#and too proud to admit any wrong no matter how inconsequential

[sockeye-run]

I just spent the better part of an hour furiously correcting an insanely popular misinformation post about Africanized honeybees but I just gave up and deleted it all bc it was spiking my anxiety lol and honestly the people in the reblogs and comments were very emotionally argumentative and not likely to care about factual arguments. Ugh.

I'll probably just make a general information post about domestic honeybees and Africanized honeybees later on their own so I'm not engaging with any ragebait or willful ignorance. Or as you might say, poking the hornet's nest?

[border-spam]

Leech Lord - Nobody loves me like you

It was so late it felt like time itself had passed out, that void somewhere in the AM between being tired enough to fall asleep where you stand and feeling the nervous energy of dawn approaching.

The air in the Mechanicum was crisp with night chill when the E-Dev in her pocket vibrated, and Saint Ur-Machina's heart sunk in her chest as she grimaced under her welding mask. No need to check who it was, she'd known before he'd even sent the message.

The God-King was angry.

She sighed, rubbing oily hands into oilier overalls, and frowned at how pointless a gesture trying to clean them had been at all, picking bits of filth out from under her nails as she leaned against the rough wall of the hangar. Pointless maybe, but a distraction, and Seifa needed one of those right now.

The God-King was angry with himself, and that meant the people he cared about the most would take the rage.

The workfloor clock read 3:56AM where it hung from the rafter above her station, clunky ticking echoing across the empty bay. No one but her still working, and she shouldn't really have been there either considering the hour, but that had stopped feeling like it mattered a long time ago. She was always there now. Always working, like she haunted the place. Funny, she used to be so good about managing her time...

The welding mask threw a cloud of sawdust as it bounced across the floor towards the machine she'd kicked it at. She didn't even know what to call the horrible thing that loomed in front of her, some juggernaut of sleek metal she'd been ordered to run performance checks on, jagged lines illuminated by the sickly floor lamps she'd arranged around its skeleton.

Warmachines. Unnamed projects with stacks of paperwork marking them as highly classified, Troy's insignia and the same word she kept seeing over and over in confidential documentation - Uroboros. Tasted like a bad idea, reeked of poor decisions, and she'd always sniffed those out like a Skag.

What the hell did Seifa A'Rosk know about warmachines anyway? They used to build Technicals here, outriders. COV custom Cyclones for stream events, this wasn't what she signed up for, none of it was. Managing the engineering crew should never have shifted into whatever the fuck THIS was.

The steel monster in front of her bled oil silently into the sawdust, refusing to give an answer. Whatever this was, it was for Gods and Sirens, and that was a world she wasn't part of, not really. She wasn't a Saint, she was just a ghost, caught repeating the same mistakes over and over till she faded away.

The E-Dev in her pocket vibrated again, and she tapped the back of her head against the plate steel wall, trying to convince herself she wasn't ready to vomit as she squinted up towards the hangar's ceiling, lost to the night murk the lights around her couldn't quite cut through.

She figured she should answer, making him wait was just going to make this worse.

Jak-Knife had already warned her, a curt ping earlier today to "sstay ou t of his way it s bad seiifa". Ven too when he'd dropped by in the afternoon with the excuse of worrying about if she'd eaten yet and half a bag of something spicy and dripping in grease. He'd said the Cathedral staff were noose tight and whispering nervously about an incident a few hours before, something had gone wrong in a talk with visiting sponsors - with the twins. Word on the rumour mill was it had nearly turned vicious, the suits looking ready to brick themselves as they'd all but ran through the meeting room's doors after Troy had flung them open hard enough to unhinge one, and according to priests who'd been on hand? Tyreen had really embarrassed him.

Sei had winced as Ven explained, both painfully aware of this behaviour pattern and what it meant for everyone he was close to. Why the God Queen had been going out of her way to put her brother down in front of high-value clients recently was impossible to guess - no one could really get into her head or understand her decisions lately, but this wasn't the first time, and if anything it was getting worse. Little insults. Little knife-sharp jokes that weren't jokes at all, and mockeries masked behind a paper thin smile like it made them less deadly. She'd imply he was a burden, or undermine his expertise in ways so cleverly worded that the officials would have no choice but to laugh awkwardly as Troy seethed while his twin continued with negotiations.

Today she'd apparently told him to make himself actually useful and fetch their guests some drinks, right in front of servant crew and moments after he'd finished a grueling breakdown of growth projections and profit expectations for this quarter to a rapt audience. It's hard to tell if him snapping had actually surprised her or had been exactly what she wanted, but the staff who'd been there were terrified, and insisted the Vault Mother had looked genuinely shocked when the desk he threw had missed her head by barely a few inches.

He'd stalked out of the meeting and vanished into the upper cloister, and now it was the middle of the night and her E-Dev pinged for a third time.

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe out the fear coiling through her ribs in a shaky exhale. She knew exactly what was happening, it was the same as always with him. Enraged, dripping with self-loathing, and lost somewhere in that toxic mood somewhere between vicious and pitiful - looking for something to hurt, looking for a way to vent the pain as he paced like a snarling monster, muttering like he was arguing something with himself, a back and forth of accusations and desperate apologies to something no one else could see.

Tyreen couldn't eat him alive with her powers but she could do it with her words... and maybe that's what had changed. Maybe she'd realised a new way to control her twin with manipulations that left him so emasculated and damaged in confidence that he wanted to tear something he loved apart just so he could turn the hatred on himself after.

Of course it was going to be her.

The same dance every time now, the same frustrating steps that she'd memorised by this point, trying to break him out of his deadly spiral as he'd rant at rave at her, till he'd attack her somehow, then skulk into the shadows when he was done foaming at the mouth, leaving her to carry everything he'd piled onto her shoulders - the threats, the hate, the aggression, only to beg for her forgiveness the next day and be ignored.

He'd spend a week desperately apologising, showing how much he understood how pathetically wrong what he had done had been, sending ridiculous gifts to the mechanicum where he knew they'd have to be accepted under his sigil, reassure over and over in messages that it wouldn't happen again, that he'd just been under so much pressure, that he'd just snapped, that it wasn't right and she hadn't deserved it and how much her friendship mattered.

The E-Dev pinged one last time, and Seifa straightened, dusting off her overalls and adjusting the toolbelt slung around her waist.

God-King Calypso demanded a sacrifice - self harm masked as a blade he'd lash at someone he loved so it would cut him all the deeper. She'd take it, better her than someone else. She could handle him. 

She always had.

It was raining again, felt like that hadn't stopped at all this month. Pandora had wet seasons, it's just that the water never seemed to go anywhere. The acrid dust absorbed it almost as fast as it could fall, but in the city it flooded the streets as it rushed down gutters. Neon light reflected from gaudy signs in pools of colour that swam across the uneven paving stones as she slowly made her way towards the Cathedral, a waterproof canvas thrown around her shoulders protecting from the downpour.

Even at this time of night, the city was still alive. It never really stilled anymore, too many deals going down in alleys and money changing hands in clubs for it to ever actually sleep, and as she picked her way past huddled locals far too engrossed in their own business to pay her any mind, Seifa wondered when it was things had changed like this.

This place had been a shanty town, hadn't it? When she'd arrived to take over the engineering division there had been maybe one, two thousand COV followers camped around the cathedral in rickety shelters. Bandits mostly, erecting camps and functional living quarters with expertise alien to any outsider. It was a city now, fuck, it was a metropolis. She'd overseen the building of half of the major apartment systems in the inner ring around the holy quarter, so how did it still feel like it had grown of out nowhere?

Sei huffed out a steamy breath into the chill night air as the cathedral began to come into view, bass music and laughter fading as it was swallowed into the drumming of the rain on the buildings she left behind her.

She used to be so proud when she saw it, the awesome majesty of its twisted spires and jutting angles framed against the rocky outcrop that loomed behind it. Nowadays it just looked like something grotesque, a mirror of what it contained maybe. The COV was rotting from within, and everyone knew the source.

She'd been warned by friends more willing to face the harsh realities of the twin's decline that time was running out.

Tonight, tomorrow, a week from now, it didn't matter why it was going to happen, just that it would, and as much as she hated admitting it to anyone, Seifa knew she wasn't strong enough to do this much longer.

He was killing her.

Anything could set him off now, it was constant. Numbers under-performing this week, an underhanded comment from Tyreen that tipped the balance, not enough sleep, too many stims, not gaining weight, an article mocking his appearance, anything. It could have been any of them he had summoned, her, Ven, JK, the why or who was inconsequential because the desired outcome was always the same.

Troy wanted to hurt himself, not them, but he didn’t know how. The pressure would build and build till he broke down, lost logic, went wild-eyed and shaking in barely controlled rage. He hated being Troy Calypso so much there were times he wanted to tear his own skin off, he'd told her as much on nights alone and open in shared sadness, but there was no escape. It was this, or starving in a manner she couldn’t even comprehend, and when he'd asked before if maybe that would be the better option?

...She'd not known what to say. She'd failed him then, tripping over the words catching in her lungs as he desperately waited for an answer that would make sense of things, and she'd never been able to give one. Just sat next to him as they both sank deeper into the trap of their titles and the horrible reality that there was no clear way out.

He was waiting in the throne room for her, just like she'd imagined. Pacing back and forth across the dias as the city light streamed through the stained glass windows, glinting sharply off the rattling gold spines his ritual gear was decorated with as he moved.

She'd stood in silence, watching, trying to catch what he was asking himself as he'd snap a muttered retort in spite, but not able to ever make out the questions. Like an animal snared in gilded chains she figured, or something else maybe - an idol pretending to be something living? A shiver had ran through her as she waited for him to turn his frantic attention to her, quietly waiting for the blow to come. No one had even been there to greet her or open the doors to the throne room, they were ajar, the staff knowing better than to risk being in his presence when he was like this... she smirked, knowing better than her, anyway.

He'd shifted attention to her so smoothly it felt like the rant he'd been hissing to himself just continued directly into her as he'd turned, beckoning her closer with a quirk of those horrible claws. She'd bit her lip and swallowed down how much that enraged her, being summoned like a fucking dog when this man so often made clear he viewed himself as dirt in comparison to her, but months of dealing with him had tempered the reaction. Easier to go along with it, placate him, nod and let him vent out the bile till he realised how much of a fucking asshole he was and came crawling back later.

It was the same dance as usual, the exact same steps. She could feel where he was going with each shift in direction, jumping topic to topic in an attempt to place blame and becoming more enraged with each simple refute she could offer. She never made it easy, that wasn't her nature in the end, she'd calmly reply back to each accusation with logic that left him shaking harder as the fury built, like a caged predator or roid-mad Psycho desperate to attack but not getting the opening. She could play this game for hours, long enough to make sure he worked for the satisfaction, even if it left her exhausted.

She'd always been petty, after all.

He threw snarled jabs at Mechanicum performance, raised complaints that she knew weren't true, accused "concerns" about output she could disarm easily, the same as always, till suddenly he shifted.. and everything went wrong.

She could handle him with spines raised and teeth bared, she could stand unflinching as he aimed blows that he never really landed, but she hadn't been prepared for him to suddenly relax. He'd stood straight, rolling the weight of the prosthetic on a shoulder all casual and friendly like suddenly he wasn't seething under the grin his snarl melted into, and she'd felt a jolt of fear. This was something new, this was something... worse, she could feel it like electricity crackling up her spine, and for the first time that night her heart began to pick up a stuttered pounding as cool sweat beaded down her back. He took a step closer, and for just a second, there was a question flittering across the back of her mind that screamed something she couldn't ignore before it vanished into her practiced calm.

For a split second, Seifa questioned if this was Troy.

"You know, it's funny, Sei..."

She opened her mouth to warn him to stop, the atmosphere was at fever point, he was going to go too far, something in how terrified his eyes looked against he vicious curve of his smile sent panic through her chest.

"Troy" her voice cracked "Come on, Troy you know you shouldn't keep going, this is -"

He cut her off with a tsk and raise of a bladed finger, bending to lower his face closer to hers from where he towered above her.

"Rude Seifa, I was talking."

He was near enough to feel the body heat glowing from his chest, and her voice choked in her throat as the point of a talon tapped gently against her nose as if he was chiding some kid.

"Funny isn't it?" He cooed, and it wasn't.

"You used to have so much time for me, didn't you. We used to really spend time together..." the lack of his stutter was a warning she knew him too well to ignore.

"... but nowadays you're so desperate to get out of my presence that I can literally see your skin crawl while you're forced to be around me. It's happening right now Sei... ain't it."

That was a lie, and she wanted to slap his hand away from where it pointed towards her chest, push him back towards the throne behind him and tell him how stupid an attack that was. She's always had time for him, she gave him infinite time, she gave him so much of herself that she'd been crumbling, she wanted to tell him the truth of it, that how much she gave him had been killing her, but she couldn't, he didn't give her the chance.

"You've got allllll the energy in the world for your little friends though, don't you. You've got laughter and happiness to pour all over them, fill them up with, show them how much you care, but not me, not anymore. And you know, that's got me thinking recently!"

The smile was fake but the monster behind it wasn't. He may as well have been snarling, and she was fully aware he wasn't really attempting to hide that at all.

He stepped a fraction closer again, close enough for her to reach and press a warning hand against his chest as he leaned further down to meet her eyes, the veneer of his calm cracking under the weight of the now haggard, panting breathes he whistled through that vicious smile, the terror in his eyes. She didn't understand any of this, why was he so afraid when it was him pressing this onwards, why was he so panicked when the act was so calm? His skin was like fucking fire under her hand and the push she gave to try and move him back did nothing.

"Made me realise, maybe I was never your friend really - maybe I was just something you held onto like a lifeline in the storm of your shitty life choices, huh?" She felt tears rise, this wasn't fair, this was too real now, this was being aimed at his friend not his employee, but he wouldn't stop.

"Taken for a ride while you lead me on all these years. That would explain it, right? How much you got for them, how much you'll give them, when I'm just a burden to you. Or..."

His mouth was next to her ear and she wanted to beg him to stop before it was too late, before he did what she knew he was about to do. To stop before he decimated everything, but the words were caught behind the sob she refused to let spill as he drove the knife home with one last twist.

"Maybe the real problem here Seifa, is they are more than friends, hmm? Because that's your real operation method, isn't it. That's how you get what you want, everyone knows it. Maybe they met your standards, but you just never saw me as good enough to fuck."

The crack of his jaw against her fist echoed through the stone throne room for long enough to make the silence that came after all the more horrible.

She remembers that, that noise and the pain ripping through her hand in burning waves, but she doesn't really remember the rest. 

She doesn't fully remember what she saw, the flash of those glaring, monstrous eyes that burned down on them both as Troy reeled in horrified shock, cradling his face in confusion like he couldn't understand why she'd just hit him, she doesn't remember the flicker of Siren wings or the laughter that echoed somewhere in the back of her mind but made no sound.

It's a daze. Whatever he whispered pleadingly after, teary-eyed and shaking, she didn't hear.

She doesn't remember leaving and how she stormed down the Cathedral halls and into the freezing night air, doesn't remember who saw her or if clergy had been there. Doesn't remember the way she'd mindlessly picked towards the hi-rise Ven's quarters were in before realising she was walking the wrong way, or how effortlessly she'd flipped the ignition in her ship, or how prepped she'd been to jump out of Pandora's orbit soon as she hit safe distance, doesn't remember any of it.

But the pain in her hand and the look in his eyes after, she fucking remembers that.

[peachbearies]

Can I have #12 from the fluff with wooyoung🥺

Safe Haven J.Wooyoung

Requested prompt:

“I wanna kiss you right now”

⁞ ❏. Synopsis: Wooyoung wants to comfort you after you isolated yourself due to insecurities and overthinking.

⁞ ❏. Genre: Angst > Fluff

⁞ ❏. Pairing: Female Reader X Jung Wooyoung

⁞ ❏. Warnings: Unhealthy coping, cursing, mentions of suicide, and mental health.

⁞ ❏.A/N: I just wanna say babes I love you! And I know how horrible and rocky life is for you right now, but you are worth it and you always have me to confide in. I lowkey made myself cry I listened to one day at a time by ateez then after that I listened to seasons by 6lack so I'm fucked up clearly.

The silence in the apartment. The trickle of eradicated breathing, the fingers of a tornado gripping the sheets. Beads of sweat staining the pillow hair and skin infusing to the bed. Your eyes open to stare at the blank canvas of a ceiling. Eyes wandering over the cracks painted in the crevices. The technicolor screen projected on the palette, weakly your fingers reach over for your phone. ”Babyboy🦋” the bold font decreasing your heart rate, the white-blue screen glowed upon your skin.

”Hello?” you choke through the silence; wooyoung knew you better than anyone after your parents. His body immediately sat up against his headboard, the unsettling aura settled on him, yeosang stared at his friend; unaware of what he heard all he could recognize was wooyoung rambling his hands through his hair. ”hey, you okay? Baby talk to me” wooyoung already has one foot out the bed. But the bold numbers on the clock prevented him from going any further. He wanted to hold her; dip his fingers into her back to soothe her he wanted her hair tickling his collarbone. Her scent of vanilla extract and caramel seeping into his nose comforting him.

”i—” you start, but the fear of speaking too much opening and closing the glasshouse spiking cracks. You knew you couldn't hold water; you didn't want to drown him you didn't want to smother him. ”oh my god” you dropped the phone the sheets muffling your hard cries. Wooyoung stuck between breaking rules to come to see you, to knock on your door. But it was too late.

Wooyoung wouldn't be able to step an inch out of the dorm, and that is what frustrated him even more. ”baby? Baby?” is all you heard as it faded into the background. The line disconnected, as the stress shadowed on wooyoung. Yeosang ran up to wooyoung who was desperate for a hug. But was more desperate to hold you. “Let’s go talk to the CEO,” no questions asked wooyoung took off faster than his words.

When he was granted the okay, the driver arrived at your house. You were sitting on your carpet dried tears stained on your cheeks, with puffy eyes. The way your eyes glided you to the pills pleading you in with its poised stanzas. The sound of banging on the door was the only thing saving you from slipping into subspace. Your legs quivered as you answered the door. Both from anxiety and the brisk air. “Wooyoung?” You called his name, realizing your mistake you shun your head down “I’m—“ wooyoung leaving no room for an apology engulfed you in his arms, his hand protectively around your head. Helping you back in the house.

“Baby—don’t leave me, please. I know it’s hard to express how you’re feeling and admitting to the pain. I’m here for whenever you’d like me to know your worries, baby I just want you to know you’re not alone, even when you feel like it, I’ll hold you and let you cry in my arms all day I don’t care” wooyoung pulls out of your neck to stare into your broken eyes. “I just want to make sure you’re okay, even if you don’t tell me what’s wrong” his thumb sweeps through tears under your eye ducts.

“I’m scared to rant to anyone—“ your hiccups interrupted you as the tears travel down to your chin hugging it neatly. “Hey-hey, you don’t have to explain everything to me right now, let’s get you comfortable first” you go in his arms his fingers hugging your thighs that are attached to his waist. His foot pushing open the door. His fingers delicately removing himself from your body. Whining in a touch starved form wooyoung placed a soft print to your temple. You missed him. As much as you pushed him away, you missed him and you felt bad. Another reason you’ve been crying. His smile appears from the edge of his bed holding a hoodie of his.

“Wear it” he implies, you sat up grabbing the cloudy fabric sliding your head through, and smiled from its warmth. “I need you warm my dear” wooyoung pats your head, his fingers cruising over your head. “I’m sorry” the mumbles escaped, only made him frown. Wooyoung was pondering why you were apologizing to him, you’ve done nothing wrong in his eyes. Pain is inevitable, no one can control that.

Wooyoung says nothing but pulls you into his arms your nose touching his collarbone, fingers attached to your burning skin “do you know why I enjoy performing on stage every night?” Wooyoung ponders, you wipe your face in the hoodie cuffs “because I can feel my emotions, I can let them out in the form of art, and atiny enjoys it, why? Because feeling emotions are honest art, it’s honest feelings. And it doesn’t make you inconsequential, it doesn’t make you lesser okay? It makes you mortal it makes you vital in a sense that you can let out these sentiments and that you've held it together for so long” Wooyoung kisses your hairline, dancing his fingertips on your jawline.

“You don't have to be perfect, because who is? All you have to be is unique. Just be the best you can be, I'm not going to nitpick what's wrong with you, but for every bad thought, I'll cloud it with compassionate poetry” Wooyoung withdraws his face from your hair to show you his sincerity, “I mean that I know j farce a lot and I'm overly theatrical. But I take you very seriously, I promise I won't hurt you and ill shelter you from your demons, only if you let me” you reach up to his stature to give him a delicate peck, Wooyoungs nose looming over yours.

“Be my safe haven?” you state, but it wailed more as a reassuring question, “nothing else I wouldn't want to be I wanna kiss you right now, is that okay with you love?” you nod your head as Wooyoung leans posterior into your space, coinciding your lips with his, your fingers swaddled upon his shoulders. Feeling a smile on your lips that are stickered on his. Wooyoung would do whatever he could to protect that smile. That smile is what makes his day. You pull away from the endearment, your head on his chest, his chin on your head.

