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leiawritesstories · 3 years ago

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Speak To My Heart

Rowaelin Month, Day 15: A bad day

Word count: 3422

Warnings: language, bit of depression, fighting. In short, there is angst in this fic. Hope the ending makes up for the rest.

Linguistics and foreign languages are two of my personal passions, so please bear with the bits of language talk that I couldn’t resist including. Brief word of clarification: a lot of expressions we use in English either translate into something extremely rude or don’t make sense in other languages. Translation companies have been trying for quite some time to make sure they don’t accidentally send a client a translated instruction manual that reads “fuck your mother” instead of “for questions, contact your local energy department.” All right I’ll get off my soapbox. :)

The phrases in foreign languages, marked with *, are translated into English at the end. Enjoy!

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Rowan’s day had been shit. The second he walked through the door, he’d been bombarded with an endless slew of crash reports, malfunctioning equipment, faulty passwords, and best of all, having to rewrite half the security firewalls because one of the rash young idiots in his department couldn’t be bothered to check his work for errors before sending it to management. And management thought it was the department boss’s job to fix all of his employees’ fuckups.

He hated IT.

Even more so since being promoted to department chair.

All he wanted to do was the fun stuff--program design and development, fixing the flaws in his own designs, and of course making those who tried to break into his company’s systems regret their pitiful existence. But Cadre Tech’s bitch of a CEO refused to let the best software engineer on her staff actually do his job.

Most days, he could cope with the pile of useless shit she directed to his desk. Most days. Today was not one of those days. Probably because on top of all the meaningless tasks he’d had to field, he was also forced to sit through one of Maeve’s bullshit “department head strategy sessions,” where every department chair had to pretend they gave a single shit about any word coming from their CEO’s garishly red, pinched mouth.

As if she knew anything her staff actually did.

Thanks to the compulsory meeting, Rowan was stuck in his office at nearly ten o’clock, painstakingly combing through the final draft of the update to CT’s translation program. This program had shot the company to fame and fortune, or at least insane stock value. “A Google Translate that actually translates,” their marketing department called it, and by the gods, that stupid slogan worked. And made sense. Rowan knew the program was just as good as it claimed to be.

He’d put in the hours, alongside a team of linguists, software engineers, designers, and people fluent in at least one other language. Frequent were the sessions where the project whiteboard turned into a jumble of words in twenty or more languages, Spanish alongside Arabic next to a column of simplified Japanese characters spilling over into a row of Cyrillic lettering. Rowan himself spoke German and some Spanish, but even he was lost amid the cacophony of eighteen different people switching from language to language, trying to figure out how idiomatic expressions translated from one language to another and what words should never, ever be placed together.

It took the team well over a year of bickering, or as they called it, friendly linguistic disagreements, to make it from loosely mapped concept to functioning program. By the time it hit the market three years ago, the software had been so well promoted that companies all over the world snapped up their chance to finally communicate properly with the client they’d offended years ago with a bad translation.

At launch, of course, Maeve stood in front of a sea of shouting reporters brandishing microphones, smiling her serpentine smile, and proceeded to thank the creative team for all their “contributions” before taking all the credit herself.

Said creative team went to the bar that had become their usual gathering spot that night to get drunk and shit-talk their horrible boss, not necessarily in that order.

His favorite memory of that night was hearing the chief linguist, an outside contract with multiple advanced degrees who spoke eight separate languages besides English fluently, refer to Maeve as “quella puttana rugosa che non riusciva a convincere un cazzo a venire a dieci metri da lei se si vestiva da figa.*” The Italian speakers on the team were crying with laughter, and so was everyone else, once she translated it.

And then she downed another shot of vodka and hissed something that sounded like “sukya bliyad, no puedo mich betrinken con esta ordures.**” When everyone blinked in confusion, she sighed and relayed the sentiment in English.

Nobody had laughed as hard as Rowan. Aelin Galathynius just had that effect on him.

She brightened his darkest days.

But she couldn’t ease the strain of today.

And it was all his fault.

Aelin glanced up at the clock on her wall and cursed in three different languages when she saw that it was nearly eleven. Without meaning to, she’d spent all afternoon and evening writing lesson notes on idiomatic expressions. She really couldn’t help herself once she got into the topic; it was her pet project.

And the subject of one of her dissertations. Yes, she had multiple.

She’d worked her ass off for years to get through college, then through graduate and doctoral work while teaching at universities to offset costs, then earned a full-time teaching position at one of the top-ranked universities in the world. She got to teach linguistics, her lifetime love, and give guest lectures at other universities and at conferences, teaching people all over the world about the complexities and interrelatedness of language. Hell, she spoke ten; she’d be qualified to speak on linguistic relationships by virtue of that alone.

Gods, she was the chief linguist behind the most successful translation software ever produced. Even if the bitch who owned the rights to said software had literally threatened to sue over ownership rights if any of the people who’d poured their figurative blood and sweat and literal tears into building the program tried to claim a small piece of the credit each of them so richly deserved.

That software and her role in its creation--even though Maeve Ond had claimed the public credit, the creative team spoke at interviews and made news features for their work in Cadre Tech’s massive success--had solidified her credentials as a professor of linguistics, had boosted her into her lecturer spot.

Last year, her university granted her tenure.

She should have been overjoyed, and she was, but not as much as earning tenure deserved.

Because there was nobody to share her joy.

Three years ago, in the wake of CT’s overnight jump to worldwide fame, Aelin fled a love she did not and never would deserve.

She told herself she would never look back. But she did. Almost every day, she looked back at the life she’d shared with Rowan and tried to convince herself that she did the right thing.

Try as she might, she could never silence the whisper that echoed always in her mind.

“You broke both of your hearts”

Someday, she told herself, someday she would be back in Doranelle. Someday, she would have a chance to apologize. Someday, maybe she could fix the Rowan-shaped chasm that gaped wide in her heart.

Yet here she was, sitting in a very nicely appointed hotel room in the university district of Doranelle, typing furiously away as if burying herself in notes and prep for tomorrow’s lecture could make the urge to contact Rowan disappear.

Three years earlier. Doranelle.

“Knock, knock.”

Rowan’s head jerked up from where it had most definitely not been slumped on his desk. “Wha--Oh. Hi, Aelin.”

“You’re falling asleep, buzzard, let’s go home.” He heard laughter in her soft voice.

“As if you won’t just get home and start cross-checking every single one of the phrases on your ‘potential problem’ list.”

She chuckled, walking over to him. “Fine. We’re both perfectionist work whores. Doesn’t mean we don’t need sleep.”

“I know you too well to believe you’re actually going to sleep.”

“All right, you win. Come home now, I’ll make some food, and you can put me to bed.” She winked saucily at him, leaving very little doubt what putting her to bed would entail, and he was up out of his chair in seconds.

“Hand over your computer, Fireheart,” he grinned as they walked into the small house they shared on the outskirts of the city.

“What?”

“Your computer, love. I’m leaving both of our work bags on the shelf by the front door so we can actually catch some rest tonight.” He pressed a finger to her mouth to silence her protests. “Uh-uh, Ae, we have interviews tomorrow and I won’t let the genius behind this program’s flawless word-to-word be anything but well-rested.”

She sighed, but he saw the love in her eyes. “Here, then, my dear brilliant software engineer. Leave your notebook, too, because I know if it’s anywhere near you, you’ll be up at three in the morning scribbling blocks of gibberish and picking apart your faultless code until you go insane.”

Both of their work satisfactorily put aside, Aelin made good on her promise to cook Rowan dinner.

And then he made very good on his promise to put her to bed.

The next morning, they were both awake with the sunrise, content to lay curled in each other’s arms as the morning light spread across their room.

Rowan drifted back into sleep, waking for good when he caught a whiff of coffee from the kitchen’s direction.

“Morning, you sleepy buzzard,” Aelin grinned, sipping from her mug.

Rowan dropped a kiss on her head as he reached for his mug. He took a long drink, sighing as the milky, sweetened caffeine hit his mouth.

“I will never understand how you drink your coffee black, Fireheart.”

“Not all of us need to sweeten the hell out of coffee to drink it, Ro. Maybe if you can’t handle the real thing, you should go back to your pretty little cups of crappy cafe tea.”

“Mention my pretty little teacups again, Ae…”

She giggled. “You be quiet and drink your coffee-flavored milk, my love. We both know you’re impossibly grumpy until you have caffeine in your veins.”

He grumbled something unintelligible as he drank his coffee.

They were nearly late to work that morning, even having planned an extra half hour to arrive, thanks to Aelin wearing what Rowan dubbed her “sexy professor suit.” She fixed the pins in her French twist in the car, making herself once again a portrait of professionalism, and slipped Rowan’s hand from her leg.

“Two hands on the wheel, Whitethorn.”

He pouted. “But I’m a safe driver and I want to hold your hand.”

“My hands are over here, love, not down by my skirt.”

When he pulled into his spot, Aelin closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath.

“You good, Fireheart?”

Gods, she loved hearing him call her that. “Yeah. I just…needed a moment to settle myself. To tell myself the cameras aren’t here to tear apart what I say.”

Rowan wrapped his hands around hers. “Dr. Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the bland reporters are here to stand in awe of your expertise. Not a single word you say will come across as anything but brilliant and beautifully said.”

She squeezed his hands, her usual confidence returning. “I love you, buzzard.”

“I love you too, Fireheart. Let’s go talk about our amazing achievement.”

The day sped by in a blur of reporters, interviewers, teleprompters, practiced speeches, lights, cameras, and crew. When the last bleached-blonde anchor of the last interview of the day cut her crew’s cameras, Aelin flopped against her second-in-linguistic-command, Dr. Nehemia Ytger, the expert on ethnic African languages.

“If I never see a news crew again, it’ll be too soon,” she sighed. “I’m beat.”

Nehemia snickered. “But we’re done talking about how proud we are that Maeve and her marvelous company have done such a grand service to the world.”

Aelin snorted softly. “Right. And now we servicepeople want to go home and take off our heels.”

“Amen to that.”

As the team filed out of the studio, Rowan made his way over to Aelin. “Holding up?”

“Not anymore,” she said, leaning casually into his side. “My heels are killing me, there’s a hairpin stabbing into my scalp, and I really, really need to pee.”

Rowan laughed, deep and husky. “Let’s get you home, then.”

“I’m stopping in the bathroom first.”

Just before she left the ladies’ room, Aelin heard voices in the break area. Familiar voices--Rowan’s, Maeve’s, and the snippy, borderline whiny tones of Remelle Frelau, who worked in the marketing department and had a hell of a boner for Rowan.

“--looking at revenue over--” Maeve’s voice cut out, but from the gasps of the other two, the revenue was through the roof.

“And it’s all thanks to this genius here,” drawled Remelle, who if Aelin had her guess was probably clinging onto Rowan like a platinum-blonde leech.

“Ms. Frelau, this was the product of a team. No single person could possibly have made it happen alone.”

“Oh, call me Remelle, or even better Remy. And you’re the team leader, so you practically did create it by yourself.”

Aelin snickered to herself. Vapid bitch had no idea what she was saying.

“That’s not how teams work, Ms. Frelau. We wouldn’t be here without Dr. Galathynius and Dr. Ytger’s language expertise, not to mention the creative genius of the engineers, graphic designers, linguists, and programmers.”

“Ms. Frelau, though her judgment is clearly biased, has a point, Mr. Whitethorn,” Mave said. “You demonstrated remarkable collaborative leadership qualities throughout this project, and I fully expect that you will continue to do so.” Maeve’s heels clicked away. Rowan’s voice followed her.

“Thank you, Ms. Ond, but I have to credit Dr. Galathynius--”

“Will you stop kissing that woman’s ass?” snorted Remelle. “Gods, she’s not worth your time or your praise; all she does is translate words into different languages and you idiots drool over that like it means anything.”

Aelin jerked like she’d been slapped. She knew Remelle was a self-centered, shallow, spiteful bitch, but she hadn’t known she would do this.

“--did more for this project than you and your useless whiteboard of catchphrases,” growled Rowan.

“I don’t care what she ‘did for the project,’ Rowan, she’s never going to be good enough for you.”

“Thank you for caring about my welfare, Frelau, now please kindly fuck off.”

Aelin chose that moment to saunter out of the bathroom and head straight for Rowan, her face showing no hint of having heard that conversation. She did note with satisfaction Remelle’s vain attempt to march out of the room with some semblance of dignity. Too bad her heel caught on the seam of the hallway carpet and the break room’s tile flooring and she had to grab the doorframe to keep from collapsing.

“You’re awfully quiet, Aelin.”

“Just thinking. Processing, really. It’s been a hell of a day.”

Rowan nodded. “I bet.”

“And hearing fucking Remelle rip into me for being useless…didn’t make it better.”

“Shit, you heard that?”

“Yeah. I heard that.” Her voice was hollow.

Rowan pulled into their driveway and shut off the engine. Reaching across the console, he cupped Aelin’s face in his hands. “Aelin. You are brilliant. You are terrifyingly smart. You are a force of nature. Nothing, nothing you will ever do is useless. Don’t let that jealous bitch make you think you are less than the perfect woman.”

She smiled tentatively at him. “She…she told me before that last interview that I could never be enough for you. Because you--because of Lyria.”

Rowan raked a hand through his hair. “Ae, can we talk about this inside?”

That night, he told her about his former fiancé, Lyria. He told her about their whirlwind romance, their youthful dreams. He told her about the horrific crash that stole away Lyria’s life. A drunk trucker, a narrow pass in the mountains. He showed her the box in which he kept all the memories of that life. He cried. Aelin cried. He curled against her, let her comfort him.

“Sometimes, I wish she was still here. She’d understand everything. She always did.”

Aelin had no response. She let Rowan fall asleep, his weight shifting off her and into his bed, and looked through the box. Everything she saw served as another reminder that this was the first woman he loved, the woman who understood everything.

She was worthy of him.

But was Aelin?

The more she looked at Rowan and Lyria’s happiness, the more the answer solidified.

No.

When Rowan woke up the next morning, Lyria’s box sat on Aelin’s side of the bed, a side that had not held Aelin.

He glanced out the window.

Her car was gone.

He got up and frantically paced through the house.

Everything she’d brought into his home was gone.

As was she.

Present day.

Rowan opened his front door mechanically, pulled off his shoes, dropped his work backpack on its shelf, and was halfway to his bedroom before he realized he’d just opened his front door. His front door that was always locked.

Someone was in his house.

Someone who either had a duplicate key or insanely good lockpicking skills.

Exactly one person owned a duplicate key to his house.

Aelin.

That’s impossible, she lives in Orynth, she can’t be here, he told the traitorous part of his brain that leapt with joy at seeing Aelin’s face again.

He turned around and made his way through the kitchen--nobody there--to the living room. He flicked on a lamp, casting a soft light around the room.

And nearly had a heart attack.

Aelin Galathynius sat on his couch.

For a moment, he just gawked at her. She looked so…different. Older. Gone was the infectious smile that had captured his heart. Dark shadows smeared under her eyes, testament both to the long hours she devoted to her work and to recent sleepless nights. She was twisting a ring on her right hand, a familiar sign of her nerves. From his angle, Rowan could see a hint of dark script on her wrist. A tattoo. The Aelin he knew didn’t have tattoos.

“I’m not a ghost.” Her voice, weary and hollow, broke the tense silence.

Rowan crossed the room, propped an arm on the fireplace. “Why?”

“Why am I here? Why did I leave? Why did I cut you out of my life?”

“Everything.” He couldn’t keep the waver from his voice, but his eyes burned into hers.

She took a steadying breath. “I’m here to apologize, first of all. I’m here to face what I ruined and to try and start mending it. I’m here to come to terms with everything I broke when I left three years ago.”

Whatever he’d expected her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.

“I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m sorry I left like that. I was…I was scared.”

“You can’t just run away from your fears, Aelin!” He couldn’t keep the frustration from his tone. “You can’t just abandon someone when you have a bad day!”

“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have left! I know I can’t run from my fears; I’ve spent the last three years trying and fucking failing to do that! But I don’t know what else to do.”

“Saying something about it would have been a good first step.”

“I’m bad at emotions, Rowan. I tried. It wasn’t enough.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse.”

Aelin flicked a tear from her face. “I know.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. I should never have left. I let some stupid comment root into my head and make me doubt myself. I made myself believe I would never be good enough for you. I left you. I loved you, and I still left you. I still love you, even though I’ve tried to suppress it. I can never make up for that. I…I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve regretted that horrible decision all these years. I want you to be happy, Rowan, I--”

“How am I supposed to be happy without a source?” He’d dropped onto the couch, close enough to touch her but still keeping his distance.

“What?”

“You didn’t just take yourself away, Aelin. You were my happiness. I’ve spent three fucking years trying to make myself believe I’m better without you in my life, and I can’t.”

She was unabashedly crying by that point. “What do you want me to do? How can I make up for abandoning you?”

“Stay.”

Her gaze locked onto his, both of their eyes pooling with tears.

“Stay with me, Fireheart.”

“But--”

“I never stopped loving you either.”

A choked sob ripped out of Aelin. Rowan couldn’t hold himself in check any longer; he reached out and tugged her gently into his arms. To his shock, she didn’t resist, burying her face into his chest as sobs shook her shoulders. When she calmed, he tilted her chin up.

“Will you stay, Aelin?”

“Yes. Even though I will never deserve your forgiveness, yes.”

Translations:

* = “that pinched old whore who couldn’t convince a dick to come within ten metres of her if she dressed up provocatively” (Italian)

** = loosely translated as “Fucking hell, I can’t get drunk off this garbage.” (in order, Russian (badly phonetically spelled out because Rowan POV), Spanish, German, Spanish again, French) (the Russian doesn’t directly translate, so it could mean several different variations of expletive)

Might there be a second part? Perhaps......

#my writing #rowaelin month #aaaaaangst

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elysiashelby · 5 years ago

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In Another World - T. Shelby Imagine Ch. 3.3

Paring: (Eventual) Thomas Shelby x Aliena Welsh (OC)

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Word Count: 4, 479

WARNINGS: Cursing

Summary: Aliena Welsh has been living in the universe of the show Peaky Blinders for 7 months now. Tommy and Aliena have worked out a bargain on how he should be dealing with his PTSD. Will it help him? Or will it just make everything awkward? Also, she travels to London with Ada, but ends up making a new acquaintance.

MASTERLIST CHAPTER 3.2 CHAPTER 4

A/N: This chapter and 3.2 are both considered extras. You can move onto chapter 4 without really reading them. I honestly wrote chapter 4 before 3.2 and 3.3. So, that will explain why Ch. 4 is a little different. THANKS FOR READING!

“Ali, wake up.”

Instantly, me eyes opened and Tommy was there towering over me with his hand on me shoulder.

“What?” I asked, kind of annoyed.

“Get in the bed. You have about 30 more minutes before you need to get up, all right?”

All I heard was get in the bed.

Say no more, sir, I will!

With me feet, I launched meself into his bed and pulled the covers over me body. Me left arm and neck ached like a mother, but I was determined to go back to sleep.

Through squinted eyes, I watched him leave and once he did, I closed me eyes.

When me eyes opened again, I checked the clock. I only had a minute left to myself. I sighed tiredly. I ruffled the front of me hair, playing with it a little bit then hauled myself up. I made up Tommy’s bed, then left.

I opened the door to me room, went in, and immediately walked to the mirror. I looked at me bruises. There was literally like no change. I sucked on me teeth before looking away.

‘What the kinel am I going to do now?’

I didn’t have another turtleneck dress. I huffed while shuffling through me clothes. There was absolutely nothing in me closet that would cover me neck. I picked a dress that had like a “mid-necklike.” It didn’t cover it fully, but it got most of it.

I got down on me knees, laid flat on the ground, and then pulled out me suitcases from under the bed. I opened them both up. I rummaged to find anything that resembled scarfs, and Lady Luck was on me side today ‘cause I found a couple!

I smiled in delight and chose the one that went best with me pale pink dress. I put it on, put back all the items I took out, and slid them underneath me bed. I got up only to take off the scarf because I had to do me hair.

Once I was done, I went downstairs. Polly was there, drinking her morning tea.

“G’morning, Pol.” I said while aiming for the stove.

“Mornin’, Ali.” Polly replied, “Today, I need you to go to get groceries.”

I nodded, but then it struck me. Lizzie’s been getting the groceries for John. I hummed while looking at Pol.

I started. “So, Polly about John’s groceries...?”

“Yes?”

“Last time I got them, the house was already packed.”

“What?” She asked loudly. I heard her cup clink on the table.

“Yeah. I think John found ‘imself a woman.”

“No shit!” Polly huffed before laughing. “Finally! I mean those kids of his have been needing a mother, Ali. They can’t have just you. Besides, you’re the nanny. Oh, I hope it’s someone who won’t break his heart. Did you see her?”

I couldn’t exactly lie to her outright. I mean this woman can tell when Tommy is lying, you think I’m gonna be the exception? Nah.

I nodded. “She had short black hair and was tall. Not taller than ‘im, but way taller than me. Like way taller.”

I heard her light a match then a puff. She chuckled. “Aliena, sorry to break it to you, but everyone is taller than you. Finn will end up passing you in a year!”

Oh, did that make her laugh!

I looked at her from the corner of me eye and made a “tch” sound.

She walked over to me with her arms open, so she could hug me. “Oh, I’m sorry. But you have to admit it. How short are you again?”

“5 feet.” I grumbled.

“What-? What was that?”

“5 feet.” I said clearer this time, but still soft.

Pol stepped away from me and patted my head.

“Ali, you’re only 5 feet?” Ada yelled while coming into the room.

I groaned loudly. I whispered to myself, “For fuck’s sake!”

“Yep, I’m only 5 feet and a quarter of an inch.” I said loudly.

A chair scraped against the floor. “Huh, how about that! I thought that you had to have been, what, 5’2. But, 5 feet, wow!”

“Yeah, shut it.”

Ada had a smug smile. I put her food down in front of her and then Polly’s. I had to finish making me own scran. Ada and Polly were talking. I was just swaying while cooking.

“Aliena, how would you like to have the day off?” Polly asked.

I twirled ‘round to face her. “Really?” The excitement practically dripped from me voice.

“Yeah. You and Ada should go into the city. Have a girls day! I’ll take care of the kids today.”

Me gaze shifted to Ada. Me excitement gone. She avoided me eyes. I sighed. “Okay, then! Thanks so much, Polly!”

I was halfway done with me scran when Polly got up and put her dishes in the sink. She walked over to the both of us and rubbed our shoulders before heading off.

I waited ‘til I heard the door slammed shut and then kicked Ada under the table.

“Ow!”

“What the hell are you roping me into, Ada?” It’s hard to shout and whisper at the same time! She wouldn’t look at me. “Is this about Freddie?”

Her eyes practically bulged out of her head. I poked the inside of me cheek with me tongue, folded me arms, and leaned back against me chair.

“Fuck, Ada! What do you need me for?”

“Pol has been watching me lately! She’s not falling for my stories, so I figured I’d start telling her that I want to spend days off with you. And hey, you get paid leave!” She smiled before getting up and putting her dishes in the sink. “C’mon. I’ll be with you ‘till the afternoon.”

I smoothed out me forehead, resting me elbows on the table.

I muttered. “You’re lucky that I needed to go and buy some new clothes.” I stabbed the fork in me omelet.

Ada and I took a train to London. We looked ‘round a few stores, but we were talking so much that I kept forgetting to buy clothes. True to her word, Freddie came to pick her up after we ate lunch. I was left all alone after that, sitting at a table sipping on hot chocolate.

Yeah, don't care for coffee or tea. So, I opt for hot chocolate. Luckily, it was always cold here, so I get to feel validated!

After finishing me drink, I went back into some of the stores that Ada and I went into. I bought three new dresses that had a turtleneck. I also bought two regular dresses and a nightgown. I would have bought some undergarments, but they were just too different and difficult for me to like understand. They did have cup sizes and yeah! I'm not going to explain it. I'm gonna need Polly or Ada for that adventure.

To be frank, walking around with no supervision was terrifying and liberating at the same time. I was deathly afraid of the possibility of a man dragging me into an alleyway and mug me or... yeah. However, it was also one of me rare moments where I'm being independent.

I was in London on me bill!

I was walking around with me new threads when I was tapped on me shoulder.

"Excuse me, can you help me?" The girl said with an American accent. She was absolutely beautiful despite the fact she looked absolutely bladdered.

"Ye wha?" I slipped out.

"What?"

I shook me head and said. "Sorry, um, I said Pardon. What did you need?"

She chuckled. "Oh, okay! You know I've never heard that accent before. Where's it from?"

As I answered I started taking in her appearance with more detail.

She had dirty blonde hair. "Liverpool. It's Liverpudlian. I can do an American accent, if you can't understand me!"

She was at least 2 to 3 inches taller than me and her eyes were blue.

"Really! I mean you don't have to do it, but I'd love to hear it."

She was quite thin. Her breasts were large, probably bigger than mine. Her body shape might be a pear like mine or maybe an hourglass.

I started to talk with an American accent. "Um, I don't know what to say. So, I'll just say Hi and how are you?"

Her makeup was smeared. Her eyes resembled a raccoon's and her lipstick dragged from the corner of her lip to the middle of her cheek. She had her heels in one hand, leaving her barefoot. Her hair had previously been kept up, but it was now mostly undone.

She giggled. "Oh my god! It's so good! Have you ever been to America? Is that why you're so good at it?"

I nodded. My analysis was over. "I lived there practically my whole life. I learned how to do this to like blend in. Kids are pretty vicious."

