#and immediately opened my grammar book to check if my answers in the dream were correct

[valend]

I had a nightmare today where the killer was chasing me and I had to conjugate third declension Ancient Greek nouns in order to escape him while two evil blond ghost twins were holding my notebook and giving me an impromptu grammar lesson

[anotherbeingsworld]

I Will Always Remember You This Way.

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x F!MC (Casey Valentine)

Book: Open Heart

Rating/Warning:G/ ANGST. 

Word Count: 1769

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. All rights goes to Pixelberry.

A/N: Hiii! This is a new fic of mine, and its an angst one! This is my first-ish try towards angst soo, I hope I manage to capture it! Also, I hope all of you don’t hate me whilst reading this (i am terrified of posting this🙈) , I have been wanting to write this in a while so, this is the final result!! Apologies in advance if there are grammar mistakes since English is not my first language. The song used was, (Adele’s : Make you feel my love with a one word change which is highlighted in bold) Soo, I hope all of you enjoy it! (please don’t hate me, i’m sorry. )

Tags: @soederberg ; @choicessa ; @bitchloveskcbaseball ; @princess-geek ; @storyofmychoices ; @n-whas ; @annekebbphotography ; @mrsbhandari

LINK TO MY MASTERLIST

She knows. It is too late for her, as she is watching the love of her life, or as she assumed is standing at the end of the aisle. He is wearing a black tux, with a white bow-tie. His hair was slicked back as he stands there with his groomsmen. She places a painful smile on her face as his gaze falls on her. The look in his eyes filled with surprise, with a pint of sadness along with the obvious look of regret. His gaze from her has torn away when the music starts. Casey feels the pain in her chest as the bride walks down the aisle with a million-dollar smile shown in her face. 

Sienna who is sitting beside her, takes her hand and squeezes it tightly as support. She felt herself putting a façade to make him happy, it is his day after all. The ceremony continues as the officiant announced,

‘Speak now… or forever hold your peace.’ 

Casey felt herself wanting to object, the look on his face is saying something similar. The way his eyebrows furrowed in frustration, despite the smile shows everything. But, it was silent. No one objects, not even herself. As it continues, Casey felt herself walking down memory lane as the moments with Bryce played within her consciousness. 

Both of them were walking down the rainy streets of Boston, as she stopped in her tracks in front of a store. Her eyes followed the item on the display rack. A beautiful modern wedding dress, it was a long ball gown, with thin straps that she felt drawn too. 

‘That’s beautiful Bryce!’ Casey said in awe as she examined the detail on the dress.

‘It really is, I bet you would look better in it than the dummy.’ Bryce winks at her as she felt her cheeks burn.

‘Do you think we will ever get married Bryce?’ She suddenly questioned him.

‘Hmm, do you want too?’ His head turned as they were facing one another.

‘I would love to be your wife, Mr.s Casey Lahela sounds perfect.’ Casey replied with a huge grin on her face.

‘And, I would love to be your husband as well.’ Bryce said as he gives her a kiss. 

The cheers around her bring her back to reality, as Bryce and Chloe walk hand-in-hand with another. As they walked down the aisle once more after being pronounced husband and wife, Casey claps for them as her heart breaks, as it should be her there, with him.

As they walked together, Casey’s eyes meet his in an instant. She places a smile as she follows the other guests doing the same. 

The  couple was celebrated through the night as the celebration goes on. The reception was held in a townhouse, that is believed was owned by the bride’s family. Casey felt herself needing space after what she is going through, she felt herself walking in circles in the enormous household. 

‘Damn it, I shouldn’t have come here! Your stupid Casey, he is already married and you can’t do anything about it!’ Casey found herself broke down as she stopped in an empty room. Her body immediately sinks down the carpet as she stood there. Her tears that she was holding before had fallen down, leaving nothing behind. The tears finally stop after a while, as she tried to force more to fall but failing miserably. She lets out a sigh as she takes out a handkerchief courtesy of Sienna to wipe the tears away. Her head perks up at the sound of an opening, she turns her head and saw him. He stands in front of the door with the look of regret in his eyes.

“What are you doing here Bryce?” She asked nonchalant whilst trying to hide her sadness from him.

“I…came here to check on you,” Bryce said quietly.

“Wouldn’t your wife will be looking for you..?” A harsh tone came out from her voice, as Bryce looks at her with guilt in his eyes.

The room was silenced, as Bryce goes quiet. He couldn’t answer that, Casey lets out a sigh and stood up to leave the room to join the others. In a flash, Bryce quickly pulls her into him, as they were facing one another. Their faces were close enough with one another, Casey felt herself leaning forward with him doing the same. Their lips meet for one moment as memories of him flowed through her mind making her pulled away instantly with a pained look on her face. She caressed his cheek examining his features one last time before sprinting out of the room. Her feet keep on dragging her until she bumped into a familiar group of faces. 

Sienna notices the puffy eyes and immediately pulled her into a hug, whilst Aurora rubs her back. They knew how painful this is for her, they knew how much love she has for him. 

“We can leave if you don’t feel like staying any longer,” Jackie said as she gestures to the exit whilst all the guests are getting ready for the reception. 

“No, no… I’m okay, don’t worry about me guys. Let’s go get ourselves seated.” Casey replied with a calm exterior earning questionable looks from her friends. Each of them lets out a slow shrug as they follow her to their respective seats.

As the ceremony begins, it went well as the family from both the bride and groom started to present their speeches for the happy couple. After a whole town of speeches were given, the emcee lets out a small announcement. 

“I have a request from one of our guests for the happy couple, a song to be specific. Here I call, one Miss Casey Valentine to the stage.” The emcee said as Casey stood up from the table and makes her way to the stage. 

The guests clap for her, while Bryce’s eyes went wide at the announcement. He thought about the kiss they shared in the room once more, as the music starts to play.

“I dedicate this song for both the bride and groom, may your wedding lasts for eternity with happiness and love…” Casey said before meeting his gaze, with a smile on her face as her voice starts to sing.

When the rain is blowing in your face,

And the whole world is on your case,

I could offer you a warm embrace,

To make you feel my love.

The tears started to form in her eyes, as she sang the first verse. She stopped for a moment and took a deep breath before she proceeds with the song.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear

And there is no one there to dry your tears

Oh, I hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love

The words from the song resonated on how she felt, in her mind where she would be the one to hold him in her arms, as they cried their sorrows away, doing everything she can to make him feel loved in the world. 

I know you haven't made your mind up yet

But she will never do you wrong

I've known it from the moment that we met

No doubt in my mind where you belong

Her eyes fall into the couple, as they were seated with a huge smile on their faces, the bride mostly as Bryce hide the pain through a small smile. Standing there, she knows Bryce is going to be happy… even without her and that is all she cares about.

I'd go hungry; I'd go black and blue

And I'd go crawling down the avenue

No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do

To make you feel my love

She will do anything, knowing that his happiness matters to her. The pain from letting go is visible in her eyes as her gaze lingers at him. His eyes were wet from the tears, as he subtly lowered his head. 

The storms are raging on the rolling sea

And on the highway of regret 

She emphasizes the word, ‘regret’. The feeling of sorrow in her heart takes over into her voice as the wetness on her eyes seems too real to ignore. 

The winds of change are blowing wild and free

You ain't seen nothing like me yet.

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true

There's nothing that I wouldn't do

Go to the ends of this Earth for you

To make you feel my love, oh yes

To make you feel my love.

As she finished, the room was silent as their eyes meet once more, the memory of their encounter before keeps on echoing in her head as she is brought to the real world as applause erupts. All of them are giving her a standing ovation, she lets out a small bow before heading back to her seat. Her friends were silent, they understand the message she wanted to give. 

“Cas, you sang beautifully,” Aurora said to her as she placed her hand on top of hers.

“Yeah, we are proud of you Cas,” Jackie says with an encouraging smile on her face.

“You’re gonna be okay, Cas?” Elijah asked as all eyes were on her. Casey went silent. 

Casey nods after a while, her thoughts still lingering… as it was writing a letter to him. Her final words towards him; a goodbye. 

‘I love you, will always do. I am really happy for you, even if it's breaking my heart. You deserve all the love in this world and I am glad someone is going to be there, throughout both the hard and easy times of life. I will always be here with you, every night and day. I will be just a phone call away. Bryce Lahela, thank you for all the love you give. Maybe, if our fates one day intertwined, I would wait a million years for it. You are one of the best things that ever happened to me and,  I am always going be that same girl who you found in the supply closet during our first meet. You deserve all the happiness, even though it’s not from me. Life is really insane sometimes, but one thing that is true in this life is, the love I have for you. – Love, Casey Valentine. 

Her thoughts are still playing as she  proceeds with the life in front of her. The words are still there, making itself visible. Maybe, as a reminder? A future wish or maybe, a way for one to move forward once again. 

 THE END

A/N #2 : HiI! It’s me again, I hope all of you enjoy it! I am so sorry for the angst! LIKE SUPER SORRY!! (Its painful to write it, but I somehow enjoy i welp! I still love Bryce, don’t come at me!!) But, don’t forget to like, reblog or even leave a comment! It really means a lot, and THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING. ❤ 

[atinydise]

Secret admirer

Genre: Angst.

❦ Pairing: Seonghwa.

❦ Word count: 7k7.

❦ Requested: Yes, thank you! 🦋

❦ Masterlist.

You opened the classroom door slowly. You checked the whole room, trying to see if someone was there. When you made sure that you were alone, you rushed to the desk at the middle of the room. You put down your bag on the floor and looked for the things you brought. You pulled out a blueberry lollipop and the note that you wrote this morning. “You were really good yesterday. Congratulations on your first win,” you read quietly to be sure you didn’t write any grammar fault. As usual, you stuck the post-it and the lollipop at the corner of the table. Just after that you left quietly. Nobody could see you or for sure, your secret will be revealed.

Seongwha got in the class a bit earlier than the lesson time. He dislikes being late. “Oh, good morning Seonghwa Oppa*!” Greeted one of his classmates. He bowed politely, “Hello Min Hori.” “Someone left another note on your desk.” She said pointing at the post-it. Seonghwa walked to his seat. He took off the note and read it. “You should find this person and ask her to stop,” said Min Hori behind him. Seonghwa raised a brow, “why? It’s not annoying me.” “But it’s been 2 months now. You might be-“ The boy faced her, “it’s okay.” Min Hori didn’t reply when she felt the seriousness on his voice. Seonghwa knew that Min Hori was interested by him. She was pretty, totally his type of girl but it was clear that she was interested of his popularity since he’s an idol. “Well. See you later Oppa!” She said, joining back her group of friends. Seonghwa sat on his seat, still staring at the paper on his hand. Who could write that to him? It’s been few months and he couldn’t figure it out. One part of him thought that it was just a fangirl that was trying to get his attention but who would keep it anonymous so long. He stared at the lollipop. It was a new taste. He always got taste as strawberry, cherry or apple. But this one was unexpected. It was not an important thing, but he lingered on it. He put the post-it in his book and tried to focus on his incoming lesson. But for sure, he would try to find who’s writing these notes for him.