“I've been overthinking, about my image my life. I wonder am I doing enough, especially at my age. Compared to everyone around me what the fuck is so special about me?, u feel like everything I've tried or wish for just hasn't gone my way, I've been trying to stay afloat but fuck I'm just sinking faster and faster, u just wanna be okay for once in my life, I wanna be proud of myself and not stare at myself in disgust” Wooyoung draws circles on your arm and strokes your jawline with his thumb. “I'm so proud of you for learning our dance choreography in a day, you were so happy that day, out CEO even said “yah Wooyoung your girlfriend is so talented, we need her here each time we learn a dance “, that time you painted Hyung-Joong a pair of boots I swear he wore them for so long and still till this day he has them on his shelf”

“When you bought us food during thanxx, the staff fell even more in love with you, they wanted you around us all the time, they love your energy, remember that one time we were watching the sunset sitting on the carpet on front of the window? You wrote me that poem in a matter of seconds, till this day its pinned up on my wall in the dorms, you have so many achievements under you belt I’ll be here all night, baby big achievements are amazing don’t get my wrong,but the small one you do for people around you goes a long way, we’re still young baby we have time to blossom, don’t feel pressured by others success because yours will be just as good and a memoir for you to fall back on”

“Why don’t you write songs for Ateez?” You joke with him; he punches your cheeks slightly to earn a whine from your lips. “Who said I don’t , what am I going to do with you?” Wooyoung pokes your cheeks “love me?”

“I do, I’m so in love with you”

You both fall asleep holding each other closely, the morning arrives for you to see the sunrise, wooyoung’s arm draped around your abdomen his fingers planted on your stomach, nose printed on your neck. “Baby? Look”‘excitedly you cheer, your nails caressing his muscles, feeling him stir in his sleep. “Yes my love?” His voice vibrates on your skin.

“Look at the sun, I’m sorry to wake you, I just feel happy now seeing the sun, because of that poem I wrote you, it makes me want to do better because even the sun gets up after it’s downfall, can’t have light with a little dark, if only the moon existed how else would the numbers appear on the clock” Wooyoung’s lips spread across your skin pulling you in closer, propping himself up on his elbows. “You’re so beautiful my dear,” Wooyoung bends to your level kissing your lips softly, holding you face like glass he caressed every scar you deemed to be ugly.

“If you’re bit scared you’re living on edge, it’s hard to escape your worries” Wooyoung starts singing ‘one day at a time’ your fingers wrapped around his wrist never breaking contact with him. Yeah, Wooyoung is your safe haven.

[war-of-the-words]

The Best Friend Trap

Summary:  It's like the Parent Trap but it's their best friends and not their parents. Written Aug 2019 Read on AO3

Ran was just picking up some coffee, because God knows Shinichi will need it, when she saw herself walk into the cafe. Well, it was kind of her. The girl was about her height, maybe a little shorter, her hair much more messy, and her eyes a little darker, but they could have been sisters, maybe even twins. They made eye contact and Ran knew she had to talk to this girl.

 She patiently waited at a table near the door as the other girl ordered her drink, she could tell by the way she kept glancing over that she was interested in speaking to her doppleganger. Ran watched eagerly as the barista handed the to-go cup over the counter. The girl thanked the employee and turned to head for the door, she was still glancing at Ran, no matter how hard she tried to make it seem like she wasn't. "Excuse me," Ran called, making eye contact with the girl, "Can I talk to you for a moment?" The other girl looked slightly embarrassed, but she made her way over. "I'm sorry if this is strange," Ran began as the other girl sat down, "but I just had the feeling that I had to get to know you."

 "Not at all!" the other girl replied. Her voice was similar to Ran's, but she spoke in a more energetic tone. "I was so shocked when I walked in and saw myself, I knew I had to talk to you."

 "I'm glad we're on the same page," Ran giggled, "My name is Mouri Ran, but you can just call me Ran if you like." The girl had a bright smile, she wore all her emotions on her sleeve.

 "I'm Nakamori Aoko, but you can call me Aoko, Ran." In that moment, Ran was certain that she and Aoko were destined to become good friends.

 They talked about everything. Ran talked about karate, which Aoko found awe-inspiring. Both talked about their fear of ghosts, as well as commiserating over their father's profession. Starting on one topic lead to another, which sent them down a rabbit hole into niche topics that they couldn't believe they agreed upon. Ran felt relieved she had decided to wait on buying Shinichi's coffee until after she talked to Aoko, she knew the sleep-deprived goblin Shinichi became during long cases would drink it cold, but Ran liked to maintain some of her best friend's humanity if she could. Speaking of best friends, Ran checked her phone and cursed under her breath.

 "I'm so sorry, Aoko, but Shinichi expected me almost an hour ago now and I'm worried that if I don't see him soon he'll get too absorbed into work again."

 "Shinichi?" Aoko asked, a confused look gracing her face before it turned into a teasing smirk, "Is he your boyfriend?"

 "What?" Ran laughed, not having heard someone refer to her best friend that way in quite some time, "No, nothing like that, he's by best friend, has been since we were kids."

 "Like Kaito and I!" Aoko eyes lit up, "Ran, we have way too much in common. Please don't tell me your childhood best friend is also a world traveling magician."

 "No, he's the opposite actually, he works as a consulting detective with the TMPD, 'just like Holmes'," Ran said, in her best Shinichi interpretation, which made Aoko laugh.

 "I'm glad we have one thing that isn't in common," Aoko said, "Kaito is a magician, like his dad, I'm proud of him, but he only ever comes back to Japan for a few days at a time, I miss him." Aoko's smile turned melancholic as she reached into her bag. "Before he set off on his first tour of Europe, I complained that I barely had any photos of him, 'Phone pictures aren't enough, BaKaito! What happens if something happens to it!'" She pulled a torn, folded photograph out of her wallet, "Then he gave me this, I don't know why he tore it, but this is the happiest I've seen him, ever, I think." Aoko delicately unfolded the photograph, Ran's first thought was of how similar to Shinichi Kaito looked. Her second was how familiar the photo seemed.

 Kaito wore a tailored black suit, there was a red rose on his lapel shiny gold band on his finger. He was seated in some kind of office, which seemed unnatural for his state of dress. Most intriguing was how the photo was ripped; Kaito seemed to be leaning toward somebody toward the left, but there was only the ripped edge. "I have no idea where this was taken," Aoko said, staring at the photo intently, "and I don't know why he's dressed like that, especially the ring, he usually keeps his hands free of jewelry in case they mess up a trick." A light bulb went off in Ran's head.

 She began furiously digging around in her bag, desperate to find her own wallet. Why it took her so long to make the connection, she didn't know. "Ran, is there something wrong?" Aoko's concerned voice asked, but Ran was too focused on her task. She pulled out her wallet and quickly opened one of the small pockets, pulling out a folded up photograph of her own. She quickly unfolded it, revealing the image. Like Aoko's, it was torn on one side, and depicted her best friend, sitting in a fancy suit in some kind of office, a gold band on his ring finger. Delicately, Ran placed them next to one another, the torn edges matching perfectly. They both sat in stunned silence for a moment.

 "I think we have something else in common," Ran said, meeting Aoko's equally as shocked gaze.

 Kuroba Kaito and Kudou Shinichi fell in love, fast. In a whirlwind of emotions, only after half a year of dating they got married. It was a secret affair, too embarrassed to admit to their friends that they had been seeing someone at all, let alone married. They were planning on introducing their friends to one another, but that was for a later time, at least, it was supposed to be.

 Kuroba Kaito and Kudou Shinichi fell out of love, fast. They barely knew one another, they kept secrets from one another, and in a whirlwind of emotion, Kuroba Kaito hopped on a plane and left the country. The divorce papers came soon after. No one had known the two had been married, and the two never spoke about it. If they suddenly made great strides in pursuing their careers, their friends chalked it up to their dedicated nature.

 That was, of course, until Nakamori Aoko and Mouri Ran met.

 "I can't believe that Shinichi would get married and not tell me." Ran growled, "I can't believe that I didn't notice!"

 "It's not just you, Ran," Aoko replied, a murderous look on her face, "I can't believe it either." Ran sighed looking at the photo again. They had matched up timelines of when they thought this could have happened. They decided that it had been several years ago, they looked younger in the picture, before they had thrown themselves into their careers. The point in time when they both dove head first into the thick of their jobs matched up too, Kaito left for Europe at the same time Shinichi took on a heavier case load. Ran felt stupid for not pressing him about it, she knew he looked troubled around that time, but she brushed it off as inconsequential.

 "I'm such an idiot." Aoko interrupted Ran's thoughts. "When Kaito told me he was leaving for Europe, I knew he was upset about something, he had been upset and angry for months, but I never asked. On the day he left, he just seemed sad."

 "They look so happy," Ran looked at her best friend's frozen face, his smile wide and genuine, a light blush on his cheeks, Ran can't remember the last time he smiled like that, "I wonder what happened."

 "I wonder if they miss each other." Aoko added, "Kaito always says he's too busy for love, that he doesn't want to have to choose between work and a significant other, but he always looks pained when he says it. He thinks I don't notice, but I always do."

 "Shinichi's dated, but it never seems to stick, despite his mother's best efforts. This might be why. It's a shame he's too stubborn to admit it and try to make amends," Ran laughed.

 "So we make them."

 "What?" Ran looked up at Aoko, her new friend's eyes alight with a plan.

 "We make them," Aoko repeated. "It they're too stubborn to see one another, we make a reason for them to see one another." Well, Ran was intrigued; she motioned for Aoko to continue. "Ran, we look nearly identical, if I try hard enough I could easily make my hair look like yours, and a bit of roughing up can make yours look like mine, our eyes are nearly the same color and we are about the same height and weight. In order to see if each other's best friend is worthy of the other, and to force them to see one another again, we switch places."

 "You want me to be you?" Ran said, her brain still working out how the whole thing would work.

 "Exactly," Aoko was all confidence, "I'm leaving to meet Kaito in Paris in about a week from now, you go in my place, get to know him, and, when the time is right, tell him who you are. I'll stay here, take your place, spend time with Shinichi, and decide whether or not to get them back together."

 "Aoko," Ran looked at her sternly, "This plan is insane. I love it."

 "Well, I better get good at being you."

 "Ran! What took you so long!" Shinichi whined as his best friend let herself into his library. He had himself draped over the sofa so that he was staring at her upside down, a book resting open on his chest.

 "I was making friends." Ran replied.

 "With the barista? If you're trying to convince them to make you free coffee, let me tell you that it doesn't work. That's why Miki and I broke up."

 "Because you only dated her to get free coffee?"

 "You don't have to put it that way." Shinichi pouted at her. All of his relationships were this superficial, so Ran isn't surprised at his motive especially she was the fifth barista he tried to date. It made more sense now that she knew he had been married. Her best friend looked nothing like the one in the picture, his faced was creased with worry lines and his eyes had permanent bags under them. She was surprised to find him reading instead of working on a case, it was all he seemed to do anymore, when he's not busy hitting on baristas.

 "Come on, sit up," She instructed, making her way over to the couch. "I remembered your coffee."

 "You're the best." Shinichi sat up and greedily snatched the cup. "Ekoda really has the best coffee shops."

 "You can always go yourself you know," Ran reminded him. If she wasn't looking for it, she would have missed the way his body tensed. Kaito lived in Ekoda, Ran had learned, which made Shinichi's aversion to the area much clearer.

 "It's too far to go for coffee, I need to be here in case the TMPD needs me." Ran hummed in acknowledgement. The library was a mess as always. The desk was littered with case files; a few stacks had coffee mugs as the foundation. Loose papers lay nearby sporting Shinichi's handwriting; they were notes on different cases as well as a few doodles, which he sometimes does to help him think. She should probably tidy things up a little while she's here. Maybe probe for information while she does.

 "So," she began, conversationally, "Is there anyone new who hasn't been a barista?" Ran moved the folders off the desk in order to clear away the dirty mugs.

 "Hmm, not really." Shinichi looked bored, he always did when Ran tried to talk about relationships.

 "Not really doesn't sound like a no."

 "My mom is setting me up with someone again, that's all."

 "Well, I can't blame her. I don't think I've ever seen you in a serious relationship, Shinichi. Don't you ever want to get married?" Ran held her breath and studied her best friend carefully, there was a small look of pain on his face that he quickly replaced with boredom.

 "Eventually," Shinichi said, his tone perfectly neutral, "I'm just waiting to make sure it's to the right person." Unlike last time, Ran thought. Whether his ex-husband was a good match or not was still to be determined, but they had clearly made a mistake marrying one another when they did.

 "I get to be your maid of honor, right?" Ran said teasingly, although she was still a bit peeved about being left out on his first wedding.

 "Of course," Shinichi held eye contact, a look of concern on his face; he must have picked up on her anger. "I couldn't imagine a ceremony without you by my side." His sincerity startled Ran a little, she had only meant it as a joke. Which begged the question, what had happened the first time?

 "Aoko!" Kaito whined from the other end of a phone, "What took you so long? You promised to call me hours ago!" Aoko imagined the exaggerated pout on her best friend's face and laughed.

 "I was getting coffee at that little cafe you like so much. I made a friend while I was there."

 "With a barista? If you're trying to get free coffee, those baristas are won't crack, trust me, I've tried."

 "Of course you have. I was also double checking my flight info for next week."

 "I can't believe it's next week! I haven't seen you in forever!" Kaito's excitement warmed Aoko's heart, and made her feel a little bad for lying. She had actually changed the ticket into Ran's name. They might look alike, but Aoko wouldn't risk Ran getting stopped by customs. "Honestly, Aoko, you need to come visit me more often."

 "I'm not made of money, Kaito."

 "I've told you! I will buy your tickets, it's the least I could do!"

 "I'm not going to make you do that Kaito," and thankfully, she hasn't she wouldn't be able to get Ran the ticket otherwise. "I don't care how well off you might be, I can buy the ticket so I will."

 "Fine," Kaito huffed, "All that really matters is that you're coming."

 "Oh? Are you eager to show me your secret fiancée or something?" Aoko could hear the small intake of breath on Kaito's end, unnoticeable if she had been breathing.

 "I've told you, I'm not ready to get married. I don't want to put myself in a position where I have to choose work or marriage." Like last time? Aoko thought. She didn't know why the two of them got married, but it definitely changed Kaito. He used to be a hopeless romantic, despite the image his constant flirting gave off, now he was reserved and wouldn't allow himself to develop feelings for anyone. If this Shinichi turned out to be a bad person, he would pay dearly for what he did to Kaito.

 The next week went by in a flash. The two girls met up every day, for hours at a time. They took notes and quizzed one another about their lives, their likes and dislikes, what words they would use when faced with different situations, it was quite the intensive. They went out one day and bought new shoes, both with a heel, Aoko's a little taller to match Ran's height as closely as possible. They also went to a salon and cut their hair to a matching length to make up for any disparity between them. After that, they practiced styling their hair to look like the other's. It was a startling sight. The night before Ran flew to France, she stayed at Aoko's house, finalizing the other's schedule and doing final checks. Aoko packed Ran's suitcase so she would be wearing clothes Kaito could identify as Aoko's, and Ran gave Aoko half of her own wardrobe, just in case. "Aoko's" trip was supposed to last for a month, so they wanted to be prepared.

 Then the day was upon them. Aoko saw Ran off at the airport, which was strange since they had swapped styles. Aoko had plans to meet Shinichi for lunch that afternoon, and Kaito was meeting Ran as soon as she landed, so they had to look the part. The non-stop flight was 12 hours, so she could only try to get some shut eye, hope the jet lag didn't hit her too hard, and pray that the "Detective of the East" didn't notice he wasn't eating with a stranger.

 Aoko really hoped Shinichi wouldn't notice he was eating with a stranger. They really needed this scheme to last for at least a week, it wasn't long, but they should be able to get a hold on who the ex-husband of their best friend was. Aoko arrived early, per Ran's instruction, but it only allowed her anxiety to fester. Shinichi was some hot-shot detective, not unlike Hakuba, so the bar on disguises was nothing to scoff at. It was also weird to refer to someone she had never met by their first name, but they were childhood best friend's now, so what the heck. Aoko could do this, she had seen plenty of spy movies, and Ran was thorough in the "Mouri Ran Crash course".

 "I'm sorry I'm late." A man sat down across from Aoko. She instantly recognized him as Shinichi, as she now had quite the substantial library of reference images courtesy of Ran. What Aoko was not prepared for, was the intensity of those piercing blue eyes in person. It was like they could see through her, to the rouse she was pulling. She resisted the temptation to come out and admit that she wasn't who she said she was, she had to do this, for Ran, for Kaito.

 "It's fine, Shinichi, really. You say that every time." Speaking in a voice that wasn't quite her own had been a challenge, one that she know held her breath to see if she overcame.

 "I know I do, but I am really sorry."

 Score.

 "Like I said, Shinichi, it's okay. You're busy, I get it, I'm just glad you show up at all." Aoko gave him a warm smile. Ran had trained her in this exact scenario, it seems this is the usual way they start a lunch date. The smile Shinichi gave her in return made her see how Kaito could have fallen for him.

 "Well, at least let me treat you to lunch."

 "I certainly wouldn't protest to that."

 After lunch, which was a delightful meal in a cute little cafe Aoko had never been to before, they went for a walk, window shopping and talking. Aoko remembered all of the stores Ran had said she would most definitely force Shinichi to go in to, the kinds of things Ran said she would stop to admire, the kinds of small talk she would make and how she would respond to the comments Shinichi made, she was incredibly proud of her performance. Until, "Hey, Ran? Can I ask you something?"

 "Of course, Shinichi, what is it?" Shinichi looked at her, his eyes seemed to not look at her, but at the parts of her, like she was a painting and Shinichi was an incredibly harsh critic. Aoko pushed down the panic.

 "You seem... tense today. Is something wrong?" Well, at least he hadn't called her out for not being Ran, she could handle this, she was tense after all. She forced herself to relax and smile at him.

 "I'm just a little stressed right now, that's all, but hanging out with you really helps." That wasn't quite a lie, so far, Shinichi has been nothing but kind, making her laugh, treating her, indulging her fancies with only the half-hearted protest, he made her feel at ease.

 "That would explain the haircut, and all the shopping you're doing, those are new shoes, aren't they?" Well, Aoko wouldn't complain if that's how Shinichi decided to write off the changes in "Ran's" appearance.

 "I just felt like a change, that's all," Aoko pouted and played with a strand of hair.

 "It's cute," Shinichi said with a smile, playfully ruffling her hair, which prompted Aoko to swat his hand away. The small laugh he gave in return really reminded her of Kaito. So did the way his face fell as he turned away from her. They walked in silence for a bit before he spoke again. "Ran, have you been on a date recently?" Aoko was a bit taken aback, but this was a golden opportunity to get the man's opinions about love straight from him, and Ran had prepared her for these sorts of questions.

 "No, not recently, why, have you?"

 "Yeah, my mom made me meet up with some girl the other day. Her dad knows my mom, apparently he owns some fashion magazine and they swear up and down she is going to be the next big thing in the industry."

 "Who is 'they'?"

 "All of them. Mom, her father, her, all of the blogs and articles on her I looked at after Mom gave me her name."

 "Well, how was the date?" Aoko could hear the anticipation in her voice, she was just hoping Shinichi didn't.

 "It was a date," Shinichi shrugged, a bored look on his face, "We had dinner, she talked about her dreams, mentioned how rich I was, gushed about how brave I must be for working in homocide and how she 'could never bear to see another human being who had died in such an awful way.'" The way he said the last part was with as much drama as you could expect from an actress' son.

 "But did you like her?"

 "Well, I guess? I mean, she was a model, so of course she was pretty, and she was polite in conversation, although she did find some way to mention how rich my family was every couple of minutes. I'm going on another date with her next Wednesday, so we'll see if the conversation improves any." A second date? Ran said most don't last a whole one! It was probably just because his mom was making him, but something about the situation didn't sit right with Aoko.

 "You better tell me all about it.  I expect a full report on Thursday."

 "Yes ma'am." Shinichi laughed, but the way it didn't quite reach his eyes was far too much like Kaito.

 Kaito was an absolute bundle of energy. As soon as Ran walked out into the baggage claim, she was swept up into somebody's arms. "Aoko!" the voice cheered, and Ran was glad she was able to suppress her first instinct, which was to take whoever decided to touch her down. Craning her head to the side, she could see the man who had picked her up. He had a brilliant, 100 watt smile and his mischievous eyes were just a shade off of purple. He was clearly Kuroba Kaito, rising star in the magic world, and Ran instantly liked him. "I missed you so much."

 "I missed you too, but you better put me down before I make you." Kaito, unintimidated, gave her another squeeze before gently putting her down. Ran felt bad she had threatened him, but that's how Aoko said she would greet him. She turned to face the magician, once again captivated by how earnestly happy he was to see her, was he this joyful around Shinichi? Did he greet her best friend with such a warm and caring expression?

 "You cut your hair," Kaito stated letting himself look at her properly for the first time as well, "It's short, but I like it." Ran pulled at some strands self-consciously, it had been a long time since she had cut her hair so short.

 "Thanks," she replied, her cheeks flushing ever so slightly.

 "Aw, Aoko, are you embarrassed? You didn't get all dolled up for me, did you?"

 "BaKaito," Ran responded in the fashion Aoko instructed, "Last time I herad, you weren't interested in dating, I got dolled up for all the handsome French boys I'm going to meet."

 "Aoko! You wound me! Am I not a handsome French boy? I've lived here for more than half a decade now. Besides, I can go on dates with people, I just won't get into any serious relationship." His expression changed ever so slightly as he said it, like the joy that was there so effortlessly before had to be forced to keep its place. Ran knew that expression, it was just like Shinichi's when he spoke about romance. Ran hated that look.

