christmas last year I’ve been saving up the ones I’ve received and putting them up on the board; I hope to one day fill it up.

If there was a fire in your house/apartment what would you grab? Kimi. Someone else in the family is in charge of Cooper.

Do you think the past or future is more valuable? I think the present is, actually.

W - Wishes

If you had three wishes, what would they be? A sushi platter, a box of macarons, and my bank account replenished hahaha.

Would you rather wish yourself to be happy or others? Again, others’.

Do you believe that wishes come true if you really believe? Sure, but you also have to do something about them if you really want them to come true. Things won’t always come your way.

Have you ever had a wish come true? Yes.

Do you find wishing on things to be a waste of time? Not really; it makes me feel hopeful and gives me a reason to keep doing the things I’m doing.

Y - You

Are you more independent or social? Social. I love being around people. But I also like recharging by myself.

What's something that makes you mad when you see it? Animal abuse, more than anything.

Do you have potential to do anything you want? I hope so.

Do you believe people are born a certain way? No.

What color are your eyes? Dark brown.

Z - Zest

Are you currently happy with your life? I could be doing more if the pandemic wasn’t around, to be honest. But given how much has happened and what I’ve been through, I’m still happy with what I have for now.

When change occurs, do you get scared? Yeah, I’m very resistant to change and I try to avoid or outright deny it as much as possible. I know it’s a problem point of mine that I have to fix.

Do you like to try new things or meet new people? Try new things, yes always. Meet new people, not all the time.

What is the most motivational thing on earth? Money.

Do you have a motto? Nope.

Last questions

Do you hate how the letters on the keyboard aren't in ABC order? No, I’ve long been used to the QWERTY order and never found myself complaining about it either at any point.

Do you drink water? ...What?

What did you have for breakfast? I skipped it today, but this morning I did have a box of these chocolate Korean snacks that was part of the ~care package~ she had sent over to my house last Thursday.

Do you like convertibles? They’re cool. I don’t need to have one of them, but they look nice.

Do you like the American or British way of spelling words? I don’t have a preference in the sense that I dislike one of these, but I tend to follow American spelling.

What colors are on your country's flag? Blue, red, white, and yellow.

Can you skateboard? Nope, I haven’t even tried getting on one.

Do you like long hair? Sure, but not too long.

Do you like Fiber One bars? I’ve never tried them but judging from the name I doubt they would be favorites of mine.

What does your sleeping bag look like? I never need to use a sleeping bag, so I don’t have one.

Do you like to save your results after a survey? Yep, which is why I opened a Tumblr for it.

Do you like Sour Patch Kids? Just some flavors. I leave the other ones because I find them too sour for my liking.

If you could have your own show, what would it be about? Fooooooooooood triiiiiiiiiiiiiiip.

Ever rode on a jet? Not yet.

[rickyriddle]

Kirigaya Hitsugi profile

Hey there! I was meant to do this analysis since I read the latest KnR doujin about ChitaHitsu. Well, better late than never. There were some interesting new details about Hitsugi in this doujin and it did change the way I see her character. You may remember that I did in the past an analysis of Hitsugi with a different interpretation, but given the new information given, I changed my mind on her. So without further ado, let’s begin this analysis.

Let’s begin with what we know about Hitsugi. She’s an assassin known as Angel Trumpet and the ace of the Datura Organization which specialized with using the poison of the datura flower. According to an official AnR card game, Hitsugi is 15 years old. Given that she’s the ace of such a powerful organization at such a young age let me believe that she was an assassin for a long time, possibly trained since she’s a child. But those are speculation.

We were left to believe Hitsugi first met Chitaru at the bus station when she was lost on her way to Myojo Academy and seemingly fall in love at first sight with Chitaru. But, if you consider KnR canon (as I do), then it’s actually not the first time Hitsugi met Chitaru.

Hitsugi met Chitaru at a funeral. It doesn’t explicitly mention who died, but I assumed it’s Chitaru’s teacher’s daughter. Hitsugi mentioned that she went to the funeral out of curiosity, but she feels nothing, that there are no colours in her world and that she only has blackness in her heart. 

But then she saw Chitaru rushing in the funeral, looking distressed (which is why I guess it’s the daughter of her teacher who died). When she saw Chitaru, Hitsugi said that colours shined upon her life. Chitaru probably didn’t see Hitsugi. So yes, Hitsugi fell for Chitaru at first sight but not when we thought she did.

(in that moment,)

Then she leaked information on Angel Trumpet’s existence, which was unknown until now. Why did she do that? It’s not said explicitly, but we can all assumed that she wanted Chitaru to know about her. Their apparently fateful meeting at Myojo Academy was all orchestrated by Hitsugi. Hitsugi knew she killed someone important to Chitaru (well, her teacher), so she used the leak about Angel Trumpet as a bait to attract Chitaru’s attention. She probably chose to participate in Class Black because she knew Chitaru would join too, to find Angel Trumpet. 

Let me recapitulate. Hitsugi fell love at first sight for Chitaru even if she knew that she caused pain to her by killing her teacher’s daughter and leaked the existence of Angel Trumpet as a bait, manipulating her so they could meet. I knew ChitaHitsu was unhealthy, but this is beyond that. Hitsugi is obsessive, and she’s a manipulative stalker who hides behind a cute and childish persona. A true yandere.

Hitsugi remorselessly got closer to Chitaru even if she knew she wanted to kill her, she played the innocent little girl to gain Chitaru’s trust and deceived her. She unashamedly worked to win Chitaru’s heart while hiding her true self behind a childish mask. I initially thought that Hitsugi was struggling with keeping it secret and always intended to tell Chitaru, but now I have doubts. She did say to Suzu that there is something she absolutely can’t let Chitaru know (that she’s Angel Trumpet), but later say that “she’s the only one who can give Chitaru what she wants (her death), which made me think that perhaps she wanted to come clean. But now I just think that it was simply a constatation from Hitsugi, not that she actually intended to tell Chitaru the truth. She could have kept the masquerade forever as long as she gets what she wanted: Chitaru’s heart.

Her obsessive love for Chitaru was such that she even poisoned a fellow classmate who she suspected to have a crush on Chitaru. *cough* yandere *cough*

Unfortunately for her, Chitaru eventually discovered the truth. Hitsugi immediately gave a half-assed apology that seemed everything but sincere. She said, “I wouldn’t have killed her if I knew she was your friend” which is the dumbest apology ever. Hitsugi didn’t even know Chitaru when she killed that girl, so even if she knew she was Chitaru’s friend, she would have still killed her because at that time they didn’t know each other.

This is just a manipulative tactic to make it looks like she regrets her actions and controls Chitaru. Then came the other tentative of manipulation: the real justice knife and the fake love knife. In my first analysis, I thought it was the proof that Hitsugi always had planned to tell Chitaru the truth and let her choose her fate, but I don’t think so anymore. I think that she never intended to tell the truth but that she still considered the possibility of Chitaru finding the truth herself, thus planned the knives as a way to get away with her lie. By making it look like she’s giving a choice to Chitaru to either forgive her (love) or kill her (justice), she thought that it would be enough to influence Chitaru’s choice to use the fake knife and thus, forgive her. 

But she underestimates Chitaru’s thirst for justice (well, more vengeance), and Chitaru ultimately used the real one and stabbed Hitsugi, before trying to take her own life (with poison) out of guilt and sorrow because she did love Hitsugi too.

But things didn’t end here for the love birds (unfortunately). They both survived thanks to the power of yuri and whatever (KnR 4 and KnR room 4 seem to contradict themselves on that one). They both ended up at the hospital and Chitaru ended up really weakened by the poison she drank. She could barely walk and had to undergo rehabilitation. Hitsugi stayed by her side but Chitaru still felt grudge towards Hitsugi and couldn’t fully forgive her. She faked to feel regret for her past action and started to show some crocodile tears and tried to “run” away, only to be stopped by Chitaru-san. Hitsugi did that to gain Chitaru’s sympathy and keep her control over her. She has no issues with guilt-tripping the one she loves if it means she’ll stay with her and never show any sincere regret and remorse for her past actions.

If we analyze most of her actions in the series, Hitsugi is a cold and manipulative person who hides behind a childish, cute and innocent persona, taking advantage of her petite body. She shows no remorse for the murders she had committed and very little to no empathy, and she’s ready to do anything to get what she wants. She does, however, seem conscious that she’s an awful person, but it’s unclear if she genuinely feels bad about it or only care because she doesn’t want Chitaru to hate her. Chitaru is the only person she seems to care about, and she’s willing to die if it’s what Chitaru wants. Some may think it’s just how passionate and devoted she is, but to me, that just sounds unhealthy and obsessive. Instead of facing and recognizing her mistakes, she would choose death. She seems to only be able to feel regret when it’s related to Chitaru, but she’s incapable to fully process the remorse.

Now, something interesting that Minakata mentioned in KnR room 4: “Recognizing that Otoya is an intrinsic psychopath, Hitsugi is a psychopath due to her environment.”

Did Minakata outright reveal that Hitsugi is actually a psychopath? Well, not exactly. Basically, Minakata called Otoya a “born psychopath”, thus she’s born that way, and Hitsugi as a “made psychopath”, thus became one due to her upbringing and environment. But, there is no such thing as a “made psychopath”. Psychopaths are born that way. So what is Hitsugi?

She’s a sociopath. Similar to psychopathy, sociopathy is put under the same diagnosis (antisocial personality disorder). I looked up in Japanese and there doesn’t seem to be a word for sociopath, which would explain why Minakata referred to both Otoya and Hitsugi as psychopaths. Also, sociopathy is sometimes referred to as “secondary psychopathy”. So technically, referring to Hitsugi as a psychopath may not be totally incorrect. But, for the sake of what is more commonly accepted in psychiatry, I’ll refer to her as a sociopath.

Is Hitsugi really a sociopath? I actually never thought about it until I saw this comment from Minakata, then realized… that it actually made a lot of sense. According to the diagnosis of ASPD, to be diagnosis with it you need to have those criteria:

- Failure to obey laws and norms by engaging in behaviour which results in criminal arrest, or would warrant criminal arrest: She’s literally an assassin. Sure, it’s her job, but poisoning Shiena out of jealousy wasn’t part of her job.

- Lying, deception, and manipulation for profit or self-amusement: Her whole character is about lying, deceiving and manipulating. She mostly does it for profit, but she did admit that she also killed and ruined people’s life out of curiosity.

- Impulsive behaviour: Hitsugi seems to have a lot of self-control, tho I would say that poisoning Shiena out of jealousy was kinda impulsive (especially since she did it after being provoked by Shiena). But other than that, Hitsugi is pretty high-functioning thus less impulsive than the typical sociopath.

- Irritability and aggression, manifested as frequently assaults others, or engages in fighting: Again, assassin, poisoning Shiena out of jealousy. But as I mentioned right above, she’s high-functioning so she has a good sense of self-control.

- Blatantly disregards the safety of self and others: I mean, she kills people and put herself in mortal danger.

- A pattern of irresponsibility: Doesn’t own up to her bad actions and continue to manipulate Chitaru even if she knows it’s wrong. 

- Lack of remorse for actions: She doesn’t give a shit about all the life she took and the pain it caused to others.

But, in order to be diagnosed with sociopathy, one needs to be 18 or more. Yet, Hitsugi is only 15 years old. Sure, someone doesn’t suddenly turn into a sociopath at 18, the antisocial behaviours usually started during the teenage years. And the cause is mainly the upbringing, the environment and sometimes even trauma. Minakata did confirm that Hitsugi was that way because of her environment, which leads me to believe she was raised and trained to be an assassin from a young age. Years of conditioning to kill and potential mistreatment shut down her capacity to feel empathy and became a callous person who is only self-interested. There is no doubt that at 18 she would get diagnosed as a sociopath.

Maybe some will remind me that she truly loves Chitaru. I believe so too. That’s the thing, sociopaths are actually capable of love and can even feel some empathy for people they have bond with, which seems to be the case with Hitsugi. It’s one of the things that differentiated them from psychopaths, who can’t feel love or bond and will never experience empathy (like Otoya). Hitsugi genuinely loves Chitaru, but her love is obsessive, unhealthy, toxic and abusive. But, it allows her to have some empathy for Chitaru and Chitaru alone. She doesn’t feel bad about that girl she killed, but she does feel bad that it hurt Chitaru. Yet she can’t help but manipulate and deceive the one she loves, because she’s incapable of taking her responsibilities and own up to her past misdeeds. She doesn’t seem to feel particularly bad about that, as she is more likely to put her own need over Chitaru’s. Yet, thanks to the small amount of empathy she feels thanks to Chitaru, she also has the desire to make Chitaru’s wish come true by letting her kill her. Perhaps that since she’s not an adult yet, her feelings for Chitaru could tone down her antisocial tendencies, and she can finally feel regret over her past actions. In KnR room 4, we saw for the first time Hitsugi utterly shocked when Chitaru refused to kill her and instead want her to live, because no one as ever forgives her for living. She knows she deserves to die and she’s not worthy of forgiveness, so a part of her is changing thanks to Chitaru, and perhaps her sense of empathy is slowly coming back. 

Another detail I think is worth mentioning, Hitsugi sent letters to some of her classmates, either to thank them or apologize to them, and added pills in case they are “tired to live” (so poison to kill them), basically giving them the tool if they ever want to commit suicide. Charming. Really disturbing and screwed up. So, even if she does change a little, she’ll probably always stay messed up.

I think that will be enough for Hitsugi. Let me know what you think, if you have any comments or if you disagree with me. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time. Bye!

[tamorasky]

Mistress Anna Chapter 16

Summary: It wasn’t uncommon for the women to be eventually cast aside, Anna was just naive enough to believe it would never happen to her.

Rating: M

Relationship: Anna/Kristoff, Anna/Hans (ew)

Words: 3672

Canadian Frontier AU

AO3

Masterlist

Anna wiggles her toes against the sand as she stands on the riverbank, waiting patiently for anything to catch on her line. With a sigh, she looks up at the sky, finding this more unbearable than Eliza’s screaming back at the cabin.

The toddler was in the middle of a fit when Elsa suggested Anna take the afternoon to go fishing; The younger sister had agreed quickly, wanting a little break from being a mother. She loved Eliza, but would not pass up this opportunity for some peace.

She had forgotten how much she hated fishing by herself. it is quite funny to her, fishing had always seemed to be a part of Anna’s favourite childhood memories, but as she stands on the riverbank, Anna can’t recall what she loved about it.

The sun beats down on her, the long sleeves of her blouse, not helping her temperature. Wiping the sweat that beads down her forehead Anna huffs, growing more uncomfortable by the minute. She places her cane pole on the boulder next to her, steadying it the best she can against the uneven stone.

Without a second thought, Anna begins to unbutton her blouse, shrugging the garment off her shoulders and untucking it from her spruce coloured skirt. Anna throws the blouse onto the stone, sighing in relief as she stands in only her skirt and chemise.

Picking up her fishing cane Anna comes to stand under a tree, preventing herself from getting a sunburn. Casting her line back into the water, Anna rolls her eyes, starting to think that dealing Eliza’s temper tantrum of the day would be better than this.

Anna looks over her shoulder quickly as she hears someone approaching from behind, the snapping of branches and dried pine needles announcing the presence of another person. Her heart pounds in her ears as the steps come closer towards the riverbank.

Elsa had warned her not to go too far away from the property, warning about the influx of white traders, merchants and missionaries coming through Ahtohallan. But Anna silently insisted that she would be fine, knowing the fishing is better nearly a mile away from their property.

Now she feels like a fool, standing alone a mile away from any other living soul scantily clad with nothing to defend herself.

Relief overtakes her as Kristoff steps through the bush, confusion crossing his features as he takes in Anna’s form standing close to the river.

“Oh…Anna, I didn’t realize you would be here.” He finally says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his brown trousers.

“Elsa sent me fishing for dinner tonight.” Anna comments, looking down at her bare feet in the sand. “She was going to send me to gather, but…we both know how that would go.”

Kristoff can’t help but chuckle in response, knowing that the young woman before him had no talent in gathering food. Recalling the time an eight-year-old Anna had collected nearly every winterberry that she could reach, only to be informed by both her mother and Bulda that they were poisonous to humans. The young girl had spent the afternoon spreading the berries along the side of the road for the birds.

He clears his throat, looking down at his buckskin boots. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Kristoff, wait!” Anna exclaims, surprising herself at her outburst. She folds her hands in front of her in an attempt to make herself small. “It’s getting boring out here; it’d be nice to have some company.”

“Are you certain?” He inquires, not wanting to make the young woman uncomfortable with his presence. He shakes his head, chuckling as he notices Anna’s state. “You seem like you’re getting quite comfortable.”

Anna furrows his brows, not understanding the meaning of his teasing. She can’t help but feel self-conscious at his comment, looking down at herself to see what he is referring to. A blush spreading across her cheeks as she notices her state of impropriety.

“O-oh.” She breathes, striding across the riverbank towards the stone where her blouse sat. “I’m sorry, I thought I’d be alone.”

“Anna, it’s fine.” Kristoff insists as she grabs her blouse, the cotton hot from lying in the sun. “It isn’t anything I haven’t seen before.”

Shocked, Anna allows the garment to fall from her hands as she gapes at the man standing across from her. Kristoff’s eyes go wide in realization as it occurs to him what he had said to his former friend.

“I didn’t mean like that.” He sputters. “I just meant that we went swimming together often as teenagers. It’s just I’ve seen you in your under…clothes before.”