The next day, you were a bit more late than usual but still earlier than the other student. You rushed to Seonghwa’s classroom. When you settled everything, you stared at it. You didn’t know it would hurt you so much. You stopped to breathe when you heard someone talking in the hallway. You freaked out and excited the room as fast as possible. You ran to the 3rd floor of the campus and acted like nothing happened. The only thing you ignored was that Seonghwa saw you exciting the class. He couldn’t believe that you were his secret admirer. He noticed your sometimes in the hallway, but you never talked to him or show any admiration to him. Seonghwa was in your English class. He noticed that you were pretty good at it but never talked to you. If he knew, he would talk to you the first day. He loved how you were studying seriously but having fun with your friends in the same time. Without bothering anyone. Seonghwa would never think that you got any interest for him. The first day after the vacations almost all his classmate were congratulating him for debuting. He remembered that you didn’t. You got in the class and sat next to the window. You were acting like you didn’t or never cared about him while you were secretly giving him a cheerful note and a candy. The young boy entered in the classroom. He immediately saw these 2 items on his desk. The lollipop taste was similar as yesterday but something in the note intrigued him. “Have a nice day. I hope that you will be happy for the rest of your life. Thank you for being you! PS: You are doing really good!” Seonghwa tilted his head. This note seemed different from the other one. You were still rooting for him, but you seemed sad. He read over and over the note, trying to figure out what was going on. “Good morning Seonghwa!” Greeted Min Hori, getting in the classroom. He bowed to her and focused back on the note. The way you seemed sad when you wrote that, made him confused. “Min Hori,” he called her, finally facing the girl. “Yes, Oppa?” She smiled, happy to get his attention. “Do you know who’s Y/N?” He stared at her, desperately waiting for an answer. “Y/N?” She repeated. “Hum no… I don’t know her.” “Okay…” he smiled. “Why? Is she the person who’s writing you?” She asked pointing at the blue post-it on Seonghwa’s hand. “No,” he lied. Min Hori sighed and sat on her seat, being ready to study. Seonghwa was staring back at the note. He needed to talk to you at Monday. The whole day, Seonghwa couldn’t focus well on his lessons. He felt like something strange would happen. He couldn’t figure it out if it was good or bad.

The next Monday, Seonghwa woke up early. He was so frustrated that he hadn’t slept well the whole weekend. He couldn’t focus well on his practice too. When his teammates asked him if everything was okay, he just nodded and said that he was tired. But they were not stupid. It was just a matter of time before they confront him. When he grabbed his school bag, he accidentally tossed the pile of book in the floor, waking up his roommate, Hongjoong. “Hwa…” he complained turning around in his bed. “What are you doing? It’s early….” “I need to talk to this girl.” Hongjoong sat up, “What? The girl who’s writing these notes? You will finally talk to her?” Seonghwa nodded, “see you later Joong.” “What? Wait Hwa!” Yelled Hongjoong, trying to stop his member. But he already left, without paying attention to the leader. The eldest member left the dorm, quickly as possible. Outside, it was still dark. Only the streetlights were turned on. Seonghwa was walking faster than usual. Anticipating your first meet. But finally, he stopped. What could he say to you? Does he need to stay serious? Or does he need to show you that he liked your little attentions? He started to freak out. “What should I do?” he whispered. Seonghwa stayed still, alone in the street. Thinking about how he needs to act. He blew deeply to calm his heart, beating in his chest crazily. He collected all the braveness he needed and walked to the campus. In front of his classroom, he opened the door slowly, trying to see if you were there already. But the room was empty.

He sat on his desk, waiting for you.

But you never came.

At first, he thought that you saw him and decided to run away, but he didn’t hear any footstep or noises that can show your presence. He waited like that for almost 1 hour. All his classmates got in, one by one. But you never appeared. “Hello Oppa!” Greeted Mingi. Seonghwa didn’t reply, to lost on his thoughts. “Oppa?” repeated Min Hori. Finally, Seonghwa lifted his head to look at her. “Oh hi,” he bowed politely. She smiled, “do you spent a good weekend?” He simply nodded. “Oh, I asked my friends if they knew this Y/N-“ she started. “Really?” he shouted, standing up. “Wow. You are really into her.” She said, surprised and disappointed by his enthusiasm. Seonghwa blushed lightly, “Huh… No. I don’t even know her.” “Sure…” she whispered. “Whatever. She was in 4th grade and had only few friends here.” “Why are you talking about her in past tense?” He raised a brow. “Oh.” She only replied, embarrassed. “What’s going on?” “She moved out of the town during the weekend.” She explained. “What? Moved out where?” asked Seonghwa. “No one knows not even one of her closest friends here…” Seonghwa sat down back on his chair. He couldn’t believe that it was happening to him. He couldn’t say that the was devastated since he didn’t know you well. Even not at all. But he was sad. Really sad to know that he wouldn’t get your cheerful notes anymore. Sad to realize that he wouldn’t get the chance to talk to you, at least one time. He would never know why you left these notes and candies for him every day. Were you in love with him? Do you wanted to be his friend? Seonghwa sighed, brushing his hair, frustrated. “I can search a bit more for you if you want.” Said Min Hori, seeing how the boy were disappointed. He shook his head, “It’s fine. You did a lot already.” Seonghwa stood up, grabbing his bag. “Where are you going?” asked Min Hori. “The lesson will start soon.” Seonghwa bowed to her, “I prefer going to back to the dorm. I’m not feeling well. I caught a cold.” He lied. “Seonghwa Oppa…” “Don’t worry for me. See you tomorrow!” He smiled, leaving the classroom.

Knowing that you moved out, felt like an electric shock for him. All the way back to the dorm, the only thing he could think was you. He ignored why you got this impact on him. Was it because you ignored him? That you made him feel like he was a normal human being and not an idol? Seems like your attention attracted him more than he thought. He stopped at the crossroad. Waiting the green light to be on, to cross the street. As he was sighing of frustration, a van stopped in front of him. Turning his head to look at it, like an instinct, he spotted you. His heart missed a beat. You were looking right at him in shock. Probably freaking out, thinking that he would come and scold you for being a stalker. In reality, he was thinking the opposite thing. Seonghwa was froze, his body wanted to run to you, but see you randomly like this, feels like a dream. He was looking right at you, not breaking the eye-contact you had. “Y/N,” he whispered. The sound of the honk coming from his right, bring him back in the reality. He stepped back safely on the street. The van drive away. His eyes stared at the vehicle leaving. Will he be able to see you again one day?

*Oppa: means “older brother of a female person”. Or older brother, very close friend who is older (but not much older), romantic interest, boyfriend, and sometimes even husband.

[wawaluxthings]

13, 21, 31, 45!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you  ♡

13. Describe your writing process from idea to polished

Have brilliant idea on the verge of falling asleep. Pass out with so many words buzzing in my skull I actually dream of writing the story (but it’s all very stressful because I can only see with half my eyes and the keyboard keeps jumping around and the word doc won’t open fully). Wake up and words are gone, lucky if idea has survived and vocabulary is now restricted to grocery list. Turn on spotify. Stare at blank page. Stare at blank page. Stare at blank page. Wait for someone to give me crazy shit tons of work to do on a tight deadline. Of course words come back all at once. Begin writing frenzy which has me frothing at the mouth. Tell my better half that I’m just browsing the internet when he asks me why I’m typing so much. Convince myself I’ll read the paragraph one more time and then I’ll do the work. Three hours later, have full story out, rush through work and pretend I was doing that all along. Try to stop mouse from hovering over the word icon that wants to suck me back in. Wait for next day to fix the story. Amaze myself at how many words I skipped and how many times I changed tenses. Try to resist posting it. Give it one more night, fresh eyes, squint to spot the typos, get lost in some grammar that I’m not sure is correct. Bounce around in happiness cos this is the greatest thing EVER. Realize I forgot to do a title. Play around with words that really don’t mean anything. Read every possible synonym of simple words. Write up a summary in 2 minutes. Upload to the website and TRY to read it one more time because otherwise I’ll spot the mistakes too late. Don’t usually make it. Click ‘post’ with a grin. Immediately hate every word. Immediately hate idea. Try not to stare at stats page. Stare at stats page and refresh like a moron. Wonder how much the people who clicked on it and left hate me. Decide I’m the worst writer in history and this was so stupid, why did I bother. Close laptop and hide phone out of sight so I can stop checking stats page. Stare at tv and think of stats page. Go to bed. Tell myself I’ll just delete it in the morning. Wake up and don’t delete it. Have another story/art to obsess about.

OR – Have idea, almost get fired in haste to write it, check for typos, post, live with dark thoughts, forget about it all, move on.

21. Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write?

Ohh Matt and Foggy for sure. I love exploring how Matt perceives the world around him, how different things will sound to him or the smells and textures that we wouldn’t be able to notice ourselves. Foggy just makes me happy! I see him as the light that contrasts Matt’s darkness. I think we have a little bit of Foggy in all of us, the insecure, good-hearted spirit that is just pure awesome. It makes me happy to know that I can use him to make my readers smile.

31. Least favourite part of writing

A few, very random ones: 1) Writer’s block. It’s been killing me lately. It feels like you lost whatever you had, like it won’t ever come back; 2) The fear that comes with posting. It’s a thrill and can be so rewarding, but the first few hours are just darkness (phew, we are all so broken, aren’t we?); 3) Accepting that the story is just not working, and scrapping whole paragraphs. The words look at me with big sad puppy eyes and it breaks my heart, so I have this whole document of ‘could potentially use one day’ sentences that I’ll likely never use (but shh, don’t tell them); 4) Trying not to use the same words all the time. My brain just goes THERE, every time. I have to highlight them so I don’t forget to swap them out.

45. How much world building do you do?

I had to google what world building was lol, so is that an answer? I think not much at all. It helps that we all have an idea of who the characters are, and what their environment looks like already. I tend to start a story mid-scene and only add details if I think it will help the reader understand something. I know people can’t stand long descriptions, no matter how beautiful the wording is. I’ve stopped reading so many books cos they were too busy describing something, and I honestly didn’t care enough.

Thanks again for the ask!

[nothingofvaluewaslost]

STORY: Virgin Vessels

An SF/horror story. Ebba and three of her teenage classmates black out and wake up in a cell that appears to be on an alien planet. Gore, physical unpleasantness. Mention of sexual and unpleasant themes, but no sexual content.

Virgin Vessels

By Christina Nordlander

When the Thursday PE class came around, Ebba was on her period. It hardly hurt, not even if she strained her body, but she asked to get the class off because she couldn't shower. Gudrun, the gym teacher, lean and with strongly wrinkled skin that looked suntanned even now, showed her a rest-room where she'd never been, with a bunk and a little window on the tarmac yard with the bike-stands. The floor was the same maroon lino as the corridors. It was permission to take it easy, so she lay on her back on the bunk and re-read a book she’d brought in her duffel-bag, Magician's Gambit, but forty minutes was a long time to read one thing. If it'd been the last class she could have gone home.

She walked out into the corridor and waited in the equipment room, open on the gym hall where the others in their white T-shirts stood queuing in front of vaulting-horses and springboards. Of course she would be off sick on the day they did something fun. Other than that it felt festive, being free in the gym hall.

She might have been able to leave before the others, because they were going to need a few minutes to shower and get dressed, but that felt unfair when she'd had the class off. She must have waited longer than she'd thought, because by the time she walked out through the dressing room, everyone except three people had left. Tall Anja was stretching with one foot on a bench. Claudia was still combing her black curls in the mirror over the drinking fountain, while Marielle was waiting for them by the exit.