 "Well come on then 'handsome French boy', take this girl out to get something to eat, I'm starving!"

 "As you wish." Kaito smoothly brought Ran's hand up to lay a kiss across her knuckles, a teasing look in his eyes, and, yeah, Ran could see how Shinichi could fall in love with him.

 Ran spent two weeks with Kaito before she got the call. It had been a wonderful time, accompanying Kaito to his performances to different venues across France, hanging out afterwords, eating all kinds of new food, visiting museums, it was the vacation she needed. With each passing day Ran fel more in love with Kaito, platonically, of course. He was charming and sweet and just a bit mischeious. Most importantly, in Ran's eyes he cared so deeply about those around him. Not only did he dedicate all of this time to "Aoko", but after shows he would spend time talking with the audience, answering questions, taking photos, being genuinely interested in their lives. He was kind to the store clerks and waiters as well, always smiling with them and making small talk without seeming patronizing or overbearing. He carried joy with him, wherever he went, spreading it to others whenever possible, yet there was still sadness lingering in his eyes, just like Shinichi.

 She saw it there, but only because she was so used to having watch Shinichi for those same signs, the subtle way smiles won't reach the eyes, the melancholy that comes and goes in the blink of an eye, getting lost in thoughts and then brushing off her questioning. He didn't want her to get involved in his sadness. Aoko said he was a hopeless romantic, but the look in his eyes when they would wander to a couple at a different table, the way they would laugh with one another, Ran could see the sad longing in his eyes. Ran suspected he hadn't completely forgotten about Shinichi. Especially considering what happened the day before the call.

 They had decided to spend the night at Ran's hotel, indulging in the luxury of delivery chain pizza and cheap alcohol. They were just relaxing, watching whatever random movies crossed the screen, which Ran couldn't understand so Kaito dramatically translated. It was just dumb fun. Then Kaito had a few too many beers. It didn't matter, he was planning on spending the night in Ran's extra bed, but Ran quickly learned that he was an emotional drunk.

 "How come they get to be in love," Kaito complained, groaning at the couple that was currently making out on screen. He had stopped translating a beer and a half ago, so Ran didn't really know what this movie was about, but the man had just clearly proposed, which then prompted Kaito's rant. "It's not fair! I tried so hard, but did I get a happily ever after? Nooooooooo sir." Then he started crying. Ran was beginning to get concerned. "Aoko," he sobbed, "Did I do something wrong? I did my best, but was I just not good enough?"

 "Kaito, I think you've had enough to drink now." Ran used the gentlest voice she could, the one she saves for children, and an equally drunk and upset Shinichi. "I'm sure you did your best, but maybe it was the other person who didn't try hard enough." Ran didn't doubt that, Shinichi could get sucked into his investigation and ignore everything around him, he could have fell head first into an investigation and blocked everything else out, including his husband, as much as she hated to believe he could.

 "No!" Kaito sat up and stared at her with large, innocent eyes, "It wasn't their fault! Sure, they would forget sometimes, but they would always make it up to me. They tried their best, too. I know they did." Kaito sniffled some more. Ran was shocked, she didn't expect him to defend his ex, but the look in his eyes was clear. He believed in Shinichi, whole-heartedly, and he was still in love.

 "Come on, Kaito. I think it's time we go to bed, what do you say?" She offered her hand to the boy and pulled him up from where he has slumped on the couch. She helped him to the bathroom to brush his teeth, then made sure he didn't collapse before she got him onto the bed. He hit the pillow and was asleep before Ran made it back to the bathroom for her own nightly routine. She let out a sigh, she made her decision a while ago, but this set it in stone. Ran liked Kaito, and she thinks Shinichi is a fool for ever letting him go. She has to at least try to get them to reconcile, she didn't know about fixing their marriage, but it was at least a place to start. Ran decided she could think about it in the morning.

 Ran didn't have the time to think about it in the morning. Ran woke up to the sound of her phone ringing. She had a slight hangover, and it had just turned 10 in the morning. She groaned and pulled her phone over. The caller ID read "Ran". Ran instantly woke up, she hopped up and ran to the bathroom, closing the door gently behind herself as she answered the phone. "Hello?" she answered in a quiet voice.

 "Ran, we have an emergency," Aoko said in a panicked voice on the other end of the phone.

 "What's wrong? Is Shinichi hurt? Was he kidnapped again?" Ran's voice began to rise, panic twisting in her gut.

 "He's fine, but this is worse, in a way."

 "Aoko, hurry, tell me what's wrong!"

 "Ran, Shinichi is engaged."

 "What?" Ran asked, but her voice was devoid of emotion.

 "It gets worse," Aoko continued, "The wedding day is in two weeks."

 Aoko stood in the bathroom, listening to the silence on the other end of the phone. She was glad it was deserted as the patrons of such a high class place might not enjoy hearing about Aoko's current crisis. Really, she just thought Shinichi wanted to treat her to a nice meal to make up for missing breakfast the other morning. That was one of the great things about Shinichi, he always tried to make up for even the slightest inconvenience. It wasn't his fault he missed breakfast either, the TMPD had all of their staff finishing up preparations for a huge drug bust they were pulling off that morning, Shinichi had been in the station for over 12 hours when he called Aoko to apologize for missing the date, just about the same time her dad texted her to complain about having to be brought in to help the team prepare.

 She let out a sigh, Ran still in shock on the other end, and thought about the two weeks that lead up to this moment. She and Shinichi hang out constantly, and if they weren't together, Shinichi was working, or so she thought. She forgot all about the second date that Shinichi went on with the model his mom had set him up with. That Thursday, Aoko went over to have breakfast at Shinichi's before they went to go see a new detective movie that was released early that week.

 "How did the date go?" Aoko had asked that morning, watching Shinichi rub the sleep out of her eyes, hopefully distracting him from the way she fumbled around the unfamiliar kitchen trying to get a pot of coffee brewing.

 "Mmm, fine," was Shinichi's sleep tinged reply. Aoko finally managed to get the coffee maker going and Shinichi moved toward the machine in a zombie like fashion, apparently drawn to just the mere noise of a coffee machine starting. Aoko laughed and waited until he had had a couple of sips before continuing her question. One thing she had quickly learned was just how bad of a morning person he was.

 "No, really, Shinichi, tell me about her," Aoko pressed, nudging his arm in a playful manner.

 "Have I told you she's pretty?" Shinichi began, eyeing Aoko like he really wasn't sure.

 "Yeah, you said she was going to be the next big thing in the fashion industry."

 "No, I said everyone else said she was going to be the next big thing. But, yeah, she has the looks to get noticed, that's for sure, and with the connections her father has, it wouldn't surprise me if she makes it big."

 "So, do you like her?" Shinichi hesitated, obviously mulling something over in his mind.

 "Enough to go on some more dates, yeah. Although she doesn't seem like the type who can handle dating an always busy-law-enforcement-type for too long." Aoko laughed, she knew that life far too well, he dad was almost never home, especially after the return of Kaitou KID, although the thief now barely showed himself and was rarely holding heists in Japan. "She's witty, and can keep a conversation going. She can be a little self-centered, but she's a model, what else could you expect?" Aoko hummed in reply before changing the conversation.

 At the time, she only thought that Shinichi was vaguely interested in her on a physical level. It was clear to her that this model was the materialistic type, and she thought Shinichi could see her real personality better that Aoko could, what with him being the Heisei Holmes and all.

 She had shown up to the restaurant in a nice dress, excited at the prospect of eating some upper-class cuisine, just hanging out with Shinichi. Despite his chaotic schedule, he was fun to be around. He was a little nerdy and liked to talk about books more than Aoko could handle, but he gave her some good recommendations and his discerning eye and dry wit made people watching quite the treat. Despite all that, it was obvious just how emotional a person Kudou Shinichi was. He always felt guilty for making Aoko wait, even if it was for only a few minutes, and when he talked about some of his recent cases, which he apologized for before doing but said he just needed to get it off his chest, he talked about how terrible he felt for the culprit, the man had recently lost his wife in a car accident which caused him to hunt down the man who had hit her. Obviously, he believes a criminal should pay for their crimes, but he also tries to understand the reason behind it, Shinichi never forgets that first and foremost, people are human and flawed. So, yeah, Aoko approved of Shinichi, she was just worried about worried about how flippantly he treated romance, but Ran always talked about what a secret romantic Shinichi was, until just around they predicted their divorce to have happened.

 When Aoko spotted Shinichi, she was absolutely astounded to find a woman already at the table, seated next to him. “Ran!” Shinichi’s face light up when he saw her, and it made her regret not going to see Kaito, just a little, so she could see the joy in his own eyes.

 “Hey, Shinichi,” she greeted, taking a seat across from him, “who is this?”

 “This is Midori Kyoya. She’s the model I told you about.”

 “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Shinichi has told me so much about you.”

 “Likewise,” Aoko replied, a formal smile on her face as she took in this new development. She was pretty, that’s for sure. She had long, wavy, black hair and fair skin. She wore a dress that made Aoko almost embarrassed and she was fairly certain all of the diamonds she was wearing could buy her a house and a half. The thing that really caught her attention was the ring resting on her left ring finger.

 “I invited you so that you could be the first to know, Ran,” Shinichi said, his smile still wide and shining, “Midori and I are engaged!” Aoko felt her heart stop. This was not good. Thankfully, she believed even Ran would be just as shocked in this situation, so Shinichi didn’t think twice about the way she froze, "And I know this is kind of rushed, but we get married in two weeks."

 “Con-Congratulations Shinichi. I- wow- I’m speechless.”

 “I know it’s kind of sudden, but like you’ve said, I need to start taking romance seriously, and then Midori came into my life and it just seemed like fate, you know?” Shinichi scratched his head in embarrassment while his fiancee cooed over him.

 Shinichi, this is not the time to be a romantic. Aoko silently cursed him. “Well, that’s fantastic!” She said instead, she could be quite the actor when she wanted to be. “I’m really happy for you!”

 “Shinichi’s shoulders dropped as he let out a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you think so, honestly, I was afraid you would be mad at me for making my decision so quickly.”

 Absolutely furious. “Don’t be silly! If this is what you believe is right, who am I to stop you!” Shinichi began to talk about his bride to be, while she herself jumped in to embellish some facts and add dramatic commentary. Aoko allowed herself to be spoken too, maintaining the proper decorum for such a situation, until they had ordered their meals, then she excused herself to the bathroom, which is where she know finds herself.

 “I can’t believe him!” Ran finally answered from the other end of the phone. “This is completely insane! He’s only known her for, what, three weeks at the most? And he decides to get married!? Aoko, I’m coming back and slapping some sense into that boy.”

 "You can't! We have to keep up the ruse; I think it's still our best shot at getting the two to meet back up." Ran was silent for a while.

 "So you think so too? That they are good for one another?"

 "I think?" Aoko let out a sigh, "I don't know how they were in their first relationship, but something tells me that they are meant to be with one another." Ran laughed on the other end of the phone.

 "I'm glad we agree, so, how are we going to get it through their thick skulls?" A devious grin spread across Aoko's face.

 "I'm so glad you asked. You see, they're checking out the hotel they want to have the wedding at this Saturday, and I think we should give them a surprise."

 Ran had a devious smile on her face as she got off the phone with Aoko. It was a wild plan, the only kind the girl seemed to formulate, but it could work, and it would definitely get the boys to see one another. But before she could really get this ball rolling, she had a confession to make.

 "Aoko!" Kaito yelled from the other side of the door, "What are you yelling about so early in the morning? I have a headache." Ran rolled his eyes at his complaint and grabbed a couple painkillers and a glass of water, pushing them on him when she opened the door.

 "Here, you goof."

 "You're the greatest," Kaito said, adoration on his face as he swallowed the pills. "But really, what were you yelling about? You sounded really upset." Curiosity and worry mixed together on his face, and Ran decided that now was the time.

 "Kaito, about five years ago, did you get married?" Shock filled the magician's eyes, and he gaped like a fish for a while before finding his voice.

 "Aoko, what on earth are you talking about? You know I would tell you if I ever did, I wouldn't have a wedding without you! Besides when would I have even met a girl-"

 "But it wasn't a girl," Ran stated flatly, walking over to her purse and pulling out her half of the photo, handing it over to Kaito.

 "Shinichi," Kaito breathed, looking at her best friend's face. His face softened and a nostalgic smile graced his lips before he remembered where he was. "Aoko, where on Earth did you find this? I haven't seen this photo in half a decade."

 "I'm just going to rip the band-aid off, Kuroba, I'm not Aoko." He looked at her confused, then he began to really look at her, and apparently, found the evidence he needed.

 "Oh my God, you aren't Aoko," Kaito said, his voice more in awe than in anger, "You aren't my best friend and I didn't even notice. But if you aren't her," Kaito continued, suspicion now filling his tone, "Then who are you?"

 "My name is Mouri Ran," she said, sticking out her hand, "and half a decade ago you married my best friend."

 Kaito said nothing, walked over to the bed, face planted into it, and screamed into a pillow. Ran thought he was coping with this new information fairly well. After about a minute of that, he sat back up and looked at her. "I can't believe I finally got to officially meet you," Kaito said, wonderstruck. "Shinichi and I always talked about when we should get the four of us together, we wanted it to be this big surprise," he began rambling, his eyes drifting back to the memory, "We were going to introduce you and then ask for the two of you to be our Maids of Honor. We were going to have a big ceremony for our one year, a proper wedding, you know? We just wanted to wait until we could pay for it ourselves, without relying on our parents' money."

 "But you divorced before that happened," Ran finished for him, taking a seat next to him on the bed, "And you cut all contact with one another, then, five years later, those same friends have a chance encounter where they come to quite a shocking conclusion."

 "Of course this was Aoko's idea," Kaito laughed, "Her ideas were always even crazier than mine, but they always seem to work in her favor, but to switch places and have you fly over seas to meet a complete stranger? I'm surprised you agreed."

 "Well," Ran offered, "How could I say no to the man who has my best friend's heart?"

 "Had, you mean. I lost that before we ever got a divorce."

 "I don't think so, I've seen the way he gets lost in thought sometimes, and he hasn't taken any relationship seriously since then, he's become so lost emotionally."

 "You think he's still in love with me?"

 "Somewhere deep down, yeah, I think he does."

 "I'm sorry, Ran," Kaito shook his head sadly, "Our marriage failed because we were never in love, we were just young and stupid, Shinichi made that perfectly clear. We will never be in a relationship again, so if you came out here trying to set us up, it's not going to happen."

 "And that's okay," Ran said, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder, "From what I heard from Aoko, and from my extensive knowledge of Shinichi, I just think the two of you should meet up and make up. Even if you weren't meant to be married, leaving a relationship in such a terrible way is a heavy weight to bear for the rest of your life."

 "You want us to see one another?"

 "Yeah, just meet up, switch us back, and try to resolve whatever left a bad taste in your mouth, I'm not asking you to get back together."

 "'Switch us back'? So Aoko has been hanging out with Shinichi the whole time you've been here? I can't say I'm too surprised. Does he know?"

 "Of course!" Ran lied, he couldn't know about the engagement. "He really wants to make up, too."

 "Really?" There was a hopeful look in his eyes, Ran nodded in confirmation.

 "So, you aren't mad about this?" Ran questioned, the guilt of it all weighing on her mind.

 "Of course not." Kaito looked at her with such tenderness, such kindness, that she knew no matter what happened between him and Shinichi that she wasn't going to let Kaito stop being her friend, if that's what they were, hopefully. "Ran, I've wanted to meet you for years now, the way Shinichi smiled when he talked about you, I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life if I never got the chance to become your friend." Ran felt joyful tears well up in her eyes and she pulled Kaito into a tight hug. "So," he said, wiping a few tears from his eyes, "How are we getting you home."

 Aoko was going to lose. Her. Mind. Midori was the text-book two-face. After she returned to the table, having calmed down after calculating their next move, Shinichi excused himself to the bathroom, giving Midori a kiss before he left, gross.

 "So, are you in love with him?" Midori asked as soon as Shinichi was out of earshot.

 "What? No! Of course not! He's been my best friend since we were little!"

 "Oh, come on," Midori looked at her like she was something that belonged in the trash, "You look like you need his money, and marriage is the perfect way to get to it. I'm sure you were banking on the fact he was never going to get married, so you would just suggest you two do so "as friends". Well too bad sugar, I beat you to the punch."

 "So you only want him because he's rich?" Aoko had to control her anger, she didn't want to make a scene.

 "Oh no, of course not! Not only is he rich, but he's also incredibly handsome. Great arm candy for someone like me. Plus, he's busy so often that he is barely around, meaning I can practically do what I want."

 "You're disgusting," Aoko spat, "There is no way in hell Shinichi is going to marry you."

 "Oh darling, but he is." Midori sat back, a smirk across her lips. "He feels so pressured by you and his family to get married, the boy is desperate, he won't believe a word you say about me." Her voice was sickeningly sweet with pseudo-affection. "My poor Shinichi just wants a pretty wife he can show off to his mama to make her happy. And that's just what I am!"

 "I think I'll go," Aoko replied coolly, standing just as Shinichi returned to the table.

 "Ran, what's wrong, did something happen?" The concern in his eyes made Aoko want to shake some sense into him then and there, but she knew Midori was right, Shinichi was desperate, she could see it in the way he was constantly looking over at her over to make sure he still had her approval, and how he clung so tightly to Midori, as if she would decide to get up and leave any second.

 "No, Shinichi, everything is fine, I just forgot I promised to go see Dad tonight, I'll leave the two of you to a romantic dinner, have fun!" Aoko walked away before Shinichi could stop her, storming all the way back home. It didn't matter whether or not she could convince Shinichi that this marriage was a terrible idea, Shinichi was a grown man, he could decide that for himself, all she needed to do was make him see Kaito again.

 God bless Shinichi and his air-tight dedication to his friends. He, of course, insisted on bringing "Ran" with them to look at the venue for their wedding, which must have upset Midori judging by the constant glares Aoko was receiving, thankfully, she knew how to keep a poker face. She could feel the anticipation of the day welling up, a mixture of nerves and excitement. Now knowing both boys, she was hoping this little reunion ended with at least reconciliation and friendship, not that she would complain if they became something more.

 Shinichi wandered off, leaving the two girls alone, trying to find the person who was showing them around the hotel today. Aoko controlled her breathing, promising herself to maintain Ran's cool composure, even when left alone with Shinichi's vile fiancée. "This is the worst." Midori was the first one to break the silence. "Not only does Shinichi decide on some cheap hotel to hold our wedding in, but he just has to bring along a charity case."

 "I'm sorry?" Aoko replied, the reins on her temper slipping ever so slightly.

 "Oh come on, you know it's true. Why else would Shinichi keep you around? Helping the poor is an easy way to feel better about yourself. He probably just chose this hotel so you wouldn't feel so bad about yourself." She didn't make eye contact with Aoko, just stood there, looking bored, doing something on her phone while she waited for Shinichi to get back. "I'll just make him cut ties after we're married, happy wife, happy life." She muttered the last part to herself, but still loud enough that Aoko could hear. Aoko was about to retort when her phone buzzed.

 Plane landed, be there soon. Thank the heavens, the cavalry was here. Why should Aoko be the one to tear this girl to ruins when she can let Ran do it herself, it would be such a delight. Armed with this comfort, Aoko was able to maintain her composure. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, Midori."

 "I'm back!" Shinichi called, half-jogging his way back over to the girls before either of them could say anything more. "Is everything okay, Midori?" The girl had a pitiful look on her face, classic crocodile tears.

 "It's nothing," she sniffled, wiping away a non-existent tear, "Ran just said something about me just being another fling." Shinichi looked at Aoko with confusion and hurt in his eyes.

 "Ran wouldn't say something like that," Shinichi said, a twinge of doubt in his voice, "You probably just misunderstood something she said, right, Ran?"

 "Of course!" Aoko replied, a bit too defensively, "I said absolutely nothing of the kind to her!"

 "And now she's saying I'm a liar." Midori sniffled some more, achieving in actually producing a few tears. "You don't think I'm a liar, do you Shinichi?"

 "Of course I don't," Shinichi replied, a soft look on his face that Aoko absolutely hated. "I'm sure this was all one big misunderstanding. Now, let's go see that ballroom, okay?" Midori gave a pitiful nod and Shinichi took her hand. Aoko screamed inwardly.

 Ran was so nervous she was going to be sick. Her stomach was twisting in all sorts of knots, but when she looked at Kaito, she knew he had it worse. He was pale, and jittery, his foot tapping wildly in the back of the taxi they were taking to the hotel. He must have looked through his bag five times before he finally allowed Ran to pull him away from baggage claim. Now, he was just talking to himself, mumbling all kinds of undecipherable phrases that Ran thought better then to attempt to understand. Frankly speaking, he was a mess. When they finally pulled up to the hotel, Ran had to physically pull Kaito from the backseat. "I'm not ready!" Kaito shouted, desperately clinging to the taxi door. "I'm not presentable!"

 "That's why we have a room!" Ran shouted back, pulling just shy of full strength, not wanting to pull his arm out of its socket. "But you won't have time to get presentable if you don't get a move on!" That seemed to make sense to Kaito's scrambled brain, as he suddenly dashed forward to reception, all of their bags in tow. Apologizing to the driver and paying the fare, Ran made her way in. Just in time to see the door closing on an elevator with Kaito in it. Fantastic. "Room 412!" He shouted, thinking to give her the room number, but not hold the elevator. What a mess. With a sigh, she walked over to the elevator, requesting the next car, when the other one opened. A woman walked right into her.