"Ugh! Adults too! I always get shit just because I don't have an English accent. I mean I wasn't born here, what do you expect? My dad was born here, though. We came here after my mom died and then he became an MP. So, I'm basically stuck here with no real fucking friends!"

She hummed while picking at the dirt under her fingernails. Then, she clapped and snapped her fingers. "Right! Can you help me get to the Ritz Hotel?"

I laughed and nodded. "Yeah, I can help you. Follow me. You were going the wrong direction, love."

I heard her mutter, "Fuck."

We started walking to the Ritz.

"So, what's your name? I'm Cassiopeia Johnson. But everyone just calls me Cassie."

"Aliena Welsh. So far my nickname has been Ali."

"Did you have a different nickname?"

"A friend who I considered to be my best friend used to call me Rosie. She said she would know I was coming because I brought the scent of roses with me." I smiled at the thought. It was a true story. The girl who I considered to be my best friend back home gave me that nickname because I would always buy rose fragrant stuff.

"How come she still isn't your best friend? Did you guys have a fight?"

"No, actually. It was because I moved here. It was a sudden move. I didn't even get the chance to say goodbye to her." I pretended to be saddened as I looked down at me hands.

Cassie put a hand on me shoulder. "Why don't you send her a letter or something?"

I shook me head before meeting her concerned gaze. "She's off becoming a nurse. I don't want to interrupt her with my drama."

She hummed and removed her hand from me shoulder.

"So, how far are we exactly from the hotel?" Cassie asked me.

I hummed as I wondered. "I think about 20 blocks. That's about a mile, I think."

She groaned loudly. "Fuck! God, that lame party was not worth all this." Cassie rubbed her face with one hand.

I smiled at the sight.

"How old are you, Ali?"

"I'm 16. I'll be turning 17 in January."

"Oh, really! How nice. I'm 17 too! I'm gonna be 18 in February. When? What day were you born? Maybe we have the same zodiac sign!"

I chuckled at her peppy attitude, I just told her me age and she forgot within a split second. "January 24th."

"This can't be real. Mine's the 10th! We're both Aquariuses. This has to be fate or something!" She clasped her hands together as if she was gonna pray.

That's when I gave her a face. I haven’t been around this much energy in a while!

She saw and stopped. "Sorry. I had a lot to drink last night."

I shook my head. "No, you're fine. It's just been a while since I've been around someone so cheerful. And someone who is crazy about horoscopes and zodiac signs. I had another friend who was like that. She used to swear up and down that she was an Gemini even though she was actually a Aries. I think her zodiac sign was correct."

Cassie nodded and smiled. "So, do you live here in London?" Her tone was meek and she kept twisting her hands.

"No. I live in Small Heath, Birmingham."

"Oh…"

There was a slight silence after that.

"Well," Cassie said, "you know where I'm staying at, so maybe if you want to chat sometime? We could?" Her face was red.

I laughed. "Yeah, I'd love to hang out. I work almost all week, though, so that'll be hard."

"You have a job?" She asked, quite shocked might I add.

"Yeah. My parents are dead, so I have to fend for myself. My bosses gave me a room in their house."

"That's just-! Wow! You know I always thought about teaching kids, or working in a flower shop if I ever needed to work. What is it that you do?"

"I'm a nanny-slash-maid. I take care of one of my employer's kids. I make sure they are fed, clothed, bathed. I teach them how to read and write. Then, I make sure that all my employers are fed and that the house all of us live in is clean. I don't do all of the cleaning in the house in its entirety. I get help from my female boss. Her name's Polly. Yeah, she basically splits up the work for me." While talking, I was gesturing with me hands and nodding me head a lot.

"Are they nice?"

"Yeah. Of course, they are. They have to be nice, if they don't want spit in their food." I looked at her and stuck out me tongue. We both laughed.

Cassie grabbed me arm and linked them together.

When I finally managed to deliver her to the hotel, she offered me a ride home. I took her offer. I had to wait for her to get dressed properly, though.

"So, you live here by yourself?" I shouted since she was in the shower.

"Yeah! I come here really on the weekends, or when I don't want to be near my dad! But believe me, Angelica's room is so much bigger." Cassie shouted over the running water.

"Who's Angelica?"

"Angelica Sallow! She's the daughter of Earl William Sallow! She's also been my friend here since I arrived. She's a nice enough girl, to be completely honest, but I don't know. She's so stuck up. She always goes on and on about never getting married. Or, the man needs to realize that he's beneath her for the relationship to work. I swear I pity the poor soul who falls for her. And God, don't even get me started on her shadow!" Cassie walked out with a towel wrapped around her body and another wrapped her hair.

I was sitting on a lounge chair with me feet up. "Too late, love! You already started. Get on with it!"

Cassie walked to her closet. "The name is Christiana King. She is the granddaughter of a Viscount. Angelica and Christiana have been since childhood, and it's known among high society that wherever Angie goes Tina is not too far."

I made the word "Wow" with my lips, but didn't say anything.

"I know right." Cassie said while buttoning up her dress. "Sometimes, I get the feeling that they are more than just friends. If you get what I'm saying."

I instantly tensed up. The next thing she says will determine if I ghost her or not. "And so what if they were?"

She shrugged. "I think it's Tina that likes Angie. But Angie is straight, she's been with a guy or two in secret. Meanwhile, Tina has never been with one! Even if they wanted to be in a relationship, they probably never could. High Society is too strict about a woman's image for them not to be married off. Or, they’ll have to be married off for political gain."

She passed.

"That's true. Poor Tina, then."

"Yes, poor Tina. You know, I've talked more to you than anyone else these past few years. I mean it's so easy to open up to you."

I nodded as I had me head tipped back on the chair. "Well, it's easier for people to rant when it's to a stranger." No consqeunces, usually.

Cassie laughed. "Oh, come now! Don't say that! We're not strangers anymore. I've told you loads of things." She paused for a moment. "I know, it's because you haven't shared anything. How about you get something off your chest?"

I brought me head back up and faced her. I had to sit on me knees in the chair to look at her though.

We talked the whole walk too. I felt a real bond with her. I mean if we decide to stay friends, then she'll be me first one here.

"Alright!" I said. "Let's see… Oh, well I find one of my bosses attractive."

Cassie gasped. "No way!"

"Yep! Oh, Cassie, if you'd only seen him. He is so fit! His eyes are so dreamy and his cheekbones are so defined!"

"Aliena, how old is he?"

"He's 28. We're 12 years apart."

"Huh, not too bad. By my luck, I'll never meet a decent guy and will be married to a guy three times my age."

"Eee!" I exclaimed in disgust.

She gave me the same face.

"Well, are you gonna pursue him?" She asked while doing her makeup.

"I don’t want to make the first move. Plus, I'd doubt he'd even see me in that way. He's not exactly an open book, ya know. So, you have to be slow and patient with him. He's barely let me in like a month ago and we've known each for seven months now. But you know what, that makes sense. I mean the man is 28 and if we did get chummy fast, that would've been weird, to say the least."

"That's true. But can't say it would be illegal. Age of consent is 16 here."

"Maybe so, but it goes against a lot of social constructs and moral values and ethical principles of our modern society."

We both hummed.

"Would you mind being with a 28 year old?" I asked.

"Nope. I wouldn't even mind a 38 year old as long as he was good-looking and wealthy." She smiled at me through the mirror.

Me mouth fell open in shock. The corners of me mouth turned into a smile. "Cassie, you're my fucking soulmate!"

We started having a big 'ol laughing fit.

When we calmed down, I said. "But I'm still not going to do anything! I admit he's very attractive, but he is my boss. I need this job and helping him find happiness is completely fine with me."

"Aw, aren't you a saint!" Cassie exclaimed, quite sarcastically.

"Was that sarcasm, Cassie?"

She stuck her tongue out at me.

I scoffed playfully! “Oh, I don’t play with sarcasm!"

I leaped for her and she screamed. Let's just say the fight ended in a draw. Yeah, a nice tie!

When we finished, we went down and Cassie had her car running to take me home. I felt pity for the driver who was probably waiting for a good two hours.

'I've done this loads of times. I've relinquished all of me troubles and secrets to a person who claims they want to be me bestest of all best friends, only for us never to contact each other again. It's disappointing, but again- I'm used to it.'

I hopped out of her car and waved her goodbye.

"Next time, I won't go for the back of your knees!" Cassie yelled.

"Ta' even though we both know that's a cheap shot."

She stuck her tongue at me and I did the same. Then, she left and I watched. A weird pit in me stomach formed.

'It sucks to get used to something so sad. I really just wanted that movie trope kind of best friend, but I never had it before. I wanted Cassie to be it. But only time will tell.'

I sighed heavily, kicking a pebble before turning around and unlocking the door. I heard the sound of shoes against the floor, but I didn't pay attention to it.

“And where the fuck have you been?” Polly shouted.

Me eyes almost came out of me head. She was yelling at me.

“Wha-?”

“Do you realize what time it is? Do you?”

“I, uh. Innit about 8?”

“It’s 10 pm, Aliena. 10 pm!”

I pursed me lips while looking down at me shoes. “Oh…” I let out a nervous chuckle.

“Oh. All she says is ‘Oh’.”

Tommy cleared his throat. “Ali, Ada said she lost you while youse were shopping. What ‘appened?”

I looked at Ada. She was biting her nails with her gaze trained away from me.

The little-!

I sighed, tightly closing me eyes before making up at lie. “Yeah, something caught me eye at a different shop. I just went out of the shop we were in without even realizing it. When I went back, she was already gone. Then, there was this girl who needed help with directions and I helped her out and I made a friend. She gave me a ride home.” I was switching me weight on each leg, bouncing like a divvy.

Thomas sighed. A ciggie in his hands. “There you have it, Pol. She made a friend.”

The crowd dispersed while Polly walked over to me. She put her hands on me arms. “Never run off by yourself like that again. Understand me?” She said.

I nodded. “Never again.”

Polly pulled me into her arms and hugged me.

“Go on. Go to bed.” She pushed me towards the staircase while a hand flew to her mouth, covering it.

I did as she wanted.

I was just abar done brushing out the tangles in me hair when there was a knock on me door.

“Come in.” I said.

The door opened ‘n Tommy walked in. I gave him a tight lipped smile.

He cleared his throat. “Are we doing this therapy thing t’night, or?”

“Yeah. Yep.” I put down me hairbrush and started walking toward him.

Tommy curtly nodded, turned ‘round, and walked into his room.

I’m not going to lie. It was very awkward.

Very stiffy, he sat down on his bed while I stood there, kinda just watchin’. Then, he rolled over to his side and laid down.

Once he did, I found me same spot. I sat down at his bedside, me arms folded and resting on a sliver of space on the bed.

I barely opened me mouth to start talking when I was rudely interrupted.

“No. I don’t like this. Get on the bed. I can’t have you falling asleep there like last time.”

He grabbed me arms and started pulling me into the bed.

I reflexively snickered. “Wait! Wait.”

“What?” He asked with his beautiful, enchanting eyes staring up at me.

I was standing on me knees on the bed, his hands still on me arms.

“Can I be on the other side?” I asked.

He blinked rapidly. “Why?”

“I don’t like sleepin’ so close to the door. If someone comes in, you’ll die first, then me.” I shook me head as if that was the most obvious piece of information that everyone knew.

Tommy laughed. He actually laughed at me. “Yeah, whatever. Fine by me.”

He let go of me arms and started shuffling back to where he originally laid. I, on the other hand, climbed over his lap to get where I wanted.

Once I was there, I sat criss-cross applesauce style with me hands in me lap. It was just for safety reasons. I didn’t want him to accidentally see me undies.

A silence enveloped the room.

I huffed before deciding to start talking. “Ok! The friend I made today was a girl around my age. Her name is Cassie ‘n she’s staying at the Ritz Hotel. It’s a real classy joint. Made me feel small, but whatever. She’s really air-headed like I coulda been a thief and nicked some of her stuff, but she let me into her room without a thought. But, you know a lot of people back home always told me that I looked really innocent despite me ‘aving a resting bitch face.”

Tommy snorted.

“It’s not funny!” I pushed him. “Kids at school wouldn’t talk to me ‘cause I intimidated them. Anyway, she told me that her dad is an MP.” His eyes darted to meet me own.

I scoffed and pushed him again. “You liked that bit, didn’t cha? Geez. Focus on going to sleep, dummy. Close your eyes. Go on! Close them.”

Tommy scooted his body down and did as I said.

“She was really nice. I don’t know if we’ll actually be friends, though. It would be nice. We got along really well, but could’ve been fake. You never really know when people are fake until after you shared a moment with them, if that makes any sense? Yeah.”

I didn’t know what to say after that, so I started to hum for a little while.

“Oh, I’ll try singing a song. And before you try resisting, it’s not any song that you would know. So, just shut up and listen.”

Just then an evil thought ran across me mind.

‘I’m not gonna lie. I’m dying in the inside!’

“Happy or sad, Tommy?” Me nails were digging into me palms. I was trying so hard not to tick. It would either be a bunch of snaps or I’ll clap me hands wildly. However, I didn’t stop the grin on me face.

His eyes never opened. “Sad.”

I instantly hated meself ‘cause the way this man said that one simple word broke me heart.

I cleared me throat and racked me mind for a sad song. I couldn’t really decide on one, so I went with my default which was “Bitches Broken Hearts” by Billie Eilish. I went onto sing “Crazy” by Patsy Cline and “Summertime Sadness” by Lana Del Rey. Then, I sang “I’m Not The Only One” by Sam Smith, and let me tell you even though I had fun singing it- it was still embarrassing ‘cause me voice kept cracking at some of the high and low notes.

I sang “ilomilo” by Billie Eilish. For me unexpected “final” song, I sang “The One That Got Away” by Katy Perry.

Even though I was sure he was asleep, I still sang until it was more yawns than lyrics. The difference was that I was singing anything I wanted. Since I was already singing Katy Perry, I sang “Teenage Dream.”

Me final song was “Boyfriend” by Best Coast. I gave up halfway, laid down, and fell asleep.

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kareofbears · 4 years ago

Text

desperate as that sounds

Five times Ryuji ran for Akira (and one time he ran for himself.)

—

read on ao3 or below the cut :)

It’s 4:45 am with the weather sitting at a brutal -3 degrees when Ryuji really starts wishing that he brought another jacket.

People are lined around Akihabara by the hundreds outside of closed electronic stores, and the sun has yet to even rise. Some people are yawning, some are clutching their rapidly cooling coffee in a death grip, and most have dark, purple bags underneath their eyes—proof of the battle scars that they’ve acquired. Every person here had the same goal in mind: To get what they need and get out as quick as possible.

As it turns out, if everyone has that same mindset, it creates the violent, yearly November tradition that is Black Friday.

Glancing around, he notices that people came in packs, teams. Teenagers and pre-pubescent kids are all scuffling around, hyping themselves up and creating strategies for the war to come. The more seasoned veterans of the yearly massacre came in pairs—the smaller the group, the faster you move, the move land you cover.

At the biggest electronic store in a region that’s already been nicknamed ‘Electronic Town,’ he is fourth in line—an impressive feat, especially for a first-timer. But it came with a heavy toll: he is completely and utterly alone.

”Skull, do you read me?”

Well, physically alone, anyway.

“Loud and clear,” he replies, readjusting the mic in his ear. “Not that I mind, but what’s with the codenames?”

Futaba scoffs. “You think Black Friday is just about the physical aspect? Foolish boy—the psychological aspects are half the battle. If I get you into the mindset that we’re in a Palace, then you’ll get into infiltration mode, and you’ll be OP compared to the nerds out there.”

“Ooo, I like it! Your brain is effin’ galaxy sized!”

“I do what I can for my faithful pack mule.”

“I’ll try not to take that personally.”

His deal with Futaba had been a simple one. She helps Ryuji navigate the horrors of Akihabara during Black Friday in exchange that he acts as what is essentially a drug trafficker sans the drugs. Despite her rigorous societal training she’d undergone with the Thieves, something about entering a borderline stampede still seems somewhat unappealing to her. Besides, he doesn’t mind. He’d always wanted to do something nice for Futaba anyway, and the store that has her computer thing is the same store that holds what he needs.

”Five minutes to go,” her voice crackles into his ear. ”Infiltration route—go!”

Their deal had also come in with an intense tutorial session that ended up lasting until one in the morning. “Floor 4, down 3 aisles, 8 steps in, turn right, second shelf, grab a box that says ‘GTX graphics card.’ Pink, if possible.”

“A+, Skull! You know, if you can memorize that, I seriously don’t get why you’re failing English verbs.”

“Please, this is actually important.”

Futaba cackles. “Now you’re speaking my language. With your legs and my navigation, this’ll basically be a Tuesday afternoon in Leblanc.”

People around him are starting to straighten up, some going as far as to remove the extra layer of clothing and shoving it in backpacks for maximum speed and minimum restrictions. “Damn, people here look more intense than some dudes in my track meets.”

“If you’re throwing out portable chargers with 30-hour battery life for only 800 yen, you’d be a little intense too.”

Ryuji scoffs and begins to stretch, being extra sure to get his right thigh. “I’m plenty intense. Just last Saturday, I almost beat the Big Bang Burger challenge.”

“Pretty sure Akira beat that on his second week in Tokyo. You know, you still haven’t told me why you’re bothering with this whole Black Friday mess. I didn’t peg you for an electronics type of guy, and your phone is as crappy as your posture.”

“Rude! But I can’t argue with that.” He starts to run in place, and for a brief second, he wonders if he should’ve packed a protein shake.

“Well, too late now. If your thing sells out because you didn’t want to give your Navi information, that’s on you.”

“Gimme some credit, Futaba,” an employee who looks equal parts sleep-deprived and terrified approaches the glass doors. “Ain’t no way in hell I’m failing either of us this morning.”

The glass slides open, and as if sunlight was released from the captivity of the clouds, or perhaps a meteor just broke through the earth’s atmosphere, the people start pushing, shoving, and flooding inside. The crowd looked both impenetrable and unwavering; an unstoppable force and an immovable object rolled into one giant stream of desperate shoppers.

Ryuji spares a split-second to crack his neck. Mission Start.

The moment he breaks through the initial threshold, people who were only one step behind him suddenly became ten, twenty, thirty. Weaving through crowds and aisles with the precision of a seamstress, Ryuji evades it all with ease.

”Skull, status report.”

“Smooth sailing, Oracle!” He ducks as an overly buff businessman turns around with a 3-metre pole used for studio lighting threatens to bash his head in. “You’re totally right about the codenames, by the way. It’s almost like I’ve got Captain with me.”

“Right?” She laughs. “It’s all about the mindset.”

Ryuji turns, and finally gets to the stairs—the most brutal section and the biggest gamble. It’s the reason why it was essential that he’s one of the first in line. Once the stairs get jammed with people, it’s game over. Making a mad dash up four flights of stars, he thanks any God that may be that Palaces are fantastic for rehab.

He makes it to the top, panting. It’s empty, save for a few nervous-looking employees. He hopes the smile he throws their way came off as ‘pleasant and grateful for their service’ rather than ‘a delinquent asshole who might steal loads of shit.’

“Down 3 aisles, 8 steps,” he mutters to himself as he quickly scans the fourth floor. “Turn right, second shelf,” eyes landing on his target, he grins. “I effin’ rock.”

”You got it?”

“Of course I did!” He fist pumps before swiping the box. In his excitement, he nearly runs over to give a random employee a high-five. “Alright Oracle, you’re up.”

”I love you so much in a non-weird way. Okay,” he hears the clacking of keys on the other side of the mic. “What do you need?”

“Two words: game console.”

The clacking stops. “You’re joking.”

Ryuji snorts. “I ain’t waking up at 3 in the morning for a joke.”

”Those are hard enough to get as is, and on a day like this—”

“So you can’t do it?”

In the same way every one of the thieves know they could bait Ryuji with a few choice words, it’s a lesser-known fact that Futaba is quite nearly as bad when it comes to open defiance. “Jerk. Of course I can.”

“Then let’s do it!”

“Ugh, fine!” The clacking resumes, more vigorously. “Yikes, only 3 left. Make it quick!”

“Got it,” he replies. He turns around and his stomach drops as he sees people rushing in. “What floor?”

“Third.”

Ryuji groans. The stairs, with people packed in like sardines, are a circus. It would take at least two minutes to try and go down a single flight of stairs. The elevator is even worse, and he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it had already started to malfunction. Only one choice, then.

He takes a deep breath. “Pray for me.”

”Godspeed, soldier.”

Ryuji, like a wild animal on the loose in the streets of Tokyo, jumps on the handrails and begins his descent that way, begging to the skies that he doesn’t slip and create a domino effect that knocks down a dozen people.

In thirty seconds flat (with no small amount of cursing from both the customers and himself) he jumps off and lands (tumbles) onto the third floor, grinning triumphantly. Eat your heart out, Sumire.

“Oracle, I’m here. Almost broke my ankles. Where to?”

”Straight ahead,” she replies. ”Only one left, though. Better make it quick.”

His eyes land on the last game console, and he sees someone making their way towards it. “Not a problem.”

Ryuji sprints.

Throwing every societal rule and common courtesy into the air, he makes a mad dash and, somehow, miraculously does not bump into anyone or knock down any huge shelves.

In approximately 3 seconds, he grabs his treasure and yells a very loud but completely genuine “sorry!” over his shoulder as he half runs back to the stairs, face red for multiple reasons.

Delving back into the sea of the crowd, trying to navigate himself to the cash register, he sighs. “I’m going to hell.”

”Mission success, then?”

“I had to steal it from some guy! I feel so bad. What if he’s like, buying it for his long lost son or something?”

”Whatever! That’s just part of the Black Friday spirit. Congrats! At least you finally got a game console.”

“Huh? Oh, I already had one.”

Static crinkles in his ear, before, ”WHAT!?”

“Ow! Don’t yell!”

”You already had one and you still did this shopping run?”

“Yeah…?”

”Why?! Are you gonna sell it? Are you one of those sleazy men who take advantage of the good will of gamers, Sakamoto?”

“Hell no!”

”So—“

“Oops, almost at the front of the cash register. I’ll drop off the goods at Akira’s. Talk to you later, shortie.”

Click.

”Wha— Hey! Ryuji!” Silence. “Ugh!”

————

After a much-deserved nap, Futaba climbs up the stairs to Akira’s attic.

“The star has arrived!” she says in lieu of a greeting. “Where’s Ryuji?”

“He left,” Akira answers. He’s looking at something on his worktable. “Your stuff is on the bed.”

Futaba whoops and snatches up the little plastic bag. Peering inside, she sees an adorable GTX hot pink graphics card, and a note. In a horrific scrawl, it writes: dont tell him plz ;)))

She looks up quizzically when her eyes land on Akira’s desk: A shiny new game console.

“Um…”

“Hmm?” he looks up. “Oh, Ryuji dropped it off. Said his mom won it at work, and since he already had one, he gave it to me. Nice, right?”

She opens her mouth, before closing it with a clack. Just two weeks ago, Ryuji had asked Akira in the group chat if they could play video games at his place. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget about Akira’s situation: false accusation, an attic for a room, no definitive meals, not even a proper bathroom in the building, but Akira plays it off like it’s easy. He answered by making a joke that he’s too poor for something like that when you can buy faux battle axes and realistic shotguns instead. Everyone had forgotten about that interaction.

But apparently, Ryuji hadn’t.

He’s an idiot, Futaba thinks. To which boy she’s referring to, she’s not sure.

“Yeah,” is what she says instead. “It’s nice.”

====

The dust motes flying around the attic of Leblanc are lovely. Swirling in senseless formations, floating through the still air like snow. The way none of them collide with each other, as if they have some sort of motion detector that tells them to move out of the way. It’s pleasing to look at.

It’s a shame Ryuji doesn’t give a single shit about them at this moment.

He’s sitting on Akira’s bed, back pressed against the window sill with his hair tipped up, staring unfocused at the wooden beams, eyes glazed over. He’s been like this for the better part of the day, and now the evening is slipping by him. Time continues ticking on like a rigged bomb; an ongoing reminder of how many seconds he’s losing, and how much more he can lose.

He’s considered moving. To walk around the room, shift the dust that’s surely settled on him. Getting up, stretching his legs, outwardly expelling some of his trapped, balled up energy is a good idea. Healthy, even, if those shitty YouTube videos he’s watched on his phone about anger management were on to something. But he can’t. He shouldn’t.

Amidst all the uncertainty and the wound-up anxiety that has currently made permanent residence deep inside his core, he knows that if lets his joints unlock, he’s going to fucking lose it.

Slam a fist inside the dry wood, tear up a blanket, throw the adorable ramen bowl he gave Akira against the wall until it shatters into a hundred pieces. He’s so terrified of ruining this room that he won’t even give himself the option. And Ryuji would rather let hell freeze over than scare Futaba again in his fit of fucked-up rage that comes with the package that is Sakamoto Ryuji.

So he’s stuck on the bed for God knows how long.

Footsteps come up, and he doesn’t need to look down to know who’s going to chew him out. If it’s not Akira that’s going to chide him out of his stupor (which it isn’t, even though Ryuji would do anything if it means that Akira’s back here with them), then they’d send in someone who’d drag him out of it with her nails perfectly manicured.

“You look terrible.”

“Screw off,” Ryuji spits automatically, and he cringes inwardly. Ann doesn’t deserve the sharp end of his horrible mood. It’s not her fault that it feels like his insides feel like they’re trying to eat their way out.

