#again I didn’t watch the game and I’ve seen f**** play and I know they’ve been missing pieces

[the-physicality]

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[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: May 15th Part 2

And here’s the next part of the long answer set of the day!

When will OL: N&F take place? Beginnings and Always took place during summer breaks, will now and forever take place during a fall break or will the characters be going to school at the time of the events we play through? 

It takes place over all of the fall season, so school will be happening in OL2. Some events do take place in school, though many times events only start after school is already out for the day, haha.

Hey!! I have kind of a weird question?? I’m sorry if it’s been answered before and I just haven’t seen it but is OL 2 taking place during the same years as OL 1? I’m just curious, thank you for such amazing games!!! 

It’s a similar time frame, but not 100% exactly same.

Do you have any idea when the demo for now and forever will be available? 

Hopefully this fall! But that’s not a guarantee.

Okay the crime show in Step 2: Growing up. Long blonde hair, police station, crime series? Was it The Closer? Because I’m the same age as MC and Cove and my mom was constantly watching that when I was 13. 😂 

Haha, yeah! The Closer and, to a lesser degree, Medium were the kind of shows I was referencing there. My mom also used to watch those back in the day.

Hey um this might be an odd question but if the setting of OL: N&F is  fall/autumn, what country or city will it take because my mind tells me it is either Poland or Canada. Also I can't wait for the game I am hyped 

It’s set in the USA again. We’d like to be able to have cameos and that’s easiest to do if the OL games take place in the same country.

Is it possible for the PC of OL to have non-seriously dated other people in the in between years even if they’ve had a consistent crush on Cove? 

You can causally date Baxter in Step 3 if you get his DLC and then ultimately choose Cove in Step 4. If you mean off-screen people, it doesn’t really come up, but you can certainly headcanon that. The game never says Cove is the only partner you’ve ever had.

Is there going to be a Kickstarter for Now and Forever as well? For like voiced names and stuff again? Didn’t find B&A until after it was released and I’d really love the opportunity to hear my name in the game 🥺 

Yeah, we are gonna have a Kickstarter with getting a voiced name as a reward! Though, it will be more expensive than it was for OL1. I feel bad to raise the price but we realized too late the first time around that it was being super undersold for the amount of work it took, aha.

Do you know how much the remaining DLC for OL will cost? (Step 4, Derek, Baxter) 

Step 4: Free

Wedding DLC: $2.99USD

Derek DLC: $4.99USD

 Baxter DLC: $4.99USD

Has an artist for the new position been picked yet?! I'm super excited for the new game! 

We did fill that spot. Thank you so much for taking the time to apply!

hmmm what would it take to get each of the XOXO jerk squad to feel the need to hug you? 

They’d have to first like you a fair amount, otherwise the most you’d get is maybe a pat on the shoulder. If they were attached, they might hug you if you broke down crying or if you gave them super good news.

Unless it’s Shiloh, of course. If you want a hug you only have to ask!

May i ask how the Derek DLC will work? I believe that there aren’t any memories in step 4 and doesnt derek’s dlc take place during that step? So will the dlc add memories? Thank you! 

Derek’s DLC will add five Moments to Step 2 (a new page will appear on that screen if you get the DLC). Then in Step 4 you’ll have to choose between playing the default epilogue or going through the Derek romance story.

Is the pc version on itch,io different from the steam version? Like an offline one or something? 

Steam has achievements, but that’s about it. Both can be played offline, if you prefer.

I've been wondering this for awhile, what determines if cove winds up with a ponytail in step 3? I've done multiple runs with different MCs with varying hairstyles. Or does it have to do with a particular moment in step 2? 

I’m afraid I can’t say exact choices that determine things. But generally it’s preference based options in the Step before that decide those things.

Any Floret Bond updates? 

No, the artist had to leave the project and it’s been on-hold. I’m not sure if I want to try working just with what we have or replacing it all entirely. The design is a bit too specific for us to easily find someone who could mimic it. Hopefully we’ll work things out later, though.

In step 3 is Cove's plan always to stay in sunset bird? 

Yeah. He is never ready at 18-years-old to make a big life change.

I love your content! If it's alright to ask, you answered in a previous ask about how Jeremy was too particular with what he likes his types to be romanceable with just any MC and it's sort of got me wondering.. What /are/ his types and/or preferences and such? Sorry if it's a lot! 

Jeremy likes stubborn jerks and will not date someone who’s sweet or even generally a decent person, haha.

uh, excuse me if you said this somewhere before, but how will step 4 be actually? Will it he like an actual step and have moments and dlc and all? Or will it be more like a long epilogue of some sort?

Will the step 4, the wedding and extra routes dlcs be paid too? Im just confused, sorry if im asking too much

Step 4 is only an epilogue, so it’s just a long series of scenes one after the other rather than a collection of Moments you can choose from.

The Step 4 epilogue is free, the wedding DLC, Derek DLC, and Baxter DLC cost money.

i’m not sure how much of the wedding dlc you have planned already, or if this would be to spoilery, but what kind of wedding traditions will be included? i keep thinking about how flustered cove would get over a garter toss & was wondering if we’d see a scene like that haha. obviously no worries if it’s not included, i’ll enjoy literally anything cove related 

I don’t know for sure yet, haha. Right now we’re focused on the parts before the big day. We’ll see how many scene alterations we can include for the wedding itself later on.

Hello! Firstly, thank you for creating such an amazing game like OL, and I couldn’t be more excited for OL2! Out of curiosity, are you looking for any writers to come on for OL2 or are you all pretty much set in that department? Just thought I’d shoot my shot haha but I’m still excited regardless ^^! 

We will be hiring writers for OL2 later this year! Thank you for the interest.

Will we be blessed with a spin-off Yandere Cove, like XOXO Blood Droplets? 

Sadly, no. It’s a shame but there’s not enough time to keep making OL1 bonus/spin-off content.

How is Q pronounced?

I’m afraid Q’s full name hasn’t been publicly announced yet so I can’t answer here (Q and T are the first letters of the names for the new LIs in Our Life: Now & Forever).

Question; is the steam version getting a Mac update?  I purchased the dlc there thinking it had Mac support without realizing it and just wondered if I’d need to refund it to purchase on itch.io 😭 

I’m really sorry, you will need to get a refund from Steam. We do hope to have it there for Steam eventually, but have no idea of when it’ll happen. Apple requires special notarization to be an officially accepted app for their devices. We don’t have that. Steam requires having that, Itch will let you release it as an non-notarized third party app. That’s why Itch is the only place that has the Mac version right now.

would you mind posting outfit sheets for Cove in every step? it would make things a lot easier for us artists. it would save a lot of time spent looking for references 

I think we did do the earlier steps when they were finished way back in 2019 (this game took a long time to make, aha), but we can probably repost them sometime!

In our life n&f, will we be able to get into qprs/will there be more options in regards to having deep platonic relationships with the love interests? Because as an aroace individual, it would be great if there could also be emphasis on platonic love so that it's more aspec inclusive. 

It’s a little hard to say at this point. There may not be things like a wedding DLC for OL2 and so the relationship for platonic and romantic feelings might not go as far as it did in the first game. We’ll kind of have to see how much we can do based on timeframe/budget constraints that will only be set near the end of the year. But we will be keeping things like that in mind at least.

hi! i really really like your game and im absolutely in love with it! i cant wait to try your other games like xoxo droplet and future OL NF :))

during the step 3 erands moment i got curious, which fudge flavor is his favorite? it seems like he likes all of them, but which 4 do you think he would like best?

also i noticed that in some playthroughs cove would let me give him a piggy back ride, and in some he wouldn't, how come?

how does your choices affect cove's interests or looks? i replayed the game without changing any choices but i got cove to look different, is it just random?

thank you!

Cove’s favorite flavors are ones with nuts and that are fruity! But he appreciates them all. Whether or not you can give him a piggyback ride depends on if your MC is fit/large enough to hold a muscular 6-foot-tall beach boy, haha.

Cove’s appearance does depend on choices and it’s generally tied to choices that are preference based rather than emotion/action based, such as which key chain you pick in Step 1.

Is it possible for cove to reject MC's proposal at the end of step 3? 

Nope. He’ll always accept.

hi! i was wondering how heavily the side characters will be featured in the our life wedding dlc? obviously it'll be cove & mc focused, but i was thinking it'd be sweet if we could take lizzie dress / suit shopping or dance with cliff at the wedding or something. 

The side characters are there about as often as they are in normal events. So, it’s clearly focused on Cove but he’s not the only person you have any meaningful moments with.

When will responses be sent out to applicants? 

I’m afraid we don’t send responses out to all applications, only ones we’re interested in offering the position to. Not everyone likes rejection emails and the amount of applications is too high to contact them all to say we’re not hiring them. We post updates on the job page when a position has news. Right now we’ve filled every role that was open.

Is there also going to be the option to keep your relationships with the love interests platonic in Our Life: Now and Forever? That's something I really appreciate in Our Life: Beginnings and Always

Yeah! OL will never force you to end up in a romantic relationship with someone.

I was wondering, in the Step 3 Happiness moment, what are the different fishes Cove can compare MC to? I got "you'd be a paradise fish, because being with you is paradise," but my friend got "you'd be an angelfish." Are there more variations? 

He says paradise fish if you’re a couple, angelfish if he’s just crushing, and then a royal dottyback/queenfish/emperor tetra (based on your gender) if he likes the MC platonicly.

Hello! So, in one of the Step 3 DLCs, Cove's arm was gone. I think it was to show him putting his arm behind his back. But if that wasn't the case, did it get yeeted? 

Thanks for letting us know. That was an error we tried to fix a little while back. When did you make the save file you were playing? If it was older that might be why it happened. Or maybe the error wasn’t fully fixed after all.

Asking for your opinion, but do you think Cove would at all be into ABBA? Because all I could imagine during the car trip in step 3 was him and the MC belting to Mamma Mia. 

Haha, yeah, there’d definitely be some ABBA songs he was into.

So throughout the game, Cove can develop different interests depending on the player’s choices; does this mean that he can have different careers in Step 4? Or his is line of work in adulthood never mentioned at all? 

He can have different career paths in Step 4!

Hi!! I'm so so sorry if this has been asked before but I just acquired knowledge about the so famous nsfw dlc for OL and nearly chocked on my bubblegum 💀💀💀 So, my real inquiry is if that specific moment will have any kind of impact at some point of the fourth step OR if it will just be treated as a side-story-ish “what if” scenario.Also, is there any chance there'll be something similar for Step 4? Haha jk,,, unless 😳Questions apart let me thank you profoundly for making the best visual novel I've ever played 😭 Really really looking forward the epilogue and OL2 💕 Have a nice day 

It’s just a bonus side story that’s fully separate from the main game.

It would be nice to have one for Step 4 too, but I sadly don’t see us having time to actually do it. I don’t know, if people are still asking for more OL1 content several months from now it might be doable and worth doing.

I'd just like to ask, when is Baxter's birthday :0 -- I'm really curious esp with their zodiac signs so ;w; 

I don’t know, haha. Maybe I’ll come up with one someday.

Please help!! I bought the Step 3 DLC but I still have no idea how to get to where you can propose to Cove - any tips? 

&

How do I get the option to propose to Cove at the end of the game?

You can click HERE for a discussion on that.

I love that Miranda and Terry are getting together! I'm curious if you have canon sexualities for them? Also just wanted to say how much I love OL and how much joy it brings me everytime I play it <3 

Terry likes ladies and Miranda likes dudes!

ngl Step 4 Terry's design reads like y'all see trans guys as their assigned gender more than you see them as men to me (a trans guy)... like maybe if he isn't heavily dysphoric, I could see it, but everything you've said about him doesn't line up with that. Even then, immediate warning bells go off in my head looking at him. I wouldn't have touched the game if I saw him ahead of time.

I’m sorry you aren’t comfortable with the way the design looks. The situation with Terry is that he’s now open about who he is, but the body he was born with is still physically the same. He only came out recently as an adult and hasn’t gone through any treatments/procedures yet (his chest is flatter because he wears a binder). However, even though his body hasn’t transitioned at the point Step 4 happens, no one treats him as anything other than the guy he is. Having a trans character who’s identity is supported/respected from the start is what we’re going for in this case. But what we’re doing with Terry isn’t the only trans content we’ve ever had/ever will have in the future.

how would baxter react to bae pyoun and vice versa? and can you please detailly explain both love interests personalities from our life 2: now and forever? i was just curious, sorry for dumb question!! 

I imagine it’d be pretty opposite experiences, haha. Bae would initially think Baxter is pushy and thoughtless, but would quickly realize, oh, he’s instead a soft, considerate boy. Very cute. Baxter would first be struck with the impression that Bae is charming and gentlemanly, but then would realize that, no, he’s a sarcastic asshole. And I’m afraid we can’t reveal the personalities for the next game yet.

Sorry if you've already answered this, but I have a question about the patreon exclusive moment you're working on. I was wondering if it's mainly going to be CGs or if it's mostly character sprites + backgrounds with some CGs.

Either way, thank you for doing the Lord's work and not only making Cove, but making this bonus moment as well 😌😌😌

It’s mostly sprites/backgrounds with two CGs!

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Thank you again for the interesting questions everyone :D

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

[ff-imagines]

Oh snap you're opened. Welcome back! Can you please do the nsfw alphabet for peking duck? I really like your writing!

Peking duck: nsfw alphabet

Minors dni xoxo

A - aftercare

The best at it, honestly. Might seriously cry a little afterwards lmao. You don’t have to ask for anything because he’s already thought ahead and is shoving everything you could need your way. It might get a little ridiculous with how careful he is with you, he doesn’t mean to baby you, he’s just terrified of hurting you. If you’re sore at all he feels incredibly guilty, even if there is a tiny part of him that twinges in pride when you remind him you’d asked for a rough treatment and, well, he’ll be damned if he doesn’t give you exactly what you asked so nicely for.

B - body part

Of yours, it’s more a question of what he doesn't like. If he had to make a choice, he’d say your stomach. It’s good to lay his head on it, and it’s one of the softest parts of your body so it’s nice and warm. He’d die before he admitted it but some nights he goes a bit harsher than usual, splaying his hand across your stomach and feeling how deep his cock is inside you as he thrusts- it drives him insane really.

He also loves your hands, always wants to be holding you hand, especaily during sex. Will pin you down in a loving way by lacing his fingers with yours above your head.

On himself? Definitely his hair. Playing with his hair and giving him a scalp massage makes him feel some type of way. Sit in his lap while you run your nails across his scalp and he’ll bury his nose in the crook of your neck and moan for you, whatever happens next is up to you babes xoxo

C - cum

It’s not a crazy amount but it’s pretty thick. You can’t tell me he doesn’t have a big ass breeding kink. What can he say, Peking Dad is a family man! Just the thought of cumming deep inside you has him thrusting all that harder. Beg him to cum inside you, I dare you. You’ll see a side to him that’s much more feral than you’ve ever seen this sweet man. Would 100% cum inside and buck into you just a bit longer to fuck any cum that’s slipped past his cock back inside you.

D - dirty secret

He wants to take pictures of you while in your blissed out state. He loves you so stupidly much, he’s already got tons and tons of pictures of you going about your daily life. He’s the type to see a cat asleep and go “what a rare moment I must capture it forever” and that stays true with his beloved. If you’d let him, he’d love to make some… home videos with you, ones he’d definitely come back to rewatch to the point where your whines are committed to memory like the lyrics to his favourite song.

E - experience

I’d say he’s not a green bean with sex. I don’t think he’s been around the block either. He’s probably opened up such intimacy with a few others before just to test the waters, but hasn’t really felt passionate about opening that part of himself back up for quite some time. He’d most likely fumble a bit to begin with as he recalls the motions.

F - favorite position

Whatever yours is! He’s the definition of a true switch, let him soft dom you or treat him how you like, it’s up to you!

If he had to pick, he’s most likely a sucker for when you’re on his lap. No matter if he’s in charge or not, he just loves to look up and see the way your face scrunches when he bucks and hits that one spot inside you that makes your mind vacate.

G - goofy

Not…. Really? He’s accidentally goofy by saying something super out of place during intimate moments or by fretting over something you wouldn’t even think to be worried over. You could have his cock buried so deep in your insides will feel like they’ve molded to the shape of his dick and he’d stop and ask if you remembered to turn the oven off lmao

H- hair

On himself he mostly trims to keep it simple but like, that’s it. He’s got a light happy trail that he doesn’t really trim since it’s not that thick, it doesn’t really bother him.

On you, he literally doesn’t care. Shave or don’t, he’s your personal cheerleader either way.

I- intimacy

It’s his expertise, your honour! He lives to be closer to you, learn more about your desires, what makes you happiest, please let him treat you good, he adores you so much, and precious things get treated like royalty in his hands. He commits your body and reactions to memory, almost like he’s taken a photograph of every single touch- and like I said….. if you let him…. he would take pictures ;)

J- jerk off

You’d think he’d only do it occasionally but he actually does it quite a lot. He thinks it’s healthy to release regularly, it’s better to cum now than have a weird spike of horniness in public. He’s probably considered the chance that you walk in on him, and he’s surprised by how much he wants that to happen. For him to be desperately close to the edge and for you to walk in and take over, him a deer in the headlights as you take control, he’s could probably cum to that fantasy alone, honestly.

K- Kinks

Well, obv a big ole breeding kink. The thought of cumming in your deepest parts has him frenzied beyond belief.

Idk if the taking pics thing is a kink but also… that ofc.

I think he’s also into sensory deprivation. Allow him to blindfold you, tie your hands behind you, let him take care of you. He’ll handle everything from here, sweet thing, all you have to do is keep moaning for him in such a pretty way.

He’s also, surprisingly, into masochism. He doesn’t care for sadism at all, he’d die before he left a mark on your perfect skin, however….. if you decided to roughly pull his head back by his hair and bite just a little too hard, you might find him bucking into you a little faster.

He’s probably thought a bit about cock warming, but surprisingly he doesn’t really want it to be…. “sexual” as much as he desires to be closer to you. You sitting in his lap, feeling you exhale against his neck with your arms wrapped around him, all the while is cock is buried deep inside you, it just sounds so intimate, and he finds himself craving to be that close to you often.

The biggest of all? Praise praise praise. Body worship as well. He’s literally always babbling about how gorgeous you are, how good you feel, how amazing you make him feel. Always encouraging and always admiring you, just like he does every single day in non sexual contexts, always sneaking in ways to remind you how much he adores you. Tell him about a certain part of your body you don’t feel confident in, he’s paying extra attention to making it known how perfect everything about you is. Everything you have, own, are, all of it. Peking is your number one fan, sit back let him remind you just why he finds you so lovely, you won’t regret it.

L- location

He prefers to be in a secluded area, he knows he’s loud and he’d be really embarrassed if anyone but you brought up the….. volume of his whines.

However, he’s very weak when it comes to your begging. If you're in a less than private location, he’ll most likely let you lead and just try to bite his knuckle to keep from crying out. It'd be soOoOo awful if you made a game out of trying to get him to break and whine out for you unmuffled as you play with him, oOoOoHhHh the horror >:)

M- motivation

He’s an old dad with an enormous you-shaped hole in his chest, just ask him and he’ll give everything he has to his name to you. You don’t need to wear that certain perfume he loves so much, you don’t need to breathe across his neck like that, you don’t need to run a finger down his spine so slowly, he’ll give you anything you ask for, please don’t tease him so much.

If you straight up ask him for sex, he’ll mostly lean towards soft service domming, if you choose to purposely rile him up, he’ll be in a much subby-er mood.

N- no

Like I’ve said, there really isn’t a sadistic bone in his body. He also doesn’t have literally any desire for humiliation kinks. He just doesn’t like it, giving or receiving. He’s a big ole simp with a big heart and it’s in the palm of your hands, please treat it nicely :’(

O- oral

P l s let him give you oral. He might not be an expert but he lives to make you feel good.

Afab readers…. He’ll most likely try to make you sit on his face at least once, please please he wants to feel your thighs against his head while he works his tongue on you.

Amab readers, he fuckin loves to rub his thumbs on your hips to keep you from bucking as he swallows your cock, he’ll open his mouth for you after you cum, swallow, and open his mouth again to prove he didn’t let a single drop go to waste.

As for receiving, phew boy does he love receiving. He cannot for the life of him figure out where to put his hands so it’s a frenzy of him grasping the sheets to biting down on his knuckle to placing a hand on your head. If you made him look down at you and lock eyes while his cock is in your mouth his soul would leave his body lmao

P- pace

Not very fast at all, he prefers to thrust deeper than should be possible. He really likes when you beg him to go faster, and as soft as his heart is, this is the only time he might withhold himself from giving into your begging for a bit, he just loves pulling out so slowly and watch you almost cry out for him to thrust back, deeper harder, faster, please, he’ll give into you eventually, just let him savour the feeling of you needing him badly enough to cry for a few more minutes.

Q- quickies

He prefers long, drawn out rounds, but if you really need some relief quickly, he’s not one to deny you. He will most likely give in, and later on in the night when you're back home and out of the public eye, suggest you two have a much more... thorough round as quick rounds just don’t satisfy him enough.

R- risk

Surprisingly…… he kinda likes the idea. The thought of someone, maybe even someone who’s been pining for you, to catch him in the act of making you beg and cry for him. Alternatively, making them watch you as you give your full attention to him, pleasure him, make them watch you love him instead of them. It riles him up in a way even he’s not used to.

S- stamina

He’s an old man, his refractory time is kinda long lmao. He prefers one really long round rather than multiple. He doesn’t mind or judge if you need a little more, and doesn’t mind giving you a few more orgasms with his tongue or hands.

T- toys

He doesn’t have any, but he’s open to the idea! Admittedly, he likes the idea on himself, like, really likes the idea. Give him a cock ring and watch him cry out as he begs for a break that he doesn’t actually want to take because the bliss you’re giving him is making him feel like jelly.

U- unfair

He's tried to edge and tease you before but he gave in so damn quick it was almost embarrassing for him. He just adores you, he lives to please you, even if you beg him not to give in and try to tease you he just can’t, his heart is so so squishy and he loves you very much dear, please let him treat you exactly how you beg to be treated.

Overstimming however….. he does it accidentally a lot, he just loves prolonging your pleasure, watching you squirm a bit as he forces a second orgasm out of your poor spent body.

V- volume

He’s very loud honestly. If you decide to dom him he talks a lot. He's got a bad babbling habit, words of adoration bleeding from his lips that get more and more incoherent the longer you toy with him. Play with him long enough and he’ll forget how to form words, letting out loud whines and he squirms under you. You might catch him attempting to cry out your name but the poor thing just can’t seem to form the right words.

If you let him top you he’s still throwing out every compliment he can think of and he still whines a lot, he likes to bury his face in your neck to muffle himself and listen to your moans. He lives to hear you come undone, but he can’t help being so loud, you’re just so warm and you feel so good :(

W- wild card

I think jealous sex will be more common than you actually think, Peking is just very quiet about the reason he’s suddenly a bit more handsy. He knows it’s not rational to worry about his place in your heart, but it just eats at him sometimes when he sees the way you blend in with others so easily while he just… doesn’t. If a stranger/friend is more overt about their flirting he will probably be more obvious about the jealousy burning through his veins. Even if he wasn’t prompted through jealously, pillow talk sometimes leans towards him venting his fears to you. Please praise him, tell him how much you love him, he needs it :’((((

X- X Ray

A lot bigger than average and a bit curved. He never considered himself to be out of the norm, or never really considered his cock to anything else than, just, “well, its there” I suppose. He does appreciate the curve a lot more now because it makes it easier to hit your weak point. He feels a bit of pride nestling into his chest if you cry about him being too big.

Y- yearning

Fairly often, but he doesn’t mind not acting on it. He can still function and do his work if he’s only surface level horny. Literally anytime you ask he’ll deliver with very slim exceptions. He’d like it to be a regular thing, since he really enjoys the intimacy, so maybe 3-4 times a week, 1-2 if you prefer it to be.

Z- zzz

Oh man he loves cuddling with you after sex. He also loves cuddling with you period but god he loves to the pillow talk with you in his arms, listening to your sleepy voice as your grip on him slowly loosens -but never lets go, as you succumb to sleep. He isn’t overly sleepy himself, instead choosing to close his eyes and comb through your hair, or run a thumb across your cheek if your hair isn’t a texture that can be combed through. Sleep will come to him eventually, he just likes savouring the warmth you bring him.

[existential-angstt]

Take Me To Church // Shane “Dio” Morrissey x Reader

Warnings: SMUT SMUT SMUTTTTT, church kink, public sex, fingering, oral (f receiving)

Dio certainly had a reputation for telling those he met that he was alluring to people, but that was definitely the case when it came to the two of you. You’d seen him around campus before-- he was hard to miss, after all, in his totally black ensembles, multiple piercings and silver chains that jangled and clanked against each other. It seemed like his getup would be hard to get around in, but he was always angrily power walking whenever you saw him so you never stopped to say hi or compliment his sense of style. Eventually you heard rumors about the satanic cult that liked to meet in the basement of Miller Hall and do “rituals” (or whatever the rumor mill was churning out nowadays) and you decided to let your curiosity get the better of you. Whenever anyone talked about said cult, his name was always mentioned so you felt sure you would find him there. You weren’t planning on letting them see you-- you just wanted to know what they were getting up to down there…

You knew Miller Hall as well as the next freshman, but you’d never seen the basement-- you didn’t even know that students had access to that part of the building. The story went that Miller Hall used to be the old swim building, and that the remnants of the pools were in the basement, that you could still smell the chlorine. You crept down the stairs, wide eyed and ears perked for any sounds. The further you got downstairs, the more you could hear little noises-- a laugh here, some chatter there. The low rumble of music played over a speaker. When you got to the bottom of the steps, there was a set of double doors and before you could make up your mind to turn back, they both exploded outwards, slamming into the walls. 

Standing there was Dio, his palms flat against the doors. You could tell he certainly wasn’t expecting you to be standing there, that he was just on his way out, but he froze at the sight of you,your eyes wide and body tensed to run off. 

“Need something?” he said smoothly as though your appearance hadn’t ruffled him in the slightest. 