 "Oh," the woman said, looking disgusted, "I thought you were still looking at that hideous reception room with Shinichi."

 "What?" Ran eloquently replied, the woman was wearing an expensive looking dress hugging her fit figure, clearly trying to show it off. Her face was scrunched into a disgusting scowl, but it was evident she was  pretty.

 "Of course you wouldn't think so," the woman's face turned to boredom, "Well, if Shinichi is so set on it, I don't care. I just want to get this over with." That informal way of addressing Shinichi, her good looks, the deplorable aura she was giving off.

 "Midori?"

 "What?" The woman snapped. Well, Ran knew her best friend's fiancée now. Ran was thankful Aoko decided they should wear matching outfits today, she hadn't planned on meeting Midori so soon.

 "Nothing," Ran said.

 "Well, go do something useful and go find Shinichi for me." She pulled out her phone and checked her head for stray hairs, completely ignoring Ran's existence. Bless Aoko and her willpower.

 "Sure thing," Ran said, making her way on to the elevator as quickly as possible. Midori stood there for half a beat more, missing the person who came out of the elevator, a messy-haired magician who was looking around guiltily for the person he had abandoned in the lobby, but didn't miss her finace walking toward her, he himself unaware of the other man in the lobby.

 "Babe! There you are! What took you so long?" She cooed, draping herself over the man as they walked into the elevator together.

 "Sorry, Ran was really invested in the kinds of lights that would look best in the room, she went to the bathroom, but she'll come up in a minute."

 "Ah, too bad, guess we'll just have to have some alone time." Midori leaned in and Shinichi kissed her without a beat, when he pulled back, as the elevator doors closed, he could have sworn he saw... No, it couldn't have been.

 Kaito, in his own right, was equally confused. He saw Shinichi, far too early, he wasn't presentable, but Shinichi was also making out in an elevator and looked very confused when he looked up and saw Kaito. He needed to talk to Ran, who was, thankfully walking out of the bathroom at that moment. "There you are," he said, grabbing her hand and dragging her toward the elevator. "Sorry about ditching you, but I'm just really nervous," he kept rambling as they got on, "and I really need to talk to you about something because I don't think you gave me the whole truth there," the elevator dinged and he pulled her out and toward her room, "because I just saw Shinichi and-" and there was Ran, sitting in front of the room, but Ran, when he looked behind him, was also being dragged behind him, a surprised look on her face. Kaito sighed, unlocked the door, and walked into the room. The girls walking in silently behind him.

 "Um, hey?" One greeted as if it was a question, he couldn't really tell which one it was, which made him feel better about not realizing that he spent two weeks with a stranger, but he assumed it was Aoko, the real Aoko. He walked over to the bed and flopped face first into a pillow; this might be the weirdest day of his life. "It's nice to see you, too." A weight settled on the bed next to him, and a hand started running through his hair, yeah, definitely Aoko.

 "You have the worst ideas." Kaito gave her an evil look, which made her giggle. He missed her.

 "I thought it was a great idea, so did Ran." He glared at the other girl now, she was an accomplice after all.

 "Hey!" She said, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at him in return, "Hanging out with me wasn't all that bad, mister 'I didn't realize you weren't my best friend.'"

 "We can't all be a detective!" Kaito retorted. "Speaking of, he doesn't know I'm here, does he?" The girls had the gall to look sheepish. "Well, know it makes sense why he was making out with a girl in the elevator. I can't believe you brought me here when he's with his girlfriend!"

 "Fiancée," Aoko said, voice soft.

 "What?"

 "Not his girlfriend, his fiancée."

 "You brought me here, unbeknownst to Shinichi, while he's here with his fiancée? Why on Earth would you think that's a good idea?"

 "Because she is the absolute worst!" Aoko yelled, flopping down next to Kaito. "She's rude, and snobby, and completely wrong for Shinichi! He absolutely can't marry her!" Ran nodded in solidarity.

 "Shinichi is a grown man!" Kaito sat up, hurt by this new revelation." "He can decide who he wants to marry, and I certainly have no say in his decision."

 "What I said back in Paris hasn't changed," Ran spoke up, "I'm not trying to set you up with him, I just want the two of you to make up." Kaito sat quiet for a moment, letting all of this madness settle in.

 "Fine," Kaito finally said, "I don't like how you went about this, but I'm here now, and it won't kill me to just say hi."

 "I'm glad you agree, oh, and Shinichi doesn't know I'm not Ran."

 "Seriously?" Kaito looked sceptical, "You've spent two weeks with him and he never noticed a thing?"

 "Nope, he just thinks Ran is having an identity crisis," Aoko joked, which prompted a "Hey!" from Ran.

 "Ha! The Great Detective has lost his touch!" Kaito burst into a fit of giggles. "Fooled by the great Nakamori Aoko! He'll retire for sure once you tell him."

 "I can't wait to see the look on his face," Aoko giggled too, and soon, the whole room was laughing at how absurd the whole situation was. They calmed down after a solid couple of minutes of laughter. "I think it's time we go clue in the detective."

 Shinichi was getting worried about Ran, he hadn't seen her since she left for the bathroom, and it had been a little over an hour since then. Midori had begged him to come with her to look at the pool, but he was too distracted to really give it any thought. He was probably over thinking the whole thing anyway; the stress must be getting to him, especially considering he saw... Yeah, the stress was definitely getting to him.

 He sighed, looking around the pool; Midori sat down in a lounge chair and said something about ordering a drink. "I'm just going to take a quick walk," he said, not really hearing her reply. He wandered around the edge of the pool when something caught his eye on the other side.

 Shinichi wasn't crazy. It really was him. Here, in Japan, at this hotel, the very same day he was here with the woman he was going to marry. What were the odds? Staring at him in wonder, Shinichi started making his way through the dense crowd toward him, giving out half-hearted 'excuse me's and not watching where he was going, which, of course, meant he fell into the pool.

 There was a splash, and it took Shinichi a second to realize what had happened. He stood up, thankfully it was the shallow end, and wiped the water off of his face. His suit was soaked, and it would be miserable to walk around in for the rest of the day, the light gray now shades darker. Looking up, there he stood. His eyes as mirthful as he remembered, although that was most likely due to what an idiot Shinichi looked like at the moment.

 "Would you like some help, Great Detective?" he asked, one corner of his mouth pulling up just a pinch more than the other. Shinichi stood there, still in the water, just staring at him, before he realized the other was offering a hand to pull him out. Shinichi took it and was soon face to face with him. "Hey," he said, casually, like they hadn't spent the past five years apart with absolutely no contact. Shinichi was just glad he didn't seem angry.

 "Hey, Shinichi answered back, a smile unconsciously making its way onto his face."I think I need a towel." That made him laugh, a soothing, magical sound, like wind chimes on a bright summers day.

 "Yeah, I think you do." He led Shinichi over to a towel stand, throwing one over the detective's head and scrubbing furiously. Shinichi sat on a chair and relaxed as the other worked his magic.

 "It's been a while," he said meekly, glad the towel hid his face. "I haven't seen you in, what, five years?"

 "Just a little bit over, yeah." He stopped scrubbing and brought the towel down to rest on Shinichi's neck. "It's really good to see you, Shinichi."

 "It's good to see you ,too, Kaito." The name felt strange on his tongue, heavy from the disuse. "Congratulations on the upcoming special."

 "You knew about that?"

 "Of course, it's another step closer to your dream. Just because we aren't together anymore doesn't mean I don't support you."

 "I- um, thank you. That means a lot." A light blush dusted his cheeks and Shinichi felt his heart skip a beat. What was he doing? He was engaged now; he shouldn't harbor these kinds of feelings. Kaito made it clear a long time ago that he didn't feel the same way; they just weren't supposed to be a couple.

 "Oh my gosh!" Shinichi looked over to see Midori, she had a drink in one hand and pushed her sunglasses up with the other. "You're Kuroba Kaito! That upcoming magician! I called your manager, like, yesterday to see if you could be the entertainment for my wedding, but he said you were away on personal business. It is such a coincidence that you're here! And you've already met my groom-to-be! In fact, Shinichi, do you know one another?" Her voice was sugar sweet, excitement coloring her features. Shinichi winced; this was going to be awkward.

 "Shinichi! Are you alright!"It was Ran, concern on her features. Great, now he had to introduce Ran to Katio, like confessing he was married to his fiancée wasn't enough, now he had to admit to his best friend that he had gotten married with her knowledge.

 "That looked pretty bad, Shinichi. You aren't hurt, are you?" Ran said, but Ran's lips never moved. From behind Ran, came...Ran.

 When Shinichi fell into the pool, like the oblivious fool he is, Aoko had to hold Ran back from going to check on him. He had fallen in because he was too focused on Kaito, after all. Aoko hadn't planned for them to meet up like this, but having them interact more naturally was definitely the smarter option. It lead to the two of them talking, and, sure, the girls couldn't hear what they were saying, but it looked like it was going well. They weren't arguing, at least. Then, of course, Midori came over and it was time to intervene. Ran ran over to them first, still concerned about Shinichi's well being, and Aoko followed not far behind. The look on Shinichi's face was absolutely priceless, but the mixture of confusion and outrage on Midori's face, doubly so.

 "There are TWO of you?!" She yelled, drawing a few unsavory looks. "Shinichi, why didn't you tell me there are TWO of them?" Shinichi just looked between Aoko and Ran, his "detective" face scrutinizing each of them thoroughly. Finally, he pointed at Ran.

 "You're the real one," was his eloquent answer. The girls shared a look and burst out laughing.

 "Yeah, Shinichi, I'm the real one," Ran replied through her giggles.

 "Shinichi!" Midori whined, "What is going on! Are you pulling some kind of prank on me."

 "No," Shinichi replied, keeping his eyes on the two girls, "but I think one was pulled on me."

 "Ooo, someone got busted," Kaito teased.

 "I think we should go somewhere else. Midori," Shinichi finally turned to his finacee, "You should go, you can't be late to that shoot this evening, I'm just going to grab dinner with Ran and... the others."

 "Okay, Shinichi," Midori huffed, "just make sure you call me tonight." She pulled his chin up so she could give him a deep kiss before she left. Aoko knew she did it just so she could prove to everyone there that she was the one who was engaged to Shinichi, and Aoko had to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. Once she walked away, Shinichi turned his focus back on Ran and herself.

 "Seriously, we need to talk."

 "Good thing I made dinner reservations," Aoko smirked.

 Aoko, ever the schemer, had decided that the best way for the boys to reconnect was to make them have a romantic dinner. So, of course, she reserved a table at the restaurant atop the Beika tower as soon as she learned Kaito and Ran were flying back to Japan. Ran thought Aoko deserved an award for all of the effort she was putting into this thing.

 "Really, Aoko, we could have just gone to a family restaurant. I don't see why you needed to make this such a big event," Kaito whined, looking very embarrassed by the whole situation. Ran and Aoko had rushed to take chairs next to one another, forcing the boys to sit shoulder to shoulder.

 "Because I wanted something fancy," Aoko said, as if it was an excuse she used quite often, and the way Kaito rolled his eyes and accepted it seemed to confirm it.

 "Well, I hope you know that I'm not going to pay for any of this," Shinichi huffed, his arms crossed and just a twinge of annoyance on his face. "And I still want answers; don't think you can get out of this."

 "We know," Aoko said with a roll of her eyes, "Just let us order first and then we'll explain."

 Shinichi sat, annoyed, until the waiter came by and took their order. Ran hated seeing him look so angry, especially when it was with her. She never wanted to hurt his feelings, she genuinely thought she was doing what was best for him, she still did. As soon as the waiter walked away, Shinichi pounced. "Spill, why do you have a doppelganger and how long have I spent with them? And you," he turned to Kaito, "How long have you known about this?" Kaito put his hands up in a "I had nothing to do with this" kind of way".

 "Well, Aoko and I met at a cafe and got to talking. At first we were just surprised at how similar we looked, and then we got to talking. Eventually, I mentioned you and I showed Aoko this picture," Ran said, pulling out the folded up half of the wedding photo. Shinichi took it from her and unfolded it with a gasp.

 "I completely forgot I gave this to you," Shinichi said, his eyes still scanning the picture of his smiling face.

 "And when I saw that, I showed Ran this," Aoko added, handing Shinichi her half of the photo. Shinichi held the two halves together, looking at the complete photo. Kaito leaned in to look as well, and the expression on both of their faces made it clear just how happy a memory the picture held. It reminded Ran of when she and Aoko first saw the whole photo, it was like something had clicked and they knew that the two were perfect complements. Even looking at the two of them now, it seems so natural to see them together that Ran wondered what it would be like to see them as a couple.

 "Knowing that our best friend had hidden something so huge from us, we had to meet the other, so we came up with a plan. I was leaving to meet Kaito in Paris in a week, so we had to work fast."

 "Wait," Kaito interrupted, pulling his focus back to the girls, "You met each other, came up with a plan, and learned to confidently pretend to be one another well enough to fool their childhood best friend in a week?"

 "What, like it's hard?" Ran asked, her voice innocent. Shinichi burst out laughing and Kaito looked adequately flustered. "Anyway, I left for Paris instead of Aoko while Aoko spent time with you. We got to spend a good two weeks together before Aoko called to tell me that you got engaged. At that point I decided it was the best time to tell Kaito who I was and to fly back here."

 "And for the record," Kaito interrupted again, "Ran told me that you had also been informed, I didn't know you didn't know until earlier today."

 "Yes, and we're sorry," Aoko added.

 "So, did you or did you not do all of this so Kaito and I would get back together."

 "Not," Aoko immediately replied, "Ran and I just felt it necessary to know the person our best friend was married to." Aoko said it with a little bite in her voice and the boys had enough sense to look guilty.

 "We wanted too," Shinichi said, "but after the divorce, we didn't think we would see one another again. It didn't seem like it was important."

 "Of course it was important, Shinichi!" Ran looked furious. "You never told me you were dating anyone let alone got married. Why wouldn't you think that would be important? And then you got so sad after what I now know to be the time of your divorce. Shinichi, I was so worried about you and you told me nothing." Angry tears were pooling in Ran's eyes, so she got up from the table to go calm down in the restroom, Aoko hot on her heels, but not after a scathing look at the two very guilty looking boys.

 "Well, that's not how I was hoping the evening would go," Kaito said with a forced laugh in a feeble attempt to lighten the mood. "I think we really messed up, Shinichi."

 "Yeah, we really did."

 "They really are to smart for their own good," Kaito said with another laugh, this one more genuine. "Of course they would pick the restaurant we had our first date at, although I don't think they knew that."

 "It is one hell of a coincidence, especially since this is the same table."

 "You remembered?"

 "Of course I did," Shinichi said with a huff, "I wouldn't forget something like that,"

 "You forgot a lot of other things," Kaito mumbled, taking a sip of water.

 "I know I did, and I am so, so sorry." Shinichi met his gaze, trying to convey just how genuine he was. Kaito let out a sigh and grabbed his hand.

 "I know you are, and I forgive you, I always forgave you. It doesn't mean it didn't hurt."

 "That's why we got divorced."

 "That among other things," Kaito said lightly, "one of which was my constant use of you as a guinea pig for my new tricks."

 "As long as you acknowledge it, I mean, there was one week where you ran at least five by me every day."

 "Aw, you kept track?" Kaito teased.

 "I kept track of all of your tricks, I still have the notebook with all my feedback if you want." Kaito lost his words, he didn't think Shinichi had actually really cared about his magic career.

 "That would be wonderful."

 "I'm glad," Shinichi smiled, "I'll have to give it to you before you fly back to Paris."

 "We'll have to do something nice for them," Kaito said, gesturing to the empty side of the table, "I don't think I would have ever worked up the nerve to talk to you again if they hadn't done this."

 "You're right," Shinichi agreed, "Not that I'm happy about this whole situation, but they did do it with good intentions."

 "Unfortunately, I don't think they will accept any apology under the value of a thousand dollars."

 Everyone parted in good graces for the night, agreeing to meet back up tomorrow morning at Shinichi's house for breakfast.

 Which, of course, was a disaster because Midori just had to be there. Breakfast was a sacred tradition between Ran and Shinichi, they made sure that they met for it at least once a month, and anyone who knew them knew that intruding without an invitation was an egregious sin. When Shinichi opened his door to her, it was obvious that he hadn't invited her, yet he still let her in. This ticked Ran off more than anything else the girl had done.

 "Good morning, everyone!" Midori said with a sugar sweet voice. "I hope you don't mind me joining you! Shinichi told me you guys were meeting up this morning and as his fiancée, I just have to know more about his friends." Ran glanced over at Aoko and Kaito, who were sharing one side of the table, Kaito had a courteous smile on his face while Aoko made no attempt to hide her eye roll.

 "It's a pleasure to see you again Ms. Kyoya," Kaito said, although the formality was strange to Ran's ears. It was clear Kaito didn't feel comfortable around the woman. Midori was, of course, completely oblivious and quickly took the seat across from him, leaning in to his space.

 "Midori," Shinichi said, almost pushing the woman out of Kaito's space with what looked to Ran like a worried look in Kaito's direction. "Kaito is still a bit jet-lagged, try to go easy on him." The smile he gave his fiancée was one he would give a small child, trying to tell them what they were doing was impolite.

 "I was just chatting, Shinichi," Midori wrinkled her nose at him, "I want to know why you would invite a magician to your 'special breakfast', but not your beloved fiancée?" Midori batted her doe eyes at Shinichi with a pout in her lip.

 "It's not that I didn't want to invite you," Shinichi said, averting his eyes from Midori's, a tell Ran recognized as him not telling the complete truth, he probably just forgot about her, "the four of us just have some things we still need to discuss."

 "Well, whatever you need to discuss can be after breakfast," Midori said in a huff, "I am starving, what we are having?"

 Breakfast was dominated by Midori's ceaseless chatter. The topics pertained to things Midori was interested in and the other people only responded when Midori prompted them. They weren't able to get a word in otherwise. After breakfast, as Ran told Aoko, Ran and Shinichi went shopping together, just wandering around a mall or street as they saw fit. And, of course, today was no different. Shinichi was just mentioning this to Midori when Kaito spoke up. "Shinichi, I'm really sorry, but I think it's about time I got going."

 "What?" Shinichi said with a looking like a kicked puppy, although Aoko doubted he himself knew it.

 "You clearly didn't know I was coming, and I don't want to bother you anymore than I already have. I think I could get a flight out soon, so I'm going to get out of your hair."

 "No!" Ran and Aoko stood and shouted at the same time. They shared a look, they knew something like this could happen, so they had made some plans.

 "You can't just tell me no," Kaito crossed his arms, a look of annoyance on his face, "I'm a grown man, I can make decisions for myself."

 "I disagree," Aoko crossed her arms and gave Kaito an equally as annoyed look. "Last time you made a decision without me you ended up leaving the country after having your heart broken."

 "I wasn't heartbroken." Kaito said, a blush rising to his cheeks, as well as a short glance at Shinichi.

 "I agree with Ran," Ran said, her voice falling into Aoko's cadence. The look on the boys' faces told her their plan would work.

 "At least I have Aoko on my side," Aoko said, walking around the table to give Ran a hug.

 "You too playing this game isn't going to stop me from leaving." Kaito said, his eyes darting back and forth, revealing that he doesn't actually know who is who.

 "No," they said in unison, "But us having this will." They held up a passport bearing the name of one Kuroba Kaito, magician extraordinaire.

 "Hey!" Kaito protested, standing up from the table, prompting the girls to hurry up the stairs and into the Kudou library. By the time Kaito caught up with them, he didn't find two girls in the library, he found one. Copy and pasted into an identical person. The clothes, hair, facial features, the girls had perfectly combined their two looks to make it impossible to differentiate between the two. Shinichi and Midori were on Kaito's heels and the looks on their faces made the girls feel all the more confident in their plan. "Give me back my passport." It was a command, and Kaito's voice was clearly angry.

 "Not until you can tell us apart," the girls said.

 "And I would be careful," Aoko smirked, "if you try to pick it off the wrong one, well, I'm not a karate champion for nothing."

 "Shinichi," Kaito turned to the detective, who was still searching the identical twins before him, "Can you please stop this nonsense."

 "I can't," Shinichi replied.

 "What do you mean you can't?"

 "I can't tell them apart."

 "Seriously detective? You could always see through my tricks but you can't tell two girls apart?"

 "I was only able to see through those tricks because I had time to think about it. Your tricks were elaborate, complicated puzzles that I had to take a lot of time to crack, compared to them," Shinichi gave Kaito a smirk, "these amateurs will be nothing."

 And so, it was decided that Shinichi would take the girls shopping in order to more closely study them. Midori, of course, wanted to tag along claiming that she could help. They made their way to a shop lined street that Ran and Shinichi frequent. He probably expected to pick out Ran from how she responded to different shops and items, but shopping habits had been one of the many things the girl's had trained on for their switch. Some things both responded to in a Ran way and others they did like Aoko, ensuring that Shinichi would still be confused.

 Shinichi kept leading them around to different shops, the girls revealing no hint as to who they are, Midori persuading Shinichi to buy something for her, and continuing to the next one for over an hour until Shinichi decided he needed a break. He wandered off to the nearest public restroom, leaving the twins and Midori by themselves. It was quiet for a moment before Midori shot the two a scathing look.

 "I have no idea why the two of you are doing this, it's quite pathetic."