She ignores him and moves to hop on top of the old work desk. The wood creaks underneath her. “You’ve been here all day.”

“I know.”

“Did you sleep last night?”

“Yes. No.” He feels Ann’s stare burn into the side of his face—a ghost of Carmen’s presence. “I don’t know.”

“He wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

Irritation swells in him. She’s never learned to take a hint in her life. “Really? Are you seriously saying that?”

“Are you saying he would?”

“I’m saying he’s too busy having the living shit beat out of him to see me like this.”

His body twitches, and that’s all he needed for his resolve to break down. He jumps from the bed, feet landing heavily enough that he’s sure they can all hear him from the floor below. Unconsciously, his feet pace around the small room; quick with agitation but heavy with dread. Anything to distract from doing something stupid.

“You’re worried about me, what, not sleeping? For lying down on this damn bed for too long? Screw that. Akira’s being grilled like cheap meat for the past couple of days and you’re expecting me to act normal about it? That’s bullshit.”

Bad. This is bad. His fingers are already curling in his fists, eager and all too willing to be used. He settles for balling the edge of his shirt instead.

“He isn’t here. That’s the fact, isn’t it? And what the fuck am I doing about it? Freaking out? Trying not to throw a tantrum about it like some kind of stupid kid? Am I really this messed in the head that everyone on the team is—-is hiding from me like I’m some kind of—” he cuts himself off.

Delinquent.

Ryuji takes a deep breath, fully inhaling and slowly exhaling. He focuses on the dust motes again. In and out. Countdown from ten. He can do this. He can get a grip on himself. Thank God it was Ann that came up—if it had been anyone else, he doesn’t think he can put his pride aside as easily. (Unless it was Futaba. God, he loves her so much.)

For a while, it was silent except for his breathing; it stuttered occasionally, but eventually it evens out. Ann only watches from her perch.

When he feels stable enough, Ryuji drops to sit on the hardwood.

“Okay?” she asks. Ann never babies him when he gets like this—she’s good that way.

“Okay.” And he really is. Not completely, of course not. His nerves weren’t strung as tight, but he still feels a heavy weight right in his stomach.

She hops off the desk and goes to sit in front of him on the floor. Crossing her legs, Ann waits. They regard each other for a long minute.

“He’s the toughest guy I’ve ever met,” he says. It feels weird saying this out loud, instead of repeating the mantra in his head like a broken record. “If anyone can handle this, it’s Akira.”

She rolls her eyes. “Duh.”

“He’s going to be okay.”

“I know that.”

“Sooner than later, his dumb ass is going to be walking through the door downstairs.”

“You bet he is.”

“And I get to yell at him as much as I want.”

“Get in line.”

“I’m not going to lose him tonight.”

Ann reaches over—slowly, giving him plenty of room to shift away—and places a hand on his knee. “You’re not going to lose him tonight.”

Ryuji laughs, a little breathy but still genuine. He prods at her hand. “When’d you get so good with me, Takamaki?”

“I do the Lord’s work around here, free of charge.” She grins, before her tone drops again. “Can you do something for me, though?”

“Lay it on me.”

Ann pulls back and leans on a propped hand, her blue eyes piercing. “When Akira comes back, and he will—”

“And he will. No doubt about it.”

“Obviously. He’s the best person for this. But when Akira comes back, he’s…” Ann gnaws on the inside of her cheek. “He’s not going to be okay, Ryuji.”

Somewhere in his mind, he already knew what she was going to say. While the biggest of his worries is that he’d never see Akira walk through the doors of Leblanc again, there was a quieter fear. A very specific fear, one that Ryuji knows all too well. Because stories don’t just end at the climax of a single event—they keep going. It’s the fear of what happens once he does see Akira.

The aftermath.

The bell chimes downstairs.

His heart lurches, and he makes the briefest of eye contact with Ann before he’s gone.

He’s the toughest guy I’ve ever met.

It’s like his feet have a mind of their own.

If anyone can handle this, it’s Akira.

In an instant, he’s scrambling towards the stairs on all fours before pushing himself up.

Sooner than later, his dumbass is going to be walking through the door downstairs.

His hand finds its hold on the old wooden railing as he sprints his way down. More than once, he almost trips and bangs his head into the wall.

And I get to yell at him as much as I want.

Rounding the corner, he jumps on the landing, ignoring the sharp pain that shoots up his thigh. He ignores the stares from everyone else. Looking up his breath catches in his throat. Gray eyes meet his brown ones. He takes one step forward, and then another. And then he sprints the rest.

He’s going to be okay.

Ryuji stops himself right in front of him, an arms-length away. Akira’s face looked like it’s been through hell and back. Split lip, black eye, bruised cheekbone. An intense fury flares up his spine when he sees the grime and dirt up along his temple.

He hesitates.

As much as he wants to reach forward, close the gap, to make sure that this boy that he can’t afford to lose is real… he can’t do it.

Because he knows what would happen if he tries to cross a boundary that isn’t ready to be crossed—he might not be ready. Ryuji could hurt him by touching any injuries he doesn’t know about (God, how much more is he hiding in there? He’s this close to either throwing up or throwing a punch). But what he’s most scared about, what he’s terrified of doing, is touching Akira in the state of mind he’s in right now. For someone to grip him, grab him, even just brush past him right now, it might be too much. Judging by how beat up he looks just from his face? That does shit to people. That changes you.

Ryuji would know. So he keeps his distance.

Akira’s eyes turn dark, and for a second, Ryuji is terrified that he must’ve overstepped a boundary.

Then he throws his arms around Ryuji, the force knocking them both back by a couple of steps.

“Akira?” he asks, bewildered. Never in their friendship has he seen Akira act like this. It sends alarm bells ringing through his head. “What—”

“Don’t,” Akira cuts off, voice hoarse and quiet, so quiet that even this close, Ryuji is straining to hear him. The arms around him tighten. “Don’t be like that. Please. I can’t. Not right now, Ryuji.”

It hits him all at once. And in his sixteen years of living, Ryuji doesn’t think he’s ever been stupider.

Akira’s been trapped in an interrogation room with nothing but a bunch of make-believe police officers. He got the shit beat out of him, had to stage his own suicide.

And Ryuji just tried to push him away.

He lets his arms wrap around Akira tightly; not too tight, but enough to make sure he won’t slip away from him again. (Never again. Not if he can help it.)

“I’m glad you’re back,” he whispers. Tilting his head up, he stares at the soft lighting of Leblanc, forcing his lungs to breathe evenly—not for fear of losing his temper, but for fear of exposing the tears silently streaming down his face. “So fucking glad.”

Akira doesn’t answer. He only buries his face deeper into Ryuji’s shoulder.

Ann was right—Akira isn’t okay. Not for now, not for awhile. It’s up to Ryuji and everyone else in their group of friends to fix that. That’s fine. They’ll all take as long as they need. He isn’t okay right now, but he will be. They can work on that.

But one thing was clear.

I’m not going to lose him tonight.

====

Summer in Mementos is pretty gross.

Granted, it’s always nasty in here—there’s a perpetual air of moisture, like the inside of a whale, if Ryuji had ever been in one (he’s basing that off of an American movie Ann showed them last week; he didn’t even know it was possible for a fish to get lost in the ocean). There’s also the ongoing sound of trains passing by them on loop, and to him, trains are just inherently cramped and humid and always too sticky for his liking.

Of course, there’s the disgusting, weird amalgamated Shadows that litter every level of Mementos. At least in Palaces they sort of resemble something from the real world, but he guesses they didn’t even bother with these ones. The worst part of all this is that right now, it’s hot, but not hot enough for the Shadows to process a heat wave.

So essentially, they’re fighting with additional bucket loads of sweat, but with none of the usual reward that comes with it.

Well, not that they needed it.

“Fox.”

“As you wish.”

Yusuke’s boots skid to a halt as he points his katana at the fast-moving Shadow, the tip perfectly still. “Your assistance, Goemon.”

They’re on their weekly Mementos grind, the list Mishima keeps updating finally too long to ignore. (Akira hates it when things pile up. It’s a big reason why Ryuji hastily cleaned up every time he wanted to come over. Now though, he doesn’t even bother.)

The current All-Star team includes Yusuke, Makoto, Ryuji, and Akira, with the rest of them keeping a close eye in case they need a quick shift in strategy.

From his katana, black ice crawls in the ground beneath rusted train tracks, the air suddenly chilly despite the humidity that was there a moment ago. Frost shoots forward, encasing the legs of the Shadow only to shatter with a strong jerk forward. It roars, the ear-piercing sound causing the scattered debris around them to vibrate. Akira clicks his tongue.

Strong against ice. Easy fix. Ryuji mouths the words along with Akira when he says, “Panther, you’re up.”

“Finally!”

Ann darts in, high-fiving Yusuke as he rushes out. Ryuji can see Makoto pat Yusuke on the back, sympathy etched on her expression and Futaba mussing his hair. He always took it the hardest when he had to be switched out.

Akira’s gloved fingers brush the edge of his monochrome mask. “Come, Principality.”

As if a human version of justice has been summoned down to earth, the winged statue floats for a moment, eyes filled with scorn as she casts a simple, yet effective memory loss spell. The Shadow shakes its head aggressively. It works, but it won’t hold for long.

“Skull.”

“Don’t mind if I do!”

He grins and sprints right, squeezing into the Shadow’s blindside. It tries to twist around to take a swipe at him, but Ryuji is too fast—he slides right between its legs to confuse and disorient it. Once it seems like it completely lost sight of him, he raises his hand to grip the edge of his black mask. “Come on out, Captain!”

It’s a classic tactic; make the enemy lose focus, stun it, and stop it.

A pirate straight out of the Caribbean materializes from the embers of his mask—Captain Kidd in all of his glory regards the Shadow with a look of disdain before sparks fly from the hull of his ship, and an intense streak of lightning bursts forth, shocking its target like something from a regrettable movie about torture, knocking it down to the ground, a buzz perceptible even from here. He might have overdone it.

Ann whistles. “You didn’t even let me get a chance with it.”

“You can have the next million Shadows we bump into, I promise.” He calls Captain back into his mask, fragmented pieces forming together impossibly quick. “We good, Leader?”

Akira nods. “Just let me get the loot,” he smiles at Ryuji. “Awesome voltage on that last one, Skull.”

A grin stretches over his face before he can stop himself. He won’t deny it—getting a compliment from Joker was always something he filed away for later.

He’s too busy feeling pride surge through him that he can’t even bother to get ticked off when he hears Morgana scoff. “It doesn’t matter how good that attack was; he got in the way of Lady Panther’s finishing blow. That’s a crime in my eyes.”

“But doesn’t that just mean he saved her from doing anything?” Makoto raises an eyebrow. “Technically, he prevented any danger from befalling her, right?”

“Queen, as a gentleman, I have an obligation to tell you that that is a sexist notion.”

“You did not just say that.”

Something makes Ryuji pause. Immediately, his eyes flicker around them automatically. He tunes their chattering out, and finds himself tapping his foot, a slight jitter overcoming him. His nerves are trying to tell him something. Or maybe he’s imagining it? Is it just an aftershock from the intense lightning he cast out? No. It’s been too long since he’s had any problem with electric moves, and he’s never had problems from ones that he threw out himself.

Something was wrong, and he can’t put his finger on it.

He rattles his brain trying to figure out what it is. No one’s hurt, everyone’s safe and together. Well, mostly together, since Akira’s still approaching the Shadow—

A cold sweat drapes the back of his neck. Akira is still approaching the Shadow.

The Shadow hasn’t disintegrated yet.

“Akira—!”

The name slips past his lips, codenames forgotten. In slow motion, Ryuji sees Shadow’s body tense, its mouth frothing with what looks like liquid magma made from pits of hell—specializes in curse, and a strong one at that; Ryuji can feel the potency of its malignancy from where he’s standing. He watches as Akira stiffens, fingers twitching towards his mask, ready to retaliate, or at the very least, defend. And like a domino effect of bad luck, Ryuji feels bile rise to his throat.

Akira is good at what he does. Infuriatingly good. Took the whole Metaverse bullshit like a fish to water. But even he can’t switch Personas the same moment he summons them.

Principality would crumple like tissue paper against the Shadow. And Akira along with it.

You’re too late, a voice whispers in his head. You wouldn’t make it.

A heartbeat passes. And then Ryuji is flying.

It’s never too late, screams back something stronger, something unshakeable. Not ever. Especially not for him.

His boots hit the ground like the first strike of lightning amidst a storm—impossibly fast and unexpected. Lungs wheezing and legs throbbing, he crossed the distance in the span of a breath.

The Shadow throws the curse at Akira, red and black and filled to the brim with intensity, and Akira’s eyes can only widen, pupils dilated wildly to the point where there’s only black—a mirror of what’s about to hit him if Ryuji isn’t fast enough.

He doesn’t hesitate.

Ryuji shoves Akira, hard enough that he crashes onto the ground and he can hear the breath forcefully leave his lungs, and suddenly Ryuji can’t hear anything at all. His fingertips are fire and ice, his sense of surroundings have completely dissipated. Any energy in his body is being drained, like a dam cracked into millions of pieces—and all he’s left with is air. Vaguely, he can hear a choking noise, a broken sort of sound.

The blow is not just a violent one—it never is, with curse attacks. Instead of just feeling his skin bruised or blood running down his temple, he also feels himself get weaker, his mind growing heavier. An attack on the mind and body; a perfect cocktail of fucked up.

The last thing he sees before he loses consciousness is the glint from Akira’s knife slicing through the Shadow’s throat.

====

Tokyo is currently at a wicked thirty two degrees.

The sun radiates scorching temperatures down from the sky, the concrete eagerly absorbing every bit of its heat, making something akin to walking across hot coals. It’s hot enough that a mirage is visible to the naked eye. It’s hot enough that every ice cream store has a forty-minute line-up. It’s hot enough that no birds were flying, in fear that they may truly be fried by the sun above them.

Basically, it’s hot as hell.

“Ryuji-chan, pick up the pace!”

But Haru is more vicious than any conceivable temperature.

Looking like a survivor who was lost in the desert for several days, Ryuji lets out a half-garbled battle cry and sprints the last dozen meters. Haru clicks her stopwatch.

Sitting on a lovely lilac blanket, she tsks from underneath the shade. “Three seconds slower.”

“Ugh!” he collapses beside her on the cool grass. If she looks at him from a certain angle, she can see the steam positively radiating off of him. “I’m going to beat the living shit out of the sun.”

“You know I’d support you in anything you do, Ryuji-chan, but I don’t think you’d be fast enough to catch it,” Haru says. She hands him a cold water bottle. “Drink slowly.”

He rolls over so that he can squint up at her. “You’re mean.”

“I’m harsh,” she corrects, shaking the bottle in her hand. “There’s a difference.”

He takes it. “Have you done this before?”

“Helped someone train in running? No. But,” she rummages through her pastel pink tote bag, and proudly shows him a handful of books. He squints at them. “Since I’m so new to the group and everyone has such broad interests, I decided to try reading up on them! Did you know that drinking cold water after running results in less dehydration than drinking warm water?”

Ryuji stares at her. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For saying you’re mean. You’re not mean. You’re real nice, Haru.”

She smiles at him and pats his head, despite the overflowing heat and moisture settled on top. “You’re very sweet Ryuji-chan, but that’s not going to make me go easy on you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the tough-love kind of coach.” Ryuji sits up, cracking open the seal. Chugging down the water, he makes eye contact with Haru before slowing down substantially.

He dumps the rest of it on his head, sighing and shivering in relief. “That’s the good shit.”

“Why not wait for the sun to go down a bit?” she suggests. “The heat is really scorching, and there’s still plenty of time to keep training later.”

“Nah,” he stretches his arms behind his head before he stands again. “I gotta keep going while I still can.”

Haru frowns. “Overexertion isn’t going to help anyone.”

“Don’t you worry your fluffy head! I may be stupid, but I know when to stop when I gotta.”

“I really think you should rest for a bit.”

“I will when I’m done, I promise.”

“You looked rough in that last lap—”

“Haru,” Ryuji is grinning, but his tone leaves no room for argument. “I’m going to keep training.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, before Haru’s shoulder sags slightly. “Alright.” He’s about to say something when she cuts him off. “But only if you tell me why you’re so insistent.”

Ryuji shrugs. “If that’s what it’ll take to prove it to you, then sure. It’s kinda stupid, though.”

“I’m sure it’s not.”

“Oh, wait till you hear it,” he laughs, a little shy. “So you know how Mona and Futaba are, like, the Metaverse experts? And Makoto is the big brain? And Yusuke does the whole calling card part?” Haru nods, and he continues. “Well, I’m not really… anything. Ann already took the role of moral support and there’s no way in hell I’m the ‘brain’ in anything. Jeez, last time I picked up a paintbrush was in kindergarten. So I figured, I’d be the fast one, you know? The one that can get to someone fast enough to help them out.” Ryuji’s grin turns into something softer; less edge and more fond. It does something to her heart. “And if it’d help ‘Kira down the line, then it’d be worth it, right?”

Haru stays silent.

“Anyway! That’s enough of that cheesy shit.” He moves back to the track, running shoes scuffing at the concrete. “Wish me luck, maybe I can actually catch up to the sun this time. Teach it a lesson.”

“Ryuji.“

Looking back, he gives her a curious look. “Yeah?”

Haru hesitates.

I never once thought you were stupid. You’ve given so much more to the team than you can imagine. You have no idea how many times you’ve helped Akira without even lifting a finger.

“I have a cooler full of water behind me, so… please try your best out there.”

Ryuji gives her an enthusiastic salute. “Yes ma'am!”

He runs off, the sun continuing to beat down him relentlessly.

====

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Ryuji knew they were all going to die someday. It’s inevitable. The circle of life, the winds of time, la vie en rose, etc.

He just didn’t expect it to happen at the age of 16, on the sinking cognitive ship of their next Prime Minister, wearing a wack-ass leather outfit surrounded by his panicking friends.

“We’re going to die!” Futaba wails, knees shaking uncontrollably to the point where she can hardly keep standing. “I don’t know how to swim!”

“It’ll be fine,” Akira spits through gritted teeth. He’s far tenser than anyone else, red gloves formed into fists and eyes constantly darting around to see what can save their lives. “We just need to focus.”

Makoto points to something on their right and shouts, “There! A lifeboat!”

Sprinting down the slowly escalating ramp, their eyes widen at the single lifeboat propped at the very top of the bow—which is slowly approaching a ninety degree angle. They all had one thought in their minds.

“We’re not going to make it in time,” Yusuke says, quietly.

Akira bangs his fist into a nearby column. “To hell with that. There’s no way I’m letting us die here.”

A heavy silence falls over them. The air is practically crackling with electricity and pure agitation, but there’s also a determination between all of that. Everyone’s overcome with a need to protect their friends and teammates, but they were at a loss of what to do. A quiet realization overcomes the group—there wasn’t going to be a miracle to save them.

Ryuji’s eyes land on Akira. He’s scanning the area, Third Eye activated but unable to pick up anything that isn’t the lifeboat. There’s no panic in his clear, gray eyes, but the terror in it is the most prevalent out of anyone present.

It hits Ryuji, all at once. The boy in front of him may be his age, and even younger than some members of their group, but he is undoubtedly the leader of the infamous Phantom Thieves. Every decision he made had led them here, in this moment, in their imminent death. And if he lets them all get taken, whether it’s through the ocean or the approaching explosions behind him, the truth of the matter is Akira feels that he would be responsible. That it’s his fault that a cognitive boat would take the lives of his friends.

Yeah. That’s not happening.

Ryuji clenches his eyes shut for a few seconds and slowly opens them. He begins to jump in place, hyping himself up.

“Skull…?” Haru asks, brows furrowing.

“Hang tight, guys,” he says, taking quick breaths. He can do this. “I’ll nab the boat.”

A chorus of gasps and heated objections rang through the air, and Akira steps forward, more shaken than Ryuji’s ever seen him. “No. Skull, please—”

Ryuji throws him a wobbly grin, more for Akira than himself. In one smooth motion, he jumps down and hits the ground running.

“No!”

Immediately, he feels his knees and thighs begin to protest, only intensifying the further he sprints up. For a minute, if Ryuji closes his eyes, he can imagine that he’s in a meet. A race. That the screams he hears behind him are his track mates, and not teammates, friends, best friends that would die if he failed to get to the boat fast enough.

He pushes himself even more.

It’s a miracle that he gets to the raft before his legs give out, and he feels a satisfying crank underneath his palms when he rotates the lever. As he throws a thumbs up at his friends, seeing them safe, healthy, alive, he feels relieved beyond words.

He makes eye contact with Akira, and he really should’ve expected the explosion that comes next.

====

His ceiling has seventy-nine plastic stars.

Ryuji stares up at it from his bed, arms crossed behind his head; they’d long since lost their cheap light. It was raining hard outside, enough to rattle against his window like pebbles calling for his attention. He ignores them.

It’s been years since he got those stars—dating all the way back in middle school. He got into a bad habit of sneaking out in the middle of the night to look at the sky from the roof of their apartment building. It scared the shit out of his ma when she finally caught him, scolded him to hell and back. By the end, they found a compromise: she’d buy him a crap ton from the hundred yen store, and they’d stick it up together. When they did, it kept falling down, so she went back and bought him a bottle of superglue. Now you can’t take them off, even if you tried to use a little scraper.

It bothered him, for a while. Young boys were cruel, and anyone who came to visit always poked fun of him for it. It wasn’t until he visited Akira’s room one day, saw how pleased he was that Yusuke bought them for him that he couldn’t help but revel at his own stars again, after all this time.

Ryuji twists his body sideways, ripping his eyes away from the plastic figures. Enough of that.

His eyes have long adjusted to the darkness that surrounds him, allowing a clear view of his room in the limited moonlight. Laundry splayed around his tatami mat from his sprints training today, gaming controllers scattered on the center table from when Akira came over a few days ago. That was a blast. He helped him beat a boss he’s been stuck on for weeks, and Akira beat it like it was nothing, it was the coolest shit ever—

Ryuji forces himself to flip over to glare at the wall. Sleep. That’s a better idea.

He takes a deep breath, forcing his breathing to go steady. There’s lots to do tomorrow—school is a drag, but they plan on meeting up at Leblanc afterwards. The thought allows his muscles to relax. Really, the atmosphere of Leblanc is just so pleasing to him. The warm lighting, the run-down booths, even the smell is a welcome presence. Well, that’s mostly because Akira drags it with him wherever he—

Slowly, his eyes open.

It always comes back to him, doesn’t it?

He rolls onto his back, in a position to stare at the stars again. The rain hammers on.

Ryuji’s a dumb kid.

It’s not a self jab, it wasn’t manifested by some sort of long-standing insecurity. It’s a fact. He’s never been good with a book, never done anything half-decent by picking up a pencil, his mind was never programmed to listen and retain information in long classes. It’s definitely not like he’s the brains of the Thieves, never a strategist of some kind. His ma encouraged him to take on a tutor in the past, and he’d rather bite a finger off than spend her money on wasted potential, so he found himself wandering the streets of Central Street as a way to pass time.

Ryuji’s a dumb kid, but even he knows he’s irrevocably, completely, stupidly in love with Kurusu Akira.

He sits up and ruffles his hair, frustrated. There are too many things wrong with that sentence, too many things that can go wrong because of that sentence. Of course, he finds the one thing that can mess up the unshakeable foundation that he and Akira built for each other. He must’ve really pissed off some God upstairs for him to have a hell-bent queer awakening with his best friend.

No, that’s wrong. It was the furthest thing from hell-bent—it was soft, it was gray, it was raining, and most importantly, it took its time.

They were halfway through Kamoshida’s Palace when Ryuji realized it; the sheer amount of power that hindsight gave him made him pause long enough to get clocked out by a Shadow.

Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter, because he would never, ever do anything to fuck up what he has. Not again.

Wait, no, that’s not true. Even before Kamoshida, he’s never had something like this. He’s never had someone like him. He’s never had someone who’s so entirely on the same wavelength as him, who’d have his back even when his was against a wall. Kurusu Akira is…ethereal. Out of this world. Cool as fuck. (Hot as fuck, too.) If you lined up the entirety of Tokyo and told him he could pick one. One person out of the whole lineup to be his friend, he’d have his answer in a heartbeat.

See, now that isn’t something that changed with hindsight—Ryuji’s known that he’s been in love with Akira since before they completed Kamoshida’s Palace. And when he figured it out, he didn’t feel shock. His eyes didn’t widen, his heart didn’t start thumping like crazy. It’s more like he just scratched his head in a huh kind of way. It felt like his life had been waiting for that day in April, like everything was at a standstill until he finally met Kurusu Akira. It made sense. Everything just makes sense when Akira’s involved.

Which just makes this all the more fucked up.

He knocks his head back against the wall, eyes stuck on the raindrops’ rapidly moving shadows on his bedroom floor. Karma. That’s probably what’s happening. The world still hasn’t forgiven him for losing his shit, so they decided to make him pine for the only person that he can’t afford to lose.

He can’t even stomach the idea of trying to get over it, to try and put distance between himself and Akira. He spent a lifetime waiting for a miracle, for someone who didn’t know existed. He’s not giving up a single second of time with him. That’s probably why the world relentlessly shits on him; he’s selfish enough to keep the feelings that he has. But he can’t bring himself to regret that decision. Not with the way his breath hitches in his throat whenever Akira walks into the room.

Ryuji’s in love with his best friend, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it. He’s accepted it. Just like how the sky is blue, or that he well and truly hates Calculus. It’s a factor of life.

