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jeonandjoonie · 4 years ago

Text

Just One Day

posted on wattpad and this tumblr only.

You have a crush on your boxing T.A. college au. Jungkook X Reader.

word count: ~10,900k

W: NONE

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Kids.

You couldn’t believe that for your last semester in college you would have to take a physical education class. You still curse your advisor when you remember the day.

You were walking happily to your appointment prepared to turn in your graduation application only to be told that you were not set to graduate. Your previous advisor didn’t notice the unfulfilled requirement. You almost cried and immediately went to your apartment to search up any physical Ed classes that would satisfy the requirement.

Of course being so late in registering, all the basic classes such as Yoga, Gym, and Dance were filled. You looked over the list, even weight training had a waitlist of 5. You were beginning to feel hopeless as you saw Judo and Tennis having a waitlist as well. There must be an open one!!

And how much your heart delighted when you noticed a class that was full but had no waitlist! Your eyes immediately crossed over to the left to see what class it was.

Boxing.

Taken back, you pushed back the stress from clouding your mind. Thinking of having to not only work out but be punched down Sighing, you quickly clicked on the class to register accepting your doom. Another couple hundred dollars invested into your degree, taking a class you were not interested in.

With the start of the semesters you passed through all your classes easily already feeling like a master in your discipline. You walked happily from class to class. You were especially happy that your internship and student work study all fit perfectly within your schedule.

You plopped yourself onto your tiny single bed. In a few hours you’ll have to get ready for your first day of Boxing. 3-hour class, two times a week, it made you want to cry. Your classes started at 6 and it was past 4 when you got to your apartment, so you quickly went to your kitchen to eat. You wanted your food to be digested before class to prevent yourself from vomiting.

You settled for some leftover mango rice and smoked salmon that accumulated from days before. Neither were yours, but you and your three other roommates agreed that when food has been in the fridge for more than two days it’s a free for all.

"Hey, __" your roommate, literally roommate which you share your room with, patted your head as she passed you. "Do you want to do our nails and talk about our 5-year plans and then eat ice cream?" She shouted from your shared bedroom.

" Sorry, can’t!" You shouted back to her, "I got that boxing class tonight!" You continued to shout even though she was now in front of you. You wanted the whole world to hear your misery.

"Oh, that sounds like fun!" She responded leaning onto the counter

" Ugh. Please, it’s going to be such a waste of time. Punching people is one thing but having to let someone punch me sounds so annoying" you complained putting your dishes in the sink.

"Stop crying, I’m sure they won’t have you fight anyone. I bet it’ll just be like learning posture or something. It’ll probably just be the basics".

"True... Anyways do you have any clothes I can borrow real quick? I didn’t have time to buy any"

"Sure, What’s the dress code"

“I dunno, the guy just said casual and comfortable for the first day", you thought it over " just sweats, I have a t-shirt. Please!"

When you asked for sweats you didn’t think it was going to be an issue. Sweats are pretty much one size fits all. You should have known better as you looked at yourself in your floor length mirror. Minah's gray sweats were clinging to your butt and legs.

"Oh my god Minah, what is your size? a size negative zero, I feel like I’ll explode. Did you get this at the kids’ section".

"Shut up, those are the only ones I have…they kind of shrunk when I washed them" she mumbled the last part. You knew Minah was skinnier than you, but you didn’t expect it to be this much maybe just a size or two. "they don’t even look that bad, they fit really snug on me after the wash".

Seeing your disappointing stare, she quickly fusses over you. "Fine. Bend down, run, jump or do whatever boxers do. Let’s see how they look".

You jumped, kicked, and ran in place. You dropped it low a couple times to feel the strain on your thighs and butt.

"I mean…I guess they’re okay" you studied yourself again "you know what, it’s no big deal it’s like I’m wearing yoga pants"

Minah laughed "You’re so right! why are we even discussing this?"

You looked at her putting on a pout "they look like yoga pants, but they feel like they’re about to rip. Look, my pockets are sticking out!"

Finally getting annoyed with you, Minah sighed loudly throwing her hands up in a dramatic flair "Wear them, don’t wear them. Hurry up cause it.." she looks at her rose gold wrist watch with faux diamonds around the frame, the one you gifted her for Christmas. Yes, you are proud of your gift. "Oh my gosh, __ you need to go it's 5:50! Isn’t your class at 6?" Minah looked at you with wide eyes.

"What?!" you squeaked. You didn’t want to be late, you couldn’t given the fact that you were on the waitlist. You can’t give off a bad impression now. "Oh my…oh my gosh" you muttered to yourself quickly, slipping on a black t-shirt. You grabbed your bag and ran towards the front door to slip on your black shoes. Which was a struggle and you later realized it would have been easier and maybe faster to untie them and then put them on.

You reached out for the door handle only to have it hit you against your forehead.

"Oh my gosh" three voices chorused at the same time.

Sohee your other roommate gasped as she grabbed your arm to inspect your injury. However, you simply brushed her away as you were already late. "__, wait are you okay, I’m so sorry"

"It's fine, I’m good!” you yelled back as you ran the two blocks to your campus. only to getting slightly lost as you turned a right and not a left. You didn’t even have time to blame it on your possible concussion. Can you get a concussion? you don’t know. But you almost threw up with nerves when you realized you made the wrong turn.

You need to get into this class. Your graduation depended on it. Although you’re sure they will squeeze you in when they realize you’re a senior, you still want to be in good standing with the instructor if you planned on slacking off in class.

Reaching the gymnasium doors, you tried to control your breathing. You haven’t run this fast since you had to run miles in middle school. You felt dizzy and tried hard not to think about your burning calves.

Inside looked nothing like you thought it would. You imagined dark lights, punching bags, and maybe some weights. However, there were only large mats laid out on the floor. A small group of students seated in front of what you figured is the instructor. You quickly ducked your head trying to hide yourself as you sat down in the back. There were two other people standing next to him wearing head gear and strapping on boxing gloves.

"And who is the new intruder?" the instructor, Mr. Kang or Mino, questioned out loud.

You shyly smiled (or what you thought was a cute shy smile) when in reality you looked like a nervous wreck, trying to hide the fact that your legs were burning and you were breathing too hard. Hmm? was that sweat running down your neck.

"I’m ___, I should be on the waitlist"

Mino made a huge show of flipping the pages of his clipboard. "Ah yes __, I see you here. Well if you still want this class you’re in luck because three people dropped out this morning"

Even though you were practically hyper venting in your seat and you're pretty sure the sweatpants were cutting your circulation. You felt such a relief wash over you.

“Just don’t make a habit out of being late, 25 minutes is unacceptable, 5 more and I would have kicked you out. Next time make sure to email me beforehand"

If you didn’t look like a nervous wreck before, you sure did now. You nodded your head too afraid to speak from the embarrassment.

"Come get your syllabus after class, we’ve already gone over it”, he looked around “Everyone this is why I stress that you should attend every class and be here on time, every moment is important" he clapped his hands, “now for the fun part: the demonstration”. He turned towards the two people standing at his side, “like I said these are two of my excellent students who are in boxing III, they volunteered their time to be here and help me teach this course. so please give them the same respect you will give me" he turned towards them once more giving them a nod as a sign to begin. The two guys started to face each other and sway around.

"These are more advanced moves, we won’t be learning these in this course but I want you to see..."

The instructor's voice drifted off as you watched the two guys start to move and jab at each other. They were fast and moving so quick on their feet. Your eyes lingered on to their legs. Interesting…very interesting. With these types of demonstrations maybe this class wouldn’t be so bad.

The two guys continued to "punch" each other bouncing in their spot. "Whoos" can be heard from the students around you who knew what was happening. It did look like the one in all black was beating the one in a blue shirt. The guy in blue was larger than the other which says a lot since they both look fit.

You were startled out of analyzing as Mino clapped his hands, "Okay. Okay, guys that’s enough thank you".

He applauded and everyone followed along. As did you, poking your head in between the seated bodies in front of you trying to get a better look of the guys. The guy in all black had tattoos on his hand and arm. The one in blue had a tattoo running up his neck. You were curious to see how it would spread out on his body. When he fully took off his head gear, wow….

Oh….

Wow…

You were amazed. These guys are so handsome. They are the straight definition of charming. You almost wanted to reprimand him for risking his stunning features. He gave a boxy smile "Hi, everyone my name is Taehyung".

“Hi Taehyung” a couple of aspiring class clowns responded back.

"Hi, I’m Jungkook" the voice next to him said.

Your eyes turned to him. The one in all black. To say your heart stopped would be an understatement because you are sure your brain cells did to. You froze in your spot, zoning in on his pretty face. Noticing the way his eyes crinkle despite his attempt to look serious. The charm and absolute power that oozed out of him was no intimidation to you, for your newfound adoration for his aura and beauty captivated you more. So much that you are willing to freeze in the spot if it resulted in you taking him in.

You continued to stare at Jungkook. This time zoning in on his lips, not yet picking up on his squinted eyes trying to meet yours for he felt you blunt stare and felt slightly amused. Jungkook, what a guy, what a man, what a-

“Okay class, let’s begin some basic moves everybody! Get to the mats".

Upon hearing more chatter and the squeaks of shoes, like on autopilot your body stood up. You were out of your trance once you realized you were staring at the back of Jungkook's neck. You quickly got into a spot in the back corner wanting a place where no one will see if you happened to rip your sweats or see your lame attempt at following along. You tried to make sure you have a view on that Jungkook guy, but blocking your view was a couple other people. You didn’t even have the privilege of seeing his calf. You decided to just admit defeat and listen to Mino. The class began with basic exercises that seemed even more difficult than the jumping jacks and squats you did in your room earlier.

"Hey are you alright?". You jumped back upon hearing a voice at your side, "Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, are you good?"

It was Taehyung.

"Huh, wha- why?.. no, no I’m good"

"Okay it just seemed like you were struggling a bit”

"No I’m fine. Everything is fine…haha" you said as you lunged your leg forward like everyone else did to show him you were right on track. Can he notice the agony on your face that was caused by the ridiculous sweats?

“How about your forehead?” he asked, pointing to his own, upon seeing the confusion in your eyes.

“OH” you exclaimed a little too loudly, placing a hand on your forehead.

Taehyung gave you a short smile and a short nod as he jogged up to his spot in front of your section.

How considerate. As the exercises began you were now aware of Taehyung eyes. He tried to act like he was casually glancing at you and not keeping an eye on you. You would love to say it was due to that fact that he thought you were cute, but you knew it was because of the sweat that now adorned your face and the puffs that escaped your mouth. You haven’t exercised properly in ages.

As you continued your moves you were beginning to feel itchiness from the band around your ankles. You lifted the band as much as you can, only to be horrified with the deep red marks imprinted around your ankles. You looked up in shock meeting Taehyung's eyes. He immediately rushed to your side .

“Are you crazy?” He asks you with wide eyes “You need to go change”

“I’m okay” you tried keeping your voice hushed as to contour Taehyung's loud exclamation that had people around you turning their heads.

“No, this is bad,” Taehyung said, trying to find Mino to gain his attention.

“No, No, I’m fine” you hiss at Taehyung “Go away”.

Taehyung ignores you as he stands at high alert waiting for Mino to come to your side. You noticed Jungkook trailing behind him.

As the two men approached, Taehyung simply pointed at your ankles which were lamely covered by your hands.

Jungkook rushes to your side and tries to lift your sweats to see the damage done. If you weren’t so mortified by the attention given by everyone in the class, you would have swooned at his proximity.

“I’m fine” you mumble.

“No,” Mino says, meeting Jungkook’s eye “you should go home. Class is almost finished anyways”.

Feeling defeated your get up to your feet keeping your eyes on the ground. Being this close to them you realized how small you are. You hid behind Jungkook’s body to hide from your class's attention.

“I’m okay” you try to reason with Mino, “just a little tight” you tried to laugh.

“Miss?”

“__”

“___” Mino repeated, “I’m responsible for you in this class and I won’t allow for any injury no matter how small or big. Please, you're excused to go home”.

Slumping your shoulders and keeping your head to the ground you sighed, “Okay”.

In any other situation you would have taken this as a fortunate luxury, a blessing in disguise, but since Jungkook was witness to this (and Taehyung) you felt embarrassed. You didn’t want them to think of you as dumb. I mean you are leaving a boxing class early due to an injury caused by your tight sweats.

“and ___,” he called out to you as you made your way to the door ,”please come to class on time and be properly dressed”.

Yeah, this had to be one of the dumbest moments in your life.

You grumbled your way to your second class of boxing. After the first class, you went home and cried to your roommates about how embarrassing it was. Although you didn’t have time to wallow in your embarrassment due to the difficulty of peeling off the sweats. The girls helped you lather ointment on your red marks. The stinging and itchiness can now be felt with the cool air hitting your skin. You and Minah were scolded by Tara, your other roommate, for putting yourself in danger in “cutting off your damn ankles!”. You tried to protest only to be hushed by Sohee. With the way things were that night it would seem like you and Minah were the kids to your mothers Tara and Sohee. So, to fit into your new role you stuck out your tongue at both of their backs as they left your room and Minah tried to suppress her giggles.

You really didn’t want to go to the next class, but that degree was on the line. What would be your excuse? That you were publicly embarrassed in front of your class?

This time around you made sure to buy some sweats and cute shiny shorts. You will be prepared. Well not that prepared, as you slipped on the shorts you noticed how you didn’t even shave. So, you had to go back to the black sweats you brought.

To your massive egos surprise, no one seemed to care or remember about you. You made sure to arrive 10 minutes early and found yourself with three other early birds. Not even Mino or his helpers were here. You felt a little ridiculous but it’s better than being late. So, you sat against the wall scrolling through your phone waiting for the time to pass. It was 4 minutes before class when the chatter in the gym began to get louder. You looked up to see that everyone was here including your instructor. You remembered that you had to get the syllabus but now he was surrounded by eager students talking about God knows what. You are aimlessly glancing around trying to find a chance where your instructor could be alone. You slowly made your way closer to the group of seated students. You spotted Jungkook talking to Taehyung. They were also getting crowded by students. You watched how Jungkook walked over to the mats with one of the students and began to demonstrate something with his feet. Your guessing it’s his feet with how everyone is staring at his feet and he keeps looking down as he talks. You are admiring the way he moves his pretty lips as he talks when your vision of him is once again blocked by somebody. A boxy smile. A handsome smile. Taehyung.

You watch him walk over to you with a smile on his face as he waves a sheet of paper in his right hand.

“You need this” he states handing you the class syllabus.

“Yes. Thank you” you reach out for the paper. Your eyes skimmed through the paper making mental notes of the exam dates and random quizzes.

To your surprise you felt Taehyung still standing next to you. Feeling shy all of a sudden you focused more on the text.

“So… why boxing?” he suddenly asks with a gleam in his eye. He stared at you waiting for an answer.

“Why not?” you challenge him, “am I not boxing material?”

“I never said that” Taehyung defends himself, “just trying to make conversation to avoid having to…” he nudges back to where all the students are surrounding Jungkook.

You stop yourself from snorting, “I need it to graduate”

“Oh, you’re a senior?” he asks with interest.

“Yup, with a physical requirement I didn’t know I needed till the last minute”.

“So, this was the only option” Taehyung looks at you with pity understanding the lack of enthusiasm in your voice as you tell him your sad tale.

“It’ll be fun” he says with a smile” just look like you're trying and you’ll pass”.

You shrug and give him a smile. He was nice.

“Listen you don’t have to try hard and with everyone else you’ll be average. Trust me, this is my second year helping the beginner’s course. I’ve seen worse. A lot of freshmen who are over their heads”.

You laughed at that “It’s cute though, right?” you joked with him.

“Yeah, it’s cute, until they hurt themselves. All fired up kids,” Taehyung thought for a moment,

“actually it's embarrassed freshmen and then fired up second years that think they matured overnight or something”

You laughed at his analogy, remembering the cockiness that came from some of your classmates of sophomore year.

“You’re so right” you said, clapping your hands laughing.

Taehyung laughed along with you, “honestly though I wouldn’t mind going back. To be a bit naïve. Thinking of graduating makes me nervous”

“aww” you cooed at him reaching over to pat his arm.

Taehyung rolls his eyes, this time at you.

“What are your plans?” you ask him.

“Art Courier”

“Art” you ask surprise.

“Yea” he smiles, “I love it. I’m also volunteering at an art gallery downtown. Its local art, it’s nice”

“So why are you nervous?”

He looks at you, “Aren’t you?”

You shrugged, “I don’t know, I mean I got an internship out of town. I’m hoping to stay there for a short while. Then I want to come back to Kim Corp.”

He smiles at you, “Those are big plans”.

“Yeah… but yeah, I guess I’m nervous but like an exciting kind” you tilt your head, “like butterflies or dragonflies in my stomach”

“Dragon flies? that’s new” he chuckles, “mine are like crashing waves so sometimes it gets nauseating”, he pouts slightly thinking hard, “it’s exciting”. He sighs, “the truth is I’m applying for a master's and I just turned in my last application, so it’s this waiting period”.

“Ahhh, I see” you pat his shoulder once more giving him a smile, “good luck!”

Taehyung smiles back at you turning his full body to face you “thanks, you too”.

“Taehyung!”

Taehyung's name being called interrupted your mutual understanding of senior nervousness and friendship that was forming between the two of you. You lifted your head to the voice that interrupted such a sweet moment. Your eyes were ready to squint at the rude person, but they only softened upon finding the irritated face of Jungkook.

“Oops, got to go, seems like those fired up sophomores are getting to him” Taehyung whispers to you before he jogs up to a furrowed brow Jungkook who is still surrounded by eagerly waiting students. You wait for him to possibly shift his glance towards you. Readying a reassuring and “haha, yikes'' face to show him. However, he kept his gaze locked on Taehyung till he arrived at his side. You pout as you give up and stuff your syllabus into your bag.

Later that evening while the class was practicing a two step footwork you notice Jungkook teaching a student a few rows ahead of you. You watch carefully as he slowly makes his way down to your back corner. Is this your time? The moment in which you have him all alo-on-ne, to have a “private conversation" with him. You hoped. Jungkook was examining the student in front of you. You were next. You lowered your head focusing on your feet. You tried to remain calm even though the anticipation of talking to him was weighing down on you. You stole a quick glance at his feet, they were headed towards you. Here it goes.

“Hey Jungkook!”

Oh my gosh.

“Jungkook, Am I doing it right?”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

You lifted your head to see Jungkook making his way to the kid next to you. There Jungkook goes helping those eager hogging students that take any second with Jungkook away from you. Should you also feign ignorance to the movements in class? Even though you’re sure you probably really do need the extra attention. However, those kids just want to be praised by the “cool" Jungkook. You just want to talk to him.

The following weeks had no progress both with your boxing and with Jungkook. Thankfully your friendship with Taehyung grew as you both would be catching up with each other before classes. And you’re pretty sure you’ve seen Jungkook try to make his way over to you guys only to be stopped by some over achievers. You once asked Taehyung why he doesn’t teach the kids only for him to say he doesn’t need the experience unlike Jungkook who is majoring in Exercise Science (and a minor in art, which is where they meet and become friends). You only huffed in response and told him to give him a break. Taehyung just shrugged and went back on his phone. The talks with him were fine. Taehyung had good humor and amazing story telling skills, once in a while he would reveal subtle information about Jungkook. You would try to slyly ask him questions about Jungkook. You found yourself knowing a little about him every day.

One of the most amazing days though was when you were coming out of the bathroom after class and you overheard Taehyung’s unforgettable laugh and Jungkook’s -surprising- high pitched laughter. You walked slowly towards the divine laughter. You had to hide yourself behind a pillar when you saw them stop before an elevator.

“Those sophomores are so competitive! Hmmm… It reminds me of someone” Taehyung says jokingly, tapping his finger on his chin.

Jungkook shoves him playfully.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding” Taehyung raises his hands in defeat before Jungkook could put him into a headlock. Their rough playing is stopped with the "ding" sound of the elevator doors.

The "ding" also reminds you of what you were doing: hiding behind a pillar like a loser and overheating these guys. At this point it was odd since you were actually friends with one of them. I mean you did have Taehyung’s number and he would occasionally text you to tell you when he (or Jungkook) would not be in class.

You slowly inched your foot, not trying to make noise. You were ready to leave but halted when you heard Jungkook’s voice as they headed inside the elevator.