 "I'm sorry," Ran asked, probably just to say something before Aoko could.

 "How you're desperately clinging to these guys? It's pathetic."

 "They're our friends," Aoko steamed.

 "Oh, sweetheart, you can drop the act in front of me, I mean, with how famous, and no doubt rich, Kuroba is, it's no wonder why you would so desperately try to keep him in the country. I'm sure you could just make him pay you for his passport. I'm still not quite sure why he's here and why Shinichi knows him, but it sure did seem like he wanted to leave. And as for Shinichi, well, I get it, he's quite the meal ticket, but I already have him in my pocket, so I'd really appreciate it if you girls would leave him alone."

 "I've known him since preschool," Ran said in a cold voice, "I'm not going to stop seeing my best friend just because he got married."

 "Honey, you need to understand," Midori gave Ran doe eyes, as if they could sugarcoat all of the vitriol coming out of her mouth, "Alongside such a high-class item like Shinichi, you're just an eyesore. I mean, you aren't rich or famous like the family Shinichi comes from, you just detract from his value."

 "Oh? I think the idea of increasing someone's 'value' by being associated with them is nonsense, but if I did, I definitely think I add more worth than you," Ran said with enough bite that it made Aoko shiver, "What do you think, Shinichi?"

 It was then that Aoko noticed Shinichi walking back over to their group, hanging up his cell and something Aoko hadn't seen before stirring in his eyes. Ran also produced her cellphone, showing the fact that she had just been on a call with Shinichi.

 "Darling!" Midori cried, already falling into character, "Can you believe these nasty girls would manipulate me like that? You know I would never say anything so horrid." Midori fluttered her lashes at him as if they would cast him into a trance, but the look of pure anger on his face held fast.

 "Midori, I could handle you only thinking of me as some kind of get-rich-quick or just some arm candy, but the fact you would try to pry the people who actually care about me out of my life is the line."

 "I would never! Shinichi, you can't think that I-"

 "I know exactly the kind of person you are. The only time you're being sincere is when you talk about money or about your career. Every time you attempt to compliment me or look interested in what I'm talking about, you twirl your hair and look down left. Quite a simple tell, really, you're far too used to relying on your looks to be able to have a good poker face." Midori's face was frozen in shock as she tried to start a coherent sentence. "I'm calling off the engagement." And with that, in the classic Kudou dramatic fashion, he motioned for the girls to follow and they left.

 Kaito was waiting just inside when they came back. He smiled when he saw Shinichi, but it quickly turned into a frown when the passport thieves trailed in after him, then it became slightly confused. "Where's Ms. Kudou-to-be?"

 "Gone," the girls said in unison, completely on accident this time.

 "What?" Kaito looked to Shinichi for answers.

 "I called off the engagement, it turns out I have and always will be terrible with relationships."

 "Oh, Shinichi," Kaito said in a soft voice, resting his hand on Shinichi's shoulder, "It's not your fault she was completely awful and superficial."

 "So you knew too?"

 "You didn't?"

 "I guess I just tried to overlook it," Shinichi sighed, flopping down on the couch."

 "Well, there's your problem," Kaito followed him over and sat on the arm of the sofa, gently running his fingers through Shinichi's hair, "You always try to find the best in people, even if it means overlooking the worst in them. I mean that's what you did with me."

 "Kaito, that wasn't the 'worst' in you!" Shinichi bolted upright, "I knew you had your reasons and you wouldn't-"

 "AHEM!" Aoko coughed, gaining the attention of the boys who had clearly forgotten where they were. "You still haven't won."

 "My passport!" Kaito suddenly remembered "Well... I don't think I can figure it out quite yet...maybe...I should stay a while?" Kaito asked, looking toward Shinichi.

 "Yeah, I think you should." The smile on Shinichi's face was more at ease than Ran had seen in a long, long time. And the look that passed between Ran and Aoko was one of knowing.

 Months later the same look passed between them as they stood on opposite sides of an altar. It only took a few weeks for Kaito and Shinichi to start dating again, with better understanding of who they were as people and how best to navigate a relationship, and only a few months after that they got engaged. And of course, this time, they actually asked Ran and Aoko to be their Maids of Honor. And so that's where Ran and Aoko stood while their two best friends walked down the aisle, in matching suits. Aoko had fussed at them that they had to wear something different or no one would be able to tell them apart. This, of course only made them laugh. And as the two reached the altar and looked at their best friends, they had the absolute audacity, fuss with their hair and switch sides, making everyone in attendance laugh at their antics and the two Maids of Honor groan at the knowledge that they would never let them live down the best plan in all of history.

[hencethebravery]

TITLE: Bad Vibes (1/1)

SUMMARY: Emma had tried to forget about her time with Neal for years, so it comes as something of a nasty shock when she suddenly finds herself unable to take a quick ride in her own car without thinking about all the unfortunate, emotionally traumatizing sex she’s had in it.

NOTES: For @stardustednymph for the Hub Secret Santa! I profusely apologize about the lateness of this. It had started out as one thing, and then became something entirely different after engaging in some life-changing conversation with @justanotherwannabeclassic and @distant-rose. I hope you like it! xo

This is a canon-divergent fic that takes place sometime during that S4 hiatus where most of us can agree Emma and Killian boned for the first time. As such, there is some mild sexual content.

Rather predictably (and not without a somewhat inevitable feeling of frustration), Emma Swan was one of those people who had never put much stock in the notion of “vibes.” She had a “freaking superpower,” according to Ruby, which allowed her to suss out the truth about people, but as soon as Ruby suggested that the same might be true of certain places, Emma had chuckled, as if it was some unheard of thing.

“Man, you can be the absolute worst sometimes, do you know that?”

Ruby often spoke in vaguely mean, hyperbolic jest; all the same, it could occasionally needle Emma, as she was, admittedly, one of the most sensitive assholes on the planet, and should anyone discover the truth she would, almost certainly, lose all physical form and melt back into the earth as God intended.

“Considering the fact that my ‘superpower’ has a near 100% success rate, I tend to think it’s more reliable than whatever you’re talking about.”

“Ya know, like, energy,” Ruby continues, attempting to drunkenly elaborate, “sometimes you just walk into a place and—” shuddering, “...you just know something fucked up happened there.”

“Do you?” Emma asks, both inebriated and skeptical in equal measure.

“Yes, bitch!” Ruby laughs, giving Emma a light punch to the shoulder. “It’s a thing. I swear.”

In the harsh light of painful, sobering day, she could silently admit to herself, that yeah, maybe Ruby had something like a point. Especially when she considered all those foster homes she’d been dumped in—those thin, foul-smelling mattresses she had slept on in miserable, state-funded orphanages.

Who slept here before me, she’d think, her small, frightened mind reeling. Were they scared? Were they here long? And would they, she anxiously wondered, pass their bad luck on to me?

The older and more stubborn Emma grew, the more her belief changed from, “I’m cursed, it’s hopeless” to, “Life is chaos, I’m gonna do whatever the hell I want and screw the rest.” So she did have to admit, somewhat reluctantly, that at one point in her life she had been something of a believer. When you’re a kid, the idea that the universe might have a plan for you could be comforting, but as an adult it just made you kind of angry and helpless, and if there was one thing Emma absolutely despised, it was helplessness.

“Do you think that a place can feel a certain way?”

Emma loved the diner when it was empty. Granny had, thankfully, after a very irritating half-hour grumbling about wanting to go to bed, given Emma the key and told her to lock up when they were done (not without a pointed and frankly, unnecessary, raise of her eyebrow). She relished the lack of eyes in her proximity; the idea that most of the town was asleep, that it was just her, Killian, and the soft sound of their voices.

“I rather tend to think so,” he replies after a moment’s silence, “why do you ask, love?”

“Just something Ruby said the other day.”

“Ah,” he says with a knowing smirk, “she can be a rather… creative woman, can she not?”

“It’s just—” she starts, trying to find the right words to explain her own muddled thoughts, which seem to have become more and more contradictory these days. “How is it that I could see, and—and know about so many improbable… things and still find it within myself to be so… so—”

“Stubborn?” he interrupts, still with the grin she simultaneously adored and despised.

“Ugh,” she groans, smacking a hand over her eyes (and hopefully her flushed cheeks).

“None of that now, Swan,” he says gently, tugging her hand away from her face, “you are far too hard on yourself.”

“You’d just think I’d have gotten over myself by now.”

“While I might not know precisely what she said, I suppose I can hazard a guess,” he surmises, taking a healthy sip of his coffee.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Clearly.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, her heart growing lighter in the face of his indomitable optimism when it came to her. Lord knows he had a dark streak, but should she ever dare to fall down the rabbit hole herself, it was as if he became temporarily possessed by Snow White Brain (if not without a healthy dose of reality that she treasured).

“You’re an obstinate woman to be sure,” he begins with a touch more sincerity, “but never let it be said that it was one of the things to dislike about you.”

Finding the prospect of gracefully accepting a compliment too daunting, she could only scoff. “You mean there are things to dislike about me?”

“Swan.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she blushes, pushing some errant hairs behind her ear. “I just can’t help but think that I’m making things harder than they need to be.”

“Well—”

“Shut. Up.”

In a manner befitting a man as absurdly eloquent as Killian, he allows their mutual laughter to dissolve before blindsiding her with a more serious comment, her name falling off his tongue with a stern gentleness.

“Emma, any halfway intelligent person would be able to understand why. It’s not shocking that you might be slow to act in matters of faith.”

“Even after all this time?”

“What, two years, Swan? If that?”

She shrugs. Like Ruby, she knew that he had a point, logically, and in contrast to the first 28 years of her life, it hadn’t been that long since she had learned about this whole other world; this whole other life, but she couldn’t turn off the part of her brain that was insisting otherwise—the part that kept replaying Ruby’s throwaway comment over and over again.

“Hey,” he says softly, his hand coming to rest atop hers, “try not to fret, Swan, you’ll get there.”

“Promise?”

He sits back, a finger running back and forth across his chest. “Cross my heart, darling.”

With her multiple insecurities momentarily quelled, she was finally able to focus on the topic of places and how they “felt.” Granted, most of the places in town were relatively new to her, and she wasn’t planning on going back to her apartment in Boston anytime soon, which left her with one conceivable “place” in which she might test Ruby’s theory. Arguably once considered to be her home, her car had seen more of her life than most people, and as she sat in the driver’s seat one particularly cold morning, her lips turning blue waiting for the heat to kick in, she found herself thinking of only one, miserable thing: She’d had truly regrettable sex with Neal in this car.

Her brain couldn’t be counted on for much, but at least it could be relied upon to obsess on one seemingly inconsequential detail until she felt physically sick about it. It was becoming nearly impossible to drive a few minutes to the store without thinking about her ill-advised sexcapades in the back or front seat of her car. She’d been intimate with other people aside from Neal, but considering how important he was to the story of her life—the amount of pain he ultimately caused, it was those particular trysts that seemed to have indefinitely baptized the thing in her mind.

Killian’s shoved half a glazed donut into his face when she says it.

“So, I’m pretty sure my car has bad sex vibes.”

He coughs, as elegantly as he can, obviously, and spares her a droll look of surprise.

“Excuse me?”

“Remember when were talking about how places can feel a certain way?” She pauses, maybe he needs more of a reminder. “I had a... mild existential crisis?”

“...Sure.”

“I was thinking about it and I think my car might be one of those things.”

“Do you mean to tell me you were able to… in that… contraption? My God, Swan, the sheer… agility that would require.”

Was he being serious? “You’re a pirate.”

“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Clearing her throat, she feels herself begin to fidget and wonders if she hasn’t gone horribly wrong somewhere. “Anyway, you can, and I have, and it was with Neal, multiple times, and now it’s the only goddamn thing I can think about.”

It’s only after she’s brought it up that she feels mild regret. After all, they’ve both refrained from engaging in that particular act themselves, and now here she is, talking about sex with her problematic ex. They are friends, right? They can talk about stuff like this.

At his silence, she flushes, tugs her sleeves over wrists. “Sorry, if that makes you uncomfortable, I just��yeah.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I just, um, I don’t, uh—”

For someone who often struggled to keep his thoughts to himself, it was somehow both worrying and charming that he seemed to be so at a loss for what to say. Probably struggling with not wanting to suggest or imply sex with him, while also being sensitive to the possibility that it’s not an appropriate conversational segue and if anyone is going to be mentioning sex-having in this relationship it should be her, and the poor guy can’t even seem to finish the donut he’d been so excited to eat only moments before.

“I know that you probably have some gentlemanly idea in your head of how… ‘us,’ will be,” her words come out in a rush, and she is aghast at the sudden onset of loudmouth bravery she seems to be conjuring, “but I really need to get this car thing taken care of. I have too much going on to not be able to drive my car.”

He looks somewhat offended, which, rightfully so. “How romantic, Swan.”

“No, that’s not—” she tugs on her hair, suddenly not so proud of the straightforwardness she had just miraculously exhibited. “I promise that’s not the only reason, I want to take that step with you, but ya know, we’re not like… blushing virgins. It doesn’t need to be…”

“...Special? Again, Swan, never have I felt so spectacularly wooed.”

This was not going the way she had intended, and with every word that passes through her lips she feels herself sinking further and further away from the point, which is that—

“The Bug is important to me. You’re important to me. I want one of the few places I’ve called mine to be… mine.”

A gentle look of understanding finally crosses his features and she breathes a quiet sigh of relief. Of the many traits she’s come to admire about Killian Jones, his ability to translate unintelligible Emma speak is one of her very favorites.

They make the somewhat treacherous journey to a small clearing that overlooks the town. Not many people know of it, and she feels confident that they won’t be stumbled upon in one of the absolutely nosiest towns on the planet. It’s a bit difficult to get started at first, not that lack of passion was ever one of their problems, but the whole idea of driving somewhere specifically to do it creates all kinds of awkward roadblocks to the moment itself.

It’s only after she’s climbed into his lap and accidentally tapped the horn with her foot that they manage to laugh and forget about any lingering awkwardness that comes naturally with first times. She thanks God and whomever else might be listening that he’s modernized his wardrobe, if only for the fact that getting him out of leather pants in such a small space was unimaginable.

Her heart races in a pleasant way she had forgotten was possible, and despite the fact that she can recall this kind of agile maneuvering being easier as a younger person, she can’t remember it being quite this good. Clumsiness and all.

By some miracle of physiology she does manage to speak while he’s still inside of her, which is, given the impending orgasm she’s about to have, astounding.

“N-not as difficult as you were imagining, Captain?”

And, Jesus, she needs to start exercising more. She should not be this breathless. What kind of overcome, fairytale princess is she? There’s a slight lift of his hips in response, and she curls her fingers tighter, somehow, into the fabric of his leather-clad shoulders.

“Not quite so,” breathing the words against her neck, his own fingers applying a bit more pressure to the bare skin of her waist.

In the fleeting slowness before she’s totally lost her senses, she manages to open her eyes long enough to catch a glimpse of the empty backseat—impossibly neat, when years before it had been filled with blankets, canned goods, spare cash—Neal. It seems to her a vision, a brief moment of clarity in which she watches the dregs of her home; her youth, disappear. She realizes, with the smell of Killian overwhelming her every thought, the feel of his hand on her skin, that she has somehow forgotten what Neal had felt like, and suddenly her past is precisely that. Past.

“Alright?” he whispers, his hand coming up to give her neck a tender squeeze.

“Better,” she answers, sleepy and smiling, wondering in the back of her head if she can convince him to be a little less chivalrous for the moment and finish. She’s actually surprised at herself, most of the time she couldn’t really be bothered either way. But he knows what she means to say before she says it, he says what she needs to hear before she even realizes she needs to hear it, and never in her life has she been made to feel this precious—not to be that person, but… if she were to need a metaphor, she imagines it’d have to be something along the lines of treasure hunting, which feels lazy, but it’s not as if she’s ever claimed to be a poet.

She moves, rising and falling, pulling his ear lobe between her teeth, and she feels his chivalry slip with a satisfying gasp.

“So, you might’ve had a point.”

Unlike Killian, Ruby rather inelegantly chokes on the frozen margarita she’s been rapidly sucking through her straw as if someone was about to steal it from her.

“Uh… about?”

“How places have certain vibes.”

“Oh?” Ruby asks, looking unbearably smug, “What changed your mind?”

“I don’t know,” she answers innocently, her mind straying to fogged up windows and stiff necks. “I just gave it some thought and decided that maybe you weren’t full of total shit.”

“Wow, thank you so much for your generosity, Emma. I’m sure that was very hard for you.”

The two of them laugh, and drink, and Emma is reminded once again of how grateful she is to have friends. To have a night out. To have a home to go back to, and a warm bed to sleep in. She thinks about the yellow Bug parked outside—all of its lovely dents and scratches; it’s small imperfections that have led her here, to this place, and these people. And now, when she looks in the rearview mirror it’s not the pangs of first love she feels, but the warm, blossoming hope of the future.

[bbclesmis]

Lily Collins on overshadowing dad Phil, beating anorexia and starring in the BBC's Les Misérables

As one of the defining voices of the 1980s and a man who remains one of the world’s bestselling artists, it would have been easy for Collins to overshadow his multitalented daughter’s success. Certainly, when I first interviewed Lily five years ago for the romcom Love, Rosie, she was still being defined not just by her famous father, but the Audrey Hepburn-esque looks that had won her modelling contracts as a teenager living in LA.

Since we last saw each other, Lily has redefined herself on her own terms. And when UK audiences are treated to her nuanced, poignant portrayal of Cosette’s desperate mother, Fantine, in the lavish new six-part BBC adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, they won’t see Phil Collins’s daughter but a remarkable British-born talent at the top of her game.

‘I had a few friends in the musical version, and I was so keen to play this part in what’s a very different adaptation,’ says Lily of the role that won Anne Hathaway an Oscar – a role she begged producers to be allowed to audition for, so desperate was she to be involved.

That the director, Tom Shankland, had decided against his being a musical adaptation meant the all-star cast – including Dominic West as Jean Valjean, David Oyelowo as Javert and Olivia Colman as Madame Thénardier – were able to return to Hugo’s original characters, she says. ‘And getting to work through the whole arc of Fantine’s life was incredible. Although in fact the death scene was filmed on day two,’ she adds with a side smile. ‘So it was a case of, “Hi, nice to meet you – I’m about to die”.’

Crushed and betrayed by a pitiless society that demands the most from those to whom it gives the least, Fantine’s character is emblematic of so much. During the six-month shoot in Belgium and northern France, Lily found filming in minus-13C Brussels gruelling (‘I grew up in England, so I should know about cold – but this was something else’), but says it helped put her in the right state of mind.

‘My lips started to go blue and I began to shake. Even in my breaks I wouldn’t keep my jacket on for too long because I had to be at a level of discomfort that I hadn’t experienced before.’ And when a degraded and desperate Fantine is dragged through the snow wearing minimal clothing, ‘I was able to let go and be that vulnerable. It’s those parts that are the most fulfilling: that’s when you can see what you’re made of.’

Lily’s early roles were hardly inconsequential. She starred alongside Sandra Bullock in the Oscar-winning 2009 film The Blind Side, and with Julia Roberts in Mirror Mirror in 2012. But it wasn’t until 2013 with her portrayal of Clary Fray in the film adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s bestselling cult fantasy series The Mortal Instruments that Lily seemed to come into her own.

There was a concerted move towards tragic, multi-layered heroines like heartbroken Cecilia Brady in Amazon Prime’s The Last Tycoon in 2016, and recovering anorexic Ellen in Marti Noxon’s To the Bone the following year, and I wonder whether it was the writing of her startlingly honest 2017 memoir, Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, that marked the start of Lily’s real evolution.

Five years ago a sweet, wholesome and reticent young woman in dungarees and Dr Martens boots had assured me that prudence had ‘always been my natural feeling’. And yet, outing herself as someone real and flawed in her memoir – someone who had suffered from a debilitating eating disorder as well as self-confidence and relationship issues – was anything but prudent. ‘Writing the book helped me let go of things I was holding on to emotionally,’ Lily says. ‘And in order to take on the baggage of the characters that I wanted to play I had to let go of my own.’

That she chose to play a recovering anorexic in To the Bone the same year she’d detailed her own illness in such detail – the diet-pill and laxative addiction, the bingeing and purging that started at the age of 16 and went on into her 20s – could be seen as brave, foolhardy or both. But her parents (Lily’s mum is American socialite Jill Tavelman) didn’t try to stop her, she says. ‘In fact, they were more like, “Wow, you’re writing a book!” And it turned out to be a form of therapy,’ she insists.

‘Luckily, we shot To the Bone in LA, I worked with a nutritionist to prepare for the part responsibly, and my mum was on set with me, so it was a way for me to harness something that had truly controlled my life for such a long time. Being able to turn the tables and really have control was amazing. Finally I could say to myself: “I am living my life and this is not going to be a part of my story from now on.” I’ll be 30 in March and I’m so glad that I dealt with these things in my 20s, because now I can get excited about what’s to come.’

As part of her research she went to an Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous group, and an LA clinic for eating disorders, ‘where they gave me a lot of the factual information to understand the basics of the disorder’. Does she feel her illness is firmly behind her now – or is it important to remain vigilant? ‘Well it’s never going to be erased because it’s part of who you are, but it doesn’t define how I live my life daily any more,’ she says. ‘When I was going through it, I couldn’t imagine there being a day when I didn’t think about it. So really it’s about seeing myself as a priority.’