The rain seemed to fall harder, droplets sounding like rigorous hail against the windowpane. He lets out a long yawn.

Ryuji’s in love with his best friend, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it.

That’s not the reason why he can’t sleep at night.

Akira is a quiet guy. He gets his point across with as few words as possible, as if each letter costs him fifty yen to say out loud. So he speaks through his expression; a quirk of his brow, a tilt of his head, a certain smile is enough to carry half of the conversation.

And, every once in a while, Akira gets a look.

It comes up at the weirdest times—when the two of them baton pass in the Metaverse, when Ryuji eats ramen too fast and gets sick, when he helps an old lady cross the street. Plenty of times it’s because Ryuji is doing something incredibly stupid (like when he said that the square root of sixteen is six, because if you just get rid of the one, then that makes sense, right?), or when they’re laughing so hard neither of them can breathe. But sometimes it comes up in quieter moments, too. The two of them talking quietly in the attic at Leblanc, or when Akira confesses that he’s relieved Ryuji’s always there for him. (As if there would ever be a time where he won’t be.)

The look is subtle enough to miss but easy to find if someone knows what they’re looking for. The usual attentiveness that resides in Akira’s eyes disappears, in its place a softer gaze; his pupils get dilated, and the edge of his eyes get all crinkled like Valentine’s tissue paper. A half-smile rests on his lips, never quite turning into a full-blown grin, but that’s okay. For some reason, it all reminds Ryuji of the moon. Of soft moonlight. Of streetlamps on empty roads.

Ryuji’s in love with his best friend, and there’s a small, tiny, infinitesimal chance that his best friend might love him back.

His eyelids slide shut, though he knows that it won’t be enough to let him rest.

Realistically, he’s probably wrong. Akira isn’t in love with him, and he’s only seeing what he wants to see. With every eligible person seeming to fall in love with him at some point in time, how would it even be possible that Akira would love him?

He rubs his eyes, desperate to get rid of the unending fatigue that’s plagued him for months on end. It doesn’t work.

Bad excuse. Akira does love him, just like he loves everyone he encounters and befriends and ends up risking his life for. Ryuji’s surprised Akira hasn’t passed out yet, given his bleeding heart for the entire population of Tokyo.

Lightning flashes and thunder rumbles as he rubs his eyes harder.

But what if he wasn’t wrong? What if the signals he’s seeing aren’t based on misunderstood yearning?

When his eyes start to burn, his fingers move up to his hair.

There’s no way in hell he’d ever risk losing his best friend. His partner. His Akira. It’s not something he can gamble. It’s not worth it.

He begins to tug, hands shaking, and he can barely feel the sting of pain from nearly pulling his hair out his scalp.

It’s not worth it. He decided that in the very beginning.

Ryuji buries his face into his palms.

But he is so, so exhausted of being tired.

Lightning flashes, and for a split-second, his room is bright.

Fuck it.

By the time thunder rumbles through his apartment, he’s already out the front door.

His sneakers squelch against the wet concrete, soaking his unsocked feet. He’s sprinting fast enough that the street lights around him blur, and he can feel quick breaths getting pulled out of him. It takes him a few seconds to realize that he forgot to wear a raincoat, but he doesn’t care.

Akira is his best friend. Akira accepted him, flaws and all. Akira loves him, one way or another. That’s what held him back. He can’t risk losing that.

Ryuji quickly checks both sides before running across the street, wiping the rain off his brow, and keeps going.

But that’s what should’ve pushed him into confessing sooner. Because if that’s all true, then that can only ever mean that Akira would accept this part of him too, right?

He jerks out of the way as he almost barrels over a fire hydrant, making him step into a deep puddle. It doesn’t slow him down.

Maybe he would’ve realized it sooner if he wasn’t too fucking tired to think straight.

His lungs begin to complain, his breaths turning to wheezes, but he ignores it in favor of going faster.

Too late for that now. All the matters now is to talk to—

He skids to a halt.

In front of him—eyes wide, hair drenched, no shoes—stands Kurusu Akira.

Ryuji’s mouth falls open, and for a minute, he almost laughs. Of course. He should’ve known. Just as he’s willing to sprint to Akira at an unholy hour in the night…

He smiles sheepishly at him, and Ryuji feels his chest constrict in the loveliest way possible.

…Akira would do the exact same thing for him.

The rain slows, and the thunder ceases for a moment. The world pauses long enough for both of them to speak in the same breath, the same heartbeat:

“I’m in love with you.”

#fic tag #akiryu #pegoryu #fanfic #writing #ryuji sakamoto #akira kurusu #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #mine #desperate as that sounds #and yeah man thats a jon bellion song #fic

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foramomentonly · 5 years ago

Text

Hoarding You

@acomebackstory Here’s that other version we talked about. Hope you enjoy!

Summary: Michael accidentally moves in and Alex has a secret stash of scented candles. This also somehow turned into a kind of quarantine fic?

Read on AO3

Michael is pretty sure he’s living the story of how he moved in with his boyfriend.

He found his way back to Alex slowly, painstakingly, with detours that included a casual fling with Maria that sizzled out more than it ended, a stint as the world’s most obvious Jealously Pining Ex while Alex tried out something with Forrest Long, and a brief, but electric period of time as Just Friends in which every “accidental” touch and lingering look over chilaquiles at The Crashdown or pool at The Pony left Michael’s fingertips tingling and the air thick with lust and a promise of soon. And then one afternoon Michael ran out of reasons not to close the distance between them and kiss Alex like the second—or was it the fifth or tenth?—homecoming that it was. And the Airstream had been right there, convenient and private and equipped with a lumpy, unmade bed and baking in the afternoon sun. Afterward, sweat cooling on their naked bodies and limbs slipping where they intertwined, careful distance an eagerly forgotten condition, Michael had shifted onto his side to gaze into the warm, dark pools of Alex’s eyes, brushing damp tendrils of hair off his forehead, and asked, “What do you want?”

And Alex had let his eyes slip closed at the brush of Michael’s fingers across his brow and breathed simply, “You.”

They tried to take it slow, but when the news became saturated with words like virus and pandemic, and Alex got wind of a statewide stay-at-home order about to be issued, he casually invited Michael to stay with him, fridge already stocked with two weeks worth of their favorite foods, and Michael just as casually brought his whole Airstream with him, gradually moving his belongings into the house while Alex worked in his office and attempted to ignore the sight of Michael, shirtless and unshaven, making space for himself in Alex’s home, in his life.

Michael’s looking for a place to store some miscellaneous boxes and discovers a small closet in the spare room, calling out down the hall to Alex, “Can I throw some stuff in here?” He’s got the door half-open when it slams shut again, Alex’s arm reaching past him to hold it closed, palm pressed flat against the wood.

“Wha-” Michael starts, but Alex grips his hips and whirls him around, crowding Michael against the door and taking the box from his hands.

“That’s enough organizing for one day,” he murmurs, slotting his thigh between Michael’s legs and grazing his teeth against the sensitive patch of skin below his ear, sucking the lobe into his mouth. Michael hears a touch of panic in Alex’s voice, and when he grips the back of Alex’s neck with two hands and pulls him gently back, there’s a wild look in his eye that isn’t purely from arousal. But Alex’s hard body is pressed against him, his fingers slipping into the waistband of the athletic shorts Michael stole from his drawer this morning, and his shameless gaze is boring into Michael as he wraps his hand around Michael’s half-hard cock. It’s difficult to hold on to any kind of coherent thought under these conditions, and Michael gives up thinking altogether, dropping his head back against the closet door with a soft thud and groaning as Alex strokes him fully hard before lowering himself to his knees, pulling Michael’s shorts off his hips as he drops.

***

They make it to the bedroom for Round Two. Alex is draped over Michael’s back on the bed, newly spent and pressing wet kisses up his spine. Michael shivers, shifting to pull the pillow out from under his hips and tossing it aside. He’d come for the third time rutting against it as Alex ground his cock in tight circles against his prostate and it’s destined for the wash, if not the garbage.

“I’m done,” Alex groans into Michael’s damp skin, pulling out gently and rolling over onto his back. He turns his head, so close their noses brush and smiles. “You broke me.”

“You started this,” Michael chides, and a thought niggles at the back of his mind. “You want some water?”

Alex nods, as much to brush their noses together as to say yes. Michael leans in and presses a kiss to Alex’s lips, rolling off the bed and sneaking into the hall rather than the en suite bathroom. Alex doesn’t notice. He returns with two bottles of water and a large blue-grey candle in a glass jar.

“So, why do you have like ten of these in that closet?” he asks, holding up the jar.

Alex tilts his head back to gaze up at Michael, and when he sees what Michael is holding he groans and covers his face with both hands.

“Oh, god,” he says, “what even made you look in there?”

"Baby, I love you," Michael says, and pauses to smile goofily at Alex. This isn't a thing they once said to each other, out loud, directly, in English, but now the words flow off their tongues as easily as any others they might speak on a given day. "And I believe that you are a tactical genius. But that was the worst attempt at misdirection I have ever seen."

"Maybe," Alex laughs, stretching languidly and raising an eyebrow at the way Michael's greedy eyes drink in the line of his naked body exposed by the slide of the thin sheet as he moves. "But it worked."

Michael sets the candle and one of the waters on a bedside table, handing Alex the other as he slides back onto the bed. Alex sits up and takes a deep pull from the bottle, stalling.

“So…?” Michael goads.

Alex rolls his eyes.

“It’s your smell,” he says softly, and Michael shakes his head.

“What?”

“You smell like rain,” Alex explains slowly, “and when we were apart, I-I missed it. I missed you. I just started hoarding your scent. I’d light them when I felt far away from you, or sad, or. Just whenever I wished you were here with me. It helped. Sometimes.”

He looks up at Michael hesitantly. Michael feels an ache in his chest and his eyes are definitely wet. He cups Alex’s cheek tenderly, understanding the confession as yet another way Alex says I love you.

“Get rid of 'em,” he says softly. “I’m not going anywhere. In fact, I’m pretty sure I just moved in.”

Alex’s lips pull at a secret, knowing smile.

“Well, I already gave like five to Liz when Max was gone. Now that he’s back I’m kind of out of options.”

“Don’t talk about Max when we’re naked,” Michael groans, wrinkling his nose.

“Why not?” Alex asks, voice full of faux innocence. “That whole angsty nerd thing has been doing it for me lately.”

Michael lunges at him with a growl, knocking the water bottle onto the floor and Alex onto his back on the bed, Michael hovering over him.

“Guess I’m lucky I spend Saturdays at the library and know what a microfiche machine is,” he murmurs, lowering his head to plant wet kisses along Alex’s collarbone.

“Guess I’m lucky you’re hot for closet romantics with smell kinks,” Alex gasps, breath hitching as Michael kisses along his jaw and runs his palms down Alex’s sides.

“Just the one,” Michael whispers, finally reaching Alex’s lips and licking along the seam of his mouth.

“Yeah,” Alex breaths against his lips, opening for him easily, “me, too.”

Round Three is a distinct possibility.

#rnm #rnm fic #malex #malex fic #alex manes #michael guerin #my fic #quarantine fic

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mental-dilemma · 4 years ago

Text

Swan Song

So for my English class we had to write a ten-page screenplay and so I'm going to be posting it. I've posted the teaser and act 1 today. I don't really know how to sum it up tho. Also Formatting got messed up and I can't really fix it on Tumblr sorry.

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

TEASER

EXT. MEADOW-DAY

A man sets down a violin case, we can clearly see the name Dio written on a white strip across the side. Carefully he kneels down next to it and unlatches it, he takes out the violin, tunes it and begins playing.

EXT. Forest-DAY

A teenager runs through the forest wearing simple clothes, black pants and a white shirt. He has a brown messenger bag slung over his shoulder. In the background we hear armor and shouting.

He stops and looks around. The Teenager spies a tree with a wanted poster hanging up, it has a picture of him and we can only make out part of the name. The part we can make out reads Newt. There is a reward for his capture alive.

He rips the poster from the bark and climbs the tree, below him we hear the armor passing.

EXT. TOP OF TREE-DAY

In Newt's pov: Through tree branches we see DIO playing the violin piece, he’s floating at the treetops swaying to the music with his eyes closed.

Newt settles himself into a sitting position and watches Dio, he moves his arm and accidentally breaks off a branch; Dio hears this and opens his eyes.

Startled DIO makes eye contact with NEWT and stops playing. A second later, we see DIO drop to the ground and hear a crash.

DIO (O.S.)

Newt rushes down the tree.

EXT. FOREST-DAY

When he reaches the ground NEWT looks for a way through the wall. A few feet from where NEWT is he sees an opening in it and rushes through it.

EXT. MEADOW-DAY

DIO is sitting on the ground, we don’t see his violin but its case is closed. DIO has already put it back in.

NEWT rushes over and helps Dio up. DIO leans on him for support and grabs his violin case.

DIO directs NEWT to walk in a direction and NEWT helps him, together they slowly make their way towards a large cave.

INT. COTTAGE-DAY

NEWT opens the door and brings DIO inside, DIO drops the violin case in the entryway.

NEWT sits Dio down on a nearby kitchen chair. NEWT begins looking for medical equipment but DIO just shakes his head.

DIO:

Pen.

NEWT nods and hands DIO one of the pens he was gesturing at.

DIO pulls the bottom part of his pants up to expose his bare ankle. It's swollen from the fall. He uncaps the pen and writes the word heal on his ankle. Instantly the swelling goes down. A second later DIO stands up, testing the strength of his ankle.

DIO walks over to the kitchen. He comes back with a knife and points it at NEWT.

DIO:

Thanks for the help. Now scram before I change my mind about killing you.

END TEASER

ACT I

INT. COTTAGE-DAY

NEWT throws his hands up in the air as DIO continues to threaten him with a knife.

NEWT:

Woah, woah, let’s not do anything hasty. Just put down the knife--

He gently pushes the blade away from his throat

NEWT (CONT’D)

--and we can have a civil conversation.

DIO:

What part of ‘get out’ did you not understand?

NEWT:

Ok, I can’t exactly leave right now. Let’s just say the guards and I aren’t best buds, plus they have bigger swords.

DIO:

Not my problem.

NEWT:

That's where you're wrong. Let me paint a little picture for you: they take me into custody and begin questioning me--they have some pretty gnarly stuff for that kind of thing in the dungeons. It’d be simply tragic if I let it slip about the man in the meadow who can heal a broken ankle with a pen. Who could blame my loose lips? I’ve heard thumbcuffs are very painful.

DIO sighs and lowers the knife completely. He gestures vaguely to a chair; NEWT takes the hint and sits down, slinging his bag off and putting it on the floor. We see the symbol of a green curled up dragon

DIO:

What do you want? I don’t have gold, and any that I draw up won’t pass for the real thing. They’ll recognize it as counterfeit immediately.

NEWT pauses and considers for a moment. He glances at the poster jutting out of his bag.

NEWT:

Can you teach me magic?

DIO:

Teach you magic? Ha! Not just anyone can learn magic; it takes a certain skill. One that damned king made sure to stamp out once he outlawed magic. It doesn’t matter anyway, you're too old to begin, your mind’s already been shaped.

NEWT glares at DIO, without saying a word he grabs a pencil and some paper.

NEWT draws something on the paper and reaches down into it and attempts to grab something and bring it out.. We see the very corner of a cube begin to appear but it vanishes before becoming fully corporeal.

NEWT:

I’ve known about magic since I was a child. When I refused to drop it my father kicked me out. Doing just that has taken practicing my whole life, but please continue telling me how my mind has already been molded.

DIO:

Impressive, but I still don’t see what’s in it for me.

NEWT:

What do you want?

DIO:

I would like to leave this hell hole of a kingdom, but you know as well as I that’s im--

NEWT:

There’s a boat scheduled to leave port for the north in three months. If you teach me, I can get you on it.

DIO pauses, shocked the boy would interrupt him, and even more shocked that NEWT claims he can get him on a boat. DIO considers for a moment before holding out his hand to NEWT.

DIO:

Three months. I will teach you for three months, but I can’t promise you results.

NEWT grabs DIO’s hand and shakes it, nodding his head.

EXT. MEADOW-AFTERNOON

NEWT and DIO are walking up the meadow. NEWT is carrying an easel, paints, and some canvases. When they reach their destination NEWT drops all the things he’s carrying, exhausted.

DIO:

Magic is all about flow. Your issue is that you focus so hard on making sure what you create is perfect that by the time you go to bring it to life any inspiration or creativity you have is entirely burnt out.

NEWT:

You can gather that after seeing me attempt to pull a cube from a piece of paper.

DIO just nods. He motions for NEWT to set up the easels.

DIO:

I have to go to the market today. While I’m gone you have to be drawing, I expect both canvases to be filled by the time I get back.

DIO goes over to the wall and draws an opening, he steps through it.

NEWT:

But wha--

DIO:

Figure it out.

DIO writes a word on the ground where the opening is and the wall is whole again, there's not even a crack where the opening was.

EXT. MEADOW-NIGHT

DIO comes back to see NEWT passed out on the ground, both canvases were covered in beautiful landscape images of the meadow at twilight and night. Around the canvases, small flowers are growing—exactly like the ones NEWT drew.

DIO smiles for a moment, but there seems to be a shadow behind it. Gently, he drapes his cloak across the boy. Then he walks back to the cottage.

INT. COTTAGE-NIGHT:

We see DIO writing a letter. He finishes and seals it. He folds the letter into an origami crane. Then he walks over to a window and opens it, letting the crane fly out.

EXT. MILITARY CAMP-NIGHT

The crane is flying through the air, when suddenly a gloved hand yanks it out of the sky.

We see the hand lower to reveal a helmeted guard bearing a green curled up dragon on their chest, they open the note and read it.

END ACT I

#Swan Song #My writing #OC writing #OC's #Original characters #original content #Found family #uhhh #I hope you guys like it #I'll post the next two acts tomorrow #again I'm sorry about formatting

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fics-not-tragedies · 5 years ago

Text

A lesson to teach me: Part One

one - two - three - four - five

I know how all of you waited for this parted fic, but my thirsty bitches deserve a special dedication: @keanu-fics; @keanuchillz; @fanficsrusz; @pkg4mumtown & @mikaneonox - darlings, this is for you! Professor!AU or you can call it the University!AU. @keanumarvel threw in a request for it, so here you go hun!

SUMMARY: Keanu, your English professor, writes on your essay that you have to see him after class, which leads to few surprising things. Words: 2998; Warnings: smut;

Readers tag list:

@spookier-than-u; @sparrowsparrow; @wickedlangdon; @bodhi-black; @derangedcupcake; @oreofenyloetyloamina; @geostarr; @catsmieow; @bugalouie; @onebatch--twobatch; @fandom-lover-4; @drunkonyellow; @semtempoirmaoo; @spadesandaces2342; @harrisongslimited; @a--1--1--3; @hhighkey; @lunilate; @i-cant-remember-my-old-login; @sgt-morgan; @coloursunlimited; @childrenofthegun; @weminiaturestrawberry;

See me after our lecture. Those words written on the essay you submitted before the due date and the bold ‘F’ written in juicy red ink right next to them made your heart beat faster. You gripped the sheets in your hands, almost wrinkling the paper. He couldn’t fail you. This was the last, crucial paper you had to write before your final exam and if he failed you it means that you can’t do that exam, which means you weren’t graduating.

There were still 15 minutes left of the lecture and you noticed how he was eyeing you from behind his desk, speaking to the whole room, but his gaze was focused only on you. There was something dark in it and it felt like he was trying to undress you with his eyes.

Of course there were times you fantasized about him while you were listening to his dulcet voice. Everything about him was mesmerizing: the way he talked, the way he walked, the way he was gesturing in his hands… oh yes, his hands! You could imagine him touching your naked body, fingertips sliding down your naked back, gently grazing your hips… you’d love to feel his large hands wrapped around your neck, squeezing it, as he fucks you roughly on the huge wooden desk in his office.

People around you were gathering their things and walking out of the auditorium. You got so consumed in the filthy images that ran through your head that you barely noticed that, snapped out of them when the doors closed behind someone with a loud thud.

He was sitting by the small desk placed by the blackboards, writing something down in his calendar. You were almost right in front of him and since the auditorium got all empty now, except for you two, you could finally stare at him without being given weird looks from your colleagues.

His hair was slightly messed, like the wind got a hold of it when he was on his way here; he was focused on whatever he was scribbling down now, his nose scrunched, the lines on his forehead visible. The neatly trimmed beard on him looked stunning and you wish you could touch it or feel it tickle your skin when he’d kiss you.

Suddenly he moved his gaze to you, your body shuddered a little, face turning red instantly, “Miss...” he spoke your last name softly and you felt obligated to do the same.

“Professor Reeves” his last name rolled off your tongue in such a manner it almost sounded filthy to you and you noticed how he raised his eyebrow, probably thinking the same.

“Please call me Keanu” he stood up from the chair and slowly moved closer to you, his leather boots clicking on the overly-polished floor.

“Professor Keanu…” you blurted out as he was almost in a hand reaching distance, leaning onto the edge of your desk with his both hands.

“No. Just Keanu, please” the way he said ‘please’ was turning your guts upside down and you just couldn’t stop staring at his hand firmly gripping the edge of the wooden plank that was the only thing between you two, well except from the obvious sexual tension of course.

“Erm, sure, K-Keanu…” when you looked up at him, leaning back in your chair, he couldn’t hide the smirk that crept on the corners of his mouth.

“I asked you to stay after the lecture, because it’s our, almost, final meeting and there are few things I’d like to discuss with you” he rolled the sleeves of his baby blue shirt, the slight tan on them being a great addition to his look and wetting your lips you glanced back and forth between his face and his gorgeous arms, “and I bet you are quite curious why you get ‘F’.”

Keanu reached behind him, taking his notebook and his glasses. He put them on and you couldn’t help but gasp a little, upon hearing the tiny sound that left your mouth he looked at you for a second, before looking down to his scribbles, flipping the pages to find the right one, a big smile on his face.

“I don’t feel like my essay deserved ‘F’ since I submitted it few weeks before the due date and also I poured my heart into it-” he silenced you raising his hand into the air and you bit your lower lip, placed your hands onto the desk and entwined your fingers together taking a deep breath.

“You’re right, your essay was outstanding and it absolutely deserves an ‘A+’” he recited and you just shook your head in disbelief.

“Then why you gave me ‘F’ then?!” you raised your voice slightly and he leaned closer to you, glasses sliding slightly from his nose, his eyes locked with yours.

“Because I wanted to tease you, like you’ve been teasing me all the time” he fixed the glasses then firmly gripped his notebook, “I never actually kept a secret diary about any of my students in my whole career, but there’s something about you, little girl…” what did he just called you... “She likes to stare, a lot; fancies deep necklines; puts the end of her pen inside her mouth, probably thinking about my cock; juicy lips, looks great in glittery red lipstick; overall: she’s a tease” he read and you were happy to be sitting, because your knees got weak, “It’s about you, little girl and it’s just one percent of everything I wrote about you.”

You swallowed hard, his stare piercing right through your body, “Well then…” leaning forward to him you placed your hands under your chin, “perhaps you should give me ‘D’” flicking your tongue across your lower lip you saw his reaction, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. He threw the notebook back onto the desk and moved closer to you, your faces inches apart from each other.

“Perhaps I should give it to you now” he grazed your juicy lower lip with his finger, smearing your lipstick a little, before he firmly pressed his mouth to yours.

When you jumped up to a standing position he placed his hand on the back of your neck, pressing you closer, cupping the side of your face with his free hand. That damned desk being an obstacle between you two, so you just crawled atop of it, wrapping your arms around Keanu’s neck, pressing your chest flush to his.

“I think…” he panted a little after he drew back from you, “I think we should move it to my office, someone might catch us here.”

“Oh yes, absolutely!” you were unable to form a coherent thought, the lingering taste of his mouth left you absolutely breathless. After jumping off your desk you gathered all of your things, put them inside your backpack, waited for him to pack his stuff into that leather briefcase he always carried around with himself, then followed him to those doors that had his last name on them.

In a hurry he unlocked them, pulling you inside, switching on the light, throwing his briefcase onto the floor, his lips back to yours in the moment they closed behind you two. Stumbling to his desk he held you tightly in his arms, fingers tangled in your hair. When he slid his tongue inside your mouth you gasped, tasting the coffee he drank in the morning and the tobacco from the cigarettes he smoke right before your lecture.

“You’re such a tease, little girl” Keanu touched your neck sliding his hand down too your deeply cut neckline making you purr, feeling the touch of his large hand.

Suddenly he froze, as you heard quick footsteps approaching his office, then stopping right outside his door.

“Get under my desk.”

“Wha-…”

“I’ll explain it later, little girl” he ran around his desk, sitting onto the chair, gesturing to you that you should do it quickly. You tiptoed to him and crawled under the wooden desk, he pushed his chair further forward and towards it, making you move further underneath it, “Just place be silent. I promise I will explain everything to you later.”

When you were about to say something, the doors opened with a loud thud. You identified the steps as heels clicking on the floor, much more aware of them from where you were now, trying silently to adjust your uncomfortable position under the big piece of furniture.

“Does something happened?” he asked, shifting when the door shut, implicating that the disturber was here to stay and you sank further under the desk, pressing yourself against the other side of it.

“Since we’re close to the end of the final semester, I thought I should talk to you...” female voice explained, the woman took few more steps that suggested she decided to sit down.

