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skylermadness · 2 months ago

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Snack Shenanigans [B Side] (Gunzo Tamamura TF/TG/MC)

(Original Date of Upload: October 27, 2023)

Original Description:

I wrote an alt for a story for once! I've actually tried handling story alts before but they never really went well because I lost all motivation to complete the second iteration, so I just uploaded the first one and called it a day. Really proud of myself for finishing an alt though! Especially since I think I might like this one a bit more than the original! But they both are good stories either way. Also yes there's a little bit of copying and pasting in terms of descriptions and stuff, but I think despite that this story being a whole 1k words longer than the other must testify to something that should make the few moments of copying and pasting a non-issue.

One of the more prominent constants when it came to Madison's daily trips to her college campus were her visits to the cafeteria's drink vending machines after lunch. And more often than not she'd buy the exact same thing from the machine's array of beverages. For the most part she tended to orient herself more towards the carbonated side of things when it came to drinks. Well that and the moment she learned about fruit punch-flavored soda all other flavors were thrown out the window in preference for that one. So with all things considered her trips to the vending machine were short, simplistic, and unchanging.

That was until today anyway. The one time Madison forgot to order from the machine prior to lunch she ends up having to experience the disappointment of realizing that what you want is no longer in stock. Not the worst experience of course, but definitely a bit of a let down. Despite all of that however, a part of her still insisted on ordering something from the vending machine. But between the rather disinteresting menagerie of soda flavors and the rather bland selection of Gatorade flavors it was evident that this might not occur. At least until her eyes landed on a small selection of beverages in the furthest corner of the machine.

The selection in question was a set of four drinks all under the same labeling: Yoyogi Protein. Evidently a quartet of protein drinks that all came in fruity flavors. Passionfruit, coconut, chokecherry, and pineapple. A rather interesting selection of drinks, but she's never really been all that into protein drinks. Then again it did come in passionfruit which was another fruit flavor she was particularly fond of. And considering she still has the taste for something fruity…

Shrugging, she made up her mind and set up her order with the vending machine. A satisfying thunk could be heard as the bottle was pushed forward off the conveyor and into the machine’s pick-up box. She then retrieved her drink from the pick-up box before making her way out of the cafeteria.

As Madison continued her trek down the hallway she internally makes plans to find a nice seat on one of the hallway benches and kill this last half-hour before her next class. She would've preferred to head up to the campus' library to try and get some work done prior to that but considering the place's strict anti-consumable rules that was out of the question for the time being. Then again she didn't really mind sitting in the hallway for a bit. It just meant she could cycle through the social media sites she uses in silence (save for the people who use the elevator next to where she usually sits).

A few more steps and a turn would lead her to her favorite bench to sit on. Placing her backpack beside her she took a seat and leaned onto the wall before unscrewing the bottle. However before she fully removed it she brought the beverage up to eye level with her to inspect it. The liquid within it looked to be particularly thick as it sloshed around in its plastic confines. It did have a pleasant deep purple coloration to it though. She wasn't really sure what she was expecting from it though. She ended her inspection there and unscrewed the cap fully before promptly bringing the bottle to her mouth and starting her consumption of the protein drink.

…yup, the fluid definitely feels very thick in the mouth. Seemed to taste rather tart and floral as well. Definitely like how she was used to passionfruit tasting. Still not her most favorite type of drink though, but she didn't particularly dislike it. It could always work as a good back-up if she ever were to forget to order her soda again.

With those thoughts in her mind Madison continued drinking, the woman blissfully unaware of the changes starting to form on her body as she did. It was rather isolated at first. The fingers on both hands slowly got thicker, ends and nails getting more blunt with each passing second. This evidently continued as her fingers continued to grow in thickness with a similar shift in size quickly jumping to the hands themselves. A firm meatiness steadily accumulating within each hand; larger, bulkier, seemingly more powerful in appearance. At some point they just looked blocky in appearance, almost seemingly more masculine.

A low heat started to arise as the changes steadily moved upwards, going beyond her wrists and beneath the sleeves of her sweater. Her musculature was getting heavily affected by this, strength building up in both limbs as the thickness continued to increase in prominence. The slender appearance her arms usually possessed we getting replaced easily, muscle mass constantly being accrued and granting them a look and size that just emanated strength and power. It wasn't long until the sleeves of her sweater began filling out, the outlines of her muscles etching into the fabric.

This wasn't the only change in her physicality however. Despite the warmth that had budded within her, Madison was also experiencing slight chills in the region that was being changed. They were only minor temperature shifts at first but with each one she experienced a sliver of her skin darkened, hardened into scar tissue. One scar on the back of her left hand, one on the back of her right, another set on her forearms, one long one on her left elbow. It was just scars of varying sizes just constantly forming on the already changed portions of her arm, and this would only continue as the shifts in her body progressed. Although for now it would all be hidden beneath the sleeves of her sweater.

Despite the small chills, her muscles and arms continued to remain warm. Every so often she'd get a feeling of a freezing slash across one of her biceps or shoulders, but it would instantly be displaced by the heat of her muscles growing. Especially since by this point some of the more major muscle groups had gotten their almost instant workout with her biceps and triceps bulking up in unity. The broadness of Madison's shoulders increased drastically as the deltoid muscles developed and rounded out even more. By this point the almost fragile seaming of her sweater began to break, tears splitting open around her much thicker upper arms and revealing the newly rigid and strength-filled muscles of her limbs.

The sudden sounds of tearing finally alerted her to the changes. Madison stopped drinking the protein drink (which at this point still was around 65% full) and looked over to inspect the sound's source. Her eyes widened. "Wh-huh…? What happened to my arm?? Why is it so… muscular…?"

Her gaze trailed downwards, the woman inspecting one arm up until she laid eyes on her hands and finally took note of the scars as well. "Scars too?? How long have they been like that!? W-wait-"

Her gaze then drifted over to the protein drink bottle in her hand. No, there's no way something like that could have magically given her this kind of muscle mass, right? Right??

All of this made a part of her want to panic, and yet something else about this still intrigued her. She placed the bottle of the suspicious beverage beside her, then outstretched her hand. Staring at the way the muscles were outlined in the fabric of her sweater, straining against the sleeve of it. Out of curiosity she gave her arm a good flex and watched as some more tears formed in the sleeve. It was a little uncanny, yet the raw strength that coursed through her felt oddly appealing!

Madison's train of thought then broke as she felt another bout of cold enter her body, the woman momentarily shivering at the sudden temperature shift. "Urgh- can't tell if that's the temperature or-" she coughed at the sudden feeling of her voice crack in her through, "-or my bodily changes…"

Leaning forward a bit, Madison could feel the transformation to move beyond her shoulders. Her chest just beginning to heat up, core almost burning as she felt the changes rush to her torso.

The overall width of Madison's frame was probably the next thing to start changing, her form broadening out and shifting to dispel her usually skinny figure more. This type of change got more prominent as her chest became the next part of her body to get altered. A feeling of a cold squeeze entered her chest, breasts feeling like they were getting flattened by this strange pressure. The fatty tissue within them was steadily melting away causing her chest to flatten more and more by the second. As it did so the muscles beneath them began to grow, swelling out rapidly to the point it would almost appear that her breasts hardened into thick slabs of pectorals. These newly developed muscles would quickly grow a little bit more, but not large enough that they were the size of someone more oriented towards constant workouts. If anything they looked more like those of a strong athlete granting her some great upper body strength. This then came with another cold slash on the upper corner of her right pectoral which granted her a small X-shaped scar.

She then felt a sudden cold-feeling punch into her gut followed by an intense cramping in her abdominal region. "A-argh! That… that-" she grunted as she felt her throat crack again, voice seeming to deepen for a moment. "What the heck was in that protein drink, man…"

Madison tried to disregard the sound of her voice… or the fact that her thought pattern translated that comment less as 'that drink is the catalyst of my transformation' and more 'did that drink shoot straight through my body?' That very thought seemed to cause a light haze to enter her mind with thoughts steadily becoming a little bit harder. Curiosity faded to confusion as she started to wonder just what these changes were entailing now. And in truth she was starting to feel like she was forgetting a few things…

Nonetheless she didn't enjoy the feeling of her gut churning around, nor did she like the increasingly heightened prospect of someone walking by and seeing her. With those worries in mind she stood up, used an arm to support her cramping abdomen, and started to make her way to the bathroom nearby.

With major changes ensuing in her abdomen it wasn't too long until it too underwent noticeable physical changes. As it churned the skin began to bubble almost as abdominal muscles steadily rose from her skin. They slotted out almost sequentially with row after row extending out until she had been granted a six-pack set of abs. However much like her pectorals, her abdominal muscles were not bodybuilder peak in size and appeared much more modest and oriented towards athletics. Alongside this it would seem a little bit of fat accumulated around the region as well to slightly fill out the area, just barely giving some smoothness to her abdomen. There was also some burning to her sides as her oblique muscles developed a little more, the intense heat being subsided by more scar-forming cold slashes. By the time her abdomen was finished changing she reached the bathroom that was luckily unoccupied. Rushing in there she locked the door before heading to the mirror. It would seem she didn't notice that she had subconsciously rushed into the men's room though…

Staring at herself in the mirror she came to the slow realization of just how large she had become. Evidently she had gotten quite wider and she was definitely a bit taller. Both of these facts were why her sweater felt so ill-fitting horizontal and why the hem of it was rising up her belly. And there still seemed to be a prominent feel of decompression in the woman's spine as that seemed to still be growing a bit.

But all of her analysation of herself was broken in an instant as she felt something freezing pierce through the haze of her brain and straight into it. She stepped back with a grunt, holding her head in her massive hands while squeezing her eyes shut. Thankfully though the surge of pain subsided almost as quickly as it arrived, but it resulted in something weirder than the transformation itself.

Her right eye's iris had been shocked into a bright crimson, and through that eye she could see what looked to be a quartet of weird see-through ghost-like figures clinging onto her back. They had a strange shape to them, looking to be almost spherical in shape with their body predominately being composed of a single large eye, all while their limbs had been wrapped around her arms and torso for who knows how long.

A single term ran through her head once she saw them: Legion. And something about hearing that term echo through her fogged up mind had prevented her from panicking. She knew these creatures. They were… some of familiar, maybe? She wasn't quite sure. She just knew they weren't a harm to her…

"Eheh, you guys look pretty cute!" she said with a smile. The compliment seemed to elicit a positive reaction from a few of the Legion, their eyelids closing in such a way that they looked happy. In a way it made her happy too, so much so that she decided not to dwell on the fact her voice had changed even more. Getting deeper with a tone that carried a level of youthful awkwardness to it.

Curious again Madison decided to look down to better see where Legion had wrapped itself around her, and she found two of the four had begun spiraling their arms around her legs. As they did so the transformation continued to progress to the lower half of her body. This section of changes mirrored that of her arms, muscle mass easily packing into both sections of her legs with a quick pacing. Thighs grew thicker with bulkier hamstrings and quadriceps, and she could feel a surge of heat flare up in her calves as they bloated up with muscle mass as well. Her height continued to increase as well, Madison wincing a bit as she heard her knees pop and decompress a bit before increasing in size and strength.

Madison also got to see the source of the occasional freeze slashes she was experiencing, that being from when some of Legion traced their fingers over her skin. The scars were still not extremely visible to her, but her legs were evidently less scarred as the rest of her body seemed to be with only a few of them scattered around the crus of her legs and her calves. However all of this combined contributed to her jeans feeling severely more constricted, a few tears forming in the sides as a result.

What followed were the changes in her feet. While very few scars were traced into the bridge of her feet the overall size of them steadily increased in all directions. They got wider, pushing up against the sides of her shoes easily. And they got longer, heels digging into the back of her footwear while her toes pressed up against the front. The overall thickness of her feet became rather impressive as well, toes having become chunkier while the foot itself was dense and blocky looking like her hands. It wouldn't take very long for them to grow to a fitting proportion for her new body, their appearance having quickly altered to fit the more masculine look that Madison now was possessing. It resulted in her shoes having immense trouble containing her larger feet with a couple rips already forming across the sides and even the front splitting open and some toes poking out.

Madison smiled, although laughing nervously at hearing her shoes burst. "Y-you dudes seem to be doing great! Something about this just feels so good…"

She shivered a bit as she felt one of the Legions place a hand in front of her neck and begin rubbing it. Her voice had already mostly changed but at this point it seemed to be forcing the changes to finish and settle. Just lowering it more to be just like that of an awkward young adult male.

"A-ah! You're really doing a lot of work on me, bros! I think you just have the head!" he then turned his head and flexed an arm again, casually inspecting his body for a few seconds. "Might as well start considering myself a guy as well with what you dudes did to me!"

The very thought of that was appealing to him. A more correct assumption especially based on the way his body looked. So much more masculine and athletic. It felt like she had the body of one of those jocks she'd see walk around campus!

While her thoughts trailed one of the four Legions had given him a thumbs up before placing its hands onto the sides of her head. It then began squeezing her head, her skull structure and face just becoming practically malleable under the palms of the ghost-like entity. Skull being stretched out wider, his jawline broadening and chiseling out into a more angular and almost square shape. In general it would seem the very structure of his skull was being widened and lengthened into a more square-like appearance.

Madison watched in the mirror as the Legion continued its work, this time shifting his facial structure even more. Pulling and broadening his nose, its bridge of it was evidently wider while the structure of it was reshaped away from a short one and into one a bit larger. His eyes were made a little larger and rounder, and as it trailed its fingers across his eyebrows he could see the hairs of them get thicker (especially towards the ends). He also felt it tug on his ears to make them a bit larger and rounder in shape alongside sticking out more. Furthermore, it brushed a finger across his chin and sides of his head to cause light amounts of hair to grow out from his skin and form slight stubble. Lastly came a slash on his left cheek to form yet another scar.

All while one Legion did work on his face, another one was concurrently doing work on his hair. Slowly rubbing its hands up and down his scalp and causing his hair to shorten with its touch, and it only continued to do so as his face was being morphed. Slowly it went up from being shoulder length to trailing up the nape of his neck to being of equal length with his chin, and it still got shorter as time continued. All the while the waviness of it was straightened, and the dark blonde coloration was deepened to an almost reddish-brown. Alongside this the Legion also gave Madison some thicker sideburns. By the time his hair was what could only be defined as 6/8 of an inch the Legion deemed that length acceptable and ran its hand through his hair to style it. It resulted in his hair being given a slightly messy and short spiky style. The spikes were typically raised upwards and forwards, and in the end the appearance just looked somewhat disheveled and disorganized. By the end it was styled in a way that he just couldn't resist running a hand through to just feel what his hair.

"This is so cool, dude…" he said, watching the spikes of his hair poke in between his fingers. Everything about this body felt so new, but at the same time the cloud in his mind was making it seem so familiar as well. The more he stared into the mirror and the more he looked at his own face the more it seemed like this wasn't something he had just been transformed into.