“I- uh,” you stuttered, trying to come up with something, anything to say. “I’m here for the cult stuff?” you tried. 

He cocked his head at you in confusion and then chuckled lowly. “All right, little one. Party’s in here,” he said, stepping back and gesturing into the large room behind him. You stepped in past him, wary of him beside you. You two had never spoken before now and as far as you knew he hadn’t known you existed before this, so you had no reason to expect the same kindness you felt towards him. 

You jumped as he wrapped an arm around you, pulling you close as you looked around the huge room that consisted mostly of an empty tiled pool. “How’d you hear about us?” he said, his breath hitting your face. He smelled like cigarettes and musky cologne and your heart was jumping every other beat. 

“J-J-Just rumors,” you stammered, looking around. There were about five or six other people, decked almost exclusively in black, swanning around the pool or smoking or doing whatever culty emo college students do in a basement. 

“Mmm. And what’s your name, little dove?” 

You gulped and looked up at him. He was broad as hell and he was completely in your personal space despite never having met you. That wasn’t to say you didn’t like that. 

“Y-Y/N,” you said uncertainly. 

“You sure about that?” he said, catching your tone. 

You nodded, looking into his dark eyes. There was something mischievous in them, something you couldn’t read. He paused a minute, staring at you and you staring at him.

“This shit is pretty lame. How about you and I grab lunch?”

“Lunch?” you said, glancing back at the other five goth kids. You looked back at him and the hand wrapped around your shoulder, previously draped around your frame casually, slid downwards a little so he could trace circles in your skin.

“Uh- Uh huh,” you said, agreeing. Still with an arm around you, he spun the two of you around back towards the double doors and started guiding you out, refusing to give up his hold on you until he was forced to by the narrowing of the staircase. When he did let go of you he followed close behind, hardly letting you get a step ahead before he was on your heels. 

The two of you slipped away to one of the dining halls, making small talk all the way. It was less small talk and more him interrogating you and you answering as steadily as you could. You picked up something light, hoping that eating (at least a little bit) would steady your stomach and Dio picked up just an apple. You wanted to say something, encourage him to get more for his meal punch, but since you didn’t know him, you felt like you couldn’t. 

You ate quickly and he just took his apple with him as you wandered across campus. You weren’t really sure what his goal was but he kept walking and you kept following. You were shocked, to say the least, when he took a sudden turn at the edge of the campus chapel, darting around the side of the building to slip through the heavy wooden door. You thought it was possible he was looking for someplace to shelter from the rain, which was really starting to come down, but somehow you didn’t see Dio as the kind of person to hide from the rain.

You followed him without question but you were certainly wary of what he was plotting. You weren’t surprised when you found the chapel completely empty, desolate of any other souls. You’d never been in here, although it had always been on your list-- a big old gray brick building with stained glass to die for. 

Dio walked up the aisle, black coat swirling around the backs of his knees. You stopped at the last row of pews, just watching him. He stepped up onto the short stage and stood behind the  pulpit like he was going to start preaching the gospels to sunday mass. You chuckled a little, clutching your hands in front of you. You started walking down the aisle towards him. He came down off the stage and stood at the first row of pews, staring you down as you continued towards him.

“You ever been to confession?” he said, nodding towards the confessional in the corner. Your eyes widened a little bit and you shook your head. “I have,” he said, turning to face it. “Looooong time ago. You wanna try?” he said, looking back over his shoulder at you. 

“All right,” you said, heart thumping away again. He walked over and opened one side before slinking around the corners of the box to go sit in the other side. You stepped into the box and closed the door behind you, sitting down on the wooden bench. You heard the door on his side shut and your breath hitched. A second, then-

“Do you have anything you’d like to confess to?”

Your breathing sounded so loud inside this small wooden box and it didn’t help that he was on the other side of it. He had to be able to hear it, how loud you were breathing, how you were twitching with claustrophobia and anxiety. He didn’t give any indication though, so you said, “Not particularly.” 

“No? Are you sure, little dove?” 

You froze, staring at the dark wall of the confessional. His tone had changed, become more dangerous. What was he playing at? 

“P-pretty sure,” you said. A shiver ran through you. You were a little damp from the rain, and churches were cold-- not to mention the tension you were feeling because of this man. You shook a little, your teeth chattering softly. 

You heard his breath hit the barrier on the other side of the confessional; he was leaning in as he said, “You sure you don’t wanna tell me about that little crush of yours?” 

You froze, your shivering suddenly stilled. 

“You think I haven’t seen you, lurking around campus? I’m never in one place long, but…” the pause was bittersweet and you realized you were holding your breath. You tried to exhale without drawing too much attention. “I always see you. Watching me. You think I don’t?” 

You realized now this entire thing had been a trap, a game. But what was his endgame? Where was he going with this? 

“Truth is…” he sighed, leaning back from the barrier, his voice getting slightly more muffled. “I watch you too, little dove.” Your skin was tingling now and you were trying to process everything he was saying but it was a lot for you at once. You suddenly felt very claustrophobic inside the confessional, like a bird trapped in a cage. “You thought I didn’t see you… but you’re the only one I see among those drones. You’re… different. Aware. You don’t follow that path they’ve laid out for you, you kind of… carve your own.” 

Your breath hitched again. “What are you saying?” 

“Forgive me,” he said, seeming to ignore your question, “for I have sinned.” 

You sat up on the bench, leaning forward and closer to the barrier as though to be closer to him. “I’ve had… so many thoughts about you. I… see you around campus and-- sometimes I don’t even have class, I just… follow you,” he continued unhindered. You wondered vaguely how this man followed you, sticking out like a sore thumb among the students, but you quickly banished the concern in lieu of listening to his spiel. 

“I watch you and… I think about all the things I’d like to do to you.” The last few words were breathy, close-- he was leaning towards you again. You were practically right up against each other, pressing in on each other from opposite sides of the confessional. You gasped a little, half from cold and half from-- what was it exactly? You knew this guy was bad news-- no one had anything good to say about him. You shouldn’t be into this guy, right? That didn’t seem to stop the butterflies in your stomach that were quickly turning into something else entirely.

“Like what?” you said softly and he inhaled sharply as though he had forgotten you were there. 

“I-” he trailed off; he seemed to be at a loss for words for once. From what you knew about Dio, it was practically impossible to catch this man off guard; he seemed to have a comeback for anything anyone threw at him, even if it was a lousy defense. For him to not know what to say-

“You have beautiful skin-- I want to see every inch of it, touch every inch of it,” he said finally, his voice lower and more serious. You gripped the gridded barrier between you, making the wood creak. “I want to get on my knees in front of you and find out what you taste like. I want to make you feel so good I’m the only thing you can think about for days at a time. I want you to scream my name in those moments you’re feeling the most pleasure,” he said very quickly, like if he didn’t get it out in time it would kill him.

You brought a hand up to your mouth and shivered again, both with cold and anticipation at what he was saying to you. “Can I come over there, little dove?” he hissed through the confessional’s wall. You nodded rapidly, eyes widening, before realizing he couldn’t see you. “Yes,” you croaked out and you heard the door to his side bang open only to wait a few seconds in agony before the door to your side was nearly ripped off its hinges. 

Dio was standing there, as imposing as ever, taking up the whole doorway with his form. He was 6’3” and broad as hell so it wasn’t hard for him to do. Since you’d last seen him a few minutes ago, he looked fairly more ruffled and there was some color in his pale cheeks, a pretty blush creeping across his cheekbones. 

You both leaped at each other in sync, you only making it halfway off the bench before he was swooping down to meet you, your lips clashing. He kissed you hard, as you’d expected; he was aggressive, pressing down on you and licking or biting anything he could get to. And yet… it wasn’t all taking as you’d expected. This was a man you’d halfway believed would take whatever he wanted and be done with it, but-- he was responding to your subtle movements, to the way you were kissing him, giving you what you needed as well. 

He halfway pushed you back into the confessional, pulling the door shut behind him and throwing the pair of you into darkness. It was cramped to say the least, but he lowered himself down and fitted himself against you, climbing into your lap and straddling you on the bench, kneeling over you. His hands came up to cradle your face, the cold metal of his rings biting your skin and making you hiss and gasp. He caught your bottom lip in his teeth and pulled, biting down softly. 

You groaned, the noise echoing around in the confessional and feeling so much louder. There was a deep rumble as he chuckled. “I watched you,” he pulled away to say, “and wanted you and hoped- but- I couldn’t have predicted you would taste this sweet or fall apart this beautifully for me.” 

You gasped and moaned a little at his words, running your hands down the sides of his slick leather jacket and finding purchase underneath, where he was nothing but warmth. You slithered your hands underneath the hem of his shirt and found nothing but miles of hot flesh over taut muscle. He growled a little at your invasion and shoved his tongue into your mouth unforgivingly, moving one hand down to rest it against the hollow of your throat. 

You leaned into him, pressing your throat higher against his hand and forcing his face back a little, your tongue tangling with his. He squeezed the hand on your neck in response and you let out a little whimper against your will. He moaned against your mouth, moving downwards and trailing kisses across your jaw for only a second before he was moving to your neck. You shoved your hands upwards under his shirt, reveling in the contact. You ran your right hand across his chest and stopped when you felt something metallic. He was wearing a lot of chains, could you have touched one of those? No, no, this was smaller, what-

He chuckled again and you decided you liked when he did that. You realized with a start his nipples were pierced but you barely had time to comprehend the implications of that before the hand still holding your face was moving downwards at an alarming rate. One hand stayed on your throat while the other ventured down the center of your chest and across your belly before finding the edge of your shirt and shoving upwards. Your shirt bunched up around your neck like a scarf and your whole chest was exposed to him in the darkness.

You were still a little chilled from the rain and despite recent activities you shivered. “Are you cold, baby?” he whispered against your cheek as he peppered kisses across your face. “Let me try an’ warm you up.” His hand plunged downwards again and suddenly he was shoving it into your skirt, rubbing at you through your underwear. He only did that for a few seconds before he withdrew again so he could cup your boobs through your bra before pushing your bra up and setting his hands on the real things. 

You moaned against him and he sank down on you, putting your left nipple into his hot mouth and sucking on it mercilessly. The hands you had under his shirt turned to claws and you raked them against his skin, pulling him closer, but he only growled like a feral animal and continued, making little noises as he sucked on your tit. He pulled away with a wet popping sound, saliva dribbling down your boob, and put his mouth on your other breast, treating that one the same way-- relentlessly. 

While he was still focused on that, he shoved his hand back into your skirt, this time dipping underneath your underwear and running along your slick folds. With one last cruel nibble on your right breast, he pulled away to say, “Is all this for me, sweetness? Are you this wet for me? You’re even more desperate for me than I could have anticipated.” Your hands slid down to his hips as he sat back a little, his hand still exploring you blindly, and you could feel the sharp cut of his Adonis belt as his thumb brushed your clit. You cried out a little as he applied pressure but swiftly went back to circling your bundle of nerves. 

“Why don’t we take this somewhere a bit more roomy?” he said, his breath hitting your face and then suddenly there was light and it was blinding; Dio had kicked open the door of the confessional and was pulling you out of it like a cop at a riot as your shirt slid back down. 

“Wha- Where?” you managed to gasp out. Dio led you over to the short stage at the front of the church with an iron grip on your wrist and all you could do was obey. Once you had both climbed up, he turned back to you and said, “Lay down, little dove.”

You looked back at him with reproach. “Dio, this- this is a church. Shouldn’t we at least lock the door or something?”

He turned back to you fully and pulled you close, towering over you slightly menacingly. “Now where’s the fun in that?” he rumbled, his hands finding your hips. You gasped and found yourself doing as he said, laying down on your back on the floor of the daius. You gave the interior of the church another once over, making sure no one had walked in during your confessional time, but you hardly had time to evaluate present dangers before he was on you again. This time he didn’t straddle you, but leaned down and, with a knee, kicked apart your legs before putting his own weight in between them. 

“Dio-” 

“Shush.” 

He put his mouth back on yours and you breathed him in, cigarettes and musk. You groaned again as his hand snaked back down to where it had been between your legs. He kept kissing you as his hands reached down to tear away your skirt, ripping it halfway down your legs. You reached up to grip his leather jacket by the collar when he did that but he only grinned at you cheekily.

The goth boy pulled away from you until he was positioned by your legs, which he lifted so your knees were bent and then pushed apart again. You heard a click and looked up-- Dio had taken out a black switchblade and opened it. Your mouth fell open as you stared, unable to do anything. He eyed you darkly before grabbing hold of your underwear and slicing through it. You breathed a small sigh of relief when he pulled your underwear off of you, but went back to a mix of anxiety and lust when he returned to you, resting his palms on your knees with the knife in one hand. 

He was looking up at you and then back at your lady bits as he ran his tongue across his bottom lip. Dio took the knife and lowered it down somewhere you couldn’t see but could feel all to well. You hissed and tried to sit up to see what he was doing, but he applied a little bit of pressure and you laid back immediately. “Good girl,” he said, using the handle of the knife to trace your entrance. You stayed on your back, staring up at the ceiling, but he said, “Hey” so you sat up the slightest bit to meet his eyes. “Look at me.” 

He was still tracing that knife a place you couldn’t see, a place a knife shouldn’t be, his eyes burning into yours. The cold of the metal was almost soothing to your overheated skin but you were more than a little nervous at his implications. You were too afraid to look away again, unsure of what it would make him do. Suddenly he slipped the handle of it into you, just a few inches, but you screamed out and arched your back a bit before remembering why that would be a bad idea. You looked back at him as soon as you could make your eyes function again and he was wearing a shit eating grin from watching you struggle. 

“Dio-” you moaned. 

“What is it, little one?” he said, completely unaffected by this. 

“Please-” 

“Please what?” he said. You looked back up at him and he was staring at you sharply. He needed you to say it. 

“P-Please, I need you to-”

“What, little dove? You need me to what?” 

“Fuck me!” you cried out desperately. 

He chuckled and pressed the hard edged knife further into you, the chilly metal and the sharpness of the dimensions biting into you. “Like this?” he said nastilly. 

“No,” you moaned out, reaching aimlessly for his hand, which was pressing the knife deeper into you. “Please-” 

“What’s my name, little dove?” he said, that nickname he’d give you sliding off this tongue so easily. You groaned and let your head drop, staring at the ceiling while your body was halfway between pain and pleasure. “Hey- look at me,” he snapped and your head shot up, your eyes meeting his blearily. “What’s my name?” 

“Dio!” you cried out, desperate for him to take the knife out. It was satisfying some desire buried deeply within you but mostly it was just uncomfortable. And the thought that someone could walk in at any minute- 

“Good girl. You’re so good for me; you’re behaving so well,” he said as he slowly pulled the handle of the knife out of you and you felt like you could breathe again. “I didn’t think-- when I followed you around, when I thought about you-” he said, climbing on top of you, his full weight pressing into you, “I didn’t think you’d let me do all these things. Not willingly.” 

“I wanted you to, Dio. That’s why I came looking for you,” you said, reaching up to card your fingers through his black hair and tug. He moaned into your chest, pushing your shirt back up again so he could rest his face in your breasts. After a few seconds of you tugging on his hair and running your hands through it, he started moving again, kissing your chest until he moved back up to your mouth, nipping your bottom lip again.

Now that he was pressed up against you, you could feel how hard he was through those leather pants of his. And from what you could tell, he was big. You let out a little gasp and started fumbling with his pants shakily, trying to slide them down. He jumped a little, his hand grabbing your wrist on instinct. But then he was chuckling against you, smiling as he said, “Are you needy for me, you little whore?” 

You flexed your hand uncomfortably in his tight grasp and after a few seconds of heavy eye contact, establishing a silent “no touching” rule, he released you and you withdrew your hand back greedily.

Luckily he got the message to speed things along and reached down himself to pull at the fastenings on his pants, shimmying out of them with a little difficulty. He had just gotten adjusted when you both jumped at the sound of the heavy front doors opening. Before you knew what was happening, Dio was pulling you up by the waist and scooting the both of you over to behind the pulpit, which had a covered table right beside it. You were still on the stage, but at least now you were out of view.

There was some faint chatter, two voices-- a couple who’d stopped in the church to admire the stained glass. You looked up at him fearfully but he merely smiled down at you before he was slithering back off of you and lowering his head-

It was all you could do not to cry out. He licked a couple stripes up your entrance, tasting you, before moving up to suck on your clit harshly. You clapped a hand to your mouth and gripped the edge of the pulpit with the other. He was being intentionally slow, overstimulating your clit and only edging you with his tongue. The voices were getting a little louder-- you could hear them walking down the aisle, even make out what they were saying now. 

“-so pretty in here, I don’t know why I don’t come here more often.”

“Maybe cause you’re Jewish?” 

“Shut up, I don’t have to be Catholic to admire beauty.” 

You almost let yourself get lost in their conversation, trying to forget about what this man was doing to you with his mouth when he dipped one of his fingers into you. The edge of the pulpit creaked slightly at the pressure you were exerting on it and you bit down on the back of the hand you had covering your mouth to keep from moaning. 

He laughed into you hoarsely and the vibration of his mouth on your clit sent you up the wall. 

“What was that? Did you hear that?” the female voice was saying. You had tears in your eyes from the effort of holding yourself together and you were about to be found out. Dio was still flicking his tongue lazily over your clit and moving that finger in and out of you at an alarmingly fast rate, you didn’t know how they couldn’t hear it-

“No, I didn’t hear anything. What did you hear?” 

You could feel tightness coiling in your belly- you were close. But you couldn’t- not here, not now; not when they were so close to-

You reached down and gave Dio’s hair a sharp tug. He looked up with hooded eyes like he was at an all you can eat buffet but the haziness quickly faded when he noticed your expression. He looked back down at your trembling body and pointed, mouthing, “Are you- about to-” you nodded feverishly, hitting your head on the edge of the pulpit and seeing stars. 

“That! Did you hear that?” “I really don’t know what you’re talking about-” “Maybe this place really is haunted.” 

Dio pulled his finger out of you and you let out a whimper in surprise. Just one whimper. That was all it took.

“HEY-” “Yeah, I definitely heard it that time. Let’s-- let’s get outta here.”

“What, are you scared?”

“Of ghosts? No. Of horny college students fucking in some dark corner? Yes.” 

“Ugh, fine. Let’s go.”

There were shuffling footsteps, a lofty breeze and the sound of rain, and then the heavy wooden door slammed shut. You let out a long groan, both from pleasure and everything you’d pent up the last five minutes and Dio reached up and squeezed your tit. “You’re good at keeping quiet. I’ll have to explore that later.” You twitched and gasped  a little. 

“So, you’re close, little one?” he hissed, straddling you again and sinking his teeth down on your neck, running his tongue over every spot he bit. Your head was spinning and you could hardly see straight. 

“Uy-yeah-” you moaned. 

“Well, then. Let’s see if we can make you cum before someone else decides to walk in on us, eh?” he said, pulling at his pants again. You reached up to grab at his bare hips as you felt his hard dick rub against your pussy. You groaned as your clit throbbed, overstimulated, while you hadn’t had anything inside you since his finger and that hadn’t been nearly enough. 

Without much other ceremony, Dio lined himself up and rammed into you. He was definitely big, and almost more than you’d been prepared for, even with all his teasing. You tightened your calves around him, wrapping your legs around his waist and pulling him deeper on instinct. He let out a deliciously low moan, dipping in to drop kisses across your cheeks and nose. “Mmm, you feel so good, little dove,” he groaned, his kisses turning to love bites and then to full nibbles the further down he went. 

“You’re not so bad yourself,” you groaned, enjoying the fullness of him. He pulled back and rammed into you again with a grunt, hitting your cervix. You cried out, the sound ringing out against the stone walls of the church. You really hoped there weren’t any staff members working somewhere inside the building, though this was the worst possible time to be worrying about that. You reached up and grabbed a fistful of Dio’s hair and yanked. His eyes flashed at you and he growled, slamming into you again, looking down at your chest. You sucked in a breath and your hand slid down to his jaw, where you tilted back his head so he would meet your eyes. He grinned devilishly and kissed you, moving his hips in a steady rhythm and making you groan. He kept slamming into you, bringing up a ringed hand to clutch at your throat, squeezing it and making your eyes roll back in your skull. 

“Ah- ah, r-r-right there, Dio, that’s the spot, ri-”

He kept ramming into you, his pace quickening and your pleasure with it. Your right hand tangled itself in the hair at the back of his head, pulling with every thrust, and your left clutched at his shoulder, trying to hold yourself together. In this position you were imminently more conscious of the sounds echoing around the church-- the slapping of wet skin, ragged breathing, and moaning. You were letting out a litany of both curses and praises when he gasped and said, “D-dove, I- I’m close.”

You looked up in surprise-- your head had fallen back against the floor as your back was arching but now you were paying him your full attention. His cheeks were flushed so beautifully and you could see the tension he was holding. “W-where-” he groaned. 

“My tits, cum on my tits, Dio,” you moaned, pushing your chest up towards him. He let out a whimper and pulled out of you, sitting up so he was straddling you on his knees. When you finally saw his cock, you let out a low groan. That had been inside you? It was-

You watched and grinned with satisfaction as he started jerking himself off, staring at you, half naked and splayed out underneath him. And then with a shout, he came, thick ropes of cum landing on your chest and belly. You dipped your fingers down into the cum on your chest and tasted it, moaning obscenely as you did it. In all the times you’d seen Dio, you’d never been able to picture him looking anything like this-- completely disheveled, halfway fallen apart, and staring at you with his mouth hanging open and his eyes hazy with release. 

He ducked back down to lick up the mess from your chest, not wasting a single drop. After he’d given you a thorough tongue bath, he came back up to meet your lips, kissing you gently and sweetly like a high school boy would. “All right, angel,” he sighed against your cheek. “Let me take care of you now.” 

Before you could ask what he meant, he was pulling back again, lifting your knees back up and sinking his face right into your heat. You let out a cry of surprise, which turned into a moan as he was back to stimulating you. He wasted no time, he tongue circling your clit and dipping into you before he shoved his finger back where it had been earlier. You moaned and he gripped your thigh as he pulled your legs onto his shoulders, the metal of his rings and bracelet digging into your sensitive flesh. 

It wasn’t long at all before you were whimpering out that you were close, and his movements got more intense, his fingers moving faster as he sucked on your clit. You didn’t hold back any noises as everything came to a roaring finale you were cumming into his mouth. He drank you up like you were an oasis in the desert, licking you clean until everything was throbbing from overstimulation. 

He softly dropped your legs back to the floor and climbed back on top of you, kissing you sweetly and tasting like you. You wrapped your legs back around his waist shakily, clinging onto him to steady you. “You gonna make it, little dove?” he hissed, pressing the softest of kisses to your cheeks and nose and forehead. You mumbled incoherently and simply clung to him, holding him close, and he let you. 

You didn’t lay there more than two minutes, trying to regain your bearings, when you heard the heavy door of the church swing open again. 

“All right, kids, this is the University Chapel-”

You and Dio snapped to attention and looked at each other in pure fear. The giggling and chatter of the school children filled the church as the door finally slammed shut behind them.

[fantastic-bby]

Han Jisung's Crappy Guide: Surfing Into Hearts (Teaser)

Teaser details

Pairing: (F)Reader x Jisung

Word count: 1.7k

Genre: College AU | Surfer!Jisung

Summary: Jisung has a very questionable guide in trying to win hearts, one of the issues with it is that it only consists of really bad flirting and telling people he's a hot surfer. The other issue with it is that he's never actually put it into play because he's always waiting until he feels that special spark with someone...

Warnings: -

Publish date of full fic: 8th August

Overall word count: 22.4k

Full fic genre: Fluff | Romance | Slice of life | Strangers to Lovers | Surfer!Jisung | Surfer|Reader | College AU

Full fic warnings: Brief physical fighting | Mentions of getting high | Jisung has what I think is the equivalent of an obsessed fan

Masterlist | Full Fic | AO3 Link

…Han Jisung: sought out by the entire campus, has a very questionable guide in stealing and breaking hearts. It honestly consists of being really bad at flirting and telling people he's a hot surfer. With the entire campus essentially wrapped around his pinky, Jisung could have anyone he wanted. The only problem is that he also has the only person on campus he refuses to sleep with again coming after him.

“Uh oh, Hyemi incoming.” Hyunjin mimics the whistle of a bomb falling from the sky before making a ‘pwoosh’ sound with his mouth just as the dreaded person approaches their table. Jisung can feel his entire being wanting to shrivel up into a ball and disappear just as she opens her mouth.

“Hey Jisung,” Hyemi greets with her ever so sickeningly sweet voice. She pushes her long brown hair over her shoulder, the other resting on her hip as she completely ignores the other two that are at the same table as Jisung. “It’s already Autumn.”

“Is it?” Minho gasps, fauxing surprise, “and here I thought it was still Spring. Thank you so much for reminding me, Hyemi.” If sarcasm had a physical form, it would be pouring out of his mouth and pooling on the white wooden table, but Hyemi completely ignores him.

“It means that the Autumn Night Fair is back. How about you and I go and check it out? Have something to eat, play some games, ride the ferris wheel,” she hums.

“Not interested,” Jisung says simply. “I’m already going with my friends and we’ve already invited Yeji and her friends to come along, so… that’s already a whole group.”

“Oh come on, you can make room for one more,” Hyemi persists.

Jisung lets out a small sigh as he stands up, adjusting the strap of his bag onto his shoulder with one hand and picking up the food tray with the other. “I’m not interested,” he repeats. “I’ve already told you, it’s not going to work out. Stop trying.” Jisung walks past her, leaving Minho and Hyunjin to pick up their stuff as well.

“Sorry, Hyemi,” Minho chuckles as the two leave the table to follow Jisung. Hyunjin and Minho catch up to him only after he’s pushed through the glass door of the cafeteria and is already making his way to the entrance of the Student Union building.

“HanJi, wait up!” Hyunjin calls, making Jisung stop to turn around. His face is straight and honestly, he looks bored. Jisung’s had his fill of having students fawn over him to the point where he doesn’t even care anymore—Hyemi is no exception. She’s been trying for three years and Jisung’s gotten so tired of her that he’s blocked all of her contacts to stop her from trying to message him.