“R-right.” Anna nods, squatting to grab her blouse from the ground. She shakes the minerals from the garment before placing it back on the stone. “It’s just so hot today, and I thought since I was alone, it wouldn’t hurt…”

“Anna, it’s fine.” He insists, walking past her to stand beside the river. Anna watches as the muscles in his shoulders tense through his thin linen shirt as he casts his line. Quickly glancing away as Anna realizes her gawking at her childhood friend.  

Her gaze goes to her shirt, her hand still resting on top of the fabric. With a sigh, Anna pulls away from the stone, coming to stand next to Kristoff in the shade. Despite the hot air enveloping her body, goosepimples prickle across her skin as she stands only inches away from him.

The couple stand in silence as Anna casts her line out into the river. She gazes up at the man beside her, offering him a smile when he glances down at her, returning the gesture.

“This used to be more fun as children.” Anna comments, finally breaking the silence between them.

Kristoff raises a brow questioningly, unsure what the young woman meant. “You mean fishing?”

“Yes, I mean as children we used to have so much fun fishing, but now it’s…yeesh. So tedious, not the mention hot; I don’t ever remember it being so hot.” She rambles, rubbing her fingers against the polished wood of her fishing cane.

“Yeah, well, I mean…” He trails off with a chuckle, shaking his head. “You used to complain about fishing when we were kids too.”

“No, I didn’t,” Anna says, her brows knitting in denial as she looks up at Kristoff, her free hand coming to rest on her hip.

Kristoff’s laugh resonates through the trees at her response. “You absolutely did. You used to whine that you didn’t want to go fishing because it was too hot or boring, or you were sewing. You always made some sort of excuse to weasel your way out of it.”

“I did not!” Anna exclaims, trying to hide the smile, crossing her features as her gaze goes back to the river. “We used to swim after catching fish. I remember when I was 13, I was all dressed up to prepare for papa’s arrival and you splashed me with water!”

“We only went swimming after so that you would stop complaining about the heat, and if I recall, correctly, you splashed me first.”  

“Only because you were an ass.” Anna retorts with a giggle. “I showed up all dressed up in a new dress mama made, and you made fun of me, I recall you saying that ‘I nearly looked like a lady’ and then laughed.”

Kristoff shrugs, his face dropping as she brings back the memory. He clears his throat, taking a step away from her. “I never liked it when you dressed like that.”

“Like what?” Anna inquires, unable to even glance at the young man. In the corner of her eye, she can see him turn to look at her, regarding her for a moment before looking in front of him again.

“Like a lady, …like an English lady.”

“Why did that bother you?” She asks, glancing down at the wood in her hand.

“Because it was never suited you. I always hated it when your father came to Ahtohallan because I knew I’d lose the Anna I knew.”

Anna looks back at him, biting the inside of her lip as guilt overtakes her. He is right, of course, anytime Agnarr visited Ahtohallan, she had always put on a part to play; the perfect lady. Always putting on her best dresses and making sure every hair was in place so her father would finally see that she could be more than his savage daughter. She had gotten what she wished for.

She studies Kristoff’s features, noting the way his nose curves and the roundness of his strong jaw. Her gaze comes back to rest on his eyes, still focusing on the river before him; she had always loved the flecks of dark brown in his honey-coloured eyes. Her mother used to say Kristoff’s had the eyes of an old soul, something which Anna never understood as a child, but she does now.

“I’m sorry, Kristoff.” He meets her gaze, his eyes searching her sky-blue ones. “Not only for how I acted then but recently as well. I shouldn’t have lied about Hans, and I shouldn’t have lashed out at you during the hunt and I-”

“Anna, it’s fine. You don’t need to do this.” Kristoff raises his hands slightly at his sides, not up to her as Hans would in order to silence her.

“I do!” Anna exclaims, her fishing cane slipping from her fingers and falling to the ground softly. “The way I acted was childish. You were my closest friend, and I shouldn’t…” She trails off, looking to where her cane has fallen.

“You’re not that girl anymore.” Kristoff shrugs. “You’re not as naïve as you were then, and you have a child now, a wonderful little girl.”

“Thank you.” She responds, her mouth curving into a smile as she continues to stare at him. Anna raises a brow at him questioningly. “You really think I was naïve?”

“Well, I mean.” He chuckles, pulling in his fishing line with some struggle. “You did agree to marry a man you just met.”

“I mean honestly Kristoff no man in any surrounding community would’ve married me. The Legarde boys made that very clear when I tried to give François a peck on the cheek; I wasn’t even trying to be romantic; I just wanted to thank him.”

“I would’ve.” Kristoff shrugs nonchalantly, but his gaze remains on her for a few moments before turning back to the river, giving his pole one final tug out of the water, a large jackfish dangling from the hook.

Anna stares at him as he sticks his finger into the fish’s mouth, disconnecting it from his hook. Anna had always entertained the thought of marrying Kristoff; she had no clue that he had similar thoughts about her.

Hesitantly she takes a step closer to him, peering up at him from under the fringe of her bangs. “Kristoff.” She croaks, causing the man to look down at the young woman; her eyes wide, her mouth slightly agape as she thinks about her next words carefully. “Why did you keep my sash?”

She had to know.

With a sigh, Kristoff runs a hand through his hair, the jackfish still dangling from his fingers as he glances at her. “I nearly left it in Montreal, but…It was the last thing you ever gave me. I couldn’t leave it behind…”

“So, you kept it?” Anna urges him to continue as he trails off. He nods instead, placing the fish into his bucket. “Well…I’m glad you kept it, I worked hard on that sash, and I would’ve been offended if you had left it behind.”

“I would not have expected anything less from you feisty,” Kristoff smirks at her, casting his line back out into the river. The two stand together, fishing in silence for a moment. “So, what do you say whoever catches more owes the other a new pair of moccasins?”

Anna grins up at him, beaming with excitement. “I would not have it any other way.”

“Good,” Kristoff responds. In the corner of her eye, Anna can’t help but notice the way his eyes dart to her from time to time as they fish, lingering with each look.

.................... Kristoff wins, of course, he always won during their fishing competitions. But Anna can’t find it in herself to care, elated that some sort of normal is returning to her life.

“Just stay for dinner.” Anna insists as they walk through the wood, Kristoff now carrying the fish and the fishing canes.

“I do not want to impose on Elsa.” He defends, readjusting Anna’s poles, so it does not fall to the earth.

“Impose on Elsa? Do you really think she does the cooking? It’s all me, and I say it is not imposing, so you have to stay, no buts.” She jabs him in the side with her forefinger, causing him to squirm uncomfortably.

“Don’t do that.” He states, frowning down at her as Anna smirks up at him, a mischievous glint in her eye as they approach closer to her lot.

“Besides! It’ll be easier for you to stay. As opposed to splitting the fish between us.” She shrugs, stepping over a fallen branch.  

“Fine, if your so insistent on it, I’ll stay. Besides, sharing one fish between three people would be difficult, considering I caught most of these.”

“You cheated!” She exclaims, turning her body slightly to look at him.

“How does someone cheat in fishing?”

Anna thinks for a moment, ducking to avoid a spruce branch. “I don’t know, but you figured out a way. You smell like worms.”

“I think you’re just bad at fishing.” Kristoff laughs, staring down at the auburn-haired woman beside him; her face scrunching up as she feigns annoyance and anger, her sky-blue eyes fixating on him as they walk.

Anna stops as the step through the bush onto the property, noticing a man standing on their river lot alone.

The man stands by the riverbank, his fingers clutching to the strap of his buckskin quiver. He wears European clothing, a white linen shirt and buckskin trousers; his brown hair is long, braided into one plait down his back, indicating to her that he is most probably Cree.

Her heart pounds in her chest as he looks over at them; panicking, she tries to comfort herself that Kristoff is standing next to her and wouldn’t allow any harm to come to her. Anna looks up as Kristoff moves forward, holding up his hand to greet the young man.

“Taanishi, Otêhtapiw.” He greets with a smile as the stranger moves towards Kristoff.

“Tanisi.” The other man greets, clapping Kristoff on the arm with a grin. Anna watches as the two men exchange words, unable to understand anything they were saying between the two of them switching back and forth between Michif and Cree.

The other man’s eyes come to rest on Anna, offering her a kind smile. Kristoff looks over his shoulder, dropping the fishing canes as he waves her over. The young woman steps forward, making her way to stand by Kristoff’s side.

“Anna, this is Otêhtapiw. He is a close friend of mine and trading partner.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Anna.” Otêhtapiw reaches out, grabbing her hand to shake it. She can’t help but giggle at the man’s forwardness; he is younger than she had initially thought.

“It is very nice to meet you too…” She trails off, realizing she hadn’t paid any attention in pronouncing the young man’s name.

“It’s alright. Most people just call me Ryder.” He chuckles.  

“I apologize, I haven’t spoken Cree in quite some time.” Anna defends, unable to help but feel self-conscious at her stumbling.

“It’s really no issue.” Ryder insists. “I’ve heard Metis men butcher my name worse than you, it’s really nothing to apologize about.”

Anna nods, giving him a small smile before turning to Kristoff. “I should go find Elsa and gut these. It was nice meeting you, Ryder.”

“You too.” The young man responds as Anna takes the bucket from Kristoff.

She walks away from the men without another word, glancing over her shoulder to see them meander to the river. Ryder begins to pull out various furs from the canoe, handing them over to Kristoff to inspect as he sorts them into two piles.

Smiling to herself, Anna ascends the porch stairs, mentally preparing herself for Eliza’s tantrum that was inevitably happening on the other side of the door. With a sigh, she pushes open the door, surprised to find no crying or screaming echoing through the small room.

Instead, Eliza sits happily on a woman’s lap, sucking on a wooden object. Elsa sits beside this woman, wiggling her niece’s feet while the other woman bounces the toddler slightly. Staring at the strange woman, Anna can’t help but feel that she has met her before, her brows knitting together as she tries to recall.

At Anna’s entrance, Eliza’s attention is taken away from the two women, focusing instead on her mother. The wooden toy falls away, forgotten as the young girl reaches her chubby arms to Anna.

“Mama!” She shrieks, her voice echoing through the small room almost painfully. Anna smiles as she removes herself from the door, making her way to the other women.

“Hello, darling.” Anna greets, picking Eliza up from the brunette woman’s lap, pressing a kiss to her temple as the toddler wraps her arms around Anna’s neck to hold herself close. “Was she much more trouble?”

Elsa shakes her head as she picks up the toy, carved as a doe. “No, I put her down for a nap shortly after you left, and she woke up just fine.”

“Good, I’m glad she didn’t give you two much trouble.” Anna sighs, running her hand over Eliza’s hair.

“She’s been nothing but sweet.” The woman states, wiggling Eliza’s hanging leg. Anna’s attention goes back to the woman; her warm brown eyes gazing into Anna’s own.

“Anna, this is my friend Honeymaren.” Elsa says, finally introducing the two women. “Honey, this is my little sister Anna.”

“We’ve met before,” Honeymaren states, smiling up at Anna. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“You too.” She responds, shifting Eliza to her hip. “So, are you and Ryder…?”

Honeymaren giggles, shaking her head. “He’s my brother.”

“Oh. I’m sorry I just assumed that you two were married.” Anna blinks, feeling slightly embarrassed at her incorrect assumption.

“It’s alright. It’s not every day you see siblings successfully working with one another.”

“Speaking of your brother.” Elsa stands from her chair, placing her hand on the table to steady herself. “I should go help him and Kristoff with the furs. Are you coming, Honey?”

“Yeah, I am.” Honeymaren sighs, standing from the table. “God know those two don’t know how to pick a good pelt.” Elsa giggles at this as she makes her way to the front door, Honeymaren following close behind her.

As the women exit the cabin, Anna places the bucket of fish onto the table, removing the jackfish to be scaled and gutted. Anna sets Eliza on the floor, handing her the discarded toy to entertain herself while she prepares dinner.

Anna grabs the knife sitting on the table as she stands in silence. Cutting open the jackfish to remove the intestines and organs and throwing them into the bucket in front of her as she watches the others sort through furs, wishing she could be with them instead.

..............

Their laughter echoes through the property later that night as Anna sputters, the burning sensation travelling down her throat, making a pit in her stomach.

“I told you it’s horrible!” Ryder howls, taking back the bottle of liquor from the young woman.

“That’s awful.” Anna coughs. “What is it?”

“The American traders called it ‘Firewater’ it’s whiskey, tobacco, molasses and…. I’m not sure what else.” Ryder places the bottle next to him on the ground, sliding it under his chair with his foot.

“I still think you wasted your money,” Kristoff comments before his attention is drawn back to the toddler on his lap, who sucks on her toy and watching the fire intently. With a smile, Elsa hands Anna another bottle.

“Oh God, what is this?” Anna asks, taking the bottle hesitantly.

“Good whiskey.” Honeymaren laughs, taking a sip of the whiskey that had been poured into her mug. With a sigh, Anna pours herself a small amount, offering some to Kristoff who refuses. She hands the bottle back to Elsa, who places it between herself and Honeymaren.

Anna leans back in the chair, readjusting the blanket around her hips as she sips the whiskey, trying to ignore the burning sensation down her throat. Ryder’s arms swing wildly as he discusses his last voyageur trip, Honeymaren intercepting from time to time to correct him on his facts.

Eliza’s whine pulls Anna’s attention away from the story, seeing her daughter reach for the ground. Looking beside her, Anna sees that Elisa had dropped the wooden deer on the grass. She reaches her hand down to grab the toy, but instead her hand brushes against Kristoff’s.

Anna looks up to see Kristoff staring at her, his cheeks slightly pink as their fingers intertwine for a moment as they hover above the toy, Anna stares deeply into his eyes as they touch.

Abruptly Anna jolts her hand away from his as laughter erupts again, resting it on her lap while Kristoff grabs the toy, brushing it off on his pant leg before handing it back to Eliza.

She tries not to linger on the brief contact between them, finding it more difficult as she recalls the way his calloused fingers felt against her skin. Her neck becoming flush as she tries to push ideas of how his hands would feel against her body. She takes a deep breath and taking another sip of her whiskey, convincing herself it was the alcohol.  

Notes: 

Otêhtapiw means Rider in Cree, specifically Horse Rider. 

[tunesscribbles]

Portgas D Ace x Reader   Nights

a 4 + 1 style fic | gender neutral reader | subheadings from ‘Shake It Out’ - Florence and the Machine

I I like to keep some things to myself

You heaved the unconscious body on the ship before fully climbing onto it yourself. That marked his- what? 87th failed murder attempt on Whitebeard? It was also at least the fifth time you had to fish him out of the ocean since devil fruit users can't swim. You shivered in the chilly night air. Nothing better than a dive into freezing water in the middle of the night! You really hoped you wouldn't catch a cold as you wrung out your hair and clothes a little.

You were seriously doubting this guy's sense of self-preservation. It was clear as day that he would never be successful. Ironically enough, the only one getting injured due to his murder attempts is himself. So why does he keep doing it?

You accepted the towels another crew member handed you with a thanks. Next to you Ace seemed to become conscious again. You wondered what was going on in his head. Definitely nothing too cheerful, judging by the way he curled into himself, knees brought up, arms folded above and head resting on top. Although he made a pitiful sight with seawater dripping from his body and collecting in a puddle under him, he seemed anything but defeated.

This stubborn idiot was going to try again, wasn't he? You wouldn't put it past him to go for it this very night. Instead of asking him why or trying to convince him not to, like many had tried before you, you threw a towel over his shoulders and moved to sit down.

You lifted your gaze upwards to look at the sky. Not a cloud in sight, no moon either, just billions of twinkling dots. The past few days had been cloudy and childish as it may be, you had missed the stars, just a little. No matter where you are in the world, the stars look the same. They were a source of comfort.

You heard Ace shift as he reluctantly began to dry himself with the towel. Oh, right. For a moment you completely forgot about him. Weren't you supposed to try to talk to him?

"Okay, so..." Strong start, already getting weaker. This was a terrible idea all around. You threw a glance at him to find him looking up at the sky like you were before. There was a certain glint in his eyes, like he was trying to remember where they kept the weapons on this ship.

You sighed. "At least try not to fall into the ocean again tonight." You got up to leave him to his own (certainly self-destructive) devices. "Ain't no man above a common cold!"

II I'm damned if I do, I'm damned if I don't

As soon as Ace finally accepted the invitation and became part of the crew, he defended Whitebeard's name with such vigor that you wondered if he was putting in an extra effort to try to compensate for his earlier actions or if he was simply this much of a ride-or-die person. The more time you spent with him, the more you leaned towards the latter.

It surprised you how lively and open the freckled male turned out to be once he lowered his guard. He seemed so different from the troubled teenager Whitebeard had picked up. Ace was actually easy to talk to and the two of you got along well.

The stars shone dimly through a thin layer of clouds as you were about to land on the next island.

"Lets go grab some food, my treat.", he offered. He stood next to you and spun his bright orange hat on his finger. That hat was frankly ridiculous! As if he was pretending to be some sort of cowboy-pirate.

"You never pay for your food.", you remarked and raised your eyebrows at him.

"That's not-" The hat slipped of his finger and in an attempt to catch it Ace almost threw it into the ocean. He composed himself again and adjusted his trademark clothing item on his head. "I'll pay this time, it'll be nice."

He seemed nervous, why was he nervous? You squinted your eyes at him in a scrutinizing look.