“So, what did you and __ talk about this time?”

HUH

Did he?

“Oh, I told her about your obsession with banana milk”

“Taehyung!”

Is all you heard before the doors closed.

Okay… what was that about?

Did they talk about you?

Was this an ongoing thing? Taehyung never told you about Jungkook’s supposed obsession with banana milk (cute by the way). Does this mean anything?

You groan as you make your way back to your apartment. Your head was spinning Did he…or did he not? Or did Taehyung just tell him once about all your “interesting” conversations that

Jungkook just routinely started asking him about it?

Your heart thumped at all the possibilities.

Whatever the reason it seemed he had an okay opinion about you. Right? I mean the best outcome you can hope is to be his friend because from what you see in class, and what you’ve heard from Taehyung, Jungkook does seem like a cool and genuine guy. And you’re not doing him (or Taehyung) any justice by eavesdropping on their conversations and following them. At that moment you decided to stop your shy approach and borderline creepy behavior towards him. You were an adult for goodness sake not a love-struck teen. You were going to be more direct!

Your heart raced miles at your final decision.

The next couple of days you began your new resolution by approaching Jungkook first. Your conversations weren’t as complex nor were they as comfortable as with Taehyung. A light tension always seemed to linger as if you both had your own elephants roaming around the room. You ignored it as much as you could. You were grateful for when Taehyung was around to break the tension. This would lead to the three of you to develop a more easy-going conversation. You were just happy that you were able to learn things about Jungkook directly and not through a second source.

All this progress seemed to have gone down the drain one night when you were practicing a new defensive pose. Jungkook came up to you to slightly adjust your arms into the proper distance from your face and body. He smiles afterwards, urging you to feel the difference. You proudly do your complete pose and suppress a giggle when his smile widens. He’s so mesmerizing. Mino was out of the gymnasium, quickly running off saying he need to go to his office. So, you took this opportunity to have Jungkook all to yourself. You were less reserved around him now and were ready to break some more of the barriers between you two. It starts with you two laughing over Taehyung's obvious lie of pretending to be busy. He’s looking over some papers on the clipboard at the front of the matts. You wanted to see Jungkook laugh again as he jokingly comments on the students in front of Taehyung who are trying to get his attention.

“It’s all these fired up Sophomores” you began, hushing your voice as if telling him a secret.

“they’re so competitive and eager to please as if they are being paid to be here. All these little kids will soon face the real world and realize that no one cares”.

Jungkook nervously places his hand behind his neck, “Some of them have potential...”, he hesitantly mutters.

You snort, “potential or not. All little kids, sorry, sophomores are the same. They are all so overly passionate. I feel bad for them once they realize that there will always be someone better, prettier, and bigger than them out there. Haven’t we learned that by now?”.

You turn to Jungkook upon seeing his straight face. You must admit it wasn’t one of your best attempts of comadeire, but the way he was acting seemed like you offended his mother. You were about to apologize and voice your concern when Jungkook nervously laughs.

“Yeah, well…” He chuckles again defeatedly. “…there’s always someone better…”.

“Jungko-“

“I see you have all been working diligently as I was gone! Thank you! As a reward I think we should run a few laps around the gym”.

Jungkook skedaddles away at the voice of Mino. You’re left confused, pondering over your conversation. Can he not stand unfunny people? Were you really that bad? Did he find you to be some bitter old bully?

Once the class is over you jog up to Taehyung and Jungkook before they could get onto the elevators.

You wanted to make sure you were good with Jungkook. You knew you would be up all weekend trying to figure out what went wrong. You know it was something you said. Did he not like your joke? were you being a bit too mean? You didn’t mean it too much. It was just something Taehyung always joked about, so you thought it would be okay to do so as well. Making your way up to them you say the first thing that comes to your mind

“Hey, are you guys going to the Senior Party?” This senior party was for seniors only (unless you were a plus one) hosted by all the frats of school. They all come together to make a huge block party that is honestly favored upon by many and has everyone going.

“hmm not sure” Taehyung says, “Maybe, I’m kind of over frat parties”.

“Yeah…, but this IS the last Ho-rah”. Taehyung shrugs at your response.

“How about you?” you turn to face Jungkook making sure to make eye contact, afraid he’ll look away and avoid you as he has done for the rest of the class period.

Jungkook looks you straight on furrowing his eyebrows, “Why should I go?” he asks almost coldly.

“Oh” okay he hates me, you thought to yourself. “Well, I mean everyone usually goes”, you respond to him with a much more quitter voice now that all your confidence has disappeared.

“It’s only for seniors. I’m a Sophomore”.

Sophomore.

WHAT!?

Your mouth fell agape. And you only half registered Taehyung laughter as he smacks your back,

“____, didn’t you know Jungkook is a baby”.

You knew he was baby. You didn’t realize he was a baby.

Jungkook rolls his eyes at Taehyung's comment.

“I didn’t...I-I’ You stuttered “ Aren’t you in the advanced class and have all these achievements and- and”.

“Yeah” Jungkook sourly smirks “I guess I’m just like all those overly passionate kids”.

Taehyung laughs as if not catching the tone in Jungkook’s voice or the nervous energy you are sure that can be detected from miles away.

“He’s the king of the sophomores! Why do you think they are always crowding him like he’s their hero”.

“Right…” you look down on the floor. You didn’t offend his mother, you offended him. You’ve insulted him.

“Okay, well I’ll see you guys in the next class, Bye” you turn fast around and start speed walking home. You only faintly catch Taehyung’s boisterous “Bye!”.

This all makes sense, the students crowing him like he’s a king, him being insulted by your unfunny comment, Taehyung always picking on him. But the thing is that Taehyung CAN pick on him because they are friends, he’s teasing him. You are not friends with him. You have no right to talk to him or joke with him like that. Your stress levels rise because you never want to hurt someone, much less intentionally. He probably thinks you’re some big bully and know it all. Imagine what he has told Taehyung by now. What if you get shunned by both of them? This is so embarrassing, and you feel awful. You shouldn’t have run away. You should have confronted Jungkook and apologized to him. You should have cleared the air. But at that moment you were so confused and surprised your head was everywhere. Forget dating Jungkook he probably wouldn’t even want to be friends with you anymore.

All of your woes were heard by your three roommates on your living room floor. Picking at your blue fuzzy carpet you retold them everything. They first got mad at you for not telling them about these two good looking guys in your class and then they got even more mad at you for making a

lame joke that insulted Jungkook and then running away.

“You need to talk to him ___”

“You said: ‘Overly passionate sophomores, little kids’. Who even talks like that?”.

Taehyung does you want to point out but instead remain quiet as they continue their criticism and advice.

“Yeah, talk to him! Don’t even think about how you insulted the poor guy!”

“or how you said an odd and unfunny joke”

You never thought about dating young guys. You were always into the older type. You ask your friends about what you should do. They give you the advice you already knew inside your heart. Talk to him, apologize, and go for it.

You remembered that Jungkook is sporty and artsy. The Art building was your first stop. You don’t know his schedule and frankly you don’t want to know it. It would make you feel like a total creep if you knew it and purposely went looking for him. You didn’t want to repeat the ugly feeling you felt after the eavesdropping incident at the elevators. Instead you conceded with a coincidence. This was less guilty.

You entered the Student museum and browsed the artwork. You were so excited to see one of Taehyung’s art pieces hanging in display that you quickly took a photo of it and texted it to him. You momentarily forgot about what had happened. You hesitated to look at your phone after feeling its vibrations indicating Taehyung had replied. You quickly found the nearest restroom which wasn’t easy given you’ve never been inside this building. You entered a stall and opened the text. You were greeted with a “You should have told me you were going to be there I just left Campus” accompanied with two crying emojis. You felt a sigh of relief, as if you can breathe again. Taehyung is not mad at you. You replied with compliments and several hearts that Taehyung gleefully returned.

Your mornings were spent waiting in between classes in the student lounge, in the Art building, and walking laps around the Sport’s building and Gymnasium. You even peeked at the pool only to be flashed with multiple water polo swimmers climbing out of the pool. You blushed running away after making eye contact with the swimming coach. During the night when you had boxing, everything seemed like the beginning of the semester. You would talk with Taehyung as you always would but Jungkook…he was different. He would acknowledge you and would occasionally join you and Taehyung, but he wouldn’t be alone with you anymore. If he ever was he would just stay with you in silence. It would be such a peaceful quietness if you weren’t so confused and nervous on what his opinion of you was. You wanted to apologize to him, but he became much more competitive and almost aggressive during demonstrations. You felt this new form of intimidation towards him. Was he trying to send you a message? No, of course not. It was probably just finals. Most people were on edge during this time.

In the last month of the semester you coincidently found out (thanks to the students in class) that Jungkook has a drawing class 30 minutes after your last class on Friday. With this new information you made plans to sprint over to the Art building to meet Jungkook.

You were just walking down the hall of your building when you spotted… Jungkook?

Interesting.

Is this fate?

This is the time.

He stops next to a class door and leans against the wall, seemingly waiting for someone. You notice then his huge army backpack. For boxing class, he brings a big black duffle bag. This backpack caught you for surprise. You stopped in your tracks staring at the backpack because you’ve seen it before. Plenty of times. In the library, the parking lot, the convenience store in front of the east campus. You’ve sometimes seen it by just passing by. The bag was so big and almost ridiculous that you’re sure most of the student body knows of it. To think that the bag belonged to Jungkook. You’ve never bothered to look at the owner and when you did, they were either far away, at an angle in which you can’t see them, or they had a bucket hat or hoodie over their face. All this time it was Jungkook. To think if you’ve looked or spoken to the person you would have known Jungkook way sooner. All this wasted time.

Is this the coincidence you were dreaming of? Does any of it mean anything? At this point you don’t care. You’re going to talk to Jungkook! Whatever opportunity that is presented to you, you are going to take. You’re almost close to Jungkook, who doesn’t notice you as he’s immersed on his phone, when the classroom door opens with pouring students. You're slightly worried he’s going to leave as the students start obscuring your clear view of him. However, what you don’t miss is the way a pretty girl stops in front of him. He looks up to her and smiles shyly. You can’t really see her face at this angle. You only notice the way Jungkook takes her books from her and follows behind her as she walks to the opposite direction from you.

You felt like you were in a movie. You know the type when the main character is standing in one place and all around her there’s blurs of people moving about. The screen is colored gray and there's sad music playing as you're left there in a daze.

O-kay.

So.

Jungkook has a …he has a… (you can’t’ say it).

Jungkook is-what?

Dating? Has a girl? Not available? Hmmm, maybe he’s not interested in you.

Walking back to your apartment so many questions and conclusions flow around in your head.

Did you ever stop and think he maybe just wasn’t into you? Like what if he just didn’t like you? And not in a bad way. He just doesn’t want to pursue a romantic relationship with you. And here you were thinking he was lucky you were even considering a younger guy like him. Please. Who do you think you are? You’ve acted so arrogant and bitter around him you’re surprised someone as sweet as Taehyung and Jungkook even talks to you.

Reaching your apartment and heading straight to the shower, because the shower is where you make all your final resolutions and get all your ideas, you’ve come to the resolution that you need to stop moping around in class. Second, you like Jungkook, like-like. Third, you are heart broken. And lastly, maybe it’s just not meant to be.

Sometimes things can be blessings in disguises.

You cried in the shower.

Your beautiful roommates were once again there to support you! They even surprised you that weekend by having a little party amongst you and your closest friends. Irene, Maria, Seokjin, Yoongi, and even Mr. Busy Chef Seokjin came along. It was fun and you got drunk. You are going to be okay. You are going to forget Jungkook. It’s the end of the semester anyway and you are leaving town after graduation. It’s for the best.

Right?

Wrong.

Wrong on all parts. You very much like Jungkook. It was confirmed the next time you went to boxing class when your heart didn’t stop thumping. And wrong because you aren’t going to let it go. You felt ridiculous and pretty whore-ish when you still found yourself smiling at him (and did you coyly laugh at his joke just now?) even after knowing he has a girlfriend/ partner/dating/something. (A voice in your head was whispering into your heart that nothing is confirmed yet).

“Jungkook”, you called out his name after the announcements in class. You ran to him and staked your claim on him before anyone else can take him away from you, “Jungkook, can you help me with the exercise from last class, please?”.

He agreed. You walked behind him as he was already heading to your claimed corner. You noticed the disappointed faces of some of your classmates. Taehyung also had a confused face on as he was heading your way for you two to possibly gossip at your corner.

Jungkook helped you with your placements and speed. It was honestly helpful even if you did laugh a bit too loudly or moved in a way you hoped was sensual. At one point you ran out of things to hold him back with, so you must admit defeat and let him go. You smiled at him wildly as he moved to the next student. It was the last month, it wasn’t going to lead anywhere anyways. Which is why you’re trying your best. You were going to see him, talk to him, simply be by him because you’re probably never going to see him again after this.

You connect eyes with Taehyung as he’s walking directly to you. You both held a staring contest till he reached your side. He squints at you. You made a face of a “what”.

He coughed, “So…uhh…you like Jungkook or...?”

You choked on your spit. Were you that obvious?

“Huh? No. What? N-why?”

Taehyung looks at you, “ No reason, just asking.”

He slowly inches away clearly trying to make you less nervous. So, you force your body to relax and just laugh at his antics.

The rest of the class period Taehyung kept sending you looks or raising his eyebrows. You were nervous but soon started to become defensive. You would occasionally mouth “What” at him. Until at the end of class, he finally walked up behind you and whispered “Jungkook”. You jumped back in surprise at his deep voice and most importantly at the name of the owner of your heart.

“Taehyung!” you yelled at him. He laughed, only to stop when Jungkook joins you two. You blushed again and started rubbing your arm afraid Taehyung would tease you again. You all went to gather your things and headed towards the exit to leave class. Taehyung taps your arm to grab your attention. He made the motion of sealing and locking his lips, making it even more noticeable! Your eyes averted to Jungkook only to feel a wave of relief at seeing him typing away at his phone. Thank God.

You give him a face. He chuckles at you.

“Bye__” he said walking away. You rolled your eyes.

“Bye __” Jungkook said with his sweet melodic voice. You smiled at him.

It was the night of the Senior Party and you were ready to forget all about the cute guy in your boxing class. No, not Taehyung but Jungkook. Since you found out about his girlfriend you’ve tried hard to rewire your brain to think of him only as a friend. It was easy because he was such a gentle person. He was kind and funny and so very ambitious. You’ve grown to admire him in many ways. You were happy at where your relationship was (even though you would still like to be involved with him…*cough*romantically….). You weren’t going to be no homewrecker even if it pains your heart to see him smile or see him ruffle his bouncy hair.

Who are you kidding? You are in love with him.

However tonight you are going to forget about him. Tonight was about finally graduating and having a fun night with your friends. You, your roommates and other friends all meet up at a local restaurant before the party. It was fun there stuffing your faces and emptying your glasses, you almost forgot about the party. So, before the buzz faded away you all slipped into an uber off to the streets of the Frats and Sororities that are hosting the party. You were sad that Taehyung wasn’t going to be there. You wanted to introduce him to your friends. A few months ago, he told you he wasn’t going to go and instead booked a trip up North to go camping with his friends Namjoon, Jimin, and Hoseok. Friends who were equally as handsome you thought to yourself last night as you scrolled through his Instagram feed and viewed his story. You should’ve accepted his invite when he jokingly asked you to tag along. Maybe then you would move on from…him.

With your short skirts, dresses and skinny jeans you all swayed into the blockparty-eque event. The music was loud and there were so many people dancing and running around.

“This is practically a carnival, we're only missing the rides” Sohee shouts over the music.

“Lets just go to the main house” you yell back at them.

You all walk the short distance to the largest house in the block, the main source of the party where the DJ, drinks and food is located. Inside the house was empty of furniture leaving every room as a makeshift dance platform.

“This looks complicated!” Sohee complains furrowing her eyebrows “Where do we even begin”

“Lets just look around!” Taeyeon excitedly states turning her head around. You were prepared to see her make a 360 turn. She was Minah's friend who you were surprised to see come to the party. She was a Junior and it wasn’t until the girls told you that night that plus ones were allowed regardless of their year so long as they are students at the University. If you would’ve known you would have “jokingly” invited Jungkook.

After scoping out the house, your group ended up stealing a bag of chips and red cups of lemon soda and vodka. You decided to go to the house next door which belonged to a sorority. (“Maybe they’ll have better drinks” Minah complained).

Entering the house was like a new world, the lights were off and the music was not blaring. It seemed more chill. You walked deeper into the house that had a great atmosphere. Upon entering the kitchen you see the island decked out in different snacks and even mini cupcakes. There is flavored beers and a variety of vodkas, tequilas, juices, and soda. You’ve all shared glances with smiles in your faces. This is your place. You've all grabbed your drinks and you managed to fit two mini cupcakes in your hands before you made your way into the main living room, which like the frat house, was bare of any furnishing. Leaning against the wall with Minah who grabbed cotton candy you sipped on your drinks as you watched the others invade the dance floor.

“You think this was supposed to be a private party?” She asks cutting off a chunk of her cotton candy to feed you.

You thought for a second letting the candy melt in your mouth.

“No,” you told her, meeting her eye. You both laughed. “It would be really stupid if it was, I mean it is the Senior Party thing”.

“Yeah but what if it is and they kick us out”.

You shrugged “Whatever were gone in two weeks anyways. Besides it's on them for hosting it on the same night”.

“I don’t know” Minah continued out with her cotton candy slipping her drink in between each bite. You weren’t sure if she was drunk and just saying something or was actually concerned. You peered your eyes on her face as if to see her better. She was zoned out.

Rolling your eyes you start to look around trying to see your dancing group of friends to join them. You were done with your cupcakes and were ready to drag yourself to them. You thought you saw the Blue sparkle of Tara’s dress. You focused more on the spot only to see these blue sparkles wearing Tara seeming to be dancing or should I say “hugging” someone.

"Oh my gosh, ! LOOK LOOK!” you said slapping Minahs arm.

“What?", she said, trying to catch what you're looking at.

“Tara! She's got herself-“ Your words died in your mouth. For as your eyes traced along this person dress they were meant with a head that did not belong to Tara. First, poor Tara who has the same dress as someone in this room. Second, this person is none other then that girl that Jungkook was with. Your mouth was stood agape for even if your heart broken at the reminder of that girl and the fact that Jungkook was not yours. Your heartbreak and slight jealousy was soon replaced with confusion and then anger. Isn’t this Jungkook's girlfriend? What is she doing grinding on someone who is not Jungkook? No, this guy was not him because you know this guy! He's the famous school pianist whose faces are plastered all over the music building and concert highlights. Min Yoongi. What is she doing? So because Yoongi is a school celeb she's just going to do Jungkook wrong like that. Pretty Jungkook, who smiled at her with a hopeful look in his eyes and carried her books around like some servant. Is your poor baby being played? How dare she? Does she not realize how blessed she is?

“Minah”, you hand her your drink, “wait here”.

You don’t bother for her response and only hear a “what?”

You don’t have time to fill her in about this snake because your adrenaline is pumping in. Maybe it's the alcohol or maybe it's your devotion towards Jungkook. All in the name of love. And if you're not going to be kicked out because it's a private party, you'll probably be kicked out for fighting. You didn’t take boxing for nothing.

Okay…

Maybe not. You're not sure what you're doing and even though you're angry and feel like you need to regain Jungkook's honor, you do have the same part of your brain working and yelling at you to turn back. What the hell do you think you are doing? And who the hell do you even think you are?

You could be on your way to making a complete fool of yourself. But no, you will do anything for Jungkook. Even if it turns out this person is Jungkook's girlfriend's twin and you reveal yourself to be a complete stalker and weirdo.

Your steps seem to move slowly and your skin burning hot from your anger now turns to anxiety. But it was like you couldn’t stop as you neared yourself to her. If you couldn’t confess to Jungkook this was an alternative outlet. By protecting his dignity.

Gosh, is it hot or are you just sweating?

And like a miracle sent from heaven you felt a cold hand wrap itself around your arm halting you in your steps. You tuned your head to see… JUNGKOOK?

“___” he says almost relieved.

You're confused and agaped. You're so caught off guard that you don’t manage to hide your opening mouth.

“Hey” he says softly, almost whispering. He quickly removes his hand around your arm.