“Christ, she really won’t take no for an answer huh?” Minho chuckles as they start walking together.

“I thought that sleeping with her and ghosting her would work because there really wasn’t any other way, but I guess even that doesn’t work,” Jisung sighs. As shitty as it sounds, Jisung only sleeps and ghosts people as a last resort. He's actually only done it once… with Hyemi. “I don’t understand why she still tries. It’s like everywhere I go, she’s there and she’s trying to crawl through the damn zipper of my pants.”

Hyunjin and Minho exchange a sympathetic look. They know just how hard he’s tried to get her off of him and they also know that it’s gotten to the point where Jisung doesn’t even care anymore. Every time she approaches him, he either ignores her or just walks away.

“When was the last time you even dated someone?” Hyunjin asks, looking at Jisung curiously.

“High school,” Minho answers for him and Jisung nods as clarification. “Ji hasn’t had a proper relationship since high school.”

“I haven’t had a connection with anyone yet,” Jisung says while shrugging. The funny thing about Jisung is that he’s totally willing to sleep with anyone, but he hasn’t actually found someone he’s properly had ‘The Connection’ with yet, and Jisung sticks by only getting into a proper, committed, and serious relationship only if he feels ‘The Connection’ with.

“He basically has commitment issues and no one’s been able to push through them. He didn't even like his ex that much, he just dated her because he wanted the 'experience'.” Jisung smacks Minho on the arm and it makes the older man laugh.

“I do not have commitment issues,” Jisung argues.

“Sure, okay,” Minho rolls his eyes. “So, that time you freaked out because your ex confessed that she actually liked you isn’t enough to prove that you’re not ready for a committed relationship?”

“Doesn’t mean I have issues!”

“Mhm, whatever you say, Hannie,” Minho chuckles. They both turn to Hyunjin when he becomes strangely quiet only to see him on his phone.

"Uhm, turn back around,” Hyunjin blurts out right before he turns around and runs straight back into the cafeteria, leaving Minho and Jisung watching in confusion. They follow the designer and when they’re inside of the cafeteria, there’s a crowd gathered around Yeji and Hyemi.

“You’re fucking crazy!” Yeji hisses as she pulls her wet white shirt away from her torso to stop it from sticking. “I didn’t even do anything to you!”

“What the fuck?!” Hyunjin exclaims as he grabs onto Hyemi’s hand that still has the plastic cup grasped.

“Oh my god,” Minho groans.

“I’ll handle it,” Jisung mutters as he hands his backpack to Minho before taking his jacket off. He pushes through the crowd until he reaches Yeji and lays the jacket over her shoulders, “come on.” They’re both certain that if looks could kill, Yeji would have daggers sticking out of her torso from Hyemi’s glare. Jisung decides against saying anything to Hyemi and, instead, guides Yeji towards the cafeteria doors with Minho and Hyunjin following.

“Are you alright?” Hyunjin asks once they’ve pushed past the doors.

“I’m fine,” she huffs. “Good thing Lia texted you. I’m pretty sure she would’ve hit me for just being friends with you.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Jisung sighs while taking his bag back from Minho.

“Nothing to apologise for,” Yeji shakes her head with a reassuring look on her face, “it’s not your fault. You’ve already turned her down about… I don’t know, a billion times? She’s the one who chooses her actions, not you.”

“I still feel kinda guilty since, you know…”

“Ji, it’s nothing to worry about—I promise,” Yeji flashes him a small smile. “If anything, have you seen Ryujin angry? She isn’t the MMA vice president for nothing, you know.”

The sound of the cafeteria doors being pushed open followed by Lia’s, “wait up!” Makes the four of them stop and turn around to see Lia and Chaeryeong chasing after them.

“Gosh, I can’t believe she did that just because you’re friends with Jisung,” Chaeryeong huffs when they start walking once again.

“I’m not even dating you—it’s getting tiring,” Yeji mutters, hands wrapping the front of Jisung’s jacket around herself tighter. “I shouldn’t have worn white today, huh?”

“It’s okay, we’ll accompany you to your dorm,” Lia reassures her while linking her arm around Yeji’s elbow. “It’s not like we have any classes after this.”

“Mhm!” Chaeryeong hums as she links onto Yeji’s other elbow.

“Where is Ryujin anyway?” Hyunjin asks when he notices the lack of the group’s most prominent presence. Shin Ryujin, vice president of the MMA club is also one of the better known students on campus. She’s more known for just being outright chaotic as well as her habit of standing up for her friends.

"Committee meeting with Felix," Lia answers.

“Thanks for the jacket,” Yeji turns around once they’re out of the Student Union building. “I’ll pass it to Hyunjin later.”

“It’s fine,” Jisung smiles. “Just take care. If anything happens, text Hyunjin and we’ll send Felix to beat her up or something.”

“We’ll be fine,” she shakes her head with laughter before bidding the guys goodbye and leaving in the direction of her dorm building. Jisung feels a bitter feeling in his chest as he watches Yeji walk.

As much as his friends tell him that he’s not responsible for anything that Hyemi does to them, he can’t help but always feel guilty whenever something happens. It’s been this constant cycle where he goes from thinking of dating her for the sake of protecting his friends or just ignoring her until he graduates.

There’s a few things that actually stops Jisung from dating her. 1. She’s crazy. 2. He’s been turning her down since their first year. 3. She splashed water on Yeji for being friends with him. Jisung has a feeling that if he ever did date her, then he wouldn’t have been able to actually hang out with his friends anymore.

“Are you surfing today?” Hyunjin turns to Minho.

“Most likely,” he nods. “Jisung?”

“Hmm?”

“Surfing today?” Minho asks.

“Yeah, but I’m stopping by Felix’s place later. He has one of my sunglasses,” Jisung says.

“I need to check on Kkami, so I’ll see you guys at the beach,” Hyunjin waves at them before heading in the same direction that Yeji, Lia and Chaeryeong went—making Minho and Jisung wonder why he didn’t just follow them before since he and Yeji live in the same building. Everyone wonders how Hyunjin manages to house a dog in his on-campus dorm, but he’s always just said not to worry and that Kkami isn’t that loud.

Minho and Jisung bid their goodbyes before Minho walks in the opposite direction of Hyunjin to head to his dorm and Jisung heads to the campus gates. His house is only a few minutes walk from campus which bodes well for him since he doesn’t need to move away from his family. He keeps himself preoccupied with trying to detangle his white earphones while he walks, hands pulling and tugging at the white wire until he accidentally bumps into someone.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry,” he apologises. Jisung’s slightly surprised when he’s faced with a student he’s never seen before.

“It’s fine, I think we were both a bit busy,” you chuckle as you lift your own tangled earphones.

“O-Oh yeah,” Jisung laughs awkwardly. Before he can even ask who you are, you’ve already started walking past him. He watches as you do. You’re definitely new.

The campus isn’t too big that you wouldn't know anyone outside of your circle, but it’s small enough that you can recognise all of the students at least by face or voice. However, Jisung’s never seen you before, nor has he ever heard your voice before; which leaves him wondering as he turns back around and continues his walk to the gates.

[santigarcia]

Dessert is on the Counter

an abel morales x f!reader fic~

word count: 2k

rating: m for smut

summary: you’re a college student and you go home with your friend Elias Morales for Thanksgiving, and you meet his recently divorced older brother Abel....

a/n: this idea was given to me by the lovely @sergeantkane. she was kind enough to let me write this AND make a moodboard for it! this is my first time writing abel so i hope yall like it!

Holidays are never what you expect them to be. This is by far your most eventful thanksgiving to date.

You agree to be a fake girlfriend to your friend Elias. Your good friends, and honestly it would be a fun weekend away. You know his brother has a nice house, and you’d rather stay in New York than go back home. Too many flights to plan.

The house is nicer than you expect when you pull into the driveway. The housekeeper answers the door and she’s a pleasant woman. You can’t seem to find your “boyfriend,” but you do see three young girls run by, playing with their dog. They greet you happily and so does the dog. You set your bag down to bend down to pet the animal when you hear a male voice.

“Did you find the house ok?”

You look up to see the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. He’s dressed sharp in a suit, a tan coat draped over his arm. His cologne smells expensive, and his hair is perfect.

“Oh, yes! You have a lovely home. You and your wife must have put a lot into it!”

“Oh, it’s just me.”

“I’m so sorry- “

“Don’t be,” he holds up his hand to ease your worries.

“Don’t be,” Morales repeats. “She’s a bitch. Abel here wised up and left.” He says hopping up on the kitchen counter. Abel only chuckles, but the look in his eyes tells you that Elias speaks the truth.

“How long are you with us…?” Abel pauses realizing he doesn’t know your name.

“Oh shit,” Elias laughs and hops off the counter. He says your name and then introduces you to Abel. He takes your hand in a strong but gentle handshake, and you flush when his fingers stroke your palm as he slides his hand away.

“And I’ll be here just for the weekend!”

Abel nods and returns your smile, “make yourself at home. We’re so glad you’ll be joining us.” He nods and puts his coat on walking towards the front door.

“He’s always working,” Elias says. “Especially after the divorce, threw himself into his work. Come on, let me take you on a tour.”

You walk through the halls and peek in rooms – noticing the life lived here. It’s full of memory, but it’s almost too quiet. Empty. It’s too clean and you can feel the hurt this family has endured.

“She left him and the girls without a word one morning. The papers were on the kitchen counter.”

All night those words run through your head. You lie on the floor, a makeshift pallet in Elias’s bedroom – staring up at the ceiling. How does someone just leave their whole family behind?

You keep thinking about it as you sit across from Abel at the thanksgiving meal. His daughters and a few other children you assume are cousins sit at the designated kid’s table. The adults table is full of the Morales family, they are cheerful and warm. What about this family made his wife want to leave? They’ve been nothing but welcoming to you.

“What are you studying in school?” Abel asks you as he holds out a plate of homemade bread to you. You take a slice, it’s warm. Just like everything else in this house. Your fingers brush his and you hate how it makes you flush. So much so you almost forget the question.

“I’m an anthropology major.”

“Oh?” Abel raises a brow. His interest is piqued. “What made you chose that?”

“People fascinate me and learning about other cultures in the process has opened up my world view. I think it’s important.”

He nods in agreement as he takes a sip of wine.

“Knowing people is a key part in my business. Works better that way.”

“Abel,” groans Elias, “you’re so boring!” He laughs. A couple family members chuckle but mean no harm. You hold Abel’s eyes, and something sparks behind them. Suddenly you get the feeling he’d like to eat you alive. And watching his jaw move while he eats his meal doesn’t help the desire growing between your legs.

As their guest, a couple of the women take your plate and bring you a slice of pie. Abel smiles fondly at you as you enjoy the first bite. Elias has left to go watch the game on TV, but you didn’t notice.

“You’re not really dating him, are you?” Abel chuckles.

“How did you guess?”

“He’s in there, watching the game.” Abel nods his head in the direction of the living room. You can hear voices cheering and a clamor of excitement. “When he could be here with you. And hey, maybe you don’t have to be around each other all the time. But he didn’t even ask if you wanted to join.”

You can’t look at him, he’s too handsome. So, you look past him into the kitchen where more family members wash dishes and start cleaning things up. Someone laughs loudly and Abel turns to see with a smile. It’s so comfortable.

“I bet you’re wondering now why I’m here then.”

“Yes, I am,” he nods with a polite smile and folds his hands together, his dessert finished.

“I wanted to get away. Spend time somewhere else. And Elias is a good friend. I have an anthro project due at the end of the semester, and I wanted to see how different families are at over the holidays.” You pause, “but nothing looks all that different from Thanksgiving at my home.”

Abel asks you more questions and you end up talking for some time. You don’t even notice the relatives leaving. The only thing that stirs you from the conversation is your want for leftovers now that you’re hungry again.

“Thank you for the lovely conversation Mr. Morales,” you smile when you stand finally.

“Abel, please. And it’s been a pleasure. I’m glad you’re here.” He nods.

That night it’s even worse. Laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling thinking about him. You couldn’t sleep if you tried, this floor isn’t comfortable now. You shouldn’t be thinking about Abel, but you can’t help but think about him in his room, alone. His touch was so warm, you can’t imagine what his touch would be like sexually.

Why did his wife leave him? It bothers you.

Elias is snoring, and you can’t sleep – so you get up to go downstairs for a drink. You quietly tiptoe down the hall. You see the girls’ bedrooms, each of their doors has a pink sign with their name on it. A stair creaks when you step on it and you freeze, it’s as if your thoughts of Abel will expose you.

You carry on down the stairs and into the kitchen. There are only a few small lamps on to illuminate the space. But the fridge light pours onto the floor when you open the freezer for some ice in your glass.

“Can’t sleep?”

Abel.

Shit.

You gasp and spin around to see him in comfortable pajama pants and a plain white t-shirt. He looks so handsome in the soft light.

“Sorry,” he laughs. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s alright! I hope this is ok…”

“Oh, of course” he points to the sink and you fill your glass. You feel your face warm, knowing he’s watching you. Seeing him while you’re in your pajamas wasn’t what you had in mind.

“And no, I can’t sleep.”

“Something on your mind?” he asks casually, reaching in the cabinet for a mug.

Does he know? No. He can’t know. Can he?

You realize you haven’t answered and instead you’re just standing frozen overfilling you glass of ice water.

“The floor isn’t comfortable,” you say instead, which is also the truth.

“The floor?” he pauses, setting the mug down. “Why are you on the floor?”

“Well, we aren’t- “

“No, I know you’re not dating, but why did he give you the floor? I outta kick his ass for treating a guest that way. Especially one so pretty,” he smiles, there’s a glint in his eye of flirtation- harmless, but you want more of it.

“You know, Abel, it’s not my place to say this but I think your wife made a mistake.”

He takes a step closer to you and you feel your heart pounding in your throat.

“Things happen the way they are supposed to,” he says, taking a step closer. You take a drink from your water, but he pulls the glass from your lips.

“I shouldn’t-“ you whisper.

“Why not?” Abel sets your glass down. There’s a chill on his fingertips when he touches your cheek. “I’ve seen the look in your eyes all day. If you don’t want this, then please say so. But if you do, then please- kiss me.”

Throwing all caution to the wind, you wrap your arms around him and kiss him deeply. He grunts into your mouth and helps you hop up on the counter. Your legs wrap around him tightly, pulling him towards you. His mouth hasn’t left yours and the moans leaving your mouth already are full of need.

“Please,” you whine and buck your hips against him. His hands slide into your waistband and he’s quick to find your clit. The gasp you let out is obscene, and he claps his hand over your mouth. He gives you a little grin of satisfaction and he rubs your clit perfectly.

No one you’ve been with have touched you like this. You’re a 23-year-old college student, all your past relationships have been too inexperienced for good pleasure. This is a man who knows how to touch a woman.

He keeps up his pace and he doesn’t stop until your panties are soaking wet.

“Do you want to keep going?” he asks, looking in your eyes. You know he’ll stop if you ask. But you’d rather die than him stop right now.

You shake your head yes, and he moves his hand. He pulls down his pajama pants enough to pull himself free. He’s already hard and ready for you. You moan again and he raises an eyebrow at you.

“You gonna be a good girl for me?” he’s testing the waters and you’re ready to drown. You nod quickly as he slips off your pants and pushes your panties aside. He then lines himself up with you. He thumbs your clit with one hand as he guides himself in with the other. You stifle a moan, and he can’t help but chuckle quietly at your attempts to be quiet.

He thrusts into you, hard. You see stars and clench around him. Everything about him is too much, but just in the right way. His voice is smooth, his skin is warm. His hair is perfect and you’re messing it up with your fingers while he pounds into you on the kitchen counter next to the leftover desserts from today.

His thumb stays there on you while he thrusts, his other hand gripping the counter for support. When you near your end, his big hand finds the small of your back and pulls you as close to him as possible.

He makes sure you come again before he does. His moans are soft, his eyes asking you permission. You nibble on his ear and whine a yes when he spills himself into your heat.

“You wanna come sleep in my bed?” he whispers into your neck as he places a kiss there.

You nod and he pulls out, helping you slide off the counter.

He takes you again in the bedroom. Twice. He strips you naked and enjoys the touch of your skin. He worships you in his big bed. Once it crosses your mind he slept with his wife in this big bed. But you soon forget when he’s balls deep and making you come a fourth time that night.

You don’t want to explain this one to Elias tomorrow, but it’s better than sleeping on the floor.

xx

@punkpascal, @writefightandflightclub, @velvetmel0n, @huliabitch, @himbodjarin, @pascalz, @bisexual-space-slut, @shadow-assassin-blix​

[ahkaahshi]

stay here [iwaizumi hajime x reader]

pairing: iwaizumi hajime x fem reader

genre: smut (18+) and fluff

warning(s): explicit sexual content, penetrative sex, a bit of dub-con (bc of the fact that alcohol was involved), alcohol consumption, swearing, brief mentions of toxic relationships

word count: 3.5k

overview: a post break-up night at the club with your best friend ends a bit differently than you’d expected

notes: a commission for the lovely @devlovesiwa-channn​! sorry this took so long bb but I hope the wait was worth it! thanks for supporting me ily ❤️

The heavy bass pulsating through the club shakes every bone in your body as you sit at the bar, head propped up by your hand and fingers tapping against the side of your face to the beat of the song playing. From where he is beside you, Iwaizumi watches you breathe out another, long sigh with furrowed eyebrows.

“Oi,” he barks, drawing your (e/c) gaze to his dark one illuminated by the bright lights flashing from the ceiling, “Quit thinking about that jerk, would ya?”

With a roll of the eyes, you retort, “You say that like it’s so easy, Hajime. I did just get my heart broken not even a week ago.”

“And you say that like I’m clueless. Don’t forget who’s spent the past—what is it now? Five?—nights over at your place, watching movies with you and making sure you get to bed at a decent time.” His words elicit an immediate feeling of guilt that wells up inside your gut and makes you avert your gaze to search for the bartender who should be finishing up your drinks any moment now.

What he’d said was entirely true, and you knew it. Ever since you’d gotten out of a relationship earlier that week, you’d been a bit of an emotional wreck. Mountains of snack wrappers and tissues had already been piled up in the trash bin placed in your room when Iwaizumi had first showed up at your apartment after hearing about the news. He’d sat with you every evening this week, huddled beneath the covers of your bed or a pile of blankets on the couch while you’d switched between directing words seething with venom towards your ex and struggling to speak through sobs. He’d made sure that you’d eaten your meals, gone to bed at a decent hour, and had done everything in his power to be the friend you’d needed.

So, to even mention that you’d just endured a heartbreak like he had no idea about the situation was nothing less than a slap in the face to him—and you knew it. However, the noticeable discomfort written on your face has Iwaizumi shaking his head as if trying to negate the harshness of his statement.

“Hey,” he tries again in as soft a voice he can use when he’s having to compete with the music blaring, “all I’m saying is that I’ve seen the hell you’ve been put through because of that asshole, so I want you to be able to take your mind off of it for a bit and enjoy this night out, okay?”

You can’t help but chuckle in a way that reflects how jaded you feel by your predicament but shoot him a small smile anyway as you respond, “No promises.”

“We’ll see about that,” he challenges, a smirk flashing across his lips when the bartender sets down two shot glasses on the metal bar top before you. As if in synchronization, the two of you reach for your drinks at the same time and clink them together in a toast. “Here’s to a good night.”

After downing your shot, squeezing your eyes shut and taking a sharp inhale at the burning sensation of the alcohol traveling down your throat, you state, “Gonna need a few more before we get started with that.” Iwaizumi nearly chokes when you raise your hand to summon the bartender for an instant refill so you can tilt your head back once more to knock another one down. “What?” you question upon noticing his wary gaze, “You said you wanted me to have fun, didn’t you?”

“I’m not hauling your ass out of here if you get wasted, (f/n).”

“Guess our definitions of fun are a bit different, then.” He clenches his jaw and grunts with indignation at your response, and you laugh heartily at his annoyance, reaching over to graze the sleeve of his floral button-up shirt with your fingers. “I’m kidding! I promise I’ll stay conscious.” Another, louder murmur of disagreement that echoes from behind his pursed lips has you rolling your eyes and placing both your hands on his muscular shoulders. “Learn how to take a joke, would ya?”

He huffs, “It’d be easier to if what you’d just said hadn’t actually happened before.”

Sighing, you move your grip from his shoulders to the hem of your skirt, holding it down as you hop off the barstool. “Well, if I have to choose between sitting here, recounting my unfortunate run-ins with alcohol or dancing to this mediocre song, I think I’m gonna head to the dance floor.” After attempting to give your friend money for the drinks that he refuses out of kindness, since your plans for the evening had been made by him to begin with, you offer, “You know where to find me,” before making your way through the throngs of clubbers to the dance floor at the other end of the venue.

Iwaizumi shakes his head as he watches your figure disappear in amongst the sea of people and turns his attention to the empty shot glass he’s taken to tracing his fingers along pensively. As much as he wants to ignore the thoughts that have a habit of returning each time he sees you fall out of love with someone else, he can’t seem to rid himself of them—of the idea that maybe, just maybe, things would be different if you were with him instead. All this time, he’d been sitting on the sidelines, forced to play spectator in the games that other men seemed to enjoy playing with your heart while knowing damn well he would treat you with the respect you deserved.

It makes him a bit angry for you, actually, the way others haven’t known what to do with your heart after you’ve given it to them. He knows better than most that you can’t help who you choose to fall in love with—since he’s felt a natural affinity towards you since the first moment he met you—yet he can’t help but hope, after each of your breakups, that you give him a chance with your heart instead. However, out of respect for you, since you haven’t given him any indications that you might return his feelings, he’s kept quiet and maintained your close friendship.

The nagging thoughts persist, and each time, he shoves them into the darkest corner of his mind so he can help you pick up the pieces of your heart after another man drops it.

But they return when he eventually ventures out to the dance floor to find you after you’d returned to the bar for another round of shots to fuel your agenda of forgetting about your ex and sauntered away once more. Navigating through the waves of gyrating bodies finally brings him within a few feet’s distance of where you stand, swaying along to the music without a care in the world. 

As he watches you with the same admiration he would give the only twinkling star in a dark, nighttime sky, he wonders how your former boyfriend could’ve ever thought to treat you the way he had—with such blatant disregard for your feelings. Anyone who tried to dim your light wasn’t the one for you, and now all he wants is for you to shine brighter than you had before. Whether or not you do so for him doesn’t matter in his eyes. He just wants to see your radiance and happiness return.

Just as he’s about to approach you so he can join in on the fun, the song changes into one he knows well—because it’s your favorite. He can’t count the number of times he’s listened to you belt out the lyrics while driving or caught glimpses of you performing bits of the choreographed routine you must’ve created whenever you hear it played in a public setting, but what he sees unfold before him this time is entirely different to anything he’s witnessed before. 

Even if he didn’t want to look, it’s impossible to ignore you when the thin veil of sweat over your skin makes you shine under the bright, multicolored lights in a dazzling display as you move to the beat. With the way your body’s undulating in cadence with the music, a seductive look on your face while your hands run from your torso down to your thighs, you’ve attracted more than a few hungry gazes. But his is the only one that you meet with your own, silently beckoning him over to you moments before you lift a finger to summon him in a request to join you. His feet carry him across the distance separating the two of you without a second thought.

There’s a gentle, somewhat amused smile on his face at seeing you finally letting loose, but it soon becomes much more serious when he feels your fingers clench around the fabric of his shirt. The space around you is hot and charged, and you’re barely able to tell one direction from the other with the way your head’s spinning in a pleasant buzz from the alcohol, but you know exactly what you’re doing. The heat of his body radiates onto your hands as you run them along his toned torso while singing along to the song’s lyrics, and you relish in the way his dark eyes are traveling along every inch of your skin.

When your hands reach his, you turn your back towards him and place his palms on both sides of your waist. Feeling his hold on you tighten and strong fingers pressing against your skin spurs you to grind your hips against him slowly in an attempt at testing the waters. He encourages your actions by pulling you closer to him and moving in synchronization with you. His acceptance and reciprocation of your invitation has heat pooling in your stomach and your heart fluttering in your chest.

The way your bodies as one, like they’ve been created to fit perfectly together in this moment has any restraint you would’ve normally shown evaporating completely. In your mind, you only want him. You’ve known that. You’ve known that for so long, yet you’d been out chasing down other men who’d inevitably become the sources of your heartaches. Now, you think it’s high time you finally go after who it is you’ve truly been yearning for in silence for far too long.

Once a change in the song brings an end to your fairly explicit dancing, you turn to face him again, (e/c) eyes drifting from his own down to his lips as your hands instinctively find his arms to steady yourself in amongst all the movement surrounding you. He seems to hesitate for a moment, since the two of you stand and stare at each other in silence despite the bass sending vibrations through your chests, but he eventually finds the courage to act on his desires. In an instant, his large hand is moving to cup your face and bring it closer to his so he can press a strong kiss against your lips.

A mixture of exhaustion and utter euphoria knocks the wind out of your lungs, sending soft pants tumbling out of your mouth when he finally breaks the kiss. “Hajime…” you utter, voice barely audible above the vocals bouncing off every surface of the club’s interior.

The distinct scent of alcohol taints the breath that fans across your face when he asks, “Yeah?”

“I want you. I want you so badly. Please.” The confession falls off your lips with such ease that you question why you haven’t been able to say it all this time.

A curse word escapes his mouth in a gentle whisper, and you can feel his hard-on against your body when he pulls you in for another heated kiss. “Wanna get out of here?” he wonders. Your enthusiastic nod forms a smile across his lips, and his arm is wrapping around your waist to safely guide you through the crowds so he can sort out a ride home.

What happens next all feels like a blur to you, since all you can think about the entire car ride back is having Iwaizumi’s hands all over your body the moment you get to your doorstep. It appears you’re not the only one who’s impatient, since he’s caging you against the wall in the entryway with his body moments after you’ve kicked off your shoes and locking lips with you once more. The combination of the booze and the pleasure is making your head spin, but you’re able to take his hand and pull him into the bedroom with you so your back can be against the mattress instead.