"You're planning something, I don't trust you when you're planning something. You had a prank war with Thatch last week and now you want to pay for someone else's food when you never even pay for your own?"

The look in his eyes was a mixture of panic and suffering like a plan gone wrong. You knew it!

He threw his hands up in defeat. "You know what? Forget it! I bet it wouldn't have worked anyway!" and then his words became unintelligible as he grumbled to himself. Something about being damned if Marco was right and how it was not even that big of a deal, whatever 'it' was. You would feel bad for him, if you had not just dodged a prank.

"Aw, don't be like that! I can help you trick someone else, if you want.", you tried to cheer him up. "Take a look at the stars! It's the perfect night to cause some mischief. Just because I didn't fall for it, doesn't mean no one else will." The more you talked, the more you got the feeling of being on the wrong ship and sailing away into the distant land of "I-really-fucked-this-up-but-I-don't-know-what-I-missed".

That feeling was further enhanced by Ace glancing at you sideways and saying: "You are terrible at this." in a way that made you question what exactly 'this' was and at what point during the conversation the two of started to talk about completely different topics.

There was a hint of amusement in his voice though and you decided to latch onto it to stop this talk from hurtling towards becoming a ship wreck.

"Well, we all have to be something, don't we?" There you go, he laughed. Another interaction salvaged. "We can still go and grab some food, if you'd rather do that."

He pulled a face. "Nah, I don't feel like paying for it anymore."

Now it was your turn to throw up your arms.

III I've been a fool and I've been blind

You hissed as the doctor cleaned out your wound before bandaging it. Next to you Ace winced in sympathy.

You were slightly unsure what to do with him these days. Over time you became good friends, however at some point there has been a shift in your dynamic. Whereas conversations used to flow naturally and hanging out with each other was comfortable, nowadays everything seemed to be accompanied by an underlying tension. An odd sense of nervousness would spread between you and like a wrench thrown into the conversational clockwork, it would bring everything to an awkward standstill. Suddenly you were overly aware of every aspect of yourself that could pass as a flaw and the various ways in which you could ruin this friendship you have come to treasure.

Ace was still uncharactaristicaly silent when you left the infirmary. You gently bumped your shoulder with his to gain his attention.

"I can almost hear you inventing new ways to blame yourself, stop that. It wasn't your fault."

"I was supposed to watch your back!", he said through gritted teeth.

"You did! Otherwise I wouldn't be here to tell you not to beat yourself up. Even if you didn't, it was my fault for not paying attention." His mouth was already open to come back with another argument but you cut him off. "No! No arguing. End of discussion."

And apparently also end of conversation because another tense silence followed your words. You heaved a sigh so heavy it could have sunk a whole ship.

Your fingers brushed past his hand and he flinched away like you burned him. Which was ironic, considering he was the one with the fire powers. This right here is what you were talking about. Why did this have to be so difficult? Why was everything amped up to a hundred and then some? The smallest touch could set everything ablaze and words were weighed down with double meanings and it hurt and still. All you could think was how much you wanted to hold his hand and maybe, maybe-

Something clicked into place. Something you had known in the back of you mind for a while but just now realized. Oh, you thought.

 Oh

The fact that Ace smelled distractingly like bonfire did not help with the overall situation.

IV Here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road

"Do you have to be so disgustingly in love?", asked Thatch with an exasperated sigh.

"I don't know what you're talking about.", you replied at the same time as Ace said: "Absolutely!", from where he sat wrapped around you with his chin propped up on your head.

The crew members nearby laughed and toasted to "young love" and that it may annoy the cook to the end of times.

Later that night Ace and you retreated to a quieter place on deck away from the party. You watched the stars overneath and after a while you said: "They're all long burned out and dead."

Ace spluttered and choked on his drink. You had to pat his back to help him.

"What?"

"The stars. A lot of them are long dead before we can see their light.", you elaborated.

"Oh" Now he looked up as well as if considering them from a new perspective.

"Doesn't stop them from looking beautiful though." You smiled and leaned into him.

"No, it doesn't."

It was quiet for a moment, apart from the party on other parts of the ship, but it was not like the uncomfortable silences in the past. Just a pause, nothing to worry about. There is no longer a rush to get the right words out in time in fear of them dissolving on your tongue otherwise.

You took a sip of your drink while Ace laced your fingers together.

"Disgustingly in love", he repeated the words from before and smiled. You couldn't help but grin yourself.

"Maybe so", you said and playfully swung your joined hands back and forth.

"I love you.", he said and you never really get used to such declarations. Ace turned around so you are facing each other and cupped your cheek in his unoccupied hand. "Disgustingly much!"

If a smile could stop a war, this one had just achieved world peace.

"I love you, too." You dropped a kiss on the tip of his nose and then some more on the freckles on his cheeks, for good measure. "An obnoxious amount!"

Ace leaned in for a proper kiss and for the next few moments the world began and ended right here: You two, with your hands entwined, kissing under the light of dead stars.

A week later Thatch found a devil fruit.

+ I I' m ready to suffer, I'm ready to hope

A year passed. Vengeance proved unsuccessful.

For a long time now you had felt unhinged, off balance without any clear goal in sight. What was there left to do when you have lost so much?

It felt wrong, looking at the night sky and finding it no different to all the times you used to look at it together. The world was cruel like that, it didn't care about your loss.

The world doesn't care, people do. That is one of the most valuable lessons becoming part of Whitebeard's crew had taught you.

Now the uncaring stars slowly faded to make way for the dawning sun.

You laid down a bouquet of flowers on your father's grave. "I have to go my own way again.", you told him. You had already said your goodbyes to the remainders of the crew. This was your last stop before the rest of the world. After spending so much time mourning and fighting, it was time for you to move on, to live for yourself again. You felt tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. 

"Thank you for everything, pops!", you almost choked on your words and had to take a moment to gather yourself. It may get easier with time but it will never just be easy.

You turned to the second grave and had to smile at the sight of a certain hat. "Don't worry, I'll be safe.", you reassured him. Your eyes wandered up into the sky. No more stars to admire. "I wonder if they look the same wherever you are now."

Taking a step backwards you looked at both graves for a last time. "I miss you and I won't ever forget you.", with that you bowed shortly and then turned around to go.

A gust of wind ruffled your hair and for a second the air carried a faint smell like- "Bonfire." You took a deep breath and continued walking down the hill. Your steps becoming faster and faster until you were running and you haven't felt this weightless in such a long time, you thought you might just lift off the ground completely and fly.

(You passed a young man in a tophat on your way down.)

[bukstins]

"Personal Renewal"

John Gardner

Delivered to McKinsey & Company, Phoenix, AZ

November 10, 1990

I'm going to talk about "Self-Renewal." One of your most fundamental tasks is the renewal of the organizations you serve, and that usually includes persuading the top officers to accomplish a certain amount of self-renewal. But to help you think about others is not my primary mission this morning. I want to help you think about yourselves.

I take that mission very seriously, and I've written out what I have to say because I want every sentence to hit its target. I know a good deal about the kind of work you do and know how demanding it is. But I'm not going to talk about the special problems of your kind of career; I'm going to talk about some basic problems of the life cycle that will surely hit you if you're not ready for them.

I once wrote a book called "Self-Renewal" that deals with the decay and renewal of societies, organizations and individuals. I explored the question of why civilizations die and how they sometimes renew themselves, and the puzzle of why some men and women go to seed while others remain vital all of their lives. It's the latter question that I shall deal with at this time. I know that you as an individual are not going to seed. But the person seated on your right may be in fairly serious danger.

Not long ago, I read a splendid article on barnacles. I don't want to give the wrong impression of the focus of my reading interests. Sometimes days go by without my reading about barnacles, much less remembering what I read. But this article had an unforgettable opening paragraph. "The barnacle" the author explained "is confronted with an existential decision about where it's going to live. Once it decides.. . it spends the rest of its life with its head cemented to a rock.." End of quote. For a good many of us, it comes to that.

We've all seen men and women, even ones in fortunate circumstances with responsible positions who seem to run out of steam in mid career.

One must be compassionate in assessing the reasons. Perhaps life just presented them with tougher problems than they could solve. It happens. Perhaps something inflicted a major wound on their confidence or their self-esteem. Perhaps they were pulled down by the hidden resentments and grievances that grow in adult life, sometimes so luxuriantly that, like tangled vines, they immobilize the victim. You've known such people -- feeling secretly defeated, maybe somewhat sour and cynical, or perhaps just vaguely dispirited. Or maybe they just ran so hard for so long that somewhere along the line they forgot what it was they were running for.

I'm not talking about people who fail to get to the top in achievement. We can't all get to the top, and that isn't the point of life anyway. I'm talking about people who -- no matter how busy they seem to be -- have stopped learning or growing. Many of them are just going through the motions. I don't deride that. Life is hard. Just to keep on keeping on is sometimes an act of courage. But I do worry about men and women functioning far below the level of their potential.

We have to face the fact that most men and women out there in the world of work are more stale than they know, more bored than they would care to admit. Boredom is the secret ailment of large-scale organizations. Someone said to me the other day "How can I be so bored when I'm so busy?" And I said "Let me count the ways." Logan Pearsall Smith said that boredom can rise to the level of a mystical experience, and if that's true I know some very busy middle level executives who are among the great mystics of all time.

We can't write off the danger of complacency, growing rigidity, imprisonment by our own comfortable habits and opinions. Look around you. How many people whom you know well -- people even younger than yourselves --are already trapped in fixed attitudes and habits. A famous French writer said "There are people whose clocks stop at a certain point in their lives." I could without any trouble name a half of a dozen national figures resident in Washington, D.C., whom you would recognize, and could tell you roughly the year their clock stopped. I won't do it because I still have to deal with them periodically.

I've watched a lot of mid-career people, and Yogi Berra says you can observe a lot just by watching. I've concluded that most people enjoy learning and growing. And many are dearly troubled by the self-assessments of mid-career.

Such self-assessments are no great problem at your age. You're young and moving up. The drama of your own rise is enough. But when you reach middle age, when your energies aren't what they used to be, then you'll begin to wonder what it all added up to; you'll begin to look for the figure in the carpet of your life. I have some simple advice for you when you begin that process. Don't be too hard on yourself. Look ahead. Someone said that "Life is the art of drawing without an eraser." And above all don't imagine that the story is over. Life has a lot of chapters.

If we are conscious of the danger of going to seed, we can resort to countervailing measures. At almost any age. You don't need to run down like an unwound clock. And if your clock is unwound, you can wind it up again. You can stay alive in every sense of the word until you fail physically. I know some pretty successful people who feel that that just isn't possible for them, that life has trapped them. But they don't really know that. Life takes unexpected turns.

I said in my book, "Self-Renewal," that we build our own prisons and serve as our own jail-keepers. I no longer completely agree with that. I still think we're our own jailkeepers, but I've concluded that our parents and the society at large have a hand in building our prisons. They create roles for us -- and self images -- that hold us captive for a long time. The individual intent on self-renewal will have to deal with ghosts of the past -- the memory of earlier failures, the remnants of childhood dramas and rebellions, accumulated grievances and resentments that have long outlived their cause. Sometimes people cling to the ghosts with something almost approaching pleasure -- but the hampering effect on growth is inescapable. As Jim Whitaker, who climbed Mount Everest, said "You never conquer the mountain, You only conquer yourself."

The more I see of human lives, the more I believe the business of growing up is much longer drawn out than we pretend. If we achieve it in our 30's, even our 40s, we're doing well. To those of you who are parents of teenagers, I can only say "Sorry about that."

There's a myth that learning is for young people. But as the proverb says, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." The middle years are great, great learning years. Even the years past the middle years. I took on a new job after my 77th birthday -- and I'm still learning.

Learn all your life. Learn from your failures. Learn from your successes, When you hit a spell of trouble, ask "What is it trying to teach me?" The lessons aren't always happy ones, but they keep coming. It isn't a bad idea to pause occasionally for an inward look. By midlife, most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves.

We learn from our jobs, from our friends and families. We learn by accepting the commitments of life, by playing the roles that life hands us (not necessarily the roles we would have chosen). We learn by growing older, by suffering, by loving, by bearing with the things we can't change, by taking risks.

The things you learn in maturity aren't simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You leant not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions, if you have any, which you do. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent, but pays off on character.

You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you, they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.

Those are things that are hard to learn early in life, As a rule you have to have picked up some mileage and some dents in your fenders before you understand. As Norman Douglas said "There are some things you can't learn from others. You have to pass through the fire.'

You come to terms with yourself. You finally grasp what S. N. Behrman meant when he said "At the end of every road you meet yourself." You may not get rid of all of your hang-ups, but you learn to control them to the point that you can function productively and not hurt others.

You learn the arts of mutual dependence, meeting the needs of loved ones and letting yourself need them. You can even be unaffected -- a quality that often takes years to acquire. You can achieve the simplicity that lies beyond sophistication.

You come to understand your impact on others. It's interesting that even in the first year of life you learn the impact that a variety of others have on you, but as late as middle age many people have a very imperfect understanding of the impact they themselves have on others. The hostile person keeps asking 'Why are people so hard to get along with?" In some measure we create our own environment. You may not yet grasp the power of that truth to change your life.

Of course failures are a part of the story too. Everyone fails, Joe Louis said "Everyone has to figure to get beat some time." The question isn't did you fail but did you pick yourself up and move ahead? And there is one other little question: 'Did you collaborate in your own defeat?" A lot of people do. Learn not to.

One of the enemies of sound, lifelong motivation is a rather childish conception we have of the kind of concrete, describable goal toward which all of our efforts drive us. We want to believe that there is a point at which we can feel that we have arrived. We want a scoring system that tells us when we've piled up enough points to count ourselves successful.

So you scramble and sweat and climb to reach what you thought was the goal. When you get to the top you stand up and look around and chances are you feel a little empty. Maybe more than a little empty.

You wonder whether you climbed the wrong mountain.

But life isn't a mountain that has a summit, Nor is it -- as some suppose -- a riddle that has an answer. Nor a game that has a final score.

Life is an endless unfolding, and if we wish it to be, an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own potentialities and the life situations in which we find ourselves. By potentialities I mean not just intellectual gifts but the full range of one's capacities for learning, sensing, wondering, understanding, loving and aspiring.

Perhaps you imagine that by age 35 or 45 or even 33 you have explored those potentialities pretty fully. Don't kid yourself!

The thing you have to understand is that the capacities you actually develop to the full come out as the result of an interplay between you and life's challenges --and the challenges keep changing. Life pulls things out of you.

There's something I know about you that you may or may not know about yourself. You have within you more resources of energy than have ever been tapped, more talent than has ever been exploited, more strength than has ever been tested, more to give than you have ever given.

You know about some of the gifts that you have left undeveloped. Would you believe that you have gifts and possibilities you don't even know about? It's true. We are just beginning to recognize how even those who have had every advantage and opportunity unconsciously put a ceiling on their own growth, underestimate their potentialities or hide from the risk that growth involves.

Now I've discussed renewal at some length, but it isn't possible to talk about renewal without touching on the subject of motivation. Someone defined horse sense as the good judgment horses have that prevents them from betting on people. But we have to bet on people -- and I place my bets more often on high motivation than on any other quality except judgment. There is no perfection of techniques that will substitute for the lift of spirit and heightened performance that comes from strong motivation, The world is moved by highly motivated people, by enthusiasts, by men and women who want something very much or believe very much.

I'm not talking about anything as narrow as ambition. After all, ambition eventually wears out and probably should. But you can keep your zest until the day you die. If I may offer you a simple maxim, "Be interesting," Everyone wants to be interesting -- but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep a sense of curiosity. Discover new things. Care. Risk failure. Reach out.

The nature of one's personal commitments is a powerful element in renewal, so let me say a word on that subject.

I once lived in a house where I could look out a window as I worked at my desk and observe a small herd of cattle browsing in a neighboring field. And I was struck with a thought that must have occurred to the earliest herdsmen tens of thousands of years ago. You never get the impression that a cow is about to have a nervous breakdown. Or is puzzling about the meaning of life.

Humans have never mastered that kind of complacency. We are worriers and puzzlers, and we want meaning in our lives. I'm not speaking idealistically; I'm stating a plainly observable fact about men and women. It's a rare person who can go through life like a homeless alley cat, living from day to day, taking its pleasures where it can and dying unnoticed.

That isn't to say that we haven't all known a few alley cats. But it isn't the norm. It just isn't the way we're built.

As Robert Louis Stevenson said, "Old or young, we're on our last cruise." We want it to mean something.

For many this life is a vale of tears; for no one is it free of pain. But we are so designed that we can cope with it if we can live in some context of meaning. Given that powerful help, we can draw on the deep springs of the human spirit, to see our suffering in the framework of all human suffering, to accept the gifts of life with thanks and endure life's indignities with dignity.

In the stable periods of history, meaning was supplied in the context of a coherent communities and traditionally prescribed patterns of culture. Today you can't count on any such heritage. You have to build meaning into your life, and you build it through your commitments -- whether to your religion, to an ethical order as you conceive it, to your life's work, to loved ones, to your fellow humans. Young people run around searching for identity, but it isn't handed out free any more -- not in this transient, rootless, pluralistic society. Your identity is what you've committed yourself to.

It may just mean doing a better job at whatever you're doing. There are men and women who make the world better just by being the kind of people they are --and that too is a kind of commitment. They have the gift of kindness or courage or loyalty or integrity. It matters very little whether they're behind the wheel of a truck or running a country store or bringing up a family.