His voice brings you back to reality. He always grounds you and neutralizes the nerves in your body. All by being near Jungkook's smiling face.

His smiling face that will soon turn bad. Your stress increases. Your eyes jump from his face to his girlfriend who is still dancing on Yoongi. Jungkook follows your eyes as he notices the stress evident on your face. What's wrong? Jungkook slightly steps in front of you as if to shield you from whatever your eyes keep returning to.

You reach out your hand trying to stop Jungkook from seeing the scene of his girlfriend dancing with another guy, but it's too late. Jungkook is staring ahead for a couple seconds.

Jungkook looks around trying to see what is catching your attention. He catches the sight of his cousin dancing on some guy. Putting a childish face on when she turns her head over to make out with him. Jungkook turns back to you with concern on his face at your still evident distress.

You watch as Jungkook quickly turns around. You see his concerned eyes and frowned lips. No, not to Jungkook. This won't happen to him, you wont allow it. Regaining your energy to confront this snake you move closer to him

“I’m sorry”

“So you want a drink?”

Is he trying to change the subject? Maybe they just broke up and you just reopened his wound.

You give him a smile of sympathy and pull him in for a hug. Yes, you were being forward but you are proud to admit that you didn’t hug him with any malicious or secretive motive. You just care for him so much that you want him to always be happy. You don’t know what happened between him and his girlfriend but you want him to know that he has you. That it is okay.

Jungkook stills in your embrace. You hug him tighter and are happy to finally feel him relax into your hug wrapping his arms around your lower body.

Jungkook is surprised and perhaps dreaming. When you jumped into his embrace he almost didn't know what he did to earn this. Your perfume was swaying in his brain until he saw the teasing expression on his cousin's face.

She winked at him, which caused his cheeks to heat up. So he quickly pulls away from you and coughs.

“So uhh, no drink?” he asks once more unsure of what to say.

You saw his blushing face, maybe you did too much but you couldn’t stop yourself from continuing when you heard a loud laugh at your side. You turn and sure enough see her laughing with the guy.

You step closer to Jungkook so you could whisper slowly to him, "Did you guys break up?”

Jungkook tilts his head in confusion but before he can continue you stop him.

“Its okay you don’t have to tell me, I’m sorry”

“__what are you sorry for?”

You nod your head towards her who continues to dance with the “other man”.

Jungkook squints his eyes at you after having looked in the direction that you head nodded towards. You see the confusion settle onto his face, waiting for you to continue whatever observation you are trying to make.

You decided to end his misery, 'He's obviously too embarrassed to admit it' you thought to yourself.

"I saw you guys together...", you say, trying your best to say the rest with your eyes. You watch as the realization hits his face. His lips formed a tiny 'oh', only to let out an "ah" followed by a short chuckle.

Following his amused response you felt embarrassed. Maybe you stepped out of line and he's going to thank you for rubbing salt into his wounds.

"Sorry" you blurt out trying to save what's left of the respect Jungkook has for you. " I should've stayed quiet..".

At this Jungkook laughs loudly only ending it with a...a coo? He leans closer to your ear so you can hear him clearly.

"Follow me"

You don't got to be told twice.

You follow him through the throngs of people, pass the kitchen, through the back door. You almost tumbled out the door but was captured by the cold air hitting your skin. You rub your arms weary of letting Jungkook see because you didn't want him to reconsider the whole idea and go back inside. You wanted to be alone with him out here. it was nice. You followed him to the bench that rocked back and forth. It was gray with a top cover. He sat on it waiting for you to join him as he tried his best to stabilize the bench by planting his feet to the ground. You gave him a small 'thanks' as you settled yourself next to him. You made sure to keep enough space between the two as to not make him uncomfortable.

Jungkook felt his heart beat in his chest a contrast to the cool night that was at a standstill compared to the house and loud music not only a few feet away. He was grateful for the noise and lights that came from the house and fencing of the backyard, as it gave his shaky breath a cover from being heard by you. He sneaked a glance at you and saw as you sat seated next to him. You followed him out here into the cold. He noticed as you rubbed your hands on your arms. At this point Jungkook knows what comes next. He should offer you his jacket, but he wasn't wearing anything. He opted for a button down, he had no reason for any other fabric. He thought he would spend most of the night in a packed house or street with so much body heat. He felt like a kid scared to look at their crush. He didn't know what to do from this point on. Having a surge of confidence at the probability that you cared for him. If you being concerned about his alleged heartbreak was anything to go by. Jungkook wants to hold onto the care you had for him no matter how small it was. He knew you were a senior who was set to go out of town. His dreams of being with you seemed like a lost hope by now. At this point he just wanted to stay by your side, just to talk, even if just for a day.

One thing Jungkook became sure of as you both stared silently at the moon was that this right here was more than he could have ever wished for.

You were the one to break the silence.

You figured you should clear the air after your assumptions.

"So how are you holding out?"

Jungkook was about to give you a generic answer until he remembered what happened inside.

"I feel perfect" he answered honestly

You give him a confused look.

Man, you thought for sure Jungkook would be heartbroken, now you're thinking of the possibility that he left her.

Jungkook suppressed his giggles and decided to come clean to you. To tell you the truth. That's all he wants for the both of you.

"You know you can come to the senior bash if you're invited by a senior"

You nod not sure where this is going.

"I asked my cousin to let me go with her" Your eyes widened

Cousin?

"I was going to go with Taehyung but he had other plans. My cousin said yes...with the condition that I become her "assistant", Jungkook makes air quotations at the word. You smiled at the playful annoyance. "So I helped her with her courses, and followed her around everywhere. Honestly". He leans in closer pointing at the colorful lights that adorned the roof of the house. "You see those lights? I hung them up all yesterday and when you go inside that dessert table was recently bought from Ikea, I had to set it up". He slumps his shoulders.

"So was it worth it?" you ask not helping the giggles that escape your mouth at his behavior.

Jungkook turns to face you. The first time you both make eye contact since reaching the bench.

"Yeah" he says softly, "I'll say it was worth it".

You avert your eyes and turn your face. A struggle but your fear of letting him see the absolute shyness you knew ozed out won over. You needed to protect yourself and most importantly him. You didn't want to scare him or offend him anymore then you already have.

Not wanting to lose the momentum of the conversation, Jungkook spurts out the first thing in his mind.

"So where are you going after you graduate?"

For some reason you didn't want to answer. It would make it way more real. The fact that you wouldn't see him anymore and that hurt. At that moment with the distant music that pouned throughout the earth, with the laughter you hear from inside the house, the light of the moon and lights from the house, the coldness that you feel around your arms and neck become fuel for you. If this was going to be your last moment with him then you should make the best out of it. Maybe even let yourself become vulnerable in every sense of the word. If just for one day, you wanted to be completely honest and open with Jungkook.

"I got an internship two hours away" you say looking at the ground, "I'll be kind of far, but maybe not so much" you don't know what you're saying, mostly just trying to convince yourself. You looked at him and are willing to say he looked almost sad. You don't know why he looks down now. You just know it made you feel worse. You want your time with him to be happy and fun. Even if it hurts later. You don't know why hes sad and you may make yourslef look completely stupid but in this moment you wieghed your options. If he answers positively you can leave with hope. If it's negative...well...at least you won't have to see him again. That thought makes you frown and scares you. It scares you so much that you couldn't even stop yourself from asking the next question if you tired.

"Do you want to wait for me?"

You both look surprised at your question.

Jungkook remains silent, so you repeat the question already feeling the adrenaline rush from your confession.

"Jungkook, do you want to wait for me?" You ask him again with hopeful eyes.

"Ar-are you pr-proposing?" He was so in shock he didn't have time to register his childhood stutter to make an appearance.

Normally you would have been frozen out of embarrassment and shock. Truthfully, you were bewildered at your actions. But it must be the power of the moon that shines above you both. Or maybe it's the alarm in your heart telling you this may be your only chance. You take a breath and give jungkook a soft smile. One that said 'yes I like you and it's okay if you don't'. You watch as he takes a moment to gather himself.

Hmm.. maybe you should have been more clear on your love confession. You were about to open your mouth to explain when he turned his body to face you. He reaches out for your hand to hold it in between his two large ones. You watch as your hands disappear inside of his.

Okay, maybe you were freaking out a little bit.

The warmth from his hands begins to travel from your arm to all of your body. Your heart beating fast against your chest as you decided to finally look him in the eye.

"Why wait?" Jungkook says.

FIN

#jk #jungkook #bts #taehyung #boxing #college au #bts fic #jk fic #jungkook fic

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

Text

Catch Me If You Can (39/40)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

a/n: thank you to @resident-of-storybrooke for literally everything, to @imagnifika for this banner, and to all of you for all of your support on this story and on others. I never expected to get quite so attached to this one, so I like that you guys are too. Misery loves company and all that. lol.

I hope you enjoy the last real chapter. The epilogue will be coming soon! ❤️⚾️

(If there’s any weird formatting, hop on over and read on AO3. Tumblr is being funky with my formatting.)

AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40

-/-

Outside, thunder rolls, quickly followed by a flash of lightning that illuminates the bedroom.

It’s raining.

Raining.

On the final day of the World Series.

Fuck.

Emma jolts up in bed so quickly that her head gets a little dizzy, all of the blood that’s supposed to be in other parts of her body very obviously in the wrong space, and she has to shut her eyes to keep from throwing up while the sound of rain continues to pitter outside, a continual drip that she doesn’t want to be hearing.

It cannot rain today.

After a few seconds, when Emma’s head feels normal again and not like she’s about to feel dizzy enough to fall down even without standing, she opens her eyes and twists to the side to make sure that Killian is still sleeping.

He isn’t.

In fact, he’s not even in bed.

For a moment, Emma wonders if she should bother to go and find him or let him be by himself wherever he is in the apartment. He was understandably quiet on the entire way home and through dinner last night, and she could practically see all of the gears turning in his head. There’s an unwritten list up there of how he wants to pitch to each and every batter on the Dodgers today, and Emma is almost positive that Killian is currently going through it and changing his game plan over and over again until he perfects it.

Considering the fact that her phone says it’s three in the morning, Emma is thinking that she needs to drag Killian back to bed. He may not fall asleep, but he can at least stay in bed so that his body gets a little bit of rest. Maybe he’ll fall asleep. Maybe he won’t. But it’s worth the effort.

Sighing, Emma pulls the thick covers off of her legs and adjusts her pajama pants so that they’re not hanging below her ass from where they shifted in her sleep. She doesn’t bother turning any lights on, the city and the storm bringing in enough that she can see without it, and after walking out into the hallway, Emma doesn’t even have to look in the spare bedroom or the gym to find Killian.

He’s sitting on the window seat in the living room, his legs pulled up to his chest and his cheek resting against the window as he looks outside, very obviously awake.

Killian is going to stress himself out far too much.

Quietly, she makes her away over to him, and while he doesn’t say anything to acknowledge her presence, he does let his legs fall open in obvious invitation for her to join him on the seat. She does, slowly adjusting herself to make herself comfortable while Killian wraps his arms around her stomach so that the warmth of his palms permeates over her skin to warm her from the chill of the apartment. It’s November in two days, but New York is already cold.

There’s a brush of scruff against her cheek followed by the soft press of lips against the underside of her jaw before Emma sees the reflection in the window of Killian resting his chin on the top of her head.

His fingers tap against her stomach in a pattern that she doesn’t recognize, but she doesn’t mind. She may have come out here to convince Killian to come back to bed, to get some rest so he won’t be like a zombie out on the field today, but there’s something almost soothing about watching the rain fall down to the ground to cover the street under the florescent lighting of the street lamps. Even with the thunder, the sound of rain is relaxing, and Emma can understand why Killian was out here being consumed by it.

(She’d still prefer the rain to stop.)

“What are you thinking about?” Emma whispers.

“You.”

“Liar.”

Killian chuckles, something deep in his belly, and she can feel it reverberate throughout her back from where he’s pressed up into her. “I mean, at this particular moment I was legitimately thinking about how good you smell, but no, I haven’t been thinking about you and the softness of your hair the entire time.”

“Damn. I thought our deal was that you always had to think of me and nothing else. Don’t you love me?”

Killian squeezes her stomach. “It’s too early in the morning for you to be so cheeky.”

“Says the man who probably never even went to sleep.”

“I did go to sleep,” he sighs, and Emma watches his eyes flutter closed in the window. “I maybe woke up an hour or so ago to use the restroom, and my mind just…it didn’t bloody turn off. I have changed mine and Al’s game plan at least seven times.”

Wow. She knows him so well. It’s almost a little ridiculous. Not that she’s complaining.

“Let’s…” Emma hesitates, not sure what exactly what to say that she hasn’t already said. “Let’s talk about something other than baseball, okay? We will talk about it after we’ve gone back to sleep and gotten some rest, but for now, this apartment is a no baseball zone. So, talk to me about literally anything else.”

His fingers keep tapping against her stomach, and Emma moves to place her hands over his, a silent reminder that she’s right here and not going anywhere. She may have run before, may have not known what to do when he lied about his shoulder and his accident and everything that came with that, but she’s not going to run now.

This entire relationship has been terrifying, but she’s glad that she took the leap. They’ve conquered some big freaking mountains.

“I’ve emailed someone to see what I need to do to finish my degree.”

Emma almost jolts forward so that she can turn to look at him, but Killian doesn’t let her, holding onto her that slightest bit tighter so that she loses a little bit of her breath.

“When did you decide to do that?”

“A couple weeks ago.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Wasn’t sure if I was going to go through with it. I’m…I’m still not sure when exactly I’ll go back. The woman said they could arrange online classes for me, and they can help arrange a different schedule. I don’t know if I’d start during the off season and see how many credits I can finish before next season starts up. Or maybe I’ll go all year round even while playing. I could always wait until I’m retired, but I don’t exactly want to do that.”

Emma tries to take it all in and figure out the best way to respond to him. This is obviously something Killian has thought about a lot. There’s not a reason in the world for Killian to have to go back to school. He’s not going to be a physics teacher or professor any time soon, if at all, so this is obviously something he’s decided to do for himself just to have as an accomplishment.

Killian deserves to get to do things for himself.

“I think you’ll figure out exactly how you want to do it, babe. I’m really proud of you for doing that.”

“It’s nothing to be proud of.”

“Too bad.” She pats his hand again and shifts her head back so that she can kiss the underside of his jaw. “I’m proud of you. Unless this is some kind of long con to actually become professor Jones so that Will can’t say it mockingly anymore.”

He chuckles, and she kisses his jaw again. “Damn. You’ve foiled my plan.”

“I knew it,” she yawns, unable to cover her mouth with her hands. “You know, when I graduated from college, I got some kind of fancy ink pen that I never used. They gave them to all of the journalism majors. What do you think they’d give physics majors? Calculators?”

“No, because we’d already own a hell of a lot of those. I might need to get some new ones, though. And possibly find some old books and go through them. It’s been almost a decade. I’m not sure I even remember anything.”

“We can go back to school shopping for you. We’ll have to take a picture of you in your cute little outfit with your backpack on your shoulders. I’ll put it on the fridge and everything.”

“You realize I’m doing this online so I’ll just be wearing my regular clothes sitting on my ass in here. I may not even wear clothes while I’m doing it.”

“Well, I can still put that picture on the fridge, but we’ll have to take it down every time someone comes over. No one needs to see that much of you.”

Killian practically purrs in her ear as he trails hot kisses down the side of her neck, and it sends chills down her spine and up over her skin. “You certainly do. You could see it now if you want to.”

Emma brings her bottom lip between her teeth and tries to rein in any budding arousal. “As tempting as that sounds, you and I are both deliriously tired, and I really only came out here to get you to come back to bed…to sleep. We should go do that.”

Teeth bite down onto her neck. “Fine. That seems like the sensible thing to do, and as an almost college man, I have to be sensible, right?”

“Or binge drink and then study all night for a test at the last minute even though you had weeks to study for it?”

“Do people still do that?”

“I think so.”

“We’re really old, Swan.”

“Yeah,” she sighs as she stands from the bench and pulls Killian up with her, “but I think we’ve still got it.”

Emma easily falls back asleep, especially when Killian closes the curtains and turns on the box fan to drown out the sound of the storm outside, and while she doesn’t really know when Killian fell asleep, he’s slumbering away when she wakes up, his breath coming out in small puffs and his hair falling over his forehead. The weight of the world isn’t on his shoulders right now. He’s not thinking about what he’s got to do today or not do today, and Emma hopes that he sleeps as long as he can.

Hopefully right up until he needs to eat breakfast and go to practice.

But hopes are not always reality, and in reality, Killian wakes up a little past nine and all of the tenseness in his body returns. She can see it in the set of his shoulders and the way that he carries himself as he does some stretches to loosen his body up before making breakfast and getting on with his morning routine. She’s terrified, her stomach absolutely in knots, but she’s not going to tell him that. Emma is sure that he’s aware that she’s in this and wants this for both herself and for him, but she’s not going to tell him and put any extra pressure on them.

It’s more than just one man out there. It’s more than just Killian, but Emma understands how Killian works. If they win, he won’t take any credit for it. If they lose, it’ll be entirely his fault. She’s sure he’s talked himself into thinking otherwise, but his brain will revert back to that.

The storm in the night seems to have disappeared, the streets beginning to dry even if large puddles of rain water are left in dips in the cement, and according to all forecasts, it should be dry enough for them to play today. There are supposed to be light sprinkles, maybe a scattered storm or two, but it’s all sunshine when the game is scheduled to start. If there are any delays, Emma hopes that they aren’t long.

Killian may very well lose his mind.

(She may too.)

He’s currently showering, and while she hasn’t been keeping track of how long he’s been in there, it’s been long enough for her to curl her hair. She’s entirely sure that the humidity is going to cause it to frizz and fall flat, and the network will probably have her hair constantly attached to a curling iron and hair spray until her hair is like a bird’s nest of tangles and product.

Whatever it takes to look good on TV today, right?

She’s supposed to wear a dress or a skirt, something form flattering and attractive for television, but since there are no technical rules as long as she stays dressed, Emma completely ignores that suggestion in favor or her favorite jeans, a pair of trusty boots, and one of Killian’s jerseys, buttoning it up and tucking the front into her jeans. She’ll have to put on a sweater later to combat the cold, but she doesn’t want to do that just yet.

It’s ridiculous, but putting on the sweater means it’s time to go and she’s just…she’s not ready. They need a little more time.

“Are you wearing my jersey?”

Emma jumps and clutches her hand against the chain around her neck that’s visible with the way the jersey is buttoned up. She did not hear the shower turn off or hear Killian open the bathroom door. But considering he’s standing in the doorway with a towel wrapped low around his waist, he obviously did.

“Yeah?”

“What about – ”

Emma shrugs, a smile stretching across her lips. “Fuck them. I don’t give a damn about what anyone has to say. I can do my job while also dating you. It’s not a mutually exclusive thing, and today is a big day. If I want to wear the jersey, I can wear it now.”

Both of Killian’s brows rise high on his forehead, but he’s smiling too as his arms cross over his chest so that his muscles bulge the slightest bit. “I think this is the most attractive you’ve ever been.”

“Because I’m wearing your jersey? I thought we’d gone over that before. I – ”

“No,” he laughs with a shake of his head. “Because you’re saying fuck ‘em to all of the people who we both know will say shit about you wearing that. I personally think they should all pull the sticks out of their asses, but then what would they have to talk about?”

“Happy things?”

“Nah, that’s too boring for them.” Killian walks toward her, a definite swagger in his stride, and the cool tips of his fingers come up to touch her cheeks as he cups her face and brings his lips down to move over hers, slowly and thoroughly kissing her until she can’t breathe. It’s the good kind of breathless, though. “I don’t know if I’m going to kick ass today, but I know that you are. It’s pretty much undeniable.”

“You’re going to kick ass. Think it into existence, twenty-nine.”

“Yeah, but I don’t…I don’t know. I – ”

Emma sighs, and she swears it goes all the way down to her bones. There’s only so much she can say. At the end of the day, Killian has to be the one to believe in himself.

“You know,” she starts as her hand reaches up to her neck so that her fingertips ghost over the cool metal again, “about two months ago I had this really big thing happen to me, and I don’t think I’d ever been that nervous. Well, that was until my idiot boyfriend decided to play with an injured rotator cuff because he was too dumb to say something to anyone.”