The strong, passionate nature of his sloppy, open-mouthed kisses serves as a telltale sign of how long he’s been waiting to experience such an intimate moment with you. All along, he’d thought he would want to take his time in this situation—trailing gentle kisses across every inch of your skin and making sure no part of you is left needing his tender but firm touch. However, in the heat of the moment, he’s quick to abandon any ideals of a slower pace, intent on ravishing you.

Your fingers fumble with the buttons on his shirt so you can push it off his broad shoulders as his hands work on yanking off your little clubbing outfit. You can feel your heart pounding in your chest with excitement at the new, uncharted territory you’re both delving into together. For the first time in the many years you’ve known one another, you’re seeing each other at your most vulnerable states.

A gentle moan sounds from your throat at the feeling of his fingers traveling between your legs so they can slide along the saturated fabric covering your slit. Wrapping your arms around his back and pulling him closer to you, you bring your hot bodies flush against one another so you can taste more of the alcohol lingering on his tongue. He swallows another whimper you release when his fingers shove your panties aside so they can toy with your sensitive clit. The sharp sensation of your fingernails pressing into his skin makes him grunt gently, but also sends a rush through him like a buzz of electricity.

“That feel good?” he murmurs, his deep voice prompting your walls to clamp around his thick fingers as he pushes them inside of you.

Hips bucking at his thumb stroking your pearl and legs already shaking from just how mesmerizing his touch is alone, you nod in response and breathe, “So good.” His lips return to yours for another kiss before forming a smile as they press against your jawline, neck, and collarbone, slowly making their way down towards your breasts. Feeling his tongue drag across one of your hardened nipples has you crying out softly as your hands fly to his head, fingers carding through his dark hair.

The delicacy with which he’s sucking on your pebbled bud sharply contrasts the fast, fervent motions of his fingers thrusting into your warm, wet core, edging closer and closer to your sweet spot each time.

“H-Hajime!” Your voice shudders when his name tumbles off your tongue. “Want you inside of me… please, baby.”

Hearing your voice become so needy and desperate as you beg has him groaning against your skin. “Wanna cum all over my cock, princess?” he suggests lowly, moving his head away from your breasts so he can look down at your eyes clouded with lust.

Your heart skips a beat at the name he calls you in jest being used in this situation instead, and you gaze up at him with a mixture of awe and affection burning in your chest until your mouth falls open again at his fingers kneading your sweet spot. You moan loudly in place of the words you’d meant to say, but continue once you take a breath, “Yes! Please, fill me up!”

The way you sound makes him want to do anything for you, and he withdraws his fingers from inside your core so he can unbuckle his belt and push his pants down. Your eyes widen at the sight of his large dick adorned with beads of precum, which he notices and acknowledges by rubbing soothing circles on your thighs while he rids you of your soaked underwear and spreads your legs further apart so he can slot his torso between them. “You can take me, baby; I know you can,” he reassures you in between gentle pecks to your lips.

You hum in agreement, your gaze focusing on his as he aligns his leaking cockhead with your entrance and pushes inside you slowly, stretching your walls in a way that sends currents of both pain and pleasure shooting through your body. He groans, “Oh, fuck; you feel so good,” while your pussy swallows him inch by inch until he’s fully sheathed inside your inviting warmth. He starts with a slower pace than expected given how quickly he was thrusting his fingers into you just moments earlier, rocking his hips against yours and nudging your cervix.

“Faster, Hajime, please,” you beg breathlessly, “I need you.”

A particularly hard thrust he can’t hold back at hearing your request has you mewling with both surprise and satisfaction. “I’m gonna fuck you so good,” he growls, heavy breaths falling onto your ear as he picks up his pace and intensity, filling your stomach with a familiar warmth, “Gonna be the best you’ve ever had.”

His strong hand gripping your hip, lifting you up slightly to meet the angle of his precise thrusts—despite the animalistic desire that’s overcome him—has your legs trembling where they’re wrapped around his waist. The sound of his skin smacking against yours is barely audible above your own moans mingling with his loud grunts. All you can feel is him. Every inch of his body, every ridge of each muscle beneath his hot skin, and every ragged sigh that fans over your neck. He’s all you want, and you can’t help but voice your desires over and over again in the form of his name.

“H-Hajime, I’m gonna cum!” you squeal when he starts drilling deeper inside of you, sending waves of pleasure flowing over your body with each thrust. Your toes are curling, your heart’s racing, every muscle in your body’s tensing as you dangle on the edge of your orgasm—so tantalizingly close to coming undone.

He seems to know what you need to reach the state of euphoria you’re craving, since he pulls out of you to flip you over onto your stomach. The room tilts around you ever so slightly at the sudden change in orientation, but your head drops to the comforter when he pulls your hips up towards his and slams into from behind instead. More feverish sounds of pleasure and begs of “Don’t stop!” leave your mouth unabashedly when the sensations overwhelming you slacken your jaw and create white spots in your vision.

“That’s it!” Iwaizumi hisses as your pussy spasms around him and you cry out his name in the heat of your orgasm, “Fuck, baby; you’re gonna make me cum.”

Your velvety walls clenching around his dick so affectionately and your hips thrashing against his as you ride out your high has him reaching his as well moments later, and he releases inside of you, filling you to the brim with warmth. His hands on your hips keep them in place while he finishes, and he remains inside of you a few seconds afterwards before pulling out and lying down on the bed beside you.

“Fuck…” you sigh as your chest rises and falls with deep breaths. The exasperated tone in your voice causes worry to bubble in Iwaizumi’s chest for a brief moment until you turn to regard him with a bright smile. “That was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

“Glad you feel that way too,” is his response delivered with a chuckle.

In the darkness only interrupted by pale shards of moonlight seeping in between the blinds, your hand finds his face so you can tilt it towards yours and press another, tender kiss against his lips. “I’m sorry,” you whisper even though your mouths are still connected.

“Why?” His fingers brush your hair away from your face on their way to rest at the nape of your neck.

“Because I should’ve been with you all this time and not those other losers.” There’s a short pause, bathing the room in silence save for the beating of your heart against your ribcage. “I love you, Hajime—and I have loved you—but I’ve just been running away because I’m scared of ruining things like I have with other guys.”

The warmth his lips spread over your body when they return to yours puts you at ease, as does his arm snaking around your waist to pull you closer to him.

“I love you too, (f/n),” he confesses, pecking the crown of your head, “So how about you stop running and stay here with me, hmm?”

Nestling your face against the crook of his neck and taking a deep breath, you sigh, “That’s all I want.”

masterlist ⭐︎ treat me to a coffee!

taglists (see pinned post on my blog for form)

general: @dinablossom​​, @newfriendjen​​, @devlovesiwa-channn​​, @ohbyunhunn​, @aftcrlust​​, @mister-future​​, @kyleclxin​​, @kac-chowsballs​​, @osamusmiya​​, @nit-sir-hc​​, @arixtsukki​​, @shinsurou​​, @ichorizaki​​, @dominikmagnus​​, @yamagucji​​

iwaizumi: @misora-msby​,@lotsoffandomrecs​, @tsumue​, @heyhinata​, @cuddlysoftbear​

[meggannn]

shepard/garrus?

oh boy, sorry for the late response! I always end up posting these things and then going to read/take a nap/play a game or something. anyway writing this up took two hours, i hope it is even slightly interesting to read. cut because this is looooooong

What made you ship it?

I think I was interested in this ship before I even played ME. I was just like “I know Shepard is a character and an alien named Garrus is a character, and people draw porn of them together.” because I think it’s reasonable to say it’s one of, if not the most, popular ship in the fandom, or at least in ME’s tumblr fandom? and the way people talked about it, I knew their tropes were #banter, #battle couple, #partnerships, and... and as we’ve learned from royai, I am a bit weak to those tropes (assuming I like both of the characters). the way people talked about them also from a “best friends” angle—which is sort of forced in-game in a way that seems strange to me now—was also a plus in its favor at the time. (if they get together, I do see their friendship/companionship, in whatever form, in some ways integral to their romance—unless you’re playing full far-right renegade who’s like a xenophobe and hate-fucking Garrus, I guess?—but Bioware also kind of shoehorned Garrus into that best-friend role and that’s a topic for another day.)

What are your favorite things about the ship?

(my friend will hit me if I say “partnerships” again) I’m gonna talk about the way I play my Shepard now, because so much is dependent on the unique Shepard. for Lydia’s journey over the series, I see a large part of her journey as basically a study of her (often self-inflicted) loneliness. and she never entirely breaks her habits of self-isolation, but the events of the series force her to be vulnerable in a way she would prefer not to be in front of a crew, or, y’know, ever. Garrus becomes an integral part of that story to help her break her out of these bad habits (all of the crew does, particularly also Ashley for my Shep), but to my eyes, the story of “Shepard and Garrus’s relationship” is also one of mutual respect, burden-sharing, and sanity and morality checks.

I don’t think of their “mentor” relationship in ME1 very often mostly because I don’t think it was done particularly well, but for all its faults, I do like how naturally the jump from “subordinate” in ME1 to “ally” in ME2 felt; once you meet Garrus on Omega you feel more on the same footing as two friends greeting each other because you’ve both recently been through trauma and the sight of a friendly face in a station full of hostiles is so unexpectedly welcome that it lets them both hope things will be okay for a minute. starting from that moment, Garrus becomes one of the few people who can see “under” her mask, I guess: partly because he’s one of the few combatants from the SR-1 who knows Shepard well and sees who she is both on the field and onboard the SR-2, with the ability to compare both to the times of “before you died”; partly because he has trauma response training and recognizes it in others even if he doesn’t in himself; partly because his loyal personality makes him sensitive to wonder how she’s dealing with being resurrected; and also partly because they’ve both gone through similar things. namely, getting your squad killed and blaming yourself for it, and it possibly being your fault (BioWare is inconsistent on what Shepard’s role was on Akuze, but in ME1 she has the chance to reply that she was responsible for getting them out safely, and failed).

necessity forces Shepard to adapt to things like being effectively forced to work for terrorists; being isolated from her support system; being resurrected and feeling like a stranger in her own body; later, getting decommissioned for making an incredibly difficult call to save the galaxy; watching your homeworld burn; being forced into a political role negotiating high stakes you don’t know how to play; being told you’re the spearhead of a galactic war; doing all of this without a full crew complement; the list goes on. those are all, on their own, incredibly isolating, traumatic experiences, and my Shepard’s not emotionally sane at the best of times. (emotionally stable, perhaps, only in the most literal of terms, at least on the surface. she’s like a rock when shit hits the fan. emotionally sane, no, for that reason and more.)

the tables have turned, and Garrus ends up becoming a large part of helping her regain agency in most if not all of those things: in ME2 he was a former crew member she trusted, and he was eager to work for her and be distracted from his failures on Omega. over in the battery, he is himself recovering from a major injury (like Shepard) and going through the aftermath of a bloodbath he feels responsible for (like Shepard), working on a crew that holds him at arm’s length, that he also... arguably... didn’t have much choice in joining (like Shepard��I’m assuming he wasn’t held hostage and joined voluntarily after waking up, but lbr this is unconfirmed). their reasons are different and varied, but they don’t realize until much later that they have found each other at the most opportune time, providing a sense of stability for each other, and also, frankly, sanity and morality checks.

in ME3, he steps into this role more fully because he’s become more disciplined, is doing work firmly in his wheelhouse, and paired up against Shepard struggling with their positions somewhat reversed from ME1: him more confident and her now completely out of her element, floundering with her place on a galactic scale. without Garrus—and Chakwas, and Joker, and Tali, and later the loyalty of the entire SR-2—the story of ME would be a tragedy, and it would end shortly in ME2; it’d be the story of how my Shepard slowly went insane being forced to fight boogeymen under a terrorist banner. Garrus isn’t, like, the keeper of her sanity, but their ability to check each other, and see themselves in the eyes of each other, provides stability and occasionally a bit of a wake-up call to both of them. when they’re both vulnerable, they both feel most seen, and most understood, by an alien that listens.

one angle of this ship that highly interests me at the moment, along with the above, is that while it’s not illegal for them to be together, it’s still... a really bad fucking idea lmao. (I could make the argument that it’s a bad idea for Shepard to be in any relationship with their crew but I think there are a few ships—Garrus, Tali, any Alliance crew at all—that realistically would be huge political clusterfucks.) so overcoming personal insecurity and fear of the unknown to acknowledge interest in each other, and the desire to become an item, getting roadblocked by a reality wake-up call with the fact that 1) she’s his boss, 2) Garrus comes from a society where station matters, like, sort of a lot and it even determines your job and how much legal power you have, 3) the potential political blowback (which would be ENORMOUS because lbr the hierarchy may not care about what turians do in off-hours but they WOULD care about the superior/subordinate thing, the human thing, the fact that they’re doing this while a war is going on. basically one of their best agents is on the Normandy to negotiate their interests and they’re basically at the whims of their relationship the whole time)... it’s a lot! all of that sort of makes it tragic, but I’m curious to see how they’d overcome it.

anyway, all of that is where I’m coming from when I think or write about this ship, but there’s a lot more I’m not mentioning here. there are a lot of juxtapositions that in my head that I’ve either added or extrapolated from canon that also interest me about this pairing. Garrus is a former cop, as is his father; Lydia is a poor kid who used to be in a gang out of necessity. Garrus is a turian with often traditionalist thinking; Shepard is a human who has much less sociopolitical power than him, even if she is his superior on the Normandy. both of them are roughly as old as the First Contact War, when their people were at each other’s throats not thirty years ago. Garrus idolizes Spectrehood while Lydia hates it, feeling it was forced on her. they can’t eat the same food. and yet despite all of that, and the fact that they need translators to communicate, they manage to understand each other when a lot of the world around them doesn’t.

god this is not even the full list of it. anyway I could go on but I’ll stop there lol.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

oh jesus, so much. I’m a grouchy and picky shipper, be warned.

pining can always make my ships more interesting, and imo it’s a consistent part of any ship of Shepard’s, considering it’s wildly inappropriate and unprofessional for her to be fucking any subordinate, so I think more consideration could be given to shakarian in the “we shouldn’t be having a thing and oh also you’re an alien and I’m kind of scared of both your government and your body” angle! I hope to explore that a bit with a fic I’m writing (if I ever finish it, god).

I hate the flavor of fandom!shakarian where Shepard romanced Kaidan in ME1 then felt “betrayed” when he’s confused and hurt on Horizon, so she gets with Garrus as like... revenge? idk. and then Garrus usually develops this bias against Kaidan as a sort of author mouthpiece (which is inconsistent with his characterization cause Garrus is nothing but pleased to have Kaidan back on the SR-2 in ME3!) and takes up the anti-Kaidan crusade cause K ~questioned the commander~ (since when does Garrus fall over himself defending a superior from criticism?) like, idk. I think Garrus can be sensitive to the fact that that reuniting must’ve been painful for Shepard, but also be aware that it was also really painful for Kaidan because all of Kaidan’s complicated feelings about Shepard’s resurrection were, realistically, things Garrus should’ve felt too! this trope is very popular but just feels like manufactured drama for drama’s sake, idk, I’m also not big on love triangles so. I would much rather people just rescue Ashley on Virmire and avoid the whole thing rather than have previously-romanced Kaidan around in ME3 for the sole purpose of forcing him to watch Shepard/Garrus being happy together tbh.

I think full goody-goody paragon Shepard is too preachy to make a good partner for Garrus and full shoot-anyone-in-my-way renegade Shepard encourages and emboldens his worst tendencies (and Castis Vakarian is right to disapprove of them). most people end up playing some combination of both, or if they do settle in one camp or the other, usually there is some sense of realism where Shepard doesn’t play nice/naive or play mean all the time, so it’s rare I see either of those kinds of extreme Shepards depicted, but in general if there is a Shepard that is so far in one direction it seems illogical to me that they ever stay together.

I think wanting a mShep romance for Garrus is a pretty welcome idea in fandom, but adding onto that, I think Garrus should’ve been romanceable in ME3 for players who changed their minds on other romances or want to play slow-burn romances! we had it for Kaidan—and should’ve had it for Ash—so (pounds fist on desk) Garrus too imo!

I hate the canon get-together because Shepard walking into the battery and asking “do you want to fuck” feels very tailored to the players who want to romance Garrus, not to who Commander Shepard is, imo. it lacked all of the subtlety and depth of some other romances—until the scene of Garrus coming to her cabin with a wine bottle, at least, cause I do like that scene, but anyway, I dislike the actual get-together.

just in general, I’m a stick in the mud, so my favorite iteration of this ship is where Shepard is resolutely professional, and the challenge of it becomes him getting her to open up, not the other way around. like, I think on some level every iteration of Shepard is a bit of a lunatic/eccentric, because you have to be to do the things they do, but I like to see their flirting with less of her calling him “big guy” (not sure where that came from, is that in canon? I must’ve missed it, but personally I don’t like it) and more of Garrus making wisecracks in the canteen while he’s talking to Joker, but he’s looking at her out of the corner of his eyes and he really said his joke with the aim of making her laugh, and as she’s reading her datapad she hears him, and even when she wants to chuckle she stops himself and just smirks cause she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a laugh, but he sees her lips twitch and feels his heart flutter. that. I want more of that.

oh lastly, I hate “Shepard takes Vakarian clan markings” in any iteration. there is no canon relation to turians being poc—in fact I’d argue they have sociopolitical privilege real-world bipoc do not—but the concept of social face markings, face tattoos, etc., is rooted in non-white cultures and with the fact that 1) turians had a literal civil war over the territories those markings represent, 2) we don’t even know if marriage is how markings are shared or if non-turians are ever invited to wear them in the first place, 3) most of the art of this trend, lbr, is of mostly white Shepards in wedding dresses and blue face paint... all that combined just makes me frown and scroll faster every time I see it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bipoc Shepard with Vakarian face markings in fic/art, and that to me is very telling (not because they should have them, but because bipoc fans who make bipoc Shepards usually recognize when a racially-coded trope is uhhhhh not so great to appropriate for someone not of that group).

[idk-maybe-i-did-it]

Hidden- Harry Potter x Reader

Tis be a request by @missmulti it’s a tad trashier than not but I hope you like it.

!Non Voldy A/U!

Warnings: Implied Abuse, Implied sexual inter course, light cursing

Les Start:

Y/n L/n, the Slytherin who he fled from. Whereas the boy fled purposely towards Malfoy he deliberately fled from her.

Because not only did he feel intimidated by her, he also felt threatened by her mere presence as well.

Y/n was a girl who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and she certainly wasn’t afraid to be upfront about the way she wanted to act. So Harry hoped he wasn’t the only one who felt intimidated by the girl.

———————————————————————

As Harry sat down next Ron in Transfiguration that Monday morning he noted how Professor McGonagall looked exceptionally sly that morning.

He hadn’t realized that he would have to sit next to Y/n L/n for the semesters entirety until she started talking to him about their class work. At first he didn’t say much to her for fear that she would prejudice him for being half-blood. Yet, when she started talking with him he could sense kindness in her voice and he trudged towards it.

Turns out Y/n wasn’t a stuck-up prejudiced bastard. She had been nothing but kind to him and his friends and he soon found himself yearning for her in his other classes, in the hallways, before he went to bed and when he woke up in the mornings.

Ron suspected him, Hermione already knew and Ginny pointed out to him that she lived onto a few blocks away from him.

Harry had to thank Ginny for that piece of information and just had to ask Y/n to confirm. Of course Ginny had been correct in her accusation and Harry soon figured out that Y/n had been treated worse by the Slytherins in her non-prejudiced state than he’d come to realize.

Alas, the summer had come nearer and Harry was forced to bid the girl farewell as he left the platform with his mum, dad and Sirius.

James came to notice that his son had been sending more letters than normal and went to find the bottom of it.

Harry was merely sit by his desk, writing another letter to Y/n, when he heard a knock by his door and turned abruptly in his chair to see his father leaning against the doors doorframe. James nodded at Harry and folded his arms.

“ May I come in Harry?”

The boy immediately responded by nodding his head and James moved inside the small room of Harry’s, gently shutting the door behind himself and setting on the edge of his bed, next his desk.

James folded his arms and leaned back to look at Harry. “ So, who’ve you been talking to so much recently? Because I know it hasn’t been Ron or Hermione, they don’t talk this much. And by the looks of your face whenever a letter comes in I’d bet it’s a girl.”

Harry’s face flushed and he stumbled over words as they tried to spew his mouth. James laughed and clapped Harry on the shoulder. “ Okay so I know it’s a female now, no bidding it Harry. Who is she? Does she look nice?”

Harry’s face paled and he swallowed the lump in his throat at his father’s question. The boy reached back and awkwardly scratched the back of his neck.

“ W- Well yeah, she’s good looking...”

James’ face lost the playful smirk and he noticed the tension in Harry’s voice. The man leaned forward and gave him a serious look, his voice steely.

“ Harry you never answered my other question, who is she? What’s her name? What house is she in? Who’re her parents?”

Harry awkwardly let out a breath and looked the other direction,

“ She’s a L/n.”

James Immediately paused at the boy’s tone and the name that caught on his tongue. Soon enough though, James snapped out of it and abruptly stood, moving out of the room and into their sitting-room where he found Sirius and Lily talking.

“ He’s friends with the L/n’s kid.”

The other two’s conversation paused at James’s disruption and Sirius slowly stood. “ The girl he keeps getting letters from, she’s a L/n?”

Sirius’ voice was hesitant and his posture was rigid.

__________________________________________

Dear Harry,

I’m sorry to hear your parents don’t approve of my presence however I am rather glad to hear that they’ve allowed me to come and visit you sometime.

I terribly miss our conversations that ended in ice-cream sessions on the kitchen floor at three a.m. though. Maybe your parents might let us eat some ice-cream while I’m over. And I’m sorry to say my parents don’t approve of our friendship either.

They’ve been ignoring me more than normal lately and mum even forgot to make me a plate last night at dinner. My brother snuck me some food under my door after that because dad locked me in again.

See you tomorrow!

Love,

Y/n.

Harry smiled at her letter and Sirius watched as his face brightened from his place from where he sat at the table. Remus elbowed James at his disapproving scowl and Sirius nodded at James as he left to go after Harry when he began upstairs to his bedroom.

Harry went to close his bedroom door when Sirius walked in and sat next him by the bed.

“ You love her don’t you Harry?”

The boy jumped back slightly in surprise at his question before he timidly nodded. “ Yeah, I don’t think dad wants me to though, he thinks that just because she’s in Slytherin and that she’s a L/n that she’s an arse who hates all blood types but pure.”

Sirius placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “ Nah he doesn’t Harry. Your dad just wants to keep you safe and the L/n’s would only bring you harm.”

Harry quickly shook his head.

“ Y/n isn’t like them, she’s nice and she’s funny and kind and she’s an entirely different type of brilliant. She doesn’t even care about blood-status and you don’t even know how many times I’ve seen her hex people who’ve picked on kids with lower status.”

Sirius nodded at Harry. “ I know that. I’m guessing that her family doesn’t take well to you two’s friendship?”

Sirius nodded towards the letter in Harry’s hand and he motioned towards the stack of letters she’d sent to him so far.

“ Well, no, not really. I mean, they already ignored her a lot because she didn’t like the pureblood mania and Y/n says that after figuring out about us talking they’d even started to lock her in her room for days at a time and forget to feed her sometimes too.”

James, Lily and Remus stood from their positions by Harry’s door as Sirius frowned at the words spilling out of Harry’s mouth.

———————————————————————

Harry sat on the porch-swing of his home the next day, patiently waiting for Sirius to arrive back on his motorcycle with Y/n.

Sirius pulled up to the adress he’d been given and had to sigh. This was the same neighborhood, the same bloody neighborhood he used to go to as a kid when his mum made them attend balls. However, he wasn’t left waiting for long because soon a h/c girl about Harry’s age stepped out of the house with a backpack slung over her shoulder, red mark on her face.

Sirius was surprised to see her in muggle clothing when she walked nearer to him.

“ Won’t your mum make you change into ‘proper’ attire? If I remember how M/n acts correctly then I’m sure she would’ve made you dress in a black skirt with a green shirt.”

Sirius gave the girl an inquiring look when she shook her head. The girls next words were full of malice. “ Nah you’re right there. She just doesn’t give two damns about what I wear s’long as I dress the right way in public and don’t speak out.”

Sirius nodded his head to the girl and kept a frown on his face as they began to walk where he’d left the motorcycle. As they sat down on it and he passed her a helmet the man got a clear look at her face and the red mark left on it. It was in the shape of a hand.

“ What happened to your face kid? M/n do that or was it her husband F/n?”

As he started the engine up again Sirius noticed her silence and knew she’d been finding an excuse.

“ You don’t have to make anything up Y/n, I had been in a similar position most of my life so I’m not stupid.”

As they neared the Potters household and he helped her off the bike Sirius came and held her back as she tried to move towards Harry.

“ Does he know? Or is it something new happening, he told us your parents weren’t keen on having you over here and knowing Harry.”

“ No, he doesn’t because it’s something new. I’ve got it under control okay.”

———————————————————————

The two teenagers lay laughing on Harry’s bed while they played a game of wizards chess. Harry had just been telling Y/n a story about his father and Sirius when they were called down.

Harry said he needed to get something so Y/n went ahead to help his mother prepare the food. As she walked into the kitchen where Lily was standing she saw Harry’s father talking heatedly with Sirius and his mum. She knew what they were talking about, it had been obvious by the looks James had been giving her the whole day.

Lily liked to think Y/n was sweet and she loved it when the girl tried to help her with things. Lily noticed the girl walk into the kitchen and immediately tried to walk over and cease conversation. When her husband and best friends conversation continued despite her efforts at stopping it she moved over to the doe-eyed girl and tried to calm her.

“ I’m sorry Mrs. Potter, this fighting is my fault. I’m- I think I’ll go home now...”

Lily’s efforts to stop the girl failed miserably and she stood in her house’s doorway watching the girl walk away.

“ She left James! She’s probably about to go home to house of ignorance and hatred because of your stupid bloody prejudice against Slytherins! My cousin.”

James’s face turned and he looked past Sirius’s shoulder, shoving him towards the door lightly.