I must pause to say a word about my statement "There are men and women who make the world better just by being the kind of people they are." I first wrote the sentence some years ago and it has been widely quoted. One day I was looking through a mail order gift catalogue and it included some small ornamental bronze plaques with brief sayings on them, and one of the sayings was the one I just read to you, with my name as author. Well I was so overcome by the idea of a sentence of mine being cast in bronze that I ordered it, but then couldn't figure out what in the world to do with it. I finally sent it to a friend.

We tend to think of youth and the active middle years as the years of commitment. As you get a little older, you're told you've earned the right to think about yourself. But that's a deadly prescription! People of every age need commitments beyond the self, need the meaning that commitments provide. Self-preoccupation is a prison, as every self-absorbed person finally knows. Commitments to larger purposes can get you out of prison.

Another significant ingredient in motivation is one's attitude toward the future. Optimism is unfashionable today, particularly among intellectuals. Everyone makes fun of it. Someone said "Pessimists got that way by financing optimists." But I am not pessimistic and I advise you not to be. As the fellow said, "I'd be a pessimist but it would never work."

I can tell you that for renewal, a tough-minded optimism is best. The future is not shaped by people who don't really believe in the future. Men and women of vitality have always been prepared to bet their futures, even their lives, on ventures of unknown outcome. If they had all looked before they leaped, we would still be crouched in caves sketching animal pictures on the wall,

But I did say tough-minded optimism. High hopes that are dashed by the first failure are precisely what we don't need. We have to believe in ourselves, but we mustn't suppose that the path will be easy, it's tough. Life is painful, and rain falls on the just, and Mr. Churchill was not being a pessimist when he said "I have nothing to offer, but blood, toil, tears and sweat." He had a great deal more to offer, but as a good leader he was saying it wasn't going to be easy, and he was also saying something that all great leaders say constantly -- that failure is simply a reason to strengthen resolve.

We cannot dream of a Utopia in which all arrangements are ideal and everyone is flawless. Life is tumultuous -- an endless losing and regaining of balance, a continuous struggle, never an assured victory.

Nothing is ever finally safe. Every important battle is fought and re-fought. We need to develop a resilient, indomitable morale that enables us to face those realities and still strive with every ounce of energy to prevail. You may wonder if such a struggle -- endless and of uncertain outcome -- isn't more than humans can bear. But all of history suggests that the human spirit is well fitted to cope with just that kind of world.

Remember I mentioned earlier the myth that learning is for young people. I want to give you some examples, In a piece I wrote for Reader's Digest not long ago, I gave what seemed to me a particularly interesting true example of renewal. The man in question was 53 years old. Most of his adult life had been a losing struggle against debt and misfortune. In military service he received a battlefield injury that denied him the use of his left arm. And he was seized and held in captivity for five years. Later he held two government jobs, succeeding at neither. At 53 he was in prison -- and not for the first time. There in prison, he decided to write a book, driven by Heaven knows what motive -- boredom, the hope of gain, emotional release, creative impulse, who can say? And the book turned out to be one of the greatest ever written, a book that has enthralled the world for ever 350 years. The prisoner was Cervantes; the book: Don Quixote.

Another example was Pope John XXIII, a serious man who found a lot to laugh about. The son of peasant farmers, he once said "In Italy there are three roads to poverty -- drinking, gambling and fanning. My family chose the slowest of the three." When someone asked him how many people worked in the Vatican he said "Oh, about half." He was 76 years old when he was elected Pope. Through a lifetime in the bureaucracy, the spark of spirit and imagination had remained undimmed, and when he reached the top he launched the most vigorous renewal that the Church has known in this century.

Still another example is Winston Churchill. At age 25, as a correspondent in the Boer War he became a prisoner of war and his dramatic escape made him a national hero. Elected to Parliament at 26, he performed brilliantly, held high cabinet posts with distinction and at 37 became First Lord of the Admiralty. Then he was discredited, unjustly, I believe, by the Dardanelles expedition -- the defeat at Gallipoli-- and lost his admiralty post. There followed 24 years of ups and downs. All too often the verdict on him was "Brilliant but erratic...not steady, not dependable." He had only himself to blame. A friend described him as a man who jaywalked through life. He was 66 before his moment of flowering came. Someone said "It's all right to be a late bloomer if you don't miss the flower show." Churchill didn't miss it.

Well, I won't give you any more examples. From those I've given I hope it's clear to you that the door of opportunity doesn't really close as long as you're reasonably healthy. And I don't just mean opportunity for high status, but opportunity to grow and enrich your life in every dimension. You just don't know what's ahead for you. And remember the words on the bronze plaque "Some men and women make the world better just by being the kind of people they are." To be that kind of person would be worth all the years of living and learning.

Many years ago I concluded a speech with a paragraph on the meaning in life. The speech was reprinted over the years, and 15 years later that final paragraph came back to me in a rather dramatic way, really a heartbreaking way.

A man wrote to me from Colorado saying that his 20 year-old daughter had been killed in an auto accident some weeks before and that she was carrying in her billfold a paragraph from a speech of mine. He said he was grateful because the paragraph -- and the fact that she kept it close to her -- told him something he might not otherwise have known about her values and concerns. I can't imagine where or how she came across the paragraph, but here it is:

"Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account."

[omg-ben-blog]

Personal Renewal, by John Gardner

Delivered to McKinsey & Company, Phoenix, AZ

November 10, 1990

Transcript

I’m going to talk about “Self-Renewal.” One of your most fundamental tasks is the renewal of the organizations you serve, and that usually includes persuading the top officers to accomplish a certain amount of self-renewal. But to help you think about others is not my primary mission this morning. I want to help you think about yourselves.

I take that mission very seriously, and I’ve written out what I have to say because I want every sentence to hit its target. I know a good deal about the kind of work you do and know how demanding it is. But I’m not going to talk about the special problems of your kind of career; I’m going to talk about some basic problems of the life cycle that will surely hit you if you’re not ready for them.

I once wrote a book called “Self-Renewal” that deals with the decay and renewal of societies, organizations and individuals. I explored the question of why civilizations die and how they sometimes renew themselves, and the puzzle of why some men and women go to seed while others remain vital all of their lives. It’s the latter question that I shall deal with at this time. I know that you as an individual are not going to seed. But the person seated on your right may be in fairly serious danger.

Not long ago, I read a splendid article on barnacles. I don’t want to give the wrong impression of the focus of my reading interests. Sometimes days go by without my reading about barnacles, much less remembering what I read. But this article had an unforgettable opening paragraph. “The barnacle” the author explained “is confronted with an existential decision about where it’s going to live. Once it decides… it spends the rest of its life with its head cemented to a rock..” End of quote. For a good many of us, it comes to that.

We’ve all seen men and women, even ones in fortunate circumstances with responsible positions who seem to run out of steam in midcareer.

One must be compassionate in assessing the reasons. Perhaps life just presented them with tougher problems than they could solve. It happens. Perhaps something inflicted a major wound on their confidence or their self-esteem. Perhaps they were pulled down by the hidden resentments and grievances that grow in adult life, sometimes so luxuriantly that, like tangled vines, they immobilize the victim. You’ve known such people — feeling secretly defeated, maybe somewhat sour and cynical, or perhaps just vaguely dispirited. Or maybe they just ran so hard for so long that somewhere along the line they forgot what it was they were running for.

I’m not talking about people who fail to get to the top in achievement. We can’t all get to the top, and that isn’t the point of life anyway. I’m talking about people who — no matter how busy they seem to be — have stopped learning or growing. Many of them are just going through the motions. I don’t deride that. Life is hard. Just to keep on keeping on is sometimes an act of courage. But I do worry about men and women functioning far below the level of their potential.

We have to face the fact that most men and women out there in the world of work are more stale than they know, more bored than they would care to admit. Boredom is the secret ailment of large-scale organizations. Someone said to me the other day “How can I be so bored when I’m so busy?” And I said, “Let me count the ways.” Logan Pearsall Smith said that boredom can rise to the level of a mystical experience, and if that’s true I know some very busy middle-level executives who are among the great mystics of all time.

We can’t write off the danger of complacency, growing rigidity, imprisonment by our own comfortable habits and opinions. Look around you. How many people whom you know well — people even younger than yourselves –are already trapped in fixed attitudes and habits. A famous French writer said “There are people whose clocks stop at a certain point in their lives.” I could without any trouble name a half of a dozen national figures resident in Washington, D.C., whom you would recognize, and could tell you roughly the year their clock stopped. I won’t do it because I still have to deal with them periodically.

I’ve watched a lot of mid-career people, and Yogi Berra says you can observe a lot just by watching. I’ve concluded that most people enjoy learning and growing. And many are dearly troubled by the self-assessments of mid-career.

Such self-assessments are no great problem at your age. You’re young and moving up. The drama of your own rise is enough. But when you reach middle age, when your energies aren’t what they used to be, then you’ll begin to wonder what it all added up to; you’ll begin to look for the figure in the carpet of your life. I have some simple advice for you when you begin that process. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Look ahead. Someone said that “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” And above all don’t imagine that the story is over. Life has a lot of chapters.

If we are conscious of the danger of going to seed, we can resort to countervailing measures. At almost any age. You don’t need to run down like an unwound clock. And if your clock is unwound, you can wind it up again. You can stay alive in every sense of the word until you fail physically. I know some pretty successful people who feel that that just isn’t possible for them, that life has trapped them. But they don’t really know that. Life takes unexpected turns.

I said in my book, “Self-Renewal,” that we build our own prisons and serve as our own jail-keepers. I no longer completely agree with that. I still think we’re our own jailkeepers, but I’ve concluded that our parents and the society at large have a hand in building our prisons. They create roles for us — and self-images — that hold us captive for a long time. The individual intent on self-renewal will have to deal with ghosts of the past — the memory of earlier failures, the remnants of childhood dramas and rebellions, accumulated grievances and resentments that have long outlived their cause. Sometimes people cling to the ghosts with something almost approaching pleasure — but the hampering effect on growth is inescapable. As Jim Whitaker, who climbed Mount Everest, said “You never conquer the mountain, You only conquer yourself.”

The more I see of human lives, the more I believe the business of growing up is much longer drawn out than we pretend. If we achieve it in our 30’s, even our 40s, we’re doing well. To those of you who are parents of teenagers, I can only say “Sorry about that.”

There’s a myth that learning is for young people. But as the proverb says, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” The middle years are great, great learning years. Even the years past the middle years. I took on a new job after my 77th birthday — and I’m still learning.

Learn all your life. Learn from your failures. Learn from your successes, When you hit a spell of trouble, ask “What is it trying to teach me?” The lessons aren’t always happy ones, but they keep coming. It isn’t a bad idea to pause occasionally for an inward look. By midlife, most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves.

We learn from our jobs, from our friends and families. We learn by accepting the commitments of life, by playing the roles that life hands us (not necessarily the roles we would have chosen). We learn by growing older, by suffering, by loving, by bearing with the things we can’t change, by taking risks.

The things you learn in maturity aren’t simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions, if you have any, which you do. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent, but pays off on character.

You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you, they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.

Those are things that are hard to learn early in life, As a rule, you have to have picked up some mileage and some dents in your fenders before you understand. As Norman Douglas said “There are some things you can’t learn from others. You have to pass through the fire.’

You come to terms with yourself. You finally grasp what S. N. Behrman meant when he said: “At the end of every road you meet yourself.” You may not get rid of all of your hang-ups, but you learn to control them to the point that you can function productively and not hurt others.

You learn the arts of mutual dependence, meeting the needs of loved ones and letting yourself need them. You can even be unaffected — a quality that often takes years to acquire. You can achieve the simplicity that lies beyond sophistication.

You come to understand your impact on others. It’s interesting that even in the first year of life you learn the impact that a variety of others have on you, but as late as middle age many people have a very imperfect understanding of the impact they themselves have on others. The hostile person keeps asking ‘Why are people so hard to get along with?” In some measure, we create our own environment. You may not yet grasp the power of that truth to change your life.

Of course, failures are a part of the story too. Everyone fails, Joe Louis said, “Everyone has to figure to get beat some time.” The question isn’t did you fail but did you pick yourself up and move ahead? And there is one other little question: ‘Did you collaborate in your own defeat?” A lot of people do. Learn not to.

One of the enemies of sound, lifelong motivation is a rather childish conception we have of the kind of concrete, describable goal toward which all of our efforts drive us. We want to believe that there is a point at which we can feel that we have arrived. We want a scoring system that tells us when we’ve piled up enough points to count ourselves successful.

So you scramble and sweat and climb to reach what you thought was the goal. When you get to the top you stand up and look around and chances are you feel a little empty. Maybe more than a little empty.

You wonder whether you climbed the wrong mountain.

But life isn’t a mountain that has a summit, Nor is it — as some suppose — a riddle that has an answer. Nor a game that has a final score.

Life is an endless unfolding, and if we wish it to be, an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own potentialities and the life situations in which we find ourselves. By potentialities I mean not just intellectual gifts but the full range of one’s capacities for learning, sensing, wondering, understanding, loving and aspiring.

Perhaps you imagine that by age 35 or 45 or even 33 you have explored those potentialities pretty fully. Don’t kid yourself!

The thing you have to understand is that the capacities you actually develop to the full come out as the result of an interplay between you and life’s challenges –and the challenges keep changing. Life pulls things out of you.

There’s something I know about you that you may or may not know about yourself. You have within you more resources of energy than have ever been tapped, more talent than has ever been exploited, more strength than has ever been tested, more to give than you have ever given.

You know about some of the gifts that you have left undeveloped. Would you believe that you have gifts and possibilities you don’t even know about? It’s true. We are just beginning to recognize how even those who have had every advantage and opportunity unconsciously put a ceiling on their own growth, underestimate their potentialities or hide from the risk that growth involves.

Now I’ve discussed renewal at some length, but it isn’t possible to talk about renewal without touching on the subject of motivation. Someone defined horse sense as the good judgment horses have that prevents them from betting on people. But we have to bet on people — and I place my bets more often on high motivation than on any other quality except judgment. There is no perfection of techniques that will substitute for the lift of spirit and heightened performance that comes from strong motivation, The world is moved by highly motivated people, by enthusiasts, by men and women who want something very much or believe very much.

I’m not talking about anything as narrow as ambition. After all, ambition eventually wears out and probably should. But you can keep your zest until the day you die. If I may offer you a simple maxim, “Be interesting,” Everyone wants to be interesting — but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep a sense of curiosity. Discover new things. Care. Risk failure. Reach out.

The nature of one’s personal commitments is a powerful element in renewal, so let me say a word on that subject.

I once lived in a house where I could look out a window as I worked at my desk and observe a small herd of cattle browsing in a neighboring field. And I was struck with a thought that must have occurred to the earliest herdsmen tens of thousands of years ago. You never get the impression that a cow is about to have a nervous breakdown. Or is puzzling about the meaning of life.

Humans have never mastered that kind of complacency. We are worriers and puzzlers, and we want meaning in our lives. I’m not speaking idealistically; I’m stating a plainly observable fact about men and women. It’s a rare person who can go through life like a homeless alley cat, living from day to day, taking its pleasures where it can and dying unnoticed.

That isn’t to say that we haven’t all known a few alley cats. But it isn’t the norm. It just isn’t the way we’re built.

As Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Old or young, we’re on our last cruise.” We want it to mean something.

For many this life is a vale of tears; for no one is it free of pain. But we are so designed that we can cope with it if we can live in some context of meaning. Given that powerful help, we can draw on the deep springs of the human spirit, to see our suffering in the framework of all human suffering, to accept the gifts of life with thanks and endure life’s indignities with dignity.

In the stable periods of history, meaning was supplied in the context of a coherent communities and traditionally prescribed patterns of culture. Today you can’t count on any such heritage. You have to build meaning into your life, and you build it through your commitments — whether to your religion, to an ethical order as you conceive it, to your life’s work, to loved ones, to your fellow humans. Young people run around searching for identity, but it isn’t handed out free any more — not in this transient, rootless, pluralistic society. Your identity is what you’ve committed yourself to.

It may just mean doing a better job at whatever you’re doing. There are men and women who make the world better just by being the kind of people they are –and that too is a kind of commitment. They have the gift of kindness or courage or loyalty or integrity. It matters very little whether they’re behind the wheel of a truck or running a country store or bringing up a family.

I must pause to say a word about my statement “There are men and women who make the world better just by being the kind of people they are.” I first wrote the sentence some years ago and it has been widely quoted. One day I was looking through a mail order gift catalogue and it included some small ornamental bronze plaques with brief sayings on them, and one of the sayings was the one I just read to you, with my name as author. Well I was so overcome by the idea of a sentence of mine being cast in bronze that I ordered it, but then couldn’t figure out what in the world to do with it. I finally sent it to a friend.

We tend to think of youth and the active middle years as the years of commitment. As you get a little older, you’re told you’ve earned the right to think about yourself. But that’s a deadly prescription! People of every age need commitments beyond the self, need the meaning that commitments provide. Self-preoccupation is a prison, as every self-absorbed person finally knows. Commitments to larger purposes can get you out of prison.

Another significant ingredient in motivation is one’s attitude toward the future. Optimism is unfashionable today, particularly among intellectuals. Everyone makes fun of it. Someone said “Pessimists got that way by financing optimists.” But I am not pessimistic and I advise you not to be. As the fellow said, “I’d be a pessimist but it would never work.”