Killian playfully rolls his eyes, but she sees his jaw tick. Still such a stubborn ass.

“Anyways,” Emma continues as she reaches up to unclasp the necklace, grabbing onto it and the ring before guiding her hand up to his where they’re still resting on her cheeks. Killian’s blue eyes widen so that she can see every color in them, and they get the slightest bit bluer when she places the ring in his palm and closes his fingers over it. “I was given this really beautiful, special ring so that I had a reminder that someone was cheering me on even when I couldn’t hear the cheers. You had this for a lot of years. I think you might need it back.

Killian’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down before he starts shaking his head from side to side, his eyes closed so that black lashes land against his cheeks.

“No, no, no. I’m just…no, Swan. I’m not taking it back.”

“It’s your mom’s ring.”

He opens his eyes then so that she’s consumed by the blue even as he steps away so that they’re no longer touching each other. Has she done something wrong?

“Aye, my love,” he mumbles even as he opens up the chain and wraps it around her, easily clasping it back so that it hangs around her neck once more. “It was my mom’s, but I gave it to you. I’m not taking it back. It’s yours now.” Killian smiles at her, the soft one that makes his eyes crinkle that she’s come to know as her own, before bringing his closed fist to his chest and tapping right over his heart. “I know right here that people are cheering for me. I know that my mom, my family – I know that you are cheering for me no matter what happens out there today.”

Emma’s not crying. She swears that she’s not crying and that the tears in her eyes are allergies or something, but that would be a lie. It would because she loves him a ridiculous amount, and she’s proud of him over everything that he’s done and been working toward lately.

He’s a good man with a good heart, and he deserves all of the world.

Stepping forward, Emma reaches up to tuck his wet hair behind his ear as her thumb traches over the apple of his cheekbone. “I love you, and I don’t care what Liam or Elsa or Addy says. I’m your biggest fan in that stadium today, and I promise I’ll be cheering you on no matter what happens. Tonight, win or lose, you and I are celebrating, okay? We’re going to sit in our pajamas stuffing our face with all of the food that you’ve been stress baking, and we’re going to drink copious amounts of alcohol.”

He arches his brow. “This sounds unhealthy.”

“You’ll have either won or lost the freaking World Series. I think we deserve a little unhealthy.”

“I think you might be right,” Killian chuckles, dipping his head down to slant his lips over hers. “I love you too, by the way. I’m probably going to tell you that a lot today.”

“You won’t hear any complaints from me.”

“I don’t believe that at all.” He winks, and Emma swears that her heart flutters. “I’m going to get dressed, and then we can go to the stadium, okay? I want to get my practice in early in case it does rain again.”

“Yeah, sounds perfect.”

-/-

The stadium is nothing like it was yesterday morning. There’s no empty field that’s covered in morning dew with a quiet air around it that allows someone to simply sit out there and think about the history of this place that’s happened before and the history that’s still to come both for the team and for each individual player and for those who love them. People are bustling everywhere. Vendors are already in their stalls, executives are walking up and down the hallways in their suits, heels clacking along the tile, and players are seemingly everywhere. Emma wasn’t quite expecting anyone to be in the clubhouse, maybe just a few people, but they’re all watching old tapes, eating food, stretching, and bouncing strategy back and forth.

It’s like being thrown into chaos with no hope of getting out, but Emma manages to when Ariel pops up out of nowhere with a bright smile on her face that only broadens the moment she sees Emma.

“Perfect.” Ariel claps together her hands. “Just the couple I was looking for.”

Emma points to herself. “Us?”

“Yep. Things are about to get really crazy today, and I need the two of you to pose for a picture before we forget. It’s just perfect that you’re wearing his jersey.”

“Why do you need a – ”

“Just go with it, Swan,” Killian laughs as he wraps his arm around her waist and tugs her closer so that Emma can rest her hand on Killian’s chest. “When it comes to A, it’s best to obey.”

“That sounds like a great motto.”

“Kind of like a cult, though.”

“Just a little bit.”

“Shut up,” Ariel groans as she lifts her phone in the air. “And smile, I mean. Don’t look like I’m forcing you to do this.”

“But you – ”

Emma doesn’t get to finish her sentence before Killian is squeezing her hip and making her squeal as he brushes his lips against her cheek so that his scruff scratches at her skin like the asshole that he is.

But at least he’s an asshole in a good mood.

“Perfect,” Ariel sighs. “Now, Emma, I need you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s about to get even crazier in here, and I’m saving you from the madness.”

Emma doesn’t even get a chance to tell Killian goodbye or good luck before Ariel is dragging her by her forearm out of the clubhouse and down the hallways of the stadium going on and on about everything that’s going to happen today like Emma doesn’t already know. Of course, there are several things that Emma didn’t know. Apparently, her plan for she and Killian to go home and eat junk food and get drunk isn’t really going to happen. He’s got press obligations that far exceed anything that she does, and then there’s usually some kind of team celebration that they all do together. It could be moved to the next day, but that’s usually reserved as an off day before the city does a parade and other celebrations and…

This is only if they win.

Emma points that out, and Ariel immediately corrects her and says “when.” She’s convinced that they’re going to win, and she will not take any other kind of thinking around her. Positive vibes only.

Emma and Killian are totally going home and eating junk food and possibly getting drunk before falling in bed. To sleep. Everything else can wait. And if it can’t, fine. They’ll deal with that and do all of the celebrations and be happy about it because it’s a really big deal, but at some point in the next week, they’re both locking the door, turning off their phones, and then not letting anyone or anything bother them.

Unless it’s the food delivery guy. He can bother them.

But that’s it.

She’s gained approximately ten new wrinkles on her face in the past two weeks, none of them coming from being a year older, and Emma very much needs the season to be over for her own sanity.

Without a doubt, she’ll start to miss baseball in no less than two weeks.

Ariel Fisher, however, lives and breathes baseball and managing baseball players and quite possibly being the most supportive woman on the planet – and that includes Mary Margaret Nolan and her continual positivity – and even if the Yankees sucked, she would somehow cause them to win by her willpower alone.

Emma has known her in a personal capacity for over half a year now, and she’s still not used to all of the never-ending energy. Ariel probably had a full night’s sleep last night. Or maybe she didn’t sleep at all, and she’s in that stage of sleep deprivation where everything is heightened and you’re hyperactive.

Emma would bet on the latter of the two.

But Ariel does eventually finish talking once they’ve made it far away from offices and weight rooms and restaurants up to the suites that Emma is so familiar with now. She’s also familiar with all of the people waiting inside. Killian’s family doesn’t joke around when it comes to baseball. There is no reason for them to be here this early, and yet here they are.

And suddenly Ariel has disappeared, probably off to talk someone else’s ears off.

“That isn’t rain.”

“That most definitely is rain.”

“Anna,” Kris sighs as he and Anna stand at the windows looking out to the field, “that’s rain. It’s this thing that happens when – ”

“I don’t need a science lesson. I need it to stop.”

“I’m pretty sure the entire team is doing some kind of rain prevention dance downstairs because I think we all need it to stop.”

Everyone turns to look at her like they didn’t hear she and Ariel come in.

“Emma,” Lucy shouts, scrambling up from the couch to run toward her and tackle Emma in a hug that’s quickly joined by Addy.

“Hey, girls. Are you guys excited?”

“I’m bored,” Addy sighs out, which is not at all what Emma was expecting.

“Bored? How can you be bored?”

“Because I want the game to start! It’s taking too long, and we’ve been in here forever.”

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” Liam tells Emma as he walks over to her and scoops up his daughter while bending to kiss Emma on the cheek. “But we’ve been very impatient with waiting even though whining isn’t going to speed up the game time.”

“So it’s been a fun morning in your house then?” Emma asks.

Liam rolls his eyes, and even though he and Killian don’t look too much alike, she can see the resemblance there. “Joyous. And from my chat with Killian this morning, I can tell it was about the same at yours with the sleepless night.”

“Well, it is a big day today.”

“Just look up the weather forecast, Anna,” Elsa groans as she moves to rest her head against the countertop. “It’s supposed to rain in the middle of the game. We have known that the entire time, but the sun is literally coming out. It will be dry enough to start play on time.”

Emma arches her brow. “Was Elsa the one not sleeping?”

“Yeah,” Liam mumbles as he adjusts Lucy on his hip, “yeah, she was. She and Addy sat in the living room all night because they couldn’t sleep. I expect them to crash soon.”

“I’m fine,” Elsa promises even as she takes a sip of coffee out of the largest mug Emma has ever seen. “I’m exhausted, but I’m fine. Where in the world did Ariel go?”

“I have no idea. She was here and then she wasn’t. I’m not even sure why she pulled me away from the clubhouse. It’s all been a bit of a blur.”

“Her nickname could be The Blur or something ridiculous like that. She’s always zooming in and out of rooms.”

“How’s Killian?” Anna asks as she steps away from the windows. “Is he freaking out? Has he tried to run away yet?”

Emma’s hand reaches up to toy with her necklace, moving the ring from side to side and choosing not to worry about the weather any more than she already has. “He’s fine. He’s freaking out, but he’s fine. All he needs is for the game to start so he can stop psyching himself out.”

“I want the game to start too,” Addy whines once more as she falls out on the couch and throws her arm over her eyes.

“Darling,” Liam laughs, “have we ever considered that we made her too big of a fan?”

Elsa shrugs. “I don’t think we ever even had a choice.”

Emma stays up in the suite talking and eating cheeseburger sliders and drinking hot chocolate for the next hour, and it’s enough distraction that she doesn’t really think about what’s going on and the nerves radiating deep from her stomach and out to every inch of her. That only really begins when she has to officially start working, leaving the suite to walk to the ESPN booth and get her microphone hooked up to her and prepped for the start of the game. They have her hair curled again, just like she thought, and Isaac and James most definitely eye the jersey she has on. Emma ignores them, even if she does put on her sweater and take the raincoat the network offers her, and leaves the booth to go find the spot they have saved for her behind home plate.

People are filling the stands, a hushed murmur covering the stadium as the sun continues to peek through dark clouds, and Emma’s eyes are stuck on Killian as he continues the last of his pre-game warm-ups.

This exact day last year was one of the craziest days of her life, and she doesn’t think any of it could compare to this.

“You look like you’re going to vomit,” Jeff murmurs as he sets up the protective cover over his camera.

“I kind of feel like I am. Don’t date someone on the team. It’s too much.”

“I think I’m safe in that department.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” he laughs, and Emma doesn’t miss the rare smile on Jeff’s face. “You ready to go?”

Emma adjusts her earpiece. “Yeah, I’m ready to go.”

-/-

The Dodgers score on Killian’s first pitch.

A home run right off the bat – literally – and Emma feels the collective groan around the stadium in her bones. That is not what was supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a strike, then two more, and an out. Easy as pie, right?

(Killian would tell her pie isn’t actually easy.)

But that’s obviously not how things are going to go today.

Sports have really got to be a little less dramatic. Her nerves can’t take it. Can’t things just be simple? Can’t they have gone back to the beginning and have won in four straight games instead of losing enough so that they’re in game seven of the World Series?

“If” doesn’t exist, especially in sport, Emma reminds herself. That’s what Killian would tell her, and that’s what she has to remind herself.

It only works a little bit.

One pitch at a time. It’s how Killian is going to be out there, and it’s how Emma is going to be sitting in the stands talking back and forth with the guys up in the booth thinking the same thing. It’s kind of hard to think that, though, when there’s a continual string of near hits and misses and Isaac and James up in the booth won’t stop being so damn negative that it makes Emma want to scream.

The score is 1-0 in the top of the third inning. It’s not the end of the world.

The looming dark sky overhead is kind of making her think that way.

“I’m too nervous, Rubes,” she mumbles while Killian winds up his arm to throw a pitch. There’s two men on base, both due to errors from King. She’d feel petty and a little glad if she didn’t need him to play well for the team. “Tell me about wedding stuff. Distract me.”

There’s static in her earpiece before Ruby’s voice comes in. “We’re getting married on a beach with no clothes on. Don’t worry. We can get waxed on the bachelorette weekend, so we’ll all be as smooth as babies.”

Emma huffs. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m hysterical,” Ruby corrects, and a part of Emma knows that Ruby and Graham might legitimately get married like that. “We haven’t planned any more than what we talked about last week. Small, intimate, and then a killer party with good food and drinks. Finding a location is hard. Everything is so expensive.”

“Destination wedding?”

“How is that cheaper?”

“I’m sure you can find a really inexpensive place in Nebraska or something.”

“You can get married in Central Park for one hundred dollars,” Jeff adds in, and Emma snaps her head away from the game to look at him. He shrugs his shoulders. “What? I know things.”

“I think the one hundred dollars is only if you want to get married in a certain spot, though,” Ruby sighs. “We’re going to keep looking. Graham said that he’d ask some of his buddies at the precinct if they knew of any spaces. It doesn’t have to be pretty since I know Mary Margaret will work her magic to make it that way no matter what.”

Killian’s pitch lands right in Will’s glove, and the umpire calls the batter out. Thank goodness. She doesn’t know what she’d do if someone else got on base. Then they’d be loaded with no outs, and things would pretty much be screwed from here on out.

Emma reaches over into her bucket of popcorn (she bought the jumbo size because she is stress eating) and stuffs a handful into her mouth instead of eating one or two at a time. One piece falls out of her mouth and down her shirt, landing somewhere in her bra so that she has to pick it out.

“You’re on the jumbotron right now, Emma,” Ruby giggles.

“Ah, fuck,” Emma mumbles as she looks up to see there be a replay of her digging in her shirt. “I hate everything.”

“That’s a little dramatic.”

“Me eating is like a running joke this season. I don’t get it.”

And she doesn’t really have time to get it before there’s the thwack of a ball against a bat straight past first base and away from everyone.

Shit.

It’s not good. Not at all. The two runners already on base get home, and the batter manages to make it to second.

It’s 3-0, and this is not at all how today was supposed to go.

Emma’s lungs are doing that thing again where they’re not taking in air, and there’s not enough popcorn in the world to make any of this better. If the tick in Killian’s jaw is any indication, she knows that there’s no one in the world more pissed at what’s happening than him. They don’t have anything together, and if they don’t get it together soon, they’re going to run out of time.

And then the sky opens up, little droplets of rain falling and landing on Emma’s nose, and that saying “when it rains, it pours” seems oddly appropriate right now. Her sadistic sense of humor is about to get worse.

They can’t lose. They can’t. she won’t allow it.

The rain keeps falling, a steady downpour of water, but it’s not enough to call for the rain delay. Not yet. And Killian is able to strike out the next guy and then get the third out of the inning with Eric catching the hit.

And just like the rain, the play stays steady. It’s not spectacular baseball by any means, mostly just a sludge match as everyone tries to keep their hands dry and the water out of their eyes, and the score slowly improves. Lance hits a good ball to get two RBIs, making it 3-2, and they manage not to allow any runs in the top of the fourth inning.

Good.

They’re creating chances. That’s what matters. They’re creating chances, and Emma can continue to eat her soggy popcorn while she freaks the hell out about what’s happening and continues to try to act like she’s a professional and not overly invested in the outcome of this game like she’s got money on it.

It’s the bottom of the fourth inning now, a chant of August’s name moving across the stadium so that it shakes in anticipation, and the bases are loaded. There are also two outs. Emma’s not saying that this could be the thing that changes the momentum of the game, but if the way that she’s gripping onto Jeff’s arm is any indication, she knows that this could change the momentum of the entire World Series.

“Come on, Booth,” Emma yells out as her free hand hits against her thigh, the wet denim clinging to her skin. “Be smart. Watch the ball.”

August obviously doesn’t know how to follow instructions because then it’s a swing and a miss.

Strike one.

There’s no chance for a strike two because while the rain has been sprinkling for the past hour, it’s pouring now. Jeff is mumbling about his camera and the cover not doing enough, but all Emma can focus on is all of the players running inside to the dugouts and fans shuffling inside while an announcement comes over the speakers that there’s an official rain delay.

An hour ago, she would have welcomed it. They didn’t have any of the momentum then. They do now.

This isn’t how things are supposed to be going.

Fuck.

-/-

“So how long is the rain delay going to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“But can you find out?”

“I can’t control the weather, Emma.”

“But you know things that we don’t, David,” Emma groans as she paces back and forth in a tunnel in the stadium, her hair frizzing around her face and her jeans completely soaked through. “It’s been an hour. Are they going to call the game? Are they going to continue it? This is agony.”

“You need to calm down.” Emma looks over to David with raised brows, and he holds his hands up in the air. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to say that to you, but you’re going to give yourself a heart attack if you keep worrying like this.”

Everyone they know is going to give themselves a heart attack, apparently.

“I know, I know,” she sighs, reaching up to hold onto her necklace and quieting down as some people pass by the two of them, probably looking at her like she’s a crazy person. “I’m nervous. This is really hard. I just…I want to be allowed into the clubhouse so that I can see him. He’s going to be freaking out. I just know, and I – ”

David walks toward her and places his hands on her shoulders while he looks down at her with a soft, reassuring smile on his face. She’s sure that he would hug her right now if she wasn’t soaking wet.

“Killian is fine, sweetheart. You are fine. We’re in the fourth inning. There’s still five more to go, whether it’s finished today or tomorrow or a week from now. They have time to come back. You, however, need to be back in hair and makeup because you’re supposed to be doing a clip on SportsCenter in fifteen minutes to fill the dead air time.”

“Shit. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“I couldn’t get a word in. You were kind of having a meltdown.”

Emma practically has to run down the hallways, which doesn’t help her appearance at all, and she’s sure that here makeup is streaky and her hair a wild mess that can’t be tamed, and the entire world can probably see her bra underneath her jersey right now. There’s not a hell of a lot that the makeup department can do, especially without a change of clothes besides a dry raincoat to replace the one that got soaked through, but they try their best before she’s standing in front of a plain backdrop inside the stadium talking back and forth about what’s going on in the game, breaking it down inning by inning in a way that she hasn’t had to do quite some time.

Considering she does it all with last minute notice and no notes in front of her, she thinks that she does a damn good job.

None of that really matters, though, because right as they’re wrapping up the segment, they get the announcement that play will resume in the next twenty minutes.

It’s time to play some more baseball.

Emma shouldn’t have eaten all of that popcorn because her stomach is most definitely churning with nerves.

They can do this. They have to. They will.

-/-

August immediately gets struck out, and the fourth inning ends with the Yankees still down 3-2.

The next two innings are scoreless for both teams, and Killian wraps up his game after that. He played well. It wasn’t his best, the weather and the nerves probably impacting him, but she’s proud of him.

She’ll be proud of him no matter what.

And she really wishes that the network wanted her to do a mid-game interview or let her go into the dugout just so that she could see him and tell him that in person, but they seem to be determined to only allow her to stay on the sidelines by herself.

Emma: I love you, I love you, I love you.

Emma: You’re my favorite player (and person) no matter what, and I can’t wait to see you when this game is over and you’re holding that trophy.

He texts back almost immediately, and he must have his phone out on the massage table.

Killian: Will you go out with me if we win? Or if we lose?

Laughter bubbles up inside of her, and it’s the first time all afternoon that she’s felt this light.

Emma: Only if you ask me out on live television like the asshole you were when you did that last year.

Killian: I think I can do that.

Her stomach flutters again, and even though this is kind of the biggest game that Emma has ever watched in her entire life, her eyes keep switching between her phone and the game. It’s pretty much the only way that she can stay calm and keep getting air into her lungs without one of them collapsing and her having to go to the hospital.

This game is going on forever. Literally. Each inning is longer than the last, and the sun is beginning to set over the horizon so that the remaining gray clouds disappear into the dark of night. Florescent lights fill the stadium, lighting up the crowd and the players, and Emma can’t stop shivering, especially with the remaining dampness of her clothes and the chill that’s whirling around. It’s got to be forty degrees out here at the most, and if it weren’t for Mary Margaret brining down her coat for Emma to use, she’d turn into an icicle by the end of the game.

Probably before the end of the game.

Today is obviously going very well.

It’s not just Emma, though. The crowd is starting to get a little delusional now too. The game has been going on for over six hours now, the last three completely scoreless, and everyone is getting restless and antsy and probably very, very drunk.

Some rum or whiskey or several shots of tequila is sounding really good right now.

She can’t have any of it.

And she’s moved on from popcorn to copious amounts of hot chocolate to keep her warm.