“It's almost three o'clock,” she said. “Get a move on.”

Anja tossed her bag over her shoulder and Claudia took her jacket off the hook. They emerged in the yard together.

The air wasn't cold for November, you might have thought it was early spring. When she was a kid she'd romanticised the gym hall, especially when its red brick walls glowed red against the blue sky and looked like a fantasy palace. To the right was an empty meadow with the dark forest on the other side, to the left the deserted terraced flats. Anja pushed the scrunchie tighter up her blond ponytail and did some more stretching.

“If only all PE was apparatus gymnastics,” Claudia said. “Then even...”

Her mouth moved for a few more seconds, but Ebba couldn't hear anything.

It was over before she'd had time to panic, just a blinding light and a transient deafness. She shook her head as if she'd got water in her ears. A crow cawed over the field, a couple of guys were laughing over by the school.

“What the hell?” Claudia managed.

Anja turned her head, her eyes so large her face seemed flat.

“Did you feel it too?” she exclaimed.

The world broke off.

Two things she would remember: the light enclosed her again and something had picked her up and was sweeping her away. The bike-stand was a knee-high block of concrete on its side somewhere outside the light. She tried to pull her legs up so that it wouldn't strike them off, but she didn't know whether she could move any more.

*

She'd never passed out before, but this couldn't have been anything else. There were memories in it, not quite dreams. It felt like she'd wandered through some hallucinations, tall cities and human shapes, till it wore out her body.

When she could see again, she was in pain, but only from the hard floor. It wasn't the tarmac and grit outside the school: she was indoors. The lighting was bad, but she could see a tall window, like one of the sashed ones of an old grammar school.

Anja's thin, slightly gaunt face hovered in above hers.

“Are you all right?” she said, her voice echoing slightly.

Ebba checked and couldn't feel anything worse than the back-ache. She pushed herself away from Anja to have room to sit up. The floor was damp or just cold under her hands, and now she felt a chemical smell that didn't evoke any memories. Anja didn't let go of her yet.

“Remember you're not dreaming,” she went on. “I don't know... but I can see it, too. You're here.”

She straightened herself to let Ebba get up.

What she saw was a dungeon, almost a cliché. The walls, taller than the size of the room required – it was a bit smaller than one of the classrooms in school – consisted of dark grey stone blocks, the floor of flagstones. The ceiling looked vaulted, but the light didn't reach all the way up. All light came from the window in the wall opposite her, tall and narrow like a crossbow slit. She couldn't see anything outside, just pale light. It was warmer than it had been outside school. She pulled down the zip, but kept her jacket on. Marielle sat crouched, back against the wall, and Claudia lay stretched out on the floor. Ebba had to assume she wasn't dead. If one of them had died they would have reacted more. To her left was a door. She couldn't see much of it from this angle, but it was tall as a church door and maybe made of steel. There was a hole in the flagstones in one corner, just darkness. The masonry in the short ends of the room had waist-high buttresses like on the walls of old castles. Apart from that, there was nothing to see.

“Where are we?” she asked.

She didn't expect any answer. Anja had walked up to the door and was studying it, leaning one hand on it. She tried to laugh, but it became just a nameless little noise.

“Marielle and I woke up just a couple of minutes ago,” she said without turning her head, “your guess is as good as mine. We were here when we woke up. My mobile phone's working, but I'm not getting a signal.”

Ebba looked at her watch. The second hand was moving. It was a bit past four, but she didn't know whether it was the same day.

“Who was it?” she asked.

“I've told you I don't know!”

The anger in Anja’s voice subsided almost immediately, and she returned to the door. Claudia made a noise and raised one arm as if she was trying to beat something away from her face.

She was as unharmed as the rest of them. They got to repeat what little they knew for her.

Ebba went to the door, now that Anja had left it. It was of steel, probably thick, without a keyhole or hatch to the outside, without ornament. There was something alien about the size and curve of the handle, as long as her lower arm.

“Don't you think I've tried opening it?” Anja murmured behind her.

She tested it anyway.

“So what the hell is this?” Marielle said as Ebba went to the window.

It was placed so high, she couldn't see anything other than the bright sky. Not even Anja would reach to see outside, and she was one head taller than Ebba. She felt a chilly draught in her hair, but the air wasn't fresh. It had that smell that was too inorganic to be disgusting.

“Have we been kidnapped?” Marielle went on. “Trafficking or something?”

Anja started laughing, for real this time. It sounded almost metallic.

“Well, do you have any better suggestions?” Marielle muttered. “Who the hell kidnaps people? Girls? From a schoolyard?”

Ebba turned back towards them, one hand on the masonry.

“Aliens?” she said.

When she was younger, she'd dreamt about meeting aliens and maybe getting to go to their planet. The word sounded ugly, but they didn't laugh.

“This is a dungeon,” she went on, as if it was best to speak the thoughts out loud. “Who owns it? It must be in some...”

She couldn't imagine anything other than castles and fortresses, greater than any building where she'd been.

Claudia walked to the door and started tugging at the handle and shouting:

“Where are you? Get here! Let us out!”

That might have been the best plan any of them had. The question was whether the ones out there knew Swedish, but they were going to hear the racket. A few minutes later she was still going.

“What the hell, I'm gonna find out where we are,” Anja muttered and walked up to the window.

Ebba made room for her and went to look at the little hole in the flagstones. It was like she'd expected, a metal pipe leading down in the darkness. Did that mean they were going to be locked up here for a long time? It didn't smell, at least, that must mean that there hadn't been any prisoners before them in a while. Her sanitary pad felt swampy wet. They might not give her a new one. It was at least a day until it would pass. When she was a kid, there'd been articles in the paper warning for tampon sickness. Women's toes had blackened and fallen off because they'd been wearing the same tampon too long. It was just tampons, you couldn't get infected from pads.

She went back to the spot where she'd woken up, it would have to become hers, and curled up on her side, even though she couldn't see much of the door from there. Claudia's screaming had become more monotonous, but she didn't stop yanking at the handle. Anja got up on the bump in the wall and from there to the window. The ache in her stomach was still bearable, but there wouldn't be anything to do about it if it got worse. The decidua, that was the name of the soft layer of the womb that peeled off when you menstruated. She used to focus on it when she got pains, as if that made it better.

Anja had pulled herself up to the window. For a moment it looked like her head and shoulders had disappeared – they might have done, nothing else here was logical – but it was just the strong light flaring around her. She pushed away from the wall and landed, knees springy.

“Claudia, could you stop that frickin' racket?” she said.

Claudia turned her head. When she stopped there was another noise. It was something moving in the distance, but so slow and heavy it must have been huge. Maybe it was just on the other side of the wall, she didn't know how thick the stone blocks were.

Claudia didn't scream again, but she pulled at the handle a few more times before the door opened. Ebba got to her feet and crouched behind Claudia.

A pyramid of flesh stood in the doorway. She got the idea that its colour was irregular and perhaps changing, pink near them and grey further out in the hallway, but that might have been the light. It had no distinct head, but where it tapered towards the top was a pale eye, bigger than her head and flush with the surface. On each side moved a long boneless appendage that branched into many fingers. She couldn't see whether it had legs or a tail, its body blocked the view.

It came closer, the doorway wasn't so small that it had to squeeze together, though it looked like it could have done. Its right tentacle whipped around Claudia, but it was Ebba’s waist that it grabbed. She heard the squeak when the air was pushed out of her lungs. The dungeon wheeled around when it lifted her.

Someone gave a scream, but it wasn't she. Anja rushed crouched towards it and stabbed at the tentacle with something she was clutching in both hands. The world jerked and flashed when the creature whipped her to the side, and when she saw again, Anja lay on the floor half the room away, gasping for breath several times.

The room whirled again when the creature carried her towards the exit. The regular noise was the segments of its lower body, like a worm or a grub, contracting and stretching. She couldn't turn her head enough to see the cell, but the daylight disappeared when the door fell shut.

*

Ten minutes had passed since they'd taken Ebba, and Marielle had had to realise that she wasn't dreaming. She'd asked Anja, maybe several times, if she could see the cell and had seen the creature. When she got the reply, she didn't know what she was supposed to feel. Perhaps it was good that this was real: then there was a way out. If she'd become mentally ill, she might have had to see thick grub creatures and other madness until she died. It felt like something was pressing on her chest when she breathed in. At first it made her panic, but it didn't hurt particularly. If she got low on oxygen she might pass out.

A creature came in, the same or another. It didn't take any of them, but it put down a tall metal vessel and a large flat package wrapped in a black material that felt like paper. It smelled strong, not unpleasant, when Marielle opened it. Inside was dark meat, cold but cooked. The fluid was invisible in the pot, but it only smelled of water.

She wasn't hungry. It was only half past four. Mum and Dad and Jonas would be home. They wouldn’t have started wondering where she was.

“Do we dare to eat this?” she asked.

She turned to Anja. Claudia sat sullenly curled up with her legs pulled against her chest, but she was the one who answered:

“If they want to kill us they don't have to poison us.”

“We don't know where it's from! I mean, Ebba...”

That was as many words as she wanted to put to it. Anja stretched out flat to smell the food without touching it.

“It smells like fish,” she said.

Marielle managed a laugh, but it sounded more like sobs than anything else. It took effort to stop.

Anja took a bit of the fish, then returned to massaging her ankle. Neither Marielle nor Claudia touched the food, but she swigged a few gulps of the water. As soon as she'd quenched her thirst, she could taste something else in it, but it didn't taste bad. She still didn't drink more.

“Why did they take us here?” she asked.

Claudia let out a light noise.

“You mean you don’t get it?”

She'd put her head on its side against the knees of her jeans, her black cotton skirt rumpled around her waist. She kept her eyes on the cell door.

“No, we haven't,” Anja said.

When it came it was one word, so choked it sounded like just a noise.

“Rape.”

“That was the stupidest thing I've heard!” Anja said.

She stood up, a bit crouched, as if she wanted to hit Claudia.

“Why would they do that? You saw what it looked like, didn't you? It's about as likely as you wanting to have sex with them.”

Marielle couldn't stop herself from barking a laugh. Something warm rose at the bottom of her throat. Claudia's arms hardened around her knees.

“It doesn't have to be because they think we're attractive. Just to degrade us.”

The words sounded flat, as if she was putting them together without knowing what they meant.

Anja clicked her tongue.

“They may have taken us here to make us their slaves. They may have taken us here to make us their pets. They may have taken us here so their scientists or whatever the hell can communicate with us. Yes, they may have taken us here to eat us.”

She kicked a white trainer in the direction of the food package.

“They might be planning to dissect us while we're still alive. That's a lot worse than getting raped. But you know sweet fuck all, Claudia, so stop making stuff up just to freak us out.”

“Then why didn't they take any guys?”

Why would they have taken Ebba if Claudia's theory was true? She shouldn't think like that about someone who was dead or something equally bad, but they wouldn't have chosen fat Ebba over Claudia, or Anja who was sinewy and blonde, or herself. Then they didn't even have the comfort of knowing what it was going to be.

Anja sniffed and strode over to the streak of light from the window. After a few seconds, Marielle's gaze followed her. She tried to move as little as possible.

“At any rate, I don't plan to be here when they do it,” Anja said.

She got up in the window-slit and stood straight, one hand around the edge, before swinging herself through. They couldn't hear what she was saying before she poked her head back in.