"W-woah, what are you dudes doing to me…?" he asked, taking a step back and placing a single hand on the side of his head. So many blanks were being drawn in quick succession. He was someone else just a few minutes ago, right? Then why can't he seem to remember that. The last thing he can recall was just drinking some new protein drink from that vending machine. Then why was he in the bathroom? Wasn't something… happening to his body? "Nnngh, hard to think…"

He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt some of Legion begin to massage his temples. Right, Legion, always there when he needed it… just should contrate… or perhaps he should just forget it all and go back to what he was doing. This was all just so confusing, dude…

As the man was placed in a state of mental discombobulation, the two Legion not tending to his migraine started to futz around with his clothing and alter it. Wrapping arms around his sweater and palming it up and down, restitching the tears and loosening it up to fit more snug around his form. They pulled the sleeves up his arm until they were slightly above his bicep, the action just shortening them completely instead of rolling them upwards. The constant pawing of Legion caused the soft material of the sweater to harden, shifting into some kind of durable nylon. The change in material also forced a change in color, bright red overtaking the sweater with ease as white stripes ran vertically from his sleeves to his neck: a bold horizontal one across his chest with a second smaller one a bit beneath it, and another two vertical ones down the side. The neck even deepened a little, a small placket forming with associated buttons and eyelets. The neckline itself lengthened up into a short collar that propped itself upwards around his own neck. Lastly, a Legion traced a small symbol on the uniform's right side to create what seemed to be a symbol composed of three arrows all pointing in different directions.

Seemingly continuing the changes of his attire to something more sport-oriented, the ghostly entities enlarging his legwear a little bit while shortening the legs of his pants until they reached halfway down his thighs. The material remained a hard denim, but their touch also shifted its color from deep blue to bright white. His socks soon followed when it came to size changes and shifts as Legion pulled them both up until they mostly encapsulated his lower legs. His footwear was the next part to get changed, becoming larger while the material hardened again as the white shifted to a deep blue. The soles of his shoes brightened to yellow as rounded nubs poked out from them. Straps became string as more additional designs were added to the footwear to make them appear more visually intriguing. If anything they appeared to be rugby cleats now.

The final additions to his attire came with the addition of something that ran beneath his uniform and shorts. The Legion materializing black leather beneath them and over his body, the strange new piece of clothing continuing to stretch over his form for a few seconds. The neck of it was just barely visible, and sleeves lengthened until they were nestled around his biceps, and the portion of it around his legs were barely visible. In the end it would seem to be a compression shirt and shorts combo that had been manifested, which ended the granting of sports gear to the newly transformed human.

As Legion continued to rub the man's head, their actions were steadily draining away his concerns. The ghosts (well, demons more accurately) removing his thoughts of a former identity, a former life, anything that could be traced back to those things. Nothing for this man to worry about, his only concern being those that his current life would give him. But there was nothing to worry about at all… That's what they were telling him after all, and after one last bit of inner turmoil he believed it.

The headache subsided and Gunzo blinked his eyes, the left one now the same red as the right. "U-urgh, that was… weird. Don't think I've ever gotten a headache like that before…"

He felt one of Legion's ghostly hands rub his back in reassurance, the rugby player smiling in response. "Thanks, dudes! Glad you guys got my back!"

A separate Legion gave him a thumbs up. Nodding in acknowledgement of it, Gunzo remains focused on the spectral entity as he makes his way to the entrance and opened it. Unfortunately his lack of focus on what's in front of him causes him to collide with someone as he leaves.

"Oof- a-ah, sorry!" Gunzo apologized, a little panicked at the sudden collision between him and this other guy.

The other guy just stepped back a bit, also noticeably startled. "No, it's alright! Was a little worried someone else was going to be occupying this for a while…"

"Ahh, sorry if the wait was a bit… can't even remember why I was in there…"

The other guy tilted his head. "Riiiight…"

The two then part. Gunzo makes his way down the hall as the guy he bumped into walks into the bathroom. Unaware to both of them, this interaction had given the second party a weird feeling of bloating being caused by his stomach seeming to get fatter. His shirt also was getting a few splotches of blue as well… but that was a problem for him to deal with.

On the other hand, Gunzo made his way down the hall before his peripherals caught the sight of something on a nearby bench. Turning his head out of curiosity he found a protein drink bottle beside a backpack. For some reason his brain registered both as his own.

"Oh, can't believe I almost forgot these!" He walked over to the bench and hauled up the backpack to his back before picking up the bottle. He eyed the bottle in suspicion however, but that only lasted a few seconds before he shrugged it off. "Should be enough to hold me over during practice," he commented before going about his day…

#character tf #tf #transformation #human tf #muscle growth tf #bara tf #ftm tf tg #tf tg #male transformation

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somestardeww · 1 year ago

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hobie brown hcs bc why not?

s/n: first post!!! omg so excited :))))

hobie would have a small vegetable garden in his house, probably in his backyard or something. if the space were small, it would be a vertical garden, and he would planetary little things like mint and basil, because even if these small acts were not going to actually help to stop the abominable machine of capitalism, it was something of a reminder that a reality without this mortal menace which hovers over the entire proletariat was not impossible.

he would also be a great artist, but not more traditional things like drawing (although he was very good at that too, he has drawn some of the tattoos he has, by the way), but sewing and customizing clothes. in my head, he designed his jacket (which he sewed himself, after a lot of struggle to rescue pieces of jeans and learn to put them together in one piece) and created all his buttons from scratch, using things like plastic bottles that would go to the trash (100% those Brazilian youtubers who make videos of 'lixo ao luxo')

he would also produce gifts from scratch for you. not only letters and traditional origami (which he would also do super) but things like bottons, a jacket like his for you to match and etc.

he has also done himself piercings with complete confidence (of course he researched properly, prepared and cleaned everything properly), and he would totally do it to you if you asked him to (same thing with tattoos, nobody gets that out of my head! only if you asked, of course. hobie is the king of consent).

he >definitely< paints his nails, and would definitely paint yours to match his.

i think he would use any pronouns, because he doesn't believe in human constancy, and that he would be a fucking pansexual (if he belived/followed social labels, obviously.

he already read the communist manifesto, and called it an optimistic fantasy tale (he would be a communist in a distant reality, if he wasn't absolutely revolting against any kind of government - a big anarchist. still, he respects communist comrades a lot, because you earn points with him just by hating and fighting against capitalism (if you weren't so included in this politics thing, you can bet that he would be giving u a class - which he wouldn't call it, and it wouldn't feel like a class anyway, it's much cooler than that when *Hobie* is teaching - on class consciousness and other related topics, the pinnacle of their relationship for him would be have a class-conscious partner.

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midnightemy35 · 1 year ago

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~Letting Loose~

Genre: Light Angst (?) Characters: Kayden Break, Kartein (Curtin) Fandom: Eleceed Warnings: Alcohol mention, swearing

For once in his life, Kartein isn’t composed and refined as he often paints himself to be, laughing and yelling at the top of his lungs without a single care in the world. For once in his life, Kartein isn’t prim and proper, his dress shirt that is usually void of a single crease now looking like it had been crumpled into a ball just before he put it on.

“You’re fucking kidding me! T-that bastard actually thought *hic* that he could go up against you and walk away unscathed?! *hic* What a fucking dumbass!” Kartein continues laughing, the wine in his glass nearly spilling over the edge and onto his brand new couch. Sitting right next to him was none other than the notorious Kayden Break himself. The fighting maniac of the awakened world, challenging anyone he deemed strong enough to fight him even if they are obviously stronger than him. But why was Kartein doing with the very same man that he calls a “brainless fighting machine that has no self-preservation”? Why is Kartein allowing this man to keep him company when he doesn’t like getting involved with reckless idiots in the first place?

“You should really get drunk more often, you’re less of a bitch this way.” “Oh shut up. You’re *hic* you’re the one staring at me like I just birthed your first child.” “Is that really the only way you can describe it? What’s wrong with me looking at you like that, huh? Can’t I appreciate the work of art in front of me in peace?” Maybe we will never know why these two world rankers that are known to dislike each other decided to come together for a drink, at Kartein’s place no less. Kartein himself has a rather mysterious personality, I suppose we will never truly find out what is going on inside his head. As for Kayden… maybe he just wanted a free drink, maybe he was willing to tolerate the one he often labelled as a “obnoxious prick” for a couple free drinks, after all, he can’t deny the fact that the blonde had a great taste in alcohol beverages.

Slowly, the laughter from the blonde dies down and he starts berating the other for his reckless tendencies. “I… I hate how you *hic* how you always get into fights y’know. I hate how worried I am that one day *hic* you will pick a fight with the wrong person and… and end up dead and that I won’t be able to bring you back…” Soon, tears flow down the gorgeous man’s face and Kayden wordlessly wraps his hands around Kartein’s waist, bringing him closer, consoling him silently. The two sit quietly on the couch with only the sobs of the blonde filling the air. The night ends when these two powerful men fall asleep in each other’s arms, on the luxurious couch that they spent most of their night on, talking about everything under the sun, from awakened world politics to Kayden’s recent fights. Dawn breaks and by noon, the two will wake up to bottles of alcoholic beverages covering almost every surface of the small table in front of them, a very unkempt Kartein and hopefully no memories of their previous night.

They could not afford growing close and falling in love, no, not in this world where there are greedy people at every turn, waiting for the moment you slip up, dragging you away to help grow their own power. These selfish bastards are not above threatening the lives and safety of other’s loved ones bring the powerful to their knees, forcing them to work as slaves, benefitting only themselves. In this cruel world, no matter how much their hearts desire, they can never be together but maybe they could come together once again and spend the night letting loose in each other’s arms, chatting and gossiping like teenage girls at a sleepover, forgetting all their worries. That night, their enemies no longer existed, the people begging them to join their organisations no longer existed, the only two people in the world, in their world, were each other.

#eleceed webtoon #eleceed #kayden break #kayden x kartein #kartein #curtin #fanfic #eleceed manhwa

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oysters-aint-for-me · 2 years ago

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(assume any materials produced by cyborg fingers are clean, safe, and innately/organically renewable, but producing them does require a teeny bit of your energy; therefore the power is not infinite)

if you have other ideas for cyborg fingers plz comment, this is one of my favorite games

#i’m #so bored lmao #poll

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twilight-deviant · 1 month ago

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Poll Game

Tagged by @tastethesetears. ♥

Tagging: @shipperfiendobssesser, @sassagain, @ssirius-blackk, @creepylunaofmars, @tricksypixie, @uglybusiness

#Personal #Tags

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sodiepop-go · 17 days ago

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Okinawa exclusive Shikuwasa Fanta

I found this in a Vending machine in Naha Okinawa prefecture when I was in Japan in 2023. released in 2019, it shows no sign of being discontinued any time soon.

Shikuwasa is a small citrus fruit that grows publicly around the Island of Okinawa, it grows so abundantly that I remember walking back to my apartment through Manko Park with my friends and marvelling at large fruit bats encircling the trees.

The flavour is like Orange and lime, but it's not too sour as you would expect from a fruit whose name literally translates to "to eat sourness" as the typical Fanta flavour profile enhances the fruits sweet side, creating something that's somewhere in between the Orange and Lemon Fanta varieties.

The packaging:

The two Shisa (lion dogs) decorate the label as they decorate almost every building in the prefecture, a reminder of the rich culture of Okinawa as The Ryukyu kingdom, and its historically close ties with China. Shisa offer protection from bad spirits, one lets good spirits in, whilst the other keeps the bad spirits out. which one does what varies depending on who you ask, but they are always a pair, one is male, one is female, one has its mouth open, and the other closed (sometimes baring its teeth)...

...And I love them.

The addition of a small hibiscus plant behind the Shisa represents another side to Okinawa, often referred to as the "Hawaii of Japan" which is true in a number of ways, but it was most reflected in the relaxed nature of the locals in what is otherwise known as quite a conservative country. One of the Karate instructors I trained under while I was there, Tsuneo Kinjo Sensei Hanshi, even lived in Hawaii for a time.

I was really excited by this Soda find, just looking at the bottle brings back so many good memories of my travels in Japan, but it is a unique edition to a special interest that means a lot to me. As it's so exclusive to Okinawa that it's difficult to find in mainland Japan, I didn't even see it all that often in its native prefecture, making it feel even rarer and more exclusive.

#fanta #exclusive fanta #okinawa #japan soda #travel japan #soft drink #soda

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coopigeoncoo · 1 year ago

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A Persistent Lack of Follow Through, Chapter 1: Wax & Wane

Chapter Links: One, Two, Three

Pairing: Todoroki Shouto x Female Reader

Rating: Mature 18+

Tags: Breaking Up & Making Up, Angst with a Happy Ending, Personal Growth, Drinking, Sexual Content, Non-Explicit Sex, Weddings, Child Abuse, Todoroki Enji's Bad Parenting, Abusive Todorioki Enji, Pining, Shouto is Bad at Feelings, Natural Disasters, Fire, Serious Injuries, Domestic Fluff, Implied Pregnancy

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Shouto had learned a lot from his Father; how to take a hit, how to pull himself back up, and how to hold a grudge.

But one thing Endeavor could never teach his children was how to be a good partner.

Shouto had to learn that particular skill the hard way.

---

He had spent long, sleepless nights reflecting on the things you had told him; the reasons you left. Every moment of your acquaintance was turned over repeatedly in his head and examined until one devastating conclusion was reached:

"I was a bad boyfriend," Shouto muttered dejectedly, idly picking at the label of the shochu bottle in the middle of the table.

---

A story where Shouto loves, loses, and learns.

Continue reading below, or follow the link to Ao3!

Todoroki Shouto was absolutely sure about three things.

The first was that nearly every food tastes better cold. Cold soba? Classic. Cold pizza? A revelation. Frozen peas? No point even heating them up in his opinion.

The second was that his small circle of friends was the best thing that had ever happened to him. When he had been at his lowest point in life, angry, disillusioned, and simmering in a cesspool of hate and futility; they had pulled him up and showed him the possibility that laid before him if he stepped off the path his Father had set him on and paved his own way in life.

And the third was that he had unintentionally lost the love of his life.

It was hard for him to pinpoint when exactly your relationship had started because the transition from acquaintance to friend to lover had been so seamless. He remembered meeting you one day at Deku's agency, a quick introduction as you passed papers around the table to the necessary parties. You hadn't stuttered or blushed at his presence, didn't try to touch him or slip your phone number into his pocket; you just passed him a Uravity branded pen with a small smile before tucking yourself into the corner to take notes during the presentation the official from Public Works and Utilities was putting on.

He liked that.

And, as time would come to reveal, he liked you.

He would wait until the News stations would cut to live footage of Deku, a brilliant bolt of green cutting through the sky, to call his private line; knowing his calls would be rerouted to your desk.

"Shouto!" You laughed into the receiver, unaware of the frantic beating of his heart that left him slightly winded. "You aren't going to believe this, but you just missed Deku. Again!"

"Really?" He says, doing his best to sound surprised.

"Yes! I'm starting to think this isn't coincidental."