It’s now the bottom of the ninth in what could possibly be the last inning of the game and the end of the season, and they’re still down by one run. It’s almost exactly what happened last night, and Emma’s dentist is going to hate her for how much she’s grinding her teeth.

Just one run to tie it up. One more to win the whole damn thing.

Easy, right? Right.

“Fuck,” Emma mutters underneath her breath, unable to keep the thoughts inside. This cannot end up like last night. They’re so damn close. They can do this.

Eric settles into his position in the batter’s box, his hands moving up and down his bat until they’re in the right spots, and Emma would probably give up her entire salary to know just what Ariel is doing right now up in the suite. She’s got to be losing her mind.

Emma is kind of losing hers.

One. Two. Three.

The ball flies off of Eric’s bat, straight down past third base so that it practically paints the line, and Eric is off like a cheetah, quickly passing over first base and turning so quickly that he nearly falls on his way to second base. Emma stands, unable to stay sitting down, and she can’t even hear herself yell over the roar of the crowd as Eric slides against the dirt to mark up his uniform and have his fingers touch second base right before the ball gets to him.

Safe.

Holy shit. They have a man on base.

And August is up next. God, she hopes that he doesn’t choke again. There’s been a hell of a lot of pressure on his shoulders in the past two days, and he’s crumbled underneath it after having some really big opportunities to close things out. As good as these guys are at playing in the moment, the past does have the ability to creep up around them and wrap around their neck to pull them back to the past so that they can’t move on.

August has to move on.

One. Two. Three.

Strike.

Shit.

One. Two. Three.

Ball.

Okay.

One. Two. Three.

Strike.

Fuck.

Emma cannot do this. She absolutely can’t. It’s too much. It’s all too much, and she has to bend down to put her head between her legs. She knows that her phone is going off, that she’s got texts and calls and emails, but she can’t look at any of them. If it’s something for work, Ruby will speak into her earpiece or Jeff will say something.

This is the worst. Who likes sports? This is just the worst.

One. Two. Three.

The ball thwacks against August’s bat, and it flies toward left field. Emma is positive that it’s going to go over, absolutely positive that it’s going to be a home run and that they’re about to win this game. But then it hits against the wall, and suddenly it’s back in play. It’s not a home run, not quite, but it’s enough to have Eric round third and run toward home, his body barreling as quickly as possible before he’s sliding through the dirt once more so that it flies up around him.

Safe.

3-3.

Holy fucking shit.

Emma can’t hear. She can’t. The crowd is that deafening, and while Emma isn’t jumping up and down, her knuckles are going white as they grip onto the sides of her seat. All she can focus on is the way that Eric runs straight into Killian just outside the dugout, the two of them jumping up and down and hitting each other’s backs and asses as every other member of the team surrounds them in a celebration that sends chills down her spine.

Her cheeks are warm for the first time all night, and Emma has to force down the emotion in her throat.

It’s not over.

But that’s a good thing. They have the chance to do this, to win this now, and Emma’s heart is pumping blood faster than it ever has in the entirety of her life. It may very well beat out of her chest.

She doesn’t even care.

The high comes down five minutes later when King is easily struck out, putting their first out of the inning on the board, and even Emma isn’t petty enough to want Arthur King to do poorly when him doing well is good for the team. She’s petty. Just not petty enough.

Will Scarlet, though, deserves the entire world, and all of the organs in Emma’s stomach shift again when he steps into the box and adjusts his helmet. Sprinkles of rain are falling down from the clouds and spitting against Emma’s skin, but it’s not enough to stop the game. Not yet. The momentum is with them again, the game and the championship on their bats, and Emma has never known Will to be scared of a little rain.

One. Two. Three.

A swing and a miss.

Strike One.

One. Two. Three.

No movement. Deep breath inhaled.

Ball.

One. Two. Three.

No movement.

Strike Two.

“Damn,” Emma mumbles under her breath as she tightens the jacket a little further over her arms, her legs shaking and tapping enough to power the electricity in all of the Bronx. She’s going to break the chain around her neck for how tightly she’s tugging on it. It’s fine. It’s all fine.

It’s got to be all fine.

The water is spitting a little harder now, Emma’s vision getting a little bit blurred, and it’s taking everything in her not to stand up right now so that she blocks the people behind her. Ruby is chattering in her ear cursing or hoping or something, her phone is still going off, and Jeff has to be complaining about how much Emma is crushing his forearm.

She doesn’t care.

Because Will is standing in position again, and he’s ready.

One. Two. Three.

There’s a sharp blow when the ball makes contact with the bat, and while the rain and the stadium lights make it hard to see, Emma already knows that the ball is going over the back wall and into the crowd.

Gone. It’s gone.

It’s freaking gone.

Will Scarlet is an absolute legend.

The Yankees just won the World Series.

Killian just won the World Series.

Everything is so loud around her, cheers reverberating and shaking the stands so that Emma can literally feel sounds, but she has trouble focusing on any of that over the sound of her heart pounding in between her ears and Ruby yelling in her earpiece that Emma has to get down to the field.

The field.

She has to get down to the field, and somehow, she does. Jeff must have carried her there or pushed her or something. It’s a madhouse, one Emma can’t navigate, and she knows that she’s supposed to be doing some kind of interview, preferably with Will, but there’s no way for her to find anyone. It’s a mass of players all huddled together and jumping up and down as coaches and wives and children all join in, the rain coming down even harder than earlier.

All Emma really wants is to find Killian and kiss him like she’s never kissed him before.

That’s saying something.

Emma sees him standing ten feet away from her on the outskirts of a pile of men embracing each other in happiness, his hair a mess like he’s been running his hands through it for the past two hours and his smile so large that it reaches his ears. He looks beautiful, ethereal almost, and Emma can scarcely breathe looking at him after pushing through so many people to find him.

That’s when he sees her through the people and the rain and the unending joy.

Killian pulls his arm up to tap his closed fist over his heart, and Emma’s heart stutters at the movement before a slow grin stretches across her lips while she reaches up to tap her fist over the ring and her heart.

She was cheering him on the entire time.

One. Two. Three.

Emma takes off toward him, ignoring Ruby in her ear and Jeff behind her with the camera, and in six strides, she’s pressing up onto her toes and wrapping her arms around his neck, holding onto him so tightly that her feet come off the ground and Killian’s hands scramble for her ass, barely holding onto her as he lifts her in the air and swings her back and forth as they both get covered in the continual downpour of rain.

She can hardly see, the water far too much, and when she cups Killian’s cheeks and slams her mouth into his, he tastes like water and spearmint gum and quite possibly all of the happiness in the world bottled up into one human being.

Kissing him and being here with him is everything she ever wanted and everything she never allowed herself to dream.

“Fancy seeing you here, Swan,” Killian laughs, his mouth still pressing against hers.

“What are you talking about, Jones? I was right here last year.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, the grin the most infectious thing she has ever seen, “but I think I like this year a hell of a lot better.”

“Can’t wait to see how you try to top this next year.”

Killian throws his head back in in laughter, his skin covered in rain, and he finally puts her down on the ground so that her feet sink into the soft grass below her, arms still wrapped around Killian’s neck so that she’s close enough to see the sparkle in his eyes and the smile on his lips.

“You know what, my love? I think I’m good staying right here in this moment for now. We can figure out the rest later.”

-/-

Tag list: @dorisquinn @onepunintendid @authorarsinoe @stunningswan @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury @superchocovian @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings @carpedzem @tornadoamy @397bartonstreet

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #captain swan fanfic #captain swan ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

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reminiscences · 5 years ago

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another attempt at blogging

i started this tumblr a couple years ago at the same time kate did. i can’t remember why—i’m sure tumblr was in the news again for some reason. i guess it was before the great porn purge. i was talking about blogging again this week with my friend daniel, and i woke up this morning and he had sent me a blog he wrote on a new tumblr account early in the morning, so to continue my regression to the early 2010s, i too have rebooted tumblr, given it an era-appropriate name, and decided to give it another go.

the problem with having a newsletter is that i don’t think anyone wants to hear from me in their inbox daily, so i’ve become very precious about the things i write there. it feels like it has to really matter. i like blogs because they’re disposable and can be dumb and not your best writing. how many two-graf tumblr posts did i write in 2011 that were just thoughts i idly had during a statistics lecture? anyway, here’s the first blog, they won’t all be this long probably.

When I think about eventually looking back at this year I think about what I want to remember from it. I will remember the first week of March. I’ll remember the last birthday party I attended in person at Branch Ofc, a perfectly serviceable Crown Heights bar that was very full of people. I’ll think about that night and how I showed up to the party with a Ziplock full of homemade salted chocolate chip cookies in my purse, how I shared them with a table where the birthday-haver and their friends sat. Breathing in the same air as the four dozen other people crammed into the bar. I can’t imagine it now. I like Branch Ofc because it is unpretentious without pretending to be a dive, unlike Sharlene’s, which tries too hard to mimic the aesthetic trappings of an authentic dive bar but is really just a normal Park Slope bar. Branch Ofc is just a bar where you can buy drinks, and it was an eight-minute walk from my old apartment. It used to be a bar with a photobooth and Big Buck Hunter but I think both of those are gone now.

For a few days in March, it felt like people were preparing for a snow day. Everyone was slightly more on edge than giddy—but only slightly. “WFH but make it a coffeeshop” I saw on someone’s Instagram story, a selfie with four of their friends coworking somewhere in Bushwick, completely nullifying the point of a work-from-home edict. I ran into my friend Maddie at the renovated Key Food on Nostrand the next week. Maddie, her roommate and I were in the aisle with the Pop Tarts and the Oreos. “I feel like I should get those?” we asked each other, pointing at junk food. I wasn’t wearing a mask or gloves; nobody was. Some guy wearing a Cornell University Sigma Chi tshirt walked by us with the largest bag of dried beans I’ve ever seen in my life slung over his shoulder. That was a man who had never soaked dried beans in his life. I wonder if he ever ate the beans. We were a bunch of idiot 20-somethings blindly grabbing for cans of soup and Fritos for the end of the world. What were any of us doing there? Why was it imperative that day that I make and freeze a lasagna? Maddie’s roommate had fresh lasagna noodles from Eataly she wasn’t going to use before she left for her parents’ house, and she said I could have those. She brought them over for me and I idly wondered if you could get Coronavirus from someone else’s fresh pasta noodles or if the heat of the oven would kill the germs. I made my lasagna.

I’ll think about how March-to-May is just one long gray blurry streak in my head. I baked, I got into running, I said “running with a mask? No thank you, no more running for me,” I got a job, I felt bad about getting a job when everyone I knew in journalism was getting laid off. I did a lot of Zoom Zumba. At first I slept terribly, and then I started sleeping too much, and then I stopped sleeping again at some point during that stretch. There was a novelty to suddenly being inside all the time that made it feel like an excuse to get “really into martinis.” I got really into martinis. Then I stopped drinking for a couple months. Remember “Zoom happy hours”?

The thing I use most as a means of setting apart different eras in my head is the music I used as a soundtrack at the time. I rang in the 2014 new year in my cute apartment on Westcott Street in Syracuse with my college boyfriend, drunk and blaring Cold Cave, before we walked down the street to Alto Cinco and got Mexican food and passed out. It was my senior year and I only had a few more months of living like this and I loved the small life I’d built for myself there. Of course, it couldn’t stay. When we broke up a year and a half later after he moved to New York, where I had been living for most of a year, I walked around the neighborhood near the Myrtle-Wyckoff stop, close to where we were living together, listening to Mitski’s 2014 album Bury Me At Makeout Creek. I sat in Maria Hernandez Park and watched a bunch of kids play Red Rover. I didn’t especially want to go home because I hadn’t taken an escape route into account when we broke up and somehow timed it out so that things ended after the first of the month, leaving me with three-and-a-half weeks of continuing to share an apartment with someone whose heart I had just broken. In retrospect it’s clear to me that I had just outgrown a relationship with someone five years older than me who hadn’t grown up at all, but I hear that Mitski album now and all I think about are the cold early April days of 2015 when no place and no person felt like home. There’s a line in First Love/Late Spring, by Mitski, where she sings “胸がはち切れそうで,” which translates to something like “My chest is about to burst (with grief).” My advice to recent college graduates moving to New York is to simply not do anything the way I did it.

So when I think about 2020, I do not want to associate any music I previously had fond memories of with this year. This is unfortunate because every musician I like who produces sad music has nothing but time on their hands now and they’ve all come out with new songs and albums. My recently played selections on Spotify look like a cry for help: Phoebe Bridgers, Bright Eyes, even Tigers Jaw.

On Saturday I couldn’t sleep in. I woke up at 5:30 and watched the sun appear through my bedroom windows. I kept rolling over, trying to sleep again, but it was futile. Eventually I got up and got dressed, and left my apartment on foot. The walk into lower Manhattan is a few miles from my new place in Fort Greene. I walked west on Fulton, and then down Flatbush. It would have saved me ten minutes to take the Manhattan Bridge, but I’ve always regarded it as the ugliest of the bridges to cross on foot or on bike—last fall, I would walk home from Ben’s apartment over the Manhattan Bridge, and it was just so grey. You get an okay view of Dumbo, I guess, on the walk east, but it isn’t much to look at. When I got back to the Brooklyn side on those walks, I’d get on the A at High Street and take it back to Nostrand instead of walking the last couple miles.

So I chose the Brooklyn Bridge this time. It was as busy as you’d expect it to be in a non-pandemic event. Instagram boyfriends took pictures of their girlfriends, who took off their masks for a few seconds for the right shot. I saw a couple taking engagement pictures in front of the lower Manhattan skyline. It felt so normal, pedestrians and bicyclists squeezing past each other at the narrow points.

I was listening to Saint Cloud, the Waxahatchee album that came out a few months ago, turning it over and over in my brain like a rock you pick up at the beach and end up carrying with you on a long walk. The album, outwardly, has this gauzy blue-sky Americana vibe but when you listen to the lyrics of some of the songs it feels like peeling back layers of skin until you hit a raw nerve ending. Every song feels like a eulogy for this year. “You might mourn all that you wasted/That’s just part of the haul,” Katie Crutchfield sings on Ruby Falls. I got to the title track, which closes out the album, as I ascended the bridge. When you get baaaack on the M train, watch the cityyyyyy mutaaaaaaate, she sings. I guess she’s singing about New York. Is there another M train somewhere? I don’t know. I’m going to think about this stupid year whenever I listen to this album, I thought.

I got off the bridge at City Hall, surveyed the ongoing occupation movement there and the literal dozens of cops that had seemingly been deployed to stand there and, at best, do nothing. I walked down Centre Street, eventually winding through the little park by Baxter Street where two adults were playing ping pong, which felt like a socially distanced sport, all things considered. I walked down all those side streets in Chinatown as the sun struggled to break through the oppressive clouds. I walked by Nom Wah, past the salon Polly taught me will give you a very good $12 blowout, past that annoying bar where the bartenders are dressed like scientists, past the place where Kate and I got our auras read on her birthday in January, and ended up at Deluxe Green Bo. I ordered my spicy wontons in peanut sauce and ate them right there, the hot plastic container burning my knees as I sat on the sidewalk.

Afterwards I walked by all my favorite places—the skatepark under the bridge, Cervo’s, Beverly’s (RIP), Little Canal, Jajaja, the Hawa Smoothie near the East Broadway F. The skaters were hanging out in Dimes Square. Everything had changed but standing outside Kiki’s, it felt for a second like almost nothing had. It was almost a normal Saturday on Canal Street. The sky stayed electric blue until I got back to Brooklyn.

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isa-ghost · 5 years ago

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Achievements Unlocked?

The last decade has COMPLETELY shaped who I am now and the fact that it ends today and essentially sends me off into the next one where turning 30 is the end is something I can’t wrap my head around and not just bc it’s barely 9am as I’m writing it. Ten years hasn’t felt like ten years and all the shit that’s happened during those ten years feels like it’s happened in the last like,,, 3.

Basically this is just me going How The Fuck Did All Of This Happen In A Decade and highlighting the big things that shaped who I am now.

Uhhh this is long I’m gonna-

2010/2011 (Shit’s A Blur):

I started noticing aesthetic interests I had.

I developed my love for the outdoors and exploration.

I started realizing vaguely spooky things were really intriguing to me.

I got SUPER into Harry Potter.

Which lead to me creating my first two Ocs.

I started switching from drawing animals/landscapes to drawing people.

I made my first cluster of friends I hoped I’d have forever. (Spoiler alert: only still have one of em).

2012:

I started identifying with punk rock & emo culture/aesthetics.

I made my first cluster of online friends (Spoiler alert: don’t talk to any of em now)

I got into YouTubers.

I got into anime.

I made my first “blog.” It was a Facebook page for a fictional character.

I discovered my favorite band.

I made my first online friend I hoped I’d have forever (still have em so far!)

I met my future wife.

I started roleplaying with Ocs.

Which lead to making more.

I started drawing digitally using bases. Which started my improvement.

I made my own first little community via my FB page.

Which lead to an rp group of more friends I hoped I’d have forever (still got a handful of em!)

I discovered my other favorite bands.

I started using Skype.

I got into more anime.

My parents were officially fully separated.

Which began the very start of realizing my dad was verbally abusive.

Congrats Isa, You Need Glasses You Dumb Fuck. Hooray astigmatism.

I graduated 8th grade.

2013:

I was essentially forced to move in with my dad for high school.

I started high school.

Officially became total anime trash and started watching them like crazy.

I THINK I hit 100 Ocs at some point this year. Just kept makin them from here.

Met my first cluster of irl forever friends (spoiler alert: only have 1 now).

Learned having Ocs was Not Just An Isa Thing, Holy Shit I Thought I Was Just Weird.

Promptly fell in love with learning about other people’s Ocs.

Realized Wow, I Kinda Can’t Stand My Dad And I Don’t Trust Him.

Had my first boyfriend. *gag* He was nasty.

Experienced my first long distance relationship. It lasted 3 days.

2014/2015 (Shit’s Also Blurry):

Got another long distance boyfriend. First relationship I genuinely liked the person.

I realized talking multiple people through the lowest points of their lives and keeping them from harming themselves was a sign I should maybe get into psychology and do that as a job.

I started getting interested in researching mental disorders.

Realized Okay Yeah, I Lowkey Hate My Dad

Realized I had A Concerning Amount Of Symptoms Of Depression. Fuck.

Realized Huh, Girls Are Pretty Too,,,

My friend taught me about bi and pansexuality. Casually started identifying as pan. Didn’t know shit about LGBT+ stuff.

Was shown a video by my friend. Decided Wow I Really Like This Screaming Potato Guy.

Acquired one more forever friend I still have.

Got slapped in the face by Gravity Falls.

My mom moved out of the rural town I just spent the last like 8 Years Of My Own Character Development In, Dammit

I realized money and finances Fucking Sucks.

Had the,, probably worst year of my adolescence. Angry, depressed, sick of my dad. It was Not Great. Almost started self-harming, only didn’t because I’d be a hypocrite if I did after helping my friends stop doing it.

Homestuck invaded my life around here I think.

Decided I’m Gonna Live With My Online Friends One Day! (spoiler alert: nope).

Was kinda forced by my dad to move out of the apartment I lived in and therefore forced to transfer schools.

Got to meet my future wife irl for the first time. Wow that was,, so gay before we even realized.

Okay Hold On, This New School Is,,, Really Nice.

2016:

New school. New me. New friends. New everything. Fuckity shit fuck.

Okay wait they have an anime club like my other school did we good.

Met another two forever friends that I think really are forever friends now.

Angry Shitty Depression Time Died Down A Little.

Somehow learned about evilsonas. Huh, Does Jack Have One? ... Ok Cool, They’re All People’s Ocs. Meh.

Started learning how to drive. Oh My God This Is Fun.

Lost my second ever pet and was... very confused when I wasn’t as traumatized as I was the first time I lost a pet.

Boyfriend kinda Thanos snapped from existence bc his irl life was hectic.

Experienced what it’s like to have a friend that died.

Wow my irl best friend is hot. ... Okay I Think Boyfriend’s Absence Is Bothering Me. *proceeds to ignore that*

Gets into some more bands.

Knock Knock, You Have Separation Anxiety, Isa.

Finally decided to try out high school things like homecoming. Ooh That Was Actually Fun.

The beginning of the worst end to a friendship I’ve ever had starts. Not Handling It Well.