I can tell you that for renewal, a tough-minded optimism is best. The future is not shaped by people who don’t really believe in the future. Men and women of vitality have always been prepared to bet their futures, even their lives, on ventures of unknown outcome. If they had all looked before they leaped, we would still be crouched in caves sketching animal pictures on the wall,

But I did say tough-minded optimism. High hopes that are dashed by the first failure are precisely what we don’t need. We have to believe in ourselves, but we mustn’t suppose that the path will be easy, it’s tough. Life is painful, and rain falls on the just, and Mr. Churchill was not being a pessimist when he said “I have nothing to offer, but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” He had a great deal more to offer, but as a good leader he was saying it wasn’t going to be easy, and he was also saying something that all great leaders say constantly — that failure is simply a reason to strengthen resolve.

We cannot dream of a Utopia in which all arrangements are ideal and everyone is flawless. Life is tumultuous — an endless losing and regaining of balance, a continuous struggle, never an assured victory.

Nothing is ever finally safe. Every important battle is fought and re-fought. We need to develop a resilient, indomitable morale that enables us to face those realities and still strive with every ounce of energy to prevail. You may wonder if such a struggle — endless and of uncertain outcome — isn’t more than humans can bear. But all of history suggests that the human spirit is well fitted to cope with just that kind of world.

Remember I mentioned earlier the myth that learning is for young people. I want to give you some examples, In a piece I wrote for Reader’s Digest not long ago, I gave what seemed to me a particularly interesting true example of renewal. The man in question was 53 years old. Most of his adult life had been a losing struggle against debt and misfortune. In military service, he received a battlefield injury that denied him the use of his left arm. And he was seized and held in captivity for five years. Later he held two government jobs, succeeding at neither. At 53 he was in prison — and not for the first time. There in prison, he decided to write a book, driven by Heaven knows what motive — boredom, the hope of gain, emotional release, creative impulse, who can say? And the book turned out to be one of the greatest ever written, a book that has enthralled the world for over 350 years. The prisoner was Cervantes; the book: Don Quixote.

Another example was Pope John XXIII, a serious man who found a lot to laugh about. The son of peasant farmers, he once said “In Italy there are three roads to poverty — drinking, gambling and farming. My family chose the slowest of the three.” When someone asked him how many people worked in the Vatican he said “Oh, about half.” He was 76 years old when he was elected Pope. Through a lifetime in the bureaucracy, the spark of spirit and imagination had remained undimmed, and when he reached the top he launched the most vigorous renewal that the Church has known in this century.

Still another example is Winston Churchill. At age 25, as a correspondent in the Boer War he became a prisoner of war and his dramatic escape made him a national hero. Elected to Parliament at 26, he performed brilliantly, held high cabinet posts with distinction and at 37 became First Lord of the Admiralty. Then he was discredited, unjustly, I believe, by the Dardanelles expedition — the defeat at Gallipoli– and lost his admiralty post. There followed 24 years of ups and downs. All too often the verdict on him was “Brilliant but erratic…not steady, not dependable.” He had only himself to blame. A friend described him as a man who jaywalked through life. He was 66 before his moment of flowering came. Someone said “It’s all right to be a late bloomer if you don’t miss the flower show.” Churchill didn’t miss it.

Well, I won’t give you any more examples. From those I’ve given I hope it’s clear to you that the door of opportunity doesn’t really close as long as you’re reasonably healthy. And I don’t just mean opportunity for high status, but opportunity to grow and enrich your life in every dimension. You just don’t know what’s ahead for you. And remember the words on the bronze plaque “Some men and women make the world better just by being the kind of people they are.” To be that kind of person would be worth all the years of living and learning.

Many years ago I concluded a speech with a paragraph on the meaning in life. The speech was reprinted over the years, and 15 years later that final paragraph came back to me in a rather dramatic way, really a heartbreaking way.

A man wrote to me from Colorado saying that his 20 year-old daughter had been killed in an auto accident some weeks before and that she was carrying in her billfold a paragraph from a speech of mine. He said he was grateful because the paragraph — and the fact that she kept it close to her — told him something he might not otherwise have known about her values and concerns. I can’t imagine where or how she came across the paragraph, but here it is:

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”

Original source: PBS

[chapitre7]

Beneath The Milky Twilight, Kiss Me

Chapter 5

Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo [달의 연인-보보경심 려] fanfiction

Modern AU

Wang So/Hae Soo

Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1

I believe in Fate. And in wishes upon stars and in astrological signs and in honest, good will. That’s why that summer was so exhausting. All the things that made me happy would make me sad; all the things I believed in seemed like childish stories you put away on your shelf after you become a proper woman, after the colors in your clothes turn somber and the heels in your shoes become higher. Red riding hood must eat the wolf and throw the basket full of sweets away.

But in the twilight of your company... 

Can you see? 

The colors are mine again. As plentiful as the stars in the sky.

 She didn’t do great, she’s certain of it. Over the course of the week, inspiration turned into overthinking turned into weariness turned into boredom after she read her books again and again and again, with no one to talk to, no one to retort and question. Soo went to bed on Sunday with an ankle that didn’t hurt as much anymore and a blurred outline of what once could have been a great story. Or it was never meant to be. Every word that she writes feels lifeless without a voice to call her own, marching onwards only to die a sad death at the end of her paragraph. She turned in her best efforts to Mr. Choi’s hands and she walked away, one step at a time, down all the stairs, and outside the gates. The afternoon breeze fills her lungs with relief. 

Hae Soo is sure there is still a path for her to take. If the pen wasn’t her sword, then her voice surely could be. If she couldn’t be inspired, maybe she could inspire. Mr. Choi had winked at her when their eyes met, like he knew a secret she didn’t yet uncover. She’s getting there. In the autumn whose colors slowly fade away into the bright white of winter, hugging her jacket close to herself, Soo thinks of the future and of what she wants to do, her feet slowly taking the streets that she had missed. 

They hadn’t agreed on anything, no messages had been sent — Soo hadn’t really exchanged messages with anyone but her mother in a long time —, but still she goes to the park, and still he’s there, like he was supposed to be. He’s sitting on the table instead of the bench, looking down at the city. Soo hadn’t stopped to appreciate it before; the higher ground of the park they called their own and the view from where they sat, an entire world of tiny, colorful houses and shops and cars beyond their outstretched hands. 

“How did it go?” Wang So asks, his eyes still on the view. She pulls herself up on the table to sit beside him. 

“It went.” 

He turns to her with an eyebrow raised. 

“And?” 

“We’ll see.” Soo shrugs. “There’ll be other competitions. We’re still in our second year.” 

He nods because it’s true and because there really isn’t much else to be done about what has passed. Soo swings her feet back and forth, white socks in white sneakers, before she asks, 

“What do you want to do today?” 

Wang So leans back on his hands, the wind messing up his bangs. Soo has the hairclips he gave her and no hair in her eyes. 

“Let’s watch a movie.” 

Soo nods, picking up her phone to send her mother a message about arriving late and going out with a friend. So takes her hands and helps her down and she’s not sure if it’s because he still thinks she’s injured or if he wanted to touch her. On the way to the mall with the closest movie theater, they don’t hold hands, but their steps match in pace and stride, even if he’s taller and hadn’t suffered an ankle injury. 

She pays for her ticket and he buys her popcorn. She lets him choose, ready to let her mind wander through any landscape, any plot or relationship, just ready to watch something and forget about the things that usually hold her back. He chooses a foreign film, a historical piece, and Soo ends up loving it. She’s sure that even if the story slips from her mind, she’s going to remember the green of the bamboo forest where the protagonists hide, the skill with which the actors dance and fight at the same time, and tender touching of lips in a love that lasts so briefly. Soo takes hold of his arm when they walk to the food court afterwards, excitedly asking him if he liked all the twists and turns, how it seemed like very season came to pass before the movie was over, such a peach spring and the last winter of loss. So nods and speaks of his favorite scenes, of the balance between action and romance, and Soo nods, slurping her milkshake, stealing fries off his tray. 

It’s dark by the time they start walking home, and maybe they walk closer together to keep the cold away. Soo looks at her feet that catch the shadows of the night and the streetlights that keep them away. 

“I had my heart broken in spring,” she starts, a beginning with no introduction or prelude. She starts, her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket. “It wasn’t even a relationship, it was just...” 

She kicks a pebble out of her way. The yellow lights seem to illuminate her thoughts. 

“He messaged me poetry on the first day he got my number. Said it reminded him of me, because of my name.” She scoffs. “He’s the older brother of one of my classmates and he would wait for her at the gate after class... He said he liked my hair and that I was pretty. He said it a lot.” 

Soo plays with the ends of her scarf, holding the soft wool tightly in her hands and then letting go. 

“He was older than me and I wasn’t under any illusion... But I had just entered high school and no boy had ever paid so much attention to me before. I took selfies, perfected them, sent them all. I wanted to look cute for him. He would send some as well, taken from too close, and I felt... reciprocated.” 

Soo holds her hands together behind her back, her chest pointed forward, an easy target for blows. 

“When spring came, he told me he was moving in with his girlfriend and that was it. He didn’t say it, but he informed me because we had to stop. I didn’t initiate anything, but I had to stop... I was a toy he no longer needed. And so he never appeared or talked to me again.” 

She crosses her arms in front of her chest, protecting it again. 

“I had never felt so used... So foolish. He gave me flowers and told me sweet things and I fell for it all. And the worst is that I’ve been trying to get rid of every memory I had of him but he insists on appearing.” 

She laughs, a bitter, uncharacteristic laugh. 

“Eventually I deleted every message and threw every gift away, but I still keep the poem and the flowers... Because I really liked them. And if I pretended it never happened, maybe it’d be worse, I’d be just a coward little girl who was played with by an older man.” 

Silence settles between them, their footsteps matching every second. Soo’s house is near and she keeps on walking. 

“Have you ever wanted to let go of a part of yourself?” She asks and looks up at him. His eyes are still looking forward, almost in an unfocused manner. Soo hooks her arm with his, so their pace still match, so they can keep walking the evening away. 

“When my mother died at the end of last year, I think I did lose something.” His gaze is still focused forward and Soo trusts him with their path, she can’t look away from his profile. “I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to see anyone... My father took a leave of absence from work and he still hasn’t returned. Only Jung kept asking for her, kept crying, and father had to make all our meals and hold him until he fell asleep. I didn’t do anything, I just let the days pass by. The holidays, Lunar New Year, relatives that came to check on us... Everything passed like a film on fast-forward. Until I met you in spring.” 

Soo halts, her arm falling from his. They both turn to face each other, two silhouettes standing under the spotlight. 

“I didn’t meet you in spring.” 

Wang So smiles like he recalls a fond memory. 

“We did. I knew you didn’t remember. I was on my bike and I fell,” he says, pointing to the sidewalk like it had just happened, like it’s happening right at that instant. “I was carrying Jung and he started crying on the ground. I panicked because it was my fault, I was the one not paying attention to where I was going and I hurt my brother. I tried to find his injury but he just cried harder, he was so red and I was almost crying myself when you come over.” 

She widens her eyes because she can see it. The distressed teenager, the crying child, and the tree that dropped flowers all over the two of them. 

“I asked you if you were okay, if you were hurt.” 

He smiles and nods. 

“And I demanded you help my little brother.” 

“I told you to run to a clinic that was a few blocks away.” 

“And I ran but I forgot my—” 

“You forgot your bike so I ran after you, wheeling the bike because I can’t ride it.” 

Soo unwraps her scarf from around her neck because she suddenly feels too warm, too self-conscious. Her feet start moving and Wang So walks beside her, still continuing his tale of spring. 

“I’ve been thinking about you ever since that day. You didn’t know me but you rushed in to help and disappeared without even saying your name. I realized then... I realized that I couldn’t just live carelessly because there were people counting on me. Jung needed me. My father, who was slowly coming apart, needed me. And you—” 

Soo looks at him and he’s smiling the fondest he’s ever done. 

“I wanted to repay you. I wanted to meet you again and return the kindness you gave me.” 

Soo stares at her feet. She can’t smile then; kindness is not a currency and she had never given as much significance to the incident as he seems to. 

“So you asked for the tutoring lessons?” 

So’s shadow shakes its head. 

“I asked for Baek Ah for the tutoring lessons because I wanted to improve my grades. I wanted to do well in school so I could have better prospects for the future. I could go to college or not, I haven’t decided what’s best for the family it yet.” 

“So it just happened to be me.” 

“It just happened to be you.” 

Soo halts and So takes a couple of steps before he realizes and stops to look at her. They had passed her front door many times, but kept drawing a circle around the block. 

“The kiss?” 

“I realized something was holding you back,” he says, walking closer to her. “So I wanted to take your mind off of it. I wanted... I want to make you happier, Soo. Because I felt a little happier after the day I met you.” 

Soo walks in silence. Another corner and they’re in front of her door again, and she sits on the front steps. So doesn’t sit beside her; there’s no space and he seems to be waiting for her reply. 

“I had nothing to do with you feeling better that day,” she says, her eyes fixed on her hands resting on her knees. 

“Well, not... entirely, but—” 

“What if I had walked away? When you asked to kiss me?” She looks up in time to see the light fading away from him. “What would you have done?” After you lost your mother, what if I had left you too? 

Her feet come close together, her body turning inward in contemplation. 

“Do you know how I felt that day?” She rests her arms on her knees, her voice muffled by the cloth of her jacket and the memories. “I was scared. Scared of being used and thrown away again.” 

“I... I’m sorry, Soo.” 

Soo shakes her head, no edge in her words or movements, but So’s hand seem full of disquiet feelings, opening and closing, raising in her direction before dropping again. She looks at him and he seems lost, but she’s held back every single one of her feelings and for so long, she thinks she owes it to him. 

“I believe you had good intentions, So, but if you’re really thinking of someone other than yourself, you need more than intention.” Or you could get hurt. People will hurt you. 

She stands up and So looks smaller than he did the last time she compared their heights. 

“Thank you for today.” 

Hae Soo bows and enters her home, closing every door behind her with a soft click, climbing all the stairs to her room without thinking about them, just walking and walking until she’s lying on her bed and staring at her ceiling. The food she had eaten that day get stuck in her middle, unpleasant. 

Over the course of the week, Mr. Choi asks her to help him with chores, making copies of texts, assigning her for cleaning duty. He tells her she has an unparalleled love for the written words and she’s happy, even if there’s no skip in her step. She goes straight home after all her assignments are done, never once stopping by the park, never once thinking that he might be waiting for her. She does think. She thinks about his eyes up close, making her blush, and her guard around him ever since that day. Wook had been so full of flowery words, had been made of deliberate touches, a hand that pushed her hair back and brushed against her neck, a hand that subtly touched her elbow, but So... So mostly let her talk. She thinks of how he never asked to kiss her again. How he seemed pleased after she finished her ramblings. She plays scenes over and over, from their stiff introduction to her face against his back and the wind surrounding them as he rode towards the pharmacy. He was an arrow that aimed straight to her heart while leaving his own bare and vulnerable.

“Are you okay?” Baek Ah asks and she says yes but in reality she misses him. She feels like she only accumulates things she wants to tell him in the period they spend apart. 

It’s a week later when she manages to enter the park, full of words in her chest, missing the short additions he added to her monologues, the laid-back way with which he watched her take his fries, drawing movie scenes in the air with his fingers. 

Wang So is nowhere to be seen.

The movie I had in mind was House of Flying Daggers. So when is this story set exactly? ♥ Who knows?

[myaekingheart]

70. Sekkachi

So say goodbye to all your friends I fell in love with her again My baby 'Cause I'm not that kind of girl -Not That Kind of Girl, My Chemical Romance

               Sekkachi nearly spat her tea across the room when Guy told her the news. “I’m sorry, Rei did what?” she asked.

               Guy nodded dolefully. “Kakashi seems pretty upset about it” he said. It was clear he felt bad for his eternal rival—losing love was never easy. And deep down, a part of him felt a little guilty for having constantly asked him about the proposal plans, only for the relationship to fall apart.

               Meanwhile, Sekkachi was fuming. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her cup until her knuckles turned white, drumming the fingers of her opposite hand on the table. “After all those years” she growled, “All those fucking years of whining and complaining and senpai, notice me!”—here, she slipped into a mocking, high-pitched tone the likes of which she used on missions as Shitagi—“and she has the audacity to throw this shit away just because god forbid she’s a little depressed. I swear to god, if I ever run into her on the streets, I am going to pound her face into the dirt so hard!”

               Guy couldn’t help but laugh as he took a sip of his own drink. “So you do still care about her after all” he said matter-of-factly. He knew that at the end of the day, she could never bring herself to do such a thing.

               Sekkachi rolled her eyes and scoffed. “As if” she spat, taking another swig of her tea. “I couldn’t care less what that little carrot-haired runt does. I just hope she knows if I see her, I’m going to beat her up.”

               “Well, I wouldn’t get so hasty” Guy then said. “I almost forgot, there was one thing she wanted me to give you.” Sekkachi cocked a brow, eyeing Guy suspiciously. If Rei had something to give her, she didn’t want it. Guy reached into his back pocket and slid a small gold foil box across the table. She skeptically took it and opened it up, finding a single aquamarine earring inside. Immediately, Sekkachi covered her face and turned away. Guy reached across the table to rest a reassuring hand atop hers. Her chest rose and fell unevenly, and the hand covering her eyes quickly grew damp.