Your eyes had slowly adjusted to the darkness under the desk now and you looked up at Keanu sat in his comfortable leather chair with his legs spread slightly, covered with those tight suit pants, that were making you insane every time you looked at them, straining over his thighs, a visible bulge right below his belt. He wasn’t hard, but you weren’t surprised that it was visible nonetheless, he probably was hiding a good piece of cock there.

As you shifted slightly, lifting your body from the floor slightly, trying to adjust your sitting position, until you were placed right between his legs and you could tell he was trying to maintain his own position, trying not to allow you to do anything to him. You could tell he was aware of your movements, but there was really nothing he could do in this situation.

You reached up to push his legs further apart, the sudden movement making him jump and he covered it up instantly with a clear of his throat, “I see...” he leaned forward slightly trying to prevent his body from those things you wanted to do to him now.

But he was powerless now, the silent resistance of his wasn’t going to help in any means.

“I know I haven’t really had the chance to get closer to you, but I feel like it’s my final chance to tell you about my feelings.”

Perfect, now a professor whom you luckily didn’t knew was about to confess her love to him, while you were trapped under his desk.

“I think I am in love with you, Keanu” the woman blurted out.

You closed your hand around the bulge in his tight pants without a second thought, making his knee fly up against the desk top.

“Oh, f-fuck” he drawled. “Fuck, Janet, I had no idea.”

“Well, I could’ve told you about it earlier, but I felt like I shouldn’t and you know...”

“I don’t feel like it’s the right moment to talk about it” he growled through his gritted teeth.

You dragged your nails along his inner thighs, then placed your both hands at his belt buckle and he tried to push his thighs together, but he was met with the resistance of your elbows, unable to use more force without raising the woman’s suspicion, sat too close to the desk to slip his hands underneath it.

He was tense.

And after you undid his belt buckle with ease, it felt like there was nothing else that could stop you.

Janet sighed, “Keanu…”

“Please, not now. We can talk about it when the semester ends.”

Not making a sound when you kept massaging him through the fabric of his trousers, was your main focus. His hips were bucking involuntarily against the touch of your hand, his breaths becoming more hitched in his throat.

“It’s because you have someone, Keanu?”

He sucked in a breath, his hand slamming down on the table when you pulled down his underwear enough to free his now slowly hardening length from its restraints, “N-No…” he groaned, his voice shaking, “I mean, y-yes, I-I mean no.”

“Well…” she said, clearly irritated but not letting that stop her, “I wish we could get closer”

“Oh, yes, right...” he drawled again, coughing it off, merely speaking to disguise his reaction.

You took the opportunity to wrap your hand around him, giving his length few slow tugs. His whole body was tensed up, pouring all his strength into appearing unfazed by your actions, to not raise the woman’s suspicion.

But the truth was that you only just started.

“I still think that we should talk about it when the semester ends” his dulcet voice was now surprisingly steady, his fingers shaking slightly and he pushed himself back, making you stretch your arm but it still wasn’t enough for him to slip his hand under the desk and do anything. You were now steadily stroking him, he knew that you were only building him up slowly.

“But why you want to wait?”

He swallowed hard, for a moment it broke his self-control and you used that moment to adjust your sitting position, lifting your body onto the knees and steadying yourself with one of your hands sprawled out on his thigh, nails digging into it, using the other hand to guide him into the warmth of your mouth.

His reaction was everything you, in fact, hoped for, his hips instantly lifted off his chair to push his cock deeper into your hot mouth, he breathed out shakily, coughing again to conceal it again, his legs shaking slightly as he tried to compose himself.

“F-fuck, well...” he muttered, biting his lip, “I’m not really a fan of work affairs.”

Your tongue was swirling around him, hand pumping at the base when you couldn’t hold him all the way in your mouth, head bobbing up and down.

His eyes threatened to flutter shut and he forced them to stay open, his whole poise threatening to falter now. “I will talk to you after graduation ceremony.”

“I don’t think I can wait that long...”

Keanu didn’t wanted to argue, he couldn’t, his hips almost snapping forward automatically now as you took him deep into your mouth, held him there and swallowed around him and he gripped the edge of the desk, trying to play the moan that was threatening to fall from his lips as a groan of annoyance, “It’s not that long…”

He was struggling to breathe evenly, tensing now as you held him in her throat for so long, with fingers still wrapped around the base of his shaft, tongue dancing around him, determined to drive him absolutely mad. He knew that your glittery lipstick would be all over him. His legs were trembling, he was getting close.

“I want you, Keanu, I want you so badly…” she got up from the chair, her heels clicking on the floor.

“As I told you: I’m not a fan of relationships in my work environment” he drawled, once again stifling a moan that potentially would’ve been too obscene to cover up.

“I will wait for your call then” she sighed.

Your body tensed and you moved your head back when you felt his hips bucking up again, now only pumping him slowly to keep him on the edge, anticipating the moment he’d snap.

There was no more word uttered before the doors fell shut and Professor Reeves pushed his chair back, not missing a beat, his eyes dark, threatening and you sat on your knees for a moment, holding his glare, then crawling forward, taking merely his tip back into your mouth, suckling teasingly.

“Little girl, what are you doing down there?” he spat out.

You tried to stand up but before you could even take him out of your mouth and move your body just an inch, his large hand came down on the back of your head, firmly gripping the nape of your neck, making you close your lips tighter around him, as he kept himself buried in your warm mouth, “Oh, no, little girl” he drawled, leaning back into his chair, “You have to finish what you started.”

Struggling to breathe, when he pressed his length all the way down to your throat, you protested a little, but it didn’t helped much. He gripped a fistful of your hair and drew back your head away from himself for a moment, hissing loudly when he saw that he really was covered in your lipstick, pushing his cock right back down your throat when you had the chance to take a breath, “I knew you wanted to feel me inside your mouth, but had no idea you wanted it THAT much little girl.”

You were sucking him more eagerly now, since you had more room to move your head, the sounds you made obscene and bringing him closer to the edge, the way he was slipping in and out of your wet mouth making him even harder.

“Please look at me, little girl.”

He didn’t give more of a warning, his hips simply snapped up and his grip at the back of your head tightened, making you whimper around him, the vibrations building him up even more and he came with a loud groan, your name rolling off his lips, as his release filled your mouth, sliding down your throat. Keanu held your gaze and he breathed out shakily when you swallowed around him again. Then he drew back, lifting his hips and tucking his cock back in, fixing his belt.

“Who was that?” you asked him, when you finally could breathe properly. He leaned in to kiss you passionately, his tongue lapping at your lower lip.

“Janet, one of the substitute professor, she apparently loves me” he shrugged a little.

“She loves you, but I was the one sucking your cock under your desk” teasingly you slid your hand across his thigh making him whimper again.

“Oh yes, you were, little girl and you did it perfectly. ‘A+’ for the cock-sucking skills and another ‘A+’ for your essay.”

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queenscoolcat · 6 years ago

Text

Little One - Joe Mazzello x Reader

Request: @x-lonelywolf : Hi! I wonder if you could write something about reader just started dating Joe and she's a little shorter than him but she's ALWAYS wearing high heels and he don't notice this height difference until the morning after she stayed for the first time at his apartment? (I hope you'll understand this, my English sucks. 😂) Thanks!

Pairing: Joe Mazzello x Reader

Word count: 832

Warning: So much fluff!! this screams fluff, i dont know if i love it or hate how fluffy this is, also a slight mention of smut.

A/n: Sorry if you find any errors.

Tags: @destiel-stucky4ever-loki-queen

The light coming from your window made you groan and bury your head deeper into Joe’s neck, you felt his arm wrap tighter around you as he started to wake up too.

“Good morning, love,” Joe whisper with his morning voice that made you melt.

“Sshh… we can still sleep more and wake up for a good evening,” you mutter closing your eyes tighter and hoping Joe would agree with you, but when he planted a kiss on the top of your head, you knew he didn’t share your wishes.

“Lucy invited us for lunch, and you know she will be really mad at you if we don’t go,” the only thing that made you feel less sleepy was how good Joe’s voice sounded.

While he continues talking you make sure to start kissing his neck hoping that if you couldn’t sleep more then you would spend your early morning doing something you both enjoy.

“Love, I am not complaining, but aren’t you tired from all the rounds we had last night,” Joe said and you knew he was already holding some moans, you simply shake your head as you searched for the marks you left “as much as I want to continue, we don’t have time.”

“That is bullshit,” you mutter moving so you could see your boyfriends face, “you said Lucy invited us for lunch and for that we still have plenty of time.”

“Yes, but we still need to have breakfast and prepare the dish we will bring,” Joe tried convincing you while his hand caress your cheek “since when I am the voice of reason in this relationships?”

You didn’t have it in you to argue with him and his sweet and sexy morning voice, so you kiss his nose and take his hand on yours “I still think all of that is bullshit,” you mutter trying to hold back some giggle, Joe laugh with you and with some whines from your side he finally stud up as he searched for his clothes that were everywhere.

It was hard for you to stop staring at him as he moved all around the room looking for his stuff, you gave him a sweet smile before you finally stud up and grabbed Joe’s shirt.

“Hey I was looking for that,” he said making you laugh and stick your tongue out.

“Too late, loser,” you joked standing in the mirror making sure there weren't any strands of hairs covering your face.

Joe move so now your back was pressed against his chest, he wrapped you in his arms as his chin rested against your head, through the mirror you saw him frown and stare quizzically at you.

“What you little shit?” You teased again flashing him a huge smile.

“I think that the only little shit in here it’s you,” Joe said moving you so now he was facing you “since when you are this short?”

“Wha… what?” You question him with a confused look.

“I didn’t remember you being this small, did all that good sex shrink you?” Now it was Joe’s turn to tease, you rolled your eyes and smack his arm, though the smile on your face was there to betray you.

“I always been this size, pulse do you hear yourself and all the nonsense you are talking?”

“It’s true! When I hug you, you are at the perfect distance for me to kiss, and now you are… lower,” Joe tried to explain, and that was when you realized he wasn’t joking anymore, you couldn’t stop laughing, not even the confused look Joe had on his face made you stop, you were almost on the floor feeling tears forming in your eyes as you laugh harder and harder as time went by.

“The reason that happens may be because I always wear heels,” you finally said when you could get your composure back “you are a mess Joseph, couldn’t you see them?”

“Yes, But I never thought you were this tiny,” Joe tried to defend himself but seeing you smile made him know that he already lost the battle “it just that I was more focused in the pretty face you have.”

You open your mouth to joke a little bit more, but you couldn’t help feel your face grow hot at his words, you shake your head an turn your gaze to the floor trying your best to find a smart answer to that, but at the moment you were a mess, when you felt Joe’s hand grab your chin so now you were looking at him, you knew you didn’t have to say anything more.

Joe smile lovingly at you as he slowly lowered himself to kiss you, it felt a little bit weird as you stand on your toes so Joe wouldn’t bend that much, but as you both kiss the thought of the height difference went away.

“I love you, Joey,” you whispered inches away from him.

“I love you too, little one.”

#queen #bohemian rhapsody #queen imagines #bohemian rhapsody imagines #joe mazzello #joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello imagine #joe mazzello fluff #fluff #request #m

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waltzofthewifi · 5 years ago

Text

Kota Chapter 22: Princess Silence

Beginning | Table of Contents | Next

Chloe, Adrien, and Marinette all walked into the classroom looking ready to burst, but Bustier ushered them to their seats too quickly and started the lesson.

Lacy kept her eyes on her notebook, finding herself unable to focus. She was still shook up by Lila's threat and the close call with the akuma. As Bustier taught, she drew random words on her notebook.

Alix tapped Lacy on her shoulder ten minutes in.

"Are you okay?" She whispered.

Lacy nodded.

She turned back to her notebook, noticing that the random words had gone from French to English to Greek.

Fifteen minutes in, Chloe slammed her hands against her desk, startling Lacy.

"I can't take it anymore," Chloe declared, standing up.

"Chloe," Adrien sighed.

"Is something wrong?" Bustier asked.

"Yes," Chloe replied. "It's Lila."

"Wh-what did I do?" Lila asked, faking innocence.

Alix scowled. "Something bad, probably."

"Now, let's not team up against Lila," Bustier said. "I'm sure whatever it is was a misunderstanding."

Chloe slammed her hands against the table again. "I don't think so."

"Chloe, it's not a big deal," Adrien repeated.

"Wha - did she do something to you?" Nino questioned.

Marinette leaned over her desk and whispered something to Nino.

"She threatened you?"

"I did no such thing-"

"Yes you did!" Chloé said. "Adrikins doesn't lie about stuff like that."

Chloe marched up the stairs, making the students in the aisle seats lean away, and slammed her hands against Lila's desk.

"Let's make one thing clear, Rossi," Chloe snarled. "Bully Dupain Cheng all you want. Lie about all the amazing places you've been. Get out of school work, whatever, I don't care. But no one touches Adrien Agreste. You hear me?"

"Chloe..." Adrien said.

"No," Chloe snapped. She slammed her hands onto to the desk again. "Adrien is off limits."

She turned on her heel and began marching down the steps, but stopped mid way and walked back to Lila.

"Oh, and don't touch Sabrina either."

This time, Chloe marched all the way back to her desk. She huffed when she sat down, bringing her phone out to check her reflection.

Besides Lacy, Alix fumed.

"Miss Bustier, if Lila threatened Adrien, shouldn't you do something?" Sabrina questioned.

"Well, we don't have any proof," Bustier replied.

"You have Adrien's word," Alix argued.

"Actually, Adrien hasn't said anything," Bustier answered.

"Exactly," Lila said. "And he won't. Because I didn't do anything." She stood up and gracefully walked down to Lacy's desk. "Lacy, you're good at reading facial expressions. Am I lying?"

Lila plastered on the fakest innocent expression Lacy had ever seen.

"I can't say for sure," Lacy replied, scooting a little away from Lila. "But you do seem to be acting guilty."

Lila's fake expression dropped and she snarled. "Really?"

Lacy did her best not to flinch. "Really."

Alix slammed her hands on the desk, which definitely made Lacy flinch.

"You heard her," Alix said.

"Lila," Bustier said. "Please go back to your seat. We have a class to finish."

"Maybe we should ask Adrien what happened?" Rose suggested.

"Yeah," Ivan said.

Everyone's eyes fell on Adrien.

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled nervously.

"Well, I wouldn't say threatened me, but-" he rubbed his neck again. "Yeah, she did."

"Still, that's your word against hers-" Bustier started.

"But Lila has a history of lying, and Adrien's a good student," Alya argued.

"Still-"

"Miss Bustier!" Marinette called, standing up. "I may not have seen Lila threaten Adrien, but I did see her threaten another student. Me."

"What? When?" Alya demanded, also standing up.

"When she first came back from her 'trip'," Marinette replied. "I didn't say anything because I didn't think anyone would believe me."

"Oh, girl..." Alya replied.

"That is it!" Alix shot out of her seat.

"Alix," Lacy said, grabbing Alix and trying to push her back to her seat. "That's not going to help anything."

Alix plopped back in her seat with a scowl.

"Miss Bustier, that's two students who have claimed to see Lila threatening someone," Alya said. "Surely, that's enough."

Bustier hesitated.

"Miss Bustier," Chloe called. "If you're not going to do anything, I will."

She gracefully slid out of her seat, hmpfed, grabbed her bag and trotted towards the door.

"Blogger girl, you're coming with."

"You bet I am," Alya replied, following Chloe out the door.

The door shut with a bang.

Bustier took a moment to compose herself before speaking. "While they do that, may we continue our-"

She was interrupted by a yell.

"Akuma!"

Lacy saw the butterfly out of the corner of her eye, flying towards her desk. She pushed Alix over, knocking her to the ground.

The butterfly swerved towards them.

"Lila is not worth getting akumatized over," Lacy said.

Alix's muscles relaxed. "You're right. I can punch Lila without Hawkmoth's help."

The butterfly flew by Lacy's shoulder before changing directions, heading to the back of the classroom.

"Rose, look out!"

"Your majesty, a pleasure to meet you again. You wish to defend your class - your kingdom - from this liar? Very well. I will give you powers, Princess Silence, to put your classmates minds at ease!

"All I ask in return-"

Marinette watched with wide eyes as the purple light engulfed Rose.

I need to get out of here and transform!

Marinette slowly slid out of her seat, landing on her hands and knees. She was out of Rose's line of sight, but could still see the girl's transformation.

The top of her outfit was a lot like Princess Fragrance's - black, with puffy shoulders, long sleeves, and a white flower emblem across her chest. But her skirt was long and flowing, starting black like her top and fading into white at the hem. White silk gloves covered her hands up past her wrist. Her blonde hair now tumbled past her shoulders and down her back, stopping at her waist.

Marinette snuck a little bit closer to the door.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you," Rose said, standing up. She put her hand on Juleka besides her, and Juleka relaxed into her grip, until she was sleeping. "We're all just so emotional, we need a break."

Rose stood up, and the effect of her skirt draping against the ground made her seem to be floating.

Around her, the light dimmed. Colors faded. Kim yawned.

Marinette scooted a little closer to the door. Almost there.

None of the other classmates seemed capable of moving. Rose placed one hand on Lila's arm, and another on Nathaniel's, and they both fell into slumber.

Looks like it takes direct contact and several seconds for her to completely put us to sleep, Marinette noted. But being around her at all is causing us to grow tired.

Marinette scooted forward another inch, accidentally slamming her knee into the desk. She winced from the pain, but no sound was made.

She must be dampening the sound as well.

Rose put her hand on Kim's arm, and Marinette made her last scoot to the door. Confident in her guess that sounds were dampened, she slowly opened the door and slipped out.

Once out, she darted.

She slipped into the bathroom, backpedaling when she saw it was occupied, and then into an empty classroom.

"Aren't you going to help your classmates?" Tikki asked.

"I will, once I've transformed," Marinette said. "I couldn't risk being caught in my civilian form again. Tikki, spots on!"

"Is she gone?" Lacy asked.

Alix quickly looked over the desks. "Yes."

Lacy stood up, looking around at the dampened classroom warily. She and Alix had gotten lucky, being out of Rose's eyesight when she transformed. Now, the rest of her classmates were fast asleep.

"Huh, she left Lila alone," Alix noted, walking over to where Lila was left asleep.

"Rose isn't a vindictive person," Lacy replied.

"No, but akumas are," Alix replied. "Last time Rose got akumatized - well, it was scary. But then again, there's a big difference between being akumatized because of Chloe being cruel and because you're worried about your girlfriend being overstimulated."

Lacy glanced over to Juleka, who was sleeping peacefully.

"That does mean she'll probably be back for her," Lacy said. "We need to get out of here."

Ladybug shut her yo-yo with a sigh. Ten minutes into the fight and no sign of Chat Noir.

Rose - or Princess Silence, as she declared herself - wasn't a big concern, as far as safety. She was just putting everyone to sleep - and Ladybug had even watched her cause the cars carrying asleep drivers to stop.

So different from Princess Fragrance, she noted. Wonder why.

For the most part, Princess Silence would be an easy akuma to beat - she could only cause people to fall asleep by touch, and while her powers dampening powers made it hard to stay awake, they made it easy to sneak up on her. The only problem was Princess Silence could phase through her yo-yo, even after she had been captured.

Sneaking up on her would still work, but Ladybug had no idea where the akuma was.

And also no partner.

Ladybug sighed. She needed help - her eyes were starting to feel heavy, and she needed someone to keep her awake.

It was short trip Master Fu's, even after waiting a moment for him to shoo away a customer.

Marinette kneeled down in her usual spot as Master Fu brought out the miracle box.

"Choose an alley you can trust," Master Fu said.

Marinette immediately reached for the rooster and the fox. Not only would they be the most helpful battling Princess Silence, but they were her only classmates who made it out of the classroom.

Except Alix and Chloe.

Marinette hesitated. Could she Trust Chloe with a miraculous again? Freezing Princess Silence would be super helpful, if it kept her from phasing. And Chloe had been nicer recently.

But that didn't change the fact that her identity had been revealed. While at times that may have been an excuse - Marinette would never enjoy working with Chloe, not even now - it was still a valid point.

And what about Alix?

She was destined for the rabbit miraculous. Marinette had met Bunnyx twice, and she was crucial both times. But Alix had yet to show the delicacy needed for that miraculous. The bee, on the other hand, she would be a natural at.

But something in Marinette's gut told her to wait, so she settled for just the two miraculouses.

"Orikko, sun up!"

A jolt of energy spread throughout her body as the transformation washed over her. Even in the dampened hallway, the colors of her outfit were bright.

"Ready?" Ladybug asked.

Kota nodded.

Kota followed Ladybug up onto the roof of the school, where Rena Rouge was waiting for them.

"Still no sign of Chat?" Ladybug asked.

Rena Rouge shook her head.

Ladybug sighed. "Looks like it's just us then."

"That's fine," Rena Rouge said. "So, what's the plan?"

"Right now, what we need most is to figure out where the akumatized object is," Ladybug said. "Her powers dampen sound, so it's easy to sneak up on her, but once she knows you're there she can phase through your weapons."

Kota frowned. "That's inconvenient."

"Once we figure out where the akuma is, Rena can distract her with a mirage and I'll sneak up on her. But in order to figure out where the akuma is, I need to get up close."

"And the closer you get the more tired you are," Rena Rouge guessed.

"Yes," Ladybug said. "Which is why I need back up."

Kota stood up straighter. "We won't let you down."

"Okay. On three. One. Two. Three!"

In unison, the three superheroes dropped around Princess Silence.

Ladybug stuck first, wrapping her yo-yo around Princess Silence's legs. Princess Silence gave a silent yip as she toppled over.

She quickly recovered, phasing through the yo-yo, but just as she turned solid again, Rena Rouge whacked her with her flute.

Princess Silence was a tough opponent, but she was quickly overwhelmed. The three superheroes were near flawless with their teamwork, one moving in as soon as another faltered. Not that it mattered, since they still had no clue where the akuma was.

When Princess Silence dodges one of Rena Rouge's attacks, Ladybug wrapped her yo-yo around her leg and pulled. Princess Silence phased through the yo-yo, but Kota jumped on her and pushed her kite down over her, keeping her on the ground.

Princess Silence reached out with her free hand, something glinting on her wrist, and grabbed Kota's arm.

Immediately, the world around Kota began to fade. The adrenaline coursing through her vanished. Kota tried to pull away, but the grip was tight and it seemed so easy to give in -

Something shrieked through the air, knocking the sensation away, and Kota yanked her arm out of the grip and backed off.

"What was that?" Kota asked.

"Me," Rena Rouge said, proudly. "There's more than one way to weaponize a flute."

She spun her flute and dove back in.

"Are you alright?" Ladybug asked, approaching Kota from the other side.

Kota nodded. "My ears hurt, but yeah. And I think I know where the akuma is. She has a bracelet on her wrist, but it's covered partially by those gloves."

"Good job," Ladybug said. "Looks like she has a limit as to how long she can go without changing back to solid - a second at most."

Rena Rouge slid next to Ladybug. "Looks like you have a plan."

Ladybug grinned. "I think I might. Lucky charm!"

A tuning fork fell into Ladybug's hands.

"Alright, Rena Rouge, do your thing. Kota, wait for my signal."

"Mirage!"

The mirage was impressive - one of the best Kota had seen. Dozens of Ladybugs, Kotas, and Rena Rouges appeared in the courtyard, each charging towards Princess Silence.

Princess Silence dodged by phasing through those she could, and moving out of the way of the others. It would have been effective against real enemies, but all it meant against the mirage was that the illusions persisted.

Ladybug gestured for Kota to position herself in front of Princess Silence, and Ladybug moved to her back. Ladybug gave her the signal, and Kota charged.

Princess Silence attempted to dodge, but Kota predicted the move and changed her heading. She rammed her kite, now the size of her torso, and her shoulder into Princess Silence, sending her backwards.

At the same time, Ladybug ran forward. She slipped on end of the tuning fork into the bracelet, and twisted it. It popped off with snap, and the butterfly flew out. Ladybug didn't even pause before capturing and purifying the akuma.

"Pound it!"

Two attacks on school grounds was definitely cause for ending school early, and slowly the students began trickling out.

Lacy and Alix were waiting by the stairs for Nathaniel when Lila and Chloe bumped into each other.

"There you are," Chloe said. "I was wondering where you scampered off to."

Lila huffed. "Please. Don't try to pretend that you have power over me."

"Excuse you, but my daddy, you know, the mayor-"

"Isn't even related to you," Lila said.

Chloe stopped dead. Lacy could see from the expression on her face that, for once, what Lila said was the truth.

"What makes you think that?" Chloe asked.

"Oh, just something I heard. Somewhere."

"Well, whoever told you is wrong. The idea is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous!"

Chloe flipped her hair, turned around, strutted out of the courtyard.

Lila smirked, and Alix rolled her eyes.

"Why does it matter if they're related by blood or not?" She questioned. "If he's still willing to abuse his power for her."

Lacy shrugged. "I guess it's the worse Lila could dig up on her."

"Yeah, cause she shows off all her horrible traits already," Alix replied. "Everyone knows her at her worst."

"So Lila had to find something else to lord over her," Lacy finished.

Ladybug waited on the rooftop, watching Chat Noir's Symbol on her yo-yo slowly approach her position.

So, he was coming. That was good - meant he didn't loose his miraculous, or quit, or anything like that. He was fine.

Except that he was dead for making her worry like that.

Chat Noir landed on the rooftop behind Ladybug, and for once in his life, hesitated before speaking.

"So, um, sorry?"

"Sorry?" Ladybug parroted.

"Yeah?"