Discovered Fooster. Cue hyperfixation on new favorite YouTuber and more new friends.

Wait What The Fuck What Just Happened To Jack’s Camera,,,, OH MY GOD HE ISN’T-

HE IS. OH FUCK HE IS. MMMMHELLO KNIFE MAN.

Totally forgets he exists for the next like 10 months.

Realization I Really Fucking Love Halloween.

Discovered what asexuality is and immediately identifies because I thought I was just weird.

Hmm maybe I should start watching this Markiplier guy

Big Sad Times, My Friends Graduated. Next Year Gonna SUCK.

Tried out Dungeons & Dragons. Fuckin loved it.

2017:

Ah fuck I’m a senior in high school this is gonna be a trip.

Discovered I like photography.

Literally where did this school year go it’s so blurry.

Was convinced to end the relationship with boyfriend. He’s still a good bean.

Hey uhhhh online best friend do u big gay.

WE big gay.

Found a book I really like that isn’t Harry Potter, damn it’s about time.

Ok But This Book Really Fucked Me Up, I Love It.

OH FUCK WAIT I’M GRADUATING HIGH SCHOOL.

Oh that wasn’t so bad.

Actually had to be PUSHED by my friends to have my first kiss with my girlfriend at my graduation party because I was too busy going [dkasjdjf] about having her physically in my presence at all.

First super memorable vacation. Wow I Fucking Love Traveling.

Got to meet another online friend!! I am,, incredibly lucky about being able to do that, this was like the 4th friend I got to meet.

[That one motion blur conspiracy theorist meme] SABRINA IM TELLING U JACK IS UP TO SOMETHING HIS TWITTER IS FUCKY

Gets punched in the throat with Kill Jacksepticeye on the way home from vacation and remembers how much I fucking love Anti

TIME FOR COLLEGE. I made a mistake.

TIME FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGE. Much Better.

Friend I Still Have From High School 1/2 introduced me to Bendy and the Ink Machine. HYPERFIXATION TIME BABEY.

Let’s,,, lets try Tumblr. Jack exists there a lot. And so does good art of everything I’m interested in.

Wait Who’s This Baby With The Mustache, JACK EXPLAIN

Okay there’s More Going On Here, lets get active in the community.

WHY THE FUCK IS THERE SECURITY FOOTAGE. THIS IS SKETCH. THIS ISOH MOTHERFUCKER ITS ANTI

Isa: Become Theorist

The rest is history, really, all stuff I’ve posted about on here. xD

And knowing me I’ve left out other highlighted bits but remembering all of this is,,, really exhausting lmao, I’m surprised I jotted down as much as I did in Relatively Chronological Order.

#happy 2020 new year

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yellowfang89 · 5 years ago

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It’s wild how much has happened and changed since 2010, and now going into 2020. I was going to put in a "read more" out of courtesy but for some fuck ass reason, when I came in to edit it, Tumblr isn't giving me that option and the code ain't working and now I'm slightly buzzed so what the fuck ever you can just keep scrolling if you don't care lol.

January 2010- Obsessed with Legend of the Seeker. Wrapped up finishing playing Pokemon Diamond- my first pokemon game on recommendation of my best friend at the time. My last semester of community college started.

March/April 2010- got acceptance letter to the local state college I planned on transferring to. Best friend didn’t get any notice on whether she got accepted or not, but got an acceptance letter from another college about an hour away, and decided to go there instead. After making this decision, she finally got the acceptance letter from the local state college. But she still ended up going to the hour away one. Also, I turned 21 and had my first margarita.

May 2010- Graduated community college with an AA in art. God, I remember when I used to love art.

At some point I ended up officially leaving Myspace for Facebook, kicking and screaming, because everyone had ditched Myspace for it. I hated Facebook but got used to it.

August 2010- went on a two week cruise to Alaska. Came back and started new college afterwards. Had no friends and was lonely, though kept in close touch with best friend over Facebook. Got new Macbook.

September 2010- Finally found myself in a new friend group. Saw a beautiful boy on lightrail I wanted to talk to, but had no courage to. Realized that this kind of shit was probably why I didn’t have a boyfriend, and I wanted a boyfriend for the sole reason of not feeling like a loser for never having one.

October 2010- Saw same beauty, gathered up the nerve and talked to him. Turned out he also went to my school. We started seeing each other regularly on there and things started taking off.

November 2010- Started hanging out with him regularly, got my first kiss from him. Became an official couple.

2011- Can’t remember what months and for what, because things start blending in together. But

- Beloved cat of five years died.

- Lost my virginity

- Didn’t have much money in bank account and stressed out over it. Couldn’t get a job to rectify the situation cuz no experience.

- Started feeling guilty over the smallest things like asking to borrow a piece of paper from someone. Mentally acknowledging this was weird but also shrugging it off.

- Lost my appetite and had food problems overall- despite always having “food problems.” Never wanted to eat.

- Distinctly remember my stomach rumbling in class and thinking, “good maybe i’ll starve to death!”

2012- Shit blended in together again this year, and for every year here on out.

- Came to the realization one day when walking to the bus that I literally would not care if someone came at me with a gun because I just… didn’t want to exist anymore. Saw nothing wrong with this.

- The thought “things would be better if I was dead” came to my brain out of nowhere. I briefly wondered if this counted as a “suicidal thought.”

-Decided to Google shit like suicidal thoughts, went down a rabbit hole that made me suspect I had depression. It explained things that I thought were off but didn’t care enough to do anything about.

- Eventually saw a counselor at school about this.

- Got a hamster. Hamster died this same year.

- Got a volunteer position at a library scanning old yearbooks onto a computer so I could have some sort of “work experience” to get a job.

- Boyfriend had got me Pokemon Heartgold earlier. I started trying to “collect them all” because why not.

- I switched from using an ethernet chord to WiFi and it changed my life. Especially since I was able to go on the GTS in Pokemon and trade, though it was fucky cuz you could only trade Pokemon you’ve already seen back then.

- Ended up getting Pokemon Black, and it introduced GTS Negotiations which allowed me to match with other trainers and trade Pokemon live. Due to this, I managed to obtain every Pokemon I couldn’t get in my other games. Except event legendaries, unfortunately. I consider this one of my greatest accomplishments and keep up with this to this day.

- Considered switching my major from Graphic Design to Digital Media because I liked my Digital Media class a lot more than my Design classes. And made that switch.

- I decided to minor in psychology because I had already taken a few psych classes for GE credits so why tf not.

- Towards the end, got a “student” job at that same library doing the same thing except with artwork instead of yearbooks. Finally had money. Depression starting to lift? But job was only a 4-8 hour a week deal so not that much money in the long run.

2013-

- Discovered demisexuality via a comment on Reddit. It described me pretty damn well. Weight lifted off shoulders I didn’t even realize was there. Things made sense omg.

- Joined Tumblr.

- Best friend came over for what turned out being the last time. She was moving to Arizona.

- Got a second job working at the tech company my Dad worked at, helping out the customer service rep.

- Slowly found myself drifting apart from friend. Depression still present. Made things hard but tbh she never contacted me either. I got the impression she was mad at me given she unfollowed me on Tumblr without explanation.

- Since not a lot of work to be done helping the csr, I ended up helping our our shipping guy and became his backup. Eventually the purchaser left on maternity leave and I took her place, eventually becoming the main purchaser because they moved her to accounts receivable.

- Decided that my depression was making me a piece of shit friend so I decided to contact best friend to see how things were, only to get a cryptic, passive aggressive, two-word response back. Ended up just dropping it and figured she’d eventually come around and tell me what was wrong. She never did…

2014

- Depression on and off due to the stress of going to work and going to school. At this point I hated all art and wanted nothing to do with any of it and only went to school for the piece of paper saying I graduated college.

- I think this was when I started calling myself gray ace instead of demi because why the hell not and I’ve only been sexually attracted to one person anyway. Possibly still demiromantic though- to this day I’m still unsure tbh.

- Boyfriend taught me to drive. I got my license. I got my first car.

December 2014- I graduated college. It cured my depression. Unfortunately, it was replaced with carpal tunnel.

2015

- Carpal tunnel still full force. All I could do was read.

- I caught up on all the books I’ve wanted to read. Eventually came across Warrior Cats. Thought it was stupid for the first 50 pages, but then became addicted. Lost interest when I had to wait several months for the next arc to come out.

- The year I got into wrestling. I shipped Rolleigns so fuckin’ hard.

- Undertale came out and became one of my favorite games of all time.

- Find out brother is addicted to painkillers which is why he had been acting like such an ass.

- Dumped Facebook.

- Driver at the company I worked at quit. Company wants me to be “temporary” driver on top of purchasing, shipping, and assisting the customer service rep.

- Got into writing and wrote a book and continued writing off and on from then to now.

2016/2017/2018? I can’t even keep track anymore.

- Pokemon Go came out and I finally got a smart phone because of it.

- Brother gets girlfriend and then gets married after only being together a year. Brother seems to have gotten better.

- They started having marital problems almost immediately. My brother turned out being an alcoholic and fuck knows if he’s still doing drugs or not he says he’s not but he’s also a chronic liar. A lot of drama happens that I don’t want to get into. They are now divorced- after two years of marriage.

- Got new laptop cuz Macbook got too old, although it still works.

- The company I had been working at, which had always been a shit company with no money, starts going down the shitter more than it already was.

September 2017- customer service rep quits and I have to do her job on top of purchasing, shipping, and driving. Mental breakdowns become common. Depression worse than it had ever been in my life.

January 2018- get a 45 cent raise because minimum wage went up meaning I was now making minimum wage doing all the bullshit I was doing.

May 2018- Get new job doing ONLY shipping for a few extra bucks more an hour. Depression cured.

2019

- Got in a car accident (not my fault). Car totaled. Replaced it with a 2018 car so it’s all good.

- Experienced my first flat tire half a year later.

- Still get random bouts of depression.

- Still with same boy from 2010. Would love to move in together but fuck if I know when that’ll happen.

- Still wondering wtf happened with my (ex) best friend and am still trying to get over it. Am considering the possibility that it was probably my depressed ass not talking to her at all for like 4 months. Unfortunately I have no way of contacting her to try and make peace because we both dumped Facebook.

- Got back into Warrior Cats.

- Dad got new girlfriend. Parents finally working on getting the divorce they wanted to get 20+ years ago but never did cuz neither one wanted to spend money on it.

- Briefly considered taking up drawing again but my skills have tanked significantly because I haven’t drawn since graduating college. Plus I’m lazy.

- Obsessed with The Witcher.

So much has changed throughout this decade and fuck if I know how next decade is gonna turn out for me but I sure hope it's a better one.

Happy New Year to all, and to all a good night!

#no one cares

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ldrconfessions · 2 years ago

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Who Still Uses Tumblr?

It has really been a longgg ass time It has been two years since my last post.

Two years. I’m 30 now. Wow. Isn’t that kind of insane? I’m trying to decide if I want to keep this tumblr going, so I’m putting out a feeler.

If you’re new here, or heck, it has been years, maybe you have no insight on my life at all, here’s the abridged version: I was in a long distance relationship with my ex for on and off of 10 years. We broke up when I was in college. It is a relationship that had a huge impact on my life, and who I am as a person. My next relationship was with a guy who literally lifted me up and gave me the freedom and support to rediscover myself. We broke up eventually, but he is still very dear to me, and I’m forever grateful to him. The next relationship was with my current boyfriend, and we had to deal with a pretty rough time distance wise, due to my mom not approving of him (absolutely 100% not his fault), but also his mom not approving of me.

In regards to my long distance relationship, even though we were both in the same state I closed the distance on my long distance relationship 4 years ago. We moved into a house together with my brother and his girlfriend at the time. We celebrated our 5th anniversary together in November 2022. My family is very comfortable with him (even my mom, although she still complains about his race), and I’ve gotten a lot closer to his family, too.

I joined a sorority after my toxic relationship breakup, and it became a foundation for me to get back up again. I graduated college with a bachelor’s degree in psychological science. I’m working on a master’s degree now, and I’m considering a doctorate.

My long distance relationships have had an immense impact on who I am as a person. I have zero regrets. I am happier than I have ever been, in a relationship with someone I trust, who loves me as I am, and who keeps me grounded. I have gone through a toxic relationship that destroyed me, mind, body, and soul, and financially (hah!), and overcome trauma. I adopted a dog, am still addicted to books, manga/manhua/manhwa, anime, and Korean dramas, andddd...

I think that’s it. I wonder if I should just keep this Tumblr going for those still going through long distance relationships. Maybe I’ll just turn it into a personal space for me.

How has everyone been?

#ldr #confessions #long distance relationship #my journey #personal #me #update #long time no see #tumblr #long distance #relationship #confession #life update #I'm old now

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dio-roga · 7 years ago

Photo

‘AskMarshandBroflovski’

Author/Artist: jovishark Additional Credit: puppetamateur Status: Complete Links: Tumblr Rec No: #2 (Part Two)

Fan Art and Spoiler-Talk

God just end me now. Every time I look at this art, I cringe with the intensity of a thousand imploding suns. But alas, here we are, and I don’t have the power to turn time back and redraw this from scratch so yeah− we’ll fight on and try to ignore the fact there’s like, a thousand things done wrong with this god damn picture. I’ll just scream into a cushion, it’ll be fine.

Right then, so.

I drew this one as a take on some of the stuff happening behind the scenes during Craig’s disappearance, after the confrontation with Clyde and getting shot down by Stan at Kyle’s birthday. When I first read this part, I guess it kinda resonated with me in a way. I’ve never had friends go missing like Craig does, but I certainly have had them up and shoot out of my life in the space of a few days, with like, very little on the explanation front. It’s jarring, to say the least, and it makes it easy to sympathize with Clyde who seems pretty gutted over the whole thing. (Bless) It really does leave you confused and wondering if, maybe, some part of it was your fault, second guessing that if you’d have done something differently, maybe they would still be around.

I took a bit of liberty in assuming it was Clyde that hung up a lot of the missing person posters (and making himself sad all over again in the process), but I don’t think it would have been much of a stretch considering. The whole ‘Craig’s Missing’ story-line was something I remembered quite vividly− perhaps due to the fact it happens straight after the big Stan/Kyle kiss moment the story had been leading up to? It was like a sudden crash back down to earth and it wound up catching me very much off guard.

It’s also one of the bittersweet moments in their relationship throughout the story that struck me as the most genuine. When it came down to brass tax, Clyde freaked out and became single-mindedly fixated on trying to get Craig back− driving through Denver as a one-man search party and being regarded by everyone who brings it up as taking Craig’s disappearance as hard as his family members were. Despite everything that’d happened, the boy has a good heart.

Which brings me to the Craig/Clyde relationship in general− which winds up being a bust. Clyde ends the story back in his comfort zone, back together with Bebe, and Craig ends the story getting… well, kinda shafted. However, I’m still going to defend this as one of their stronger outings together for a number of reasons:

They are involved romantically, and for a good year and a half no less− and initially, at the start of the run, they come across as quite a cute couple. Sharing dorky snap chats and fucking around at parties. I completely adore the panel where Clyde’s grinning and doing his finger-guns at all the compliments he’s getting from the asks, but straight up says that he’s ‘flattered but taken’− with Craig putting a hand protectively onto his shoulder.

Clyde’s insensitivity kinda works with me, bizarrely. Again, I remember being his age, and I remember how I felt back then− along with a lot of other boys my age. And as much as it feels like I was being stupid now, I can’t deny that being a guy back then sort of came part and parcel with being a bit of a dick, trying to act macho and all that shit. So I can believe how that would have strained his relationships since it’s something that my peers and I all went through as well.

Yet even despite the last point, I love how honestly concerned Clyde gets over Craig, and how fucking loyal he stays for so long. Despite Craig having a rough time of it, Clyde isn’t wrong to call him on lashing out at the people around him. It’s fairly admirable of Clyde to have tried so hard to make things work the way he did, and still care about Craig even when things start to go sour.

My number one reason for including this in my list of essential Cryde viewing though, despite it essentially being a Style askblog where Craig and Clyde don’t even end up together, is that they’re still so utterly intertwined throughout, even if neither of them want to admit it. Even though Craig takes the center stage between the two, Clyde’s always the one pushing him forward (and so often positively, not just negatively like Craig likes to fixate on.) Maybe they weren’t right for each other at that time in their lives, but there’s never a bridge burnt between them. Even though the feelings get complicated and messy, it lets you draw a lot of your own conclusions about the pair in an open-ended sort of way.

Honestly, I could write a fucking essay on the subject of Craig and Clyde in this askblog and all the ways they mesh together better than even they seem to realize, but I’ll leave it for now (For now…) Sufficed to say, I think I could easily see more in the future for the two of them.

I’ve also got to give props for the blog pretty much winning me over to Style as a ship, what can I say− the part with Stan’s diary was a genius move (as well as proof that even without the amazing art, the story could easily stand on its own) and the song Stan writes for Kyle with the fairy-lights and the stuffed whales and everything else? God. I could literally not stop smiling, people must have wondered what the hell was wrong with me that day.

I’m so, so incredibly glad that the blog managed to get its ending, much deserved. I can only imagine how tiring it got doing that for two years, but god damn− what an incredible ride, like, what a fucking testament to perseverance, passion and hard work, tying in the production of the story to the theme of the story so perfectly, I think it gives the whole thing such massive authenticity that just shines through the entire run. Every time I get to Wendy’s speech at the graduation, it’s always such a moment− it feels earned, y’know? Like it really is the end of some big journey, and what an awesome feeling to have accomplished.

I just realized how long I’ve been going on, so I’ll call it here, and try and contain myself from spilling out another thousand words of praise− and instead I’ll thank the amazing jovishark for making something truly wonderful (and to the no doubt equally amazing puppetamateur for all her work in the first half of the story and for helping make this blog a reality)

Hope everyone’s reading the pseudo-sequel staring Craig at college, and I hope you all enjoyed this long ramble of a recommendation. Can’t cay this’ll be the last time I talk about this one, I just love it too damn much.

Catch you for the next one!

#south park #cryde #style #askmarshandbroflovski #jovishark #blog recs #cryderecs #part2 #dioart

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renaroo · 7 years ago

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Sweet Home (3/4)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: Language, Canon-typical violence, PTSD and past trauma, Mentions of wartime Rating: T Synopsis: [Modern AU] In the aftermath of war, Wash is left with little direction in his own life. On his own, he takes up an ad for a roommate and suddenly finds himself wrapped up in the perplexing life of Doctor Emily Grey.

A/N: Long time, little see, and I’m truly sorry about that <3 For those who don’t know, as of January this year I have taken on quite a few more jobs than what we had before. I am a graduate student but on top of that I began teaching classes for the university on my own and I have been working very hard on my research project which is picking up steam now that the mating season for wolf spiders has begun! So busy busy here though I do hope everyone has had a good few months themselves and that this story is still worth the wait for those who come back to it <3 I appreciate you all more than you know

A special shout out to @secretlystephaniebrown, @splendiferousblog, @freelancerfeels, @ziggyzagzag, Yin, om3g4, and Zed Said from AO3, ffn, and tumblr for the feedback and support! You guys really help to make this experience that much more rewarding!

Drawing Lines

It has been a very long week and, despite knowing that the town is less than a few miles wide at best, Washington hasn’t brought himself to do much more than accompany Emily Grey to the store and back in order to carry groceries.

As he lays in his bed that still doesn’t feel very much like his, it really and truly hits him how small the world seems after the war. He left for it with this idea that the universe is large and vast, that he is truly fighting for things to be better and for home to be stronger and more taken care of than it ever had been before.

But the world is small and knowing it intimately only proves to show Washington the worst of its cracks and pitfalls.

He fought for this town, he fought for a place like Sweet Home to live up to its name. But the streets are cracked, the roads have holes, and most of the properties have grass reaching for higher standards than the owners.

Sometimes, laying in his bed outside of his supposedly only two hours of consistent sleep, Washington finds himself staring at the proverbial and literal wall, holding his breath and counting to ten.

He’s waiting for an answer. He’s waiting to be told what it is that he sacrificed everything that once made him human for.

He’s waiting for things to make sense again. But without reveille or shouts or marching orders, it just doesn’t.

And the world just gets even smaller around him.

For every morning that Wash woke up to a full course meal and a half naked housemate, there is a morning where he wakes up to absolute silence and solitude.