~o~

               It was a blistering summer day in Konoha. She had three more blocks to walk and Sekkachi was already sweating through her fancy clothes. Truthfully, she didn’t even understand why she needed to dress so nice in the first place. It was just a birthday party. She knew it wasn’t her place to demand these sorts of things, but dressed like this, she was wildly out of her element. But it was at Naru’s request, and she couldn’t possibly refuse.  

               It was her thirteenth birthday party and she insisted it be special. After all, she had said, you only become a teenager once. This is a rite of passage! I’m a fancy adult now and therefore we need to act as such. Sekkachi pressed a hand to her gurgling stomach as she remembered her own thirteenth birthday. She didn’t feel any more mature afterward than she had when she was twelve. Actually, if anything, she felt worse. Nowhere did she say she had wanted to commemorate teenagerhood with a needle through her belly button, the small ring now rubbing against her too-tight dress.

               Thirteen, however, suited Naru rather nicely. She opened the door, brimming, and tugged Sekkachi inside. On the surface, she looked no different than before but there was something in her attitude, perhaps a newfound albeit placeboed sense of confidence. Delicate flowers were weaved through a headband of braided hair and when she walked, her flouncy dress bounced and bubbled like she was some sort of fluffy cheesecake. “I thought turning thirteen meant becoming an adult” Sekkachi commented as she followed Naru back to the garden. A modestly wrapped gift was tucked under her arm. “Don’t you think that dress is a little childish?”

               “Oh, pfft!” Naru swatted the air dismissively. “You’re not getting the point! Being an adult doesn’t mean putting away childish stuff, it just means I can do whatever I want and no one can say anything about it!”

               Sekkachi had to admit, as precious and petite as the dress made her appear, it certainly suited Naru’s personality. The pastel blue complimented her bright eyes, the shape of it accentuated her bubbly personality, and the flowers printed on the fabric perfectly matched those weaved through her hair. For all intents and purposes, she looked like a princess. Sekkachi smoothed out her own dress, suddenly feeling significantly underdressed. Her only relief was when they reached the gardens where Rei awaited their return, also wearing something far less extravagant. It was then that Sekkachi realized just how much the whole thing seemed to make sense. After all, this was Naru’s birthday. She was the center of attention. It was natural that she look as such—though then again, when wasn’t she the center of attention?

               The Fuzuki clan was rather well-off and, as such, lived comfortably near the center of the village. As history foretold, they were one of the first clans in Konoha and were instrumental in helping to establish the current standard of government alongside Hashirama and Tobirama Senju. They retained close ties with the village’s leadership and Naru’s father even served as a correspondent for Lord Third. Their financial status was clearly exhibited through their intricate, sweeping garden and fine china. She really is a princess, Sekkachi thought to herself as she surveyed the place.

               Naru squealed as her mother handed her her birthday present, wrapped in a small gold foil box. She removed the lid to find two dainty aquamarine studs inside, the perfect shade to match her dress and eyes. She thanked her parents profusely and asked their maid to fetch her a mirror so she could fix them to her ears in that very moment.

               Anything else her family gave her left Sekkachi feeling extremely self conscious about her own gift. She wanted to believe she knew Naru well enough, but she proved rather difficult to buy for. In a fit of panic, she had settled for a floral haori she found in an antique shop. It was simple and perhaps a little too subdued for Naru’s tastes, but Sekkachi had hoped it would at least be appreciated. Now, however, she wasn’t so sure.

               “Your turn!” the blonde then announced, grinning to Sekkachi. The blue-haired kunoichi’s eyes went wide and she tried to stammer out a protest, but Naru wouldn’t hear of it. When Sekkachi froze, Naru took it upon herself to take the package herself. As she watched her pull apart the twine knot and unfold the wrapping paper, Sekkachi felt as if she was silently exploding. This was a terrible mistake. She was going to hate it. She didn’t do a good enough job. She was going to hate her.

               Naru gasped loudly as she held up the haori and a strange look painted her face. Sekkachi wasn’t sure whether it was delight or disgust, and Naru was taking way too long to clarify. And then it hit her: it was too big. Oh god, it was too big for her. “Y-you know, I can return it if it doesn’t fit, or—” Sekkachi started but then Naru hugged it to her chest and grinned.

               “That won’t be necessary!” she announced. “Of course I’m going to keep it. I love it!”

               “Y-you do…?” Sekkachi asked in disbelief. “I-it’s not too big…?”

               Naru rolled her eyes. “You say that as if it’s a problem!” she laughed. “It’s a little big, but that just means I can keep it forever! I won’t have to worry about outgrowing it!” For once, Sekkachi was eternally grateful for Naru’s unending optimism. She sighed and sunk back in her seat, a relieved smile touching her lips, and she realized it was likely the first time she had relaxed since arriving.

               The last present opened was from Rei, which Naru insisted was the way it must be done as she was her best friend. From her, the blonde received a pair of shoes that Naru went wild over. They were chunky and pastel with little pink bows, the exact sort of thing you would expect for Naru. Sekkachi wondered how difficult a time Rei had picking them out, if her comrade had struggled the same way she had. But then again, likely not. Naru and Rei were much closer and had known each other much longer, at least in an amicable sense. They were sharing lunches and having sleepovers while Sekkachi berated them in the academy. It was a level of friendship Sekkachi knew she could never reach.

               “You should eat something!” Naru insisted later that afternoon, motioning toward the grand cake they had cut into. Just the mere sight of it in its sugary glory made Sekkachi’s stomach flip. She hated to deny her, though, and so feeling as if there was nothing else she could do, Sekkachi succumbed.

               "Just a small piece” she insisted, but it was too late. Naru had already cut her a large chunk of cake, strawberry jam oozing from the fluffy layers and thick white icing caked on the sides. She grabbed a fork and stared at her opponent questioningly, thinking to herself If I have to die today, it might as well be by birthday cake. And then, mustering all her strength, she took one large bite.

               As expected, the cake was absolutely delicious. The icing was light and sweet, the strawberry filling perfectly tangy, and the cake itself moist and spongy. Sekkachi fell into it for a moment, closing her eyes and letting herself enjoy the taste. She at least owed herself that much.

               One bite wasn’t so scary. It was the second, third, fourth, and so on that heightened her anxiety. One bite meant just a taste. It was safe, polite, demure. To eat the whole slice was to succumb to gluttony, to jump off the cliff knowing full well she was destined to crash straight into the raging waves below. She wasn’t prepared for the intestinal suicide. She wasn’t prepared to go home early, crawling on her hands and knees, suppressing the impending flare-up. As such, she forced herself to linger. She chewed the prongs of her fork as she pretended to be interested in the small talk about boys and fashion and who’s dating who. Her stomach began to churn.

               “What do you think, Sekkachi?” Naru then asked, snapping her from her daze.

               Sekkachi stammered, her fork falling out of her mouth, bouncing off the edge of the table, and jamming into the dirt. “W-what? About what?” she asked, blinking.

               A sly smile touched Naru’s lips as she rested her chin in her hand. Sekkachi grew weak, the color draining from her face. For a moment, she truly feared for her life. “Well, I was going to ask you if you thought Chikara-sensei was dating anyone, but now I’m curious about what you were thinking about!” she exclaimed. It was too late to try and save face. There was no way she could deny her absentmindedness.

               “I wasn’t thinking about anything…” Sekkachi lied. Panicked, she started shoveling cake into her face. Naru’s grin widened.

               “I guess I should’ve asked who you were thinking about, then! Although I’m pretty sure I already know!” she said. She could hardly suppress her girlish laughter.

               Sekkachi froze, mouth stuffed, and asked in a muffled tone, “Wait, what?” Her cheeks turned bright red. She hadn’t been thinking about anyone. Or at least not during this conversation.

               Rei cupped her hands over her mouth to stifle her laughter. This was too rich. Naru beamed as she replied, “We all know you and Guy are secretly an item!”

               Now Sekkachi was choking. The maid raced in to give her the Heimlich and once she had caught her breath, Sekkachi glared at the two of them and asked, “Where the hell did you get an idea like that from?!” The minute the curse word dropped from her lips, Naru’s parents shot her a stunned glare. The other thing about the Fuzuki clan was that they were borderline virginal. Curse words and anything else considered inappropriate within a formal setting was vilified to the extreme.

               Unlike her parents, however, Naru found a certain charm in Sekkachi’s unfiltered language. She had grown quickly accustomed to it, as well, and was therefore totally unphased. She took a sip of her tea, fully prepared to spill whatever she knew and excited to do so, at that. “We all know you meet up with him for weekly sparring matches. You two are so close, it’s only natural to assume you’re dating! Now I’ll admit, I had never pegged Might Guy of all people as your type but whatever you’re into, I guess!”

               “That’s a far-fetched idea” Sekkachi muttered, wiping the crumbs from her mouth. “I swear, Guy is just a friend and nothing more, okay? I don’t understand why you always have to go prying into other people’s business, anyway. People have a right to their privacy, you know.”

               Naru simply giggled and took another sip of her tea. She clearly struck a nerve, meaning that Sekkachi was, in fact, hiding something. It was only instinctual that she would want to figure out what. And truthfully, there was a myriad of things that Sekkachi kept hidden but the most pressing of which had nothing to do with romance. In a quick moment, Sekkachi’s stomach creaked and she could feel her insides rearranging. Fuck. Chewing her bottom lip, she sprang from her seat and hastily bid everyone goodbye, insisting that it was getting late and she had forgotten she had an errand to run for her mother. She booked it out of the Fuzuki household and raced as far down the street as she could manage. She was only halfway home when the pain overtook her and she had to duck into an alleyway to keel over and hyperventilate.

               Her mind raced as she clenched her eyes shut and tried to breathe through the pain. Deep down, she was cursing the old woman, the matriarch of her clan, about that damn belly button ring. The purpose, she had said, was to redirect her chakra and therefore cure her of her affliction. But here she was two years later and she was still just as sick as ever, if not moreso. She looked left then right, trying to get her bearings on where she was, what was nearby, and where she could find a bathroom she could die in. No luck. Groaning in frustration, she pounded her fist against the ground and curled up into a fetal position. This was it. This was the end. They would find her soiled corpse tomorrow morning when the cloud of flies became unbearable. As she huffed and cursed, however, a familiar voice then rang overhead and she suddenly was unsure whether she was saved or doomed.

               “Sekkachi!” he called, “You’re not looking so good. What’s going on?”

               I’m about to shit my brains out, that’s what’s going on, she thought unkindly. She opened her mouth to speak but could form no words. Fortunately, Guy caught on rather quickly. Without a second’s hesitation, he tossed her onto his back and raced through the streets of Konoha, dodging civilians left and right like a madman, before skidding to a halt in front of the Fumeiyo clan’s grounds. By the time they arrived, Sekkachi was certain she had left her intestines in the dust. It took a few minutes before they finally caught up with her, burying her face into Guy’s shoulder with a groan. He kicked the door open and waltzed inside as if it was his own home, then carried Sekkachi all the way to the bathroom. She slithered out of his grasp and crawled to the toilet, ripping her dress off frantically and shrinking in on herself.

               It was only a few months after they had met that Sekkachi was forced to admit to Might Guy that she was sick. Her thirteenth birthday had just passed and the piercing certainly did not do it’s intended job. She had no choice but to cancel her weekly match, employing the stomach flu as her excuse. At least that way, anyone who attempted to pry wouldn’t believe she was lying. Guy was not one to sit back and do nothing, however. If his dear friend was sick, he would ten to her and ensure that she was healing. He had gathered a colorful bouquet of get-well flowers and a basket of onigiri and set off, a part of him almost too excited to see the look on Sekkachi’s face. She was so coarse and blunt, the thought of doing something to make her happy exhilarated him.

               Her house was nothing like what he expected. Not that his expectations were very high, but this was certainly a shock to his system. The Fumeiyo clan had been historically tread upon for generations, almost as much as the Uchiha, thanks to a long-standing curse that their ninja were liabilities in battle. The working men of the village wanted nothing to do with these harbingers of disaster. As such, their tight-knit clan resided on the outer edge of the village where a stream trickled and weeds grew high. The house itself was in utter disrepair.

               A sour old woman turned Guy away at the front door, insisting he never bother them again. Defeated, he began trudging home but not before the wind carried soft-spoken gossip to his ears. He snuck beneath a window and listened closely as a man and woman discussed Sekkachi’s fate.

               “The outlook is bleak” the man said. “The ritual should have cured her. At this rate, I don’t think she’ll last another year.”

               “That’s not true” the woman replied. “She’s tough. I’m sure she’ll pull through.”

               “Even if she does” the man argued, “what about her quality of life? She’ll never be normal.”

               The woman sighed. “I’d hate to break the news to her. It would break her heart.”

               Guy didn’t stick around long enough to hear the rest. He raced home in a daze, unsure of what he had just heard but knowing full well that none of it was for his ears in the first place. His limbs felt disconnected from his body, and his mind wouldn’t shut up. So she was sick. That much was true. But there was no way this could be a simple stomach flu. If not that, then, with what? And would she ever be cured? He hoped so. She didn’t deserve to suffer. He had so many questions, and he desperately wanted answers, but now was not the right time.

               When she finally returned, Guy was overjoyed. She had pulled through after all. He surged forward and hugged her tight, exclaiming of how much he missed her. Sekkachi cocked a suspicious brow and shoved him off of her. She was sick. So what? It wasn’t that big of a deal. She could tell he was going easy on her as they sparred, however, which only pissed her off that much more.

               “Alright, what is your deal today?” she asked, voice forceful, during a lull in their training. “Why are you going easy on me? Do you think I’m weak or something? Huh? What is it?”

               “N-no!” Guy stammered. “I didn’t mean to, I just--! I didn’t want to push you too far if you were still getting over your sickness!” He knew that, for himself at least, he was willing to strain himself to the utmost limits whether he was feeling well or not. Those were his own self-rules, though—no one else’s. He could never subject those standards onto anyone but himself.

               Sekkachi narrowed her eyes and leaned down so as to get right up close in Guy’s face. “Going easy on me isn’t going to do me any favors” she growled. “I want you to pound me into the dirt, I want you to kick my ass. I want you fight me like a man, got it?”

               “Are you sure?” Guy asked. Sekkachi grimaced, forcing him to quickly add, “Listen, it’s not that I don’t want to! I just don’t want to hurt you.”

               “I’m not a fragile piece of glass, Guy” Sekkachi insisted. “Besides, it’s not like I haven’t been sick before. What makes this time any different?” Guy averted his eyes, stammering, and Sekkachi could feel her gut drop. “Oh my god, what do you know?” she asked quietly, angry and scared and confused. He was crossing a line she had firmly drawn in the dirt. No one was ever supposed to know about this.

               Back then, the whole thing was so weird. He explained everything quickly and anxiously, almost as if he expected Sekkachi to strike him. Instead, she sunk into the grass in disbelief. It would take her a minute to process all of this information, to process the fact that someone finally knew of her affliction. A charged silence surged between them for a long while before Guy pursed his lips and finally muttered, “I just want to make sure you’re okay. I care about you, Sekkachi.”

               Well shit. There was no way out of it now. Sighing, Sekkachi tightened her ponytail and braced herself for the explanation. “Guy, I’m sick” she started. “I’m never going to get better. I’ve got this chronic digestive disorder that makes normal shit a living nightmare. I can’t eat anything without being fucking terrified that it’s going to make me sick. Even if the food itself doesn’t fuck me up, the anxiety does. Sometimes it’s so bad, I pass out from the pain. My clan, they say that these piercings are supposed to help”—here, she motioned to the belly button ring in her stomach— “something about redirecting my chakra to help with the pain. It’s never done any good. My belly button, all the way up my ears, my nose, none of those have helped, and I’m sure anywhere else they try to stick holes in me isn’t going to make much of a difference either. I have to live the rest of my life knowing I will always be dysfunctional. That I’m always going to be sick no matter what. I’m going to have to suffer through every day of the rest of my life.” By now, she was starting to get choked up. This was exactly why she never wanted to say anything. She had already cried in front of Chikara-sensei about it, the night of their very first mission. Food was so culturally significant—existing not just for sustenance, but as a tradition and social ritual. It only emphasized her disability that much more. She hated food. She hated everything about it, the fact that it was so varied and delicious and that she couldn’t have any of it without feeling like she was going to die.

               Guy reached out and took her hand in his. “I’m sorry for what you’re going through, Sekkachi” he said. “I can’t even imagine how tough that must be to live with every single day…but I know you’re much more than what you’re going through. You may not be able to do ninjutsu or genjutsu, and you may be sick, but you are still one of the strongest ninja I’ve ever known!” Sekkachi rolled her teary eyes and scoffed, confident that that was a lie. Guy chuckled and smiled at her. “And if it means anything, I am going to stick by your side no matter what! Just let me know when you’re feeling sick and what I can do to help and I’ll come running.”

               Sekkachi wiped her nose with the back of her hand and smiled sadly. “You’re way too nice to me, you know” she commented. “You have no reason to be this nice.”

               “Of course I do” Guy replied. “After all, you’re my friend. You might even my best friend! And that’s just what best friends do.”

               From that point onward, Guy’s friendship proved to be indelible to Sekkachi over the years. Guy was certainly a man of his word, and on this blistering summer afternoon he had definitely kept his promise. He stayed in the hallway outside the bathroom the entire time, pacing back and forth on his hands so as to get training in while he was on standby. He refused to walk away and risk not being there if she needed him. During the entirety of her flare-up, however, all she could think about was what Naru had said at that party. Did she really believe her and Guy were a thing? And if she did, then who else had bought into it? A shiver ran down her spine. If only Naru knew how false an accusation that was.