“ Go find her, it’s dark outside, she’s a 15 year old girl Sirius, and she’s your cousin so go find her.

“ Mum where’d Y/n go?”

———————————————————————

Sirius finally came to a stop and sat next to the girl on the swing.

“ I’m sorry I made you guys fight. I make mum and dad fight too sometimes, It’s not like I want to.”

Sirius laid a hand on her shoulder.

“ Y/n, you don’t make us fight, Harry’s dad just doesn’t like our family much. Harry loves you, His mum loves you, His dad does too and I love you too Y/n. We’re family, we’ve gotta stick together okay. Now do you think you’ll come back to the house with me so your boyfriend’ll stop complaining about you not being there?”

Y/n laughed at Sirius and he smiled at her before standing. “ Don’t worry, I won’t tell Lily I saw you two snogging earlier.”

———————————————————————

“ Y/n can you grab my wand off the counter so I can hang this up?”

“ You’ll have to specify which wand of yours my kind and loving husband, because if you don’t I might just go and grab the wrong one.”

Harry could hear the smirk in her voice and James had to turn around and pretend he didn’t hear her words as Sirius snickered.

“ Harry James Potter not while my grandson is around!”

———————————————————————

I haven’t proof read this yet so idk how trashy it is- Anyway, hope ya liked it!

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Drink some water, eat some food, take a screen break and remember You Are Loved!

^ - ^

[seiin-translations]

2.43 S1 Chapter 3.5 - The Dog’s View and the Giraffe’s View

5. READY FOR SUMMER

You think Aoki reads shonen manga?

This is the end of the first half of the first season, a.k.a the first tankobon volume. I’ll be going on a short hiatus for a few week before coming back.

Stan Odacchi!

Previous || Index || Next

Thrusting a CalorieMate bar into his mouth and holding a sports drink in his hand, when he rushed to the washroom near the gym, he suddenly ran into Aoki. Aoki took one look at Oda’s face and widened his eyes for a moment, then cautioned him with a disgusted look on his face.

“You should stop it with that…in my opinion.”

“Can’t be helped. I didn’t have the time to eat lunch or go to the washroom.”

The CalorieMate had sucked up his saliva and was sticking to his mouth. He put the box that still had some left and the bottle on top of the urinal and lined up next to Aoki.

Immediately after serving as an assistant referee on the courtside, he immediately jumped into his own team’s match, served as an assistant referee again on the same court as soon as it was over, plus he had to keep an eye on the progress of the entire boys’ volleyball division, support the participants and instruct the other members… Needless to say, he didn’t have time to take a lunch break, and he wasn’t allowed to go to the washroom since morning. Still, Oda only had to watch the gym, but Aoki was frequently pulled back by runners from the executive committee’s tent on top of that. This was the first time he was able to make time to talk to Aoki face to face.

It was finally the day of the Seiin Ballgame Festival. Luckily, the last few days were breaks in the rainy season, and the event was held on a day that didn’t interfere with outdoor events. In fact, the weather was so favorable that the temperature has reached July-like levels, and the executive committee has been repeatedly urging people to be careful about heat stroke.

Boys’ volleyball had managed finish four of their six group games without incident on the stage side of the gym. According to gossip, from the first group Team C, led by Aoki, had two wins, and from the second group Team F, led by Oda, had two wins, so it had already been decided that they would clash in the finals. The remaining two games would be elimination games that didn’t make it past the preliminaries, whether they win or lose, but since points were added depending on the points won, the overall winner was still unknown.

“It’d be interesting if we train Okuma to be a center.”

Aoki said next to him as he relieved himself. As ever, Aoki’s shoulder was at the corner of his vision.

“Okuma’s on the rugby team, isn’t he?”

“Well, it’s just an idea. If we had a burly guy like that, we’d look a bit stronger, right? Suemori-san said boys’ volleyball is soft.”

“It’s all about looks?”

“It’s important to look scary, you know?”

Well, when he puts it that way, it’s true that even though Aoki is the tallest guy in school, he’s more “long” than “big,” so he doesn’t look all that burly. He’s a center whose traits are height and dexterity. Okuma’s likely to be a different type of center than Aoki though…

“Well, enough about Okuma. I want Haijima more.”

“You’re pretty fixated on Haijima.”

“What kind of guy wouldn’t fall in love with that play? You’ve seen him play two games, didn’t you?”

“I know he’s good, but that’s not enough. It’d be nice to have a character who can speak up and get the team going, but he’s the complete opposite of that. Your team isn’t attracting any amateurs, right? For events like these, it’s better to have a noisy guy like Okuma.”

“So you want Okuma more than Haijima? Aren’t you being pretty cold to him?”

He couldn’t help but sound grumpy. He understood Aoki’s objective point of view. However, he got angry when he was told things objectively.

“Hmm? No.”

Aoki’s voice was light, and his shoulders turned slightly towards him.

“I’m talking about the ballgame tournament. The captain of this team is you, and if that’s what you want, then I won’t object to it and cooperate with you. If you want, I can find Haijima’s weakness so he can’t refuse no matter what.”

“I don’t need that kind of shady business.”

When he glared at him sideways, his shoulders shook with laughter. “It’s a joke.” It’s scary because this guy actually does those things that seem like a joke.

“We don’t need Haijima’s weakness for him to join. The problem might be Kuroba. He’s doing well so far today, but I don’t know what’ll happen when he comes face to face with Haijima in the finals.”

“Just have them match up. A feud between freshmen would be all cleared up if they just punch each other once hard and tell each other their true thoughts, don’t you think?”

Aoki said carefreely while lightly shaking his hips up and down, then tucked his thing back in and left the urinal.

In the case of you and me, we missed our chance to go through the process of punching each other and saying our true thoughts, and now we’re here… Oda watched the tall silhouette disappear across the label of his plastic bottle with a look like he wanted to say something.

Even though he and Aoki had their disagreements, they always ended up sidestepping the issue instead of getting into a serious quarrel. Even though Aoki would attack others with a sharp tongue as much as he wanted if necessary, but when it came to Oda, he would take a step back. He didn’t have to retract his opinion if there was something about Haijima’s acquisition he didn’t like. I’m not such a tyrant that I won’t respect the opinion of the vice captain.

Oda still wasn’t convinced about how he was chosen as captain in the first place. Whenever Aoki gave him his due because he was the captain, it stimulated a deep sense of inferiority within him.

When the grade before them retired, Aoki was to be appointed as the next captain. He had a mild and calm personality, able to keep an eye on the whole team. He was the natural choice.

At the same time, Oda was advised to switch from attacker to libero. The introduction of the libero system had opened up a place for people with short statures to play an active role. They could only substitute with a back row player and couldn’t participate in the spikes and blocks in the front row, but a receive specialist was an essential position in modern volleyball. It wasn’t that the previous captain had any ill intent, but rather that he knew that Oda poured more passion into volleyball than anyone else.

However, right with that timing, Aoki jumped into the student council. As though he was purposely creating a situation where Oda was compelled to be the captain—he couldn’t hold an important position on the student council and be a team captain for club activities at the same time. That was why Aoki couldn’t take on the role of captain. And under the current rules, the libero couldn’t in effect be the captain. In other words, as long as Oda had no choice but to be captain, he couldn’t switch to libero. Oda truly felt humiliated at being stripped of the attacker position. Because Aoki had sensed that.

What’s with you? Was that pity for me, who never grew taller? Or was it the freedom of a tall guy? He was angry. However, he was unable to lay bare such ugly emotions in front of Aoki and in the end, it didn’t turn into a serious conflict at the time. The comfortable relationship that they had since they started high school had somehow created a wall instead, and there was an atmosphere where it would be too awkward to share their feelings at this point.

Although Aoki was his best friend and a trustworthy partner who was more easy to get on with than anyone, he also harbored a strangely twisted gloominess towards him.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

It was awkward, so he purposely waited for Aoki to leave the washroom before he did so himself, but he saw a tall and narrow back staying in the corridor in front of the gym. From the other direction, Suemori appeared and suddenly spoke in a reproaching tone.

“Oda-senpai, why were you taking your time in the washroom? Please don’t make me wait here.”

“I don’t remember telling you to wait…You could have given me a shout if there’s anything to take care of.”

“I don’t want to go near the boys’ washroom.”

Oda nonchalantly put his hand behind him, feeling that the food and drinks he brought out from the washroom were dirty. I’ve been slightly thinking this for a while, but I wonder if Suemori hates men. But she seems to be able to talk to Kanno normally.

“So, what’s up?”

“The old teacher collapsed.”

Aoki answered in place of Suemori.

“What!?”

The advisor for the boys’ volleyball team was an elderly teacher, just as Aoki called him. They’ve heard that he was rehired on a part-time basis once he reached retirement age. Apparently, he used to play volleyball when he was a student, but the form of the game of volleyball should be quite different between then and now. He was like a fossil from his generation.

The advisor had been the referee for the entire competition without a break since this morning. Even they, as active high school students, were likely to collapse from the hectic bustle, so it would be even harder on the elderly.

It seemed that he was feeling dizzy from the heat due to the temperature in the gym having risen. They said it wasn’t serious, but the referee’s chair was now vacant. There were still three matches left. Either Oda or Aoki should be the referee for the remaining two games in the group league, but the problem was the finals where C and F would encounter each other. Since the other positions also had the bare minimum amount of people in them, there were no extra hands.

“Well, I’ll do it.”

Aoki said without missing a beat.

“Aren’t you competing?”

“I don’t mind. From the start, I prioritized administration, so if there’s not enough people, I was going to pull out and head over there, but…ah, there’d be a problem with me refereeing a match with my own team.”

“You say that, but there’s no other way. I want to give Kanno a chance to be in a game, and there’s no reason to bother pulling Kuroba out. On the contrary, isn’t the balance better now that we have two experienced people on each team?”

“Even if it was still three on two, we won’t lose. It’s not that…it’s no fun if you’re not gonna be playing.”

He felt like he was the only one being childish and having a tantrum at a time when everyone had to back each other up, and his voice got quieter and quieter. He couldn’t bear knowing that Aoki and Suemori were exchanging worried-looking glances over his head. But he still didn’t like Aoki’s quick and easy way of splitting them up. Was I the only one who was looking forward to the match…?

“If that’s the case, let’s make it a little more interesting.”

Aoki proposed in a light tone. When he looked up with suspicion in his eyes, Aoki had a pensive look on his face with a faint smile hovering at the corner of his mouth. He looked like that when he was about to plot something.

“In other words, you’re saying it’s boring because you’re not in it. In the first place, you say ‘take’, but do you even have their approval…?”

“I’ll persuade Okuma. Of course that’s if C wins. If F wins, you’ll persuade Haijima. However, if you lose, you’ll have to give up on Haijima once and for all. —Kuroba!”

Aoki suddenly yelled. Kuroba, who had suddenly been poking his head in from the metal doors on the gym side of the corridor, made a “Mrp” sound and ducked his head.

“You and Nagato both don’t want Haijima to join, right? You were listening in on our conversation just now. Since it’s like that, crush them to bits. Treat this match like a real game.”

***

The chief referee for the finals was Aoki. The assistant referee, the point displayer, and two linesmen were all members of the team who weren’t playing in the game. The other two linesman and the ball retriever were help from the girls’ team, including Suemori.

It was past four o’clock in the afternoon, but heat was coming down the roof, which had been scorched by the midday sun, and accumulated indoors. The windless court wasn’t just completely covered in heat, but also some kind of strangely oppressive atmosphere.

As the team members took their positions around the court, they sensed a strange tension in the court that went beyond a mere school event, and their expressions tightened. Only Aoki had his usual relaxed expression, and he wondered what he was scheming. The way the already-tall Aoki stood on the referee’s stand and looked down at the court already somewhat made it a “tower.”

There were some spectators gathered along the walls and on the stage. The gallery installed on the second floor was also overflowing with students in sportswear. He thought that since it coincided with the futsal and softball finals, the spectators would be drawn to that, but it seemed that a surprisingly large number of people had come just to watch. Across the partition net, on the other side of the court, the girls’ basketball game was being held. The random bouncing of a ball other than a volleyball was jarring to his ears—he might be getting a bit nervous himself. He shrugged his shoulders up and down to release the extra energy. He was already sweating just by standing.

Team F got the serve through rock-paper-scissors. Haijima would serve from the right back row, and Oda would start diagonally from him at the front left. The opposing Team C’s starting order had Kanno at the front right and Kuroba in the back left. With two volleyball veterans placed diagonally from each other and sandwiching and supporting the amateurs, both teams had the most suitable formation.

Kuroba, getting ready to receive, kept pulling at his T-shirt and wiping the sweat off his face an unusual number of times. He wondered if it was just his imagination that the movement of his legs seemed heavy. Even though he was always jumping around on the court even when there was no need for it, now his feet were clinging to the floor. He’s pretty nervous. The fact that the crowd was much bigger than for the group league no doubt played a role.

What are we going to do for this game? He felt like it had become a farce starring the boys’ volleyball team, but of course he wasn’t going to lose on purpose. We’re going for the win. It was out of the question to give up on getting Haijima because of a single loss in a in-school match. If that was the case, he shouldn’t have taken this bet, but it was also out of the question for Oda to not buy a fight that had been sold to him.

He called Haijima, who was heading for the service zone, to a stop and he turned around and asked him something.

“It’s okay now, right?”

“Yeah. Do it with all your power.”

He heard the sound of the safety lock inside Haijima disengaging. In the previous two games, Haijima was banned from doing jump serves. It would no longer be a game against an amateur team if he did so, and someone were to get hit in the face, they risked injury.

“…Eleven months.”

Haijima muttered in a low voice, cast his gaze to a point on the other side of the net and narrowed his eyes.

“Did he get a little better?”

He smiled faintly. The depths of his eyes were boiling, as though he was even taking in this heat and transforming it into a part of the heat within him. Stimulated by that fighting spirit, Oda also felt his entire body trembling.

Just you watch… He glared at Aoki, but couldn’t meet his gaze with Aoki on the referee’s chair.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Haijima’s jump serve even drew the eyes of the first-timer spectators. He placed the ball in his left hand, stretched his arm directly before him and stood still. A beat of dignified silence that took the watcher’s breath away. The moment he tossed the ball up high with a spin towards the ceiling, there was a big “Ooh.”

From his graceful and refined form, as though he was dancing in the air, he let loose a sharp jump serve. Contrary to the slickness of his form, Haijima’s serve was quite unpleasant. It had a unique twisting spin, partly due to him hitting left-handed, and the one who was receiving was under immense pressure. Drawing a curving arc, it accurately aimed for the area Kuroba, who was positioned in the back row, was guarding. Kuroba, who didn’t say he was good at serve receives, managed to hit it with his arms with a panicked look on his face. Fortunately, it went up high, so his teammate went right below it and waited. Who was going to hit it?

Was Kuroba, who received it, going to hit it himself?

“Right court!”

He was astounded by the instruction that came from the referee’s chair.

Oi, wait a minute!? Is that even allowed!?

The ball was set to Kanno on the right court. Oda jumped to block in surprise, but Kanno dexterously shifted the core of the impact and changed it to a straight spike from the angle of a cross-court hit. Tch, he’s good… The spike that was as sharp as a needle went through a narrow course.

While landing, he turned his head to follow the whereabouts of the ball. He thought it might have been on the border of the sideline, but Nagato the linesman didn’t hesitate to indicate that it was in. The person who enthusiastically shouted “Yes!” from outside the court in place of Kanno, who had landed soundlessly, was…Suemori. I get the feeling that there’s a lot of officials that are emotionally attached to the opponent’s side, but…?

Team C’s first point was engraved.

“Oi, why is the referee giving out instructions?”

He snapped at the referee’s chair.

“If there are any objections, you can write them down on the record sheet later.”  

Aoki said calmly, then quickly blew the whistle to prompt Team C to serve. There was no way they were going to prepare a record sheet used for official games for a ballgame tournament.

“Do it in one go, Haijima.”

He turned his back on the referee’s stand in indignation and said that aloud in order to calm himself down. However, Haijima only sullenly muttered, “You haven’t gotten any better at defense though,” and it seemed that he didn’t care about the noise around him or the subtle and complex actions of the staff members. The intensity of his concentration after entering the court was astonishing, but…he felt that he was slightly different from the previous two matches. Isn’t his mind too focused on one point?

At the end of where Haijima’s eyes were fixed on, Kuroba was, as ever, looking around restlessly while worrying about sweating profusely. The complete opposite of Haijima, his concentration was scattered. It was a face that screamed that Aoki’s implication was bad.

Team C, under Aoki’s instructions (which he still couldn’t wrap his mind around), had adopted the strategy of gathering the ball to Kanno. The scene where Kuroba hit didn’t return immediately, but even so, that scene came when it was 3-3 in the beginning, the rotation moved three at a time and Kuroba in the front right was directly facing Haijima in the front left over the net.

The first setting of this set came from Kanno to Kuroba.

At Haijima’s instructions, a triple block was set up. Oda in the back row prepared to back them up. “That’s a hell of a jump from that guy!?” The jumping power of Kuroba, who was high enough for his chest to comfortably show up over the net, made the crowd go wild. Completing the rotation of his shoulders by arching his whole body in midair, his body bent back and his arms swung out, as though releasing a nocked arrow. This dynamic spiking form, which could be called the splendor of volleyball, was the usual Kuroba, but…he’s not looking at the blockers at all. The ball didn’t pass over the net, getting caught on the white band and falling to Team C’s side.

Right when F-team took the lead with 4-3,

“Time out.”

The head referee requested a time-out.

Oi…I’ve never heard of this.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

“Why hasn’t he fixed that habit of his yet?”

Haijima turned on him as soon as they gathered courtside. Team C was making a circle around the tower that was Aoki. So why was the chief referee coming down from the referee’s stand and being on the bench of one team? After glaring at the other party who made his temple spasm, Oda turned back to Haijima.

“It already became solidified within him when he joined in April. There’s no problem in practice games, but he always gets like that when it’s a game with a lot of pressure, and to be honest, he’d be useless in an official match.”

For last year’s middle school prefecturals, Oda only went on the second day, so Kuroba, who apparently only participated on the first day, went unchecked. When he first joined the club, Oda was simply excited that an unexpected find had burst in. In fact, when he was used in the May practice match, he couldn’t find any problems. There was an inconsistent feeling to him, like he was developing, but his energetic play was pleasant to watch, and his strangely likeable character also helped to energize the whole team.

Although they haven’t acquired Haijima yet, he was confident that their attacker lineup was in good order with this, and then the prefectural tournament in the start of June—

The god of volleyball seemed to like secretly digging pitfalls.

An odd habit had begun to show up. He either failed his spikes entirely that got caught by the blocks and got himself out, or it got trapped by the net. It wasn’t like his form was messed up, but he couldn’t settle it. Even when he asked the person in question, he vaguely answered with a somewhat spaced-out expression, like his feet weren’t on the ground, that even he didn’t know why it was like that.

“…Why…”

Haijima grumbled, glaring at his feet with a gaze that could scorch through the floor.

“Stumbling over something like that…”

Haijima, that’s exactly how I feel about you, Oda thought. If you ask me, I’m jealous of the both of you, and just looking at you makes me irritated.

“Hey, we have to do something about him. It seems that it has something to do with Nagato and the second round of the middle school prefecturals?”

At this point, I should create a front that would make Haijima take a step closer to us, even forcibly. Thinking that, he tried inducing him.

“The middle school prefecturals…?”

Haijima raised his head and furrowed his brow.

“Sometimes players fail in their debut matches and suddenly fall to pieces.”

“They said it was my fault? But…”

His voice jumped up for an instant. He immediately closed his mouth sullenly and looked down again, fiddling with the taping on his fingers in front of his stomach. He thought of him as a player who didn’t have the habit of making other people read his mind, so that behavior was unexpected.

“What was I supposed to do…I was waiting, on that day…but, he was the one who didn’t come…”

He felt like the view before him was suddenly blocked by a thin, but hard, shell.

***

Even after the timeout, Kuroba’s play was lackluster. It would have been excusable if he had been blocked by the volleyball team members, but he was messing up because he was minding the blocker, who was an amateur ten centimeters shorter than him and just standing in front of him. Really, when he was good, he was great, but once his gears went out of whack, he quickly fell apart on his own. To be honest, he thought it was better for him to withdraw, but Aoki, Team C’s captain as well as the referee (this dual role was strange no matter how you look at it), didn’t seem like he was going to replace him.

He could see the frustration building up in even Haijima every time Kuroba made a mistake. Even so, the thing that differentiated Haijima from Kuroba was that his play never wavered, or rather, became frighteningly sharp. Not necessarily in a good sense, as he even covered his teammates’ minor mistakes all by himself and ended up excluding the amateurs. It felt like the sullen aura emanating from Haijima’s entire body made it seem as if the temperature on only their side of the court had dropped down a notch. It was out of the control of even Oda and he called to him less and less, and he thought that he could imagine the atmosphere in the second round of the prefectural tournament Nagato was talking about now.

His irritation towards the two who didn’t appreciate at all the value of the treasures that had been given them became stronger. If it were those two, there was no doubt that they would be able to stand at the forefront for the next ten or twenty years. Was it asking too much of freshmen to be less small-minded when they had such high physical potential? But, if he had those two’s potential, he definitely wouldn’t waste it. A super-ace who was trusted by his team for his solid decision-making ability as well as enlivening the team as a mental pillar…He knew that he couldn’t be that kind of player anymore, but he still dreamed to this day.

The fifteen-point system was shorter than he expected. When Haijima rotated from the back row to the front row and match-upped against Kuroba with the net between them again, they entered the final stage of the first set. Kuroba, obviously bending back, took a receiving stance like he was shrinking away from the net. While glaring at Kuroba’s disgraceful behavior with a gaze that could burn the net to ashes, it was perhaps at this moment that a circuit somewhere in Haijima’s mind snapped.

The serve was Oda’s. His thoughts were so focused on the two of them that his aim was a bit fuzzy, so the easy and half-hearted ball ended up falling right in the middle of the opponent’s court. He ran back to the court, fed up with himself as he thought that he might not be better than Kuroba today. That was when it happened.

“Hit the ball, Kuroba!”

Haijima shouted. His carrying voice suddenly pierced through the court where all talking had decreased, and everyone on his own team was startled.

As in the first round, the set flew from Kanno to Kuroba. Almost as if by spinal reflex, Kuroba suddenly did a run-up and leapt. Haijima blocked it perfectly.

However, this time as well, Kuroba’s spike didn’t even go over the net before it was blocked.

They both landed on the floor at the same time, the net between them. Right then,

“Stop screwing around!”

Haijima kicked the floor right after he yelled that, and then barged into the other court from under the net and tackled Kuroba. At this unbelievable situation, Oda froze in the receive stance, unable to move. It’s different for baseball game broadcasts, but I’ve never seen a brawl at a volleyball game, and I didn’t think he was the type to lose his temper like that!?

Everyone on his own team was dumbfounded, and everyone on the other team jumped out of the way, startled. After blowing Kuroba all the way to the center of the court, Haijima immediately went to straddle him and grabbed him up by the collar as Kuroba was hitting his back and coughing.

“Don’t run away! At least give one decent shot! If you’re this nervous for just a ballgame tournament, you’re not cut out for this, so just quit!”

He was yelling at him, looking like he was about to bite his nose off.

Kuroba’s back lifted off the floor.

“Hey…stop it, Haijima!”

Oda came to his senses and hurriedly passed under the net.

Right when he was about to pin Haijima’s arms behind his back, Kanno wedged himself in between them and said, “Senpai.” While keeping Oda back, Kanno looked at the referee’s stand. Oda widened his eyes and looked up at the stand, where he saw Aoki leaning against the top of the pole and grinning down at the two first-years on the floor.

“If they had just one big fist fight and told each other how they really felt…” Their conversation in the washroom flashed across his mind.

Hah!? No way, don’t tell me you were expecting this!?

Kuroba, who he thought was just going to let this happen, surprisingly grabbed Haijima’s wrist and yelled back.

“I’ve never been in a game where I had to lose successfully, and I don’t know how to do that, so of course I’m not cut out for this!”

“What are you talking about…”

Haijima was speechless. Kuroba, hesitating to say further, glared at Haijima at point-blank range as he moved his lips soundlessly. Then, he suddenly cast down his eyes, drew in his chin, and pressed his fist that was grabbing the front of Haijima’s chest to his forehead. It looked like a gesture of prayer.

“…’Cause, he said that you’d come back if we lost… Hey, isn’t this enough… Come back already…”

Come back already.

Those were words that Oda couldn’t think of or say in his position. They made him realize he didn’t need any pretense, and that all he needed was such clumsy, straightforward words.

Haijima, having lost his outlet for anger, just looked bewildered. His face, looking like those straightforward words didn’t penetrate his stubborn heart very well, made Oda irritated again.

“Hai…”

Right when he was about to interject, unable to keep quiet anymore,

Beep!

“Oh, you guys done yet? It looks like you guys pretty much said it all.”

A fake cough and Aoki’s voice, dampening the tension, came down from the referee’s stand.

“If that’s the case, the two of you, leave the court.”

He said, calmly holding up a red card.

“Fighting in volleyball is unheard of. And freshmen, don’t say that this is just a ballgame tournament, because this is a lively event that I worked myself to the bone to prepare for without sleeping. They really do need to pay me for this.”

***

After seeing the overall results at the administration tent with his own eyes, he returned to the gym. The gym, where the partition net was removed and cleanup had ended, was empty, but the net and poles still remained on only the stage-side court where the boys’ volleyball match had taken place. It was as if only the net wouldn’t admit that the match was over. The enthusiasm for the finals that had engulfed the court had now been cooled by the evening air, and he suddenly felt lonely.

There was a figure standing before the net. Like the net in front of them, it seemed like they still wanted to continue the match. Well, he was kicked off the court after doing one set, so I guess I can’t blame him for wanting to rampage more. The taping on his hands hanging down on the sides of his body still haven’t been undone yet.

“Haijima.”

Though his back reacted slightly to his call, he didn’t attempt to turn around. He goes at his own pace, eh. Oda smiled wryly as he approached him.

“They didn’t put the net away?”