She’s in no doubt that doing To the Bone and Unfiltered in the same year was worth it in terms of getting the message out there. ‘We’re all flawed,’ she shrugs. ‘Giving a loud voice to a subject that people are often very ashamed of really inspired me to pour myself into characters that have something to say.’

Her accent may be pure La-La Land, but Lily’s got British steel, our madcap sense of humour – and a love of Topshop. And when she lands at Heathrow and drives out into the country towards her father’s Surrey home, ‘That’s when I feel most myself,’ she says. And yet only-child Lily was just five when her mother moved them back to California, where she was from, and away from the very public fallout of her and Collins’s divorce.

It was the musician’s second marital break-up and the press feasted on every acrimonious detail of the split, from the fax her father reportedly sent Tavelman terminating their 10-year marriage (he denied it) to the reported £17 million he was forced to pay out. But although Lily admits in her book that there was ‘anger’ towards her father and a ‘terrible disconnect’ between them in the subsequent period – Collins went on to marry Swiss translator Orianne Cevey, 20 years his junior, in 1999, whom he later divorced and remarried – she is now very close to the 67-year-old and her four half-siblings. Two of them, Simon and Joely (whose mother is Collins’s first wife, Andrea Bertorelli) live in Canada, and two, Nicholas and Matthew (sons of Orianne), in Geneva, but the family all assembled in London for their father’s 60th birthday.

Lily remembers the advice Phil gave her when she started out: ‘For every positive review you read you’ll probably find two negative ones, so if you’re proud of something, don’t let anyone take that away.

‘And it’s true that being proud of the work matters more than anything,’ she says, adding that growing up immersed in the industry allowed her to ‘see the pros and the cons of it all and really understand what happens when you decide you’re going to be in the public eye. Because of that I feel like I already have this armour built in, which I can use at any moment.’

The armour went on when I asked about her ex-boyfriend, actor Jamie Campbell Bower, and an alleged fling with Zac Efron five years ago – and she’s not about to tell me who she’s dating now. But as well as her book, Instagram – on which Lily has almost 12 million followers – has opened her up in other ways. ‘I used to be quite anti social media,’ she says. ‘But after the book I found that this hugely supportive community was forming around the world.’ Anyone who assumed that the gorgeous LA actress whose circle of friends includes the actors Eddie Redmayne, Jaime Winstone and Sam Claflin couldn’t connect with ordinary people, ‘I wanted to prove wrong,’ she says.

Instagram has also proved to be a great platform for Lily to showcase her love of fashion and photography. The Dr Martens are now long gone and today she loves mixing up pieces by Givenchy, Miu Miu and Chanel with vintage brands and high-street finds. ‘In Brussels there were so many amazing vintage shops,’ she says. ‘I found some incredible old adidas and Fila jackets. But I’m constantly changing when it comes to fashion.’

Many of these experiments have been exhaustively covered by the fashion bloggers who dissect paparazzi pictures of Lily out and about in LA, where she lives – ‘which can be frustrating when I’m just going to the gym’, but is an inevitable part of any coverage involving red carpets.

Asked whether she minds the ‘Who are you wearing?’ question that many A-listers have railed against post #AskHerMore, she deliberates for a moment. ‘Well, I like to give credit where credit’s due, and if I’m wearing something a designer has created, they deserve the credit. One hopes there’s going to be more than one question – and if it is just the one, I’d rather be asked what I’m doing there.’

To see how quickly her industry has changed since #MeToo went viral just over a year ago has been fascinating, she says. ‘And I feel very fortunate that the films I’ve been in have always involved very strong independent women – whether it’s Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock,Julianne Moore, Annette Bening or Jennifer Connelly: they all took me under their wing.’

Watching #MeToo filter down into other industries has been one of the most wondrous things about it, she enthuses. ‘But whereas this year has been about trying to level the playing field, I keep hoping that one day we won’t have to start conversations with, “Well, it’s great because she’s a woman…”’

In her next big screen role, Lily will star as Edith Tolkien – the wife and muse of Lord of the Rings creator JRR Tolkien – opposite Nicholas Hoult in Dome Karukoski’s biopic, Tolkien. ‘And what an amazing experience to shoot in Liverpool with someone like Nicholas, and be able to play a character that really inspired a series of stories I grew up loving.’ But prior to that, and also due out next year – she filmed Joe Berlinger’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, in which she plays the long-term girlfriend of mass-murderer Ted Bundy, Elizabeth Kloepfer – with whom she spent time.

‘The preparation to that – and meeting Elizabeth and her daughter – was so unsettling that I kept being woken up by all these images,’ she says. ‘And I had tried not to read the harshest and most visceral information out there because in truth my character didn’t know anything, and the story is from her perspective. But it’s such a fascinating story – and in the end storytelling is what connects us all.’

Les Misérables begins on 30 December at 9pm on BBC One (x)

[idolizerp]

[ LOADING INFORMATION ON POIZN’S MAIN DANCE STEELE…. ]

DETAILS

CURRENT AGE: 28 DEBUT AGE: 20 SKILL POINTS: 15 PERFORMANCE | 05 VOCAL | 15 DANCE | 05 RAP SECONDARY SKILLS: B-boying

INTERVIEW

SHITSTARTER.

only in not in such strong terms –– it’s no secret that steele believes actions to speak louder than words. sometimes it’s as if his main mode of communication is dance. but aside from that, aside from his lifeblood and everything that’s made him who he is today, it’s glances from the background. freakishly tall ( 6’ 5” towers over heads everywhere in asia ), you’ll often find steele standing in the back. to occupy his time ( and to earn that blessed attention ), he makes faces at the camera, rolling his eyes at certain things and giving incredulous ‘ are you kidding me ? ’ expressions at unsympathetic lenses. this wordless candor is what builds him up in the early days.

steele is no - nonsense, but he can have a dry sense of humor. often times you’ll see him lifting his brows at a group member, engaging in a slight chuckle. other times he’ll poke and prod within his group and spark play - fights between members with just a look, his face holding a treasure trove of inside jokes.

so, he is wordless. but even when very little noise leaves his mouth ( and people never seem to get enough of the rich depths of his voice ), steele has a lot to say. or, at least, that’s how it was in the beginning.

over time ( after a single scandal ), though, his snarkiness becomes a detraction. critical and scathing glances are amplified. every single movement is read too far into. why did he cross his arms at that specific time ? is there some beef between them ? did he yell at that person for getting into his light too ? really, he blows up at ONE PERSON and the whole world seems to think he’s a ticking time bomb ready to explode.

the truth is, that’s the old steele. he’s almost thirty; he understands that screaming at people isn’t productive or acceptable. and he also doesn’t believe letting such anger and resentment fester within him is worth his time. the way his face sits coolly unmoving now says as much. no longer is he the funny background guy. steele is the handsome man with the big brows who doesn’t say much. who scowls, but that’s only because that’s how his face is built. forgiveness is a slow and long time coming, but 99 is convinced that keeping his mouth shut and his expressions blank is the key to resetting it all.

“ don’t comment on anything, don’t even blink in someone’s direction because it’ll be taken the wrong way. ” they don’t yank on his chain, instead leaving rather forceful suggestions, but he lets the ‘ or else what ? ’ die on his lips nevertheless. steele / jieping / everything in between knows the answer : “ or else we’ll send you packing. ” they don’t need to squish him like a bug like midas would, because they know that they can just drop him instead of offering to renew his contract, leaving him flat on his ass. and isn’t that just the single worst thing in the known universe ?

so, nowadays, it’s less. ‘ oh my god, look at steele’s face ! ’ and more ‘ who’s that really hot guy with the chin in the back ? he’s so good - looking but he doesn’t say anything. ’

and steele preens at being called hot / sexy / et cetera, et cetera. so, all in all, it’s not so bad.

BIOGRAPHY

PART ONE: PHANTOM BLOOD

keep your head down. don’t start any trouble. we’re tight on money as it is. just finish school. get a good job. help mama out with the bills.

an easy five - step plan enacted on august 17, 1990, 9 : 36 am cst after a difficult birth and an extremely large baby boy. only a mother and father are in the waiting room, waiting to take their daughter and grandson home to guangzhou. the father is a potter, the mother a seamstress, and the daughter a secretary. the not - son - in - law is nowhere to be found, and he never reappears in their lives after the grandson’s birth.

three incomes are still just barely enough to keep the grandson ( jieping, “ hero of peace ” ) fed and clothed. so the boy starts to help out where he can, bouncing to an inaudible tune on his mother’s lap as he helps her sort through letters and take down messages for her boss with shocking accuracy for a boy of seven. this intelligence is never developed further, his free time spent more on menial chores than stimulation and socialization.

at the very least, they indulge his passion for dance, scrounging around enough to send him to classes for a few years from the ages of five to eight before they run out and he has to drop out. jieping never begrudges his family for that.

he never lets what few friends he has know that he does not, in fact, own seven pairs of the same pants –– but, in fact, two that he recycles over the week. it doesn’t even matter, anyway. once he’s done with step five, he’ll have all the pants he wants.

PART TWO: BATTLE TENDENCY

have nots like jieping tend to hold a lot of resentment. bitterness. once his mother manages to wrangle enough money to ship him off to a private school in beijing, he starts to see just how much he really does not have. rolexes on the upperclassmen, his peers deciding to go out for milk tea every other day while he sits in his lonely apartment counting his monthly allowance and stretching it as thin as it can possibly go. while the others get to avoid the oppressive smog either by being driven everywhere or from the safety of their own vehicles, jieping invests in masks and filters.

he walks everywhere, even through the seedier parts of town late as night as long as they get him to his destination quicker because he knows the only place he’d really be understood is the underground dance scene. there, he’s nameless, but his talent is admired. self - taught, crew - less, he spends more time than he expected giving vague non - answers when his identity is questioned. dancing is his priority ; he’s not the type to show up to an underground club hoping to get recruited, though the interest is, at least, flattering. jieping isn’t there to make a name for himself. he’s just there to move. and if he puts on a good performance, trapped in his own world as he is, that’s just negligible.

back at school, it doesn’t improve matters that he’s something of an unkempt lad, often yelled at by administrators to start tucking his shirt into his pants and to wear a normal belt or else insert - empty - threat - here. if people look at him long enough, they’ll start to see his father in his face. if they’re malicious enough, they might even use his existence to blackmail a high ranking official who has yet pay a hefty fine for secretly siring another child. but then they see the way jieping’s thick brows draw together and his fists clench and decide that it’s better to be on the good side of a young boy who’s too tall to be only thirteen.

he has no qualms with punching out fellow students, though this only happens three times in his entire career at beijing huijia private academy. the knuckles on his left hand catch on the cheekbones of rich kids that are too proud to admit that they’ve been beaten up by a dirty commoner. the so - called ‘ charity cases ’ start to look up to jieping. their accounts of his bravery and heroism are inconsequential when antis dredge up this part of his past.

see ? he was always aggressive. what a prick.

PART THREE: STARDUST CRUSADERS

“ it’s a vacation, ” he tells his mother. “ you’re supposed to relax. ” they stand in front of her estranged elder sister’s daunting apartment complex in gangnam. he’s fifteen, scrawny with long hair and an underbite, bruises all over his arms and legs from failed attempts at b - boying. he’s learning, getting better, but he just doesn’t have the upper arm strength to hold himself up very long before crashing down. his mother thinks he’s getting into fights again instead of hanging around with underground dance crews, and, frankly, that’s a little hurtful.

jieping’s never met his aunt before, the woman leaving six years before he was born. all he knows is that she’s something of a socialite ( ex - trophy wife ), and she’s friends with lots of powerful people. when he meets her, he notes with some distaste that she doesn’t seem very fond of his mother. but when he tells her he likes to dance, her eyes light up and he’s taken off - guard.

as if his mother is a nonentity, jieping’s aunt starts interrogating him, nodding as he drops some names from the chinese underground scene that he’s sure she doesn’t know, and after an hour of probing, she eyes him, and asks, “ you know, i think you’d thrive in sopa. ” she knows people, she can get him an interview and audition and is even willing to help him take care of the costs.

jieping blinks. “ what ? ” he barely speaks korean, his elective language being english. jieping’s only experience with korean was being his friend’s study buddy, whereupon he picked up a few basic sentences. to say nothing, of course, of the fact that he wasn’t even intending to pursue a career in dance. and that … he wasn’t expecting his mother to seem so enthralled by the idea. his aunt tells him that sopa’s not planning on accepting new students just yet, but if he’d like to enroll for the next school year, he should let her know by the end of the week. seeing as they’re staying in her loft, he’s probably going to be pestered until the day they leave.

he mentions it off - handedly to his mother as they’re preparing to go to bed that night and is taken aback when she tells him to consider it. “ how do you know she’s not lying to us ? ”

didn’t he know she used to be a dancer, leaving home because their parents thought her dreams were too frivolous ? that her career came to a screeching halt when her relationship with an idol was exposed and she was ( publicly ) cast to the wayside ? she probably sees some of herself in him.

( not like that’s troubling. no, not at all. )

“ if you really like dancing, baobei, ” his mother tells him, her hand cupping his cheek, “ if you really love it like you used to when you were young, then you should take her up on it. she’s even willing to pay for everything. ” oh, and it always comes down to money.

if he stays with his aunt, his mother won’t have to send him red envelopes anymore. she can use her meager paycheck on herself. purchase some new clothes, finally fix those clunky heels. maybe even break out the hotpot all for herself. jieping chooses to think of it this way rather than acknowledging the fact that it sounds like his mother’s just trying to get him out of her hair –– or, her wallet, as it were. he makes his decision that night. it’s the day before new year’s eve. a little early to be making resolutions like this, he thinks, but it doesn’t hurt.

living with his aunt isn’t as bad as it seems at first, culture shock –– which she helps with –– aside. he thought he’d profoundly dislike her, but it turns out the woman actually gives good advice. in addition to whipping his korean into ( amorphous ) shape, she teaches him actual technique so that he doesn’t end up hurting himself, and she even takes him out to eat with a bunch of her b - boy friends when his acceptance to sopa is finalized. it sparks the start of a very close kinship, expressed by wandering into her room in the middle of the night to ask what a certain word means in this one context or by massaging his calf after a long day of practice.

when jieping actually starts to get some real instruction, he skyrockets. one of the “ best damn dancers in this school ” according to the chair of the department of practical dance, most likely to succeed, his teachers all rave about his potential. the other students grumble about the fact that a non - native –– a boy from across the yellow sea –– is their superior. his area of focus is singular, they gripe. he’s not even interested in pursuing anything else. the only reason the faculty likes him so much is because he could’ve gone to hanlim, and all they expect him to do is dance, anyway. the man can hold a tune, but that’s not exactly difficult to do. so what if he’s actually pretty steady even when dancing ? his rapping is average, and that’s mostly because his grasp of the language isn’t as strong as it could be. a singular skillset and the vestiges of natural talent in other areas aren’t worth all that attention. a lump of clay could become a beautiful vase, but jieping’s never seemed interested in metaphorical pottery. maybe the praise will actually start to seem merited when his grades in everything other than dance stop being terrible.

jieping doesn’t care much when they relentlessly mock his accent, but it does drive him into fluency if only to stop that avenue of attack so he can have his peace and quiet. it’s a pity about his looks, the frequent chin jokes tossed his way, but braces have cleaned him up quite a bit and when he cut his hair ( enough that you could finally see his eyes ) he really wasn’t too bad looking. maybe that’s why he never really gets anywhere until after graduation. in the end, it turned out all the attention he received from the faculty was only meant to keep him from transferring schools when he figured he could get a better education elsewhere. they were waiting for him to seek out companies on his own and leech off of that ( “ we knew he had what it takes ! ” and other -isms thereof ), but when he kept to himself and instead looked into jobs in teaching dance, the favoritism all but vanished in his third year. from “ one of the best ” to “ a very good dancer. ” if only they’d told him how they really felt from the get - go.

“ have you thought about what you wanted to do ? ” his aunt asks him almost a year since he’s been out of school. he helps out at her studio in the meantime, his pockets still lined with her money. it makes sense that she, too, is trying to boot him out of her life –– or, she’s just trying to get him to reach maximum potential, if he wanted to be optimistic. which he didn’t. “ i think you’d do well in the idol circuit. you’re intense. it’s fun to watch you dance, and it’d be a waste to keep it to my studio or the underground when you could have this massive audience. you’ve got that flare about you, y’know ? ”

he thinks of her old boyfriend, the one who almost ruined her life, and makes a face.

“ oh, come on. don’t tell me you didn’t think of it ! you went to school with at least a couple of trainees, didn’t you ? and they didn’t pique your interest at all ? ”

if he shook his head, he’d by lying, but … he’s also something of a realist. him and idol life probably wouldn’t mix –– though not exactly a wild card, he’s got something of an independent streak. he only plays by the rules he likes, and that’s not the most desirable thing for companies looking to hit it big with their next boy group. even the phrase boy group makes him feel a little weird.

his aunt rolls her eyes. “ i know what you’re thinking. you’re too cool or whatever for it, they’ll spend every second of every day trying to control or contain you. i mean, that’d probably be true if you were in midas or msg. but 99’s pretty lax in comparison. koala.t is a maybe. kjh is too new to be reliable, in my opinion, but you could definitely go for the two other ones i mentioned. it’s just something to think about. i can probe around to see who’s currently casting, if you’d like. ” then, as an afterthought, she compliments his shower singing, ruffles his hair, and then flounces away.

jieping scowls at the kitchen counter, sighs, and then makes his choice. he might as well shoot for the stars, right ? even if he misses, he’ll land near the moon.

PART FOUR: DIAMOND IS UNBREAKABLE

99 gets him by chance, a coin that landed on heads leading to him attending two rounds of auditions and an interview.

being added into the company in april of 2010, in the midst of planning poizn out, doesn’t leave him a lot of room for bonding. so he doesn’t really do it. his skill as a dancer is acknowledged by the others, and he’s fine with that. his height intimidates a lot of them, and choreographers grouse about where they should put him in formations so that he doesn’t block people who are ear - height and below. his fairly average performance in rapping and singing is something of a shock, though it’s generally acknowledged among the teachers that he’s nowhere near good enough at either to be given a ‘ lead ’ anything. “ a little boring, ” the vocal teacher says. “ uninspired. but it could be something, if you tried. ” ‘ if ’ being the operative word.

all they know is that he’s a main dancer, through and through. impeccable technique, electrifying ( and just the perfect amount of terrifying ) stage presence. the name of his aunt’s studio sitting prettily at the top of his resumé definitely helps matters, as do his actual good looks once the stylists get their hands on him. he’s got the makings for poizn, they declare. he’s a little surprised. he’s not really friends with the other boys in the lineup, and he’s still something of a greenhorn in 99. to have them push him so far so soon is a little nerve - wracking, and no amount of arm pinching is waking him up from this dream.

what is he going to do when they offer him the spot ? say no ?

and so that’s that.

being an idol is an … acquired taste. he doesn’t expect everything about him to be so relentlessly marketed. his dry humor, which he’d been using to endear himself to his group mates, is suddenly now his shtick. his name ? steele ? some reference about how he’s a tough guy, unbendable, and flashy and shiny all at the same time. sturdy, holds the group’s performances together with his undeniable skill. it’s all coming up roses.

their reputation starts to take a few hits because of scandals before long ( what does 99 expect when looking for bad boys to fit the concept, anyway ? ), but jieping pays it no heed. he likes to think of himself as a good friend, offering support where the others need it, but he also manages to keep himself afloat by 1. ) staying out of trouble and 2. ) looking as if he doesn’t approve of his members’ choices in public. widened eyes as someone dodges a question about a past scandal and stretched lips that indicate a level of ‘ oh jeez ’ are enough to make him go viral for brief moments at a time. for a while, he’s the ‘ good ’ member ( if not the condescending foreigner ), even when cures realize he’s prone to somewhat malicious teasing. he does a good job of masking the slight resentment and weariness of being around constant fuck - ups.

but this good faith doesn’t last long.

2016. dumb and dumber. jacket shooting. he lets his temper get the best of him, becoming one of those rich idiots he hates the most.

( all because of a missed phone call. if he’d slept at an appropriate hour instead of practicing all night, he might’ve been able to catch his mother one last time. semi meets sedan. who’s going to win ?

the public never finds out about this. )

“ what do you think you’re doing ? ” it’s not so much of a roar as a boom. everyone freezes, even his group mates look up at the normally pleasant and quiet man with shock. “ you’re in my light, you idiot ! how is the photographer supposed to take pictures of me when i’m drenched in your shadow ? no, don’t walk that way. knowing you, you’ll just trip over the cable and take out the thing entirely. do you guys just fuckin’ hire anybody these days ? jesus christ. dumb and dumber. guess this song’s about you, huh, moron ? ”

shaky cell phone camera. shaken production assistant. jieping goes viral again. for all the wrong reasons, of course.

at least he realized he’s messed up. every comment that calls him out for his shitty treatment of this particular staff member is absolutely right. he shouldn’t have snapped like that. no matter how tired, no matter how stressed, no matter the deep grief paining his heart, nothing warranted taking it all out on someone who was just trying to do their job. it would have taken less than ten seconds to politely ask the p.a. to move. he might’ve received a smile and apology in return, rather than a young woman bursting into tears. he hates that there are cures that come to his defense. he wants to call them out, but after posting a handwritten apology on instagram, 99 strongly implies that they’d like him to keep mum, more consequences forthcoming.

this isn’t what he wanted. when he calls his aunt for advice, it’s the first time where she doesn’t know what to tell him. she’s disappointed in him, that much is clear in her voice, and he feels even shittier. “ i didn’t think you were that kind of person. ” he’s not, and he isn’t sure if she believes him. but she goes with him, hand in hand, to the funeral back in guangzhou, and it seems like all is forgiven, even if he never ended up explaining himself.

he’s only allowed to be there for two days and he’ll half to spend half of their promotion time benched. nobody recognizes him, mask covering his face, though there’s a slight murmur that maybe tall jieping grew up into this giant after all. he doesn’t make a fuss when he comes back, and 99 pretends that he never left. fans are none the wiser, though jieping’s sure the information is floating around somewhere now.