“Okay, there's a vine a few yards up. If I can climb up there I might be able to get onto the roof. It's closer than climbing down. If I make it, I'll try to find my way around and unlock the door.”

“Are we high up?” Marielle asked.

Anja didn't respond. Perhaps her voice hadn't been loud enough. Anja stretched until her head disappeared above the edge of the window.

“Fingers crossed,” she said and pulled herself up.

When five minutes had passed, Marielle had to ask Claudia to help her get to the window; she wasn't as good at climbing as Anja. Claudia didn't say anything. She walked up and cradled her foot as if she was a robot. Marielle asked if she wanted to get up first, she was the lightest of them, but Claudia didn't answer.

The light was so strong, she started sneezing. When she was a kid, she'd done that when walking on a sunny street in town with Mum, and she'd wondered if it was a sign of something dangerous. Once she could see, it was like when that thing had opened the door.

They were high above ground, but in the distance were a couple of other buildings that were as high as they: pyramid-shaped like Aztec temples, but taller and narrower. Below them was a pattern of lower buildings. They were sentient, they built towers. To the left she could see the silhouette of a mountain range, and the glitter on the horizon must be the sea. Perhaps they would run in that direction if Anja succeeded.

The sun looked like the earth's, perhaps paler, but no more so than in winter. The sky was blue, but with a tinge of violet. The chemical smell was stronger here, the wind stroked across her face.

She managed to crawl up into the window so that she could stick her head out and look up. She couldn't see Anja. She would have screamed if she'd lost her grip. The roof was a long way up, almost as far as the ground. If it'd been her, she would probably have chosen to climb down, so it wouldn't be so far to fall. The blocks on the outside were rough, but her palms got sweaty when she thought about using them for support. A vine started a few body-lengths up, too far off for her to see what the leaves looked like. It gathered into a green hump where even she would have been able to climb, but it was in the way, she couldn't see anything above it.

She jumped back into the cell. Her stomach felt heavy and upset. She asked Claudia to look away and took a crap in the hole in the floor. At least she had empty pages in her notebook to wipe with. She counted afterwards: fifty-eight. Perhaps they weren't going to be in the cell that long.

She sat down in her space and started reading her German textbook to pass the time, but it made her dizzy. It reminded her too much of the time before. She could focus on the childish colouring in the illustrations and not see the stone floor, and then her body started thinking that she was in her bedroom and was going to hear Mum and Jonas walk around downstairs.

It became five o'clock. At home it would have started growing dark, but here it felt like the light was getting stronger and turning the yellow of spring. She took a pinch of fish and chewed it, and the saltiness gave a bit of new life. They wouldn't have started dinner.

“NO!” Anja's voice screamed.

The worst part was that she was still screaming it as she fell, as if she was sorry and wanted to ask for another chance. It took a long time.

“At least they didn't get her”, Claudia said.

After a few seconds she raised her head and went on:

“If they come for me, could you help me up, Marielle?”

A period of time later – but she wasn't looking at her watch any more –, something new came. She heard a roar that might have made the floor vibrate. (If she'd been dreaming, she wouldn't have felt so much.) She couldn't tell whether it was from pain. It couldn't have been anything human, and it went on longer than Anja's scream had.

*

Ebba didn't resist while it was carrying her, because it held her with her head slightly down so that blood collected there. Her eardrums swelled until she pictured them as round balls. If she had been able to break free, her head would have been smashed against the stone of the passage floor. She might not have resisted anyway; if they were taking her somewhere else, things might get better.

The corridor bent and sloped upwards. The thing put her down, crouched, in a new room that was smaller than the cell. On the floor was a pile of cloth. When the tentacle picked it up, it was a red human-sized dress. It didn't have sleeves, but the hem of the long skirt was decorated with knotted fringes.

It pushed the dress down over her head, and a few seconds later it tugged at her trouser leg. She unzipped her fly and pulled off the trousers while talking to it, irritatedly, to make it understand that she could do it herself. Something in her voice must have got through, because it let her. She'd started smoothing the dress when the creature pulled at her underpants, and she stepped out of them and didn't want to look at them. It didn't touch her after that. The dress was tight around her chest. She hadn't taken off her cotton sweater, and the grey sleeves stuck out of the arm-holes. Mum had sewn that sweater on her old sewing-machine in the kitchen. It had a machine-embroidered name tag saying EBBA WIKSÉN sewn on in the collar.

When she looked up, it had reached for something on a shelf so high she hadn't noticed it. Its tentacles returned with two objects: a knife or sword of some kind, in a dark substance that gleamed like glass, and a pointy red object that didn't look like anything she had seen. She stepped back – the dress was too long, the fringes dragged on the floor –, but it held the knife high above her while it placed the other thing, a headdress, on her head. Now it occurred to her that it looked like a helmet, perhaps exotic, with two metal bands hanging down her back, coated in red paint or lacquer. It didn't pick her up again, as if it was afraid that she would get hold of the weapon, but gave her a shove and gestured towards the corridor. Maybe things would get better.

She tried to draw a map in her head, but it hadn't been many minutes when she saw white sunlight. At first she thought the being was herding her towards an exit, but when she got to the door it was a covered bridge, as wide and tall as the corridor, all in glass or some other transparent substance. She hesitated before taking the first step, but it had to be strong enough to carry the creatures. The glass was matte with scratches under her feet. It hadn't let her put her shoes on, not even her socks.

Through the walls and roof she saw tall walls on every side, of stone with a blue shade, if it wasn't the glass colouring it. The bridge crossed an atrium. In the inner court stood creatures between green sprays of shrubbery, their pale eyes turned up at her. If they made any noise it didn't reach her.

She had to walk towards the dark opening on the other side, because the creature approached behind her. The helmet or crown sat tight around her short-cropped hair. The blood itched trickling down her thigh. It was going to fall in drops on the glass floor. It was just something that was wounded inside her, it was nothing more disgusting than a wound.

It took a few seconds before she realised what was odd about the other opening. There was no lighting, and after a few steps it got cramped around her, as if it was built for humans. The creature couldn't follow her inside. Maybe she ought to run, now that she had a chance, but she turned around and something rang on the stone floor next to her. It had thrown the sword. She squatted to pick it up, and when she turned her head, a metal door slid down over the light from the atrium. The crash made her shake.

It was dark.

She didn't dare to let go of the sword, she might not be able to find it. She staggered until her forehead and torso slammed into the door. She hit it and struggled to push it open. If there was a locking mechanism she didn't find it. She could have attacked it with the sword, but it would hardly damage the metal, and she didn't want to risk destroying it. She hadn't investigated the other end.

She walked the first steps, then crawled on the floor, sword in one fist, legs slipping in the skirt. It was far, perhaps it felt longer than if she'd been able to see, and she still didn't see any light.

It felt like she should have known. Maybe humans had a remnant of a sense like sonar for feeling the space around them, because when she hit the end of the tunnel she didn't scream, just breathed out in a long shaking sob. It wasn't fair.

Maybe it was just a rock that she could get around. Maybe it was the wall of a bend and the tunnel would continue right or left. That made her scramble up and feel the obstacle. It didn't feel like rock. It was warmer than rock, it felt more like leather than anything. If she pushed or hit it, it gave, a millimetre or two. She felt around it, but her fingertips met the stone in the walls, and the blockage continued as high as she could reach. There had to be an opening in the tunnel, and something lay pressed against it to block it. Something? She hit it and got no reaction.

“You bastard, I'm coming out!” she screamed, loud in the dark.

If it was so tightly pressed against the opening, it wouldn't hear. She stuck the sword in it.

The flesh shuddered, but not enough. It pressed as close to the walls as before. She kept screaming, curses and insults that wouldn't mean anything even if it understood them, and stabbed again. The flesh was soft to the edge.

She had to stop shouting when she started feeling trembling weakness in her arms and legs. The air was stuffy – there was nowhere for new air to get in, was there? It was impossible to know how much longer it would last. It smelled of the creature. She tried not to breathe through her nose.

The creature hadn't moved or made a noise. It might have been dead. The way out was through it.

She drove the sword in again, with a smacking sound, and this time she put her weight on it and sawed downwards. It was easy, maybe it was looser than normal flesh. The chopping-board had been wet with washing-up water while Mum sliced red pork chops. She neither heard nor felt if any fluids came out. That was better. She traced up a door, almost as tall as she, as if she was drawing it on the wall like in a freaking Hanna-Barbera film, though it took longer. She didn't want to have to crawl.

It might have been more disgusting if she'd had light. There was nothing to it, this was the only way out. She'd started mumbling “when he hollers, let him go, eeny meeny miny moe”, just in her brain so as not to use up oxygen. Dad had shouted it when she’d hesitated on the pier in Blekinge. That thought made her go on cutting her way and tearing out more lumps, as if Mum and Dad were on the other side.

The air from the corridor was going to be enough. There was no blood, she wasn't going to drown. When she'd got a few metres in, she had to turn around now and then to throw out the chunks she'd sawn off. She measured with stretched-out arms to where the masonry began. How big were they? Maybe four times this length, longer if she wasn't digging in a straight line. She was going to pretend that she was digging a tunnel. This might be less disgusting than muddy soil. When she'd whinged when she was walking in the forest with Mum and her shoes stuck in the mud, Mum had said “think about how nice it'll be to get home and have a long warm bath.” The blood was leaking out of her again. She didn't know how long it would continue.

But she'd dug further than she'd thought she'd need. Like swimming in a water-filled tunnel without knowing if it was going to open on air, except that this was thicker than something liquid. Her tunnel had become lower, she didn't have time now to make it tall enough to walk in. The headdress must have fallen off in the corridor. The hilt hurt her hand, and there wasn't much air, she had to persuade her body that it got enough oxygen in each breath. The thirst made her lick a piece of flesh, but it tasted good, almost sweet. She tore off a bit with her teeth and chewed, but convulsed when her body remembered what it was.

She had to sink down for a while to rest her arm, and then she heard a noise. It started low but grew to a roar as if something had crumbled the building itself. When it didn't stop she threw the sword and put her fingers in her ears. It barely softened the noise.

The roar died away, but now she felt a tremble in the slide of flesh where she was sitting. The walls rippled and contracted as if in cramp. Something brushed her shoulder, and it was the wall.

At first she screamed, then clarity came back. She started crawling towards the corridor. Maybe she would lose her tunnel. She didn't have time to search for the sword, it would stick in here if everything closed up.

Her forehead hit a wall of wrinkled flesh. Maybe it was possible to climb past it, but what she was breathing didn't have any more oxygen. The darkness was red.

She didn't have to die a slow death like someone buried alive, because the flesh closed around her. It pressed against her forehead and neck, her ribs creaked. Maybe it was mercy. It was like when she'd built playhouses of all the cushions in preschool and they fell in.

*

What she'd thought was death sank away. It was still dark, but there was cold new oxygen, so something must have opened. The walls had slipped back till she could move. When she crawled to the side she felt something new under her thighs, some sort of swelling in the flesh. When she pressed it with her palm it was hard, and something throbbed in it as if it was alive with a different life than the creature around her. She couldn't care about it. Her body was sore and she coughed every time she breathed out, but the pain in her ovaries had almost left her.

She groped until she found the sword and crawled back through her tunnel, until she got out into the light where the creatures waited with her clothes. She didn't want to look at what she had crawled out of. They greeted her with a sign, all at the same time. One of them took the sword from her and led her back through the corridor.