Asking questions, even if normal and social, feels invasive and uncomfortable, even in concept, for Wash so he opts instead to rely on powers of observations and checking for patterns. The most easily noticed of these being the way the stacks of books all over the house change by the day, and especially how much they change — or how much they grow — on the days that Emily is absent in the mornings and not back until the late nights.

It is then that Wash puts together that his housemate, the already-doctor, is actually still a student. That is why so many younger college age people are coming in and out of Sweet Home.

It’s as questionable as the anomaly that is Emily Grey herself, but again, the anxiety of actually phrasing a proper question that isn’t intrusive, rude, bigoted, sexist, out of touch, judgmental, arrogant, condescending, or just plain vague is too much and Washington fumbles it even in theory.

So he sticks to counting book stacks and making himself cereal on lonely mornings.

Not lonely. Solitary.

Lonely implies that Washington doesn’t prefer it and, well, he doesn’t. But he doesn’t unprefer it either.

And that’s the rub of it.

For all the draining exhaustion that proximity to Emily’s rotation of guests brought him, Washington finds himself not doing much with his solitary time either. Just checking the news, getting the mail, and digging through his own thoughts with all the caution and malaise afforded to a gravedigger.

He’s in the middle of just that one particularly solitary morning, a cereal bowl still in his grasps, when the back door next to the stove opens up with a loud BANG. It’s as if a tornado was trying to rip the door from its hinges, and Washington can’t even process it before the solitary space he has masked himself in becomes occupied by a bounding creature with fur and teeth and an odor similar to tarmac.

There’s a moment, after the sharp paws are buried into Wash’s chest but before the back of his chair is going to find itself addressing the floor, that Washington thinks a bomb has gone off — one that bends reality and warps the quiet he strangles himself with optionally is transported back to scorching heat and screams and the worst that people can do to one another.

It’s a hysterical notion, one that would possibly rival the sort of genuine psychosis that seems to get his housemate all riled up about his sleeping habits, but it’s the only thing Washington can think before he’s dazed on the ground with a literal dog standing on his pajama covered chest, rotating around like it’s looking for the next challenger in a game of King of the Hill.

“Freckles!”

Washington takes in the moment once again. He’s not dying. He’s not shot. There’s not a war in the kitchen, only whatever intrusion Emily Grey has brought upon his life again. And he doesn’t even get in a count to three for his anger exercises before the fury erupts from him like a volcano.

“What the hell is going on!?” he gets out, only to have the dog’s attention whip right back to him.

The dog is a sharp looking, large chested doberman. Chocolate colored where Wash’s senses tell him it should be black, tan where it should be brown on its nose and wrapped around its feet like socks. The eyes are yellow, intimidating, and it has ears pinned high from cropping. Washington hadn’t even realized it was a practice with animals anymore, but he supposes on reflection that inhumanity isn’t restrained to what people do to each other.

What is just as shocking is the man who the voice belongs to.

He comes around the kitchen island with a curious, wide eyed look on his face, lips drawn together in a surprised oh as he examines the situation he brought upon Sweet Home.

The man is large and bulking. Wash’s instincts are to think it’s fitting of his extremely large dog but, somehow, the man is even too large and thick even for that to be a complete fit. He’s not chiseled so much as he’s built large, and his head is weighed down by a mess of spiky, unkempt hair that stands end on end in a way that tells Washington the man’s less familiar with a brush than even Wash is. His skin is tanned hide but not wrinkled or old, just worn and not as well taken care of as he could use.

He’s wearing a blue hoodie and khaki pants that have not a single wrinkle, and those are the strangest things in Wash’s mind because the man is also wearing with them standard issue military boots.

“Hello!” the man says loudly.

“Is this your dog!?” Washington demands just as loudly. There’s a low stage of panic beginning to set in as the dog looks less happy to have Washington talking and Washington’s chest is feeling less happy to have a dog standing on it.

For a moment, the man seems more surprised than Wash, and he glances toward the dog as if there is some other dog that Washington would be addressing. And a big, goofy smile crosses his face as he looks back down to Wash.

“Oh! Yes. This is Freckles. He is a very good boy. Aren’t you, Freckles? Aren’t you a very good boy?” the man coos toward the dog.

Taking his gaze off of Wash, the dog turns around and looks at the man, nub of a tail wagging so hard his entire butt is moving with it. The dog’s front paws pick up and ram down many times excitedly on Wash’s chest. Then it barks loud and keening.

“Get him off of me!” Wash demands in a hiss between gasps of breath.

Blinking again, the man glances down at Washington, then looks around the house in confusion. “Oh, no. I don’t know you. I thought this is the Sugar House. Oh no. This is very bad. I do not want trouble again. I only want the nice lady doctor in the Sugar House—“

The man sounds panicked, and the more he panics, the more the dog reacts. First with a whining bark, then with finally leaping from Wash’s chest toward the man. It prances around its human before pressing the flat of its head into the palm of the man’s hand.

And, suddenly, Wash begins making sense of things. The solitary doesn’t come back, but he’s not gone into chaos anymore.

Not any more than usual, by any means.

“Do you mean Sweet Home?” Wash asks as he raises up to a sitting position, holding onto his no doubt bruised ribs.

“Yes!” the man calls out excitedly. “Oh! Oh! Do you know where it is? I am very lost. Which is strange. Because Sheila told me where to go and I did not believe I was lost so now it is me being confused where I thought I was not. You see?”

Washington feels himself slipping into the chaotic one more time but he fights it, instead clearing his throat and repositioning himself into a more confident stance. “I don’t know who Sheila is, but yes. You are at Sweet Home. You aren’t confused. Well. You’re not anymore confused right now than I am. Uh. I live here now. With Doctor Grey. Emily. Doctor…lady. Am I making sense? I don’t think I am.”

However, the confused posturing seemed to be speaking to the man’s language because his grin only grows and grows the further the conversation goes down the rabbit hole.

“I am at the Sugar House?” he asks. “And you’re the new friend at Sugar House?”

“I’m… what?” Wash asks, the chaos threatening to swirl out of control.

Without clarifying, the man pulls out a large smartphone from his pocket and holds it flat close to his chin. It looks a little awkward from Washington’s angle, like the finer motor movements are lacking refinement.

“Sheila!” the man shouts across the surface of the phone, causing the screen to light up with a familiar app — the service assistant. “Thank you! I’m here!”

“I am happy for you, Private!” the smartphone cheerfully responds.

And, again, Wash pieces it all together.

After all, the service assistant had been offered to him, just like every other veteran from the War. The high tech phone app was a personal assistant for recovering servicemen and women. It was a bit of an insult to be offered one, even though almost no human soldier left the terrain without it being beneficial to have one.

The stigma had been enough to keep Washington away from accepting the service assistant at the time, and as a result he unwittingly had refuted future medical and mental health claims he could take from his service. It seems that pride was a good way to keep those who gave almost everything to their country from actually receiving anything in return.

While judgments flared up in Washington’s mind, driven into his instincts from basic, he also wondered if the man before him is actually a secret genius.

“What branch did you serve in?” Washington finds himself asking.

The main blinks at him, stroking the dog’s head as he fumbles his phone back into his pockets.

“I was marines,” Washington offers again.

“Yeah, I was with Church and Tucker,” the man says happily. “Did you know them?”

Wash feels his brows knit together in concern. “I… no?”

“Oh, okay. They were with me. I never remember being in a tree,” he states with a shrug of his large shoulders.

“Okay,” Wash says. “Well, my name is Washington.”

“That’s a funny name,” the man says with no tact. “I am Michael J. Caboose.”

“That’s a funny name,” Wash says sardonically before he can even catch himself.

Almost as if he understands, the dog pins his ears back against his head and lets out a low string of growls in Washington’s direction. He doesn’t seem to appreciate Wash’s sarcasm. But his master doesn’t seem to mind.

“It is funny. We both have funny names. I’ve never met a General Washington. I bet you’ve never met a Caboose. Or maybe you did. Have you met any of my sisters? I have many of them. It wouldn’t surprise me,” Caboose says breathlessly.

“Who knows in this town,” Wash says with a soft laugh of his own. “And believe me, I’m no general. Kind of glad I’m not… except for the retirement benefits.” He tries to laugh again but sees only blankness in return from Caboose. Wash coughs to clear the air and then tries to move things along in a way that may not hint to the other man that Washington has absolutely no idea how to handle social situations. At all. “I’m sorry I wasn’t expecting you. Emily didn’t mention anything about someone coming in today. Not… that she ever mentions it… But she’s never gone for too long if you want to sit in and wait.”

“Oh, no, thank you, no. I cannot stay. I cannot stay because I have to go. Sheila has told me many times already that I have to go. She has been reminding me everyday that today is the day that I have to go.” Caboose explains without any semblance of explanation. He then looks like an idea has just crossed his mind and he fumbles in his pockets again to repeat the move with his phone. “Sheila!”

“Yes, Caboose?” the service assistant says, lighting up.

“Tell Mister Washington how I have to go!” he says with the excitement of a kid at Christmas.

“Private Michael J. Caboose must be at the platform in forty-five minutes in order to depart on the 343 train to—“

“See, I told you,” Caboose interrupts, shoving his phone back without even bothering to tell the app to turn off. Wash can’t help but stare at the way it glows through the man’s khaki pants in the worst way imaginable. “I cannot stay for the doctor. I have to leave. I have a train.”

“Oh, okay,” Wash says. “I’ll…uh… tell Emily you came by then. I’m sure she’ll be sorry that she missed you.”

Caboose’s smile is brilliant, but sort of in a way that Wash isn’t sure what he’s smiling about. “Oh, she’ll know.” He then turns to face his dog and gets down on one knee to be level with him. The dog, almost knowingly, begins whining like a puppy. “Be a good boy! Be a good boy! I’ll be home soon, yes be a good boy!”

Processing the moment takes Washington a second longer than he should and, as suddenly as his morning was interrupted by Caboose, it is being uninterrupted by the man stepping out the door.

“Wait what,” Washington finally manages to utter just before Caboose grabs the handle of the back door.

The large man waves emphatically. “Thank you, General! I will see you and the good doctor lady soon! But I have to get to my train!”

“Private Michael J. Caboose’s train is departing in forty-two minutes—“

“Wait! I don’t know—“ Washington tries to shout but the door is slammed shut with tremendous force, enough to make one of Emily’s piles of books nearby tip over and go scattering across the floor.

Washington and Freckles both stare at the books for a few disquieting seconds.

Then Washington gives the dog a wary look. “I can’t escape the nonsense can I?”

The dog snarls in return before huffing. It then walks — with confidence and ownership of the house that Washington dreams of building up to at some point before his fifties — through the short hall from the kitchen and into the living room where it promptly takes the seat that Washington has been using for the last week.

“God damn it Emily,” Wash curses at the air, nose curling.

When Grey returns home it is with the flourish that Washington has com to expect.

It’s almost like nothing in the world and changed and everything is good and there’s nothing but perfect innocence exuding from Emily’s every pour. And that doesn’t change even slightly as she trounces on through the door and looks down to meet Wash’s gaze.

For his part, Washington’s sitting on the floor with his back against three stacks of books. The one in his hand has been occupying the space he had been staring at prior to Emily’s entrance.

A funny expression came over Emily’s perpetually peasant face as she locks eyes with Wash and she puts her hands on her hips, flouncy skirt bobbing in a wave. “Why, Washington! What are you doing on the floor, silly?”

There’s some sort of crack in Wash’s forced smile like his teeth are too sharp to be contained. “I’ll give you three guesses,” he offers.

Then, there’s a ferocious bark from the living room that draws Emily’s eyes away from him.

“The first two guesses don’t count,” Wash declares as the dog’s head pokes out from around the corner.

“Freckles!” Emily calls out in utter delight.

With a complete change in character, Freckles loosens up the ramrod straightness of his body and begins bounding through the hall, heftily landing two paws on Wash’s lap without warning. By the time the dog is at Emily, he’s nothing but an overgrown puppy with a wagging tail and playful keening barks.

She happily catches the dog’s front paws and meets his nose.

It would be an adorable image if Washington wasn’t already sick to death of everything surrounding it.

“That all we got to say?” he demands soothingly.

Emily looks up from the dog, a curious smile, but a smile all the same, looking back on him. “What now?” she acts coyly.

“This has to stop!” Wash snaps, finally getting to his feet, slamming the book in his hands onto the top of one of piles of books as he does so.

Of course, the world never wants things to work out simply for Washington and in mere moments after his tantrum, the line of books begins to topple as a result. And soon, like dominos, the books around the house begin to fall, one into another, all around them.

Freckles is unhappy at the development and bravely gets between Wash and Emily, growling with his haunches raised.

Emily Grey is looking around in complete shock.

Washington feels like an asshole. “Goddammit! I mean. I’m sorry. Here,” he mutters, beginning to get on one knee to pick up the stray books. But he stops himself, after only grabbing two, he gets back to his feet and shakes his head. “No. No! Okay. Goddammit. I have to… I have to say something before it makes me explode!”

“Like defacing hundreds of dollars of property belonging to a roommate?” Grey offers.

“Fucking— yes,” Washington grits his teeth angrily. “This is not going to work if I don’t say anything, and you know what? I actually want this to work. I want to live here. I want to be… I don’t know. I want to be here with you. In this house. Stupid. Confectionary. Sugared-ice-tea house.”

“Sweet Home,” Emily answers, like it’s vital to the conversation. “Why do you want to be here, Mister Washington?”

Wash stares at her, beginning to wonder if she’s listened to anything he’s ever said but, suddenly, looking into her eyes, he realizes for the first time that she is being frightfully serious.

She wants to know. Which, is to say, she doesn’t understand.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” Wash answers pathetically.

“Neither do I,” she agrees.

“Yes, but it’s still your house at the end of the day,” Wash says. “I can leave, even if there’s nowhere to go. Because this house isn’t mine. Because there are no parts of it — no lines in it — that are mine and only mine. I need. I need…”

“Boundaries?” she tries to guess again.

Wash scowls at her. “Respect,” he corrects her. “And I’m…. I’m just not going to receive it as long as you continue to be inconsiderate of our differences.”

It isn’t quite knocking down every book in a maze of a house, it isn’t quite a fiery explosion, but it’s every bit of Washington’s guts and brains spewed out all the same. Words he hasn’t even put together fully formed in his own mind yet are suddenly there, bared open for them both.

For the first time since they met, Emily Grey is speechless.

Until she isn’t.

“So you are a cat person?”

Washington takes off up the stairs, fuming all over again and not sure when he’s going to blow.

#writing #rvb fic #RvB: Sweet Home #Agent Washington #Emily Grey #Michael J Caboose #AI: Freckles

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road2nf · 7 years ago

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Jensen McRae | The Road to Nerdfighteria

DFTBA. If you are not subscribed to the vlogbrothers YouTube channel, and if you never have been, you might not know what that stands for. It’s an initialism (because acronyms are pronounceable, fact c/o of a vlogbrothers video) that stands for Don’t Forget To Be Awesome. It is the official (or perhaps unofficial) motto of the nerdfighter community. (Nerdfighters are people who are fans of vlogbrothers, the content creators therein, or the community therein. I think that’s enough definitions for now). When I was 14 years old, this book called The Fault in Our Stars came out. A good friend of mine was kind of obsessed with the author, this slightly sub-middle-aged white guy named John Green, and she insisted that I read both The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska, this John Green guy’s first book. I was a reader in childhood, having developed nearsightedness due to my predilection for reading in the dark after my bedtime by flashlight (at least that’s the explanation my mother gave me). However, recently I’d found myself frustrated by books. I would tear through middle-grade chick lit (that’s the best way I can describe these terribly formulaic books with dull characters and contrived plots that always involved two straight/white/able-bodied/middle-class best friends falling in love) when I found it, but other than that, I wasn’t reading as much as I used to. I can’t really remember what I did with my free time. I guess I was writing songs? I think I was mostly playing The Sims 3. I digress. In any case, I was in ninth grade and on the precipice of Maybe Being Cool, and this friend was one of the cooler girls in class, so I bought TFiOS (hip shorthand) about two months after its publication and read it over spring break in ninth grade. I read it in one three or four hour sitting, and I cried. Like a lot. It was the first time since early childhood that I could remember a book moving me in such a poignant way. I was attached to the characters, I was absorbed by the plot, and the language! The LANGUAGE in that story was so compelling. I was picking up on subtext and metaphors in a way that I’d only ever done when I was forced to in English class. The book had reinvigorated my love for words in stories that no other book could have. Then I took a brief reading hiatus. The second half of my ninth grade year was me continuing to ascend the social ladder, however slowly. I still joked that I was a dork, but the truth of the matter was, I had friends from every rung. I was sociable with tech geeks, theater nerds, football players, and cheerleaders alike. I felt like people had stopped looking through me like I was invisible. It was largely due to my presence on the school newspaper, which drew both the ambitious popular kids and the ambitious nerdy kids to its ranks. Also, I had a boyfriend. We never kissed or held hands or even went on dates, but we hung out every day at school and told people we were dating. This was enough to get me at least a bit of social buying power. (I promise this is all relevant to the story). Then, at the end of freshman year, I realized that I was sick of having a boyfriend who did not kiss me or hold my hand or go on dates with me, and also didn’t answer my texts or calls once school let out. So I called his house and dumped him over the phone. I spent the summer feeling sorry for myself, turning to the Internet and its thriving subculture of fame and infamy. Whenever I get heartbroken in real life, I fall deeply and inconsolably in love with fictional characters and/or celebrities who are too old for me. That summer, it was Jack and Finn Harries, Dan Howell, and any other British 20-year-old who made funny sketches and made me feel like I was loved, even though they were thousands of miles away, several years older, and had no idea who I was. It was during this summer that I discovered a channel featuring two much older men named Hank Green and John Green (yes relation, they’re brothers). Their videos were all at least somewhat informational, whether they be about politics, science, literature, or just about the personal lives of the men who made the videos. About five videos in, I realized that John Green of the vlogbrothers was John Green of TFiOS fame. I was elated! There were hundreds of videos on the channel going back to 2007. In between reading self-insert fanfic about the Harries twins, I would watch vlogbrothers videos, reminding myself to read John’s other books when I got the chance. When I returned to school, all the work that I’d done to become popular seemed to dissolve before my very eyes. Sophomore year was when we switched campuses, to the Upper School, and all the actual popular kids were going to parties with upperclassmen and trying alcohol and getting into real relationships. I was stuck in the past, pining over boys who only hung out with me so I would help them write their essays and obsessing over Tumblr and YouTube. I was also experiencing turbulence in my personal life unlike any I’d ever had before. It’s so clear to me now that I was afraid of the social rejection and emotional darkness in the real world, so I holed myself up online, laughing while handsome young Brits wore wigs on camera and rewatching John Green speed-talk his way through a fake television show he titled “Hitler and Sex.” In the midst of this Internet-ing, I read that other John Green book my old friend had mentioned, even though she’d already begun the slow and painful process of outgrowing me (the death knell of our friendship was when she told me about having sex with her boyfriend in her car and my response was some combination of a prudish, judgmental face and an exclamation of “Ew!”). Looking for Alaska leveled me just as profoundly as TFiOS had, and with no social life to worry about, I was hungry for more. I read the other books that John Green had talked about on his channel–Fahrenheit 451 and The Great Gatsby, plus other works that his recommendations had led me to, like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Taming of the Shrew, and one of my all-time favorites to this day, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I was reading a book almost every week, downloading them to my iPad and going back to my old habits, reading by dim light long after I should have already gone to sleep. My schoolwork wasn’t where it needed to be, but I was thriving. Awakened, even. Though my junior year marked another ascent into minor popularity, I crash-landed my senior year, coming off a painful rejection from a summer romance and a position in student government that should have won me acceptance but largely isolated me from everyone but my fellow council mates and steady friends. College applications were stressing me out, I felt alienated from even my immediate circle, and I was worried about my social future. Though I was accepted to the only two universities I applied to, I felt inert and emotionally itchy. I descended back into what I knew best: books. I read more Vonnegut, bizarre stories by delightful authors like Graeme Cameron and Douglas Coupland, and of course, my current #1 all-time, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. After my brain literally exploded from reading Oscar Wao in all its sprawling, multilingual, multigenerational, magical realistic/science fictional glory, I devoured Díaz’s two books of short stories, Drown and This Is How You Lose Her. I vividly remember those days in the spring of 2015, using my seemingly endless multitude of free periods to sit in the sweaty, iron-hot bleachers, nose burrowed in a book, ignoring the festivities of senior year around me. I was happier alone, laughing at Kurt’s crude drawings and Díaz’s matter-of-factness about love and sex, experiences I’d still yet to have at 17. I graduated, and I went to USC, where within a month of starting school I met Junot Díaz and got him to sign my copy of Oscar Wao. I dealt with the Usual College Stuff, like homesickness (from half an hour away…I’m weak) and social anxiety and academic adjustments and figuring out what the hell it actually means to major in popular music. I stopped judging people for drinking alcohol and having sex, I stopped being afraid of parties (though I’m still terrified of boys…and rightly so), I stopped being disappointed in my real life because it doesn’t follow a neat narrative (or at least I do it less now). However, I never stopped reading, and I never stopped watching vlogbrothers videos. I am a faithful nerdfighter, because that online community and John’s books have seen me through some dark times. Somewhere in the last five years, I read An Abundance of Katherines (not my favorite), Paper Towns (used to be my favorite but TFiOS ranks supreme at the moment), and Will Grayson Will Grayson (absolutely ACES but technically cowritten with David Levithan so to me it is in a separate category). I’ve watched thousands of videos from vlogbrothers and Crash Course. I went to Vidcon in 2014 and met John in person for about five seconds, handing him my business card and a #JustinCarrWantsWorldPeace luggage tag before he was escorted to his next event by security. My love of language has blossomed into three young adult manuscripts, two feature films, a handful of short films, and hundreds of poems, songs, and essays. Though my inner and outer lives have changed substantially since I first wept onto the pages of TFiOS, I’m still anxious, and often. I’m still terrified of romantic rejection and I still put myself out there frequently and embarrassingly. I’m still a bookworm and I’m still a writer and I’m still a nerdfighter. And I think I always will be. John Green and his books have a special place in my heart. So when he announced that his first new book in almost six years is coming out this fall, I was overcome with emotion. Turtles All The Way Down isn’t just a book. It’s a historical artifact from the future, a piece of my past hurtling towards me from the opposite direction. When I think of John Green’s work, I think of my cringey adolescence, my weirdly small glasses and then my weirdly big glasses, my difficulty with my weight and my stunted social development. I think of the hours I spent reblogging fan art and GIF sets of real people that I’d mythologized into characters by watching their YouTube videos for so long. I think of my transition from Cute Little Girl to Awkward Bookish Teen to Real Human Woman. I was 14 when I read my first John Green book. I will be 20 when I read Turtles All The Way Down. The chasm between who I was and who I will be then is huge. Un-crossable by anyone but me. Right now, we’re a little less than four months out from the release of Turtles All The Way Down. Not much is known about the book, and I’d like to keep it that way. I’m feeling those tingly “no spoilers!” feelings I felt when I was in high school and enamored with the purity of an untouched literary experience. But as much as this book’s impending release is inspiring a unique kind of nostalgia in me, it’s also reminding me that I cannot go back. I cannot return to the innocent girl of 14 I was when I first heard John Green’s name, and I can’t get back the years I spent/lost/lived in between then and now. I can only move forward. I can only grow up. This book, in all likelihood, will not live up to my expectations. It will not change my life. It can’t, because though it will be my first time reading this particular book, it won’t be my first time becoming infatuated with literature. I’ve done that already. I may love this book, but there is a difference between falling in love with someone new and falling in love for the very first time. Before I met books with sweaty palms, dress askew, tongue heavy in my mouth. So…come here often? Now, each story is met with a knowing smile, legs crossed at the ankles like they’re supposed to be, no lipstick on the wine glass. Your place or mine? Before this book comes out, and I form any opinions about the content or the style, I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to John Green. If not for his careful handiwork, if not for the immense trust that he puts in his young readers, if not for his heart-wrenching stories, I might never have been drawn to great books the way I am now. Thank you for caring. Thank you for writing even when your illness handcuffed you, tried to make you stop. Thank you for making videos about hard topics and silly ones. I may grow up, but I will never outgrow you and your words, John. Keep publishing books, and I’ll keep reading them, no matter how old we both get.