( his first reappearance on a music show is lukewarm. it doesn’t surprise him that the cheers are quieter than usual. )

poizn looks empty without their main dancer, someone says. if jieping had any amount of sense, he’d leave that empty space for brighter skies. maybe become a recluse like his aunt, teaching other young hopefuls to dance. she really did see a lot of herself in him, didn’t she ?

jieping’s mother didn’t raise a quitter, though, so that kills the thought immediately. it comes to a halt with a crunch of glass and steel.

PART FIVE: GOLDEN WIND

even though it’s two years in the past, 99 still reminds jieping to keep on his toes whenever interacting with anybody. his resting bitch face did him no favors as soon as his snark became an unfavorable mark upon him. he has to be neutral or friendly. no in between. if he can manage to work his way up to happy without looking terrifying, then that’s even better. but any ounce of negative emotion will be read for filth, so it’s in his best interest to stay away from anything pointing downward.

forgiveness comes slowly, given a slight boost when it comes out ( against jieping’s will ) that he personally apologized to the p.a. in question and even took her out to a dinner that went around six figures –– all out of his own pocket. but that’s not enough, because they’re all just waiting for him to scream at someone else.

he’s only two years away from turning thirty, so he figures he should start to act like it. and he does, stopping to think about things from an ‘ adult ’ and ‘ responsible ’ perspective as opposed to ‘ well, i’m doing just fine all on my own. ’ he sacrifices his isolationist tendencies for kindness and encouragement, wanting to show his juniors and the public alike that he’s grown up and decided to show that he really is a good person, just caught at the wrong time.

he tries to pick up where his aunt left off with her vague but pleasant advice, aiming for a wise - beyond - his - years vibe. and if all else fails, then he could at least be the calm respectful one sitting in the back. adult, jieping reminds himself. with a capital a. songs like love scenario and rubber band hinder this a little bit, at least on stage, but he finds that perseverance is the key to everything. so he’ll just keep working at it until he finds himself where he wants to be.

he doesn’t need to hole himself up in a fancy apartment in seoul, waiting for a cousin’s kid to show up and tell him that they enjoy b - boying. he doesn’t have to be a repeat of his aunt. he can claw his way back to the not - top.

it’s not like a guy who stands at 6’ 5” can afford to be scared of heights, after all.

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

February 8/2021

What to write about this morning? There’s so many possibilities, so many paths open to us to wander down. How to choose? Well, perhaps we ought to discuss my time with Sydnie yesterday? It was really quite good. But I did realize that I haven’t really missed her all that much. How wretched am I? She was a very large part of making last year so truly wonderful for me. And now I seem to be not much bothered about her presence at all? Why am I like this?! How am I like this?! Really, is there something wrong with me? How might I come to figure that out? I’m ashamed to admit these things to anyone but you. Hell, I’m even ashamed to admit these things to you. How can I be so completely unbothered, so unconcerned about other people? It doesn’t make any sense. Not that making sense is a prerequisite for something to exist, but humans are supposed to be social creatures aren’t we? I surely know that my mental health plummets when my social needs are neglected. But, alas, it seems to be the case that my social needs can be met by just about anyone. It seems to be, for me, that I’m only concerned with the fact that they are met, the who of that meeting is just minor details... wretched, wretched, wretched am I. 

How can I be so unaffected? Have I always been this way? I think not. I remember once being so incredibly affected by the people around me that it made me physically ill. Is this then a reaction to the overwhelming effect that I experienced in my past? Could be... how exactly does one tell with these things? 

I complain and worry about my unaffectedness, but I also feel zero inclination to attempt to change this about myself. Perhaps because a part of me rather likes--is proud--of this unaffectedness of mine? Like my unaffectedness is another sign of my difference. But not a difference that makes me feel unfit for life. Rather, this difference makes me feel special. Like I’m free of the fetters that so cling to other people. It makes me think about Rand’s ideal characters. Although, me being me, I do recognize that it could be said that I am missing out on one of the most meaningful parts of life in/through my unaffectedness? As a reply to that, perhaps I’m not so consumed with this sort of meaning, that is, human connection, because I’m already brimming full with another sort of meaning: my work--my defining commitment. Being finite, I only have a limited capacity after all, I can’t be affected by every facet of life, some things need to remain in the background, they not to remain somewhat inconsequential--or else I really will go insane. 

I was telling Syd about my feeling (intuition?) that I might very well go insane one day through this pursuit of mine. She didn’t really know what to do with that of course. Nor do I for that matter, but not facing something like this doesn’t make it any less real or true. Perhaps it’s something that I ought not share with anyone but you though? I suppose that I was trying to share myself with her, as it were. That is what friendship is about, right? Anyhow, she diagnosed me with a streak of self-destructive tendencies. I can understand her diagnosis, looking back across my life there is certainly much evidence to support it: I do tend to throw myself at/upon that which threatens to destroy me; all the drugs and alcohol; unprotected sex; the cutting; the questionable wanderings and adventures, both internal and external. 

Do I agree with her diagnosis? It seems to me that perhaps classifying this streak of mine as merely self-destructive misses the scope of i; it seems too short-sighted. For, isn’t it the case that that creation can only be born through destruction? Just as how a forest grows back so much stronger and more plentiful and diverse after a good burning. Perhaps my self-destructive tendencies are burning off the dead wood of my Being so that might grow back even more plentiful and diverse than before? I am continuously sacrificing myself; for what exactly though? What I could be perhaps? And, alas, where did I learn this tendency of mine? Because it does seem to be a manner of Being that I intuited rather than consciously inoculated into myself. It seems like it’s just always been a part of me. And as I become more consolidated and transparent to myself, my self-destruction seems to have become more focused and less chaotic. I no longer self-destruct just for the sake of it, to satisfy the urge, as it were. Certainly the urge is still there, but there’s also an overwhelming awareness of an aim as well: there is now a why, a what-for. It makes the self-destruction less shaky, less amatuer-like. 

[themurphyzone]

All Time Travelers Go to Heaven Ch 2

Ch 2- A Hero’s Not So Welcome

Due to lunch break, the Bureau was almost empty. The halls smelled of formaldehyde, as always. While the lobby was large, it had no pictures. No comfortable benches, or a coffee machine for sleep-deprived agents. There was a help desk, but it was rarely staffed and used more as extra storage space. 

Everything needed to run smoothly so missions could be efficient. Balthazar and Vinnie were used to it, but that didn’t stop them from wishing for a warm welcome on occasion. 

For once, Balthazar was looking forward to reporting to Mr. Block. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face,” Balthazar remarked. “Then he’d have no choice but to give me-pardon me-us, a promotion!” 

“I don’t want to be a spoilsport since that’s your job and all, but, uh, how do I say this in a sensitive manner...” Vinnie trailed off, shuffling his feet. Balthazar stopped in his tracks.

“But what? You know you can say whatever here? There aren’t any superiors in earshot,” Balthazar said. “I’m in such a good mood that I can completely ignore your spoilsport comment.”

Vinnie gulped, his eyes darted around. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s just one mission. I don’t think we’d be promoted because of a lucky fluke. And we did botch the escape part.” 

A fluke? That was all it was to him? They were partners! 

Why didn’t Vinnie support him? He was more than willing to share the victory! Or perhaps it never mattered to him! Just another person willing to drag him through the mud.

True, the escape hadn’t gone according to plan, but if Vinnie hadn’t stopped to stuff his face at that pub, then they would’ve been out of there a lot sooner!

“How dare you call it a lucky fluke,” Balthazar growled. “It takes pure skill to break into the Crown Jewels and steal a diamond successfully. Does our partnership suddenly not matter anymore? You sure were taking your sweet time to rescue me from the Tower of London.” 

Vinnie’s mouth flopped open. “What? When did I say that? I just don’t want you to get your hopes up and they suddenly crash and burn!”

“It’s not going to crash and burn!” Balthazar shouted. “And we will be promoted after this! We worked hard, we deserve it! No more protecting pistachios or inconsequential missions, just think! Top secret missions, tuxedos, limousines, meeting world leaders, then our names will go down in history!” 

“Balthazar, calm down,” Vinnie pleaded. “Think about it. The boss barely remembers our names. And it took the other top agents years to get where they are now. One mission isn’t suddenly gonna make you a top agent. And I know that position has its perks, but then we’d be completely dedicated to the job.” 

“I’m already dedicated to my career!” Balthazar retorted. Great, now he was questioning his loyalty too? 

Vinnie raised an eyebrow. “I know you are. Though you’d think with time at our fingertips, there would be room for a personal life.”

Balthazar could think of nothing else to say. With pistachio protecting during the day, and coming up with ways to get recognition at the Bureau during the night, there was no room to take up a hobby, search for romance, or travel the globe. 

Once he joined the Bureau, the mission was his life. Nothing else mattered. 

There was nothing in his old life to return to either. 

“Dakota, I’m going to report to Mr. Block,” Balthazar said, sounding calmer than he felt. “You may go wherever now.” 

“I’m coming with you, Balthy,” Vinnie said, folding his arms. “We’re partners. We work together. And I might’ve overstepped there. Sorry.”

Balthazar wanted to apologize too, but the two simple words died in his throat. “I’d rather do this alone.” He rounded the corner and broke into a sprint. He could hear Vinnie shouting, urging him not to be so hasty. Yelling that things would work out eventually. It was a good thing he was much faster than other men his age. 

The elevator doors slid open, and Balthazar stepped in, rapidly hitting a button so that the doors closed before Vinnie could follow. It would be another five floors to Mr. Block’s office. 

Surely that would be enough time to collect his thoughts. 

But then, he accused of Vinnie of not taking their partnership seriously. That was a lie and he knew it. Vinnie wouldn’t make stuff fall apart because he’d lost his temper. Vinnie was polite and easy to make small talk with.

He’d never made a mission fail because he was too proud. Or lost their meager earnings because he was clumsy and stupid. 

That was all Balthazar. It was all on him. 

No wonder nobody took him seriously. He was a joke. One big joke who had never done anything correctly in his life, and never would amount to anything in the-

No. Stop it. 

He could do it. He could prove them wrong! It was just a matter of time. 

A matter of time until he royally screwed up again. And went through this entire process again. And push Vinnie away again. 

This pessimism was getting him nowhere. He needed to think clearly in front of Mr. Block. And not let him get under his skin. Balthazar mentally cursed himself. He never should’ve left Vinnie downstairs. The moral support would’ve been nice. 

Appreciated too. Not that he’d admit it, of course.

Before Balthazar entered Mr. Block’s office, he detoured to the restroom to splash some water on his face and brace himself for the inevitable barrage of insults. He had to be composed for this. If he truly wanted this promotion, then he’d better act like it. 

Five minutes later, he was standing outside the office door. He knocked, and he could hear papers crinkle in response. Either Mr. Block was straightening his desk to look presentable or he was annoyed and tearing up documents because he didn’t want to deal with subordinates. Balthazar suspected the latter. 

“Come in,” Mr. Block ordered. “And that BLT better be hot or-” Balthazar opened the door. Mr. Block’s hands drummed on the desk in irritation. “Cartman. Unless you brought me lunch, I’m not interested.”

“Yes, well, pardon me sir. I just stopped by to report that my partner and I have successfully transported the Hope Diamond to headquarters,” Balthazar stated. “I was curious if you had any new objectives for us.”

Mr. Block choked on his soda, letting out a hoarse grunt of laughter. “This is a new development. I don’t ever seem to recall you barging in here and claiming you successfully accomplished something.”

“If you don’t believe me, then you can check with the lab,” Balthazar said. “The Hope Diamond should be there.”

Block rolled his eyes. “Very well.” He pushed a button on his desk, and a video screen popped up that connected him to the lab. “Kingsley. Did the Hope Diamond arrive in the lab?” 

Balthazar held his breath. 

“Affirmative, sir,” Kingsley replied. “The Hope Diamond arrived at approximately 9:47 am, ten seconds. We ordered the Jinx to put it in a secure case for safekeeping until our equipment stops malfunctioning.”

He couldn’t believe it. It was almost too good to be true.

“You allowed the Jinx to handle something?” Block asked. “He’s not to leave the cell unless there’s a mission. Put him back immediately.” He hung up, groaning. “Why did they saddle me with a bunch of incompetent morons?”

Balthazar was still giddy with relief that he hadn’t failed after all. “The Jinx? Is this a new criminal?” 

“Nothing lower level agents need to concern themselves with,” Block grunted. “You got your vindication. Now get out.” 

“One more thing before I take my leave,” Balthazar said. “Now that I’ve proved the mission’s success, perhaps another one is in order?”

“Another mission?” Block snorted. “But you and Kentucky didn’t arrive with the Diamond. What was the reason for the delay?” 

This was the part Balthazar wanted to omit. But he had no choice in the matter. “I was arrested and locked in the Tower of London. A minor hiccup.” 

Block leaned forward, smirking. “You call being locked in one of the most infamous prisons in history a minor hiccup? The Bureau is beyond the laws of all time periods, and yet you still manage to lose to the police. You’re still just a pistachio protecting nobody who was setback by a case that was beneath almost every other agent’s skill level.”

Balthazar lowered his head, clenching his hands in his pockets. Without bothering to salute or wait for a curt dismissal, he marched out of the office and slammed the door shut behind him. On the way to the elevator, his arm knocked into an intern who was carrying a tray with a sandwich and tater tots. The intern dropped the tray in surprise, spilling the sandwich’s contents on the floor. 

He tipped his hat and apologized, but didn’t feel sorry for ruining Block’s lunch. 

He wasn’t ready to face Dakota yet. A million thoughts ran through his head, each more rash than the last. If they wouldn’t give him a mission, then he’d take one for himself. Dakota would never approve, so he was on his own. 

The filing room was full of missions that hadn’t been taken yet. The room was usually staffed by secretaries, but they had the latest lunch break out of everyone and wouldn’t be back for another half hour. Now was the perfect time to break in. 

Using a bobby pin to pick the lock, Balthazar slipped in and slowly closed the door, making sure that it didn’t creak. Filing cabinets lined the back wall, neatly organized alphabetically or by time period. For simplicity’s sake, Balthazar decided to take a mission that was in the 20th or 21st century. He wasn’t particular about the location though. 

He tugged on the nearest drawer. Just his luck it was padlocked. Unlocking it, rifling through the documents, and replacing the padlock would take precious time. He would have to leave it. In fact, all the drawers were locked securely. 

That is, all except one. The drawer was on the bottom, which made it easier. There was only one manila folder laying inside, a black and white photo of the Golden Gate Bridge spilling out. Balthazar skimmed the document, thumbing through the contents quickly. 

It was perfect, in Balthazar’s opinion. A foggy night in 1962. He wouldn’t be noticed at all by locals. A rogue time traveler was attempting to help four convicts escape Alcatraz. In the main time stream, there were conflicting accounts of what became of the convicts. Some thought they drowned in San Francisco Bay, others speculated they fled the United States entirely. 

However, it was clear the rogue was trying to avert this fate. Balthazar didn’t know if they were friends, or if they had evil intentions for innocent people. Perhaps both. 

And it was up to him to put an end to it and make certain that the course of history wasn’t changed. He stowed the file inside his coat, then exited the filing room and locked the door so nothing appeared to be amiss. 

Breaking into a sprint, he almost bowled over Savannah, who barely stepped out of the way. Her nose scrunched up at the sight of him. But he was too excited now. He was going to prove her wrong. A real mission. It was much different than anything he’d tackled before. 

It was nerve-wracking, but exciting all the same. 

He ducked into a storage room and set the coordinates in his Temporal Transporter for 1962. Facing the portal, which held a view of a brilliant sunset, he inhaled sharply and put one foot on a grassy hill. This was it. There was no turning back. He followed through with his other foot and closed the connection. 

If he could do this, he could do anything. And he wouldn’t need anyone’s help. 

Balthazar what are you doing no go back stop giving me grumpy old man feels

[calciseptinefic]

solo and pair

Yuuri!!! On Ice || Victor Nikiforov/Yuuri Katsuki || Hasetsu, Part X notes: also available on ao3. warnings: allusions to polyamory

.

part ix

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A month after Victor's injury when the cherry blossoms bloom, Nishigori and Yuuko quietly marry in a small ceremony at Yuuri's family inn.

"God," Nishigori swears as he and Yuuri wait. They are on the elevated porch on the backside of Yutopia, where the building opens up to a small rock garden and a proud sakura tree that twists pink over the neutral gray stones. "I'm so fuckin' nervous."

Nishigori fiddles with his plain cufflinks. He is dressed in a nice black suit that emphasizes his wide shoulders and powerful thighs. Unlike Yuuri's, Nishigori's suit is new; Yuuri has worn the same jacket and straight-legged slacks to formal events since he was fourteen.

"Dumb, right?" Nishigori mumbles, as though trying to justify his nervousness. "I've performed in front of an audience for years. In front of strangers. I never got stage-fright. But now? When all I'm gonna do is exchange rings and say I do?" He snorts. "I'm terrified."

Yuuri hums, unable to respond. He is oddly nervous as well, though he cannot tell if it is because of his empathy for Nishigori or because any sort of formal event gives him anxiety.

"I mean, it's just my family. Her family. You." Nishigori's broad hands tremble as his fingers twist and twist and twist his cufflinks around. The fidgeting is so contrary to Nishigori's normally confident character that the need to comfort him wells up inside Yuuri. It is not something that Yuuri does often or does well, so when he puts his hand on the curve of Nishigori's bicep, he does so stiffly.

"She's your soulmate," Yuuri says, as it is the deepest comfort he can imagine. "You're meant to be."

Yuuri does not know how he expects Nishigori to react, but it definitely is not for Nishigori to bark out a laugh. The sudden, sharp noise startles Yuuri and his hand jerks away from Nishigori's arm.

"Sorry," Nishigori laughs when he sees the shock on Yuuri's face. "That's just so you, you know. To bring that up."

Yuuri's shock becomes confusion. The transition must show plainly because Nishigori laughs again, though this time less harshly.

"I know how you feel about soulmates," Nishigori elaborates. He deliberately taps his stomach, just to the side of his belly button where his mark rests. "And I'm not saying that it's not… fate or destiny or whatever, but it's… I don't love Yuuko because she's my soulmate. I love Yuuko because she's Yuuko."

Unsure of Nishigori's distinction, Yuuri haltingly says, "But she is your soulmate."

Nishigori is quiet for a moment as he regards Yuuri. Then, abruptly and seemingly non-sequitur, he admits, "I was jealous of you."

"What?" Yuuri asks.

"Before Yuuko and I matched," Nishigori clarifies. "Well, I was jealous after for awhile after that too. You were—you are—a much better skater than I am and Yuuko was—is—so proud of you. It felt like… it felt like all she ever did was talk about you and how good you were. Are. And after we matched—well, not all marks are romantic, and not all matches are good matches. Our dynamic didn't really change and Yuuko—you know she doesn't put a lot of stock into the whole mythos, especially considering that her parents aren't matched."

Yuuri blinks. He knew about Yuuko's parents—everyone did— but he had not known how Yuuko felt about soul marks. Now that he thinks about it, Yuuri cannot recall a time outside her match with Nishigori and her manifestation that she spoke about them.

"I used to have nightmares that you would manifest with the same mark." Nishigori chuckles in the easy, self-deprecating way people joke about old fears. "I would dream that we would go to a mark inspector and find out that mine was actually the wrong color or was smaller on one side, and that you and Yuuko were the right match. That's why I was such a dick to you when you manifested. I knew you had this big-ass thing on your chest, but a part of me felt like I needed to see it to be sure."

Unconsciously, Yuuri presses his palm to his sternum, where the center of his mark is concentrated.

"It's—" Yuuri tries to say. "It's not—"

"I know," says Nishigori gently. "For awhile I thought you might reject your mark and—well, Yuuko and I talked about what we would do if you wanted to…"

Nishigori stops to gesture meaningfully between him and Yuuri, and it takes a moment for Yuuri to realize the implication. When he does, he turns bright red and gasps an involuntary, "Oh."

Then, after another moment, Yuuri says, "Oh."

"Yeah," Nishigori affirms. "Yuuko and I haven't changed our minds, but we both know it's… hypothetical. You just—you've always treated your mark with such reverence that we knew you would never accept anyone but Vi—but your, uhh, your match. So. We never…"

Nishigori shrugs. In the wake of his confession, Yuuri has never been more painfully aware of how much taller and bigger the other man is. Even at seventeen, Yuuri still hasn't hit his finally growth spurt; he is short, thin, and bony, with narrow hips and stick-like limbs. His hard-earned muscle is sparse next to Nishigori's power and his angles look awkward when compared to Yuuko's curves.

"Oh," Yuuri says for a third time.