THE END

[glassmaker04]

[Fic] Fragments of Memories

Title: Fragments of Memories

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Pairing: Erasermight l Allmight x Eraserhead / Yagi Toshinori x Aizawa Shouta

Warning: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Notes: Still waiting for AO3′s invitation T^T. Sorry for the delay, many things came up this week and I didn’t have enough time to sit down and write (even sleep...) but here it is! Please enjoy!

Thank you everyone who’s reading. I’m appreciated.

Ps. I’m not a English speaker. I’m sorry in advance for wrong grammars.

Part 3: Old routine, New routine

Toshinori’s Memories

Yagi Toshinori had a very simple routine. Woke up at 6, showered, dressed, ate at 7, went to work at a local cafe. His shift was 9am-5pm, ate lunch with coworkers, did his duties, went to supermarket before going home, made dinner, ate alone, read a bit or watched the news and went to bed. These had repeated 2 years now, he didn’t complain about his life. He was contented.

But deep down, he was lonely...truly lonely.

But after he met Aizawa 3 weeks ago, his routine had completely changed. He woke up at 6, fed Maru (Aizawa insisted keeping Maru, no handing to the Adoption center like he planned to.), showered, dressed, cooked for 2 and packed a lunch for Aizawa (Aizawa still couldn’t move around much), ate with Aizawa while they had small conversation, went to work, ate lunch with coworkers before checking on Aizawa by phoned, did his duties, went to supermarket, made dinner (with sounds of the news Aizawa’s watching), ate with Aizawa and Maru, talked to Aizawa or read a book while Aizawa’s working on his computer (very confusing with codes) and slept (Aizawa insisted slept on the sofa).

Everything he did now had Aizawa in it. He’s not alone like he used to.

Even Though he was well aware of Aizawa’s past. He could tell by his guts that Aizawa would bring bad news to him but he didn’t care. He liked talking to the young man. He was smart, quick-wit, had a strange sense of humor and a soft heart under his cold appearance.

He felt complete when Aizawa’s around him.

After the despaired accident, finally he was happy...truly happy.

“Umm, is that my coffee?” a lady customer asked when Toshinori held her cup too long. Toshinori blinked couple times, realizing he just lost in his thoughts.

“Oh sorry! here you are.” the barista gave a fake smile, felt embarrassed.

“Oi Toshinori, what’s on your mind? You’ve been distracted many times lately.” his coworker, Nishiya Shinji, used his elbow teasing him a bit.

“Nothing.” Toshinori felt his face was warmer, tried to keep himself busy as best as he could. He automatically mixed a next order.

“Ahh~ Have you been dating with someone?” another woman, Takeyama Yu, glared at the older man with her watchful eyes.

“No! absolutely not.” Toshinori surely felt the rushing warm both on his cheeks and chest. It was hard to hide his face.

“Don’t lie to me! I’ve seen you calling and talking very sweet to someone after lunch, Aiko or something.” Yu blurted out, almost spilled the drink she’s making.

“I didn’t do that! His name’s Aizawa-kun and he’s staying with me. I just wanted to check on him if he eats on time.” Toshinori’s trying so hard to keep compose even though he wasn’t good at it.

“By calling everyday? Is he your...son?” Shinji asked this time, eyes still locked at his older coworker, never knew that the man was married.

“No, I don’t have one. He’s...he’s my cousin.” Toshinori lied. The first time in so many years.

“Oh? I thought you don’t have any relatives.” Yu said, handed the drink to the customer.

“He just moved in.” Toshinori finished his drink and handed to customer as well. He hurried to the counter.

“Next, please.” He said quickly the to next customer in the line. His other two coworkers knew immediately that this conversation had ended.

“Okay, I’m not gonna buy that Toshinori-san. I know it when you’re lying.” Shinji said while Yu made a small laugh. Toshinori pretended he didn’t hear that.

As usual, Toshinori did call Aizawa between lunch break. He hid himself in the back of the cafe, made sure that no one saw him this time. His long thump dialed to the younger man at his home quickly, never knew he had a smile on his lips.

“Hello Aizawa-kun, how are you doing?”

/Same...bored and sleepy./ a mumble sound answering at the end of the line made Toshinori smiled wider.

“Did you eat lunch yet?”

/Not yet but soon, don’t worry. What about you? Have you coughed? I heard you coughed last night though, didn’t want to ask in the morning while you seemed to enjoy humming in the kitchen./

“I’m fine! Haven’t co-” didn’t even finish the sentence. The older man bloody cough through the phone.

/Ah, I should talk to Chiyo-san tonight. She’s coming, isn’t she?/ Toshinori cleared his throat before saying.

“Yes, she’s coming to see your wound though, not mine.”

/I still want to talk to her./  

“Haha, thank you Aizawa-kun. You’re kind.” the younger man was quiet a couple minutes before answering.

/...No, I just want my beauty sleep. You’ve kept me waking up at night./ a soft voice sounded cold, but Toshinori still felt warm in his chest.

Aizawa-kun, you’re really carring inside.

“Don’t forget to eat lunch then. It’s your favorite salmon.”

/I will, Yagi-san./

“Oh, I’ll stopped by a mall before heading home. Do you need more clothes? Or anything else?”

/No, thank you. I bought me too many things I need including this mobile phone./

“Really? I thought it too few.” there was a beat from the end of the line, then Aizawa said.

/Just come home quickly, so I’m not bored and hungry./ somehow that cold tone made Toshinori smiling wider than before. He unconsciously play with his bangs hair.   

“Hahaha, I will Aizawa-kun. I will.”

/See you then, bye./ with that, Aizawa hung up. Toshinori looked at his phone and already felt the drum sound pounding inside.

Come home…

“You’re really nice, Aizawa-kun.” He muttered to himself, a small smile still on his lips.

After his shift ended, Toshinori hurried to the mall and bought things from supermarket. There were enough for two people, beef, vegetables, toothpaste, shampoo, soap and oh! cats food. Of course, he had to paid double but he didn’t care. He actually felt good about it.

When Toshinori walked back, humming along the way, he saw his apartment from afar. The light from his room was on. The tall man had stopped both of walking and humming, stunned. He just blinked hard before looked at that light for a long long time as if he never saw his own apartment before. A warm and longing feeling swirled inside his body, rushing through his spine like the electricity. Suddenly he felt whole and complete like he truly belonged here for the first time.

So this is what it’s like, when you had someone’s waiting for you.

“I’m home.” Toshinori opened the front door, greeted by a purr sound from Maru who already tangled his legs.

“You’re late!” Aizawa shouted from the living room. Toshinori let out a laugh before apologising to the young man. His heart’s full of warmness while listening a long complaint from the younger man. It was the best thing ever happened in his life.

“Why you’re laughing!? There’s nothing funny!”

“You’re funny, Aizawa-kun.” Toshinori smiled wider, dodged a pillow from Aizawa and finally put a pink arporn on, began to prepare their dinner.

If his life’s going to be like this everyday, he could live with it.

He could live with Aizawa-kun like this.

He couldn’t think of something or someone else...

.

.

.

.

Shouta’s Memories

The black hair man was running fast on a road, almost spilled his coffee. He looked down at his watch every 2 minutes, checking if he could make it in time. Aizawa Shouta was never ever late and he was proud of that fact. There was no way that today could ruin his reputation. He gasped hard when he reached the school’s gate before walking in with other students.

Some students greeted him, a bit of scared. He only nodded his head back to them, eyes blinked blanky while wondered what classes he taught them (maths or physic?). Shouta’s still working on memorizing his students even though he mostly forgot at the end of the day. This was a part of his job now. He was alright with it.

When thinking back, Shouta’s old life was like a dream. Working at a software company almost 24 hours a day, he barely ate or slept. Even on the weekend, he opened his computer and worked, worked, worked. He was fine with it, got a good salary and OT. He liked being busy anyway.

Yet he was lonely...very lonely.

Something was missing...

“That’s it for today, I would like you all to do the exercises from page 45 to 50. Hand me next class.” Shouta said quickly while gathering all his notes and exercise sheets, pretended not to hear cry voice from the students.

“Sensei! Let me help you carry these.” a green hair boy spoke up, beside him was a boy worn glasses. Shouta glared at them, thinking hard.

Red shoes...Midoriya Izuku

Glasses boy...Iida Tenya

“Thanks...Mi...Midoriya...Ii...Iida.” He almost whispered the boys name which just made both of them looked at him with wider eyes.

“Your welcome Sensei!” two students suddenly shouted. Shouta felt his face was warmer, then he rushed to the door.   

Shouta didn’t expect to see the happy face from his students. While he’d worked at the software company, he didn’t care much about his coworkers. He only talked to them about works, nothing else. He didn’t care how their life was nor their faces. But here in UA, he somehow felt that it was very important to get to know all the kids to, of course, improve their calculating foundations.

“You did care for them, Shouta!” his friend, Mic or Yamada Hizashi had said to him on the third day of his teaching when he saw Shouta read through all the names list in teacher lounge.

“I don’t, just don’t want to see them fail the final exam.” he answered with cold voice.

“Ahhh~ Finally done of the day~” as soon as Shouta walked in the teacher room, he heard his friend whined.

“Thank you, you two.” Shouta said as the kids put down his papers on the desk. The boys said goodbye before left the room. Mic grinned after saw that little scene.

“You’re improving! Nice to see that.” Shouta glared, hated that face.

“Shut it.”

Yamada Hizashi, aka Mic, was Shouta’s friend from University. They incidentally had the same English class in his first year and this man had never left him alone since then.

“You’re done? Wanna get a drink?”

“No, I’m going to grade these papers and then I’ll go home.”

“Ahhh~ home, you say?” Mic just gave that stupid grinned which Shouta hated.

“Shut it!”     

Shouta didn’t know how his life was like this. Woke up at 6.30, showered and dressed, bought coffee and some pastries on a way to school. Be at his desk at 8am sharp, ate breakfast while memorizing all the teachers from his notebook before read through his schedule and teaching plan, prepared his lesson and went to class, had lunch with Mic and Nemuri, had afternoon class, graded papers and went home.

Well, he didn’t exactly head home, he dropped by a homey restaurant ‘Allmight Alright!’ at 7pm sharp. He’d done this 3 weeks now, just to order his favorite grilled salmon set. Shouta’s somehow familiar with the test and he loved it.

And that man was there…

Before Shouta knew what’s happening around him, he was already in front of Allmight Alright!. He stood there, looked at the sign and wondered what kept him coming back.

Yagi-san was here.

Shouta saw the older man’s speaking with his student, Midoriya, seriously instructing something to the boy. The teacher’s looking at them with awe, still wondering if he could talk to man. He didn’t want to admit that he liked talking to the older man...very much. Yagi was nice, warm heart and very caring to others. Sometimes, Shouta felt nostalgic being around with Yagi even though the older man said they knew each other very briefly 10 years ago.

“Welcome sensei!” a girl greeted him by surprised made him jumped a bit.

“You can call me Aizawa-san when we’re out of school...U...Uraraka, right?”

“Yes! Aizawa-sensei!” Ochako eagerly answered with smile. Shouta let out a soft sigh when he heard ‘Sensei’ word. Ochako turned around and saw that his usual seat was taken.

“Umm…do you mind sitting a differ-” suddenly a new voice cut the girl, made the teacher turned his head.