Ladybug clenched her fists and spun around. "Sorry? Is that all you're going to give me? I was sick with worry, Chat!"

Chat Noir scratched the back of his neck. "I know, and I'm sorry. I wish I could give you more, but I can't - not without diving into identity stuff."

Ladybug took a deep breath. And another. And another.

"Okay, okay. But you swear there was nothing you could do to have transformed?"

"I swear," Chat Noir replied. "I was - yeah, there was no way I could have transformed."

"Then I guess I can't blame you," Ladybug said.

"Well, it might be my fault for getting in that situation in the first place," Chat Noir admitted. "But you know I would never leave you alone, right?"

"I guess I just worry," Ladybug said. "I mean, what if you were in a car accident? Or dropped your ring down a drainage ditch?"

"My kwami would have alerted you," Chat Noir said. "Like he did with Style Queen."

"Right." Deep breath. "Right."

Ladybug paced back to the edge of the rooftop.

"You don't think I'd actually drop my ring down a drainage ditch, do you?" Chat Noir questioned.

"I don't know what I think," Ladybug replied. "It just - it seems so fragile, sometimes, that all this mighty power is stored in things so small. I mean, what if I dropped my earrings down a drainage ditch?"

"Maybe you should start avoiding drainage ditches if they're scaring you so much," Chat Noir answered.

"That's not the point." Ladybug plopped down onto the roof and put her elbows on her knees. "I need a vacation."

#Marinette needs a break #kota #my writing #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #miraculous ladybug #Percy Jackson fanfiction

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ask-elementalhermitcraft · 6 years ago

Text

A Sun-Warmed Love

(1.8k, fluff, mod seagrass)

Anyways, it doesn’t matter. He’s just here for the warmth and the safe space where nobody bothers him. Not the cats. Definitely not the cats. [an evilxisuma/Z centered fic where he finally gets to be happy.]

tw: cursing

He’s not sure when it started, really.

He’s noticed a lot of other hermits on the server have pets—some have dogs, some have cats (some have too many cats, Cleo, he’s looking at you), and some have the odd parrot or other tamable mob. It’s nice, sometimes, to go over and visit them, he guesses. Better than doing nothing with his time.

But it doesn’t matter. It’s just to occupy his time. Just something to keep him not bored out of his fucking mind, he tells himself day after day.

He repeats it as he finds himself at Scar’s place more and more often, hanging around his weird base or lounging about in little magma-water-heated alcoves in the cave or especially, in his Room O’ Cats.

It’s so weirdly mesmerizing to stay there, just perched on a little block of wood that he’s got on a high place and watch the cats run around and over their own feet. They meow, he throws them some more salmon, they meow for some more, he meows back in a more angry tone and feels fucking stupid. Rinse and repeat.

Scar drops by sometimes, re-fills the salmon chest, says hi to him and then goes to do whatever kinda world-destroying terraforming he’s going to do next. Probably going to destroy an entire ecosystem for a palm tree, or whatever he does in his spare time.

At least he gets to use the catroom.

It’s really nice in there, he’s loath to admit. There’s a little room out of the way with glass windows and smooth stones that heats up in the winter and stays cool in the summer, where the cats love to take naps. He’ll never admit it, but sometimes when he’s overwhelmed he’ll take refuge in there with a cat curled up on his lap and snooze the day away.

Ah, to live life as a cat. No worries, except getting salmon. Must be a nice life.

Anyways, it doesn’t matter. He’s just here for the warmth and the safe space where nobody bothers him. Not the cats. Definitely not the cats.

—

Xisuma eventually finds him, when he’s taking one of his Designated Nap Days, and he’s very angry about being disturbed. “Woah, didn’t expect to find you—”

“Just want you to explain one thing. Just one little thing.” He’s angry now. He’d been looking towards his—HIS NAP TIME, not his cat time, thank you very much, and Xisuma had somehow found him out.

“Uh, yeah, what did you—”

“Why the hell are you here? Disturbing my Specific Time For Sleep? Just curious,” he says. He hears a hiss from below, looks at the cat he’s petting perhaps a little too hard, and forces himself to relax his tension. It helps him feel better, maybe, in a weird way.

“Just wanted some coral Z, no harm meant. Although, I didn’t know you liked cats…” Xisuma trails off. Probably just realized the dozen or so cats who were staring at him hungrily, smelling the salt of the sea still on his skin and by extent, fish. “Y’know what? Think I might leave you to it. Take off for the day. Exit the premises. Vacate the—”

Xisuma leaves in a dash, trying not to further anger the cats. Z laughs, anger almost completely dissipated. “Hey, kitties, don’t take it too hard,” he calls out, tossing another one onto a dish for them to tear apart. One small grey one creeps up to him, licking around his hands for anything it might’ve missed. He holds up his hands in surrender. “Nope—nothing. Too bad for you.”

That’s when it decides to sit down between his legs and stare at him like that might magically make the fish appear. “Cat, no,” he chuckles. The sun’s pleasantly warm on his skin. He kinda feels like one of those cats stretched out in a puddle himself.

“Not gonna give you any. Don’t fuck with me.” It still stares at him.

“You don’t understand the English language, do you? Don’t have a quite firm enough grasp of the Queen’s English?” He smiles. It’s nice to talk to something that can’t really understand nor really wants to.

Z lets out a steady stream of how he’s been doing, how other hermit’s bases are going, how much he hates the sheer Ugly of this one makeshift build that Wels had made because, really, he understood it was makeshift but couldn’t he at least put in the effort to make it look nice? Just a little?

He lets all of the casual small talk he’d wanted to make for so long but didn’t know how to spill out to the cat still sitting patiently between his legs. It’s blinking slowly at him, and the setting sun is golden and warm and kinda lovely out the window, and the whole room seems to be relaxing and sinking down into a kind of subliminal space.

His voices trails off, his hand stops petting, and the cat has long since curled up at his side against the wall.

In other words, he’s fast asleep.

—

Z wakes up the next morning in a slow, steady kind of way—quite unusual for him. He’s wondering why he doesn’t feel his bed beneath him, when he scans his surroundings and realizes—Oh. He’s not at his bed.

Son of a bitch, he’s fallen asleep in the cat room. And Scar’s standing in front of him, chuckling. “So, got a good rest in there?” he says.

“So what if I have?” It’s unnecessarily defiant, probably, and he knows that but he’s been caught sleeping in the cat room. His dignity was on the fucking floor. Oh, the horror.

“Not anything against you, just asking: did you want to take Boo with you? The one cuddled against you? She’s a sweetheart, and I think she likes you, and also I have too many cats. Please.”

Z scrambles for words. “I—uh—what—”

“Cat or no cat, Z?”

In his defense, he was panicking at the time. Also, he did not make good decisions when he was panicked. Two very important factors, he thought, that led up to him doing two things:

1. Teleporting away with the cat still snoozing in his arms, and

2. Avoiding Scar for the next couple weeks. Which unfortunately meant no Cat Room.

He’d panicked, and now he had a cat in his little base with no way to feed it or take care of it.

Fuck.

Cats liked salmon, he knew. So he asked around, borrowed a fishing rod, and spent hours fishing to nab some fish. Turns out that he could get some pretty decent fish when he focused, he thought. Luckily enough, the cat seemed pretty happy with whatever fish he managed to catch—although, he did notice an odd preference for just straight up stealing his apples from his hand and nibbling on them just enough that it was annoying. (Or endearing. He didn’t quite know.)

He got a nicer bed for the cat than his own, grabbed some wool from Joe, talked to him (which he didn’t really want to do but was a necessary evil and, as it turns out, not so bad after all), and it turned out the damn cat liked his bed better anyways. Whatever.

Z got the cat some nicer toys, some new contraptions to mess around with. He contacted Mumbo for some help with it, and Mumbo rushed to the tiny little base like hell was on his heels. He then proceeded to spend the next hour cooing over the cat who was soaking it up like a sponge. Annoying, to be sure, but he was helpful and the cat seemed to like him so Z let it slide.

And throughout all this, he avoided Scar like the plague.

—

And of course, when he least expected it, he saw him.

“How’s Boo treating you? She’s being a well-behaved girl?” Scar said, nodding to him from across the shopping district where he was doing some weird stuff involving floating water blocks and gray crumbling plants.

“What? She’s not my—I don’t—Boo’s not my cat!” Z sputtered. This was why he had avoided Scar, he thought, to avoid the embarrassment.

“You sure? She seems to like you, and you seem to like her as well, don’t you?”

“I mean, she’s a cute cat, but I shouldn't be in charge of a cat! I don’t even like them that much—Wha—WHERE’D YOU COME FROM?” Z cried out. For Boo herself, the demon of a cat, was twining around his ankles and mewing for food.

“See, she likes you!” Scar laughed. Sounded a little messed up, but. A Laugh.

Z hopped from ankle to ankle, shifting his weight in the hopes that Boo—no, the CAT—would leave. She just purred more determinedly. “No, she likes my food.”

“Well, if you’re that determined not to admit it…Godspeed, friend. May you rest in peace.” Scar gave him a mock salute and spun back around, but not before adding one last comment. “Oh, also, bring her by again to the Cat Room! Her siblings miss her.”

“What—SHE’S NOT MY CAT!” Z called to his retreating form. “I—Fuck.”

He looked down. “Cat, why must you make my life a living hell.” She just meowed.

“Oh, alright. I’ll grab you some food. Hold up,” he sighed.

—

It’s about two months later, and he’s pretty sure he’s got a cat now. She follows him everywhere, meows at him constantly, and sleeps next to him.

It’s surprisingly…not that bad. She keeps him company when he’s lonely, lets him rant to her without a word, and demands love and attention in the way only cats can. It’s kinda nice to have something like that.

It’s still annoying, yeah, but Z’s starting to think it’s edging on the side of endearing now.

Her fur’s super soft, probably from all the brushing, and if she were a person, her dating profile would probably say “likes to take warm naps in the sun.” They’ve been stealing away into Scar’s Cat Room together sometimes now, to visit her siblings and to take a nap every now and then. It’s starting to form a new kind of normalcy in his life that he’s actually kinda liking.

The only truly frustrating part is her name.

She won’t respond to anything else besides Boo. It’s like she’s been goddamn trained, despite the fact that she’s a cat. He’s been trying out name over name, trying to find something cool that sticks, to no avail.

“Enderman?” No meow.

“Blade?” No meow.

“Slasher?” No meow.

“Ghast?” No meow.

“...Boo?” Furious meowing. He begs for mercy to whatever heavenly beast cursed him with a grey cat that only responded to Boo.

Better than no cat, he reasons. Better a sweet, cuddly, talkative, soft cat than no cat.

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s3tracha · 5 years ago

Text

Paranormal... activities ?

Am I capable of naming my stories ? Probably, if I tried. Do I try ? Absolutely not.

Hewwo evewyone, I usually never post my writing on sideblogs and such but look, this sideblog is for the boys, there’s a challenge specifically for the boys, I’m not about to post it on my writing sideblog. Nobody follows it anyway and I’m not a fool

I know I’m not posting this in time. :3c

Summary: in short, the adventures of Minho and Jisung in the abandoned house.

Content warning: I don’t think there’s any warning to be given ? It’s supposed to be spooky month but it’s more humourous than anything ! I guess there’s some cussing though. And maybe bad English, redundant phrasing, #notanativespeakergang.

Reblogs are very much appreciated - and if you wanna add commentary in the tags or replies you’re more than welcome to do so !

[4:12 pm]

“ You know what ? This is going to be so much fun. No, really, we’re about to have a great time - why would we not enjoy it ? We’re paranormal investigators ! Surely, it can’t go wrong. “

[11:43 pm]

“ This is the worst thing we’ve ever done. “

“ Mh. “

“ This is so, so not fun at all. “

“ Mh. “

“ I hate everything about this. I wanna go home. Can we go home ? “

“ Mh. “

“ … Are you listening to me ? “

“ Mh. “

With that last response, Jisung frowned and looked back at his friend. … Silence. Minho was completely silent. Mouth agape, eyes kind of glaring at everything and nothing at the same time, his hand holding onto Jisung’s arm pretty tightly now that he was paying attention to it… What, really ? He was going to have to be the driving force here ? Not that he wasn’t already aware of that, but… ah, geez. The younger teen took a few seconds before exhaling a soft sigh and looking around them again.

Minho’s reaction was understandable. The house wasn’t only abandoned, it looked awful ! Like the walls were rotting ( and he was pretty sure that wasn’t something walls usually did but he couldn’t attest to this if questioned about it ), the floor was much dirtier than any damn house floor should be… Weird, unsettling paintings everywhere, clothes here and there, so many broken glass bottles he couldn’t count them - some of them hadn’t been finished and the liquid which he could only assume to be alcohol had given the place quiet a stench. Terror was a pretty appropriate reaction to a place like this. He’d seen places that were less scary to sleep at.

Maybe sending them both together hadn’t been the greatest idea but he hadn’t considered the cons hard enough before agreeing. And even if he hadn’t agreed, he couldn’t have changed it.

As a full team, they were nine, rotating in two pairs each time and trying to not send the same two people all the time. The two who’d investigate were chosen randomly and, sometimes the same person could go twice in a row… As a result, this was Minho’s third time this month. Needless to say, going with Chan and then Hyunjin hadn’t been very beneficial to his already very pronounced fear of… pretty much everything. When it wasn’t the ghosts and demons and whatnot scaring him, it was the other boy present with him. With Hyunjin it wasn’t necessarily intentional, Hyunjin was just… loud at the wrong time.

Maybe agreeing to being paranormal investigators along with their entire friend group had been a mistake in itself… Couldn’t really back out anymore.

Now Jisung wasn’t exactly the most reassuring presence either but for an entirely different reason: though not as scared as himself, he was just… more pressure. He wasn’t scared as much as he was stressed and tried to play it off like he wasn’t, obviously and maybe that made it worse. Either way, Minho was both terrified and spacing out.

Great. Truly, the most fun they’d have in their entire life.

“ Uh, so, about the occurrences… Seungmin said we should be able to hear footsteps and some whispers here, the whispers would come from a crying man, and maybe he can move stuff too so… “ Jisung spoke again, his voice shaking slightly as he tried to bring himself back on the right track. The track of not being scared for the sake of his poor friend who clearly still wasn’t listening to him.

“ Poor guy passed of heartbreak after his wife took the kids and left… Maybe he’s not that mean. Maybe– maybe he won’t try to scare us, y’know… “

He trailed off, eventually just keeping to himself. Kind of forgot where he was going with this anyway. He was more focused on observing their surroundings while Minho was seemingly finally coming back to his senses - and with a small gasp and his other hand now holding Jisung’s arm as well, he shook his head to make sure he was, at last, processing things right.

“ Great, so, what’s up with the footsteps then ? “ He immediately asked, trying to take a look around as well. The least he could do.

“ Oh, dude had a pet dog that let itself die after his owner passed… “

“ A dog ? “

“ And a cat. But dog footsteps are louder than cat footsteps. “

“ Of course they are. “

Minho rolled his eyes, shaking his head again with a sigh. That earned Jisung another frown. “ What ? It’s true ! “

“ Mh. “

Ugh, great. The boy stared for a few seconds before sighing in his turn. Was there really no way to put the other in a good mood ? Well, the setting probably didn’t help either, but now that was just getting upset over a problem that didn’t even exist. So he was afraid of ghosts but cat ghosts are fine ? Ridiculous ! For one, he was scared of both equally.

Still, as much as he hated doing this - and especially doing this with Minho -, he at least wanted the atmosphere to not be tense for no reason at all. He had to fix it. He had to make something up on the spot and then the others would make fun of him for it when they’d hear about it. Yup.

“ W- well, I’d forgotten about that but… Um, Seungmin also said that… that you can– I mean, sometimes, rarely, you can hear… uh… the cat ! You can hear it ! “

An admirable attempt. Maybe the other’s face lit up a little at the words, too.

“ He said that ? “

“ Yeah ! If we’re lucky… I mean, maybe lucky isn’t the right word but we can hear it meow ! And… purr… and scratch the walls…? “

“ You’re kidding, of course lucky’s the right word ! Okay, where do we start ? “

The sudden enthusiasm from his previously mortified friend sure managed to throw Jisung off. Once again staring for a few seconds, time for him to think of something to answer with and to deal with how easily his lies had been eaten up, god he’d hate himself if Minho found out he lied, he eventually seemed to gain all of his confidence back and flashed a bright smile. One of those smiles that make it seem like he’s not only confident, but cocky about it as well.

“ I suggest we… go separate ways to visit ! So we can get it all done fa– “

“ Pass, next. “

“ Wha– Why ? I thought we were good ! “ Jisung exclaimed, visibly taken aback once again. Was this ever going to make any sense ?

“ So long as I haven’t heard the cat I’m not gonna be any good and I certainly don’t wanna be left alone here,” Minho retorted, his grip on Jisung’s arm not loosening. “ Chan tried. I left the building. “

“ But Chan’s an ass when we’re investigating, and I’m not ! “ He knew he wasn’t changing anybody’s mind. “ Ah, fine. But we’re gonna have to stay awake muuuch longer. “

Minho shrugged. “ Fine. I got snacks in my bag. “

“ Well, cool. “

“ Yeah. “

Silence. Jisung was pulling a face. Minho was looking around, though this time probably more avoiding Jisung’s face than actually looking around. Jisung considered the possibility of them doing standup comedy rather than paranormal investigation in the future, with how comical every situation they got into ended up being, but that probably wouldn’t really pay bills… not that paranormal investigation did though. Oh, and they had all of this on tape, right. He’d kind of forgotten they had cameras.

The silence kept on going before Jisung of course it’d be him gave in and gestured vaguely. “ I guess we’re gonna start with… downstairs. That’s not where the guy died apparently so we shouldn’t see anything but we can still hear the footsteps, and the sobs. But we’d hear them better upstairs so for now– “

Cut off by a door slamming, followed by the both of them screaming and Jisung almost dropping the camera he was holding. And silence again. Two weak hearts needed some time to calm down and assess the new state of things, which was different in one way: a door, they did not know which nor where it was, was now closed.

This time, rather than talk, Jisung went and started walking again, Minho being forcibly dragged along despite how reluctant he might’ve been had he been able to be a little more responsive. The lights strapped to his and the other boy’s foreheads were probably the things he was most grateful for at the moment…

Their quiet investigation kept on going until after they’d gone around the kitchen. It had been quick, given the putrid smell they really wanted to get away from as quickly as possible.

Then Jisung laughed.

“ That sure was something, huh ? “ Not an ounce of confidence in his voice. Definitely faking it still though.

“ Sure was, “ Minho muttered, nose slightly scrunched up from the smell still, “ and also I don’t think I wanna see what the restroom’s like so let’s skip it. “

“ Yeah, okay. “

He’d already avoided some rooms with Jeongin once. They just pretended they lost the footage when asked about it. Surely that didn’t only happen when he was part of the investigation, right ? Eh, whatever. He’d just cut off the footage they already had so it’d seem like they opened the door.

“ Okay, anyway… Hello, ghosts ! I am incredibly NOT scared of you, and you can’t do anything to me ! “ Oh, here’s the bravado. “ Let’s just talk and have some tea, and maybe some snacks and– “

“ No, wait. Shh. “

He raised an eyebrow but complied. Something he had feared was Minho being the one to notice something, because who knew how Minho would react to anything ? If he noticed something first he could at least anticipate his reaction. Not his own, but… that was less of a problem, as surprising as it might’ve been given he wasn’t too relaxed either.

And then it came… the footsteps. Jisung felt not only himself going stiff, but Minho as well - his grip tightening on the poor boy’s arm who ended up wincing in pain instead of focusing on the noise.

“ Does… Does the dog attack ? “ Minho whispered, voice shaking slightly.

“ I… No, “ Jisung answered just as quietly, “ please don’t cut off my blood circulation. “

“ Does the dog go upstairs ? “

“ I don’t… think s�� Hey, stop ! “

Here they were, rushing to the staircase, and it was Jisung’s turn to be forcefully dragged there since Minho wouldn’t release his arm.

“ Come on, that’s crazy ! There’s a dead man’s ghost on this floor, it isn’t any better ! “ Jisung tried to argue, mentally attempting to rationalise anything they would do in the next eight hours aside from sleeping very uncomfortably and complaining about it.

“ I don’t care, if you don’t know a dog you never know how it can react, everybody knows that ! “

Jisung groaned. Why did things have to be this way ? He’d almost dropped the camera again, if this kept on going like this he’d definitely lose it.

“ … Besides, I sure hope you can’t find any… alive people’s ghosts, “ Minho continued. “ What’s a “dead man’s ghost” ? Redundant. That’s what it is. “

“ Oh, whatever - you got what I meant ! “

Silence should be the third main character given how often it appears but here it is, the silence. More looking around, and kind of… trying to walk around as well, though Jisung wasn’t very into it despite the brave act he’d put on just a few minutes ago.

“ So now that we’re here… Um, we’re supposed to sleep in the kids’ room, “ he explained, trying to figure out which one of these equally dull doors led to the room in question. “ The guy’s ghost never leaves his room but he makes stuff move, so… if you hear chairs moving in the middle of the night… “

“ Yeah, I get the gist of it. “ Pause. “ And I don’t like it one bit. “

“ Guess it’s good you’re with me then, “ a response which prompted a nervous snort. “ Hey, what does that mean ? “

“ Nothing. Let’s get going. “

The next minutes were spent visiting the rooms, trying not to touch things and remaining careful of any noises they might hear. Nothing just yet, aside from the footsteps from before, and even the man’s bedroom seemed pretty okay ! Well, aside from the smell, once again. The kids’ bedroom didn’t smell as bad from what Jisung could remember of the maybe two minutes they’d spent ‘visiting’ it.

“ Hey, look at this, “ Minho called out from the end of Jisung’s arm. “ There’s a journal on the desk. It was left open. “

“ Oh, sick, let’s read it. “

And with this, the two boys jumped onto the journal. Perhaps that wasn’t the best call though ; a few seconds into it and the chair was suddenly thrown into them, reminding them they were kind of invading the privacy of an actual ghost… and yes, they ran out of the room.

Next step was locking themselves up in the kids’ room, quickly setting up their sleeping bags all while remaining glued to each other, each whispering a different list of swears and prayers before Minho spoke up with a desperate “ Man, what the hell ! “, and Jisung responding as desperately with “ I don’t know, dude ! “.

They let themselves plop down on Minho’s sleeping bag. Panting, Jisung dropping the hand-held camera to hold the other just as tight as he was being held, overall looking very comfortable with the situation they were in.

“ It moved. Right. “ Minho asked, though it was more of a statement.

“ Rammed into my legs, yes. “

“ I should’ve been the one to take it, I pointed to the journal... Sorry about that. “

“ Nah... It’s good. I shouldn’t have tried to read it. I could’ve left it alone or something... Not your fault we’re both kinda stupid. “

Jisung trailed off again, slowly resting his head on the older boy’s shoulder and giving up. That was what it was, giving up that act he was putting on so Minho would relax more, now he just wanted to…

“ Didn’t you say something about going home ? “

“ I did… I mean it more now though. “

“ Thought so... Me too. “

[2:37 am]

“ Okay, so… the cameras are set up, with the audio recording. “

“ Correct. “

“ The door and window are closed even though there’s this uh, kind of inconvenient hole in the wall here. “

“ Uhuh. “

“ And you got snacks. “

“ I do. “

“ Then does that mean we get to sleep now ? Shouldn’t get much worse than that… “ Jisung’s sentenced ended with a yawn.

“ Guess you’re right. “ Minho’s voice was as disheartened as it could possibly get. It hadn’t been much but the both of them were drained.

Jisung sighed and took the frontal camera off along with the light, setting it next to the sleeping bag then looking back at his friend, waiting for him to do the same. And he didn’t.

“ … You won’t take it off ? “

“ You never know what can happen - and in case something does happen I need to be prepared. “ Minho turned the frontal light back on as to prove his point, blinding Jisung in the process. “ Dude, you didn’t have to. “

“ Did too ! I let you get hurt once, what am I gonna look like if you get hurt a second time and I do nothing about it ? I’d rather die. “

“ No, I meant... You didn’t have to flash it in my eyes like that. “

“ Oh. “

Silence is back.

“ Sorry. “

“ I’m not mad, don’t worry. “

Minho hummed softly, turning the light back off before slipping into his bag, and all Jisung could do was… watch.

“ Thanks for what you said though. I’d rather you don’t die if possible, three ghosts is enough for one house... “

That earned Minho a small chuckle as he looked back at his friend. He had that sleepy smile on his face but, as comforting as that smile was, he didn’t find it in himself to smile back truthfully. Something about this place just made him sad, he didn’t really like it and the prospect of sleeping in a bag by himself wasn’t really something he fancied either.

The other boy just waited. They were staring at each other for a few minutes with very different thoughts crossing their minds. For Jisung, it was a weird form of separation anxiety despite them sleeping in the same room ; for Minho it was a 13 minute long cat compilation. No thoughts, head empty… only cat. Jisung didn’t move, neither did Minho, but Jisung seemed much more inconvenienced sitting next to the other boy who was arguably comfortably lying down ready to sleep.

More silence. Then Jisung slipping into Minho's sleeping bag as well, snuggling up to his friend - warmth was truly the best way to feel safer. Minho said nothing. Instead of words, he responded with an embrace. A lazy one. He wasn't holding tightly onto Jisung anymore, it was rather relaxed... For the first time of the evening, Minho had relaxed, which only comforted his friend more.