"Oh?" Shouto gulps, stomach in knots at the idea that you're cottoning on to his grand machinations to talk to you every week.

"Do you have an additional Quirk you're keeping up your sleeve?"

"I don't think Bad Timing is much of a Quirk," Shouto snorts. "But even so, you would know if I had three Quirks. My Father would have mentioned it in every interview if I did. The first known child with three individual Quirks would just have been another feather in his cap."

"I can blame Endeavor for a lot of things, but bragging about you is completely understandable. You make everyone who knows you proud, Shouto."

Shouto wondered if you counted yourself in that group. He hoped you did. The idea that you would watch footage of him swooping onto the scene of a disaster and feel a blossom of fondness unfurl in your chest as he worked made him feel dizzy; completely overwhelmed by the implications of what that might mean.

"Anyway, enough of me blathering on and wasting your time. Would you like to leave a message for Deku?" You inquired, the sound of a pen sharply clicking in the background as you awaited Shouto's instructions.

"Ah- it's not important. I'll try back later."

"Well, with your luck I'm sure I'll be talking to you then!" You laugh, a joyous sort of snort that always makes Shouto smile.

"I certainly hope so," Shouto smirked, knowing full well that luck had nothing to do with it. Happiness wasn't an accident, it had to be worked for just like everything else worthwhile in life.

He had spent too many years living a life that had been curated by someone else's hand. Until the day he died he was determined to leave nothing to chance.

Todoroki Shouto would craft his own good fortune.

"You should go home," Shouto croaked, his voice rough from exhaustion as he ruffled a weary hand through his bangs. He'd been stationed at the long conference table at Deku's agency all day, reviewing the details of a sting operation that had been planned for months now. The last push before the start of an operation was always brutal, with everyone checking and rechecking every detail to minimize collateral damage. The rest of the team had filtered out hours ago, leaving Shouto agonizing over a stack of search warrants from the DA's office.

"That's rich, coming from you. You'd already clocked a few hours by the time I showed up to work this morning," you snorted, feeding a stack of classified documents into the jaws of a paper shredder.

"There isn’t even anything for you to be doing here so late.”

“I’m a Hero Assistant. So long as there’s a Hero around,” you paused in your shredding to point at Shouto. “I’m supposed to be of assistance,” you finish, motioning to yourself with a flourish.

“I don’t need any assistance.”

“Oh? Who is it that got you multiple cups of tea over the past three hours? Or contacted your secretary to push back your morning appointments? And who has been coming behind you and reorganizing all the paperwork you’ve been shuffling all out of order?” you paused during your tirade to tap your lips in mock thoughtfulness. “That’s right- it was me.”

Shouto paused and looked around at the pristinely organized stacks of files surrounding him and the steaming cup of genmaicha at his elbow.

“Oh.”

Snorting, you swivel your chair back around to face the shredder, pulling a paperclip from the top of a folder before pushing it into the shredder teeth.

“Thank you,” Shouto said as he gazed down at the table, mortified by his oversight. “And I’m sorry. For not noticing all the work you were doing for me.”

“It’s okay,” you assured him with a tired smile. “You’re a good man, Shouto. I want to support you in any way I can.”

“Because it’s your job?”

“No,” you admitted, scratching at your ear bashfully as you examined a particularly interesting spot on the carpet. “Not just because of that.”

Despite the late hour and the fact that he knew that the last trains of the night would be pulling into the station soon, Shouto was suddenly in much less of a hurry to send you on your way.

While you were busy emptying the shredder drum into a large trash bag Shouto surreptitiously slid one of the files from the table onto the floor, pushing his gear bag over top of it.

“Oh no,” he gasped exaggeratedly. “It looks like I'm missing the file from the Mayor's Office. Have you seen it?"

"What?" You yelp in horror, rushing over to Shouto's side; grabbing a stack of files and flipping through them with a level of expertise and precision Shouto couldn't help but admire. "Oh, this is awful! We're going to have to search until we find it! It's too important to leave it unaccounted for."

"I'm sure it will turn up," Shouto said as he ran a consoling hand between your shoulder blades. "You're very tense."

"Well, we've somehow managed to misplace a collection of important documents. A little bit of tension is warranted, I think."

Shouto increased the pressure of his hand, warming it slightly and delighting when he felt your muscles slacken under his palm.

"Oooooh," you moaned, dropping your head down towards your chest. "That feels heavenly, Shouto."

"Here," Shouto said as he gripped your shoulders and guided you to sit down in one of the plush office chairs, sliding into the one next to you.

"Panicking won't help matters. Let's take a deep breath, relax, and work together to find that folder.”

“You’re right,” you admitted with a weary sigh, eyeing the towering stack of folders you had to meticulously sift through. “This is going to take forever, isn’t it?”

“It will,” Shouto hummed in agreement, sipping at his cooling tea with one hand while sliding a folder in front of him with the other. “But I couldn’t ask for better company to spend forever with.”

Shouto couldn’t help but grin at your garbled response, shifting his focus down to the file in front of him to give you a moment to center yourself and regather your wits. You eventually were able to mumble your thanks before you distracted yourself by diving into the monumental workload before you.

The hours ticked by, full of talking and laughter and breathless moments where knees or hands would brush softly against each other. You had originally chalked the glancing touches as accidental, the result of exhaustion and waning focus taking hold in the early morning hours. But each brief touch was paired with an intense stare and gentle smile from Todoroki that eventually bolstered your courage enough for you to dare to run a timid finger along the inside of his wrist- his pulse thundering despite his calm exterior. A barely audible gasp escaped his lips when you settled your hand down next to his, your much smaller pinky nestled up next to his.

Without a single moment of hesitation, he linked your little fingers together with a pleased hum; squeezing your smaller digit with his warmer one.

He should have known better, should have realized that the break in his Father's defense was a calculated feint instead of the result of dealing with the onslaught of Shouto's tiny fists. But he was young- inexperienced and zealous; desperate to meet the expectations set so far overhead he wasn't sure he'd ever be tall enough to reach them.

The feel of his Father’s massive palm impacting his chest was expected, but frustrating nonetheless. And in his haste to make contact- to touch his Father, to hit his Father, to hurt his Father- he had shifted his feet from their bracing stance and was unable to stay standing in the aftermath of the blow. Shouto went down hard and landed poorly, his shoulder grinding into the tatami below him as he let out a pained yelp.

“You did well to see the opening I left for you,” his Father said as he rose from the cushion he’d been sitting on, striding slowly across the room towards him.

Shouto hated how his heart leapt at the faint praise while his body cowered in fear. It was unfair to make someone feel such different feelings at the same time; too confusing and cruel for him to understand.

He hoped it made sense when he was older.

Enji stopped a hair's breadth away from Shouto’s prone form, his foot running the length of Shouto’s torso. It was a bodily measurement Shouto was painfully aware of as he’d spent many evenings in front of a mirror, examining the bruises those feet left behind; sickly purple toe prints curling along his clavicle and a mottled heel across his soft belly.

“But you gave up every advantage that you had the moment you felt like you had the upper hand. You can’t assume that you’ve won. You need to make sure of it,” Enji snapped. “Your lack of follow through will get you hurt out in the field, or worse.”

Even though he knew it was coming, even though he braced for the impact, the feeling of his Father’s foot slamming into his injured shoulder was agonizing; a sharp and blinding pain that left Shouto gasping for breath.

“Remember this pain,” Enji huffed as he made his way towards the door, pushing it open in one swift motion. “Learn from it. Or the lesson will be repeated.”

Enji didn’t wait for a response as he slid the door closed behind him the same way he did everything; with too much force and without looking back.

Like all Heroes, Shouto was accustomed to making split second decisions. So when Deku had bemoaned the early departure his office gofer (which, as Shouto recently learned from a strongly worded email from HR, is someone who runs miscellaneous errands and not what you call employees with unspecified Rodent Quirks), Shouto was quick to make the most of this unexpected opportunity.

Unclipping his cellphone from his belt, he silently slid it down into the seat of the chair he'd been occupying during the quarterly Task Force meeting at Deku's agency before bidding his friends and colleagues farewell and heading back to his agency at a brisk jog.

Knowing you, he only had a few minutes to act before you did your routine after-the-meeting sweep of the conference room, where you would inevitably discover his abandoned phone.

"Good day," Shouto said, throwing his long-time receptionist a smile and a small wave as he breezed in through the entrance to his office. "I have a lot of very pressing work. Can you order some lunch for me? Suzumiya's, if it's possible?"

"Of course, Sir. I'll call right away."

With a parting wave he shut his office door behind him and sped to his desk, throwing himself into his leather office chair with such force that his momentum sent the chair spinning out across the floor.

"Oh, come on- ," Shouto huffed, kicking off the wall with two feet and propelling himself back towards his desk, chair wheels squeaking in protest of his rough handling. He reached his destination just in time to watch the red light on his desk phone click off, indicating the end of his receptionist's call for take-out.

Shouto picked up his receiver and quickly punched in the number for his favorite restaurant, anxiously drumming his fingers on his navy blue desk pad as he waited for his call to be picked up.

"Hello," Shouto greeted pleasantly once he was connected. "I would like to place an order for delivery."

"Shouto! " You called out through gasping breaths as you burst through his office door, phone held aloft over your head. "I- I have your- have your phone!"

Shouto was at your side in the blink of an eye, guiding you to sit in one of his guest chairs with a hand at your waist, fingers splayed wide over your hip in an effort to feel as much of you as possible during the brief moment of contact allotted to him.

"Here, why don't you sit down and catch your breath for a moment?"

"That's- that's a good- idea, " you pant, collapsing bonelessly into the chair and letting your head loll over the back rest, closing your eyes as you heaved deep gasping breaths. Shouto smiled down fondly at you before plucking his phone out of your loose grasp, pocketing it before running a chilled hand across your clammy forehead.

The moan you let when his cold hand hit your warm forehead was positively salacious and Shouto couldn't quiet the whisper in the back of his head that insisted that sound would be better suited for a more intimate setting.

"You know, if you ever get tired of the Hero life, you and those hands would make an absolute killing as a masseuse," you joked as his chilly fingers traced free-form shapes across your forehead.

"Oh? So I make you feel good?" Shouto purred, kicking the temperature of his fingers down a couple of degrees when he felt your face burning under his touch.

“I- well, that is-,” you stammer nervously, your chest beginning to heave from something other than physical exertion. You’re saved from answering by a knock on the office door, Shouto’s secretary slipping into the room with her arms full of carry out bags.

“Sir? I think there was a mix-up at the restaurant. They sent way more food than what I ordered.”

“Hmm. Well, these things do happen,” Shouto replied magnanimously, patting your cheek to signal the end of your impromptu massage. “I’m sure you didn’t get a chance to eat before rushing over here, so why don’t you stay and have lunch with me?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t. I already have lunch back at the office,” you objected half-heartedly, the aroma emanating from the brown paper bags making your mouth water. Whatever was in the bags his secretary had dropped off onto his desk smelled far more appetizing than the leftovers you had shoved into the break room fridge that morning.

“You would be doing me a favor, honestly,” Shouto pleaded as he opened the bags and began pulling out a seemingly endless series of containers. “This is way more food than I could possibly eat by myself.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am,” He nodded, moving to sit on top of his desk. “Consider it a thank you gesture for returning my phone so promptly.”

“Well, how could I resist an offer like that?” you laughed, quickly popping open one of the containers of yakisoba.

“I didn’t think you would,” Shouto whispered to himself, biting into a dumpling with a wide smile on his face.

“Wha’ was tha’?” you mumble from around a mouthful of food, swallowing quickly before continuing. “I missed what you said just then.”

“Oh, nothing,” Shouto assured you. “Just talking to myself.”

“Well, I can’t blame you for that,” you grinned, peering curiously into the open containers surrounding Shouto, reaching into the one by his hip and grabbing a stir-fried carrot. “You’re a lot of fun to talk to.”

“I am?”

“Definitely. In fact, I wouldn’t mind talking to you again sometime. When we’re, you know, not at work,” you reply bashfully, gaze darting between Shouto’s wide eyes and the chopsticks that were beginning to bow in your over-tight grasp.

“I would like that a lot,” he agreed breathlessly as joy clogged up his lungs, pushing out the air and making it hard to breathe through his exultation.

“Good! Good. That’s good. So we should, uh- we should do that, then!”

The phone you had returned was in Shouto’s hands in record time, his lunch set aside as he brought up his calendar with a few quick taps.

“Just name the time and place and I’ll be there,” he replied earnestly, eyes soft as he watched you spring for your purse to dig out your own phone to coordinate your schedules for your date.

Word had spread quickly across both his and Deku’s agencies about the budding romance happening during work hours. Your coworkers were impressively motivated to find every opportunity to force you into crossing paths, which Shouto was deeply and eternally grateful for. Every misrouted letter and surprise last-minute meeting provided Shouto with ample opportunities for stolen kisses and lingering touches during the day. Without their loving interference he’d be forced to endure impossibly long stretches of time without being able to regularly remind himself of what your lip balm tasted like.

A seemingly endless series of talk show interviews had kept you separated for the first half of the week, the unfortunate consequence of having saved a well-known politician's son when a fire broke out at his nursery school. Shouto was beyond anxious to see you again, speeding through the security checks at Deku’s agency in record time. He tapped his foot off-beat from the quiet elevator music, a subtle orchestral version of the old All Might cartoon theme, while he waited impatiently for the elevator to crawl to the top floor.

Bounding out before the doors were even fully open, Shouto ground to a halt almost immediately at the sight that awaited him.

The tallest man Shouto had ever seen was leaning over you while you sat at your desk, doubled over at the waist to bring his face level to yours. He was wearing a tan suit that, while standard, was cut well and flattered his overlong form; loathe as Shouto was to admit it. You were laughing- no, worse - you were giggling at something he'd said with a luminescent smile painted across your face.

Well, that simply wouldn't do.

With renewed purpose, Shouto slowed his pace down to a stride, shoulders back and chest out in the way that Fuyumi assured him radiated confidence and his Mother said made him look very dashing and handsome.

Natsuo had told him it looked like he was desperately trying to hold in a fart, but considering his extensive list of dating failures Shouto wasn't putting too much stock in his brother's divergent opinion. But to err on the side of caution, he relaxed his gluteal muscles a fraction- just in case.

“Shouto!” You chirped happily when you finally noticed his approach. “Are you ready for lunch?”

“I already called ahead to the restaurant. They have a table waiting for us.”

“We should probably hurry along then,” you said, pushing away from your desk and standing up. “It was great to talk to you again, Takai. I’m glad your business trip went well. Maybe we can meet up for coffee soon?”

The man, Takai, straightened up as you stood, still hunching slightly to avoid bumping into the sprinkler head positioned directly above your desk.

“That would be lovely. It seems like we have a lot to catch up on,” he replied affably, giving Shouto a quick once over before turning away in an obvious dismissal.