“I’ll take care of it, Uraraka-kun” suddenly a new low voice spoke from behind.

Shouta’s stunned, froze when saw a man with a warm smile on his face. He somehow forgot how to breath near the owner of Allmight Alright! He didn’t know why and he didn’t intend to get the answer, not yet.

“Yes owner!” Ochako gave a bow before left the two.

“Welcome back Aizawa-kun”

“Hello, Yagi-san.”

“Looks like it’s crowded today. You can go eating in my office if you like.” Yagi-san pointed at the back, already knew what Shouta would prefer.

“Is that okay?”

“Of course! I offer and the salmon is ready!”

Shouta hid his face and said thank you softly, a little bit embarrassed. He followed the taller man to his little office in the back. Yagi’s office was just like what Shouta had thought. Inside the small room, there was a long table in the corner, pile of papers and a computer on it. Beside that was a window and a long vest of sunflowers. In the center was a square table and chairs, assuming they had to be for staff taking breaks. Overall, the room felt welcome and humble with pictures of natures and staff on the wall along with a schedule board.

Unlike his room, minimum and bare, almost nothing in it.

“Sorry for the mess.”

“Don’t be. It’s nice in here.” Shouta settled down at the square table while Yagi sat at his spot near by computer.

Midoriya came in with a tray, putting down in front of the teacher. Shouta said thank you softly which made the boy almost shouted ‘You’re welcome!’ back. After the boy left, Yagi laughed a bit.

“I don’t see it funny Yagi-san.”

“Sorry, Midoriya-boy couldn’t stop talking about you since he’s been here. He almost bumped into customers earlier.”

“What do you mean?” Shouta looked up from his dinner, chopsticks in his hand.

“You remember his name, right? He told me today.” Yagi smiled from his corner lips.

“I...I remember his shoes...and his name popped up later.” Shouta knew he was stared by the older man, so he tried to hide his face by his messy hair.

“Well, I can see it’s working, whatever methods you’re using right now.”

Shouta just hummed back as ended this conversation. Yagi might took a hint and he turned back to work on his computer while Shouta’s pretending eating. The younger man peeked a bit from corner of his eyes. Yagi was typing something very fast, stopped at some point and typed again.

The room was quiet, only typing sound on the background. No one started making a conversation, just relaxed being with one another in a comfortable silent and that. That made Shouta realized...hard. His eyes widen a bit while holding chopsticks.

This...this was the wholeness and serenity swirling around him.     

His heart beated faster once he felt the warmness flushing inside his chest. It was a nostalgic feeling like he was in this atmosphere before, only him and Yagi sat together in one room doing something in completely silent.

He felt complete when Yagi was near.

“Yagi-san.” Shouta suddenly spoke softly.

“Hmm?” Yagi stopped typing and turned around. The teacher put down his chopsticks, only finished half of a meal.

“Do you mind if I’ll eat here again?” the younger man asked, black pupils directly looked at the blue ones.

“No, I don’t. Feel free to be here anytime Aizawa-kun.” Yagi answered immediately without thinking.  

“Thank you.”

With that, they continued doing their task in silent again. Shouta was eating while Yagi was typing. The teacher closed his eyes and realized that it was the first time in many years that he smiled to himself, enjoying eating and listening the typing sound. He felt truly relaxed, his brain didn’t think about work anymore, only focus on the soothing typing sound and Yagi’s presence.

So this is what it’s like, when you had someone near you.

Shouta didn’t know how much time had passed until Midoriya and Uraraka came back into the room with their snacks, taking their break. They sat opposite Shouta and began to talk to him. It was strange for him yet he’s okay with that. He didn’t flinch or hesitate to talk back. He even curved up his lips a bit when saw the two talked seriously about the upcoming math test.

When Shouta turned his head, he saw Yagi smiled at him. That blue eyes sparkled so bright melting his heart with the owner’s kindness. Shouta only shrugged, tried to ignore what his students had said how scared the test would be. After awhile, Shouta finished his meal and paid in the front before leaving.

“See you tomorrow, Aizawa-kun” Yagi said to him in front of the restaurant.

“See you, Yagi-san.” Shouta nodded.

“See you at school, Sensei!” Midoriya and Uraraka shouted together from the back.

“Don’t forget to do homework.” The teacher shouted back, turning to leave. His hand did wave in the air after turning to leave.  

If his life’s going to be like this everyday, he could live with it.

Yes...He could live with his students, his friends and Yagi-san like this.

He couldn’t think of something or someone else.

To be continue...

[placewheredreamsneverend]

Chapter 1: The Moment Of Decision, The Royal Romance (mini-series)

The last night in L.A. A waitress from New York is preparing to make the biggest decision of her life. Will she become the next Queen of Cordonia or her heart will lead her in different direction? Game by Pixelberry

The Royal Romance from MC’s POV

MC x Liam x Drake (love triangle)

MC (Riley): Jenna Dewan

Liam: Daniel Henney

Drake: Daniel di Tomasso

Hana: Yoon Bora

Music (Book 1, Chapter 1): Nightmare · Lillian Hepler

*The characters and original storyline are all from The Choices: The Royal Romance book 1.  All characters belong to Pixelberry.

*I apologize for any misspelling or improper grammar structure. Sorry for any mistakes. English is not my native language.

I woke up in the middle of the night screaming. My body was covered in sweat. I had the worst nightmare ever. I was lost in the maze. I was badly wounded but I felt no pain. My dress was all covered with blood, my blood. I saw a knife in my hand. It was covered in blood. I dropped the knife and started running. I was terrified.  I was running away from something. I didn't know what. The only thing I knew is that I must keep running and don't look back no matter what. I felt lost and frighten but I kept running and running... It felt like hours and hours were passing spinning in a circles of the maze. I couldn't find way out. Suddenly I felt dizzy. I was tired of running. The strength was leaving me and that's when I saw the prince standing in the center of the maze with his back turned away from me. I couldn't see his face. I ran towards him. When I finally got to him I was exhausted. I was ready to give up. I stopped in the front of him and I reached for his shoulder. He slowly turned towards me. His face was... The end. That was the moment I woke up from the dream. The moment when I knew that my heart made a decision.

The next morning when I woke up I felt like I could finally breathe. I felt so relaxed and calm. I felt like a heavy weight, a burden, lifted off my shoulders and from my heart. My name was cleared. Tariq did the right thing the last night talking to the press. He explained them what actually had happened between us that night in Cordonia. I was no longer known as 'slut' of Cordonia but I did felt like one. I had to talk to Drake before I talk to Liam. I putted on my jeans and blue shirt, tied my hair in ponytail and putted on my favorite sneakers, the white Converse shoes. We were not anymore in Cordonia. I could wear what I want. I got ready and left my hotel room heading towards Drake's room. I knocked at the door of his room but nobody answered. He wasn't there so I went back to my room thinking about where he possible could be. It was too early for him to be in a bar drinking whiskey. As I reached for my phone to call him that's when I heard a knock at my door. I opened the door to find Liam, standing. 

He had a gentle smile on his face and his blue eyes were sparkling with joy. I loved that eyes. I grinned and reached for him, drawing him close in an embrace. I let him in and put my phone away in my pocket. As I turned towards to him, he took my hands in his, looking straight into my eyes. He was smiling.

"Rose, I broke things off with Madeline", he said.

"You broke things off with Madeline?", I asked feeling a little confused.

I wasn't surprised but I didn't expect that he would done it that soon. He didn't love her and she didn't love him either. I wouldn't wish that kind of marriage to anyone.

"I did", he said.

"How are you feeling? Are you okay?", I asked. That was the first thing that came to my mind. And I really did care for him.

"I'm more then okay", he stopped talking for one short moment and then he continued. "I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders... And without that burden I'm able to see a future of possibilities. I couldn't wait to let you know and to speak with you about it...", he sounded very happy. I have never seen him so happy.

"Liam, we need to talk", I said determined.

"I agree. Unfortunately, there is an urgent matter that requires my attention. However, I have cleared my evening of all obligation. I would love you to meet you outside...", he said.

"Send me a text when and where and we meet there", I said to him.

"I'm happily looking forward to see you", he said.

I reached for him and kissed him in his cheek. He blushed and then he left. I grabbed my phone from my pocket dialing Drake's number. I had to talk to him now more then ever before. It was ringing... but he didn't answered the call. I started to feel worried. I ran straight toward my bed, jumped on it holding my pillow to my chest... I caught myself staring at the ceiling for hour or two, holding phone in my hand, patiently waiting for him to call me back. More time has past... still nothing. Suddenly, I heard the knock at my door. I immediately jumped off the bed to open the door. I knew it wasn't Liam. It had to be Drake. When I opened the door, I saw Hana smiling at me. I was disappointed but also glad to see her. She became my best friend during the time I've spent in Cordonia competing for Liam's hand. I let her in.

"How are you feeling?", she asked. I sensed worry in her voice.

"Nervous. Liam was here earlier. He broke off engagement. We are supposed to see later this evening... ", I said.

"And what about Drake? Have you talked to him?", she asked.

"I haven't. When I woke up this morning I went to his room to talk... but he wasn't there. I called him but he didn't reply. I don't think he wants to see me or hear from me", as I said the words one single drop of tears felt from the corner of my eye down my check. That's how I felt.

"You don't know that for sure", she said trying to encourage me. I was feeling down.

"Have you decided between them two?", she asked.

"Yes, I have", I stopped speaking for one short moment, trying to catch my breath and then I continued. "You know, they two are so different. Liam is open, gentle, kindhearted, affectionate... while Drake is tough, closed-off, but loyal, caring and protective on inside... "

"What do you think who of them two is better for me?", I asked.

"Liam is good for you. He will always be good for you. Drake will be the best or the worst thing that can happen to you. The choice is yours. I can't tell you how you should feel about them."

"I love them both. I don't want to lose any one of them. I'm selfish, I know", I said.

"You are not. Okay, a little bit. You just care for them both", she said.

"So you have decided?", she asked.

"Yes", I said.

"So who is the one? May I know?", she asked curiously.

Just when I wanted to say... I had received the text for Liam saying to meet him in half hour in front of the hotel.

"Liam wants to meet me in half hour", I said.

"We will talk later", she said. She gave a friendly hug and then she left me alone in my room. I decided not to change my clothes. I had enough of that. I missed my comfortable clothes. I took a deep breath and then I went to meet Liam.

[agent-spidey]

To be dazed

Title: To be dazed 

Pairing: Reader x Peter Parker 

Summary: Y/N has lived next to Peter since the 3rd grade and since has fallen hard for him, but Y/N doesn't know he’s fallen just as hard.

Word count: 2,084

Songs: Left hand free by alt-j

A/N: Hi! I hope you guys enjoy part 3! p.s sorry for all the typos and grammar mistakes, this is all raw 

Part 1: To be young

Part 2: To be foolish  

Tagged: @tomllholland , @manyfandomstohandle , @superheros-and-books , @jor-da-na , @ferls212 , @laryssa-the-jedi , @bubbles2428 , @emrysaaryn , @dreaxs , @marauder-lover , @purecout-ure , @therealme13posts , @peter-pan-hoe , @devilsdaughter1225 , @llotrr , @cat-in-a-hoodie , @ryleemcgee , @fantasticallyobsessedwithbeasts , @forgodssakejustacceptmyusername , @arianna280398 , @sylviestars , @i-dream-of-adventure , @tiny-friggin-human , @focused-on-bands , @quokkatrash , @princeofsassgard , @jriles124 

gif creds: @hollandstcm 

"Peter where were you?!" You practically shriek at the boy who just disappeared and reappeared out of thin air. "What-What are you talking about?" He scratched his neck nervously, "What do you- ugh are you okay?" Your eyes scan his body for any sign of bruising or cuts.