“I asked them to leave it. I’ll put it away.”

Just like on the first day of team practice one week ago, Haijima lifted his chin and looked straight at the white band of the net. The sunlight shining through the window weakened and it dimmed considerably in the gym, but he could see a light in his eyes. A dazzling light that welled up within Haijima, as though he couldn’t contain his feelings of dissatisfaction.

“This wasn’t set up at 2.4?”

“Oh, we only raise it to 2.43 at the finals. ‘Cause it’s a game full of experienced players.”

With his hand on the net, stroking it sideways, Oda walked to the edge of the court and put his hand on the pole. Since the protective mat was removed, his palm touched the cold metal directly. The surface of the old bronze-colored pole was rough with copper rust stuck to it.

“We’re going to a family restaurant for the team’s afterparty, so meet us at the school gate at six-thirty. Don’t worry, us third-years are paying.”

“Please don’t count me in.”

He was given an annoyed reply. There are still not enough reasons? Oda sighed. Even though it’s so obvious that he’s longing to play volleyball, what exactly is holding him back? Is there something else besides the Monshiro Middle incident? This guy who’s fundamentally arrogant and seems to not care about other people’s feelings is clearly afraid that something is going to happen.

“You know, volleyball really is a sport that chooses people. Well, what you do in it depends on the person. It’s not a sport where you can carry the ball by yourself, and even if one person is skilled, you can’t win. I’ve told you this before. Remember it.”

“I got kicked in my ass.”

Since Haijima was pouting with a bitter look on his face, a laugh unintentionally slipped out of his mouth as he recalled it. He immediately stopped when Haijima was getting more and more sullen.

“There’s also the fact that the difference in our sizes frankly makes me cry. It’s a cruel story, isn’t it. No matter how hard a guy like me works, even if I think I won’t lose in athletic ability, skill, attitude, or anything, I just can’t beat a big guy in that one factor, height. Why did I fell for volleyball, of all things?”

Too many of the words people hurled at him came from his own mouth. When he explained it to people, they made doubtful faces and couldn’t sympathize with him very much, so these days he had learned to ignore that kind of talk. Aoki wouldn’t understand this much either. They might show their understanding for me, but they wouldn’t have any sympathy for me.

Haijima didn’t worry over his answer. He tilted his head, as though thinking,　This guy’s asking something weird, and stated it definitively. He said it like he was talking about the completely natural activities of living beings, like saying,　Don’t calves stand up after they’re born?

“Isn’t it because there’s nothing more interesting than volleyball?”

Aah…I knew it.

I had a feeling he’d say that. What’s for us, the very simple truth of the world.

I wanted words from someone other than me. I wanted someone to affirm to me that it’s okay for even someone like me to be devoted to something. If a man with much more talent than me, who possibly loves volleyball more than me, said that to me, then I can believe that the time I dedicated to volleyball was never a waste.

Is there anything in this world that is as interesting as this, that can make me as passionate as this? The exhilaration when you release a powerful spike. The feeling of solidarity when a brilliant combination play is executed. The sense of accomplishment when you persevere and break away a rally with your teammates. The feeling of conquest when you force the opponent’s ace to yield with a kill block. That intoxication, when your concentration is at its peak and the team’s hearts are one, and you can clearly see the ball’s trajectory as an unbroken line——

Something hot welled up in his throat, and he suddenly felt like crying. But, it was too early for that. He still hadn’t accomplished anything yet.

So he bared his teeth and smiled instead.

“That so? Well, for me, I love volleyball to death. It’s the only thing where I’m confident that I won’t lose to anyone.”

It was funny that Haijima countered with an extremely serious expression, “I won’t lose either.”

“…Haijima. To be honest, it was for my convenience that I wanted you to join. I’m a third year now. Even so, I want to play as many games on the court as possible, even if it’s just one game. Even if it’s just for a day…even just for a minute, just a second, I wanna play volleyball. Can I borrow your strength for that reason? All of your strength…”

Wouldn’t I get the opposite result with that way of talking? No, it’s fine. These words shouldn’t make Haijima build a wall around himself. He seems to be terribly stoic to me and everyone else, but he won’t reject someone who’s facing volleyball seriously. Ultimately, it wasn’t about whether you were skilled or not, or whether you were tall or short. Whether you are serious about volleyball or not—that was the only line Haijima drew.

That’s why there was no reason to hesitate to step in. I’m holding the key to the door.

He really felt like he was gripping a small key in his right hand. Of course, when he opened his palm, there was no key actually there. However, he turned to Haijima and held out his hand as though to show it to him.

“Won’t you believe in me, Haijima?”

Haijima was silent for a while, staring at Oda’s hand with downcast eyes. He loosened his tied lips.

“…Spring Inter-High.”

A whisper slipped from his mouth.

“…You’re serious about going there, I see. A weak team that has never won a proper game within the prefecture is aiming for it, thinking they can seriously go there. The 2.43 meter net is for that reason, I see.”

Those eyes with a sharpness that seemed to pierce through anything before them were directed towards Oda’s face. He was surprised that something he only mentioned briefly a week ago seemed to have remained in Haijima’s mind. However, he was also convinced that just showed how strong his feelings were. By all rights, he shouldn’t be the kind of athlete who was stuck smouldering in a place like this.

He wasn’t saying it in a way that was making fun of him. On the contrary, if he was the one who poked fun at him even slightly or was ambiguous in his answer, he would without a doubt slap his hand away on the spot.

Neither deception nor half-hearted seriousness was allowed in front of this guy.

“Yeah. Now, all the actors are in place. I seriously believe that this year’s Seiin will definitely become a team that can go to Nationals.”

Oda also looked back into Haijima’s eyes with a piercing gaze and answered.

If you take this hand, I will have to meet your expectations with all my power. I’ll repeat it again with force in order to convey that resolve. There’s no need for complicated reasons. I’m sure that only straightforward words would reach his heart.

“I want you to believe in me. Lend me all of your strength.”

***

“Why the hell are you smiling? Did Haijima say he was going to join?”

Aoki jeered at him when he stopped by the administration tent. Am I smiling? Oda wondered, patting his cheeks. He might be.

“Who knows. Well, he’ll be coming to the next practice, won’t he?”

“Hoo. Personally, I don’t like it, but well, that’s good I guess.”

Aoki said that in a twisted and unstraightforward way. Oda, while wondering in astonishment, Weren’t you the one who set this up?, dragged a free folding chair over and sat diagonally across from Aoki. He leaned over the long table, thrusted his face at him and lowered his face, as though it was an interrogation in a detective drama.

“So, from when and how much of it all was within your calculations? Since you brought up that betting match in front of Kuroba, right? Since you stirred me up by saying you were more interested in Okuma than Haijima? No way, you’re not gonna say you were the one who arranged for Haijima to be in volleyball, are you? I don’t think it’s possible, but does that mean the ballgame tournament itself is a huge charade…”

“I must be the world’s greatest swindler then. You’re giving me too much credit. Originally, I planned to have Team F win the championship, and I wanted to go to the lodging house on the refreshing highlands and getting Haijima while we’re at it…that was all I was thinking. Well, the dream of the highlands lodging house is completely gone now. I really did want to go there.”

All but one of the administration tents that were lined up with their eaves side by side in a corner of the first sports ground were dismantled, and the lower grade members of the executive committee were clearing away the steel frames and sheets while bickering noisily. All of their voices had a listlessness to them, like they had finished burning, and they didn’t sound grating to his ears. Rather, the noise soaked pleasantly into his tired body.

On the grounds, members of the baseball club were doing somersaults. The clock tower behind the back net displayed the time of 6:15. The brightness of the sky dimmed, and grey clouds started to appear. According to the forecast, apparently it was still going to be clear during the day, but the rainy season was going to return during the night. There was the scent of approaching rain. The warm wind, which contained moisture, made his arms and body sticky again after his sweat had finally receded.

The uncoated paper with the overall results for today was posted on the tent’s support. If he thought that there was more enthusiasm about this year’s championship than last year, there was apparently a secret prize that was going to be given to the supreme general of the winning team. The contributor was the executive committee—of course Aoki was the one who was holding the wallet. That prize was the group accommodation at a lodging house on a highland area in the prefecture for summer vacation. It was a form of taking advantage of the fact that the captains of the major sports clubs were spread out across each of the third year classes and stirring up the competition between each team.

In the boys’ volleyball division, Oda’s Team F defeated Team C to win the championship. The referee Aoki’s blatant support for Team C in the first half was camouflage, and after ejecting the two first-years, he devoted himself to making fair and impartial judgements in the second half—or that was how it seemed. Skillfully weaving in a few advantageous judgements for Team F, he manipulated the outcome. He’s a crook through and through…but since it’s a school event, I can just barely forgive him, but if he pulled this kind of thing somewhere else, I’ll be done with him.

However, they didn’t perform so well in the other events, and in the end, Team F had to settle for second place overall. The guesthouse on the highlands was to be given over to another club.

“Aaah, I guess we’ll have to do it at school this summer too. It’ll be harsh without air conditioning though.”

“You know, you’re pretty practical even though you don’t look it…”

“Dunno what you mean by not looking practical, but I’ll accept the compliment. Well, the things you can get with cheap tricks aren’t that important, and there are plenty of things you can’t get...” a loud yawn slipped out from his wide mouth.

“Are you going to the after party? The first and second-years worked hard today, so we gotta thank them.”

“Sorry, but I’ll have to pass. I don’t mind splitting the money in half. I didn’t sleep for three days to finish up preparations.”

“Three days? And yet you managed to get in two games.”

“It’d be tough to do three games. When the old teacher collapsed, I thought in my head, ‘I’m saved.’”

He leaned back deeply on his folding chair, causing it to creak, and when he bent his neck and tilted it left and right, there was a cracking sound. Though he wondered if it was okay to speak that way about an elderly person, it seemed that after he rested in the infirmary for nearly an hour, he had readily recovered and went along with the teachers to their after-party, so perhaps it was okay for Aoki to say that, considering all his toil.

During this ball game tournament, which included preparations, while Oda was just saying he wanted Haijima like a spoiled brat, just how hard was Aoki working, even using his influence, for the sake of the whole team? When it came to Haijima, even though he wasn’t supposed to have agreed to it, he considered Oda’s feelings and took action like it was a matter of course. It had completely slipped from his mind, but it was time to think about summer training camps.

Since they knocked on the door of the boys’ volleyball club in April two years ago, he had helped him one-sidedly until now. The prodigy who had student council duties, and who on top of that could get accepted to Kyoto University, probably had any number of things he could do besides volleyball, unlike Oda. He felt a deep sense of guilt that because he invited him that day—because they were “Aoki” and “Oda”, an unexpected intrusion ended up coming into Aoki’s life.

“Ah, hey…thanks for everything…”

It was too embarrassing to say it now after two years, and he couldn’t look him in the eyes. He was grateful for the gap between their lines of sight right then. Every time he was covered for, it only deepened his own sense of inferiority, and he had never thanked him face-to-face until now.

Good grief, it’s not just my outside, I’m also tiny and worthless on the inside.

“But, sorry…you’re going to have to go along with my selfishness for just a little longer.”

His debt would increase even more in the future. It seemed that Aoki won’t be able to concentrate on his exams for a while yet.

“…That’s just like you.”

Aoki mumbled to himself, his head still turned away. From Oda’s position, he could only see his chin moving slightly, and he had no idea what expression he had on his face.

“You’re giving me too much credit. I’m feeling guilty now. Playing volleyball with you is what I want to do right now, and I’m not doing it unwillingly. I don’t need to be thanked at all. I’ve been saying this since before, but me not liking Haijima is completely my personal feelings, and I’m the one who’s just being selfish. I don’t really care about going to university or not, and I don’t mind if you want me to lower my rank so we can go to the same place…I’m basically just driven by my ulterior motives.”

“Ulterior motives?”

There was the sound of water drops hitting the roof of the tent. The people working outside the tent looked up at the sky and exclaimed, “It’s starting to rain?”

“…You don’t have to understand.”

Aoki raised his head slowly, like a giraffe stretching its neck to find leaves that were just right, and stifled another yawn. Then, he turned towards him and lifted the edge of his mouth. 

“Let’s go to Spring Inter-High. I’ll follow you until the end.”

For Oda, that thin, ironic smile was more reliable and trustworthy than anything. 

The prefectural preliminaries would start at the end of September, two months later. If they won there, his retirement would be extended until the final representative deciding match in November. And if they managed to win the representative deciding match, then it would be until the nationals in January——. Just one game more. Just a day, a minute, a second longer. In order to delay the “end” just a little bit longer, they third-years would clumsily make every effort with all their ability.

When the rainy season ended, their final summer would arrive. There was no doubt that that summer would be like a condensed version of the rest of their lives after graduation. His doubts about his career path cleared up. He would put all he had into everything he could do and wanted to do right now. He didn’t care if the next few decades would be the rest of his life. Even if he burned out here and had nothing left within him, he wouldn’t regret it now.

Previous || Index || Next

[canisterofsoda]

incoming long list of incorrect quotes because im getting annoying on discord so you people have to deal with me now

Kei: Looking left cause you don’t treat me right

Han: Looking right because you left

Rose: Looking up cause you let me down

Oliver: Looking down cause you fucked up

Blair: What is wrong with you guys

---------------------------------------------

Kei: Bridge the generation gap by combining old and new slang into one!

Han: Tubular AF!

Rose: Mood to the max!

Oliver, annoyed: Groovy, I hate it.

Blair, just as annoyed: If she breathes, she’s a square.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Kei: What’s something you guys are better than Han at?

Rose: Mario Kart.

Oliver: Yeah, video games.

Blair: Emotional vulnerability.

------------------------------------

Kei: There are seven chairs and ten kids. What do you do?

Han: Have everyone stand.

Rose: Bring three more chairs!

Oliver: The most important ones can sit down.

Blair: Kill three.

--------------------

Kei: Favorite horror movie?

Han: It

Rose: Saw

Oliver: Annabelle

Blair: High School Musical. after watching it I spent all my middle school years terrified that the entire school would start singing something and I’d be the only one who didn’t know the lyrics

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Kei: Poison is a magic transmutation potion that turns people into corpses.

Han: This knife is actually a magic wand.

Rose: Meet me in the Denny’s parking lot for a wizard duel.

Oliver: *cocks gun* Magic missile.

Blair: What the fuck is wrong with you people.

---------------------------------------------------------

Kei: Imagine if someone handed you a box full of all the items you have lost throughout your life

Han: Self-esteem, haven't seen you in years!

Rose: Oh wow, my childhood innocence! Thank you for finding this!

Oliver: I knew I lost that potential somewhere!

Blair: My moral code, is that you?

Kei:

Kei: I was just gonna show you this cool trunk my mother left me but do you guys need a hug?

------------------------------

Kei: What if the person who named Walkie Talkies named everything?

Han: Pregnancy tests are Maybe Babies

Blair: Socks are Feetie Heaties

Oliver: Forks are Stabby Grabbies

Han: Defibrillators are Heartie Starties

Blair: Nightmares are Dreamy Screamies

Oliver: Stamps are Lickie Stickies

Rose, annoyed: You are disappointments

--------------------------------------------------

Kei: Where's Han, Rose, and Oliver?

Blair: They're playing hide and seek.

Kei: Where?

Blair: I don't think you get how this game works.

---------------------------------------------------------

Kei: You kidnapped Han? That’s illegal!

Rose: But Kei, what’s more illegal? Briefly inconveniencing Han, or destroying our dreams?

Kei: Kidnapping Han, Rose!!!

Oliver: Kei, listen, whatever I may think of you right now- these guys are counting on you to inspire them!

Kei: What, to kidnap people?!?!

Oliver: To work together!

Kei: TO KIDNAP PEOPLE?!?!?!?!

Blair: Kei, we all agreed a Han is a not a people.

--------------------------------------------------------

Kei: Anyone d-

Han: Depressed?

Rose: Drained?

Oliver: Dumb?

Blair: Disliked?

Kei: -done with their work... what is wrong with you people ...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Kei: Nothing in life is free.

Han: Love is free!

Rose: Adventure is free.

Oliver: Knowledge is free.

Blair: Everything is free if you take it without paying.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Kei: We need more help. Maybe I should call my friends.

Han: ... Your what?

Kei: My friends.

Rose: Are they saying “friends”?

Oliver: I think they're being sarcastic.

Blair: No, no, no, this is delirium, they've cracked from being awake all night. Hey, Kei! All of your friends are in this room.

Kei: I have other friends! You asked me to make new friends, I made new friends! It was a task. I complete tasks.

-----------------------------------------------------

Kei: Good responses for being stabbed with a knife?

Han: Rude.

Rose: That’s fair.

Oliver: Not again.

Blair: Are you going to want this back?

---------------------------------------------------

Kei: Are we really going to let Han keep Rose?

Oliver: We kept Blair.

----------------------------

Kei: What does 'take out' mean?

Han: Food.

Rose: Dating

Oliver: Murder

Blair: IT CAN MEAN ALL THREE IF YOU'RE NOT A COWARD.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kei: If you bite it and you die, it’s poisonous. If it bites you and you die, it’s venomous.

Han: What if it bites me and it dies!?

Rose: Then you’re poisonous. Jesus Christ, Han, learn to listen.

Oliver: What if it bites itself and I die?

Blair: That’s voodoo.

Himari: What if it bites me and someone else dies?

Han: That’s correlation, not causation.

Oliver: What if we bite each other, and neither of us die?

Blair: That’s kinky.

Kei: Oh my God.

-------------------------

*The squad is over at Kei's house*

Han: Ohhhh, we each get our own oven?

Kei: ... N-No...

Kei, laughing: How many ovens do you think I have???

Han, motioning to their kitchen: Three, I thought!

Rose: I see a-

Kei, motioning to one device: This is a microwave.

Han: Oh, well I-

Kei: Hey wait wait, actually- hang on- *fiddles with the buttons on the microwave*

Kei, amazed: Its got a bake setting!

Oliver: Ohoho, you learn something new every day!

Blair: Do we- Do we roshambo for who gets to pick first?

Kei: Now I've just discovered I have more ovens than I thought, we don't have to roshambo nothin!

Kei: I am someone who owns four ovens...

Kei, louder and way too happy: I am someone... who owns FOUR OVENS...

Kei: I didn't know I was so rich with ovens...

Himari, pointing to another appliance: Also the toaster oven!

Kei:

Han: Ohhh, toasty boy! Four- Five ovens!

Kei:

Kei, fucking ECSTATIC: I AM SOMEONE WHO OWNS FIVE OVENS

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Kei: Rules are made to be broken.

Han: They were made to be followed. Nothing is made to be broken.

Rose: Uh, piñatas.

Oliver: Glow sticks.

Blair: Karate boards.

Himari: Spaghetti when you have a small pot.

Kei: Rules.

Han:

--------------------------------

Kei: Who the fuck added me to a fucking group chat?

Han: >:O language

Rose: Yeah watch your fucking language

Oliver: OKAY WHO TAUGHT ROSE THE FUCK WORD?

Blair: 'The fuck word'.

Himari: Are you stupid? You guys use the f word all the time

Rose: Oh my god they censored it

Blair: Say fuck, Himari.

Rose: Do it, Himari. Say fuck.

--------------------------------------

'Can I copy the homework?'

Kei: I can help you with it!

Han: Yeah, sure.

Rose: Bold of you to assume I did the homework.

Oliver: lol nope.

Blair: Wait, we had homework?!?!?!

Himari: *Read 5:55pm*

-------------------------------

Kei: Time for plan G.

Han: Don’t you mean plan B?

Kei: No, we tried plan B a long time ago. I had to skip over plan C due to technical difficulties.

Rose: What about plan D?

Kei: Plan D was that desperate disguise attempt half an hour ago.

Oliver: What about plan E?

Kei: I’m hoping not to use it. Blair dies in plan E.

Himari: I like plan E.

-----------------------------------

Kei: We need to distract these guys

Han: Leave it to me

Han: Centaurs have six limbs and are therefore insects. Discuss.

Rose, Oliver, and Blair: *Immediately begin arguing*

Himari, watching in horror: Oh this. I don’t like this. I don't like this at all.

------------------

*The squad right before Kei's wedding*

Han: Well I have to go, I have a wedding to attend.

Rose: Wait... Oh! I have a wedding to attend too!

Oliver: Oh, I have a wedding to attend as well

Blair: I THINK WE ALL HAVE WEDDINGS TO ATTEND

Himari, panicked: I THINK I HAVE A WEDDING TO OFFICIATE

--------------------------------------------------

Kei: Croissants: dropped

Han: Road: works ahead

Rose: BBQ sauce: on my titties

Oliver: Shavacado: fre

Blair: Miss Keisha: fuckin dead

Himari:

Himari, grumpy: I didn’t understand a single word of that and I hate every single one of you.

---------------------------------

Kei: Everytime I hear someone talking about updog, I’m torn between not wanting to fall for it and wanting to help them complete their joke.

Han: Okay, but what is updog?

Rose: Updog is a long sausage in a bun, often served with ketchup, mustard, onions, and/or relish.

Oliver: Not, that’s a hot dog. An updog is when a new version or patch of an application is released.

Blair: No, that's an update. You’re thinking of the fourth largest city in Sweden.

Himari: Surely, that’s Uppsala, where’s updog is the giant spider in Harry Potter.

Kei: That’s Aragog. Updog is a symbol conventionally used for an arbitrarily small number in analysis proofs.

Oliver: You’re thinking of epsilon. Updog is an upward-moving air current.

Rose: No, that’s an updraft. An updog is the modern version of a henway.

Han: What’s a henway??

Kei: Oh, about five pounds.

----------------------------------

Kei: Just be yourself.

Han: 'Be myself'? Kei, I have one day to win Rose over. How long did it take before you guys started liking me?

Oliver: Couple weeks.

Blair: Six months.

Himari: Jury’s still out.

Han: See, Kei?

Han: 'Be myself'. What kind of garbage advice is that?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Kei: I CAN'T DO IT!

Han, laughing: I CAN'T EITHER!

Kei: I CANT FUCKING DO IT ANYMORE

Rose: WELL I'LL TELL YOU WHAT, YOU CAN EITHER GIVE UP NOW, OR YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT. BECAUSE WE CERTAINLY CAN'T DO IT WITHOUT YOU, AND WE KNOW YOU CAN'T DO IT WITHOUT US.

Kei:

Kei: I appreciate it,

Kei: BUT LOOK WHAT WE'RE DEALING WITH-

Oliver: Kei-

Kei: YOU GOTTA DRAW THE LINE SOMEWHERE!

Blair: Kei we gotta-

Kei: YOU GOTTA DRAW A FUCKING LINE IN THE SAND. YOU GOTTA MAKE A STATEMENT.

Kei: YOU GOTTA LOOK INSIDE YOURSELF AND SAY 'What am I willing to put up with today?'

Kei, motioning to Himari: NOT FUCKING THIS

--------------------------------------------------------

*Squad reactions to being told ‘I love you’*

Kei: Thanks fam!

Han: oh no

Rose: *cries* I love you too

Oliver: Sounds fake but okay

Blair: *A flustered mess*

Himari: can i get a refund

-----------------------------------

Kei: Hewwo.

Han: Hihiiiiii!

Rose: Greetings, Humans.

Blair: Three kinds of people.

Oliver: I want pudding.

Kei: Four kinds of people.

Himari: WHAT’S UP FUCKERS?

Blair: Five kinds of people.

-----------------------------------------

Kei, walking into their house: Hello, people who do not live here.

Han: Hey.

Rose: Hi.

Oliver: Hello.

Blair: Hey!

Kei: I gave you the key to my place for emergencies only!

Himari: We were out of Doritos.

-----------------------------------------

Kei: *Posts a super low-quality image to the group chat*

Han: If I had a dollar for every pixel in this image, I’d have 15 cents

Kei: If I had a dollar for every ounce of rage I felt in my body after I read this text, I would have enough money to buy a cannon to fire at you

Rose: Actually I did the math, Han would have $225, not $0.15.

Han: Fam I’m right here....

Oliver: If I had a dollar I would buy a can of soda :)

Kei: while you’re there could you buy me an apply juice please?

Oliver: Sorry I only have a dollar

Kei: :(

Rose: Hey I just realized my friend is right, Han would have $22,500 because it's a dollar for every pixel, not a cent

Oliver: If I had $22,500 I would buy a can of soda and an apply juice

Rose: You can buy anything you want with $22,500

Blair: Yeah and they want soda and apply juice

Rose: Apply juice to what

Himari: Directly to the forehead

Han: Great chat everyone

---------------------------------

Kei: Would you guys be there for me if I was going through something?

Han: Nope, absolutely not.

Rose: I hope it sucks, whatever you're going through.

Oliver: I hope it emotionally scars you for the rest of your life.

Blair: I hope you reach out to me so I can ignore you.

Himari: I can't wait to go to your funeral, knowing I could've changed that outcome.

[calliecat93]

ST: TNG S6 Watchthrough Episodes 14-17

Face of the Enemy: Troi has been kidnapped and forced to look/pose as a Romulan officer. Why? The one responsible isn’t saying, but to say that she’s unhappy would be an understatement. As it turns out, Troi was abducted by a part of the resistance from Unification and they need a Starfleet officer in case their current plan goes south. They even mention Spock… IDK if I can see him approving of an abduction but maybe they just forgot to mention that he disapproved that part… then again I guess it makes logical sense. Eh, whatever. So… this is by far the best Troi episode that they’ve done thus far. She was kidnapped yes, but she is NOT playing the damsel-in-distress. She’s not victimized. She’s not sexualized. She’s not forced into a poorly conceived romance or undergoes anything gross/f*cked up. She has to act the part of a cold-hearted authoritarian among a ship of Romulans and she is freakin’ badass. Especially when she decides that she’s had enough going and thoroughly tells off her kidnapper N’Vek and that he will listen to her. 100% perfection. They even managed to make her empathic abilities useful. Did putting her in the uniform cause this? Did they get it out of their systems in Man of the People? IDK but I am all for it! It was also an awesome look into the Romulans and the going-ons on their ship, something we haven’t really gotten since TOS’ Balance of Terror, and all the Romulans are done very well. N’Vek kidnapped Troi but he did it for his cause and is a great morally grey character, and the female Romulan Commander Toreth is an excellent antagonist. Plus it’s nice to see more of the resistance and to see them within the Romulan ranks. It was an excellent episode and I freakin’ loved it~! Thank you show for giving Troi the badass episode that she deserves (even if it was this late in the show's run), now keep it up! 5/5.