“I just need to duck back into the conference room really quickly to grab my sweater and then we can head out. It should just take a minute,” you explained as you threw your purse over your shoulder and sped towards the door at the end of the hall. Both men watched your retreat with fond looks on their faces that disappeared the moment they caught each other’s gaze.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the chance to officially make each other’s acquaintance. My name is Takai Seiji. I’m the lead accountant in the Finance Department.”

“Pro Hero Shouto.”

“I know who you are,” Takai stated coolly, turning to face Shouto. “But more importantly, I know what, or should I say who, you want.”

“I want for nothing,” Shouto assured him, baring his teeth with a bright smile. “I have everything I could possibly desire.”

“For now, perhaps. I’m not naive enough to think that I can compete with the thrill of dating a Professional Hero. Expense Reports just aren’t that stimulating to most,” Takai conceded with a sigh, a long fingered hand scratching at his eyebrow in frustration. “But the bloom on the rose won’t last forever, and I am a very patient man.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shouto bristled, waving stiffly down the hall to you as you made your way back towards your desk.

“I guess this is just my way of informing you of my intentions,” Takai said with a saccharine smile, extending a hand out in a performative show of goodwill. “May the best man win.”

“I'm certain I already have,” Shouto replied, his grin razor sharp as he grasped Takai's hand firmly in his, refusing to wince as Takai’s rope-like fingers tightened around his hand like a vice. He abruptly dropped the temperature of his hand in retaliation, a spike of satisfaction shooting through him when Takai hissed in discomfort.

“Well, it sure looks like you two are getting along famously!” you say as you sidle up next to Shouto, taking their handshake to be a show of geniality and not the crushing test of masculine endurance it actually was.

“Of course!” Takai replied cheerfully as he pulled his hand back to his side, curling and uncurling his fingers to increase the circulation to his tingling fingertips. “We have a lot in common, Shouto and I.”

"Oh? Like what?"

"We both hold a deep appreciation for the finer things in life," Shouto murmured sweetly as he threaded your fingers together, gently cradling your smaller hand in his.

"Shouto !" you giggled, bringing a hand up to push his face away from your neck, his eyelashes tickling you as they fluttered rapidly against your skin.

"Hmm?" He hummed through the kiss he was pressing to the juncture of your shoulder, releasing his lips with a wet pop as he pulled away from you. "What is it?"

"I have to get up! I'm going to be late for work."

"Do you have to?" Shouto grumbled, dropping his weight off of his arms to press you down into the mattress, trapping you beneath him.

"Yes! Five days a week!"

"Can't you skip it?" Shouto whined, running his hands up your sides, fingers tracing looping circles under the hem of your night shirt.

"You can't just skip an audit from the Government, Shouto," you said, ruffling your fingers through the part in his hair, delighting in watching the red and white strands mix together into a rosy hue.

"Call in sick then."

"I'm not sick."

"No, but I am," Shouto croaked, coughing unconvincingly into his closed fist. "You need to stay home and take care of me."

"Shouto-"

"Oh, I think I'm developing a fever," he whined, pulling one of your hands up to rest on his forehead. "See? I'm getting warmer."

"Hmmm, you are warm. But only on one side of your body. How odd. I wonder what the cause of that could possibly be," you snort, pushing at his shoulder with your free hand until he deigned to roll off of you with a sigh, taking the blankets with him.

"A half-body fever sounds very serious. I probably shouldn't be left alone."

"Very true," you said, tossing open the closet door and rifling through the section reserved for your work clothes. "I'll text Iida and see if he can run by to check on you a couple times today."

"Oh, that's alright. No need to bother him. I think my fever might be breaking anyway," Shouto dismissed, the flush on his right cheek vanishing in an instant.

"It's an Audit Day miracle!" You cheer, buttoning up your blouse while Shouto sulked in his blanket nest. With a soft smile, you crawl back onto the bed and press a quick good-bye kiss to his deeply pouting lips.

"Rest up and enjoy your day off. Once the Audit is done I'll take the rest of the day and come home early. Want me to bring dinner back with me?"

"No, I'll cook something since I'll be home," Shouto said, lifting his arms above his head as he yawned, pausing mid-stretch when his words caught up with him.

"Home, huh?" You grin brightly back at him as you sling your purse over your neck and fish around in the side pocket for your keys.

"I mean- I'll be here. Here in your home. Not my home. Because I don't live here," Shouto stammered, somehow nervous about how you would respond to the implication of cohabitation- a topic that had yet to come up during your time together.

"It's fine, Shouto. I like that you're so comfortable at my place; that it feels like home to you," you reassure him. "Maybe one day it will be. Your home, I mean," you stumble, fiddling with your keys in a sudden bout of sheepishness.

"Yeah?" Shouto asked, sitting up straighter in bed, the covers pooling around his waist as he focused his attention solely on you, which did absolutely nothing to help calm the erratic thundering of your heart.

"Yeah," you agreed with no hesitation, taking in the sight of your handsomely disheveled boyfriend tangled up in your bedding and relishing the bubbly warmth it filled your heart with.

"Well then, I guess I'll see you when you get home," Shouto said, waving good-bye as you closed the door behind you and made your way out of the apartment and across town. With a dopey grin stretching across his face, Shouto falls backwards into the pile of pillows at the head of the bed, taking in the little hints of you littered throughout the room.

Knickknacks and souvenirs from trips long past shoved into tiny slivers of space between novels on the bookcase, mismatched picture frames spread across the top of your dresser and desk, the lingering smell of your sweat and shampoo wafting up from the pillow under his cheek.

"Home, " he sighed fondly.

The Audit, while stressful, was proceeding as well as expected. Takai ran a tight ship in the accounting department so you knew the books would be nothing short of immaculate. You could tell that he was deeply confident with what results of the inspection would be as he glided around the room, chest puffed out with pride and a self-assured grin on his face, seemingly daring anyone to find a misplaced decimal or inaccurate sum.

The most daunting part of the process was the presence of the Lead Auditor, a severe looking older woman without a single laugh line amongst the creases in her face and an aloof demeanor that reminded you of your high school Geography teacher in all the worst ways. She had cleaved to your side immediately upon entering the building, flipping through a report summary while you confirmed dates and times of specific purchases on Deku's professional calendar on your work phone.

Your working cell was an unwieldy thing, extremely sensitive with an overly large screen that made it easier for viewing documents out on the go. The larger screen also allowed for the very unprofessional and very intimate picture of Shouto that popped up in a full-screen preview to be seen with an astounding amount of detail and clarity.

Shouto was posed in front of your stove, a frying pan in hand and a spatula in the other as he winked rakishly over his shoulder, his back totally bare except for where the floral straps of your apron crossed his hips. The swath of exposed flesh continued on well past his waist though, the start of his callipygian cleft easily discernible above the bottom edge of the photo.

The photo was mercifully pushed from your screen by an incoming text message which, much to your dawning horror, was also from Shouto:

"Dinner (and me) are ready whenever you are ;)"

"Oh, God," you squeaked, mortified that your boyfriend had inadvertently flashed his butt to a government official. You tapped the screen wildly to hide the text, accidentally opening the messaging app in your haste and zooming in on Shouto's exposed derriere.

"OH, GOD," you squealed, desperately fumbling for the power button before giving up entirely and slamming the phone screen down onto a nearby desk. Face burning, you hazard a glance at the Lead Auditor, gaze settling somewhere in the vicinity of her nose since you were pretty sure you'd never be able to look her in the eyes again without melting in shame.

"I'm so, so sorry-," you begin to stammer, coming to an abrupt halt at her raised hand.

"This has certainly been the most… revealing Audit I've overseen in a very long time," she responded evenly, her face stoic and completely unreadable. "I believe the ladies back at the office will be just as interested in my findings."

You drop your head into your hands, moaning piteously as she shuffled through her packet of papers with a satisfied hum.

"Alright, Team!" She barked out loudly, startling everyone in the room except for her employees, who seemed accustomed to suddenly being yelled at by their boss in the middle of the work day.

"Wrap up what you're doing and get ready to head out. We'll take our copies and finish things up back at the office. We've taken up enough of their time today. I'm sure everyone is very anxious to get home," she said as she stared meaningfully at you, her lips curling infinitesimally at the corners.

You nodded weakly in acknowledgement, waiting until she turned away to chew out one of her subordinates before picking up your phone with shaking hands, relieved to see the screen had shut off and locked during its exile.

"Shouto, you little shit, " you hiss quietly at your phone, angrily navigating back to his cheeky photo and pressing the 'save image' button so hard you're mildly surprised your screen didn't crack.

"You're lucky you're so damn handsome."

You loved how the world shrank in these moments, how there was nothing else to focus on than the feeling of your legs locked around Shouto's waist as his hips rocking gently into yours, the scratchiness of your clearance rack sheets rubbing against your back, your heaving breaths synchronizing with the ticking of your wall clock.

In these brief instances Shouto was yours and yours alone. Every moment he was in your arms and bed was an opportunity to selfishly hoard him to yourself; to keep him from his fans and his friends and the broken fragments of his family.

You wanted desperately to be good, to be selfless and understanding of his duties and responsibilities. But as he moaned your name brokenly into your shoulder as his hips stuttered, you couldn't help the greedy though that spun through your brain on repeat- more.

"More, Shouto," you gasped, tightening your thighs to keep him in place inside of you. "I want more."

"Whatever you want," Shouto swore, tongue swiping over the hammering pulse in your neck.

"I just want you."

"Good," Shouto smiled, his eyes creasing happily. "Because I just want you, too."

"Would it be possible to have a moment of your time before you head back to your agency, Shouto?" You asked while fluttering around the long conference table, scooping up abandoned report summaries and recapping borrowed pens.

"Of course," Shouto agreed readily, bidding farewell to the other Heroes as they filed out of the room and into the hallway, snagging the complimentary sandwiches and pieces of fruit you had spent the morning artfully arranging as they left.

Souto waited for the conference room door to close before he swooped in, wrapping his arms around you in a tight embrace.

"There we go," Shouto sighed contentedly. "I've been waiting to do that all morning."

You buried your nose into the shoulder of his Hero uniform, breathing in the scent of his freshly laundered suit. Whatever they used to make the fabric withstand the extreme elemental onslaught of Shouto's Quirks imbued the cloth with an acrid sort of smell that you'd likely never get fully used to, but had come to tolerate with time.

"You had a question for me?" Shouto asked, the rumbling of his words passing through his chest and into yours, the timbre of his voice echoing inside you.

"I did," you murmured contentedly, reluctantly pulling away from the cradle of Shouto's arms to look him in the eye. "A group of my friends are coming in from out of town this weekend. I know it's short notice, but I was wondering if you'd like to meet them?"

"Oh," Shouto replied evenly, his muscles tensing minutely under your fingertips. "Is it really a good time for that?"

"What do you mean?"

"It just seems, I don't know, too soon to be doing that sort of thing?"

"We've been dating for months now, Shouto. It's getting to be time for this sort of thing," you insist. "Besides, I've already met all of your friends!"

"That's different. You work with them," Shouto chuckled.

"I mean, yeah, but the principle is still the same!" You huffed, slackening your arms and letting them drop back down to your side, leaving Shouto's arms drooped loosely around your waist. "I'm not even sure the next time we'll all be together again. I haven't seen some of them in nearly a year!"

"All the more reason for you to go alone. I wouldn't want to interrupt your visit. You should go and spend some quality time with your friends and catch up," he encouraged, holding your chin in place as he dropped gentle kisses down your face; first your forehead, then the tip of your nose, and then finally your lips. "I have to go now, but we'll talk more later, alright?"

"Yes! Oh, I'm sorry I kept you for so long," you apologized, pulling yourself out of his embrace, fiddling with your hands as he threw his work bag over his shoulder and jogged out the door, throwing a quick parting wave over his shoulder before he disappeared down the hallway. With a disappointed sigh you went back to work straightening the conference room; pushing in chairs and making sure all the confidential documents made it into the shredding pile.

"We'll talk later," you nod resolutely to yourself, mentally constructing points and counterpoints for a conversation that would never come.

"It's such a bummer your boyfriend couldn't make it!" Your friend commiserated, stabbing at a tomato in her salad and giving a frustrated grunt when it rolled out from underneath the tines of her fork.

"Yeah! We were looking forward to meeting him!" Another chimed in from down the table, doing her best to maintain balance on her overly large margarita glass without elbowing the other women squeezed in on either side of her.

"Things are good between you?" Your friend asked, biting down victoriously on the tomato skewered on the end of her fork, pulling a disgruntled face as she chewed. "Ugh, it's mealy."

"Things are great!" You assured them, pushing a piece of broccoli across your plate with a cold french fry. "It's just still early, you know? We're still learning about each other, feeling out boundaries, that sort of stuff."

Your friends all made various noises of understanding, waiting for you to elaborate more on your situation. When no further explanation came, they shot knowing looks across the table at each other before sending you supportive smiles; your friend at the very end flagging down a waitress to order you another drink.

"No biggie! We'll meet them the next time we visit!"

"Right. Next time for sure!" you agreed readily, not liking how much that felt like a lie on your tongue.

You were putting the finishing touches on dinner, everything prepared and ready for plating when you felt a firm tugging on your apron strings.

"Hold on, I'm almost done here," you chuckled, doing your best to ignore the pulling at your waist as you popped open the lid of the rice cooker, shoving in the paddle and giving the grains a good fluff.

"It can wait, can't it?" Shouto asked, running his fingers down the bare skin of your neck, his chilly fingers leaving goosebumps in their wake. You moaned at the feel of his cool hands against your dewy skin, your body overwarm from a combination of exertion and the additional heat from the stove and countertop oven running simultaneously.

"What's important enough to delay dinner after a long day?" You asked, leaning your neck back into the chilly cradle of Shouto's hand with a pleased hum.

"I heard a song today."

"Oh? What sort of song?"

"One that made me think of you," Shouto answered coyly. "A romantic one- sweet and soft. All I could think about all day was coming home, turning on that song, and dancing with you."

"I can't wait to hear it," you said, abandoning your paddle in the rice and turning to slide your arms up over Shouto's shoulders and around his neck.

"Well, here's the thing,” he grimaced. “I got so distracted listening to it that I forgot to look it up. And then I had to answer a call about a robbery in progress and by the time I got through with that I couldn't recall any of the lyrics-"

"And now you can't find it," you giggled.

"And now I can't find it," Shouto agreed, sighing in obvious dismay. "But, I was hoping you'd still be willing to grant me the incredible honor of dancing with you.”

“How could I possibly say no to a request like that?” you said softly, taking his hand in yours and letting him pull you out into the living room, leading you in a lazy two-step around the ottoman as he hummed an unfamiliar melody; a song meant for you that you’d never know.

Shouto wasn't expecting to have his legs suddenly swept out from under him, but experience had honed his reflexes well and his arms shot out to slow his descent, preventing his face from impacting the ground at full speed. His cheek was still smashed into the floor, it was unavoidable at the speed he was falling, but he would walk away from this fight with just a fat lip instead of spitting out teeth.

He quickly rolled onto his back, flexing his fingers and attempting to summon up his Quirks, but one look at his teacher's floating hair and gleaming red eyes instantly revealed the futility of his actions.