" Night. "

[3:54 am]

... " Minho. Minho ? Hey, dude-- please wake up. "

" Mh... What ? It's late, why won't you let me... "

" I'm feeling something on me. Something that I don't think is your leg. It... it vibrates a little. Oh god. It’s a demon. There’s my sleep paralysis demon sleeping on me. I’m going to die. I’m sorry, Minho, I’m gonna have to leave you- "

Flash. A small noise came from the... mass that was lying on Jisung, then two tiny ears perked up, followed by a meow. Quite the terrifying demon.

“ ... It’s a cat, “ Jisung observed, slowly coming down from his panicked state, while Minho had already sat up to pet the small animal.

“ If your sleep paralysis demon’s a cat, I’m willing to get sleep paralysis. “

“ No, no ! It’s... fine. I had no idea it was a cat... “

Great way to make a fool of himself but it wasn’t like it was the first time, nor did Minho really seem to mind now that he had something to hold onto to keep calm.

“ I wonder how it got in, we kept the door and window closed... “

" Ah, uh. Maybe the small hole. "

" I guess that’d make sense. Well, now that’s settled... We should just go back to sleep, yeah ? “

" Yeah... " Jisung muttered.

That wasn’t something he’d expected. A cat... Maybe that was just how Minho was ? Capable of attracting nearby cats ? He’d never thought that’d be something he’d one day be grateful for, and yet here they were. This cat would be the key to a good night’s sleep, guaranteed, with the purring soothing him and the warmth... Again, warmth helping him feel safe. Maybe it wasn’t so bad.

[5:26 pm]

“ You lost all the footage ? All of it ? “

The seven boys were glaring. Ouch, that kind of hurt, didn’t it ? While not all of them were as serious as Chan, it was kind of hard on Jisung... Lying to everyone like that, could they do it ?

“ Oh, we sure did, “ he responded with that good ol’ fake confident smile, maintaining eye contact to the extreme, “ we’re all out of footage for the day ! “

“ Yeah, cameras said there was no space left before we were done filming and deleted everything stored in it. Sorry. “

Apparently, Minho could do it better than him without much trouble.

“ But instead, I’ve got something even better !”

Lo and behold, there’s a fucking cat in his coat ! Gasps coming from the younger boys and Changbin, Woojin aww-ing and Chan having to give it to him, getting a cat out of an investigation was pretty cool, the proud look on Minho’s face could not be more relieving to his more anxious friend.

“ I’m taking her home by the way, but I’ll let Jisung pick the name with me - don’t be too jealous, I’ll send you videos of her. “

They’d gotten one good thing out of this night. Jisung had gotten way with lying about the ghost of that cat. And... well, they’d gotten away with deleting the footage themselves, though they didn’t review it before doing so. How unfortunate that they didn’t see the man’s ghost petting the cat while they slept - that would’ve made their day !

#stayshub #han jisung #lee minho #lee know #stray kids #stray kids drabbles #tho idk if 3k+ words really count as a drabble...#minsung #fuck if i know how to tag fics i don't !! i do not !!!#it's my first time writing as them so i'm sorry about... everything T_T

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thefinalcinderella · 6 years ago

Text

Tsurune Book 2 Chapter 2-One over f (Part 2)

In this chapter: Regionals begin and end, Tsujimine is introduced, and Masaki and Shuu make a bet

Some parts of this chapter reminded me of Dive!!...I miss it so much

Glossary here

Full list of translations here

Translation Notes

1. Temari are handballs with colorful designs. They are highly treasured gifts. You can see some examples here

2. Fuwa says “heart of marble” in English here. Like, it’s literally written in English which is why it’s a bit weird to read

3. Sanbun no ni or “two-thirds” is a stage similar to the daisan of hikiwake (or an intermediate stage of hikiwake, it’s hard to tell) that only applies to shamen uchiokoshi. This is where the draw is momentarily halted two thirds of the way through, with the arrow stopping at the height of the eyebrows.

Previous | Next

The next morning was cloudy.

When Minato was packing for their departure, he heard a scream behind him.

"Wha, what's wrong, Ryouhei! What is it this time!?"

"There's a black thing on my baaaaaaaaag!"

"Could it be the rumored coc—"

"Don't say anymore than that!"

"I don't see anything. Oh, could it be this?"

His line of sight stopped at a small spider about a few millimeters big. Minato, partly fed up with it all, barehandedly caught the tiny intruder.

"Ugyaaaaaaah! Minato, you really are a hero!"

"A cute little guy like this is no big deal, isn't it?"

"Of course it's a big deal! Don't bring it over here! You used to catch cicadas barehanded, right? When you had one in both hands, I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest."

"If you're in a place where your hands can reach the cicadas, then you don't need nets."

"That's not what I meant!"

While the two were talking, the tiny spider swung from a thread of web and fled. Minato moved the spider hanging from his finger to the window, and it escaped outside.

Ryouhei watched the course of events while glued to Seiya's back. Not the slightest hint of a brave figure that felled a boar with one strike could be sensed from that figure.

Kaito tore Ryouhei off of Seiya.

"Don't always take advantage of others with your huge body. To begin with, I really don't understand the difference between the stuff you're scared of and the stuff you aren't scared of. You spoke with Fujiwara, our enemy, last night, and you even got him to promise to shoot together, didn't you?"

"Shuu-kun hating to lose is cute, but spiders aren't cute at all."

"That Fujiwara is cute——? Ryouhei, did you eat something wei…Oh, crap."

Kaito said hurriedly, then rushed to the bathroom while clutching his stomach.

Nanao lightly knocked on the door.

"Kacchaaaan, are you okaaay? Are you nervous before the competition?"

"Shut up, it's probably because you poured me so much milk at the breakfast buffet. I just wanted another cup, but there wasn't even a drop left afterwards!"

"Because, it was soooo tasty that I drank a lot of it. I just had to recommend it to you, Kacchan."

"I'm pretty sure you were drinking it because you wanted to grow taller rather than for the taste!"

"Ah, it's out."

Nanao made an embarrassed face.

Kaito, coming out of the bathroom with a dejected-looking face, was greeted by Seiya holding medicine.

"Ryouhei is a big man for calling a high-spec man who we are no match for, cute, and you are a small fry for weakening your stomach just from drinking too much milk, so from now on I will train you without holding anything back."

"…Seiya, you're scary when you go all out."

"Kaito, you're actually really soft on Nanao."

"Hah? Not a chance. Are you a moron?"

"Let's have a nice, long talk afterwards, Kacchan."

Kaito clutched his stomach again before a smiling Seiya.

When Minato and the others arrived at the venue, the sky turned clear.

The paddy fields reflected white clouds.

The roof tiles that diffusely reflected.

It was likely that it would get more and more from that afternoon onwards.

For the regional tournament, the team competition was on the first day, and the individual competition was on the second. Kazemai High School was only participating in the team competition, and Kirisaki High School had both Shuu and Motomura in the individual competition.

They spread a plastic sheet on the long-distance range, which was being used as a resting place for the competitors, and put their baggage on it. They used the changing rooms to change clothes, but there were students from other schools who changed on their plastic sheets. They were wearing their hakama on top of their gym shorts.

When he finished getting ready and took a break, Minato looked at the tournament brochure again. He was caught by the name of a certain person.

"Seiya, isn't there a person who has the exact same name as this?"

"Yes, it's probably our acquaintance. It seems that he had moved to the neighbouring prefecture."

"We didn't get to meet him at yesterday's official practice, but I think it's better that we go greet him first today."

"I think it'll be okay when we go see him."

"Yeah, I guess so."

Minato closed the brochure, still concerned.

The Kazemai High School cheering squad had also come running to the venue. The parents, Hanazawa, Shiragiku, and Seo were part of it, as well as six elite members of the Nanao Fan Club.

"Nanao-kun, we made these for you! Please eat them!"

"Uwaah, thanks. Can I open it? Ooh, onigiri that looks like temari. (1) They're cute, just like all of you. I'll savour each one."

When Nanao winked, the girls squealed.

At the entrance to the stands, there was a line of people trying to secure their seats. When the entrance was opened, the Nanao Fan Club elites sat down with their frog fans in hand. Besides them, two young man sat just little further away.

They were Masa-san and Ren.

Ren changed the lens of his single-lens reflex camera and took a trial shot of his surroundings. Though he was only taking pictures, the virility and an adult man's bewitching allure drifted in the air. Even the cheering squads from other schools were taking glances at Ren and Masa-san.

Masa-san pulled his hat deeper over his head in order to avoid the sunlight.

"I didn't hear that you were coming, Ren. I was looking for a souvenir for you yesterday too."

"I thought that I would surprise Masaki."

"I'm thankful that you gave the girls a ride, but will you be okay with work? Aren't you neglecting your home in Tokyo these days?"

"I thought that I should move out of that apartment and return to my hometown. The bullet train to Tokyo is nearby if I have to go there, and Dad will be relieved that I'm helping with shrine work."

"Oh, really…"

Masa-san blinked slowly and observed him sideways.

They were often told that they were brothers with similar eyes, but Masa-san, who was four years younger, looked younger.

Ren placed his camera on his knee.

"Since rent is too wasteful, can I live with you in your apartment?"

"I have to wake up early in the morning for shrine work. Can I really live with someone like you, who's nocturnal?"

"My little brother is so heartless."

"You only act like an older brother at times like this. The nyujo will be starting soon. Don't keep chattering after it begins."

"This is the first time I'm seeing Minato-kun and the others shoot since the spring training camp. I wonder if I can have your students show me what they got, Masaki."

"I'll say this: they don't need surprises. Especially our oomae and ochi. They're pure-hearted and overly serious."

"I won't do it today."

Ren chuckled.

When the opening ceremony ended, the competitors began to move.

Ryouhei went back to the long-distance range to get his equipment, and then suddenly he was tapped on the shoulder from behind.

When he turned around, he saw a boy with an amiable smile standing there. He had an appearance where one could sense that he was well-bred, and his large black eyes conveyed his friendliness even towards people he had just met. Despite all that, the sharp lines of his chin added a gallant dignity to him.

"You dropped your underglove."

"Oh, I did, I never noticed. Thanks."

"No problem. It'll get hotter from now on today, so be cautious of getting heat stroke."

When he could no longer see Ryouhei, the boy pulled over his head the hood of his hoodie that he was wearing over his hakama.

Beneath the hood, a shadow was cast over his face.

His smile was already disappearing.

A little further away, there was another boy. He looked intimidating and had cold eyes. After brushing up the hair on his face, he stood next to the boy in the white hoodie.

"That's rare, Nikaidou, you being so nice to someone you don't know."

"Fuwa, were you there? We might meet somewhere else again, don't you think? If I do something for that kind of dim-witted guy to make them owe me, then they might be good for something."

"…Crafty bastard."

"Aren't you the same?"

Fuwa Koushirou did a small yawn. The early morning was cloudy and cool, but as the temperature rose, drowsiness also increased.

"Didn't get enough sleep?"

"I was bothered by the sound of the ventilator, so I woke up a lot during the night."

"You're surprisingly high-strung."

"Say delicate. I guess guys with ulterior motives like you can't understand it."

"Don't talk like I'm such a black-hearted person. Say that I'm like a marble of mixed black and white, at the very least."

"Marble can mean the rock or the toy, but heart of marble means a 'heart that is as cold as a lump of marble.'" (2)

"Heh, is that so, I didn't know that. You sure are wise, Fuwa."

"Don't diss me so casually."

"Well, since there's only good people here, they’ll even hand over the victory for today's competition to us. Our goal is Inter-High. Also, take a look at this?"

Nikaidou Eisuke looked at his phone screen and chuckled to himself.

"A boar infiltrated the hotel those guys were staying at, I heard. That's Minato-chan for you. He's liked by all kinds of things."

"Let's go, Nikaidou. Leave your phone and hoodie with someone."

"Even though I was expressly telling you something funny, you party pooper."

"I don't care about your acquaintances. I just want to get this over with quickly and sleep soon."

"Yeah, yeah."

Fuwa did not like getting friendly with others, and drew a line between himself and other people. Because of that, Nikaidou and Fuwa had a dry relationship even though they were in the same grade, and they both avoided intruding upon each other's privacy.

After Nikaidou got his equipment, he called out to a teammate in the shade of a tree.

"Kuro-chan, it's convocation time."

"One, two, three, four…"

"Ootagurooo, we'll be disqualified if we're late."

"Oh, sorry."

The boy who was doing push-ups vigorously got up slowly. His body was bigger than the average high school student's, and his thick chest, which could be seen even through his kyudogi and bulging arms, made him seem more like an American football or rugby player rather than an archer.

Ootaguro Kenyuu was a second-year student like Nikaidou and Fuwa.

There was a reason for his persistent muscle training mania and devotion for body building while reciting his extensive knowledge about it every day. Those who saw his bow for the first time unable to take their eyes from that rare item. That was because it was a yonsun-nobi bamboo bow with a draw weight of nearly thirty kilograms.

A large bow that made a two-hundred-and-twenty-one centimeters bow look like it was for children, its overwhelming length, width, and thickness had the effect of making people suspect that it was a decorative bow. Even the one-hundred-and-eighty centimeters tall Shuu only used a nineteen-kilogram bow, so extraordinary muscle strength was needed to handle this bow.

Marble Nikaidou.

Borderline Fuwa.

Macho Ootaguro.

Those three second-years occupied the positions from oomae to third archer. The ones who served as the last two, the fourth archer and ochi, were third-year students.

Nikaidou also called out to his two seniors, but he only got one leisurely response, "…'Kaaaay, got it!" back.

Higuchi Touma was a boy who was extremely slow in both moving and talking. With a small build, he and Ootaguro looked like parent and child when they were side-by-side. He always had bed hair, and he constantly pulled on the sleeves of his jersey, so they became saggy moe sleeves. It was rare for Fuwa to feel sleepy, but for Higuchi, it was an everyday occurrence.

On the other hand, Aragaki Reiji was an extremely silent boy who served as the president of the kyudo club. With his slender physique and the mask that he always wears, he looked like the bassist of a visual kei band. As he never took off his mask except for eating and shooting a bow, the kyudo club members were about the only ones who had properly seen his true face. On that day as well, Aragaki at last took off his mask when he entered the venue.

Even when he removed his mask, he almost never met his teammates' eyes, always looking to the distance—for the sake of showing everyone his profile. He was actually a narcissist who loved his own profile, but hated his front face. Him choosing the kyudo club was also because he thought that his profile when drawing a bow would surely be beautiful.

Slothful Higuchi.

Maskman Aragaki.

Since information notification did not always go as one wanted with those two, Nikaidou was the one who truly managed the club. Their advisor could not be relied upon, but as they could not be in tournaments without a manager, they were saved by that.

The five headed for the waiting area with Nikaidou in the lead. The eccentric group was the focus of stares pouring in from the competitors from other schools.

The words "Tsujimine High School" were printed on the cloth bibs pinned to their right hips.

The stands fell silent, and the chirping of small birds could be heard.

The team competition involved five-person teams shooting four arrows in zasha. The time limit was eight minutes. Boys and girls from each of the sixteen schools were participating.

For the preliminaries, each team shot twenty shots in two rounds, with a total of forty shots, and the top eight teams with the highest amount of hits would pass. The finals were in a tournament system with twenty shots to a team.

When they were about to head towards the waiting area, Tommy-sensei asked Minato something.

"Have you seen Takehaya-kun and Kisaragi-kun?"

"Seiya forgot his tsurumaki so he went back to get it. Nanao got captured by some girls from another school."

"Oh my, how unusual for both of them."

When all five gathered, Tommy-sensei loudly declared the start of the mission.

The first round of the preliminaries began.

At the back of the shajo, the third waiting area had two rows of five chairs. The competitors sat in those chairs and waited for their turns. They advanced to the second waiting area, entering it at a signal with Kaito leading them. Divided into the first and second shajo, two teams with a total of ten people lined up in front of the targets simultaneously.

After Minato sat down in the chair before the honza in the first waiting area, before his eyes the other schools' competitors faced the targets. Perhaps because his point of view was different, he could well understand the differences of each person's shooting form. They also had a variety of shooting quirks.

The person whose bow slanted forwards in the time between daisan and hikiwake.

The person whose right shoulder moved forward at kai.

The person who raised their chin and whose head fell backward.

There were surprisingly few who could do the gojuu juumonji perfectly. Even if one could do it yesterday, it was difficult to say if one could do it the same way today. It was said that it was more difficult for the brain to reproduce what one remembered than to memorized, and always drawing a bow in the same form was a high-level physical activity.

When the last team sounded their final tsurune, the five knelt at the shooting line all together.

With their left fists on their hips, they raised the upper tips of their bows (urahazu) to eye-level while turning their hips, then turned towards the wakishoumen. The ways in which they moved their bows occurred precisely at the same time.

The oomae, Kaito, was the first to shoot. After he stood up while holding his bow with both hands, he performed ashibumi. Even though he was starting to shoot, he might still be feeling the effects of his bad stomach. He had a disappointing start, with his arrow going beneath the target.

Next was the second archer, Ryouhei. Perhaps it was because of his earnest nature, he absorbed what he was told without doubt or hesitation. He landed a perfect hit.

The third archer, Seiya, was calm and never deviated at any moment. He ascertained his own weaknesses and had the strength to make up for them with intelligence. ——He hit.

When the fourth archer, Nanao, raised his bow, the girls eagerly leaned forward as usual. When the matooto sounded, they flapped their yellow-green frog-shaped fans all at once.

Minato was the fifth archer, the ochi. He gently lifted his bow up so as to not sense the pain in his left wrist. Because it especially hurt from uchiokoshi to daisan, he moved through those parts slightly earlier than usual, but his arrow landed to the right of the target.

For the second shooting round, all five members of the Kazemai team hit the target, and on the bulletin board, which displayed the scores in 〇's and x's, there was a row of "〇." There was applause for the five-person kaichuu.

Hanazawa, Shiragiku, and Seo also clapped their hands vigorously, so that Minato and the others would hear them.

"The boys are doing really well."

"Yep, I have a good feeling about this."

However, for the third shooting round, Ryouhei, Seiya, and Nanao missed in succession, and lost the possibility for personal kaichuus.

For the fourth shooting round, everyone hit except for Ryouhei, and they ended up with scores of three, two, three, three, three—a total of fourteen hits.

When they left the shajo, Kaito struck a triumphant pose.

"Alright! Not bad at all. Let's keep going like this!"

"Yeah!"

The second round of the preliminaries began.

The temperature was rising little by little. Although it was a break in the rainy season, there were already hot summer day being recorded, and the people in the stands were covering their heads with sports towels in order to block out the sun.

Kaito grandly raised his bow.

A heat filled the depths of his body.

I dedicate this heat to you, kyudo.

His tanned skin shone, his flexible muscles stretched gracefully and he formed a cross. His scarlet eyes were fixed on only one point.

What I'm calling for is you.

Shoot through my heart.

A cheer sounded from the stands at the sharp flight of his arrow.

Ryouhei, Seiya, and Nanao also hit their targets, and there was a succession of cheers.

Minato protected his left wrist, putting strength into his right arm and raising his bow. He moved his arrow tip little by little, drawing his bow to the limits of his strength.

The beautiful kyudo that toyed with the archer.

Even though it was wearing a gentle smile, it became more distant when one extended one's hand to it.

Let me hear your voice at least.

When Minato shot the target, the bulletin board displayed a row of five circles, and applause burst out once more.

For both the second and third shooting rounds, there were three hits out of five shots.

Kaito got a kaichuu with his four arrows, and exited the shajo while receiving applause. Ryouhei, Seiya, and Nanao also hit, and the five would have had another team kaichuu if Minato had hit after that, but he regrettably missed and hit to the left of the target.

The results were four, three, three, two, and three—a total of fifteen hits.

With a total of twenty-nine hits out of forty shots in the preliminaries, Kazemai High School would be advancing to the finals tournament.

Kaito: ×〇〇〇　〇〇〇〇 7

Ryouhei: 〇〇××　〇〇×〇 5

Seiya: 〇〇×〇　〇×〇〇 6

Nanao: 〇〇×〇　〇××〇 5

Minato: ×〇〇〇　〇〇〇× 6

In preparation for the tournament battle, lunchtime also served as a break.

Minato and Seiya stood talking, away from everyone else. They suddenly felt eyes on them and when they looked, they saw a boy wearing a white hoodie.

"——Nikaidou-senpai."

"Hey, it's been a while. Fancy meeting Minato-chan and Seiya-chan here."

"It has been a while. We're sorry for not greeting you sooner. So, you moved."

"Both of you didn't advance to Kirisaki High School either. Same as me. Wow, what a coincidence. They only got rich people over there, so it's too high-class for us commoners to be in. Oh, wait. Seiya-chan is the son of doctors, so he can't be talked about like he's in the same category as me and Minato-chan."

Seiya also greeted him with a meek smile.

"No, fortunately I'm really pleased with Kazemai High School."

"Heh… Must be nice, that feeling of deeply trusting your comrades and hanging out even on your days off. Yep, we must follow your example as well."

Nikaidou went to middle school with them, so in other words, he was the former senpai of Minato, Seiya, and Shuu. He was also a senior who even Shuu had difficulty dealing with.

Nikaidou chuckled, perhaps sensing the uncomfortable atmosphere around the two of them.

"Minato-chan, how many boys and girls are in the Kazemai club?"

"Five boys and three girls."

"A total of eight people? I'm surprised, you only got a select few. Renting out a kyudojo to that number of people, you guys must be able to run yakazu practice too. You guys must have shot more than anyone else here, haven't you?"

"It's not like that."

"Don't be humble. It's a big deal to defeat that powerhouse Kirisaki and advance to the national tournament. In the end, didn't you win thanks to Shuu-kun losing? And on top of that, there was even a guy with hayake? They say fortune favors the brave, but I guess you guys' everyday behavior must be terrific."

"No, that's…"

"Even so, though Shuu was bestowed so many gifts from the heavens, the only thing he doesn't have is luck, huh. I think that since lacking something like that is also human-like, it's nice. Hah…, did you see his tall bow and long arrows? If it were me, I would be too awed and I wouldn't even be able to hold them. That he missed even while using such high-grade equipment, such a waste."

Minato, without immediately replying, looked straight into Nikaidou's eyes. Even though Seiya was standing still at that gaze, Minato was not taken in by it.

"Don't talk bad about Shuu when he isn't here. And Manji-kun is working hard to overcome his hayake."

"Oh wow, I'm so happy to hear my kouhai Minato-chan speaking to me so casually. I feel like the distance between us has shrunk. It's so tacky to make much of one's seniority nowadays, isn't it? Well then, I have a question for you, Minato-chan. For what reason are you shooting a bow?"

"What reason, you say, I shoot a bow because I love it…"

"Heh, so pure, like a little kid. I'm doing it to win. I love winning."

Nikaidou lifted a corner of his mouth, then he put on his hood.

"Later, Minato-chan and Seiya-chan."

Seiya's voice, admonishing him that he must not react to Nikaidou-senpai, passed through his ears.

Minato was thinking.

That that senpai was the only one who he definitely did not want to lose to.

Around the same time, Masa-san was with Shuu.

Shuu had stopped him, saying that he wanted to talk to him.

"What was that just now?"

"If Kirisaki High School wins this competition, I would like you to be my coach for a week."

Masa-san pressed his hand to his forehead.

"I'm sorry, but I have to refuse. I don't want to make wagers on archery. And in the first place, did the Kirisaki manager allow you to be taught by a coach from another school?"

"Our advisor does not balk at any means that would help us win, but if you are worried about it, I will keep it a secret."

"Well now, it'll be revealed eventually. With your skill, Fujiwara, you should have a more distinguished sensei teach you rather than a newbie coach like me. Why me?"

"Minato said that you are his goal. I was also shown videos of you shooting. I heard that you are the grandson of Yasaka-hanshi. I am very interested."

Before the indecisive Masa-san, someone suddenly showed up.

It was Tommy-sensei.

"Ho ho ho, what an interesting proposal. Let's go with this match. On the contrary, what will Kazemai get if we win, Fujiwara-kun?"

"That's right, shall I show you Saionji-sensei's words that I have accumulated? I've written down hidden techniques that weren't taught even to Minato."

"That's alright with me. I will go talk to Kirisaki about this."

"Yes, then, I look forward to working with you."

Shuu bowed, then left.

Masa-san grimaced.

"Tommy-sensei! Is this okay? Wouldn't you be fighting over this with the sensei at Kirisaki later?"

"It's fine, it's fine. I know the personality of the Kirisaki sensei, and the point is that Kazemai should win, right? Even by some chance we lose, I would be a lucky man if I could see Fujiwara-kun's shooting up close. Can't you believe in your students, Takigawa-san?"

"That's not what I meant, but…"

"Didn't the one called the Young Lord expressly tell you that he wants to be taught by you? The people who stand at the top are always lonely. It may be that he sympathizes with you, Takigawa-san, who had a wonderful teacher everyone envies, and experience with winning Inter-High. However, are you still keeping this quiet from everyone in the club?"

"Yes."

"Oh, so young. My blood is boiling up."

Tommy-sensei couldn't stop grinning. Getting a glimpse at his crafty side, Masa-san sighed.

The first round of the finals tournament began.

As a result of the lottery, Kazemai High School was suddenly facing off against Tsujimine High School. When the competitors entered the shajo, the venue immediately became noisy. That was because Tsujimine's Ootaguro was carrying a huge bow that was non-standard for a high school student. Many from the stands was whispering, "What is that? I never seen one like that before."