Tapestry: Two Q episodes this season? Hell yes~! So… Picard dies. Welp. Q decides to take this to give Picard an offer: go back in time and undo his greatest regret, the incident that caused his artificial heart that he told Wesley about in Samaritan Snare. Back when he was a hot-blooded rebel who got himself into a fight that got him stabbed in the heart. In doing so, he now has a chance to correct all the wrongs and settle all he regrets in his life since that day. So up to this point, Q’s episodes since Q Who, while still entertaining and interesting, had been more light-hearted. Q still came off as an all-powerful being (Deja Q aside which him not being was the plot point), but his antics had been more comedic or light-hearted in comparison. In this episode, he’s acting like a trickster as per usual, but again more with the purpose to teach Picard a lesson. Why isn’t made very clear aside from maybe he just likes Picard (take that however way you’d like), but it’s nice to see this version of Q again while still utterly stealing the show. Picard got to undo the event… but would it have really turned out any better had it not happened? Would not making mistakes, having regrets, and making all the supposed ‘right’ choices when he should have had truly made a better impact in his present? That’s the funny thing about life, it’s easy to look back and go ‘if I had done this one thing differently, it would have been better’ and te desire to correct it is very powerful. But with mistakes comes the ability to learn. To grow. To mature. You’ll always have guilt and regrets, but you have to accept that this is what you chose and go about your life. Picard is a man full of thrown-away opportunities, pain, and so much more… but it also caused him to become a strong leader, intelligent, a risk-taker, and even with all his faults become a better person in his present day. Now obviously he doesn’t actually die, but he sure as Hell learned the lesson. The life he would have lead would have been unsatisfying, his old regrets replaced with new ones, and been unfulfilling for a man like himself. Now he can truly value the one that he has and the people in it. This was a fantastic episode. It’s crazy how Picard went from one of my least favorites to now one of my absolute favorites. His development and growth from a strict, aloof authoritarian to a much more reasonable father-like figure and much more humbled man and the captain has been excellent, and this episode just helps further that. The only real complaint is there’s not much time devoted to showing how his crew ended up without him, but that’s minor and doesn’t take anything away at all. Very well done~! 5/5.

Birthright: Okay, guess we got a second two-parter… and apparently it crosses over with DS9. Didn’t see that coming. But alrighty, I’m game~!

Part One: So the crew is on Deep Space 9 to assist in repairs of some incident involving the Bajorans and the Cardassians that I guess I’ll find out about when I get to the show. While there Worf is approached by an alien who informs him that his dead father? He may not be dead after all, having been kept in a Romulan prison. Worf doesn’t take it well. He ain’t the only one having daddy issues. While working with DS9‘s CMO Dr. Bashir, Data gets knocked out has a vision of Dr. Soong (a much younger one than in Brothers). Normally Data can’t dream so he’s pretty taken aback by this. So as a first part, this was pretty good. It sets up Worf’s plot well with him deciding to break into the Romulan camp to find out the truth and rescue the Klingons there. Data’s plot is overall nice. He’s never dreamed before so him trying to track down why is very understandable, especiallya after Picard suggests that he quit going through facts and try a more creative outlet to get his answers. So what happened? As it turns out Dr. Soong made it so that when Data reached a certain cognitive point, he would obtaint he ability to dream and he made an AI version of himself to talk to him. I guess he would have explained this to him in Brothers had Lore not shown up/had he not died. It was a really touching moment. Soong’s still not exactly the most ideal parent, but his AI copy seemed legit proud of how far Data’s come. Is it out of ego, legit parental pride, or both? That’s up for you to decide. As this is my first look at Bashir… so far I don’t have too manys torng opinions. he seems to act more liek a Science Officer or Engineer han a CMO, but he is cute and so far liekabe. He’s curious about Data, but doesn’t dehumanize him like Maddox in The Measure of a Man did, if anything he notes Data’s more human-like elements like being able to grow hair than any of the nuts and bolts. He seems pretty well liked from what I’ve seen int he fandom, so I’ll see how that holds when I reach DS9 but I like him so far. I do have some issues, but that more impacts the Overall so I’ll save it for there. So we end with Worf discovering his father’s true fate… and he’s informed by the Klingons there that he’s never leaving the camp. Welp. How will Worf get out of this one in Part 2? We shall see. 4/5.

Part Two: So what the heck is going on? Well, Worf’s father is infact dead, but there were captured Klingons. As they weren’t able to die with honor nor could they return home as it would dishonor their families (Klingons prefer death to capture), they chose to remain in the camp and live out the rest of their lives there. So now Worf is among multiple Klingons, the vast majority of which know nothing about their heritage, culture, and customs and had it outright demonized. To them, the lives they have are the norm and they have no desire to change it. Worf may have been out of touch with Klingons due to being raised on Earth, but at least he can explore it and get in touch with it. The ones in the camp? They can’t do that. They’re essentially in a gilded cage. Yeah, there's the argument that they achieved peace between Klingons and Romulans… by imprisoning said Klingons and demonizing their culture to them with the older Klingons allowing it. Though it seems it’s also because of broken spirits and the dishonor they’d have faced otherwise which is worst than death to them. There’s even one girl, Ba’el, who is half Klingon, half-Romulan… and despite what gets said I don’t get the sense that her parents' union was a fully consensual one. This was pretty good. Worf has found a group that like him were out of touch with their heritage, and he is now able to educate them and guide them. With all that’s happened and his struggle to be a true Klingon and find his way, this was really nice to have. He’s still clinging onto his hatred of Romulans and this episode isn’t going to help it dissipate, but at least it was addressed and Ba’el being upset at being judged due to how she was born was very much justified. Heaven knows that the themes here are still very much relevant in today’s time. Worf’s guidance pays off in the end and at last, they can be free. The younger Klingons have a rough road likely ahead of them since we know that Klingon society isn’t exactly the easiest to get through, but at least they have a chance at freedom. It was a very strong Worf episode and it was great to see~. 4/5.

Overall: Okay, so overall… it’s pretty uneasy. The Worf parts are good.. As I said, it was nice to see him in a position to give guidance to a group even more out of touch than he is. It was very wel done. The issues are mainly with Part One. We have this plot where they go to DS9… and we are barely there. We have Dr. Bashir… and only him. None of the other characters. We don't even see O’Brien despite him having transferred to DS9 at this point. Maybe the actors were busy sot they could only pick one but it kinda makes doing a crossover cheap. Bashir doesn’t even get a lot to do, you could write him out and very little would change. On the upside this means that viewers who haven’t watched DS9 won’t be confused nor would DS9 be required viewing, but it also kind of defeats the purpose of bringing DS9 in. It’s essentially just window dressing. Data’s plot, while nice, is completely dropped in Part Two. It feels like they were required to do a two-parter, didn’t have enough of the Worf plot to fill it out, and came up with the Data dream plot and using DS9 to fill it out. The crew also don’t really do anything in either part. As such, aside from getting Worf into the place he needs to be, Part One feels irrelevant. As such, I can’t give it a perfect rating. It was still good, but as a two-parter Part One bogs it down, but still allows for Part Two to happen. Overall, pretty good. 4/5.

[lockewrites]

Our Own Entertainment

Astarion x F!OC || NSFW (Not actual smut, but very suggestive foreplay) || 2338 words AO3 & FF

Aurella and Astarion struggle to keep themselves entertained during a rather boring party. 

The campsite was bustling with tieflings, singing and dancing, party already in full swing before Aurella and the rest of them arrived. Zevlor stood at the entrance, greeting them as they approached. 

“I hope you’ll pardon them,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “They meant to wait for you all. But it’s been some time since they’ve had cause to celebrate.”

A sudden burst of laughter sounded near the fire, and Zevlor smiled, even as Aurella walked past him with little acknowledgement. 

“I’m glad to see they haven’t forgotten how,” she heard him say to Serilda. 

Aurella headed for her tent, eager to strip off her pack and armor and change into clothes she inexplicably stumbled on when visiting the tieflings the first time. She wore a deep red, linen shirt that was slightly too large; it hung loose around her chest, but she shrugged and tucked it into her waistband.

Returning to the party, her gaze fell to a pile of crates that the tieflings seemed to gravitate toward. She waded through the mass of already inebriated people and reached the boxes, smiling at the bottles upon bottles of what had to be alcohol. Without a second thought, she grabbed a few bottles; she’d need them if Volo’s singing wasn’t going to end anytime soon.

Bottles in tow, Aurella climbed onto the rocks near the center of camp and settled down on the cold surface, giving herself a good view of the party’s going-ons. Serilda was no longer near Zevlor, in fact, Serilda was nowhere to be found. It didn’t surprise Aurella; her sister didn’t seem the type to appreciate the chaos of drunks or fun in general. With a long swig, and a sour grimace afterward, Aurella simply watched. Her lip curled with every sip, the vinegar-tasting wine disturbing her senses, but drink enough, and she knew she’d no longer taste it. 

The children ran around, occasionally bumping into a staggering adult, some of the others danced to Volo’s ‘song’ and others ignored him entirely, playing games that involved drinking if they lost and drinking if they won. Lae’zel was chatting with Wyll, and the way he leaned toward her made it seem like he was quite interested; Gale shared his thoughts and likely unwelcome history lessons with two of the tieflings, one carried a lute; and Shadowheart was probably still standing near her tent behind Aurella, keeping to herself. And it seemed someone had a mind to keep her company; the scuffing of boots on rock and a soft grunt sounded behind her shortly before kicking aside her empty bottles.

“Well,” Astarion’s soft voice said, now beside her, “this is rather boring.” He sat next to her, his armor also gone and replaced with a dark tunic.

“Just sitting here?” she asked. “Or the party in general.”

“Both.”

“To be fair,” she said, interrupting herself with a drink, “I’m only here until I get drunk enough to cause issues.”

He chuckled. “Do you really need to be drunk for that?”

She shook her head. “No. But it provides me an excuse for when Serilda inevitably scolds me.” 

“She certainly seems the sort.” He took one of her bottles and pulled out the cork before taking a drink.

Aurella could feel his eyes on her, and just as she glanced at him, he turned away.

“You know,” he said in between sips, his tone growing contemplative, “I never pictured myself as a hero. Never thought I’d be the one they toast for saving so many lives. And now that I’m here…” He took another drink and scowled, his lip curling just enough to crinkle his nose. “I hate it. This is awful.”

She laughed. “I completely agree. Though, slaughtering the goblins was fun.”

“True,” he replied with a smile. “That was fun.”

“I’m sure there’s more fun to be had. Relax and try to enjoy yourself.” 

“Enjoy myself?” he remarked, his sneer returning. “There’s a worm in my brain, I’m surrounded by idiots, and all I’ve got to drink is wine that tastes like vinegar. All I want is a little fun. Is that so much to ask?”

“Hmm.” She pursed her lips a moment. “Vampires are strong, right?”

His brow raised, and there was a look of amused intrigue at the question. “Of course, darling. Why do you ask?”

“Can you throw this high into the air?” She handed him one of the full bottles of wine. “Somewhere over Volo’s head.” 

Astarion hesitated but eventually stood, eyeing Volo before looking at the empty air above him and launching the bottle just as requested. 

While still sitting, Aurella lifted her hand and pulled it back, a red light emanating from her palm for just a moment before she thrust it forward, releasing a blast of magic. It caught the bottom of the bottle, bursting the glass and pouring wine all over Volo and his closest audience members.

They shrieked and shouted at the pair who simply let out barks of laughter.

“Oh, sometimes it’s the simplest of things,” Astarion said.

Aurella continued laughing, ignoring the angry words being screamed at them. One of the men hurled a bottle at Aurella, she stopped laughing just in time to see Astarion’s hand reach in front of her and catch it. She violently flinched and lost her balance.

“Shit!”

Unable to catch herself on anything, she slipped off the rock and landed with a hard grunt between the stone and a log. She rubbed the back of her head and groaned as she sat up.

Astarion stood on the other side of the log, laughing hysterically. “That was quite the entertainment!” he said. 

“Which part?” she asked, still rubbing her back. “Drenching Volo or me falling?”

“Oh, take your pick.”

“Arse.”

He laughed again and offered his hand; she took it, the cold of his skin still jarring to her. Now on her feet, she brushed off her backside and pulled a twig out of her hair.

“I had meant to tell you earlier, my dear,” he began, voice taking a low, husky tone as he straightened her shirt and let his fingers linger, “that red certainly suits you.” 

His fingers drifted up her sternum and to her neck, pushing aside her blonde hair and leaving a trail of cold; he stopped where two puncture wounds marred her skin, barely brushing over them before pulling his hand away. She suppressed a shiver and caught herself from leaning for his absent touch, instead plastering a smirk on her lips; the pain of her fall was entirely forgotten.

“You know,” he began, returning her grin, “rather than throw yourself off any more rocks, we could always amuse ourselves in other ways.”

“Are you going to throw yourself off a rock next?” she asked, crossing her arms. “That’d be rather amusing.”

He rolled his eyes. “There are far better ways to wind up bloodied and bruised,” he replied. “Just you and me. Getting a little closer, so to speak.”

She sucked in her lip, appearing to contemplate her answer. “Maybe,” she finally said. “If you say ‘please.’”

His brow furrowed, but the smile remained. “What?”

Tilting her head, Aurella said, “I fell off a boulder, and you laughed at me. My ego’s hurt. I could use a little begging.”

The smirk softened, and his eyes widened as his eyebrows reached up toward his hairline. “Please.” His hungry grin immediately returned.

She leaned her body toward him, ignoring the heat building in her cheeks; her hand reached out and hovered just over his waistband, taunting him a bit before jabbing his stomach with her finger.

"Okay." Her eyes crinkled at the corners as he shook his head.

"Cheeky little pup." He pulled away from her. "Let's wait until things quiet down."

"All right."

"Now, how to kill time?" he muttered, looking past Aurella.

She turned toward the mass of tieflings. "I don't know about you," she said, "but there's an interesting game of cards going on over there, and I see a few coins on the table. I wouldn't mind winning some gold from drunkards." She glanced back at him. "Or horny vampires."

"I suppose there are worse ways to waste my time," he decided. "And just so you know, I cheat."

“So do I.”

The pair was side-eyed as they approached, Aurella’s stunt still fresh in their minds, but at the dropping of their coin purses on the table, the tieflings welcomed them. They were dealt in, and it didn’t take long for the two to settle into a routine of counting cards and stowing aces; the tieflings were too far into their drinks to notice, but Astarion and Aurella watched each other, tutting whenever they caught the other. 

How much time had passed, Aurella wasn’t sure, but things had quieted, most of the tieflings were in bed or making their way there. Astarion had wandered off during their last hand, claiming to need some air. After a few more rounds, she dumped her winnings into her coin purse and disappeared into her tent. She waited, anticipation building with each torch being blown out and each body shuffling into a bedroll. 

When silence finally fell, she left her tent and tiptoed around the scattered sleepers, following the general direction she’d seen Astarion take. She walked out of the clearing and found herself surrounded by trees and a chill the open area lacked, but she saw no sign of the vampire. Continuing forward, she took careful steps over the roots and around the tree trunks; she had no doubt he knew she was there, and he was simply toying with her. 

Just as she considered turning back, a hand snaked around her waist, and a cold pair of lips whispered in her ear.

“I’ve been waiting,” he purred. He pulled her flush against him and brushed his lips against her neck. “Waiting since the moment I set eyes on you. Waiting to have you.”

Aurella placed her hand on the one resting on her waist. “I wouldn’t say you have me just yet.” Her stomach flipped as he chuckled against her skin, one of his fangs just barely grazing her.

“Don’t I?” he asked. “You’re here. And… I don’t think you want to talk.” He turned her around to face him, hand now pushing into her back, keeping their lower halves pressed together. “I think you want to be known,” he said, dipping a finger under her chin and keeping her fixated on him. “To be tasted.”

She smirked despite the color pooling in her face. “And what do you want?”

“What do any of us want?” he replied, his lips matching her own taunting. “Pleasure.” His thumb gently pushed her head to the side as he leaned down and kissed her neck, rougher than before. “Yours. Mine.” He spoke between breaths. “Our collective ecstasy.”

He pulled away from her, his eyes searching her face. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” he asked, quickly falling back into his perfect grin. “To lose yourself in me?”

The red of his eyes seemed brighter, more threatening, nearly every inch of her being screaming at her to flee, but all she felt was curiosity and a burning desire to give herself to him. She had no snarky retort, no witty remark. She simply breathed a soft, “Yes.”

“I thought so.”

His lips claimed hers as he grabbed either side of her waist and lifted her, guiding her legs around his torso. With a few steps forward, he balanced her against a tree as their mouths and tongues fought for dominance; he tasted of turned wine, the campfire’s smoke, and metallic threats. The bark of the tree dug into her skin through her top as he pushed against her, leaving no room between them. His hands ran down her torso and began pulling at her shirt, untucking it from her waistband. 

Before he could slip under, Aurella reached back and gave a hard push against the tree, knocking them off-balance. They toppled backward, Astarion landing under her with a grunt, Aurella still straddling him.

He looked up at her, brow raised in confusion and then interest as she grabbed the hem of her shirt and lifted it over her head, leaving her torso completely exposed. He sat up, digging into her waist for leverage, and pressed a cold kiss between her breasts before traveling upward to her throat.

Just as he pulled away to look at her, she grabbed his shirt and yanked him forward, kissing him again as she gathered her hair with her other hand and pulled it over one of her shoulders. They paused for breath, and she took the opportunity to bare her neck to him, the invitation obvious. His words had promised pleasure, but he could offer pain in equal measure and, in that moment, it was just the same to her.

The vampire’s eyes widened, pupils dilating further as his tongue flitted over his lips. He kissed her again and wrapped her in an embrace as he pulled them both back to the ground. In one fluid motion, without breaking the kiss, he rolled them over and braced himself on top of her; his mouth wandered from hers, lining her jaw then dipping below to her neck, kissing where he’d bitten her before.

Her fingers brushed against his ribs and moved up his side, reaching for his back; she felt something raised through his shirt, but he twisted slightly and grabbed her wrist, pinning it to the ground above her head just as his other wrapped around her neck.

She reached for his hand with hers, digging her nails into his skin, but she didn’t attempt to pull him away, rather she held him in place and forced him to grip her tighter.

After one last kiss to her neck, his fangs reopened his previous bite; the sharp pain quickly subsided to euphoria, and she let out a pleasured moan as he took his fill and she readied for her own.

[back-and-totheleft]

‘There’s still a presence out there reminding people not to speak about JFK’s killing���

Oliver Stone is not a fan of “cancel culture”. “Of course I despise it,” the Oscar winning filmmaker says, as if utterly amazed that anyone needs to ask him such a dumb question. “I am sure I’ve been cancelled by some people for all the comments I’ve made…. it’s like a witch hunt. It’s terrible. American censorship in general, because it is a declining, defensive, empire, it (America) has become very sensitive to any criticism. What is going on in the world with YouTube and social media,” he rants. “Twitter is the worst. They’ve banned the ex-President of the United States. It’s shocking!” he says, referring to Donald Trump’s removal from the micro-blogging platform.

It’s a Saturday lunchtime in the restaurant of the Marriott Hotel on the Croisette in Cannes. The American director is in town for the festival premiere this week of his new feature documentary JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, in which he yet again pores over President John F Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963.

“I am a pin cushion for American-Russian peace relations… I had four f***ing vaccines: two Sputniks and two Pfizers,” Stone gestures at his arm. The rival super-powers may remain deeply suspicious of one another, but Stone is loading himself up with potions from both sides of the old Iron Curtain.

He has recently been travelling in Russia (hence the Sputnik jabs) where he has been making a new documentary about how nuclear power can save humanity. He also recently completed a film about Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev which – like his interviews with Vladimir Putin – has been roundly ridiculed for its deferential, softly-softly approach toward a figure widely regarded as a ruthless despot.

Dressed in a blue polo shirt, riffing away about the English football team one moment and his favourite movies the next, laughing constantly, the 74-year-old Oscar-winning director of Platoon, Wall Street, Natural Born Killers et al is a far cheerier presence than his reputation as a purveyor of dark conspiracy thrillers might suggest. He is also very outspoken. For all his belligerence, though, Stone isn’t as thick-skinned as you might imagine. I wonder if he was hurt by the scorn that came his way when his feature film JFK was released in 1991.

“I was more of a younger man. It was painful to me,” the director sighs as he remembers being attacked by such admired figures as newscaster Walter Cronkite and Hollywood power broker Jack Valenti for listening to the “hallucinatory bleatings” of former New Orleans DA Jim Garrison when JFK came out. “It was quite shocking actually because I thought the murder was behind us. I did think there was a feeling that 30 years later, we can look at this thing again without getting excited. But I was way wrong.”

Garrison, of course, was the real-life figure portrayed by Kevin Costner in the film; he was the original proponent of the theory that the CIA were involved in the killing of the US president, after his 1966 investigation. Garrison wrote the book On the Trail of the Assassins, on which the movie was partly based.

Even the director’s fiercest detractors will find it hard to dismiss the evidence he has assembled about the JFK assassination in the new documentary. Once I’d seen it and heard him hold forth, I came away thinking that only flat-earthers can possibly still believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy all on his own. It’s that convincing.

Stone blitzes you with facts and figures about the Kennedy killing and its aftermath. At times, he himself seems to be suffering from information overload. “I am sorry. There are so many people,” he apologises for not immediately remembering the name of Kennedy’s personal physician, George Burkley, who was present both at Parkland Hospital, where Kennedy was first taken, and then at Bethesda, where the autopsy took place. Burkley was strangely reticent when giving evidence to the Warren Commission.

“I think there’s still a presence out there which reminds people not to speak. I’ve heard that in, of all places, Russia,” Stone says. He was startled to discover that the Russians knew all about his new documentary long before it was discussed in the mainstream press. “They said, ‘We heard about it.’ I said, ‘How?’ They said, ‘We have our contacts in the American intelligence business. They are not very happy about it.’”

Stone believes that no US president since Kennedy died has been “able to go up against this militarised sector of our economy”. Even Trump “backed down at the last second” and declined to release all the relevant documents relating to the assassination. “He announced, ‘I’m going to free it up, blah blah blah, big talk, and then a few hours before, he caved to CIA National Security again.”

The veteran filmmaker expresses his frustrations at historians like Robert Caro, author of a huge (and hugely respected) multi-volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson, for ignoring the evidence that has been turned up about the assassination.

“I can’t say [LBJ] was involved in the assassination,” explains Stone, “but it certainly suited him that Kennedy was not there anymore and he covered up by appointing the Warren Commission and doing all the things he did.”

Stone tried to cast Marlon Brando in JFK in the role as the deep throat source Mr X, eventually played by Donald Sutherland.

“I realise now I am grateful that he turned it down because he knew better than I that he would make 20 minutes out of that 14-minute monologue and it wouldn’t have worked.”

Nevertheless, he filled the film with famous faces. He thought that having familiar actors would make it easier for audiences to engage with what was an immensely complicated story.

Getting Stone to stop talking about JFK is like trying to pull a bone from a mastiff’s jaws. To change the subject slightly, I ask if he is still in touch with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He is and is utterly horrified at how Assange is being treated, especially given that Siggi the Hacker, a key witness in the extradition case against Assange, admitted recently that he lied. Stone praises Assange’s partner Stella Morris as “the best wife you could ever have. She really is smart, she’s a lawyer … he has two children. He can’t even touch them or see them. It’s barbaric. It indicates America is declining faster than we know. It is just cutting off dissent.”

The mood lightens when I invite Stone to discuss some of his favourite films. He recently tweeted a list of these, which included Darling starring Julie Christie, Joseph Losey’s Eva starring Stanley Baker and Jeanne Moreau, and Houseboat, a frothy comedy starring Cary Grant and Sophia Loren. “I love films, always have. People don’t know that side of me. I could go on forever.”

Between his darker and more contentious efforts, Stone has made a few genre films himself, for example the underrated thriller U-Turn starring Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez. He notes, though, that even when he tried a sports movie, he ended up right back in the firing line. The NFL was furious about his 1999 American Football film, Any Given Sunday. “They (the NFL) are arrogant, very rich people who close down any dissent, so I had to change uniforms and names… but they got the point.”

Last year, Stone published the first volume of his autobiography, Chasing the Light, which took him from childhood up to his Oscar triumph with Platoon. It was well received but it didn’t make nearly a big enough splash for his liking. “There was a curtain of silence about that. Maybe it is Covid… it was not reviewed by many people,” he says. “I wish the timing had been better. The publisher was terrible. They didn’t really promote anything. So now I have to start over again if I am going to do a second book, which I would love to do. But I have to find the right publisher.”

The book contains a barbed account of Stone’s experiences as a young screenwriter working in London for British director Alan Parker and producer David Puttnam on Midnight Express. “I wrote about it in the book, so you got my point of view. They were not very friendly people. I gave my criticism of Parker that he had a chip on his shoulder. He was from a poor side of the English. There is this phenomenon you see in England of hating the upper classes until they approve of you.”

No, they didn’t stay in touch. “And Puttnam is a Lord, right? He reminds me of Tony Blair. He is such a weasel.” For once, Stone feels he has overstepped the mark. He doesn’t want to call Puttnam a weasel after all. “Put it this way, Tony Blair is a weasel. I wouldn’t trust Tony Blair. Puttnam is a supporter of Blair. Let’s leave it at that.”

On matters English, he isn’t that keen on soccer either. He watched the semi-final between England and Denmark but had no intention of tuning into the final.

“Soccer is a different kind of game. It’s a different aesthetic. It is constant movement. The United States game allows you to re-group after every play and go into a huddle and so it becomes about strategy. I still enjoy it although people think I am brutal.”