"I yield," Shouto sighed as he let his arms flop down onto the ground, plumes of ash leftover from his fiery attacks shooting into the air around him at the impact.

"We've been over this before, Todoroki," Aizawa sighed, unwinding his capture scarf from Shouto’s ankle and draping it back into place around his shoulders. "You're one of the strongest students in this school, but it's a different story out in the real world. Turning your back on an opponent before you've confirmed victory is a surefire way to guarantee your Mother spends her weekend planning your funeral."

Despite knowing his teacher was a good man who wouldn't raise his hands except in defense, Shouto couldn't stop himself from wincing at the sound of Aizawa's approach; his body bracing instinctually for a blow that would never come. Instead of the anticipated foot, a hand was extended instead; helping lift Shouto from the ground and pat remaining bits of ash from the sleeve of his shirt.

"Your hits are connecting well," Aizawa assured him. "You just need to follow through."

"Yes, Sir,” Shouto grumbled. “I'm well aware."

You’d have recognize Shouto’s sister anywhere. Even if you hadn’t seen the entire Todoroki Family’s faces plastered over every gossip magazine for months when the terrible truth about their homelife had surfaced, the staggering list of features shared between them would have been an immediate give away. It was strange in a way, seeing the face you adored copied and pasted onto an entirely different person; a feeling of familiarity carried by a stranger.

“Shouto, look!” you said, tugging on his sleeve to gain his attention. “Your sister is here!”

“My sister-,” Shouto muttered, looking up from the binder in his hands in alarm.

“Shouto!” Fuyumi called out as she approached, waving cheerily at her brother, who raised a stiff hand back in greeting.

“What are you doing here, Fuyumi?” Shouto asked, his brow wrinkled in bewilderment. “Is Mom alright?”

“Mom’s totally fine. Can’t a big sister drop by and visit her baby brother sometimes?”

“I…don’t know? Can they?”

“They can,” you nodded sagely, drawing Fuyumi’s attention away from her brother and onto yourself.

“Oh, and who do we have here?” she drawled with a smile, taking in the miniscule distance between you and Shouto. Nervousness flooded your body- this was it. Your first time meeting a member of your Boyfriend’s family. Determined to make a good first impression, you swallowed down your anxiety, stepped away from Shouto’s side, and extended a clammy hand towards Fuyumi.

“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. I’m-”

“Deku’s Assistant!” Shouto shouted, cutting off your introduction and slapping the binder into your extended hand, causing you to frantically fumble for the plummeting notebook as it tumbled from your grasp.

“Really?” Fuyumi huffed in disappointment, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully at you as you gripped the binder tightly to your chest.

“Yep,” you croaked, mortification clogging your throat. “That’s me, Deku’s Assistant.”

“And she’s very, very busy,” Shouto explained with a strained smile. “In fact, she was just getting ready to leave and head back to Deku’s agency, right?”

“Right. I’ll just- be going now,” you murmured, nodding at Fuyumi in acknowledgement as you passed. “Nice meeting you.”

“You, too,” she replied, slipping into the place you deserted at Shouto’s side and pulling out her phone to show him something on her screen. Fuyumi waved a cheery farewell to you as the elevator doors closed while Shotou’s focus remained glued to the phone in front of him, pointedly ignoring you as you departed.

You were very proud of yourself for making it all the way to the first floor bathrooms before you broke down into tears.

The texts from Shouto started filtering in during your walk back to work, an unending series of chimes that had you rushing to turn off your phone when a group of old ladies started to loudly complain to each other about the noise. And despite the anxiety you felt for the rest of the work day, you couldn’t bring yourself to read the texts until you were home and curled up in bed, pillows propped up behind you and a mug of herbal tea rapidly cooling on your nightstand.

“Here we go,” you sighed morosely, holding down the power button and watching your screen flair to life. Your home screen was peaceful for a moment before your cell connected to the Wi-Fi in your apartment and was suddenly buffeted by waves of incoming messages and missed call notifications. With a fortifying sip of tea, you open up your messaging app and select your chat log with Shouto.

Shouto, 1:35pm “I’m so, so sorry about the thing with Fuyumi today.”

Shouto, 1:37pm “My family doesn’t know that I’m seeing anyone, and if Fuyumi finds out then everyone would know by the end of the day. I love her, but she’s a terrible gossip.”

Shouto, 1:40pm “The last thing I want is for my Father to know about you.”

Shouto: 1:41pm “He has a way of ruining everything good in my life.”

Shouto 1:41pm “And you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Shouto, 1:59pm “I just panicked.”

Shouto, 2:10pm “I know that’s no excuse, but it’s what happened.”

Shouto, 2:15pm “How can I make this up to you?”

Shouto, 2:30pm “I feel awful.”

Shouto 2:40pm “Did you get back to work okay?”

Shouto, 2:45 “Your commute shouldn’t be this long.”

Missed Call: Shouto, 2:45pm

Missed Call: Shouto, 2:46pm

Shouto, 2:47pm “Are you getting these messages?”

Missed Call: Shouto, 2:48pm

Shouto, 2:49pm “Please, pick up.”

Missed Call: Shouto, 2:50pm

Shouto, 2:51pm “Can you please call me? Let me know that you’re safe?”

Shouto, 3:02pm “I called Deku. He says that you arrived back to work and are very busy.”

Shouto, 3:03pm “I’m so relieved that you’re alright.”

Shouto, 3:33pm “I’m sorry for all the messages. I was really worried.”

Shouto, 5:16pm “Can you text me when you get home?”

Shouto, 5:17pm “So we can talk about today?”

Sobbing in frustration, you wipe at your wet cheeks with the back of your hand as you try and formulate a response, writing and erasing entire paragraphs of text a handful of times before giving up.

“I was just caught off guard by your response to Fuyumi and got tied up with work stuff. It's okay.” You send in response; an easy lie because you were too tired to contend with the truth and all the unpleasant thoughts it would bring to the surface.

“My family knows all about you,” you whisper to your home screen, a photo of you and Shouto in front of a gaggle of hungry ducks you’d discovered on a walk one morning. “I honestly can’t stop talking about you. Do you- do you ever talk about me ?” you whisper brokenly through your sobs.

You’re pulled from your misery by the chiming of an incoming message, not from Shouto this time, but from Takai. Worried there was some emergency situation at work, a common occurrence when you worked at a Hero Agency, you hurriedly open the incoming text.

Takai, 8:45pm “I know it’s late, but I just wanted to check in and see how you were. You looked pretty upset at work this afternoon. Is there anything I can do to help?”

With a book tucked under his arm, Shouto moved to join you on the couch, pulling back the edge of the plush throw blanket you were curled up under and shoving his legs in, tangling them up with yours just like he'd done countless times before. Normally, this would be a prime opportunity for Shouto to let his playful side out, either warming his leg until the heat underneath the blanket became unbearable or chilling his toes and shoving them under your shirt to hear you squeal.

But the wrinkled skin between your brows as you stared unblinkingly at your phone screen gave him pause; your dour pensiveness causing a bubble of concern to well up inside of him.

"You okay?" He questioned, rubbing a hand soothingly along your shin.

"I- yeah. Yeah. I'm alright," you sighed, scrubbing a hand down your face in frustration.

"Really?"

"Mmhmm," you hummed, looking at Shouto over the top of your phone. "Can I- can I ask you a question?"

"Of course. Anything," Shouto replied solemnly, dropping his book down onto his lap to give you his full attention.

"Do you ever think of the future? About what your life- our life, will look like years from now?" You murmur, curling your toes in between the couch cushions to distract yourself as you wait for his answer.

"As a Hero there is never a guarantee of tomorrow, so I do my best to focus on the present. Appreciate the here and now," he explained with a gentle smile as he knocked his knees against yours playfully.

"And besides, what is there to change? You can't improve on perfection, after all."

"Of course," you agreed with a hesitant nod of your head, sending a tight but reassuring smile Shouto's way as you directed your attention back to your phone, staring once again at a picture of one of your high school friends. His grinning face filled the screen, looking well groomed and deliriously happy in a smokey gray suit with his beaming bride at his side.

Quickly going down through the checklist of digital niceties, you liked each picture in the gallery and let autofill extend your congratulations to the happy couple, tossing in a couple of emoji hearts to really sell the sentiment.

You opened up your texting app with the intent to send him a more thoughtful and personalized private message, but you couldn't find the right words amidst your frantically tumbling thoughts. Despite the sincere excitement you truly felt for your friend, the only thing that you could focus on was the hollow feeling in your chest as you suddenly realized that the man sitting next to you on the couch probably wouldn't be the one standing next to you on your wedding day.

"What do you think of this one?" You asked, passing Shouto a bright teal towel to inspect.

"It's fine," he said, giving the towel a couple of firm pats.

"That's what you've said about all of them!" You huff in irritation, snatching the towel back from his hands and folding it quickly before placing it back onto the shelf. It wasn't folded as neatly as the employees could do, but it was better than abandoning it in a crumpled up heap for the sales clerk to deal with.

"And it was true about all of them! They were all fine!" Shouto growled, ruffling his bangs in frustration when you spun away from him to examine the next display of towels. "I don't know what you want from me here!"

"I want you to have an opinion about this! You shower at my apartment all the time, so you should have some say about which towels I purchase."

"But they're your towels! It shouldn't matter what I think!"

"But you'll be using them!" You groan in exasperation, closing your eyes and taking a few cleansing breaths before you return to comparing the price difference between the traditional towels and bath sheets.

"If this is going to be an issue then I'll just stop!"

"Stop what, exactly?"

"I don't know," Shouto said, throwing his hands in the air in defeat. "Showering at your place? Using your towels? Staying over as often?"

You stared at him, eyes wide, as his rant ended. "I see," you whispered, pressing down onto a stack of lopsided towels with hands as shaky as your voice. "Well. I- I guess I'll just head home then."

"Yeah," Shouto sighed heavily, reaching out to take your hand. "Let's get out of here. We can grab dinner on the way back."

"No," you cried, pulling your hand from his. "You're not coming with me. I need some time alone."

"I- what ?" Shouto breathed in disbelief, a sudden bolt of panic spiking through his veins. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah. I am. Just- give me a couple of days, okay? I need to think."

"About what?" Shouto croaked, reaching again for your hand as you quickly tugged it out of his reach, grasping onto the strap of your purse as you put distance between the two of you.

"About us, I guess?" You said, turning away so Shouto wouldn't see the tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. "Good-bye, Shouto," you whimpered, rushing out of the store as he stood frozen by your abrupt departure. Once you disappeared from his line of sight entirely he leveled a fierce glare at the towel display next to him.

"This is all your fault," he spat, shoving his hands into his pockets as he stormed out of the store, ignoring the employee's disbelieving stares as he exited.

The alert came out shortly after midnight- The Hero Commission had tapped him and a number of his sidekicks for an extended overseas mission to Australia. A series of wildfires had broken out across the country and an unfortunate shift in the wind had things spreading in an unpredictable fashion that was stretching the Australian hero forces too thin to be effective. They had put out the distress call to surrounding Hero Commissions to send any Heroes with applicable Quirks to help bolster the front lines and divert the blaze away from developed areas.

The last thing Shouto wanted to do was call you, despite how desperate he was to fix whatever was broken between you. You asked for space and he wanted to give it to you, even though every part of him was screaming to see you, to hold you, to ask what was wrong- what he did wrong. He kept replaying your last moments together in that store over and over in his mind’s eye; heart breaking a little more every time you pulled your hand away from his.

He couldn't leave with that being the last time you spoke; having the sharp sting of your ire be the freshest memory of you.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up," Shouto chanted into his phone desperately, his foot bouncing anxiously as he watched the assembled Heroes mill about him; the air thick with everyone's collective unease and mounting anticipation.

"-'lo?"

Shouto's heart leapt excitedly at the sound of your sleep garbled voice. It had only been two days since you had last spoken but his constant state of worry had drawn the time out infinitely in front of him.

"Hi," he greeted breathlessly. "It's me."

"Shou?"

"Yeah," he swallowed, uncertain of what to say next but knowing he needed to continue. "I'm so sorry about calling you- I know you said you need space and I want to give that to you, really I do! But I got tapped by the Hero Commission to go abroad-"

"Abroad? Where?" You asked, the crinkling of your stiff sheets audible as you shifted around in your bed.

"Australia."

"Oh, the wildfires," you mumble, more coherent than before but still struggling to fully wake. "You're a good pick for that."

"Yeah. And I just- I didn't want to leave the country without talking to you."

A deep sigh from your end- weary and heavy in a way that makes Shouto's stomach clench in panic.

"You really want to do this? Right now? Over the phone? At-," more shifting and a groan. "Two in the morning?"

"I don't know," Shouto admitted, a slight quake in his voice. "What are we doing, exactly?"

You're quiet, too quiet. The silence held an oppressive weight that constricted Shouto's lungs and made him feel light headed. Spots were prickling along the edges of his vision when you finally spoke again.

"I…I think we're breaking up," you whispered, the soft words hitting him harder than any fist ever could.

"No," Shouto gasped. "I don't- I don't understand? Why? Why do you want to break up?"

"Are you serious right now?" You scoffed, sounding fully awake for the first time since you answered the phone. "It's obvious that we both want different things out of a relationship. We should just call it quits now and see if we can salvage our friendship."

"All I've ever wanted is to be with you- from the first moment I met you I knew I needed you in my life," Shouto insisted, tucking himself into a corner to try and carve out a tiny bit of privacy in the cramped locker room; his forehead pressed firmly against the wall in an attempt to ground himself against to torrent of emotions swirling inside of him.

"I don't know what exactly it is you wanted, Shouto. But I know it isn't me."

"Why don't you think that I wanted you- that I still want you? I thought we were happy, that we cared for each other?"

"I do care about you. I care about you a lot. Like, a lot, a lot," you sniffed wetly. "But I can't keep pretending that lo- liking you is enough anymore. I need more than just the bare minimum of affection."

"How can you say that?" Shouto snapped, ruffling his bangs in frustration. "What about all of our dates? The talks we've had? All the nights we've spent together? Did they really not mean anything to you?"

"They meant everything to me," you sobbed. "The past year with you has been the happiest time in my life."

"Then why?" Shouto begged, confused and heartbroken and livid in equal measure. "Why are we breaking up?"

"Because I deserve better !" you cry out, seemingly stunned by the force of your own yell; the line quiet for a moment before you draw a breath to continue. "I deserve a partner who isn't ashamed to introduce me to their family! A partner who wants to get to know the people who are important to me! A partner who- who isn't afraid to share a future with me!"

"I'm not afraid of a future with you," Shouto insisted desperately, his fingers numb from the over-tight grip he had on his phone.

"Please," you laugh, a broken sort of sound that would be seared into Shouto's memories. "I couldn't even get you to buy towels with me."

"We can do that when I get back home. We'll go back to the store and buy towels. I'll buy you every towel in the store. We'll have so many towels that you can use them once and then throw them away."