Tsujimine High School did shamen uchiokoshi, which was in the bushakei style.

The oomae, Nikaidou, moved his left foot a half step towards the target while watching it, then looked down and moved his right foot the same way in the opposite direction. He held his arrows while their arrowheads (itatsuki or yajiri).

After gripping his string, he fixed his tenouchi diagonally to the left, pushed his bow open, and did yugamae. From there, he raised his bow slanted to the left and did not stop midway, or maybe he did the "sanbun no ni" (3) in his own way and drew.

When he entered kai, his yugake made a grinding noise.

After he swung his arms and his bow fell forward at hanare, there was a pleasant matooto.

Then, it was the second archer, Fuwa. He looked towards the target with a gaze that was cold and indifferent to the enthusiasm enveloping the venue. There was an unseen boundary line between him and his surroundings. Within that barrier of ice, he got a hit.

Hanazawa, Shiragiku, and Seo conversed in the stands.

"Shamen uchiokoshi is cool, you really feel like they are drawing a bow."

"Yeah. Now it's Macho-kun's turn."

The third archer, Ootaguro, raised his huge bow slanted. Those who laid their eyes on that conspicuously gigantic bow would have the delusion that their sense of perspective was paralyzed. The bamboo bow with an amber luster bent grandly, forming a cross on heaven and earth. The arrow went towards the target along with a furious, whooshing momentum, and an extra-large matooto sounded.

After him was the fourth archer, Higuchi. The exact opposite of Ootaguro, he was an archer with a frail impression. At intervals that made people want to tell him that he didn't have to draw that slowly, he gently drew his bow. And at kai as well, he did not readily release his arrow. His zanshin after he shot his arrow was bizarrely long. However, because he hit precisely, it was funny.

Last was the ochi, Aragaki the maskman. He was devoting all of his nerves on beautifully displaying his profile. With something mysterious, it prevented careless deviations and distortions of the body, and there was another hit. Applause swelled for the five-person kaichuu.

Shooting their arrows in that order, Tsujimine and Kazemai both went to their second shots without any misses.

And then it was the third shooting round.

The Kazemai cheering squad cheered with all they had for Kaito's hit. However, Ryouhei, Seiya, and Nanao missed in succession, and the situation for Kazemai turned risky. If they missed any more than that, their results would be settled before they shot their fourth arrows.

Minato couldn't withstand the pain in his wrist, decided that he could do kai early and went on to take a hit. Intent on not wanting to lose to Nikaidou at the very least, he released his arrow.

For the fourth shot, all five from Kazemai hit, and Minato fell back to honza amid applause.

The announcement of the results came on.

"We will now announce the results just now. First shajo, four, four, three, three, four—a total of eighteen hits. Second shajo, four, three, three, three, four—a total of seventeen hits…"

Hanazawa and Shiragiku covered their faces.

"…Kazemai lost?"

"No way!? Isn't it still the first round of the finals tournament?"

The Nanao Fan Club stood up early to go receive Nanao, but Hanazawa, Shiragiku, and Seo did not move.

Of course, even the people concerned did not know what had happened.

Even Kirisaki High School, peeking at the situation, could not hide their surprise.

"Oi, is this really happening…?"

Senichi and Manji were whispering.

Shuu put his arms around their shoulders. Seeing that, Sase and Motomura joined in.

The five formed a huddle, and Sase raised his voice.

"Ki-ri-sa-ki, fight!"

"Yeah!"

Kirisaki High School gave off the air of champions from the moment they entered the shajo. A majestic, dignified walk. Their demeanor was obviously different from others.

Shuu and the others got kaichuu in succession, and there was loud applause every time. The twins sealed up their fast-shooting, and it was the oomae, Motomura's fractal-like shots that were handed down to those behind him instead. They were uniform, well-controlled, and beautiful shots.

After that, the tournament continued, with Kirisaki High School and Tsujimine High School facing off in the final match. Kirisaki won, with nineteen hits to eighteen hits.

With this, Kirisaki High School obtained the special ticket to take part in the national tournament.

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#tsurune #tsurune translation

115 notes · View notes

tommyquackson · 6 years ago

Text

Unusual |S. Stan|

summary: seb is a secret vampire

warnings: biting, cussing, a little bit of boood and drinking

notes: i don’t know man, it just popped in my head

Not My Photo but I did edit it :)))

Something about this frat party made you unbelievably unnerved, but you knew you deserved a night out after weeks of exams and essays and all-nighters. So you push through the uneasiness and go to the kitchen where there’s so many different drink choices it warms your skin. You grab a wine cooler and move towards the living room where people are sitting and talking. You sit near a girl you shared a class with and begin chatting. The loud music vibrates your bones and probably your brain too, but it somehow becomes comforting. You haven’t partied in a month and you were known for keeping parties live.

“Hey ladies, hows everything going for ya tonight?” A voice breaks you out of your talk with whatever her name is. You look up and see Sebastian Stan, Frat President and local FuckBoy™️. His hair gets darker the more you see him (which is quite a lot now that you think about it) and his eyes are steel blue, which almost blends in with his scarily pale skin.

The girl you were with, bites her lip and begins playing Sebastians game, entertaining him on how much fun she’s having and how the frat out does themselves every time. You look down and realize your wine cooler is almost empty so you chug the rest and move back towards the kitchen. You decide on something a little heavier so you can really get crazy tonight. Once you open your drink, a group of people call your name and wave you over.

“Y/n! Let’s play beer pong, you’re our female champion, and we’ve got a challenger.” Your friend Zach says wrapping his arm around your shoulder.

“I’m the Champion over everyone, Zach. Who’s our challenger?” You speak laughing. You look across the white foldable table and see Sebastian with a blonde girl from your English class.

You smirk and quickly pass your drink to some kid Drake, but not before taking a couple gulps. You roll your shoulders and neck and crack your knuckles. Sebastian goes first and makes it into one of the cups. You pick it up and quickly chug it down. The girl goes next and misses by a little bit, it was pure luck she was even that close, her form is off and she has no aiming technique. You go next and sink the ball into one of the back cups. Seb looks impressed and chugs the beer while looking at you, his eyes are much darker than before, Black almost. Zach goes and makes it in another cup. After several rounds and Zach and Sebastians girl quitting, you’re down to two more cups, one on each side. You’re both fairly drunk but you try not to let it effect your gaming skills.

“Getting tipsy little y/n?” That prick laughs over the table.

“You wish little Seb” You wink back at him. You take your shot and make it perfectly in the cup, cheering along with everyone who became invested in the competitive game.

“Congrats babe, what do you want as your prize?” He toys, biting his lip.

“I think the stupid look on your face when I made it, is prize enough Mr President” You speak moving away from the table. You migrate to the dance floor and begin dancing with a couple friends. You feel someone slide in behind you, lightly grabbing your waist. You know turn your head and see a mess of black hair and immediately know who it is. You decide not to say anything but you keep dancing, occasionally grinding on Sebastian.

“Come with me” He growls in your ear, grabbing you wrist and pushing through the crowd and upstairs.

“Do I get to see your office? Or do you take all your girls there?” You speak, words almost slurring together.

“Nah, they don’t usually make it this far. Only certain people get to see my room and even fewer my office” He turns and winks at me. Your heart skips when he does, not because he winked but because his eyes have changed again, to a deep red that scared you. You keep walking until he opens a large door and enters what, must be his Presidents office, fancy wood desks and plenty of plaques and pictures of the frat doing community work. You immediately fall into the plush sofa on the other side. He chuckles and pulls a water out of his mini-fridge and tosses it at you, before sitting next to you with his arm tossed around the back of the couch.

“So why am I so special that I get to come in here?” You speak moving closer to him. You set the water down on the floor and bring your hand up to play with the collar of his dress shirt, that had a couple buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. You look in his eyes which are a much brighter red.

“You’re special y/n. I can almost taste it” He leans down to your ear and kisses your neck. You whimper and move into his lap.

“Seb? Can I ask you a question?” You squeak playing with the hair in the nape of his neck. He just hums and keeps kissing and lightly biting your neck. “uhm, how or uh why are your eyes red?” You let out a yelp when he bites a little harder in one spot.

“That’s a secret babe, can’t have everyone knowing it. So if you want me to tell you, you gotta do a couple things for me. That sound fair?” He pulled his head up, smirking widely at you. You nod quickly at him.

“First, be my girl. Let me take you out, wear my President blazer, sleep in my bed sometimes, keep me company in my office, let me take care of you, all that good shit.” He says moving some of the hair out of your face.

“Is-is this a prank?” you ask quietly looking down at your laps.

“No pranks baby, i’m serious. I really like you but ive never known how to come up to you and just ask.” He speaks. You look in his eyes and he looks like he means it and Sebs a pretty honest guy, so why not trust him now?

“I’d like to be your girlfriend very much.” You say biting your lip, in a desperate attempt to stop the heat spreading to your face.

“Perfect darling. Ok second thing, you gotta promise not to tell anyone, or it won’t end well for either of us.” His voice gets low and threatening. You nod again. “No y/n. I need to hear you say it”

“I promise Sebastian” You speak offering him your pinky finger, he grins and takes it before kissing you. You kiss him back, almost forgetting that he still hasn’t told you why his eyes are red. You pull apart and look at him.

“So, you gonna tell me?” You move off his lap and cuddle into his side.

“Ok but I think i need to just show you first” He says smirking again. You just nod and wait again. He dips his head back into your neck and begins kissing.

“Seb wha-“

“Patience babydoll” He hisses. You feel him drag his tongue across a spot on your neck a couple of times. “You smell delicious baby” He speaks with a slight lisp. You feel his teeth drag across the place he was licking earlier. He nibbles a bit before fully biting you, and wrapping his arm around your waist you can’t move. Your neck hurts and you try moving but Seb is too strong and there’s nothing you can do, as he sucks hard.

He brings his head back up and licks his lips. You look and notice he has two teeth, much longer and sharper than the others. He has blood dribbling down his mouth and wipes it with his thumb. It was incredibly hot, but you’re more confused. You lift your fingers to your neck and look at your fingers, blood on the tips.

“What the fuck, sebastian?” You almost yell at him. “What the hell. You just fucking bit me” You accuse.

“I was actually drinking your blood” He says quietly.

“Why the ever living fuck, would you ever, fucking do that shit?” You ask putting pressure on your new wounds.

“Cause I’m a vampire.” He says standing up with you.

“Like an actually real vampire?” You squeak out. He sighs.

“Yes but it’s not all the extra shit like in books and stuff. I just drink blood like once a month and i’m strong and also for some reason my spit heals your neck and i apparently can’t die for a very long time so you know. That’s always a thing” He says putting his hands in his pockets. It’s crazy to see how much he changed from a confident fuckboy to nervous puppy on 5 minutes.

“Do you only want to date me cause I have yummy blood?” You ask pathetically.

“NO! Oh no. I mean yea you’re blood smells and tastes amazing, but no i actually like you for you.” He says grabbing your hands.

“Wow. I don’t know how or why I’m okay with this, but I am. Now can you please use your magic spit on my neck cause these bites kinda hurt.” You pout. He laughs and dips to lick your neck a couple times. When he looks at you smiling, the pain has disappeared and you can’t feel anything on your neck.

“So....do you sleep all day or some shit, like can you go into the sun? When’d you change? Are you dead?” You ask a million questions at once.

“I will answer all and more tomorrow, but for now. I say we head to my room and we can sleep or, we can not sleep” He smirks giving you a wink.

“Not sleep, lets definitely not sleep” You say as you walks you out of the office and down the hall.

#imagine #sebastian stan #seb stan #college!au #college!sebastian #sebastian stan imagine #writing

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omg-wakandaforever · 6 years ago

Text

Kyra Ward

Hey guys, this is my first FanFiction story, I hope you like it

Also, english is not my mother language so... if you find any mistakes, please please please let me know about it, I'm learning

I really enjoyed writing this story so I hope you enjoy it too by reading it ❤️❤️

*if you could repost it so other people can read it too, it would be great and I would be really grateful

thankssssss

------

Kyra Ward is an ex Hydra trained assassin. She works for Fury himself nowadays in Shield as an agent.

It´s been two years since she got out of Hydra´s hands, but as they say, nothing good lasts...

CHAPTER ONE

I was walking down the hallway to my room. I needed some time alone, I’ve been seeing things that I hope that’s only my own head messing with me. Hydra can’t be in Shield, it’s impossible. That guy yesterday must have been new, that’s why he was reading my file. But, well, although that was suspicious that was not the thing that made me suspect that something wasn’t right. The fact that he had the name “Darren Smith” on his card was what woke some kind of alert in me.

Agent Smith died three years ago in London. I killed him because I needed something from a Shield facility located there. He was the hardest to kill though, not only physically but also emotionally, because for half a second he made me come back to myself, he reminded me of someone special, that’s why I remember his name. I never really knew what was the thing I was stealing, I simply did it because Hydra told me to. That’s what I’m trained for, to follow Hydra’s orders, or at least I was. Thanks to Nick Fury I’m out and I’ve been working for him since then, that must be two years by now, maybe a little less, I don't really know, but the thing that I actually can't forget is that I ow him so much.

When I was about to reach the handle of my room’s door, I hear Chuck through the intercom, he needed my help at the lab with something.

I met Chuck the first day I arrived at Shield. He helped through all the process of bringing myself out again. He has been my friend since day one, I didn't knew it at the time but whatever, he's, after Fury himself, the only person I truly trust. He has been there, always, supporting me in everything I had to go trough, including nightmares, panic attacks and depression. He also tried his best in helping me with my trust issues by taking me to his house to meet his family, to dinner to meet his friends, but… being honest… nothing helped. I simply can’t trust anyone, it’s hard. I try to do it though, but the fear and mistrust that Hydra put inside me is still there.

I decided to head for the lab and I not pay attention to my suspicions about this Darren Guy. I cannot trust my own mind yet, I must have read the name wrong or maybe Darren Smith wasn’t the guy back at London, maybe I messed with the name, after all HYDRA wiped me after that mission. The rooms are in the sub-level so I had to take the elevator to reach the second floor where the lab was. I couldn’t imagine why Chuck needed me, specially in the lab. I know nothing about science and that stuff, but whatever. When the elevator doors open the first thing I see is his red hair and his back. He was doing something on his desk, but the moment I stepped out at least 4 agents came running to me, holding me and I was able to see 3 more pointing their guns at me and one of them was this dude with the “Darren Smith�� card.

What’s going on.

Chuck heard all the noise behind him so he slowly turned to face me, with a little smirk on his face that sent shivers down my spine.

What the fuck. What the actual fuck is going on.

-Hey Kyra

Hey Kyra? What?

-Chuck would you be so nice to explain why four agents are holding me and three more pointing their guns at my head from the other side of the room? - I said, with my best poker face

-Sorry about all this- Chuck simply replied moving his index finger in a circle shape referring to the current situation, like it was something normal to happen.-but we're working.

In that moment I could swear that they could hear my brain thinking hard. Actually, there wasn't much to think about. If you connected the dots, you could have a clear idea of what was going on, but I didn't wanted to believe it. Maybe it´s part of my training, maybe it´s some kind of a test to prove myself, to prove the others that I could beat anything. Or maybe it was a joke, maybe they would all start laughing I would tell them that it was a really bad one, and that they didn't scared me, not even a little, although we all now that I'm shitting because if Chuck is actually what I think he is, this is not gonna end well.

-Kyra, relax, this is nothing to be worried about. We just want to take you home.

-Wait, Wha… What are you talking about. You know I don’t have a home-I replied looking around to see if anyone would make a facial expression that would give them away.

-Oh, yes you have- he said while raising his right hand just a little so I could see what was he holding.

The notebook.

That fucking red notebook.

I had an urge to cry that I never had before. My worst nightmare was becoming real. I was going to become a monster again.

With watery eyes I looked from the notebook to him -I shouldn't have trust you, you piece of shit- I said while trying to free myself.

All my fears where about to come true, I knew they where going to take me and I couldn’t do anything about it. The lab was locked, the curtains where down and everyone knew better than to enter when those things where like that, because that meant that someone was doing something dangerous inside.

-Wow, you’ll need to relearn some manners soldat- he said before connecting his fist with my cheek, making me stumble and if it wasn't for the people holding me still I would've fallen straight to the floor. He made a little cut on it. I could feel the blood dripping from the wound.

He started walking across the lab explaining my punishment for running away and not completing my last mission, once I got to the Hydra facility. That last Mission being returning to the Shield's facility that I mentioned before to recover… what am I talking about, to kill some agents that had been captured, to reassure that nothing was going to leak from their mouths. But, that's where Fury appears and gives me a hell of an anesthesia injection that makes me sleep for two days straight. I don't even know how he managed to do that, I was so aware of my surroundings, or, well, I though I was. Returning to reality, I was so confused, scared and drifted in my thoughts that I hadn’t notice that I had my ticket to get out of there right in front of me until Chuck mentioned it. He had a bomb on the desk. It wasn’t a huge one but it would cause the right amount of damage to distract everyone and take me, but I could use it to my own benefits.

I spotted a broom lying on the floor so I pushed with my feet from one end and the other hit the desk where the device was, making it move sharply letting the bomb fall into the floor ending the hole scene in an explosion which sent me flying through the main glass window and landing backwards on top of the desks of the first floor, where all the navigation computers where. Accustomed to those types of situations I got up quickly feeling a lot of pain on my back but the adrenaline and my assassin side didn’t let that stop me. I yelled, warning everybody what was going on and before the hydra agents that felt too could react and start shooting, Maria Hill shot them on their legs and took away all their weapons, she then looked at me and nodded her head telling me that she had it all under control so I started running. From the halls I could hear shots but I was looking for Fury and I knew exactly where he was.

I ran like my life depended on that, well literally it was, if Hydra caught me again I could say goodbye to everything because they where going to really break me after what happened last time. I hadn't completed my mission and returned to them. That was the worse thing I could've ever done.

Finally I reached the room I was looking for. It was a new one, made for situations like this, to aisle important people so they didn’t get hurt in a fight. They called it the Bubble. On the inside it looked like an office so Fury used it for important meetings too, and by important meetings I mean talking to The Avengers.

Without hesitation I tapped the code on the wall and opened the door making a loud noise.

-Fury there was a leak, and it was not me this time- I said while leaning on the door for support to recover my breath from the run, totally ignoring the other people inside. Automatically after saying this, Fury pulled out his gun and aimed it at my injured face. I raised my hands and didn’t say a thing.

-Fury, God what are you doing?!- Steve Rogers said standing up.

-Rogers, not the time- he simply replied..

-Fury put the gun down, she’s, what, fifteen? - The famous Tony Stark said, while trying to reason with Fury. - Why is she even here?!

-Stand down Stark, she’s seventeen and dangerous.

-I’m me, I swear- I said never breaking eye contact with him and totally ignoring the others.

-You said that last time, I believed you and we both know pretty damn well how that ended- The Shield’s director replied. - Prove it

-Darren Smith. Remember I told you about him?

-What did you exactly told me?- Fury asked very slowly remarking the word exactly.

-I found about his daughter. I sent her his patch last month.

-Good - he said while lowering his gun and placing it in the table. -Tell me who -

-Chuck- I said simply and blankly

-That son of a bitch, I knew he was too good to be real.

-He wants to take me.

-All right, this should be easy since we have all these guys over here. -he said while pointing at the Avengers- Okay people, I need everyone searching for bad cops in this beautiful ship, but we need…

-Fury. They have the notebook- I interrupted himFury, who was leaning in the desk, stood up straight taking a deep breath. He then closed the door and said

-Then you need to stay here.

-What? No way, you’re all dead without me.

-I’m sorry, but... what notebook are you talking about? -Bucky said. He was leaning on the wall until I mentioned the object. He stood up and automatically unfolded his arms and stood rigid waiting for an answer. I didn’t realized he was there until he spoke. Actually I didn’t knew which Avengers were present since the only person I was interested in talking was Fury, but Barnes was here, the last person I wanted to see at this very moment.

-You brought him too?- I asked Fury amused and angry at the same time.

-Yes, I needed him to..

-You realize you’re dead right? You’re all dead. If they get any of us this ship will be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in less than 30 minutes... Fury what the hell were you thinking of?

-Kyra I need you to listen to..

-You were Hydra - Bucky said referring to me, eyeing my gloved hand. Everyone did the same the moment he mentioned it. I notice this and automatically raise my left arm and take off my glove and instead of a normal hand, there was a metal one.

-What’s this Fury? -Steve asked with his eyebrows nearly touching each other in the middle of his frown.

-You never told us -Natasha said..

While everyone started demanding answers from the pirate, Bucky didn’t say anything, he just stood there looking at me with a sad face mixed with pain and pity. He was also trying to remember me, but we never met. We were on different Hydra bases, and although we both were the bests in our jobs, we never were on the same mission, not once. Maybe it was because of the difference of age and fight styles. He was more known to punch his way out of the situations. I wasn’t that type of soldier. I was cunning and I only used force when absolutely needed because if it isn’t then it’s a waste of energy. But for more rough times I had my metal arm to help me. They implanted it on me because they wanted me to become like Soldat 31. They wanted me to be like Barnes.

I looked at him with a blank expression, making eye contact for a couple of seconds and then I turned around to avoid seeing his pity towards me because I couldn’t stand it anymore so I stood there, waiting for Fury’s orders, but I could feel his eyes were still on me. People always look at me with sad eyes because of what I suffered, but they pity me because I’m not an adult or someone relatively old to, according to them, understand what I’ve been through, but let me tell you that I know better than anybody else what is like to be in Hydra. Believe me. Having seventeen doesn’t change anything. Yes, I’m seventeen, so what? I’m sure I’m even more mature than everyone of the people in this room.

While everybody was arguing I simply stood there gazing Fury, with my usual blank expression. If someone had noticed me waiting there, they would’ve though I was listening to what they were talking, but the last thing I was doing was listening. Actually my head was a mile per second recapping the last hour events. Chuck had betrayed us, and I though he was my friend, but no, he was everything except that. He was Hydra goddamit. He was Hydra since the day one. He was here to watch my every step. He had everything figured out to take me. And that Darren Smith guy, I should’ve trusted my instincts, after all I was trained to follow it, and by doing that I’m still here. Stupid. I cannot believe it. He was ready to take me back to that place. If I hadn’t found a way out I... fuck. Then I though of the bomb, what if there’s another one hidden somewhere in the hellicarrier? Well, I'm not returning to Hydra's hands, I rather die, so, in that case, if I’m gonna die, I will make sure he dies here with me. He’s gonna regret everything. I swear he’s gonna be so fucking dead when I find him. I’m done with Hydra.

With not a second though and really not caring much about the people in the room, and since everything was the same as when I drifted of into my thoughts, I cleaned the blood from my left cheek with the back of my right hand, I pulled out my gun and grabbed Fury’s from the table, and started to put the code to get the door open.

-Agent Ward what do you think you’re doing?- Fury said.

-I’m not going there again- I said in a low voice, more to myself than to him *and he´s not getting away without feeling anything of what he has done to me* I though, and with that I opened the door with lots of strength because of the anger rising inside myself, making a loud noise and I walked out of the Bubble with determination. He’s gonna regret it. He’s going to suffer and he’s gonna regret it all.

*3rd person*

-We should go help her- Natasha finally said getting her gun out of the holster.

-She is not only killing him- Loki said while taking his daggers out and walking out of the room.

-How do you eveN KNOW THAT?!- Fury asked raising his voice as he saw the trickster heading down the corridor following Kyra.

-She was thinking too loud- Wanda simply replied for Loki, and after conjuring her usual red mist in her hands, she turned to Bucky -You need something, anything, you call me, in your head, I’ll be listening. Bucky was frozen, but managed to nod anyway. She’s seventeen. She’s too young to be messed up in this shit. Why would Hydra even want her. How many year has she been with them anyway. Maybe she isn’t like me. Maybe she was one of the scientists in there. But she was dressed as an agent and she had a metal arm too so what the fuck is really going on. Also she mentioned the notebook, so she has trigger words. Her’s are the same as mine? What if Hydra knows that I’m here. What would happen to everybody? Well, technically quoting Kyra, this ship would be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in less that 30 minutes. Shit. She’s seventeen, what the hell. I really thought that Hydra couldn’t get that low training teenagers. What am I talking about? They don’t train us, they torture us, they brainwash us, they kill us from the inside. Kyra needs my help, well I don’t really know that, Fury said she was dangerous and she had a metal arm so… also she said that this time, the leak, wasn’t her, so that means that she was some time ago a Hydra soldier undercover in Shield, or...

-Hey, you okay?- Steve asked his best friend bringing him back to reality and out of his thoughts. He lifted his gaze from the ground realizing that he and Steve were the only ones left in the room.

-Y-Yeah

-Listen, I really need to go out there and help fight. If you don’t wanna come I’m sure everybody would really under...

-No, I’m going too. I just can’t believe that she was with Hydra. She’s seventeen Steve. Seventeen.

-Yeah, I know, but the best thing is being for and with her. That means fighting today and being there after this is all over.- He then placed his left hand in Bucky’s shoulder to let him know that they were there for Kyra and for him too, because he knew his best friend pretty well, and could tell that since the mention of the red notebook he started thinking of all the possible outcomes if he was captured becoming rigid as hell. -She’s gonna be okay, both of you. We are together till the end of the line pal

Bucky found his way to Steve’s eyes and without any warning he hugged him, pretty hard you could say, but it was something they both needed and wanted but neither of them said it out loud ever.

#avengers #hydra #shield #wintersoldier #fanfiction

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