Ask him why he so relishes American Football and he replies that he “grew up with violence in America … we were banging – cowboys and Indians, a lot of killing and that stuff. How do you get away from that? We weren’t playing with dolls.”

Stone’s feelings about the US are deeply ambivalent. He is old enough to remember a time in the late 1940s and early 1950s when “everything in America was golden” and part of him still seems to love the country but his mother was French and he talks about the US as a nation now in near terminal decline.

Perhaps surprisingly, his real political hero isn’t JFK. It’s the former President of France, Charles de Gaulle. “He said no to NATO and he said no to America. He understood the dangers of being a satellite country to America. You have no power in Europe. Don’t kid yourself. The EU is just an artificial body that was amazingly stupid in cutting off Russia and cutting off China too now.”

He doesn’t much like Boris Johnson either. “Boris, listen. He’d simply throw you in jail in a second.” He rails against the English for holding Assange in Belmarsh prison.

When he is not on a crusade or unravelling a conspiracy, Stone relaxes through Buddhist meditation. “Moderation in all things,” the man who came up with the phrase “greed is right, greed works” says with no evident sense of irony. He enjoys hanging out with his friends. “I have a nice life. I’m lucky,” he says before quickly adding, “I wish I had been more honoured and respected in my lifetime, but it seems that I took a course that is in conflict with the American Empire.”

Stone’s films have had relatively few strong female characters. Ask if he welcomes the #MeToo movement and the challenging of old gender norms and he gives a typically contrary answer. “It cuts both ways, though. There are reasons for patriarchy through the centuries,” he says. “Tribes tend to have a strong leader. You need strong leaders, but I do see the feminine impulse as being important, especially when situations become too militant. The feminine impulse, I’m talking about the maternal impulse not the Hillary Clinton/Margaret Thatcher version of feminism. They’re men. They’re not women,” he says. “I don’t want women in politics who want to be men. If a woman is a woman, she should be a woman and bring her maternalism. It’s a leavening influence.”

The director deplores the rush to judge historical figures about past misdeeds from a contemporary point of view. “I am conservative in that way… don’t expect to rejudge the entire society based on your new values.”

He met with Harvey Weinstein in Cannes a few years ago to discuss a potential Guantanamo Bay TV series. “At that point, maybe he knew he was on the ropes; he was delightfully charming and humble.” The project was scuppered by the scandal that that engulfed the former Miramax boss, who is now behind bars as a convicted sex offender. Stone’s gripes with Weinstein are less to do with his sexual offences than with the way that he attacked films like Born on the Fourth of July and Saving Private Ryan to boost his own movies.

“The press loved him [Weinstein]. Don’t forget, they loved him in the 1990s,” he says, remembering the disingenuous way in which Weinstein portrayed himself as the underdog taking on the big, bad Hollywood system.

“I think he robbed Cruise of the Oscar, frankly,” Stone huffs at the intensive Weinstein lobbying which saw Daniel Day-Lewis win the Academy Award for Best for My Left Foot, denying Tom Cruise for Born on the Fourth of July in the process.

Stone acknowledges his status in Hollywood has diminished. “All that’s gone. The people have changed,” he says of the days when the studios doted on him and his films were regularly awards contenders. Now, he’ll often finance his work out of Europe. He is developing a new feature film (he won’t say what it is). “Never say die, never say it’s over,” he says of his career.

Stone is based in Los Angeles and also has “a place in New York”. During the pandemic, he still managed to travel to Russia to make his nuclear power/clean energy documentary. “I got my shots over there because the EU is so f***ing stupid,” he says of the of the Europeans’ refusal to recognise the Sputnik vaccine. “It’s ridiculous, part of the political madness of this time.”

Now, he is putting all his energy into his new documentary about nuclear power. He waves away the idea that the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters show what can go wrong – they were accidents.

“Accidents you learn from. If there were not a few crashes, how would you fly?” he says. It’s a line that somehow seems to express his entire philosophy of life.

-Geoffrey Macnab interviews Oliver Stone, The Independent, Jul 15 2021 [x]

[haikyuuateer]

a field of flowers || sugawara koushi

pairing: sugawara x f!reader

word count: 2.7k (i think i overdid it)

warnings: none i’m just bad at writing

plot: "Did you seriously get lost again?”

a/n: consider this a random drabble, hehe.. also i try to avoid using chan, san, kun, etc. in writing since i do not know how to properly use these terms and i wouldn’t wanna guess and end up falsely using them so uh. yeah. 

┈     ┈     ┈

"Y/N, are you ready to go yet?"

Once you had finished zipping up your volleyball club jacket, you looked over in Daichi’s direction and smiled. "Yeah!" You replied enthusiastically, jogging over to them. "Thanks for not leaving me behind like everyone else did, you four."

Daichi, Koushi, Kiyoko, and Asahi all smiled at you, making your smile widen a bit in return. "Now, let’s go!" You jogged over to the others, and everyone else followed you with a laugh. 

It was another day of volleyball practice. You were in your third year along with Kiyoko, and you two were managers of the club, as well as the first year she had found, Yachi. Coach Ukai and Coach Takeda had decided that the boys should just be able to go on a light jog today for some easy exercise. You, Kiyoko, and Yachi decided to tag along as well, just for the heck of it. 

"Y/N, you better not make the rest of us slow down for you. If you get left behind, then you get left behind," Koushi said in a teasing voice, nudging you with his shoulder. You laughed and playfully shoved the silver-haired male.

You had known Koushi ever since your first year of junior high. You went to every single one of his volleyball games, and when you two went to Karasuno for high school, you were ecstatic to discover that you could be team manager. You and Kiyoko got along well over sharing the position, being the only girls,  and having Nishinoya and Tanaka be a little too overprotective over you two, but it was something you quickly got used to. When it came to games, you decided you would let Kiyoko stay with the coaches while you were in the bleachers- It was a bit nicer to have Yachi join you, since you kind of got lonely by yourself up there. 

You twirled a strand of your H/C hair around your finger as you watched everyone else get ready to start the jog. You snapped out of your little daze when you felt someone tap your shoulder. It was Kiyoko.

"Need a hairtie?" She asked, holding one out to you. 

"Ah- no, I’ll be alright. Thank you, Kiyoko."  "Okay."

The two of you walked over to the boys, as well as Yachi, who were all ready to get started. You walked up next to Koushi and lightly elbowed him without looking at him. "Wanna race?" You asked jokingly, your rosy lips curling into a playful grin. 

"And be like those two?" Koushi asked, pointing over at Kageyama and Hinata, who were already glaring at each other and posed as if they were about to run a relay. 

You put your hand over your mouth to stifle your laughter. "Okay, no, never mind. But those two... They really are something, aren’t they?"

"Yeah, I think they’ve already subtracted at least 10 years from Daichi’s lifespan," Koushi said with a laugh. "They’re a handful, but they’re incredible.."

"Mm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone like them when it comes to volleyball. They really are special." "Alright, everyone! We’re gonna follow the roads around the school twice, so try not to get lost, or we’ll leave you behind." Daichi shot you a look, and you stuck your tongue out at him in return. Asahi and Koushi chuckled softly, and you felt Koushi nudge your shoulder. 

Okay, maybe one time you spaced out while jogging and ended up getting lost in your second year of being in the volleyball club. Everyone freaked out, Nishinoya and Tanaka ran down the streets screaming for you, and you felt a little bit guilty for how much you had stressed Koushi out when you finally reunited with everyone else. It’s not like you were gonna let it happen again. "Aye aye, captain," You mumbled in a disheartened tone, playfully rolling your eyes. Everyone laughed.

"Alright- Let’s go, then!"

And then all of you were off, jogging along the side of the road. You already saw everyone advancing ahead of you and smiled. Of course they were all faster than you- You weren’t the fastest, and today, you didn’t really feel like working up too much of a sweat. Your gaze travelled up to the sky, brilliantly streaked with vibrant oranges, reds, and yellows. There were hardly any clouds, and the sun was descending towards the horizon. The sky is so pretty today... And you let your mind wander. 

And then you slowed to a stop, and looked around you. And then you realized.

You got lost. 

"Aw man, Daichi and Koushi are going to kill me.." You mumbled to yourself. You looked behind you. You came from that way, but how long had you been jogging for? You were so lost in your thoughts that you hadn’t been paying attention to where you were going. 

Before you could start trying to navigate your way back to the school, you heard a familiar voice from behind you. Wait, behind? You turned back around, confused. Maybe while you were spaced out, you had taken random turns, subconsciously thinking that you were going the right way? 

You squinted and immediately recognized the familiar grey-haired boy running towards you, his expression laced with concern. "You dummy, you ran off somewhere completely random again.. You’re lucky I actually went to look for you."

"Ah- Koushi.. I’m sorry." You glanced away from him, playing with the ends of your sleeves. And then something caught your eye. A large field of yellow flowers, as far as the eye could see- You could run over there if you wanted to right now. And you did. "On second thought, let’s take the scenic route!" And before Koushi could protest, you grabbed his wrist and started running towards the field of flowers, dragging him behind you.

"Wh- Y/N, where are we going? If Daichi finds out that both of us are lost, he’s going to get so mad-"

"Look at that pretty field of flowers, Koushi! Let’s go play, okay?" You looked back at him and smiled before looking back towards the field.

Koushi sighed and let you drag him along- He couldn’t say no to that face. You just looked so excited. When you looked back at him, your eyes were sparkling, and you had the most adorable smile on your face that he had ever seen.

Wait, adorable? He shook his head slightly, blinking rapidly. Did he just think that you were adorable? His close friend? Did I hit my head earlier? Lately, he had been catching himself admiring you quite often. At first it was only occasional glances at you during classes, but it gradually became him gazing lovingly at you with a small smile on his face. Daichi, somehow, was the only person who seemed to be fully aware of Koushi’s helpless crush on you- Not even Koushi himself thought he had a crush on you.

You slowed to a stop once the two of you were standing right by the flower field. "Koushi.. It’s gorgeous," You murmured in awe, staring out at the flowers. They appeared golden under the evening light, and the breeze gently blowing past made the flowers dance, and they almost looked like ocean waves, gently rolling throughout the field. You stood there and Koushi’s wrist slipped from your hand- Your lips were slightly parted, and you continued to stare at the field, starstruck. 

Koushi giggled softly and waved his hand in front of your face. "Hello, Earth to Y/N?" He asked. You could hear the laugh in his voice and blinked, breaking out of your daze. "Oh.."

"I’m surprised- I’ve never seen this place before, either." He smiled and put his hands in his pockets, staring out at the field with you. However, his gaze didn’t stay on the field for long. He looked over at you and felt his breath hitch in his throat. The golden sunlight on your S/C skin and H/C hair, the look in your eyes as you admired the flowers, and the soft, dreamy smile that you had. He couldn’t help but think that you were beautiful- no- ethereal. And there he was, admiring you again. 

"Yeah.. Let’s go in it!" You grabbed his wrist again and dragged him into the field with you, laughing.

"Eh- But what if we get in trouble out here??"

"We’ll be fine, Koushi, come play with me!" You pulled him towards you and grabbed both of his wrists, spinning him around and laughing. Another breeze blew past the two of you. Your hair flowed in the wind, and petals and pollen almost seemed to swirl around you two as you danced around- It felt surreal, dancing in a field of yellow flowers, the sunset skies above you, and you had your closest friend right there with you. You were so lost in the moment, you and Koushi laughing and spinning around in the field, until you felt yourself trip over your own ankle and begin to fall backwards. You had still been gripping tightly onto Koushi’s wrists, and you accidentally pulled him towards you as you fell. "Uwah-"

It all happened in a second. You toppled backwards and fell to the ground, and Koushi had fallen with you. It was only until you both were on the ground that you realized you had shut your eyes. You opened them, only to find yourself staring into Koushi’s amber-colored eyes, which were wide in surprise. His cheeks were a bit rosy, and his lips were parted. And then you realized another thing. Koushi was practically straddling you, and his hands were at either side of your face. "Y-Y/N, I’m sorr-"

You cut him off with your laughter. "I’m- such a klutz- aren’t I?" You asked through your laughs, not minding that Koushi was basically on top of you. You had known him for years, so you trusted that he wouldn’t do anything to you. "Anyways- We should probably get back to everyone else so that they don’t worry." You propped yourself back up, still laughing, and then you looked at Koushi.. And then you realized how close the two of you were to each other. His hands were now by your sides, you were gazing into each other’s eyes, and your faces were only a few centimeters apart. You felt your cheeks warm up a bit. "O-Oh."

As if he had snapped back into reality, Koushi blinked and immediately pulled his hands away, blushing harder. "Ah- I’m sorry, Y/N, I just- I just didn’t want to straight up fall on top of you, and I-"

"It’s okay.. I’m okay," You murmured. You felt a bit lightheaded. Did you hit it on the ground too hard or something? Maybe you needed to see a nurse. A breeze blew past you and Koushi once more, and petals blew up into the air.

For some reason..

You really wanted to kiss him, right there, at that very moment. 

You reached your hand up and cupped his cheek. Your gaze went to the beauty mark under his eye, and you ran your thumb over it.

"Y/N..?"

Your heart skipped a beat when you heard him say your name. "I-I’m sorry, I’m acting weird- I must have hit my head or something." You pulled your hand away from his face, but he caught your wrist and guided your hand back by his cheek, then he leaned his head against your palm. Heat rose to your cheeks again. What are we doing? "Koushi.." 

His heart skipped a beat when he heard you say his name, and little did you know, he was probably feeling the exact same way as you. He couldn’t stop himself, and he didn’t want to stop himself. It just felt so natural.. him being here with you right now, alone. "Y/N.. I..”

“I think I’m in love with you."

Once he uttered those seven words, it was as if everything around him had changed- It made sense now, why he loved teasing you so much, why he weirdly felt jealous whenever he saw you talk to one of the other boys in the volleyball club, why from the very beginning he knew he never wanted to lose you, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you.

He fell in love with you. It may not have been love at first sight, but there was something there, something that made him want to be with you forever, and it became love. 

You were at a loss for words. Koushi was in love with you? How didn't you notice after all these years? Wait- When did he even fall in love with you in the first place? Was it when you two first met? Was it just now? Was it before you even met? Unfortunately, the grey-haired boy didn’t know either, as he might have been in a bit of denial about his feelings at one point during your friendship. But.. Did you love him back?

Yes, yes, your heart screamed yes over and over again, but you didn't know what to say. It was as if the words themselves were caught in your throat. Yes, you loved him ever since that day in junior high where he told you something you had never forgotten. It all made sense now. 

"Y/N, I'm going to do my very best out there, and one day I'll make you the proudest you've ever been, okay?" Koushi smiled at you, then turned back towards the volleyball court. "One day, I'm going to play so well, you'll never forget it, ever. I want to make you proud of me, Y/N."

You smiled softly at Koushi, the very Koushi right in front of you at this very moment, the Koushi that had confessed his love for you, that you knew was waiting for your response. You were ready, now. You pulled him a bit closer, causing your faces to only be a couple centimeters apart, and it was as if your body moved on its own at that point. You broke the space that was between you two and pulled Koushi into a kiss. It was a gentle kiss, and you felt Koushi’s arms wrap around your waist and pull you closer to him. You loved it. The kiss only lasted for a few more seconds before you pulled away, smiling at him again.

"I'm in love with you too, Koushi Sugawara."

┈     ┈     ┈

"DAICHI!! I FOUND THEM!!" 

You whipped your head around only to see Nishinoya and Asahi, and Daichi had been running up to join them. You and Koushi shot each other panicked looks, and you immediately pulled your hands away from each other, moving at least a meter away from each other. 

"What the hell are you two doing out here?!" Daichi yelled, and low and behold, he was angry. 

"Ah- Um. I.. I got.. Lost..?" You explained in a pathetic tone, your voice growing smaller by the second. "And.. Koushi.. Came to.. FInd me?"

"Then what are you doing in a field of flowers? How could you possibly get lost out here-" "Uhm.."

Koushi laughed and stood up, brushing off his jacket. He held his hand out to you and you took it, allowing him to help you stand up. As you brushed petals and pollen off of your jacket, you felt Koushi gently pull something out of your hair. It was probably a petal or something, and you didn’t mind it. But.. You two basically confessed to each other. And you didn’t get the chance to say anything else about it. Was everything going to be awkward now?

After that, you headed back to the high school with Nishinoya, Asahi, Daichi, and Koushi (everyone else except for Kiyoko seemed worried sick- you laughed when she told you she wasn’t surprised that you wandered off again) and ended up heading home. 

While you were laying on your bed, scrolling through Instagram, a notification from Koushi popped up on your screen. You opened the message. 

< Let’s go on a date on Saturday. >

And, in conclusion, the date was a success, since Koushi decided to be the sweetheart he always is and bring you to your favourite cafe. Not only did he do that- He did another thing you will never forget. 

He bought you a bouquet of the same yellow flowers you saw in the field where you two confessed to each other.

And ever since that day, you had a loving, adorable dork of a boyfriend named Koushi Sugawara. 

[duhragonball]

‘21

Amidst all the popular hype for seeing the end of 2020, it didn’t hit me until about lunchtime what the real highlight is that I’ve been waiting for: For the first time since 1999, the year finally ends in “numberty-number” again.    It low-key irritated me that we had to call it “two thousand three” and I was relieved when “twenty-thirteen” caught on, but it still wasn’t right because it was too short, and now we’re back in the sweet spot, and I should be safely dead by 2100, so that’s one less thing I gotta deal with.

Really, even “numberty hundred” rings true to me.    “Nineteen hundred” sounds like a year.    “Twenty-one-oh-six” sounds like a futur-y year, which is even cooler.   So did “Two thousand five”, until I was actually living in it, and it sounds even worse now that it was a long time ago and adults will talk about their childhood happening in that year.    Daniel Witwicky would be old enough to get married and grow a fancier beard than me.    That’s nuts.    My point is that, honestly, it’s the year 3000-3019 that I have to worry about, so if I ever decide to go vampire, those will be the years I hide in the ocean or force society to reset the calendar, whichever’s easier.  

I spent New Year’s Eve finishing Superliminal, which I bought on Steam after I watched Vegeta play it on YouTube.  It has a similar look and feel to the Stanley Parable, so if you liked one you’d probably enjoy the other, although Superliminal has a different theme.  I kept hoping I’d find some secret passage that I wasn’t supposed to take, and a narrator would scold me for finding the “Chickenbutt Ending”, but it doesn’t work that way.    Superliminal’s all about puzzles and awesome visuals, but it does have the same soothing design aesthetics as TSP.   Honestly, I enjoyed just wandering around in Stanley’s office, and Superliminal does the same thing with a hotel and several other settings.   It’s nice.

This got me thinking about how I kind of did everything there was to do in The Stanley Parable, and I sort of wished they would add new stuff to the game, but I’m not sure there would be much point to that.    I could play the older version, but it presents the same message, just with different assets.   The Boss’s Office would look different, but it’d be the same game.   And this got me thinking about various “secret chapters” in pop culture.  Secrets behind the cut.

I first heard about this idea in the 2000′s, when fans invented this notion that there was a secret chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.    I read a website that tried to explain the concept, and of course it lauded J.K. Rowling with all this gushing praise for working an Easter egg into the book, a literary work of “well, magic.”  

That pretty well sums up my distaste for Harry Potter, by the way.    These days, JKR has thoroughly crapped all over her reputation and legacy, but in the 2000′s it felt like half the planet was in a mad rush to canonize her as a writing goddess, to the point where fans were congratulating her for writing secret chapters that didn’t actually exist.   The idea was based on lore from the books about Neville Longbottom’s parents.    They were patients in a mental hospital, and he’d go to visit them, and they would give him bubble gum wrappers, intended to demonstrate how far remove they’ve become from reality.   The secret chapter lies in those wrappers, which all read “Droobles Best Blowing Gum” or some such.    What if Neville’s parents were only pretending to be mentally ill, so as to throw off their enemies?   Naturally, they would want to stay in contact with their son, so the bubble gum wrappers would have to contain coded messages.    Said code involves unscrambling the letters on the wrappers to make new words, like “goblin” or “sword” or “Muggle” or “Dumbledore”.    The problem is that you can also use it to make other words like “booger” or “drool” or “booobbiess.”   Play with it enough, and you can make the code say anything you want it to say, which means it’s no code at all.   

But the idea was that the not-yet-published sixth HP book would reveal all of this gum wrapper nonsense, and Neville would decode the messages and discover all of his parents’ super-cool adventures.   I’m not sure why we needed a secret chapter if Book 6 was going to explain all of this anyway in several not-secret chapters, but that was the whole point.   Fans didn’t have Book 6 yet, and they were so desperate to read it that they started trying to extrapolate what would happen next based on “clues” from the previous five.    That’s like trying to figure out what Majin Buu looks like by watching the Androids Saga.   I guess some wiseguy would have guessed that he’d resemble #19, but that’d just be blind luck.  

And when you get down to it, this whole secret chapter business is really just a conspiracy.   This is literally how Qanon works.   Some anonymous jackass posted vague “hints” on an imageboard, and people went goofy trying to interpret them and figure out what would happen in the future.   They call it “research” because they spend a ton of time on this, but there’s no basis to any of it.    It took me a few minutes to figure out that you can spell “Muggle” with the words in “Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum”, but that’s not research and it doesn’t prove anything.   But all these guys keep looking for “Hilary Clinton goes to jail next week” and lo and behold that’s all they ever find.   

In the same vein, the gum wrapper thing was really a complaint disguised as a conspiracy, disguised as a “magical secret chapter”.   At least a few fans wanted to see more Neville in their Harry Potter books, they wanted Neville’s parents, or someone like them, to have cool spy adventures or whatever else.   The point is, they clearly weren’t getting what they wanted out of the printed works, but they didn’t want to turn against their Dear Beloved Author, so they started casting about for an alternative reality, one where J.K. Rowling wrote a cooler story and hid it in the pages of the one that actually went to press.    So instead of just saying “Hey, Order of the Phoenix was kind of a letdown, I hope there’s more ninjas in the next book,” they said “Rowling is a genius because I wanted ninjas and she’s definitely going to give them to me, I have the gum wrappers to prove it.”

The same thing happened all over again when the BBC Sherlock show took a turn for the nonsensical.    I don’t know from BBC Sherlock, but I watched the fascinating video critique by Hbomberguy, and it sounds like the show did tons of plot twists until it stopped making sense altogether in the fourth season.    If you skip to 1:09:00 in the video, you’ll hear about fan theories that suggested that season four was supposed to be crappy, as part of a secret meta-narrative plan that would be paid off in a secret, unannounced episode that would not only explain everything, but retroactively justify the crappy episodes that came before.    But it’s been a few years and it never came to pass, so I think we can call this myth busted. 

Most recently, I think we’ve all seen a lot of talk about the final season of Supernatural, where I guess Destiel sort of became canon but only one guy does the love confession and the other doesn’t respond.   But I guess he does say “I love you too”  in the Spanish dub, which means the English language version was edited for whatever reason.    It’s not exactly a secret episode, but the implication is that there’s more to this than what made it to the screen.    So the questions turn to what the screenplay said, what the writers and actors wanted to do, etc. etc.    My general impression is that SPN fans are a bit more used to crushing disappointment, so they’re not quite as delusional about this show being unquestionable genius, like Sherlock and Harry Potter.     Maybe this is an Anglophile thing?   Like, if you suck at something with a British accent, people will accept it more unconditionally?   

I had seen something on Twitter about how there should have been a secret Seinfeld episode in the 90′s.    Someone suggested it at the time, they tape a whole episode, then wait until 2020 to air it, because by then it would be worth a fortune.    But they didn’t do it, because it costs a lot of money to make a TV episode, and if you don’t air the show right away, you aren’t making that money back any time soon.    Yeah, you might recoup a fortune someday, but Seinfeld was making a ton of money then.    It exposes the fannish nature of the idea.    A fan would love to discover a cool secret chapter, but a content creator isn’t necessarily keen on making a cool thing and then hiding it where few people would find it.  

I thought about doing this myself recently.   Maybe Supernatural gave me the bug, but I thought “I’m writing this big-ass story, so what if I wrote me a secret chapter for it?   Wouldn’t that be cool?”     But no, it wouldn’t be cool, because it’d be the same work as writing a regular chapter, and the same stress I feel when I hold off on publishing it.    Except I’d just never publish it, I’d put it in some secret hole on the internet and hope that some superfan who might not even exist can decode whatever clues I leave.  

I mean, it’d be awesome if it got discovered and everyone loved it.    “Hey, I found this hidden chapter!   Mike’s done it again!”   And I could bask in the glory.   But what if no one finds it?  Then I just wasted my time, right?   I want people to read my work.   My monkey brain needs the sweet, sweet validation of those kudos and comments, folks.   Once I realized that, I understood why no one else would want to do a secret chapter either.    Easter eggs are one thing, but the bigger bonus features they put on DVDs were pretty easy to find, and with good reason.

I think that’s what made the Stanley Parable so appealing to play, because it teases you with the idea that you can “break” the game and find some extra content that you weren’t supposed to see, but as you go exploring all those hidden areas, it gradually becomes clear that this is just part of the game; you were meant to find all these things, and that’s why they were put here.      It’s hidden, but he secret aspect of it is just pretend.   

I suppose that what I like about games like TSP and Superliminal is the illusion of secrets more than the secrets themselves.    I like roaming through the hallways, having no idea what I might find ahead.    I kind of wish I could open all the doors, and not just the ones the game designers put stuff behind, but the reality is that there’s nothing on the other side.    I used a cheat code once  to explore the unused doors in TSP and it’s just a bright white field on the other side.   Interesting to look at, but not much of a reveal.   Honestly, the doors themselves are more appealing than anything that could lay behind them.  

And that’s probably what makes secrets so fun.   They could be almost anything, but once you open the present, the number of possibilities drops to one.   If they had ever made that Secret BBC Sherlock Episode, I doubt it would have lived up to expectations, but fans could amuse themselves by imagining what could have been in it.    In the end, though, things usually don’t justify the hype.  For every Undertaker debut at Survivor Series 1990, there’s a Gobbledygooker debut at Survivor Series 1990.   It’s impossible to manufacture a secret with a guaranteed payoff.