Another laugh, sharper than before; laced with incredulity. "You just don't get it, Shouto! This isn't just about the towels! Every time I've tried to mesh our lives together, to create an us you just- throw my efforts back into my face! And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of feeling selfish and needy. I just- I can't do this anymore."

Whatever response was going to pour thoughtlessly from his lips was interrupted by the loudspeaker on the far wall blaring to life, calling all the assembled Heroes to gather their gear and head to the runway.

"I have to go now," Shouto swallowed thickly, mouth dry and tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

"I'm sorry," you whimpered, blowing your nose loudly into the mouthpiece while Shouto threw his Go Bag over his shoulder.

"I'll call you when I land."

"It's…probably better if you don't."

"Oh," Shouto muttered as he stepped into the boarding queue.

"We should use this as an opportunity to make a clean break," you said with false confidence, the beeping of the microwave in the background alerting him that you had relocated to the kitchen. "This'll help us get used to not being together anymore."

"Okay," Shouto agreed miserably, because what else could he do? He wanted to be with you and you- you didn't want that. Not anymore, at least. There was no middle ground to find in this situation, no compromise that could be made. All he could do was acknowledge that he could no longer be with the woman he adored beyond all measure.

Shouto had lost the girl of his dreams because he had done what he'd always done; basked in the heady feeling of victory while blissfully ignoring the reality of the situation at hand.

His lack of follow through had, once again, been his downfall.

He fell into his narrow seat along the wall of the fuselage of the carrier plane, the middle filled of the aircraft packed with crates of respirators, air purifiers, and first aid supplies. Shouto fumbles with the buckles on his five-point harness, his hands shaking despite his best effort to keep them still.

"You okay, there?" Backdraft asks, extracting a novel from the bag at his feet as he settles in for the hop across the Pacific.

"No," Shouto whispers as he drops his head into his hands, his palms wet and ears ringing as the engines begin to roar to life. "No, I don't think I am."

#bnha x reader #bnha x y/n #bnha x you #mha x reader #mha x y/n #mha x you #bnha x self insert #mha x female reader #pigeoncoos🕊#todoroki shouto x you #shouto todoroki x reader #todoroki x reader #shouto x y/n #shouto x you #todoroki shouto x reader

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the-fiction-witch · 4 months ago

Text

Well find her P5

Media - The Queens Gambit Character - Benny Watts Couple - Benny X Reader Reader - Y/n Watts Rating - Sad AF! Cute AF Word Count - 2613

warnings - SA / abuse/ homophobia/ religious extremism/ horror/ blood/ gore/

The room fell silent as Mr Whitemore's words lingered, leaving a palpable stillness that hung in the air. Eventually, Miss Peters turned her focus back to Violet.

"Miss Watts. When you awoke in the basement of Mr Whitemore's Corner Store, what did you find there?" Miss Peters began again,

"A cupboard,"

"A cupboard?"

"It was a small room, with bible pages on the walls, crosses everywhere, the room was too little to lay or really sit. Just enough to stand in." She said, "I screamed but begged for help but ..."

"None came,"

"No,"

"Exhibit C, a small cupboard designed for a water heater in the basement of Whitemore Corner Store. Not the walls lined with bible scripture, copper and silver crosses and the door labelled with a phrase." She explained, "Mr Whitemore, for the court. What is that phrase?"

"The Christ Closet," he answered,

"And pray tell Miss Watts, what would happen in the Christ Closet?"

"Mr Whitemore would push me inside, lock the door from the outside. He would do so whenever he told me I was being sinful, he'd leave me for hours, days even, without food, water ... the bathroom,"

"what was the longest time you remember being locked in there Violet?"

"... the longest, without water was three days, the longest with him giving me water three weeks."

I squeezed Y/n's hand almost to the point of hurting her but she did the same her nails digging into my hand as we listened... to our little girl, our sweet baby girl, explain what that man did to her. He is so lucky. so very very lucky. cause the first chance I get that man alone... he's dead.

"In total, you were his prisoner for two years?"

"Yes, Two years," she nodded, "But... it felt like so much longer,"

"Exhibit D, The basement of Whitemore Corner store,"

The picture came up, the walls a grey brick, lined with shelves of merchandise, a mattress on the floor with a TV, blanket, a radiator and a bucket,

"The basement was full of items for his business, Miss Watts was chained to the radiator for days at a time with no access to water, no access to the toilet, the only light that of a 1967 17-inch Zenith TV." Miss Peters explained, "And what was plaid on this TV Miss Watts?"

"It didn't get a signal, so the TV had an old 70's VCR. The tape he plaid was for a large-scale mass church service, the tape would play day in and day out the only break when it would reach its end and the machine would rewind it and start again."

"That sounds hellish... but that's not even the begining of what was done to you Miss Watts, if you have the strength. I'd like for you to tell the court sparing no details. What happened to you while under Mr Whitemore's abduction."

Violet sighed gathering her courage,

I did my best to prepare myself. I knew what had happened to her but I had never pushed to know the gory details. I wasn't sure I could handle it, but I needed to know, I wanted to know. So I can go to him with the knowledge of everything he's done and punish him accordingly,

"Mr Whitemore... is a horrible man. He's a monster. he took me and hid me away from my family, no matter how much I begged him to let me go home, or even just to call my parents to tell them I was alive. I offered him to ransom me back to my family but he said the money was not his gain. He was going to keep me until I was better or so he said. When I behaved I was his 'good girl' a term that still makes me shiver even now, when I was less behaved he called me... a monster, a demon, a creature of sin, dike and other such things. He made me wear a dress for a little school girl, He would make me work unpacking boxes for hours, he would starve me until I begged him for food, and if I stole food he would strike me with an old copper pipe, he would take a spray bottle and fill it with ice cold water to spray at me like a cat, he would isolate me never letting me see the sun, speak to anyone but him, and playing that horrible tape over and over so I lost all track of time." She explained, "But the worst of it... was his 'Conversion Therapies', he said I was a monster for being gay, said I was broken, sinful, filled with demons and hellish ideas, that I had been possessed and corrupted by satan."

"What were these therapies, Violet?"

"He would lock me to the radiator and force me to watch adult tapes. Made me watch porn only heterosexual porn, hit me or spray me with water if I looked away so I had no choice but to watch them, he'd make me say how much I liked them even if I lied. If he suspected I was lying he'd... put his hand up my dress and check if I was aroused. When he played these tapes he'd sit and he'd touch me with his hands, 'Arousal therapy' he called it, trying to force me to be aroused whenever I watched them. He'd touch me other times, at night or when I was working trying to make me attracted to him, and aroused to his touch, like I was supposed to be he said. He'd chain me to the bed and have his way with me forcing me to tell him I enjoyed it. He was trying to change me, he said if I gave up my hellish ways' he'd let me go. I tried to lie but... he never believed me." She wiped her tears,

"As I said at the start of the trial, I need not prove his guilt merely to let you see the monster this man is."

So did many others in the courtroom including the judge and Y/n but I didn't cry I wanted to, but I was so full of rage.

"Thank you, Miss Watts, I think we have all heard enough. I shall adjourn court for a five-minute break, I think all of us need a moment to breathe and collect ourselves." The judge explained,

Everyone slowly filled into the lobby, Us included taking the time for the bathroom, getting some water, and changing Sterling. When she came back from drying her eyes I wrapped my arms around Violet so tight I may have been crushing her, Y/n cuddled her too even little baby Sterling laying his head on her.

"You are... the bravest girl in this world, do you know that?" I told her, "You didn't have to do this, you could have sat at home and just sent your statement but you did it. We are so proud of you." I told her,

"We really are Violet," Y/n reassured,

"Thanks, Mom, Thanks Dad," She nodded,

"Hey," I smiled, "Anything you want for dinner, you pick the place we're going." I told her kissing her forehead, "And ice cream after."

"soft serve?" she asked,

"Nope, scoops. And you can pick as many flavours as you want." I smiled, "You ready to go back in?"

"Yeah I'll go grab our seats," She nodded heading back inside,

I sighed, "I am gonna-"

"I know." Y/n smiled kissing my cheek, "He's very lucky he hasn't gotten a high heel to the cranium."

"Or a knife to the cock. Good, we're on the same page,"

"Umm," She nodded, "Daddy?" She giggled holding Sterling up to get a cuddle from me too,

"Aww, hi little boy," I cooed kissing him,

"Daddy, can I and Mommy get ice cream too? Of unlimited scoops?"

"... I'll think about it," I smirked kissing her as I took Sterling, "Come on let's get back and get this over with. I wanna watch him burn."

We headed back in and took our seats again now it was his turn to sit in the box and answer his memories of things,

"The Police came to check your store, Mr Whitemore, due to reports of fake tobacco products," Miss Peters asked him,

"Yes, a routine check. Not my issue. The supplier." he nodded,

"And yet then doing this inspection they found Miss Watts?"

"They did yes,"

"So you admit you hit her, and dragged her to your basement, and you admit they found her in your basement two years later? Sounds like kidnapping and forced entrapment to me, Mr Whitemore."

"I never denied that,"

"You don't deny you held Miss Watts against her will?" The judge asked,

"No, I do not Your Honour,"

"Then how can you claim not to be guilty? You kidnapped a minor and held her against her will in your basement for two years even if you say you did not harm her, that is still kidnapping Mr Whitemore." The Judge explained,

"I did what I had to do."

"Care to explain yourself, Mr Whitemore?" Miss Peters asked, "Explain why you feel you are not guilty,"

"They must be made to listen..." He said, "That is the good word the lord passed to me when I was but a boy, I am one of those sweet sheep with a mind clear enough to listen to all the love and all the words he sends to us, the good lord told me that they must be made to listen to all those who harbour a demon, all those whom sin and think vile thoughts, all of them must be made to listen to the word of god. To see the light, see the error of their ways, and be brought back to the kingdom of heaven. And that fine day... The good lord sent me a message that this sinner must be made to see the light. She must be made to understand her sinfulness. She was only a child, still as innocent as the mother Mary, but she was still able to be saved. So Our father told me, he spoke to me and told me I should be the one to cure her."

"You claim Mr Whitemore, that god spoke to you and told you to Kidnap Miss Watts to cure her homosexuality?"

"Yes, he did."

"You don't deny this?"

"I do not."

"You don't deny that you kidnapped her?"

"No."

"That you abused her?"

"No."

"That you raped her!"

"No."

"For what reason Mr Whitemore!"

"Because she is a monster! All of them are monsters! And you are all monsters for allowing it! Everything I did I did in the name of god! And I would do all of it again if it would mean one less of these demons on our streets! I did for the lord so there are no rules that need apply to him,"

"But you Mr Whitemore are under the rules and laws of our country and of human decency!"

"I am doing God's will!" He shouted, "I take my words from god as there is no higher authority!" He yelled getting to his feet,

"Sit down Mr Whitemore!" The Judge demanded,

"Even if you punish me for following his word, he will reward me for what I have done!"

The officers forced him down again,

"I have heard enough. We will return when a decision is made,"

As they forcibly dragged him away, he continued to shout in protest. The judge and jury solemnly exited the room, leaving us waiting anxiously for what felt like an eternity, uncertain of the outcome. I held Violet close, feeling a mix of emotions as I pondered what fate awaited him. The weight of the situation left me torn, as none of the possible outcomes seemed adequate.

Let him go? Never.

Lock him up? He'd still eat, talk to people, and maybe get TV. too good for him.

Injection? To quick, he should suffer for what he's done to her.

I wanted to watch him die, horribly, slowly, and painfully. I wanted to beat him senselessly, torture him, burn him alive, take him off just before he died, half drown him, waterboard him, and bury him alive. Even that didn't seem enough.

But finally, they returned, they brought him back in and made him stand as the judge explained his fate.

"Jacob Abraham Whitemore, You stand here on this the 20th of May 1987 inside Brooklynn East Court House. Accused of Kidnapping, Rape of a Minor, Abuse of a Minor, Sexual Abuse of a Minor and other offences. In not denying your crimes you have saved this court time and money, however, your non-guilty plea has wasted time, and emotional distress for your victim, her family and everyone here today. The jury and myself have deliberated over your fate and the decision has been made." He said, "The crimes you have committed are horrific, the fact you feel your god had ordered you to do such acts to your fellow human being and that you hide behind the umbrella of your religion is shameful, despicable, and insulting as a Christian. You are to be sent to Bakersfield Maximum Security Prison where you will be incarcerated in a solitary cell, but this will only be temporary, While you await your execution but electrocution." He said, "You are officially sentenced to death by electrocution."

The sound of the bang echoed out across the courtroom,

"God will forgive me for this! he will reward me!" He swore and screamed as he was dragged away but I didn't listen I just held Sterling, and Y/n in my arms so thankful that this would be over. I looked at Violet and saw her reaction, strangely she didn't have one.

"Are you okay sweetheart?"

"Yeah." She nodded a tear slipping from her lips, "I'm so happy," she nodded hugging us tightly "I love you guys so much,"

"We love you too, we both do," I reassured her,

"Come on, let's all get out of here," Y/n smiled putting Sterling in his pram and holding Violet's hand as they headed out, "Any thoughts where you wanna go for dinner sweetheart?"

"Mr Watts?" The judge said as he came up to our seats,

"Oh uhh Hi," I smiled, "Thank you, I can't even begin to explain how happy she is, and we are."

"I'm glad, but I wanted to speak with you." He said, "I always do a bit of digging into cases before the day, and I must say you and your wife... it very rare a couple will fight for their child's search as long as you did, kept their toes to the fire I must say."

"We always knew we'd find her. We never lost hope for our little girl to come home."

"That's commendable," He nodded, "Most marriages don't survive a child going missing either,"

"... I admit, things were hard between us for a while," I said looking back to Y/n as she cradled Sterling and chatted with Violet as they waited for me, "She shut down when we lost her, for a while I didn't know if I'd ever get the woman I married back. I almost lost her more than once... But truly there is nothing I wouldn't do for those girls." I smiled,

"I wish you only the best Mr Watts, you and your family."

"Thank you, judge," I nodded,

He offered his hand so I shook it before I turned heading out to meet with the girls,

"Hey, we decided?" I smiled taking Sterling and giving him a little cuddle,

"Yeah, Pizza Hut." Violet nodded,

"Pizza Hut?" I chuckled, "Alright if that's what you want, unlimited breadsticks, pizza and we'll get ice cream on the way home."

Everyone agreed so we headed out the court, putting this whole mess behind us focusing on the only thing that matters. Our family.

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alphaman99 · 11 months ago

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FORGOTTEN HISTORY

A Daily Dose of History

Suggested for you · 1d ·

In 1920 the yacht building business that Bill McCoy operated with his brother Ben was struggling. So, Bill assessed the situation. He knew that he was a good sailor who knew how to make fast boats. And he knew that Prohibition had created a huge demand for liquor in the American northeast. Recognizing the business opportunity that presented itself, Bill McCoy seized it, becoming the king of the rumrunners, one of America’s most celebrated and notorious bootleggers.