Peter coughed slightly "Shouldn't I be asking you that? You were just up there in the monument weren't you?" Peters eyes scanned your own, you could tell he knew something you didn't, or at least was hiding something. "No I-I was with Michelle on the ground." You flail your hands in the air starting to get frustrated. You saw right through his lie.

"Peter tell the truth where we're you and also can we talk about last night?" Peters eyes widened at the mention of the night before, "Um what ab- what do you mean?" He changed his question mid sentence, causing you to cock your eyebrow up, "what do I mean? Why were you on the-" Peters hand quickly covered you mouth and a guilty expression graced his face.

"Could we talk somewhere more .." Peter paused removing his hand slowly away from your face "private?" You felt your face go hot, knowing very well that it was as red as a tomato. You two were currently in the hotel lobbies designated sitting area.

"Where would we go?" Silently praying that Peter wouldn't suggest his room, "how about mine and Ned's room?" Your heart skipped a beat at the thought of being alone with just Peter in his room, well his and Ned's. "It won't be very private if Ned's there." You decide to point out before Peter got the chance to turn around.

"Ned's with everyone else at the restaurant, it'll only be us." Peter reassured you "ok fine, lead the way." You sigh following Peter up to his hotel room.

You flop onto the bed closest to the door feeling more tired than anything at the moment, you heard Peter loudly sigh before speaking up "So you wanted to talk about.." he paused letting you fill in the gap, "about last night." You sit up on the bed and stare straight at Peter who was pacing the room. "Why were you on the roof?" The boy stops, his back facing you "What? I-I wasn't on the roof." He concludes turning around to see your skeptical face. "Peter, yes you were." you got up from the bed and slowly made your way towards the lying boy "What going on?" you stop just  a few feet in front of him "And can we please talk about what happened last weekend?" Peters eyes lock onto yours.

"Yeah, lets talk about last weekend." He raked his hand through his fluffily mess of hair, you couldn't help the swarm of butterflies that filled your stomach, he really wants to talk.

"Listen Y/N I-" Peter was stopped mid-sentence by the door of his room opening, "Yes exactly! Oh here they are!" Ned walked through the door way with Liz trailing right behind him. "Peter there you are!" Liz practically threw herself in Peters arms and of course Peter couldn't hide the bush that rose on his cheeks.

"We were so worried, you just disappeared." Liz spoke firmly while Peter never glanced back at you, you decided Peter didnt want to talk anymore because Liz was here. "I'm gonna head out, I'll see ya later Pete." you waved only get a small "yeah sure." in return.

Why does Liz always seem to come around at the worst moments, she has to be tormenting me. You decided to just go back to your shared hotel room and vent out to Michelle about whats been happening, mainly about Peter.

"Hey dweeb." Michelle nudged your shoulder slightly "Everything good now?" you sighed slightly at the question being asked, "define good." You closed your locker and walked to class with Michelle by your side.

You never really got to speak to Peter the rest of the weekend and seeing him not really interested in talking anymore, you felt like giving up. "Hey Y/N." you were knocked out of your thoughts by a voice that made your heart flutter in your chest. "Hey Peter." you smiled falling right back into the dangerous loop that is your friendship. "I need to talk to you after school so could we meet in front of the gym?" you looked over to Michelle to get some kind of guidance but you got nothing but a shrug form your best friend. "Yeah sure-sure." you stuttered out "Ok cool, see you in Spanish."

"you're blushing." Michelle spoke "At least try to hide the fact that your hopelessly in love with him." you sighed rolling your eyes at your best friends attitude, "Hey weren't you the one who told me to go talk to him in the first place?" you shot back earning a laugh from her.

"Yeah yeah whatever." The two of you walked into class just as the bell rang and got situated in your seats. You watch the clock eagerly waiting for the end of the day.

As the end of lunch rolled around you felt your phone buzz in your pocket, you slid it out of your small jean pocket and onto the lunch table.

You groaned angrily at the small notification that had popped up "Hey Y/N I'm really sorry I can't meet up anymore." Quickly you type out a reply 'why?' before smacking your head down onto the table. "Hey what's up?" Ned ask a worried tone in his voice.

"Peter can't meet up anymore." You felt the table buzz causing your head to pop up and grab the phone "I got detention, could I stop by yours after maybe?" Butterflies filled your stomach again at the thought of Peter and you being alone.

"Yeah sure, my doors always open." You couldn't help it that you were hopelessly in love with the boy who only had eyes for another girl. The bell rang signaling the end of lunch, you and the small group of friends you had, minus Peter, made their way to the last classes of the day.

"Y/N!" you heard your dad shout to you "someones at the door for you!" your heart jumped a little already knowing it was Peter you decide to quickly clean up your room before heading to the front door. "I'll be right there!" you shout your reply while quickly shoving things under your bed and into the draws of your dresser.

After shoving the last item under your bed, you checked how you look in your body length mirror on the wall "Ok," you let out a shaky breath "you can do this." you made your way out of your room and to the front door.

"May?" you didn't even try to hide the confusion in your voice "What ar- what are you doing here?" Peters aunt looked as though she was on the verge of tears "Have you talked to Peter at all today?" May's voice was very shaky, you felt your eyebrows crease together.

"Just at school, he was suppose to come by but hasn't.." you trailed off in thought "He hasn't been home yet either, has he?" A knot twisted in your stomach hearing May's reply "No he hasn't, I-I-I got a call from the principal saying that he just left detention." May looked into your eyes hoping that you would have an answer for any of this but you had no idea he'd even left detention.

"Here, let me grab my phone from my room and I'll meet you in your living room." May simply nodded heading back into her apartment while you ran and grabbed your phone. "I'm gonna hangout at May's for a little!" You shouted letting your dad know you were leaving.

"Ok so you've tried calling him and Ned?" you huffed lightly at May while typing out a text to MJ asking about Peter. "Yes." May sighed turning on the tv and switching it to a news channel "How long ago did the principal call you?" You turned your attention away from your phone and tot he worried woman "About two hours ago." Your heart broke, Peter was always maticulous about keeping his aunt up to date on his whereabouts so she wouldn't worry. something is defiantly wrong.

after 3 more hours, 4 calls to the police station and heading down to Peters favorite sandwich shop the door to May's apartment slowly opened with a small creek. May immediately stood up and rushed over to the door, you couldn't see anything that was happening but knew May had tears in her eyes from the shakiness in her voice "Peter where have you been? Ive been calling and calling.." May's voice faded causing you to get up and slowly make your way over to the kitchen by the door. "Peter what happened?" there was a pause before the boy answered "Nothing May, you don't need to be worried." You could hear through the lies he was telling "I just," you  heard Peter sigh deeply "I lost the Stark Internship."

Peters face finally came into your view as you got closer to the edge of the kitchen and then you saw it, Peters eyes were a faded red and his face slightly puffy with a bruise that spread from his jaw to his temple. "oh honey I'm so sorry." May pulled Peter in for a hug making Peters vision to switch from staring at the floor to in front of him or more specific behind May, right at you.

"Y/N? What are you doing here?" May backed away from Peter slightly giving him room to walk around her "Y/N came over and helped me look for you, we called the police for god's sake Peter." You sensed the anger rise slightly in May with her growing voice. "And you never came over." you tried to hide the sadness in your voice but failed, your eyes caught Peters and you felt your heart break staring into the saddest brown eyes you've ever come across. "Hey May would it be alright if i talk to Peter in his room?" May nodded slightly and you grabbed Peters arm dragging him into his room, he closed the door softly behind you.

"Peter what the hell is going on? you've evener done anything like that before! And why is your face so bruised." the anger started rising in you before you could stop it, you knew you shouldn't be this made but you were "What? Never done anything like what?" the panic in Peters eyes were very evident, he's hiding something and you were going to find out what. "You always update May on where you are and what your doing if you don't make it home after school," you paused averting your eyes from Peters, you needed to look at anything but him the moment "You really worried her and me, you promised you'd stop by mine after detention but you never came, Peter please tell me whats going on?" The tension in Peters room was getting thicker and thicker by the minuet "You.." Peter exhaled loudly plopping down on his bed.

"You wouldn't believe me if i told you." a small sarcastic laugh escaped your lips "Peter you're wearing Hello Kitty pants, skipped detention and lost an internship with Tony Stark, which i didn't even know about by the way, so right now I'll believe anything."

Peter dragged his hands down his face and raked his finger through his hair before answering you "Fine, here it goes." Peters head shot up attaching his gaze onto you "I'm-I'm Spider-Man."

Your eyes went wide with shock.

"What?" you could barley speak. Peter? Spider-Man? Theres no way... "Ho-how?" was the last thing you could get in before May barged into the room "I'm assuming Y/N will be staying for dinner, so what do you kids want?" you couldn't even think straight let alone speak properly.

"Could we just have some takeout?" Peter asked with his eyes still on you. "Sure, I'll just order some chow-mein and a box of rice." May closed the door and left you and Peter alone to talk. "Peter what?" your brain scrambled for anything else to say "I-I what do you mean your Spider-Man?!" your voice started getting louder with each word that came out of your mouth.

How could Peter your shy, dorky, adorable neighbor be Spider-Man.. It just didn't make any sense.

[wendyimmiller]

The Randomness of Branches

Ever look up at a grand old tree and marvel at the randomness of its branches? They dodge and weave. They angle off. They roam this way and that. The complexity is a wonder to look at. Exhilarating, sometimes. And the sum of these parts makes for a living thing that defies gravity, shakes off weather, and mocks time.

I am not an organized person. Describing my life as “a reign of random” might understate the case. And this has caused me untold stress. You see, I’m mostly of German heritage. Some fragment is Irish, and, somehow, inexplicably, this tiny genetic minority has made itself dominant, dragging my poor frustrated autocratic, goose stepping, timetable-oriented German side into whatever unplanned and unbudgeted “shiny object” direction my Irish eyes catch a sideways glimpse of. And, so of course there are no records of any of my adventures in gardening. Cultivar names, when plants were acquired, and where they got planted, all left to a construction-grade memory corrupted by time (too little at any given moment; too much overall), maybe an electrical surge or two, and, of course, plenty of Guinness. My inner Patrick shrugs and wonders why anyone would worry about any of this when the result has been a green and growing garden in which one can wax poetic over a pint or two, while my inner Wilhelm storms off to holler at the dog.

The work space of a disorganized person.

Always within arm’s reach!

So it was with great joy that I recently exhumed a forgotten bucket of plant tags that I had squirreled away over several of my formative years. The result: a warm, pleasant immersion into nostalgia. Who remembers Etera? The name means what? To me, it sounded like an evil plot concocted by a Bond villain. But I bought a bunch of their reasonably priced plants. Came with steel name stakes that lasted in the garden–I still unearth them on occasion–and each plant came with its own little booklet with cultural information. Of course with so much front loaded expense, Etera was doomed from the start, but a good way to load up on plants while they lasted.