               Guy grinned as the bathroom door creaked open and an exhausted Sekkachi trudged out into the hall. “You okay?” he asked, patting her on the back. There was something so weirdly casual about it, as if he was congratulating her on a good effort in a game of football or something.

               She gave a single, definitive nod as she crossed the hall to her bedroom and began changing into a pair of loose sweatpants. She had no reservations about doing this in front of Guy, and he certainly couldn’t care less. “Can I ask you something?” she asked, tying the drawstring loose around her bloated waist. Guy arched a bushy brow in intrigue. “Do you think people assume we’re dating?”

               “Dating?” Guy repeated. “Why? What gave you that idea?”

               Sekkachi shrugged and seated herself on the edge of the bed, hugging a pillow to her stomach. “Some things happened today, some words were said. I don’t want to get into the details. The important thing is that apparently people think we’re something of an item. I guess the minute a guy and a girl start hanging out together, they’re automatically treated like a couple or some shit.”

               Guy shook his head. “Well, this is the first time I’ve heard of this” he replied. Sekkachi wasn’t sure why, but that came as a relief. Maybe because that meant Naru’s rumor wasn’t as widespread as she had feared. If Naru was overcompensating, then perhaps their reputations were saved. “Are you trying to tell me something?” he then asked, cocking a brow in intrigued suspicion.

               Sekkachi didn’t think she could do this anymore. Her hands began to shake at her sides, both an after-effect of the flare-up and a result of her anxiety. She propped open the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, fixing one to her mouth and igniting the end. As she shoved the pack back in the drawer, she propped the window open so as to better dispel the smoke.

               “You really shoulnd’t do that, you know” Guy commented, shaking his head as he took a seat at her desk chair. “Isn’t that going to make you sicker?”

               Sekkachi scoffed. “Sometimes these days, it’s the only thing that makes me feel healthy” she replied. She took a long drag and let the smoke billow up from her lips slowly. Guy couldn’t really see the appeal, but whatever worked for her, he supposed.

               “You never answered my question” he then said. She knew. She wasn’t sure if she could now. “You know you can be honest with me, Sekkachi.”

               “Guy” she sighed, “you are the nicest person I have ever met. Did you know that?” Might Guy smiled back at her. She toyed with the tassels on the edge of the pillow, her cigarette in her opposite hand. She didn’t want to look at him. She was afraid of what he was about to say. “I just need to know…guys always have ulterior motives, you know? They always do things for the sake of getting something out of it for themselves. Usually because they like someone. And I just need to know, and be totally honest with me here, do you…I mean, you don’t—”

               “Sekkachi, I’m going to stop you right there” Guy interrupted, holding up a hand. Sekkachi froze, finally gazing back at him with wide, uncertain eyes. “You know I consider you a good friend of mine. I don’t want a rumor like this to ruin the friendship we have.”

               Relief washed over her, sighing out her cigarette smoke. “That’s good to know” she said. “Because I was so scared you were going to admit that you loved me or something.”

               Guy shook his head. “Sekkachi, I consider you family. I don’t think I could ever think of you like a lover.”

               “Honestly? I feel the same way” Sekkachi admitted. Her hands trembled as she could feel the words rising up in her throat, something she had never before said aloud threatening to spill. She leaned forward and locked eyes on the ground, suddenly very aware she had no control over whether or not she was about to say it. “I love you, but like a brother. You’re always there for me, you’re always pushing me to do better. I feel like I can be open and honest with you. And that’s why…Guy, there’s something I need to tell you.” Guy’s brows raised as he leaned closer, fearing the worst. He knew she was sick, but was it worse than they expected? Was she dying? He needed to know. She took a nervous drag of her cigarette, exhaled, chewed her bottom lip. This was it. Now or never. “Guy, I’m gay. I like girls. I’m a lesbian.”

               Might Guy leaned back a moment, processing the confession. This was a huge moment and he needed to tread carefully. Sekkachi’s leg bobbed up and down on its own accord as she awaited his response. This was killing her. Then suddenly, before she knew it, Guy’s arms were wrapping around her in a tight hug. She blinked a few times, not quite understanding, and then he said, “I’m proud of you, Sekkachi.” Her cigarette snuffed out and fell to the floor as she broke down. No one else knew.

~o~

               “You sure you’re going to be alright?” Guy asked as he walked Sekkachi home. She clung to that little gold foil box, terrified of losing it if it wasn’t in her grasp at all times. As they ascended the stairs, she nodded and then smiled softly at Guy.

               “Yeah, I’ll be alright” she said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

               Deep down, she knew that was impossible for him, but he knew better than to press her. He bid her a brief goodbye and then they parted ways toward their respective apartments. As she reached her front door, however, there was a small basket on her doorstep covered by a gingham dish towel. A small note was folded and placed squarely on the top.

               This was highly unusual for a number of reasons, and for a moment Sekkachi was terrified this was some sort of planned terrorist attack. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, anyone would be targeting her of all people but her anxiety was getting the better of her. She inspected the basket closely only to find that whoever left it was, in fact, trying to kill her. There was nothing but food inside.

               Finding no other choice, Sekkachi kicked her door open with her foot and carried the basket inside, leaving it on her desk. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at it for a good long while before finally picking up the note attached. The message was short and simple yet shocking.

               Sorry for your loss. Here is some comfort food. Hope you enjoy. -Mikazuki

               Sekkachi had only met this girl a handful of times, one of Rei and Naru’s comrades in the ANBU, but this seemed wildly uncharacteristic considering her shy demeanor. It also didn’t make any damn sense. There was no reason whatsoever for this girl to be leaving food on a practical stranger’s doorstep. Sekkachi peeled back the dish towel (which she assumed Mikazuki would want back, if only she knew of a way to return it to her) to find a myriad of comfort food inside: onigiri, homemade senbei, manju filled with red bean paste.

               It was a nice gesture, of course, but felt so inappropriate. I hope she knows all of this is going to go to waste, Sekkachi thought to herself. She couldn’t eat any of it even if she wanted to. Or perhaps she was just being difficult. Deep down, she knew many of these foods were actually rather palatable for even her hypersensitive stomach. She supposed she feared that eating it would mean accepting whatever ulterior motive Mikazuki was after. There was no way she was doing this just to be kind.

               Sekkachi looked down to the little gold foil box in her hands and sighed. When did life become so damn complicated? If Naru was still alive, none of this would be happening. The memories of that birthday party were still so vivid in her mind. They were so young and stupid, so naïve. If only the three of them knew what was waiting around the corner. And then of course her mind leapt to Rei. A seething rage bubbled up inside of her chest at the thought of her. This was all her fault. Breaking up with Kakashi was almost deserved. A solid punishment for everything she had done. And yet…she couldn’t quite wrap her brain around why Rei would go to the trouble of relaying her this box. She popped open the lid and watched the single earring roll around inside. It almost made her nauseous. Perhaps so many years spent working together left Rei and Sekkachi far more telepathic than they had expected. Sekkachi rose from her seat, box in tow, and approached her desk, opening the top drawer and pulling out an identical aquamarine stud. How the two earrings got separated, Sekkachi would never know. Naru had a strange way of organizing her belongings, sometimes meticulously color coded and other times a complete mess. None of that mattered now, though. All that was important was that the pair was back together, and it was all because of Rei.

               Sekkachi clutched the earrings in her fist and sucked in a sharp breath. Nothing was ever going to repay what Rei had done, yet perhaps she had been too hasty. Naru was gone. All they had left now was each other. Her eyes shifted to the framed photograph on her desk of the three of them when they were just genin, so bright and happy and confident. She grazed the glass over Naru’s image, tightened her grip on the earrings, let the stones press into her the flesh of her palm, and then truly let herself break down.

Oof I'm gonna be totally honest with you guys, this was a REALLY difficult chapter to write. I really wanted to explore the origins of Guy and Sekkachi's friendship, but more importantly Sekkachi's illness. Her chronic illness is based on my own so all of her struggles with food and her digestive system hit really close to home, and it was EXTREMELY hard to try and find the line between being honest but tasteful and being gross and way too honest about the literally shitty experience of having a sickness like this. I just hope I did it justice.

[alicedoessurveys]

Alphabet Tag

A – Accidents

01. Have you ever been in a car accident? Yes, two. But not bad ones and not while I’ve been driving. 
02. Do you have a lot of scars? I have a couple 
03. Have you ever been in a fist fight with someone? no 
04. Have you ever seriously hurt anyone by mistake? not seriously hurt 
05. Have you ever had stitches? Where? I guess I must have had stitches when I had my appendix out but I was too young to remember

B – Beauty

06. Do you consider yourself beautiful? no 
07. Are you self conscious of how you look? yes very 
08. Do you put on a lot of makeup? When I’m going out then yes I put makeup on but I wouldn’t say I put a lot on. 
09. Would you ever consider getting plastic surgery? No, unless you count getting your teeth straightened then yes I would 
10. What do you think makes a person beautiful? their spirit and personality.

C – Consequences

11. What was the longest amount of time you’ve been grounded for? I was never grounded 
12. What would you do if you got pregnant, keep it or have an abortion? i can’t even think about that, literal nightmare 
13. Do you ever think about how your actions affect other people? Yes 
14. What do you think is the worst punishment someone could give you? Take my family away 
15. What is one thing you wish you didn’t do, just because it wasn’t worth it in the end? Idk

D – Dealing

16. When you are mad at someone, how do you show them? Don’t speak to them 
17. Name a time when you had to be strong. when Ethan left 
18. Have you ever dealt with a divorce or parents fighting? Any kind of abuse at home? Parents used to fight every Sunday when I was a kid 
19. When people at school don’t accept you, or have problems with you, how do you react? Thankfully I’m not in school anymore 
20. Have you ever lost someone to death? Explain how you got through it. Only pets. I cried a lot

E – Experience

21. Have you ever had a job? Any volunteer jobs? Yes I’ve had two jobs 
22. Do you think that you are sexually experienced, or not at all? Not at all :’) 
23. Have you gone through a lot emotionally, or has life been easy thus far? totes emosh 
24. Do you think you are ready to be on your own (have your own home, job, etc.)? No way. As much as I love the idea of having my own place I dont like being home alone at night 
25. How old do you act? Idk, I definitely dont act as grown up as other 22 year olds but then I have times when I act like an 80 year old

F – Family

26. Is there anyone in your family you don’t talk to? Why? i don’t speak to a lot of my cousins, its not that we fell out or anything I just have soooooo many cousins and were not all close 
27. If you had to choose, family or friends? Family 
28. Can you tell your parents or one of your parents anything?   I can tell my mom anything I just chose to keep some things to myself 
 29. Do you have any siblings? If so, do you ever get jealous of them? I have an older sister. I do get jealous of her because she’s always been the pretty sister and she actually has a job and suceeds at life whereas I’m a 22 year old unemployed girl with anxiety who still lives with her parents and has no idea what to do with her life 
 30. How often do you spend ‘quality time’ with family members? every day

G – Growing

31. How tall are you? How tall do you wish you were? 5 ft 7, I’m okay being this height 
32. Do you think that you have grown more in the past year than any year before that? nope 
33. As a person, do you think you are mature for your age or still act childish? Like I said earlier, it depends on the day. 
34. Are you scared to think that one day you will turn 30, then 40, then 50? Yes 
35. Do you believe you still have a lot to learn? Yes

H – Hope

36. Love – real or not? real 
37. Are you a pessimist or an optimist? Bit of both depending on the situation, my mood, who I’m with 
38. Do you believe in fate, that everything happens for a reason, or do you think that our actions lead the way?   Obviously our actions have consequences but I do believe everything happens for a reason 
39. Do you think that after we die our spirit is still alive? Yes 
40. What gives you hope when you just feel like dying? Family

I – Issues

41. Do you suffer from depression or constant sadness/loneliness? Yes 
42. Do you have any type of disease or disability? Yes, I have hashimotos thyoiditis 
43. Are you currently in a hard relationship or have bad luck with the opposite sex? Not in a relationship, never have been. 
44. Do you think that you are alone in this world? Nope 
45. How often do you think about death, suicide or running away? Think about death more than I should but thats living with anxiety.

J – Jokes

46. Say a word or phrase that would not be funny to anyone but you & one of your friends (an inside joke) ‘Penetrating eyes’ 
47. Are you usually the one who makes people laugh,Or the other way around? I make people laugh, but I’m also easy to make laugh
 48. Do you cry when you laugh hard? Yes
 49. Write down a hilarious moment you had with someone that makes you laugh to this day! Too many memories with my sis
 50. Do you ever get in trouble for laughing or talking a lot during class? I haven’t been in class for years now but I did used to get told off for laughing, I’m a giggler

K – Knowledge

51. The purpose of school: to learn, to cause trouble or to hang out with friends? To learn and to be with friends 
 52. Do people refer to you as smart, dumb, or average? Smart, because I’m god with technology and I can quite often answer questions on quiz shows because my brain remembers useless knowledge 
 53. What was the highest grade you have received (full course mark) ever? I got distinction (highest possible mark in that course) for something I did in theatrical make up class                                                                                     54. What was your last average? This year would you like to maintain it or aim higher?                                                                                                            I dont know what that means cause I’m not a student..                                    55. What do you find the most interesting subject to be (to study or to talk about)?                                                                                                          History, although I didn’t actually study it but I wish I did

L – Love

56. Are you currently in love? If not, have you been before? No & no. 
 57. Do people around you show you a lot of love (tell you they love you, hug you, kiss you, etc.)? Yes
 58. Is love worth it? Probably                                                                                                              59. Do you hate it when girls in their young teenage years say they ‘love’ someone that they’ve been dating for a few months?                                 No, its none of my business. and if thats what they believe they are feeling at that time then good for them                                                                              60. Does it take a lot for you to say you love someone, or is it just a word?  I only say it to family and people I really do love. I think it gets thrown around too much these days

M – Money

61. Do you believe that money makes the world go round? Yes, annoyingly. You can’t really do anything without money 
 62. Is your family on the poor side, average, or above average when it comes to money? Average I think. We have a lot of debts but we still never go without or anything like that. Compared to other people I wouldn’t say we are poor 
 63. Are you saving up for college/university, or planning to? Nope
 64. Would you rather win millions of dollars & be set for life, or find the perfect person to marry & start a family with? Not gonna lie, id rather win the money (in pounds though cause dollars are useless in UK) because I could help my family, pay for the carpark my church needs, donate some and not have to worry about bills or anything again

65. On a scale of 1-10, how important is money to you?                            Like 8, but only because its so important to the world. I don’t like that money is so vital because its something that is so easily lost and peoples lives have crumbled because of money trouble. Its scary.

N – Naughty

66. Are you a virgin? Yes
 67. What do you think about doing sexual things with someone you’re not going out with? Its not for me, but who am I to judge anyone else who wants to do that. 
 68. Do you know anybody you consider a ’slut’? What makes you say that? Nope
 69. If you could, would you erase some things you did in the past or make it so you did more? Yes
 70. Do you consider yourself more nice or more naughty? You can’t say both! Nice

O – Openness

71. How long does it take for you to open up to someone? Not that long really, I’m too trusting of people and I get attached quickly 
 72. What does it take for you to fully trust someone? If I get the feeling that they trust me, and that they’re a genuine person who actually cares and isn’t just looking for gossip or using me 
 73. Are you generally untrusting towards people because of past experiences, or any other reason? Nope I’m quite trusting I think
 74. When are you comfortable with someone sexually? Never. there was someone who I got very close to a few years ago but I still never wanted to do anything like that. We kissed and that was about it but even then I was like nope I don’t like this 
 75. When it comes to parents and close friends, what’s the limit of what you can tell them? i tell my mom the most but theres still stuff I wouldn’t tell her but might tell my close friends. But even then theres stuff that I just wouldn’t tell anyone ever no matter how much I trust them

P – Positive

76. Have you ever had an experience with someone that didn’t necessarily end positively? Do you remember the sad times or keep the memory of that person because of the good times? Hasn’t everyone had negative experiences with people.thats just life
 77. Do you agree with the saying: better to have loved and lost than not have loved at all? I guess so 
 78. Are you more optimistic or pessimistic? What do you try to be? i swear we’ve already had this question!
 79. Do you agree that something good can come out of everything? Yes
 80. Have you ever had a time where something really bad happened, but something really good happened because of it? If so, please explain what it was: one of the worst days of my life was a couple years ago. I was in hospital for 10 hours while they did tests and X-rays and shiz because they suspected I had a blood clot in my lung because I had chest pains and I couldn’t breathe and it was just the scariest day. Turns out I didn’t and I was totally fine, it was either a muscle thing or just anxiety..but if I had never gone into hospital that day they would never had done a blood test and would never had spotted that there was something wrong with my thyroid. also turns out that with my type of throid disease, if left untreated it can cause you to go into a coma.. so yeah I guess something good came out of that horrible experience

Q – Questions

81. When faced with a problem, do you ask for help or try to figure it out yourself? Try to figure it out then ask for help if I’m really stuck
 82. Do you often question the world and how we came about? What are some things you would like to know about creation? I’m a christian so I believe in God & creation but it still blows my mind. 
 83. Do you think the government is truthful? If you could ask the president one question, what would it be? HA no, I don’t trust the government as far as I can throw ‘em. 
 84. When someone does something wrong to you, do you confront them and ask them why they did it or just let it go?  Depends who it is and what they’ve done
 85. What is one unsolved mystery about the world that you want answers to? who is Banksy?! I wanna know who it is and what they look like :’)

R – Respect

86. How do you show respect? Be polite, have manners, smile
 87. What can someone do for you to lose all respect for them? Be rude, ignorant, untrustworthy, lie
 88. Do you respect your teachers, parents, and other authority figures? Parents yes. anyone else, it depends if they deserve respect, if they behave in a way that should be respected
 89. When you are disrespectful to your parents, what is the punishment? Im not disrespectful to my parents. We don’t have the type of relationship where they would punish me anyway, they would just laugh it off
 90. If someone is mean to you, are you mean back or do you kill them with kindness? Just cut them out my life tbh

S – School

91. If you are still in school, what grade will you be going into? N/a
 92. When will you graduate high school/college? N/a
 93. After high school, what did you do/are you planning to do? N/a
 94. Do you like or hate school? What do you like/hate about it? N/a
 95. Have you ever been suspended, expelled, or dropped out of school? no, no, yes. I dropped out of college like 3 times.