via @withfeelingoncemore

#nfstories #john green #hank green #tfios #turtles all the way down #nerdfighteria #reading #submission

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shuturquibble · 8 years ago

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Reunion Rhapsody

Fandom: Hibike! Euphonium Pairings: AsuKumi (Asuka/Kumiko) Words: 1659 Summary: In which Kumiko meets up with someone after a long time, and they catch up - in more ways than one. Links: FF is here! AO3 is here!

“Ah, there you are. I was thinking you weren’t going to show up.”

“…I’m late by literally two minutes.”

“Punctuality is a virtue, Oumae-chan.”

“Quit talking out of your ass.”

“My, my, someone’s gotten feisty since our last meeting.”

“Things can change over the course of two years.”

“So it seems. But I guess your height isn't one of them. Oh, come on, don’t give me that look! How about you sit? The bench isn’t that cold—see, I even wiped off all the snow just for you!”

“Wow, how considerate.”

“Sarcasm hurts, Oumae-chan. Mm? Why’re you staring? Is there something on my face?”

“Ah, no. It’s just…you haven’t changed much, is all.”

“Is that so? I’ll have you know that I did trim my hair a couple of days ago, though. And I got a new prescription.”

“Your hairstyle’s still the same. And so are your frames.”

“Minor details.”

“Why’d you call me out here?”

“To catch up, of course! It’s been two years—you’re graduating soon, right?”

“In a week.”

“My, how time flies! It feels like only yesterday you wandered into the band room with Katou-chan and Sapphire-chan like lost little lambs.”

“That’s hardly close to the truth.”

“Minor details. Ah, your nose and cheeks are all red. Are you cold?”

“I’m freezing, Asuka-senpai.”

“I don’t see why. You look like a walking marshmallow, with all those layers on.”

“We’re sitting in the cold, next to a frozen river, and it’s starting to snow.”

“And?”

“And I’m cold.”

“Fine, fine. Here, I’ll wrap my arm around you to keep you warm.”

“…Fine.”

“Tell me, how’s the band doing?”

“Better. We’ve grown a lot since you graduated.”

“I saw when they broadcasted the Kansai Regionals last year on TV. A good amount of lows joined, surprisingly. Usually only one or two joins.”

“You’ll be surprised how many we have now. We have so many euphs that Taki-sensei made us our own section.”

“Don’t exaggerate—”

“We have seven.”

“Plus you?”

“Eight.”

“Wow.”

“The size of the band practically doubled since you graduated, too. Reina’s having a hard time keeping them together, but she manages to get it done.”

“Oh? Yuuko nominated her for president?”

“They get along surprisingly well.”

“Interesting…. Who’s the vice president, then?”

“Me.”

“Oh, Oumae-chan! I’m so flattered! Have you stepped up to the plate to honor your beloved senpai’s name?”

“I…would be lying if I said that wasn’t part of the reason I accepted the nomination.”

“…Seriously?”

“Stop smiling, please.”

“What? Am I not allowed to convey to my precious junior how touched I am? Next thing you know you’ll be telling me that Nozomi nominated you for taking her place as drum major!”

“She chose Shuuichi for that.”

“Tsukamoto-kun? The trombonist?”

“Mhm.”

“I’m surprised he would accept the nomination. He doesn’t seem like the type of person to be a leader.”

“I know. But he told me the only reason he accepted was because he didn’t want to march around with a trombone.”

“Ah, smart man. Brass instruments get heavy after a while. But, then again, so does a mace….”

“How’s college life?”

“Oh, what’s the sudden interest in my life, Oumae-chwan?”

“I’m just tired of talking about myself. And never call me that again, please.”

“You are hurting me!”

“Minor details. And don’t move around too much—it’s a little uncomfortable, especially since your arm is still around me.”

“Fine, fine, sorry.”

“…So?”

“So what?”

“So are you going to tell me about your college life?”

“I’m not sure, Oumae-chan, there’s quite a lot to go over….”

“I suddenly regret showing up in the first place.”

“I’m joking, I’m joking. It’s going well.”

“You’re studying at a conservatory, right?”

“Indeed!”

“Are you going to become a professional euphonist like your dad?”

“Somewhere around those lines. Although, I am considering majoring in either composition or instrumental conducting.”

“Can’t imagine your mother being okay with that.”

“I assure you she wasn’t. She even kicked me out of the house.”

“It’s…kind of unsettling how you can say that with a smile.”

“It’s fine. It became a minor detail. I share an apartment with Kaori and Haruka now.”

“You still keep in touch with those two?”

“I owe those two quite a lot.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Can’t believe you’re a senior now.”

“Me neither.”

“Feeling like a grandma yet?”

“If I’m a grandma, then you must be a dinosaur.”

“Ouch! That hurt, Oumae-chan.”

“…Senpai?”

“Mm? What is it?”

“Did…you have any regrets when you graduated?”

“My, someone’s gotten serious all of a sudden.”

“Answer the question, please.”

“Mm…not necessarily. Although, most of it is because you helped prevent that from happening. I don’t think I ever thanked you properly for it. So, thank you.”

“Ah. It’s…no problem.”

“But there is one thing that has been bugging me since I graduated.”

“What is it?”

“Ooh, someone’s sounding eager. All the more reason not to tell you.”

“Why are you like this.”

“Do you regret something, Oumae-chan? You’re suddenly quiet—did I hit a nerve?”

“I have a few.”

“Oh?”

“One of them is not getting gold during my second-year at Nationals.”

“Silver is a step up from Bronze, though.”

“Yeah. But we didn’t keep your promise. You wanted gold, and we failed to do that.”

“I admit, I was a bit disappointed when I found out about it. But I heard the recording of you guys playing. And I heard your solo. And, suddenly, I didn’t feel disappointed at all. I felt so proud of you. Even now, I feel proud of you.”

“T-thank you….”

“Hm? Is my precious Oumae-chan going to start crying?”

“I-if you keep this up, p-probably.”

“Sorry, sorry. If it makes you feel better, I was exceptionally proud when I heard you guys got gold this year at Nationals.”

“It was basically a dud gold.”

“Dud gold is still gold in my book.”

“I don’t remember you being this lax when it came to achievements, Asuka-senpai.”

“And I don’t remember you being this strict, Oumae-chan.”

“Say, what’s your regret?”

“Hm? Back to me so suddenly?”

“I said one of my own. I think you should return the favor.”

“Such a dirty trick you’ve played on me! How will I ever find it in me to forgive you?”

“Just get on with it, please.”

“Fine, fine. My regret is not being able to properly tell you how much you mean to me.”

“…Is it?”

“Mhm. I’ve been thinking about it since I graduated. I keep thinking back to that time you confronted me in front of the old school building. How you said ‘I love you!’ despite the fact you said you wanted relationship advice. How much of a mess you looked, red-faced with tear-stained cheeks as you stood there shivering in the cold. I wanted to say something back, but I too much of a coward to do it. That’s why I gave you my father’s notebook. It was a wordless attempt to convey to you my feelings because I wasn’t able to say what I wanted to say. Even now, I don’t think I can say it properly without getting emotional. But I don’t think I can forgive myself if I never say it.”

“So why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I what?”

“Say it.”

“I’m…not all that good with words, Oumae-chan.”

“But at least you said it.”

“Well, you certainly have a point there.”

“You can start anytime you want.”

“I…always felt alone. Not in the sense that I had nobody to talk to—I had many people, actually. I had Kaori, Haruka, the entire band, teachers, even my mother. But I never had anyone to talk to. Mainly because I felt that all of them didn’t quite understand me. The band thought of me as their savior and pillar of support. Teachers thought of me as their best student. My mother thought of me as a pawn she could control to gain success. No one ever really approached me to just talk, you know? Sure, Kaori and Haruka and other people had tried, but I always knew that there was an ulterior motive. And that made me feel very, very alone.

“The only way I could really show my true self was through my euphonium. There’s something special about it that’s comforting. It’s mellow and gentle, and can easily become overwhelmed in a concert band. But it also supports the band, forming the foundation that gives the band its power. I like to think of the euphonium as my support whenever I play it.”

“That…kind of explains it.”

“Hm? Explains what?”

“Why you sound so sad when you play sometimes.”

“I only show that side when I’m playing for you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I love the euphonium. And you’re a euph-ish kid.”

“Are…you trying to tell me something?”

“Hm? Does it sound like I’m trying to tell you something?”

“Kind of.”

“In what way?”

“It feels as if you’re confessing to me in a very Asuka-senpai-like way.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Because you’re not telling me outright that you love me. What? What’s so funny?”

“N-nothing. It’s just amazing how well you can read people like an open book.”

“People are more expressive than they think.”

“So it seems, Kumiko.”

“That’s…a first.”

“Hm? What is?”

“You calling me by my first name.”

“Does it sound weird?”

“No. It…actually sounds nice.”

“Then I’ll call you that from now on.”

“…Asuka.”

“Hm?”

“O-oh. Nothing. I…wanted to try calling out just your name.”

“You’re surprisingly childish.”

“Sh-shut up! D-don’t laugh!”

“Sorry, sorry, can’t help it. Hearing you after such a long time makes me super happy, you know?”

“If…if you keep smiling that, I don’t think I can handle it….”

“Right, right. Sorry, Kumiko.”

“It’s fine…even though you’re still smiling.

“Oh? Is it really?”

“It is. Because I love you, Asuka.”

“I love you, too, Kumiko—my precious, euph-ish kid.”

the following is an AN i put in the beginning of the story when i posted it on FF and AO3. sorry if it sounds weird - i just copy-pasted it and it was initially supposed to be in the beginning, not in the end. i only put it in the end on tumblr because i didn’t want people to see a big ol note in the beginning lmao.

whoa, what's this? an asukumi story? what? is that even possible? why, yes, yes it is. it's been a while since hibigay ended (it actually ended on my bday, i was quite pleased to wake up in the morning to watch it, aga), and i'm actually quite satisfied with the ending. i feel like with the way kyoani was going with the series (aka demolishing reina's character ty kyoani), it was the best possible ending. asukumi was something that grew on me. many see them as a sister/sister relationship. i even saw them as that. but looking back on it, i feel like asukumi made a sort of sense - two loners coming together as a way to comfort one another, only to have their feelings bloom into something much more is the trope i see them as. and that trope makes my heart hurt. i hope my story managed to capture that.

but, of course, that doesn't mean i hate kumirei or asuharu or my third-year ot3 - asukumi is just another ship to add to the list. :) im actually quite hesitant to post this story, mainly because i know asukumi isn't a popular ship and i'm not sure on what kind of reception this will get. and mainly because i wanted to tell this story through dialogue only. just something new to keep me entertained and help improve on dialogue.

there i go with my ramblings. i better stop before i make this note longer than the actual story, aha.

#Hibike! Euphonium #sound! euphonium #h!e #h!e fanfic #tanaka asuka #Oumae Kumiko #asukumi #dialogue only #this was basically a writing exercise for me lol #fun fact: it initially wasn't going to be romantic #but it turned out that way #i hope you enjoyed #thanks for reading :)

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louryanalarcon · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on The Rise of Skywalker

That was not a good ending, and I’ll tell you why. Careful: spoilers for Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker ahead:

Ben Solo should not have died. Call me crazy, but I am truly a sucker for a happily ever after – especially when it involves Rey and Ben Solo. But the Disney Gods simply would not give it to us. I can already hear it now, “Kylo Ren was responsible for thousands of deaths across the galaxy. This is what he deserves.” Give me a break. Please spare me all this bullshite about Kylo Ren having to pay the ultimate price in order to be fully redeemed. That is just piss-poor, lazy film writing. Redemption does not always have to end in death! Damn it! Besides, “Kylo Ren” died. Yes, he died figuratively – but it lends to the story. Follow it. Ben Solo returns. And he must make things right again. Why then must Ben Solo have to die for this redemption to mean anything? Got damnit.

Look at this from Rey’s perspective. All she ever wanted was a family – through and through! Her literal entire character revolves around her chasing after her lost parents and finding her identity. How is killing off the one person she finds a connection with, in the entire galaxy, a good idea for her arc? How does that provide any closure or even any sympathy for her character? Rey’s story ends with her alone on a desert planet – pretty much exactly where she started! Good Lord, I shed a tear for her.

Sure, they kiss. And… it’s beautiful. And dare I say, for a split second, I forgive JJ Abrams and Disney for this terribly paced, jumbled mess of an ending. Because in that split second, love prevails. Ben does what his grandfather, Anakin, sought out and failed to do – save the woman he loves. Why do you have to take this away from us? What unwritten rule states that only death can pay for full redemption? Why couldn’t they go the unique route of seeking redemption not in death, but in life? What lesson are we learning here after all? I hate this trope of having death as the end-all to solve all our problems – to put a bow on everything… it’s just tired and does not show true redemption. A true redemption is making amends. We could have had an ending with Rey and Ben training a new school of Jedi knights, whilst surrounded by their twin children – continuing the Skywalker bloodline. This ending is twofold. It continues the bloodline and partly makes amends for Ben Solo as he trains the new generation of Jedi. Guys… It’s right there…

What good does the ending we got serve? The Skywalker bloodline ends (truly) with the death of Ben Solo. I understand Rey states she is a Skywalker but come on guys. She isn’t. But here’s the thing: she could have been – with Ben. I mean come on! It’s right there!

…

I’ve been stewing on this for a little over a week now as you may be able to tell. I haven’t been this enraged by the conclusion of one of my favorite series since Game of Thrones. This isn’t nearly as bad, but still. It’s bad. One might interpret this as the pissed-off ramblings from a hardcore Reylo shipper. And to those people – those stone-hearted heathens, I say, “What’s so bad about wanting a happily ever after?”

Listen, let me level with you all. I’m new to the fandom, (having come in with the sequel trilogy). So, I am in the minority by being obviously invested in the characters of the sequel trilogy: mostly Rey and Kylo, but also Finn and I guess Poe. Side note, Rose being relegated to basically a cameo character is pretty sad, considering her large role in The Last Jedi. But hey, I didn’t really care much for her anyways. Truthfully, I feel worse for Finn because he’s made out to be the bad guy here. He doesn’t even acknowledge Rose or their fateful kiss in the previous film. Hell, it’s like it didn’t even happen. What’s worse, when he wasn’t ignoring the one girl who loved him, he was chasing after the scavenger girl and yelling her name every five seconds. I don’t get it. And then they bring in this new character, Jannah, who has ties with Lando. But like… who cares? Listen, Jannah was fine, but couldn’t her lines have been given to Rose, an already established character? Why continue to introduce new characters we won’t give a damn for?

This movie was two and a half hours long but should have been three. It would have benefitted immensely from taking a moment to just breathe. Let the characters talk and carry this film, instead of having them run around the galaxy like we’re in a video game. I did not appreciate it at the time, but what The Last Jedi does right compared to Rise of Skywalker is its ability to communicate. Reylo shippers loved The Last Jedi for its intimacy and force bond connection between its star-crossed lovers, Kylo Ren and Rey. As I look back at it, I appreciate it now even more. This emphasis on the “dyad” is what this film is severely lacking. The Rise of Skywalker absolutely refuses to love its main characters, Rey and Kylo, in favor of the original trilogy’s Luke and Leia. Why did they decide to end the sequel trilogy with an ending meant for the heroes of past? What about our heroes of this generation? What about our happily ever after?

…

Okay, enough Star Wars. I just needed an outlet to vent out my frustrations on the death of Ben Solo. Hi everyone. Happy new year. 2019 was quite the year, wouldn’t you say? I graduated college! I look forward to what 2020 – and this new decade – will bring to my life. It’s a blank slate with whole new horizons waiting for me. I am both equally excited and scared. As I’ve said before, this is the first time in my life that I’m not in school. As such, there is a lot of uncertainty and hidden pressure to continue moving forward. Some days can be harder than others. Most days seem to bleed into the next. But no matter the uncertainty, I remain thankful. I’m thankful for my health, my family, and the opportunities that come my way.

I started this tumblr back in November of 2017. Now, it’s January 2020. My plan is to continue on for as long as I can. I may not update as consistently as I’d like to, but when I am in the mood, or I feel like I have something worthy to share, I will always try my best to find my way back to you – just as Ben Solo did for Rey.

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decadenttimetravelmentality-blog · 7 years ago

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