A tag from Eco Gardens reminded me of a story regarding that mail-order nursery. It was the nursery of legendary plantsman Don Jacobs. A friend and I combined on an order, but somehow, between us, we managed to drop the ball on payment for several months. Eventually this resulted in a card written in the shakey, elderly hand of Don himself pleading with us to pay. “Achtung!”shouted Wilhelm. Patrick immediately wrote a check, including an apologetic note full of silky words, flowery passages, and an at once lyrical and perplexing side narrative about potatoes. Meant to keep the card–it was, after all, an autograph of sorts–but, of course, one of us lost it.

Don Jacobs. Photo taken from the jacket of his book on Trillium.

Heronswood Nursery. I say the words with reverence. I bought so many plants from there. I might have one left. But I loved Heronswood, and, like so many others, took perverse pride in the number of my Heronswood failures. I went on a dream trip there for an open house with my friend Pete Zale back in the early 2000s. Dammit, I miss my friend Peter. We were best buds once. Both of us nobodies. Actually, I was a nobody. Him? He was a younger, better-looking nobody with a mind that could potentially make him a somebody. Why does time happen? Why do people move on? Now he has a PhD, travels the world tracking down plants, works for Longwood. Actually, I think he’s the owner of Longwood. Not sure though. He’s still a good friend. Usually answers my calls. But neither of us are really any good at staying in touch.

Peter Zale (far right), pre-PhD, at the gardens of the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Now Newfields).

The potager garden at Heronswood. Not really representative of the place, but the best and most accessible picture I have from that pre-digital age.

Anyway, Heronswood was the finest garden I’d ever seen, and I still count it as one of the best. But Hinkley moved on. Mail-order nurseries burn people out. The nursery mercifully closed pretty quickly after that. Without Dan’s guiding hand and beautifully written catalogs that introduced us to new, exotic, and oh-so tantalizing rare plants along with tales of the epic adventures that found them, the magic just disappeared. His prose was why everyone gambled on these gems. No one cared if they lost a plant from the mountains of Vietnam to an Ohio winter. Dependable garden performance was never the point. Thankfully, Heronswood, the garden, was eventually bought and resurrected by a non-profit.

Heronswood catalogs cost $5 and were the top selling item for the nursery. Used copies can be found on Ebay at around $80.

At the other end of the catalog-writing spectrum was (the late) Bob Stewart from Arrowhead Alpines in Michigan. Grammar? Spelling? Hell. His catalogs read like a loner’s manifesto. Rambling, opinionated, offensive, and, yet, for those of open mind, intelligence, and maybe a dash of imagination, informative and hilarious. In a completely different way these catalogs inspired gardeners to try things they otherwise wouldn’t. I killed a bunch of Daphnes because of him. I miss each and every one of them. And Bob.

Bob and Brigitta Stewart, photo taken from: http://greenstreettree.com/in-memory-of-bob-stewart-genius-behind-arrowhead-alpines-in-fowlerville-2/

I met Bob and Brigitta on the second of two trips to the nursery. Because I’d read his catalogs, I was nervous, but they couldn’t have been more gracious! Spent so much time with my father and me. The ride home, however, was starkly unpleasant. My German side was just giving living hell to my Irish side. “We went to Arrowhead,” he shouted over and over, “and you bought a boxelder!” In fact, I had. It had beautiful blue bark. But the scolding quickly ended when my truck’s transmission burned up, and we–my father, a trailer-load of not hardened off plants, and both Patrick and Wilhelm–coasted to a stop at a forlorn and freezing exit outside of Piqua Ohio. The whole fam damily was mobilized in multiple sorties to eventually get us all home.

More tags from Woodlanders, Plant Delights, Oikos, Arbor Village, Roslyn, Forest Farm, Greer, and others reminded me of what a blessing it is for gardeners to have sources of rare and cool plants, and how much better we need to support these companies. They give us possibilities. They lure us into trying things we otherwise wouldn’t. This is–I’ll argue–for the greater good. Expanding ourselves is important, and certainly better than the alternative.

All this remembering and reflecting eventually got me thinking about my gardening journey. On the surface, so spontaneous, random, and Irish. So many different phases that got me from there to here—organic veggies, heirloom roses, alpines, Irises, natives, Asian maples, and more. Travels to great gardens and nurseries, drifting into new ideas, old friends, new friends, new associations, nights spent in questionable places, and nights at home poring over catalogs and websites. I’m so glad my Irish DNA dragged my German side into a forever meandering and widening delta of experiences.

Reminds me of tree branches in a way.  So remarkably random when you’re amongst them, but from a distance, a place of perspective, you can see they’re really not random at all. They have but one purpose: aim towards the light. And because they do, there’s growth.

This post is a re-write of a column that first appeared in Ohio Gardener Magazine in 2017. 

  The Randomness of Branches originally appeared on GardenRant on July 17, 2019.

from Gardening https://www.gardenrant.com/2019/07/the-randomness-of-branches.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[turfandlawncare]

The Randomness of Branches

Ever look up at a grand old tree and marvel at the randomness of its branches? They dodge and weave. They angle off. They roam this way and that. The complexity is a wonder to look at. Exhilarating, sometimes. And the sum of these parts makes for a living thing that defies gravity, shakes off weather, and mocks time.

I am not an organized person. Describing my life as “a reign of random” might understate the case. And this has caused me untold stress. You see, I’m mostly of German heritage. Some fragment is Irish, and, somehow, inexplicably, this tiny genetic minority has made itself dominant, dragging my poor frustrated autocratic, goose stepping, timetable-oriented German side into whatever unplanned and unbudgeted “shiny object” direction my Irish eyes catch a sideways glimpse of. And, so of course there are no records of any of my adventures in gardening. Cultivar names, when plants were acquired, and where they got planted, all left to a construction-grade memory corrupted by time (too little at any given moment; too much overall), maybe an electrical surge or two, and, of course, plenty of Guinness. My inner Patrick shrugs and wonders why anyone would worry about any of this when the result has been a green and growing garden in which one can wax poetic over a pint or two, while my inner Wilhelm storms off to holler at the dog.

The work space of a disorganized person.

Always within arm’s reach!

So it was with great joy that I recently exhumed a forgotten bucket of plant tags that I had squirreled away over several of my formative years. The result: a warm, pleasant immersion into nostalgia. Who remembers Etera? The name means what? To me, it sounded like an evil plot concocted by a Bond villain. But I bought a bunch of their reasonably priced plants. Came with steel name stakes that lasted in the garden–I still unearth them on occasion–and each plant came with its own little booklet with cultural information. Of course with so much front loaded expense, Etera was doomed from the start, but a good way to load up on plants while they lasted.

A tag from Eco Gardens reminded me of a story regarding that mail-order nursery. It was the nursery of legendary plantsman Don Jacobs. A friend and I combined on an order, but somehow, between us, we managed to drop the ball on payment for several months. Eventually this resulted in a card written in the shakey, elderly hand of Don himself pleading with us to pay. “Achtung!”shouted Wilhelm. Patrick immediately wrote a check, including an apologetic note full of silky words, flowery passages, and an at once lyrical and perplexing side narrative about potatoes. Meant to keep the card–it was, after all, an autograph of sorts–but, of course, one of us lost it.

Don Jacobs. Photo taken from the jacket of his book on Trillium.

Heronswood Nursery. I say the words with reverence. I bought so many plants from there. I might have one left. But I loved Heronswood, and, like so many others, took perverse pride in the number of my Heronswood failures. I went on a dream trip there for an open house with my friend Pete Zale back in the early 2000s. Dammit, I miss my friend Peter. We were best buds once. Both of us nobodies. Actually, I was a nobody. Him? He was a younger, better-looking nobody with a mind that could potentially make him a somebody. Why does time happen? Why do people move on? Now he has a PhD, travels the world tracking down plants, works for Longwood. Actually, I think he’s the owner of Longwood. Not sure though. He’s still a good friend. Usually answers my calls. But neither of us are really any good at staying in touch.

Peter Zale (far right), pre-PhD, at the gardens of the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Now Newfields).

The potager garden at Heronswood. Not really representative of the place, but the best and most accessible picture I have from that pre-digital age.

Anyway, Heronswood was the finest garden I’d ever seen, and I still count it as one of the best. But Hinkley moved on. Mail-order nurseries burn people out. The nursery mercifully closed pretty quickly after that. Without Dan’s guiding hand and beautifully written catalogs that introduced us to new, exotic, and oh-so tantalizing rare plants along with tales of the epic adventures that found them, the magic just disappeared. His prose was why everyone gambled on these gems. No one cared if they lost a plant from the mountains of Vietnam to an Ohio winter. Dependable garden performance was never the point. Thankfully, Heronswood, the garden, was eventually bought and resurrected by a non-profit.

Heronswood catalogs cost $5 and were the top selling item for the nursery. Used copies can be found on Ebay at around $80.

At the other end of the catalog-writing spectrum was (the late) Bob Stewart from Arrowhead Alpines in Michigan. Grammar? Spelling? Hell. His catalogs read like a loner’s manifesto. Rambling, opinionated, offensive, and, yet, for those of open mind, intelligence, and maybe a dash of imagination, informative and hilarious. In a completely different way these catalogs inspired gardeners to try things they otherwise wouldn’t. I killed a bunch of Daphnes because of him. I miss each and every one of them. And Bob.

Bob and Brigitta Stewart, photo taken from: https://ift.tt/2O0Aw7X

I met Bob and Brigitta on the second of two trips to the nursery. Because I’d read his catalogs, I was nervous, but they couldn’t have been more gracious! Spent so much time with my father and me. The ride home, however, was starkly unpleasant. My German side was just giving living hell to my Irish side. “We went to Arrowhead,” he shouted over and over, “and you bought a boxelder!” In fact, I had. It had beautiful blue bark. But the scolding quickly ended when my truck’s transmission burned up, and we–my father, a trailer-load of not hardened off plants, and both Patrick and Wilhelm–coasted to a stop at a forlorn and freezing exit outside of Piqua Ohio. The whole fam damily was mobilized in multiple sorties to eventually get us all home.

More tags from Woodlanders, Plant Delights, Oikos, Arbor Village, Roslyn, Forest Farm, Greer, and others reminded me of what a blessing it is for gardeners to have sources of rare and cool plants, and how much better we need to support these companies. They give us possibilities. They lure us into trying things we otherwise wouldn’t. This is–I’ll argue–for the greater good. Expanding ourselves is important, and certainly better than the alternative.

All this remembering and reflecting eventually got me thinking about my gardening journey. On the surface, so spontaneous, random, and Irish. So many different phases that got me from there to here—organic veggies, heirloom roses, alpines, Irises, natives, Asian maples, and more. Travels to great gardens and nurseries, drifting into new ideas, old friends, new friends, new associations, nights spent in questionable places, and nights at home poring over catalogs and websites. I’m so glad my Irish DNA dragged my German side into a forever meandering and widening delta of experiences.

Reminds me of tree branches in a way.  So remarkably random when you’re amongst them, but from a distance, a place of perspective, you can see they’re really not random at all. They have but one purpose: aim towards the light. And because they do, there’s growth.

This post is a re-write of a column that first appeared in Ohio Gardener Magazine in 2017. 

  The Randomness of Branches originally appeared on GardenRant on July 17, 2019.

from GardenRant https://ift.tt/32o5zxA