T – Temptation

96. Have you ever done something wrong, knowing it was wrong, because something inside of you said it was okay? Yes
 97. Has anyone ever pressured you to smoke or drink? Did you do it? I’ve been pressures to drink but I said no. 
 98. Did you ever cheat on someone? Why did you do it? No
 99. Did you ever want to do something sexual with someone you didn’t really know or love? What did you end up doing? Nope.                                                                                                                100. Do you give in to temptation easily, or are you more independent and strong willed?                                                                                                       It depends on what it is. I’m not very good as resisting temptation if its something I really want to do

U – Unique

102. Do you do a lot of things because your friends are doing it? No
 103. Do you follow trends, wear whatever you want, or wear really unique pieces? I just wear what I want, what I feel comfortable it
 104. Do you give in easily to peer pressure? Do you do things such as smoke, drink, or have casual sex? Im quite stubborn so I don’t give in to peer pressure
 105. What makes you different from people your age? I’ve never been to a nightclub, never got drunk, never had sex, I’m not in university, I actually like my family

V – Value

106. What’s the most expensive thing in your room? My macbook
 107. What’s more valuable: your life or the lives of your loved ones? Would you sacrifice your life for other people? Loved ones for sure, my life is going nowhere
 108. What is something you value not because it cost a lot, but because it means a lot to you? My teddy I’ve had since I was born. 
 109. If there was a fire in your house/apartment, what is the first thing you would grab? My pets, my family, my laptop maybe if I had time purely because its so freakin expensive and theres no way I could ever afford to buy another one. Id wanna take my whole bedroom with me because its taken me so damn long to get it how it is now and I’m really happy with it
 110. Do you think past memories and experiences are more valuable than what could possibly happen in the future? Idk

W – Wishes

111. If you had three wishes, what would they be? My health & skinny body back, unlimited money for me and my family, for cruelty & hate to be gone from the world 
 112. Would you rather wish yourself to be happy, or your loved ones? Loved ones
 113. Do you believe that wishes come true if you really believe in them? Nope
 114. Have you ever had a wish come true? If so, what was that wish? No
 115. Do you find wishing for things a waste of time because everything that’s meant to happen, will happen? Not really, I still make wishes even though I know they won’t come true its just nice to have that hope. I pray more than wish.

(I've just realised theres no ‘x’ and that questions 116-120 are missing..?)

Y – You

121. Are you more independent or social? Independant 
 122. What is something that makes you very mad when you see it? Animal cruelty, terrorism, hate of any kind
 123. Do you think that you have potential to do great things? I hope so 
 124. Do you think people are born a certain way, or develop their personalities based on what they go through in life? Develop
 125. Do you think people are generally good ? Everyone has the potential to be good, its about how you are bought up and how you choose to be

Z – Zest

126. Are you currently happy with your life? Why or why not? no. I’m fat, unhealthy, unemployed, single, blah blah blah 
 127. Do you go on FacebookCraze.com to get facebook survey’s and quizzes like this one? nope.. never heard of it..
 128. When change occurs, do you get scared or are you excited for it? it depends what the change is but I tend to be scared. Change makes me anxious 
 129. Do you like to try new things, meet new people? Nope
 130. What is the most motivational thing in the world? Idk haha

[lilacsfallentoheaven]

Snipets of Myself

12/27/18, 4:36 am

Today I recalled something. A tale.

There was a boy I used to like, long before you, named Declan. He liked me, for a long while, but then things would eventually find themselves changing. But, nonetheless, he liked me a lot, and this is how that all changed.

You know the expression “Don’t stick your dick in crazy”? Well, Declan was the opposite believer of such an anecdote. And he was intent on doing exactly that.

I met Declan when I moved schools in year four. We started at that school on the same day - though I had arrived 15 minutes later - and we sat across from each other, as the teacher thought maybe we could bond together with our shared arrival. That’s how I considered it at the time, now I see that my teacher had set the two of us aside together as a quarantine, as if we were to be examined as though we would infect the other children with our other-schooled germs. It was funny, actually, because we took a liking to each other from the start, though it was a platonic appreciation of each other. I remember he told the story about putting roaches in his sister’s bed to the class, and I was the only one who had laughed at such a vial thing. And at that, he smiled.

I have a few fleeting memories of our time, seated at a table-group of four together. I asked the girl beside him, who had been my friend at the time, to borrow a red correcting pen, and he was quick to offer it. He gave one to me instantly. He gave me his, furthermore, and took out another one for himself. I had been his priority at that moment. I remember him drawing in his book, and being so surprised when I knew who his favorite superhero, Aquaman, was, far before it was mainstream knowledge. He was his hero, and I was the nerd who knew him. And at that, he smiled.

There was a time when I pretended to be afraid of knives for the purpose of allowing him to use it on pancake day, so he could feel proud and brave in front of our group. He was so proud of himself and he showed off to everyone how superior and better he was, or at the very least felt. I knew it would make him happy, even though it was childish. it was year four, we were ten, that stuff is important to people, and I knew that. He did too, I think, because he was always the confident, smart one, even if I saw him frown sometimes when he was on his own. And at that, he smiled.

But then the next year came along, and with that came Lilac. We started hanging out, and we would roleplay that we were traveling all around the world with our crushes. She chose a boy she was pining for, and I chose Declan. I didn’t have a crush on him, but he was my favorite boy in our grade. When we grew out of make-believe, or at least grew it in separate directions, we began to play games and started talking about boys, and only then did I begin liking him more than a platonic sense. It had been very well known, apparently - by everyone except me - that he had liked me for some time. It explained what had happened when we went to camp and his friends made me sit next to him during archery, and how when someone took my canoe his friends were insistent that he took one with me. Maybe it was a kayak. I can’t tell the difference. It didn’t matter, though, because Declan and I were friends. And we were both happy with that, because we didn’t want to ruin our friendship by confronting the other with obvious feelings. And, as everything proceeded, things weren’t weird for a while. The four of us - Lilac, her brother Luciel, Declan, and I - would all hang out together. Luciel was two years older than us (we were around 12), and though he was too young to drive he would take the car out late at night and pick us up, first Declan than Ime. We would hang out in the early mornings, past midnight when the owls gleam at the stars and the sky is clear of the bright clouds that block other galaxies from looking into our globe. At first, when we were younger, we would talk whilst watching movies and playing silly games. But you’re reading about how everything changed, and as such you, my love, already know the basic outline of the next part.

We created a game - the intensity game, I called it. The game was simple enough in theory, but we never expected it to go as far or for as long as it did; Whoever could do the most horrifically outrageous, daring feat, and accomplish it, would be the winner. We played this game over several months, despite the fact that we intended for it to be about a week or so before we all gave up and forgot about it. It ended up changing our lives.

It started out small. A cigarette for Lilac, something heavier for Luciel, my infamous priest story. It wasn’t all individual things, though, because if we couldn’t match it or top it than we would lose points. We had a board where we would keep track, which was left underneath the chair in the back seat of the car Luciel would take. The very same car that Luciel and Lilac would crash in, eight months after we had started the game. Their last place where Lilac had ever been conscious. And I had put them there.

Regardless, we got intense. Late nights became early mornings, and we were spending a lot of time together without anyone else ever knowing.

So it was weird for me, one day, to walk away from the group for one moment to use the restroom (an empty bottle we would bring on the hill cliff) and come back to weird silence. Three glares, not directed at me but at each other. Lilac’s eyes focused upon the ground as if she had been damning Satan below her to a second eternity of himself. The other two shot each other confused glances when I had returned, and they spoke into each other’s eyes in what I had originally assumed was male-speak for something. Lilac, sweet sweet Lilac, looked up at me for just a moment before returning a softer gaze unto the dirt. I was stupid to ask any questions, because I should have left it alone.

Lilac was bisexual, and she had received a text from a girl who was crushing on her, She insisted she didn’t like the girl but confirmed to me she was, in fact, bisexual. When they had told me, I just looked at everyone and sat down on the rocky dirt. “Alright, cool. Glad you got it off your chest. I’ll keep your secret and kick their asses if they don’t.” We resumed life as it had been, but the effects would eventually wear. 

I was always around everyone, and that’s my justification as to why this happened. That, and if a bunch of early teenagers hang out late together at night in secluded areas, sharing secrets and pee bottles alike, people are bound to leave with pounding hearts that break when they hit the sharp knives of the rib cage.

On one particular day, it had all began with my insistence on feeling cold. 

Roughly, our night had proceeded:

“Luce, did you bring a blanket?” I had asked, my exact words. He smiled back to me and confirmed he had. I noted that was great, cool, something like that, and stood up. All the three had stood up and insisted they get it for me, and they gave each other pointed looks as if accusing each other, and each in a heartbeat insisted on getting it for me. I told them all that I would get it, though I ended up telling Luciel to get it because he had the car keys. Lilac sat down and pulled me with her. Declan insisted on going with Luciel to get more snacks, and I thought little of it so I waved my thoughts away from it and toward the stars that Lilac insisted I look upon. I was looking up at them, but my neck hurt so I instead chose to lay on her shoulder, then more comfortably on her lap. She smiled down at me and played with my hair, but exhaled and peered back toward the endless sky of wishes in dense lights.

The boys came back with displeased looks on their faces, evident in disagreement with each other. I told them to lighten the fuck up and that they could dick each other down later when I wasn’t there, then I closed my eyes because I felt tired. I had waited a while asI listened to them talk about me in whispers, as if I could only hear if they spoke louder than the crickets. They argued, too, and it was awfully unpleasing to listen to. It felt like a moment in a terrible fanfiction, which goes with my theory that I live inside the book of a sickly twisted author. I must have been based upon the writer, except been placed in one of those “everyone loves the main character” self-inserts you find on Wattpad at 4 in the morning before questioning what the actual hell you are doing with your time halfway through and go to sleep. Heaven knows I would have preferred to sleep through it.

At one point, the point I really remember, Luciel had insisted that he had a right to ask me out because I was old enough to be in the grade just below him, but Declan countered that by declaring he shouldn’t date someone younger than him and that he himself had known me the longer than Luciel, and if anyone would date me it should be him. Lilac insisted she had spent the most time with me and likewise knew me through and through. The boys retorted by both saying I was a lesbian. Lilac returned with a joke I will never forget, about the two of them not being disappointed in seeing two girls make out. It rendered both of them silent for a moment, and I almost laughed. I turned a little, in my faux sleep to muffle my smile, and accidentally turned more into Lilac’s lap. Luciel made a crude joke, something about having me between legs, which would have earned him a slap from Lilac should I not have been there, she assured him. Luciel mentioned to check if I was awake yet, and with the certainty I wasn’t they proceeded with a plan.

These jokes had sparked an idea. A new game. A game of me. Who could claim me, they wondered. We would play truth or dare tonight to prove I wasn’t a lesbian, and that Lilac and I had no chemistry together. I knew, from this, that I owned each of them in that moment, for as long as this game would go on. Even though I would not win the intensity game in their eyes, I was the true winner because I had the nerve to screw over each one of their hearts and twist them into divides.

I pretended to wake up with the general “How long was I out? Must be late” spiel, and they pitched the game to me. Declan seemed hesitant but was swayed easily. Lilac more so.

I wrapped the blanket around me and we fixed the rules to match our intensity game. Everyone had to match the dare done. We played a few rounds, and Lilac was dared to kiss me. She looked nervous as it was pitched to her, but I stared her in the eyes and almost let it happen.

We stared at each other. I could see the pure guilt in her irises be tainted by the fear that I knew; that I knew she liked me, that I knew of the game, that I knew because I could hear everything. I almost took pity on her, but when I moved away and insisted it wasn’t fair upon me because I couldn’t match the dare. Luciel hovered over me; he could see right through what he thought was the real bullshit: I had never been kissed and didn’t want my first one to be with Lilac, a girl.

If I look further back, my first kiss wasn’t my choice, but a quick peck on the lips by a prick of a boy named Calvin when I was 6. I was scared because I had thought that that meant I had to marry him, but I was quickly assured otherwise. After that, Luciel didn’t know that Declan and I had almost shared a kiss, but I had my first kiss with another boy, one whose name I will never want to mention. The one who shared a name with an angel. 

And that, he knew, was himself. Because moments later, he did something to alter the course of our dynamic. His eyes peered down at me, and he leaned down to take dominance over the situation. I leaned on the back of my heels, staring up at him as he drew my face to his with a finger below my chin. I will not share the hypnotizing words he spoke to me, because those thirteen words cursed me for a long time. We were locked together by those words. He threw the blanket off me and pushed me back onto it, pressing his lips to mine. I don’t know if I wanted to get away, but even if I had wanted to push him away, wanted to get up and tell them all how fucked up this was for them to make me their object of prize to satisfy themselves without considering what I would’ve wanted - I don’t think I would have been able to. I know that underneath his kiss to me, my first kiss, I didn’t want more than that. I felt for the first time the odd heat that had flushed submissively to my face, an odd desire which I learned was arousal. On that blanket I was his. No one else’s. When he pulled away, he held a pleased smirk on his lips which played in tugs, and he lingered for a moment above me, before he sat up. Even as he had left, the air of him stayed behind. It felt like him, everywhere, and I couldn’t sit up.

It took a while for the air to fade, but it happened. The spell was lifted, my hypnosis gone. He had, I theorize, actually doe something to me to make me submit to him. He insisted I just wanted him, when I had asked later about it. Do you remember when I mentioned I had a friend who was in the habit of practicing hypnosis? I found out much, much later, after he had killed himself following Lilac’s death, that this magically enrapturing kiss had not been my first with him. He had made me forget it. 

But I went to bed that night thinking of him, after quickly insisting that we all go home because I was tired and it was 2 in the morning. When I stared at the ceiling I could feel him pressed against me, above me, a finger below my chin and the other hand below my breast, tracing down to my waist and his lips led mine into his spell. Do you remember when we first started dating and I would hold your hand away from my breasts every time you played with them? This was why. He was why. At first I hated the feeling above me, but it faded and I felt happier. When I closed my eyes and it was you above me, however, I smiled, and I felt loved as a human and not a prize. Now you can do whatever you want to my breasts.

But this isn’t about you, my breasts, or Luciel. Declan made sure it wasn’t about Luciel.

The next day, Declan was talking to me through all our lessons. You know how people pretend that they’re sad or upset to gain the attention of a particular person? Yeah, it was a situation like that. He told me he was feeling depressed. Naturally, I wanted to help him.

In doing so, he made sure I ignored both of the Reid’s at all his costs. Even when I was texting Lilac, he took my attention. When I was sitting with my normal friends, the ones who knew nothing of the situation, of my friendships with these people, the ones I would spend my school time with and talk to for Skype when I needed normalcy in my life, he took my attention away from him. 

You see, the four of us didn’t sit together. Luciel and Lilac went to a different school, and Declan was a popular guy who would play sports and do social things. The four of us were a separate relationship, an external entity. It was weird for everyone else to see Declan and I talking to each other actively and not just because we were forced to sit next to each other due to alphabetical ordering in our classes. It was weird for them to see such a popular guy talking to the known strange girl who had gotten into a fight and broke some guy’s wrist, which had actually been for him.

When I pointed out that he shouldn’t be talking to me, he suddenly became aware of himself and waved goodbye to me. There was nothing left to be done, I had decided, and went to the library with my school laptop to talk to Savanah, one of my other friends.

Even when everyone had called me odd, even when I had created an outcast of myself, he still managed to find a way to like me, but soon after he had realized all of this the illusion of hidden love and beauty fell apart.

Lilac would now bring Jim, her boyfriend, to our meet-ups, and so our intensity games were put on hold. You already know how they end, with Lilac hanging off the bridge I swam under when I had tried to kill myself one knight, where Luciel had saved me. Declan, through active awareness of social hierarchy, decided our game was immoral, and he dropped out long before any of that. He dropped out of our lives.

Time grew, and I still had a thing for Declan, but Luciel and I had grown closer than anyone else. We started dating, and everything else proceeded as it did. Even then, I still looked back to Declan on occasion, even though we could hardly be considered friends anymore with his newfound social awareness and spite for us all represented in filled time. I had always, even when I crushed on him, thought that he and Rachael Sullivan would get married. I wonder if that will happen. Last time I checked, they were at the very least rather good friends.

But you see, my sweetheart, there’s a hidden story that given reasons to the things we do. The snipets of myself, the ones that make up many aspects of my life, hide within these words, within the hell that binds itself to my story.