McCoy bought a 127-foot fishing schooner capable of carrying 6,000 cases of alcohol and retrofitted it to make it one of the fastest commercial sailing vessels on the Atlantic coast. He registered his ship in Great Britain and renamed it “Tomoka.” He was in business.

He would load his cargo of spirits in Nassau in the Bahamas, then sail to the Jersey shore, anchoring between Sandy Hook and Atlantic City, just outside the three-mile boundary of international waters. Customers would come out to him in small boats that could evade the Coast Guard, and McCoy would sell them the booze in sacks that held nine bottles each. Ben McCoy would bring out supplies to the Tomoka, so that she never had to port.

McCoy made no effort to hide what he was doing. In fact, he welcomed the publicity. He boasted that he never diluted his product (as many bootleggers did), and that he never paid a dime to organized crime or to bribe law enforcement. And no law prohibited him from selling liquor in international waters. His enterprise was so successful that he soon added four more boats. In a little more than two years he sold an estimated two million bottles.

McCoy’s brazenness and his celebrity status infuriated government authorities, however, and they were determined to shut him down. In 1923, after first getting the tacit consent of British authorities, the Coast Guard was ordered to arrest McCoy, and to sink the Tomoka if he resisted.

On November 25 the Coast Guard cutter Senaca steamed out to the Tomoka and sent over a 15-man boarding party. When they were aboard, the commanding officer ordered McCoy to bring his ship into port. Instead, he set sail and raced away, with the boarding party still on board. The Seneca opened fire with her four-inch deck guns and the Tomoka’s crew answered with a machine gun set up on her forward deck. But as the shells from the Seneca started dropping closer to his ship, McCoy realized the game was up. He lowered his jib and surrendered. On board the Coast Guard found $60,000 in cash (about a million dollars in today’s money) and only 400 cases of the original 4,200 case cargo.

Once brought ashore reporters asked McCoy how he intended to defend himself against the charges. He answered with a smile, “I was outside the three-mile limit, selling whisky, and good whisky, to anyone and everyone who wanted to buy.”

But after two years of legal wrangling, McCoy ultimately decided to accept a plea bargain. He pled guilty to violating the Volstead Act and was sentenced to nine months in jail.

After serving his time, McCoy retired from rumrunning, returning instead to the boat building business. He also became a successful real estate investor and when Prohibition ended he cashed in on his notoriety by putting out his own brand of whisky, called “The Real McCoy” and featuring the Tomoka on the label.

William Frederick “Bill” McCoy, the King of the Rumrunners, died in Florida at age 71 on December 30, 1948, seventy-five years ago today.

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yeahimwiththeband · 3 months ago

Text

—> with the band chapter 23

no, i won't.

warning: huge, huge, huge blow up. Second biggest fight in the book after tell the truth.

A/N: love on tour fic. big romance, so fluffy, with moody harry (who is growing and changing!).

word count: 3.2k

The week after the open mic, Olivia didn’t have a record deal with Eddie’s new label—but she did have a deal memo for new recordings at his studio, including access to a sound mixer who could work with her (somewhat stolen) vocal tracks.

She and Izzy took the long bus route—three transfers, plus a long wait—to the studio, where Izzy dropped her off before heading over to her parent’s for a weekday shift at the store. Izzy found her mom hunched over a sewing machine, totally focused. Vast parchment sheets of new hand-drawn patterns spilled out of her cramped office into the new hallway. Izzy watched, impressed. She peered in at the patterns: not a frill in sight. New spools of thread crowded the kitchen table, and Izzy even found a couple of bolts of fabric stacked into her room. Izzy wandered into her room, her old phone charger still poised for hours of scrolling beside her bed, her old bottles of skincare from her elaborate and time-consuming evening routine covered in dust on her vanity.

Izzy had an idea.

When Eleanor stepped out to check out a new raw fabric supplier, Izzy and her father ransacked Izzy’s old bedroom. Anything from her grandmother, Izzy left. But they took apart her childhood bed and emptied the closet, storing the frame there along with the heavy end tables and four of six lamps. Izzy's dad moved the desk to the window, and started to move in Eleanor’s sewing materials, machine, and serger. Izzy lined up her thread spools in colour-sorted rows on Izzy’s now-empty bookshelves. She glanced at herself in her old mirror: the whole room looked so small now.

Her dad disappeared downstairs to keep a lookout for Eleanor’s return, so he could put his hands over her eyes and do the whole surprise thing. Izzy pulled back the closet’s accordion doors and dragged her old mirror inside, when it caught on something entangled in the carpet. It was her green dress, the one she wore her first night on tour. That she had ordered secretly and hidden away, then put on for an unnamed singer that Lydia really wanted her to go to, that she couldn’t get out of.

Izzy picked it up and smoothed it out—the Satin was creased, and the smear of lipstick where Lydia had drawn a heart on her chest had darkened over time. Izzy held it up, when her dad burst in with her mom, taking his hands off her eyes. Izzy smiled brightly and lowered the dress. Eleanor's face opened up in happy shock.

“So?” Her dad asked, wheeling around to see his wife's reaction. Eleanor took it all in. With the heavy curtains pulled back and furniture mostly gone, the room looked lighter. Two desks were pulled together with her sewing machine, and her thread lined the shelves like trophies. The ironing board and empty hangers in the closet begged for new styles to be made. It was a huge upgrade from her sewing corner in their office, and it meant her little girl wasn't moving home.

Izzy fixed her eyes on her mother expectantly.

“I love it,” she said. Izzy and her dad smiled, and gave each other a jokey high five. Light poured in across the sewing machine and serger, making them look almost magic.

Izzy’s father disappeared to find the family’s bottle of celebratory grappa.

“Thank you, Izzy,” Eleanor said quietly.

“My bed’s still in the closet. I may still need to crash at some point.”

Eleanor smiled and looked around. She very much doubted that.

“What's this?” she asked, uncrumpling the green ball in Izzy’s hands.

“Just an old dress, found it in the back of the closet. Construction isn't great.”

“I remember this,” Eleanor said, turning the dress over. “It’s so pretty. I don't think I ever got to see it on you.”

Izzy’s eyes filled with tears. She looked at her mom, lost for words.

“You should get dressed up more often,” Eleanor continued.

“I should,” Izzy replied.

“I can get this stain out for you,” Eleanor said, running her hand across the fabric. She pulled out a tray of intimidating looking solvents from a cabinet in the hall and laid out the dress on the ironing board.

“Lydia’s in California now? With her husband?”

“I think so,” Izzy said, laying bare their rift.

“Quite a shock for your uncle.” Lydia had reconciled with her dad that Christmas, before she married George. “But Lydia's a good girl. She’ll be alright.”

“I hope so,” Izzy said, adding, “I think so.”

“She convinced Mrs. Shepherd to leave you that heap back home, you know.”

“What?”

“She pleaded with her. I was there, for a visit. Though Mrs. Shepherd wasn't that hard to convince. She wanted you to have a great adventure.”

“I think she got what she wanted.”

“I’m glad she did,” Eleanor said.

“Me too,” Izzy replied.

Eleanor worked on the dress and Izzy sat down in front of the sewing machine. She took out her phone.

Another veil had been pulled back and Izzy felt she could see almost everything clearly. Lydia, trying to crash her into Harry on the tour, then in Italy. Lydia, trying to fix everything.

Izzy opened her albums of the trip and its amazing flowers.

I know what you did, she wrote. She selected several photos and sent them. Thank you.

…

I know what you did.

Lydia nearly dropped her phone. She glanced across the studio at George, in the middle of his solo, worried she had made some imperceptible noise. Lydia smiled a bit: they were talking again. Izzy wanted to talk to her.

Then the photos arrived, and the second message. Lydia lifted her hand to her mouth—even without Harry, Izzy seemed happy. Her attempt to control everything was all for nothing, and that was okay. Harry was nowhere to be found, and Jess had written three new bangers: all astoundingly real and bitter love songs. Harry hadn't been returning her messages, but they were meant to go to a “dinner date" Ryan had arranged in Malibu so they could be papped. Lydia could read Ryan’s lips from the other side of the glass.

“It’s so fire,” he said into his phone, frantic. He planned to send the tracks out as soon as they were done recording them—he needed these ones to work, and he was insisting in several intense phone calls that Jess was ready to headline, that this had been his plan all along. He was pushing for their own tour—longer, bigger, louder. But maybe it would be different this time, Lydia thought; Tara wasn't using, and maybe out of respect for her—or just their own terror from her overdose—Lisa and Jess weren’t using either. Moving into the hook, George squeezed his eyes closed and dropped his face down, inches from his finger. He was totally lost in the music. And it was fire, real rock’n’roll. Lydia stole a photo of him and posted it.

…

Harry, all of a sudden, was done. Understanding, maybe for the first time, had Izzy had felt when she left California, he had finally procured a copy of the contract he had signed that fateful morning after the best and worst night of his life.

“Mate, what did you get us into?” Elijah dropped the contract back down onto his coffee table. “Rights in perpetuity, throughout the universe, to leverage voice recordings in AI applications for any purpose?”

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled.

Mitch, sitting opposite him, shook his head, holding up one of the contract's many pages in front of him. “Stipulates that riders be confined to a limit of two fruit plates per person, melon selection only?” Mitch read.

“Again, sorry.”

“No mango, Harry?”

“My voice is going to be used to sell mattresses?” Elijah asked.

“Bruh,” Mitch added.

Naomi leaned back on the seat next to him, eyes closed. “I can’t play anymore of your fun teen tunes,” she wheezed, joint in hand. “I’m almost 30. It’s just wrong.”

“How do we get out of this?” Mitch asked.

“We are allowed to record new music,” Harry ventured, leaning forward.

“If?” Elijah prodded.

“If we walk away from our masters.”

“Our recordings!”

“All of them?”

“And all our profits from them forever, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Naomi sat up. “We wouldn’t be allowed to play your old stuff unless we re-recorded it.”

“Harry’s version,” Mitch said.

“You signed this without us, mate,” Elijah said. “We don’t even have a band name. It’s just Harry Styles, and his crew of randos in the back whose names you don’t need to know.”

“It won’t be like that this time,” Harry promised.

“I know it won’t,” Elijah said, surprising himself with his tone.

“With a new band name, and songwriting credits,” Naomi said. “There’s no label who will push us out of the spotlight now. You’ll have to share it.”

Harry nodded. “There won’t be any fruit plates for a while, Mitch. It’s risky."

"Especially for those of us who don't just casually have an apartment in LA," Naomi added.

"It's a huge risk, to rip this up. I won’t be able to afford this place if we buy out the contract. If we don't, we'll be totally cut off from royalties, right away—no more monthly cheque.”

“Fuck it,” Mitch said, standing up. He picked up the contract and tried to rip it in half. But it was too thick. They burst out laughing.

“That would have been a cool moment,” Naomi said.

“I have scissors,” Harry said. “One second. We’ll cut it up.”

“We could try tearing it in sections,” Elijah said, “everyone take a page.” Together, they filled up his flat with torn up paper.

...

Olivia and Izzy and Meg had spent the morning at a pig farm an hour away, hauling two large aluminum tubs plus manure into the back of a rented van and driving them back to the store. It was the sort of errand that only best friends would do.

“Did you really need me for this?” Olivia protested, delicately wiping off her long fingers.

“I helped you with your open mic!”

“That was a little different.”

“I imagine the open mic involved less pig shit,” Meg added.

Izzy’s final project for her course was going to be a safe and sustainable street redesign model—no blind corners, lower speed limits—with her idea for plantings as the practical portion. Her mom had volunteered the space outside the store—full sun—for the planters. But the tubs were harder to move from the van to the sidewalk than she had imagined.

“Why are these so heavy?” Olivia sighed.

“Here, I’ve got it!” Meg eased the edge of the tub from the van bed toward the asphalt, but the whole thing tipped its weight onto her forearms a little too quickly—spilling onto the asphalt, denting its side.

“Meg!” Izzy complained.

“That side can face the windows,” Olivia offered.

With some effort, they were able to drag the tubs into place on either side of the store’s entrance.

“Now, just one more quick trip for the soil.”

“I have to record in an hour,” Olivia said.

“It’s date night, except lunch because of my new work sched, so I have to go too,” Meg said, hugging Izzy goodbye. “Also, aren’t you supposed to be opening now?”

“Why do you guys call it a date when you’re married?” Izzy asked.

“You’ll understand when you’re married.”

Olivia shot Izzy a friendly eye roll. After much thanks from Izzy and goodbye hugs, they left Izzy and her empty tubs for their very full lives. Izzy adjusted the planters and stepped inside, flipping the store’s sign from closed to open. The store was immaculate and much less cluttered than it used to be; there wasn’t much for Izzy to do.

A few customers trickled in within minutes: three in the first hour. A woman about her age bought a skirt, shocking Izzy thoroughly.

Izzy walked around the store with a duster looking for something to do when she caught a glimpse of herself in the store’s three-way mirror, polished up to a new shine. She surveyed her fit, which included a vest from the store and jeans she bought on tour; she smiled at her reflection, until she noticed her muddy shoes. Oops.

Just then, tires squealed to a stop and the front door flew open with such force that the mirror rattled. Izzy leapt off the pedestal to steady it, grabbing the frame just in time.

“Izzy?”

Izzy knew that voice anywhere.

A red cloud raged down the aisle toward her, suede fringe slapping the racks, heeled boots slamming against the floor like they hated it for existing.

“Jess Harper,” Izzy said, trying to control her tone. She couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice.

“What the fuck is your problem with me?” Jess shouted, stopping feet in front of Izzy.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be—“

“In California? But you don’t care about supposed to be, do you?”

A customer scurried out of the store behind Jess, justifiably terrified. The door closed behind her, and Jess and Izzy were alone. Jess crackled with electricity, rooted in front of Izzy like a lightning bolt.

Izzy’s heart raced, but she didn’t feel afraid—something must have happened.

“I know it’s you,” Jess said.

“What’s me?”

“Please don’t insult me—I never believed your bullshit, Izzy.”

“I know. I always admired that about you,” Izzy fired back; it sounded like an insult, but it was true.

Jess stepped back, knocked off her guard.

“You and Harry,” she hissed.

“I haven’t spoken to Harry in months. Not since New Year’s Eve.” It hurt because it was true.

Jess searched her eyes.

“Bullshit.”

Izzy shrugged defiantly.

“I know you’re the one ruining his life.”

“There’s no me and Harry, Jess.”

“Don’t say my name like we’re friends. Why did he tear up his contract?”

“He tore up his contract?”

“He cancelled all his appearances. He spent all his money buying back his masters—I mean all of it. He’s flat broke. No producer will touch him now, Izzy. He won’t record again. Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“I had no idea—“

“If it weren’t for your meddling in California, he’d still ahve a good contract. He’s not a musician anymore, because of you.”

“I’m flattered that you think I’m this powerful. But I don’t think anyone can take music away from Harry. He’ll always have that voice.”

“That voice doesn’t belong to you.”

“I’m aware, Jess.”

“Are you? You’re not one of us, you don’t get it. You never did. That’s why you’re trying to separate him from our label—“

“I had nothing to do with—“

“—so he could, what, come here and work at this place with you? Do you honestly think this is where Harry belongs?”

Izzy looked around the store, cheeks burning in spite of herself. She refused to be ashamed, but as usual, some of what Jess said was true and it stung.

“I know you were the one behind his little scheme to send Dave away, packing him off to Eddie. George’s output is, like, nothing; I’ve had to do all the writing myself.”

A customer opened the front door, heard the commotion, turned around and left. Izzy was stunned. Harry sent Dave away?

“He could never be with you,” Jess went on. “It would never work.” Izzy was like a wall, and it surprised Jess. Jess couldn’t seem to make her crumple.

“He should be with someone creative,” Izzy thew back. “Someone who gets it, like a sculptor or a ballet dancer or like…a musician or something.”

Jess’s eyes widened wildly—Izzy felt pity for her briefly, lured into a fake relationship. Izzy knew that feeling. “What have you told Harry?” She said in a begging tone. “What plans have you two made?”

“We haven’t made any plans. We’re not together. You just said that would be impossible, anyway.”

“It would be impossible. But you may have temporarily affected his reason in California, when he was miserable, making him forget who he is and who he belongs with—“

“If I managed to do that, I’d be the last person to admit it, Jess.”

“Izzy, do you know who I am? Maybe the tour and all that time you spent following us around made you feel like we were vibing or something. I play arenas of 50,000 people. Just like Harry. You? You work here.”

Following us around stung. “If you and Harry are together, then you have no reason to worry about Harry and me.”

“We’re meant to be together. I can’t believe you’re trying to get your claws into him now, after I let you stay on the tour!” It was hard for Izzy to hold onto the sympathy she felt for Jess.

“You let me?”

“And kept my mouth shut about George so you could have your stupid little fling. Aren’t you done stealing other people’s boyfriends?” Jess pulled George’s name out like a knife.

“As you just said, I didn’t know about George and Lydia.”

“But you do you do know about Harry and me. Don’t bullshit me: are you two together?”

“No.” Izzy said, the resoluteness in her voice hurting her. “We’re not.”

Jess’s shoulders dropped. She tilted her head back, then brought her gaze back down to Izzy.

“And you’ll stay the fuck away from him?”

“No, I won’t.”

“What?”

Izzy took a breath and said it again, slower. “I won’t.” Izzy doubted she'd ever see Harry again, but she wouldn't promise Jess to stay away from him. She didn't want her to have that satisfaction.

Jess’s jaw tightened with rage. “You don’t care how much you hurt him, do you? His reputation is already destroyed because of you. Could you imagine what people would say if he throws it all away for this?” Jess gestured around the store. “For you?”

“I’d like you to get the fuck out of my store now, Jess.”

Jess turned and flew toward the door, turning back to toss out: “These clothes are fucking ugly.”

Izzy walked up to the door and watched Jess peel out, leaving rubber on the asphalt outside. She picked up a cigarette—still burning, evidently tossed there by Jess–from one of the tubs to drop it in a sidewalk bin, watching Jess’s car disappear down the street.

Izzy put her hand to her chest. She could hear her heart beat in her ears, faster and faster. Jess had come to the store all the way from California to break up her and Harry, a couple that didn’t exist. All the new pieces of their story swirled around her: Harry sent Dave away and the Jess Harper band was recording again, Harry broke away from Ryan, Harry and his band bought back their own masters. And Jess thought Izzy was behind it all, behind all of these good things he was doing to save his own life and soul.

Izzy closed the store for the afternoon and drove back out to pick up the soil, and bring down the seedlings she had been growing in her bedroom. As she planted them and watched their little neon green shoots reach up, she felt more and more hopeful. The feeling spread through her like that sunrise feeling she had; she felt calm, like things were going right, that maybe a good thing was happening. Her own words rang out with every heart beat: no, I won't.

Jess would probably tell Harry how ridiculous and delusional she thought Izzy was; or maybe she wouldn’t tell him about their little conversation at all. Harry had blown up his whole life in her absence, Izzy realized. Why?

#harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #love on tour #hslot #love on tour fic #romance readers #pride and prejudice #pride and prejudice and anxiety

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reasoningdaily · 1 year ago

Text

Across a sterile white table in a windowless room, I’m introduced to a woman in her forties. She has a square jaw and blonde hair that has been pulled back from her face with a baby-blue scrunchie. “The girls call me Marmalade,” she says, inviting me to use her prison nickname. Early on a Wednesday morning, Marmalade is here, in a Finnish prison, to demonstrate a new type of prison labor.

The table is bare except for a small plastic bottle of water and an HP laptop. During three-hour shifts, for which she’s paid €1.54 ($1.67) an hour, the laptop is programmed to show Marmalade short chunks of text about real estate and then ask her yes or no questions about what she’s just read. One question asks: “is the previous paragraph referring to a real estate decision, rather than an application?”

“It’s a little boring,” Marmalade shrugs. She’s also not entirely sure of the purpose of this exercise. Maybe she is helping to create a customer service chatbot, she muses.

In fact, she is training a large language model owned by Metroc, a Finnish startup that has created a search engine designed to help construction companies find newly approved building projects. To do that, Metroc needs data labelers to help its models understand clues from news articles and municipality documents about upcoming building projects. The AI has to be able to tell the difference between a hospital project that has already commissioned an architect or a window fitter, for example, and projects that might still be hiring.

Around the world, millions of so-called “clickworkers” train artificial intelligence models, teaching machines the difference between pedestrians and palm trees, or what combination of words describe violence or sexual abuse. Usually these workers are stationed in the global south, where wages are cheap. OpenAI, for example, uses an outsourcing firm that employs clickworkers in Kenya, Uganda, and India. That arrangement works for American companies, operating in the world’s most widely spoken language, English. But there are not a lot of people in the global south who speak Finnish.

That’s why Metroc turned to prison labor. The company gets cheap, Finnish-speaking workers, while the prison system can offer inmates employment that, it says, prepares them for the digital world of work after their release. Using prisoners to train AI creates uneasy parallels with the kind of low-paid and sometimes exploitive labor that has often existed downstream in technology. But in Finland, the project has received widespread support.

“There's this global idea of what data labor is. And then there's what happens in Finland, which is very different if you look at it closely,” says Tuukka Lehtiniemi, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, who has been studying data labor in Finnish prisons.

For four months, Marmalade has lived here, in Hämeenlinna prison. The building is modern, with big windows. Colorful artwork tries to enforce a sense of cheeriness on otherwise empty corridors. If it wasn’t for the heavy gray security doors blocking every entry and exit, these rooms could easily belong to a particularly soulless school or university complex.

Finland might be famous for its open prisons—where inmates can work or study in nearby towns—but this is not one of them. Instead, Hämeenlinna is the country’s highest-security institution housing exclusively female inmates. Marmalade has been sentenced to six years. Under privacy rules set by the prison, WIRED is not able to publish Marmalade’s real name, exact age, or any other information that could be used to identify her. But in a country where prisoners serving life terms can apply to be released after 12 years, six years is a heavy sentence. And like the other 100 inmates who live here, she is not allowed to leave.

When Marmalade first arrived, she would watch the other women get up and go to work each morning: they could volunteer to clean, do laundry, or sew their own clothes. And for a six hour shift, they would receive roughly €6 ($6.50). But Marmalade couldn’t bear to take part. “I would find it very tiring,” she says. Instead she was spending long stretches of time in her cell. When a prison counselor suggested she try “AI work,” the short, three-hour shifts appealed to her, and the money was better than nothing. “Even though it’s not a lot, it’s better than staying in the cell,” she says” She’s only done three shifts so far, but already she feels a sense of achievement.

This is one of three Finnish prisons where inmates can volunteer to earn money through data labor. In each one, there are three laptops set up for inmates to take part in this AI work. There are no targets. Inmates are paid by the hour, not by their work’s speed or quality. In Hämeenlinna, around 20 inmates have tried it out, says Minna Inkinen, a prison work instructor, with cropped red hair, who sits alongside Marmalade as we talk. “Some definitely like it more than others”. When I arrive at the prison on a Wednesday morning, the sewing room is already busy. Inmates are huddled over sewing machines or conferring in pairs over mounds of fabric. But the small room where the AI work takes place is entirely empty until Marmalade arrives. There are only three inmates in total who regularly volunteer for AI shifts, Inkinen says, explaining that the other two are currently in court. “I would prefer to do it in a group,” says Marmalade, adding that she keeps the door open so she can chat with the people sewing next door, in between answering questions.

Those questions have been manually written in an office 100 kilometers south of the prison, in a slick Helsinki coworking space. Here, I meet Metroc’s tall and boyish founder and CEO, Jussi Virnala. He leads me to a stiflingly hot phone booth, past a row of indoor swings, a pool table, and a series of men in suits. It’s an exciting week, he explains, with a grin. The company has just announced a €2 million ($2.1 million) funding round which he plans to use to expand across the Nordics. The investors he spoke with were intrigued by the company’s connection to Finland’s prisons, he says. “Everyone was just interested in and excited about what an innovative way to do it,” says Virnala. “I think it’s been really valuable product-wise.”

It was Virnala’s idea to turn to the prisons for labor. The company needed native Finnish speakers to help improve its large language model’s understanding of the construction-specific language. But in a high-wage economy like Finland, finding those data laborers was difficult. The Finnish welfare system’s generous unemployment benefits leaves little incentive for Finns to sign up to low-wage clickwork platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. “Mechanical Turk didn’t have many Finnish-language workers,” says Virnala. At the same time, he adds, automatic translation tools are still no good at Finnish, a language with only 5 million native speakers.

When Virnala pitched his idea to Pia Puolakka, head of the Smart Prison Project at Finland’s prison and probation agency, she was instantly interested, she says. Before the pandemic, another Finnish tech company called Vainu had been using prisoners for data labor. But Vainu abruptly pulled out after a disagreement between cofounders prompted Tuomas Rasila, who had been in charge of the project, to leave the company.

By the time Virnala approached her with his proposal in 2022, Puolakka was eager to resurrect the AI work. Her job is to try and make the relationship between Finnish prisons and the internet more closely resemble the increasingly digital outside world. So far, she has been installing laptops in individual cells so inmates can browse a restricted list of websites and apply for permission to make video calls. She considers data labor just another part of that mission.

The aim is not to replace traditional prison labor, such as making road signs or gardening. It’s about giving prisoners more variety. Data labeling can only be done in three-hour shifts. “It might be tiring to do this eight hours a day, only this type of work,” she says, adding that it would be nice if inmates did the data labeling alongside other types of prison labor. “This type of work is the future, and if we want to prepare prisoners for life outside prison, a life without crime, these types of skills might be at least as important as the traditional work types that prisons provide,” she says.

But how much data labeling offers inmates skills that are transferable to work after prison is unclear. Tuomas Rasila, the now estranged cofounder of Vainu, who managed the prison project there for a year, admits he has no evidence of this; the project wasn’t running for long enough to collect it, he says. “I think asking people, who might feel outside of society, to train the most high-tech aspect of a modern society is an empowering idea.”

However, others consider this new form of prison labor part of a problematic rush for cheap labor that underpins the AI revolution. “The narrative that we are moving towards a fully automated society that is more convenient and more efficient tends to obscure the fact that there are actual human people powering a lot of these systems,” says Amos Toh, a senior researcher focusing on artificial intelligence at Human Rights Watch.

For Toh, the accelerating search for so-called clickworkers has created a trend where companies are increasingly turning to groups of people who have few other options: refugees, populations in countries gripped by economic crisis—and now prisoners.

“This dynamic is a deeply familiar one,” says Toh. “What we are seeing here is part of a broader phenomenon where the labor behind building tech is being outsourced to workers that toil in potentially exploitative working conditions.”

Toh is also skeptical about whether data labor can help inmates build digital skills. “There are many ways in which people in prison can advance themselves, like getting certificates and taking part in advanced education,” he says. “But I'm skeptical about whether doing data labeling for a company at one euro per hour will lead to meaningful advancement.” Hämeenlinna prison does offer inmates online courses in AI, but Marmalade sits blank-faced as staff try to explain its benefits.

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By the time I meet Lehtiniemi, the researcher from Helsinki University, I’m feeling torn about the merits of the prison project. Traveling straight from the prison, where women worked for €1.54 an hour, to Metroc’s offices, where the company was celebrating a €2 million funding round, felt jarring. In a café, opposite the grand, domed Helsinki cathedral, Lehtiniemi patiently listens to me describe that feeling.

But Lehtiniemi’s own interviews with inmates have given him a different view—he’s generally positive about the project. On my point about pay disparity, he argues this is not an ordinary workforce in mainstream society. These people are in prison. “Comparing the money I get as a researcher and what the prisoner gets for their prison labor, it doesn't make sense,” he says. “The only negative thing I’ve heard has been that there’s not enough of this work. Only a few people can do it,” he says, referring to the limit of three laptops per prison.

“When we think about data labor, we tend to think about Mechanical Turk, people in the global south or the rural US,” he says. But for him, this is a distinct local version of data labor, which comes with a twist that benefits society. It’s giving prisoners cognitively stimulating work—compared to other prison labor options—while also representing the Finnish language in the AI revolution.

Without this kind of initiative, Lehtiniemi worries that non-English languages are being locked out of this next generation of technology. Smart speakers still struggle to understand Finnish dialects. “Not all Finnish people speak English very well, so there's a need for these local forms of data labeling as well,” Lehtiniemi says. Metroc isn’t the only company that has been forced to get creative about finding Finnish data labor. In 2011, the national library created a game to incentivize volunteers to help digitize its archive. In 2020, broadcaster YLE teamed up with Helsinki University and the state development company VAKE to ask volunteers to donate recordings of them speaking Finnish.

There is a sense in Finland that the prison project is just the beginning. Some are worried it could set a precedent that could introduce more controversial types of data labeling, like moderating violent content, to prisons. “Even if the data being labeled in Finland is uncontroversial right now, we have to think about the precedent it sets,” says Toh. “What stops companies from outsourcing data labeling of traumatic and unsavory content to people in prison, especially if they see this as an untapped labor pool?”

It's also not clear whether labor conditions in Finland's prisons—which famously focus on rehabilitation—could be replicated in other countries with a less progressive approach to justice. In the US, 76 percent of prisoners report that prison labor is mandatory, according to civil rights group, the ACLU. “The prison system in the United States is very, very different from what we have in Finland or Nordic countries. It's a completely different idea,” says Rasila. “In Finland, there is an exclusively positive feeling around the project because everyone knows that this is very voluntary.”

AI companies are only going to need more data labor, forcing them to keep seeking out increasingly unusual labor forces to keep pace. As Metroc plots its expansion across the Nordics and into languages other than Finnish, Virnala is considering whether to expand the prison labor project to other countries. “It’s something we need to explore,” he says.

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