"I didn't meant to make you uncomfortable," Nishigori assures. Yuuri's face, neck, and ears are on fire. "I just wanted to…" Nishigori heaves a sigh. "I don't know what I wanted."

Nishigori's fingers are back on his cufflinks and—when Yuuri dares to glance at his expression—there's a blush on the flat planes of his face that matches the cherry blossoms and the color of his soul mark. It makes Yuuri think of when they were children, when Yuuri still struggled not to cry every time he fell, when Nishigori dragged him up from the ice and said a little nastily, "It's not a big deal."

There had been pink on Nishigori's cheeks then, too.

"Thank you, Takeshi," Yuuri murmurs as he presses the tips of his fingers to Nishigori's heavy knuckles. The touch is light, more of an impression than a sensation, but the bareness of it still pacifies Nishigori's agitated hands. "I'm glad you told me."

Their gazes meet. Nishigori's eyes are darker than Yuuri's—so brown they are almost black—but in the spring sunlight Yuuri can see the normally invisible edge where Nishigori's iris meets his pupil. Perhaps this is why it is not hard for Yuuri to hold Nishigori's stare. Yuuri can feel the heat lingering beneath his skin, but it is inconsequential to the warmth in his heart.

"Yeah," Nishigori says. "So am I."

.

Yuuri and Nishigori fall into silence after the confession. It is oddly comfortable, given the nature of what has been said. Yuuri never thought he would be on the receiving end of such affection, as his short stature, his long hours at the ice skating rink, and his anti-social nature aren't conducive towards popularity.

It should unsettle him.

It does not.

The quiet is interrupted an indeterminable amount of time later, when Nishigori's second oldest brother, Takeru, taps on the wooden frame of the shoji screen behind them. "Hey," he says. His voice is as deep as Nishigori's. "We're ready. Are you?"

Next to Yuuri, Nishigori inhales. Shakes the nervousness from his shoulders. Exhales. Says, "As I'll ever be," and grins when Takeru smirks at him.

The ceremony is held in a banquet room on the first floor, where the sliding doors are opened to the new green of spring and the cumulus-dotted blue sky above. Most of the family members have already been seated on metal fold-up chairs that Yuuri and Mari arranged that morning. Their murmured conversations come to a halt as Nishigori and Yuuko approach from opposite sides of the hallway, and meet.

"Hi," Nishigori whispers, low enough that Yuuri—who trails closely behind Nishigori—has a difficult time hearing it. "You look beautiful."

Yuuko is dressed in a traditional shiromuku, a white silk kimono embroidered with white cranes in flight. Her hair is up in an elaborate series of curls and accented with a golden wisteria hairpin that hangs down the side of her face and neck. She is as beautiful as Yuuri has ever seen her, but it is the glowing radiance of her smile that outshines everything else.

"I'm happy," Yuuko whispers back.

The ceremony itself does not last long, as it is neither religious nor traditional. The eldest Nishigori brother, Takeda, a lawyer who lives in Saga, is the celebrant. His speech is original and unfamiliar, removed from the common ordinations recited in movies and on television shows. The word 'soulmate' is only used once and given no significance, but that hardly matters when Nishigori and Yuuko cannot look away from one another.

Yuuri's throat tightens constricts when they recite their personalized vows. Nishigori's is about his vague hopes for the future that he hopes they'll build together while Yuuko's is an anecdote about the first time she realized she loved him. It surprises Yuuri when Yuuko talks about something he remembers. They were children then, before any of them manifested, and Yuuri had always thought Yuuko had been annoyed with Nishigori during the train ride to one of their competitions.

Love, Yuuri supposes, is odd like that.

.

When their vows are finished and they exchange rings, Nishigori and Yuuko end the ceremony with an unprompted kiss. It is short, tender, and difficult to watch. Yuuri almost looks away—but then Nishigori pulls away, bundles Yuuko into his burly arms, and lifts her off the ground. She shrieks at the unexpected motion and grips his shoulders.

"Takeshi!" she squeals.

Nishigori laughs and spins Yuuko around as effortlessly as though they were on the ice. The weighted edge of her shiromuku nearly clips one of their relatives in the face.

"Alright, alright," Takeda says over the minor chaos. "Takeshi—bring your wife over here. I need you to sign this certificate so I can register your marriage with municipal office."

After the ceremony, the two family migrate into the main area of the inn. Yuuko's family is much smaller than Nishigori's. Yuuko is an only child, as is her mother, and her father's twin brother is unmarried. Nishigori, on the other hand, is the youngest of four, and in addition to his mother and father, he has three sets of aunts and uncles, several cousins, his maternal grandparents and his paternal grandmother, a sister-in-law and two nephews. Yuuri is the only person in the group who is not related to the newlyweds by neither blood nor marriage. For a moment, Yuuri stands at the threshold and stares at the sea of faces, unsure of where he should sit.

He is saved from his indecision when a petite hand curls into his own.

"Come on, Yuuri," Yuuko encourages. "Sit with me and Takeshi."

Yuuko does not wait for Yuuri to respond. She simply tugs him into motion and guides him to the square, center table. The navy cushion she sits down on has been at Yutopia for as long as Yuuri can remember.

"I didn't say it earlier," Yuuri murmurs once he also sits down, arranging his limbs into the smallest and least awkward configuration he can manage. Then he bows his head and says, quite formally, "Congratulations on your marriage."

Yuuri's words are meet with silence and—after several painful seconds—Yuuri lifts his head to meet Yuuko's eyes. He cannot decipher the emotion he sees nor understand why Yuuko sounds a little sad when she says, "Oh, Yuuri. Always so polite."

It baffles Yuuri, yet before he can begin to parse out the meaning of her words, Nishigori jostles him.

"Don't overthink it," Nishigori warns as he plops down on Yuuko's right, directly across the table. His smile is wide and captivating and warm. "We're here to have a good time, and that's it."

"A good time," Yuuri repeats somewhat cautiously. He looks between Nishigori and Yuuko, then further out at their families, and they beyond that, to Mari leaning against the doorjamb in her maroon work clothes. Her gaze is faraway, but Yuuri thinks that, if she caught his stare, she would give a small, encouraging nod. So Yuuri breathes deep. Steadies himself and his nerves. Says, "I can do that."

"Thatta boy," Nishigori cheers.

.

part xi

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[seriouslyhooked]

Wedded Bliss and Asterisks (A Modern CS AU) Part 11/?

Emma Swan is an enemy of love who just happens to be an up and coming wedding dress designer. She’s convinced that a fairytale kind of romance is nowhere in her future but when she meets Killian Jones, whose magazine is covering the opening of her new boutique, things change. Suddenly Emma finds herself drawing up new plans for her life, ones that seem to all be leading towards her own form of wedded bliss. Rated M.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven.Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten. Also on FF Here.

A/N: Hey all! This chapter picks up the day after the last installment, and as promised we will have some closure for Snowing, a check in from some characters we haven’t seen in awhile, and then get back to business for CS. For those of you so anxiously awaiting Liam’s return, know that we won’t be getting that interaction until next chapter but I promise it will be worth the wait. Anyway thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

“I really can’t say enough about how great you all have been. I owe you all so much more than I can ever pay back,” Jasmine professed from the other side of the dressing room door as Emma and the others waited for her big reveal.

The dress that Emma had designed and given to Jasmine was finally completed after weeks of work and a rush order that came with a hefty price tag, but when Emma saw the finished product for the first time she knew it would be spectacular. She could already imagine it on Jasmine and was envisioning the moment when Jasmine would walk down the aisle to her man and make him so incredibly happy.

Aladdin had visited with Jasmine a few times at Bliss since they took her on as a client, but he never came on an outing when the dress was in question. Instead he saved his trips here for days when seating arrangements were designed with Mary Margaret or when Elsa was finalizing her vision for the wedding cake. He was funny and likeable, and just like Jasmine said, he seemed to roll with anything. No question was too inconsequential or too overwhelming. He was laid back, and watching him calm Jasmine into a similar state was always nice. The peace they had together was matched only by the fire that simmered underneath the surface.

“Oh honey you paid us plenty, trust me,” Ruby joked and everyone chuckled, but at that moment Jasmine stepped out into the showroom and shook her head.

“I really don’t think I did. Not for a dress like this.”

Everyone stood there totally awed of how it all turned out, and Emma had to admit she was damn proud of her work. A dress like this was no where near ordinary, and though she’d created some beautiful designs before, this one was definitely special thanks in no small part to the bride wearing it. Jasmine’s excitement was uncontainable and that excitement on her face and that sense of enthusiasm couldn’t be replicated. She looked radiant and ready to be married, and come this weekend she’d get the chance to do just that.

But even in that magical moment, when a bride Emma had come to truly like found the satisfaction that only a magnificent wedding dress could bring, a niggling thought played at the back of Emma’s mind: This might be an amazing gown and a one of a kind piece that Emma would long be proud of, but it still wasn’t one that spoke to Emma’s true heart. That dress, the one that Emma looked at and saw every good thing made real in, remained tucked in a drawer in Emma’s office where she took it out every once and a while, thinking about how it had once been lost and then later found by the only man Emma had ever been able to imagine a future with.

“So what do you guys think?” Jasmine asked, pulling Emma back into the present. Jasmine needn’t have asked though, since the answer to that query was fairly obvious.

“I think I speak for all of us when I say that you look fantastic,” Tiana said, breaking through everyone’s silence with a thought they all readily attested to.

“Oh my god, totally!” Elsa agreed.

“This is really beautiful work, Ems. Truly fantastic,” Ruby replied and Emma smiled before a sniffle infiltrated into the room. Without even looking Emma knew it would be Mary Margaret, but one glance in her friend’s direction proved her right.

“That reaction from Mary Margaret is the best thing you could hope for,” Emma said and Jasmine smiled. “Seriously, Jasmine, it’s perfect and I don’t use that phrase lightly.”

“She really doesn’t,” Tiana confirmed. “With Emma there’s always one last adjustment or one final piece to tinker with.”

“Not this time. This time I got it right on the first try,” Emma affirmed and Jasmine twirled around to the mirror once more to take herself in.

“He’s going to lose it isn’t he?” Jasmine asked, and everyone in the room knew that she meant Aladdin.

“Yes,” they all responded in unison and Jasmine laughed, running her hand down the fine detailing once more before turning back to Emma.

“Part of me wishes I could just wear it home.”

Emma had heard that from a number of her brides in the past. She wouldn’t know that feeling first hand – truth be told she’d never so much as tried on a wedding gown herself despite her proximity to them – but she felt the compliment of such intense affection for an object she created deep in her soul. This validation was uplifting, but now Emma had to remind Jasmine that she was edging closer to the final destination, and that even if waiting was the last thing she wanted to do, it was necessary to get to that day they’d all worked so hard for.

“You say that now, but dry cleaning this thing is a nightmare,” Emma joked and Jasmine laughed again, moving off the little stage and back to the dressing room, but just when she was about to go inside, the energy in the room dramatically changed thanks to a new arrival in the store that no one was expecting.

“Mary Margaret?”

The call for her friend’s attention came from David, and immediately all other sound in the room faded. It had been less than twenty-four hours, but by now every employee in the whole shop knew about yesterday’s interaction. Though they’d hired good people who were kind and considerate, Emma knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that speculation about who David was and why all that drama had happened in the first place was circulating. To see him now, bearing a bouquet of crisp white roses and a look like he’d just fought through hell itself to get here, Emma had to admit that she felt for the man.

“David,” Mary Margaret’s voice said with more strength than Emma anticipated. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m doing something I should have done a long time ago – I’m winning you over. I’m making things right and I’m telling you that I love you, Mary Margaret. I’ve loved you for a long time and nothing is every going to change that.”

The silence in the room was deafening, and Emma debated either maneuvering Mary Margaret and David back to her office or leading everyone else out of this dressing room, but both Mary Margaret and David were too caught in the moment to give a damn. David was desperate for Mary Margaret to see his truth, and Mary Margaret was firm in her memories of where it had all gone wrong. The end result was the two of them sharing a whole lot more than Emma would have bargained for in front all of Mary Margaret’s friends and Jasmine.

“But you don’t, not really. If you did, you never would have chosen her.” The gravity of Mary Margaret’s statement portrayed courage Emma knew her friend was not feeling. Since the display yesterday, Mary Margaret had been a walking bundle of nerves, but right now she appeared so much more contained and controlled than Emma thought any one person could be.

“I never chose her. I’m choosing you. It’s always been you, Mary Margaret. Always.”

This would usually be the moment when Emma’s warning bells would sound if David were lying, but there was nothing like skepticism to be found in her heart. Instead Emma watched as this man she’d only known in passing set forth to lay everything on the line with her best friend. He was a man with a purpose who felt passionately and who was speaking from his heart. It was the only reason Emma even let this all continue. One hint of David having false motives and she would shove him out the door and tell him to get lost.

“Even if that were true, you have to see how bad this looks David. Breaking up your engagement? If word of that got out it could ruin this business. Can’t you see that?” Mary Margaret looked away from him for the first time, but her eyes moved to the floor and not to anyone around them.

“There was no engagement to break up, and I think you know that deep down.”

David pulled out a box from his pocket that Emma immediately noted was the perfect size for a ring. He didn’t open it, but Mary Margaret seemed to recognize the container and hope returned to her features again, letting Emma release a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“I told you once that the woman I married would wear my mother’s ring and I meant it, but Kathryn will never be that woman. She was wearing her grandmother’s diamond yesterday. It was all just a ploy to get a rise out of me, to what ends I don’t know.”

“Don’t you?” Mary Margaret asked quietly. “She loves you, David, and you love her – or loved her I guess - enough to be planning a future seriously with her.”

“I never planned for anything like what I really wanted with Kathryn. With her it was all arranged, a duty to my family. Every truly happy ending I could hope for needed one thing – you. No matter what she did, Kathryn couldn’t compare to you,” David confessed.

“That’s not what you said that night in the park.”

The park? Emma thought to herself, but she assumed that it must be a part of what went wrong all those years ago. The only park she knew of had been just outside of campus, and from what she recalled Mary Margaret and David had gone there sometimes to study.

“You mean about stringing you along as a kind of game?” David asked and Emma bit back a wince. That sounded rough, but before she could delve too deep into what Mary Margaret must have been feeling, David had an answer. “That wasn’t me. You have to believe that.”

“It was you, David. I saw you. Not only did I have to live through the moment of hearing you say all those terrible things, then I saw you with her… celebrating in it all, making a joke out of me and what I thought we had.”

Emma took a step towards her friend at the same time that Ruby and Elsa did. It was an instinctive move to protect Mary Margaret, but they were all halted by David’s earnest reply.

“You didn’t see me that night. You saw James.”

The look of shock on Mary Margaret’s face and the subsequent realization that their friend seemed to go through prompted Emma to share a look with Ruby and Elsa. Who the hell was James? And why hadn’t Mary Margaret let them kick Kathryn’s ass yesterday? Clearly she was the ‘she’ involved in all of this, and Kathryn needed a serious reality check about how to treat people.

“Your brother? But you said he was in Europe and that you’re father had cut him off and kicked him out for good. How did he…?”

Mary Margaret trailed off as David stepped closer to her, his eyes never straying for a second, and everyone else was completely ignored. Meanwhile Emma stood there almost laughing out loud. It was hardly a funny situation, but there was a certain kind of ludicrousness that came with a supposed familial misunderstanding like this. For Mary Margaret to be convinced that it was David all these years, they must look and sound very similar. Maybe they were even twins. This twist was straight out of a soap opera. Evil twins? Those couldn’t be real could they? Yet there was nothing resembling a lie anywhere on David’s person.

“Apparently all it took to seal the breach between my father and brother was the promise of making me miserable,” David explained.

“I don’t understand,” Mary Margaret said and David took a step closer again, his hand clutching Mary Margaret’s in his. Emma noticed that her friend didn’t pull back in the slightest and she knew then that all was going to be forgiven. Maybe not right this minute, but Mary Margaret was already starting to make peace with her mistake back then and now David had an opening to make good on the claims he’d walked in here with.

“A few days before that night in the park I broke it off with Kathryn for good. I told her that I didn’t care about what the expectations were or who our families were to each other. I was following my heart to you, and I told her that I hoped she could find someone who made her feel everything that you brought into my life. Even now, having not seen you in years, I still have that feeling like this is all that matters. You’re all that matters.”

“David,” The emotion of all of this started hitting Mary Margaret hard and David made quick work of tossing the flowers onto a nearby chair and wiping away her tears before continuing on.

“But instead of accepting things, Kathryn went to my father who reasoned that sacrificing your and my happiness was a small price for his idealized business plans. He got James on a plane and set the whole thing up, and I didn’t know until yesterday when I demanded the truth from him. I broke ties with Kathryn for good years ago, so my father knows that there is no longer any hope of a merger between us and he finally gave it up after enough prodding. I had no idea that they were going to set us up like that. I can only imagine what you must have thought and how it must have hurt. I know it killed me a thousand times over to have you walk away.”

“I’m sorry. David I’m so sorry.” Mary Margaret barely got out the words before her voice broke, but David rose to fill the silence, holding her closer as she stroked his cheek.

“There’s no way you could have known, Mary Margaret, but I should have. I saw James the next night. I knew he was in town but I never connected the dots. All this time we could have had was wasted, and it’s because of me, because of my family. Because I couldn’t believe the worst in three people who had shown me their true colors a long time ago.”

After all of these confessions, Emma felt a host of vicarious emotions. It was heartbreaking to think of all the time that had gone by, all the years that Emma had watched her friend try and move on, never finding someone who fit for her like David had. Now they were on their way to getting another chance, but they were still on shaky ground, either heading towards two mutual professions of caring for each other, or setting down definitively different paths. Emma hoped for her friend’s sake that Mary Margaret chose the first option, because Emma knew first hand how much better the world was when love was present.

“I’m not proud of the way I acted back then, Mary Margaret. It should never have been an issue. I should never have waited as long as I did to step up and be the man you deserved. But whether you meant to or not, you undid a lifetime’s worth of learning. You taught me that love is something I can afford, no matter the price. Now all I ask if that you look into your heart and honestly tell me if that love could ever be returned. If not, I’ll walk away. I’ll leave you to whatever it is that can make you happy. But if there’s a chance, even the slightest one, that you love me too, then I’ll never stop trying to show you that I can be the man you believedin all those years ago.”

A beat of anticipation past before Mary Margaret was in motion and pulling David down for a kiss Emma was sure was sweet for the both of them. Given everything, Emma assumed it would be their first one, but her gut was already telling her that though it might be the first, it would be one of many. Emma recognized the pulsing connection between Mary Margaret and David after all, and she hoped that the love they’d formed all those years got the chance to grow and evolve as it should have back then.

“So I’ll take that as a yes?” David asked when they pulled back and before Mary Margaret could respond, Ruby gave her two cents.

“Honey, you can take that as a hell yes! Sane women don’t turn down big gestures like the one you just made.”

For the first time Mary Margaret seemed to notice how public this reunion had just been and her cheeks stained deep red in a blush. Emma could relate to that though, for there had been more than a few instances where Killian brought that same level of distraction to her life. Without replying to Ruby, however, Mary Margaret confirmed the sentiment.

“I can’t believe this is real, but yes. We have a lot to figure out, but I do want that chance with you, David. I want to hope with you again. I went too long without it and without you.”

The pure joy on both Mary Margaret and David’s faces in that moment was impossible to ignore, and their happiness lit up the whole room. It was a beautiful thing to see, but when it looked like they were about to do more in terms of reuniting, Emma cleared her throat, pulling Mary Margaret’s attention her way.

“Maybe you guys want to take this somewhere a little more private?” Emma offered.

“Unless you’re cool with giving Ruby even more ammo than you already have,” Elsa said, backing Emma up.

“Hey! I take offense to that. Besides, Mary Margaret’s done for the day, so she can have all the privacy she needs.” That fact from Ruby seemed to surprise their pixie-haired friend.

“Done? But what about the three appointments I have this afternoon?”

“What can I say? I’m a great multi-tasker. I moved some things around for you because you’re otherwise engaged,” Ruby said shaking her phone and sending a wink to David who looked back to Mary Margaret with a big grin of his own.

“Well in that case maybe we could get to that discussion you were talking about.”

“Amongst other things,” Ruby quipped, and everyone turned their eyes to her. “What?”

“Let them have their moment, Ruby! Jeez,” Jasmine said, prompting a smile from Emma. Jasmine might be a new acquaintance, but she certainly fit into the fabric of this friendship and this moment over all.

“Alright I think that’s our cue to leave,” Mary Margaret said, taking David’s hand and accepting the flowers he retrieved once more from the chair. “See you all tomorrow.”

With that, the friends watched Mary Margaret and David depart, and once the door was closed behind them everyone broke out into a frenzy of conversation.

“Can you believe that just happened?!” Elsa asked and Jasmine shook her head.

“That was like a movie. I didn’t even realize moments like that existed,” she said.

“They do here,” Ruby responded before pointing Emma’s way. “And it all started with her.”

“Me?” Emma asked, surprised.

“Yes you. Did you think you falling in love wasn’t going to have an effect on all of us? When the cynical guarded friend finds her ‘one,’ it’s kind of a sign to the Universe to get it together for everyone else,” Ruby explained as if her logic was unimpeachable.

“So who’s next? You and Graham? Or has Elsa met someone I am unaware of?” Emma joked.

“Tragically no,” Elsa said, still looking a little dreamy eyed after all the love that had been on display just moments ago with their other friend. “But I’m comfortable being the one single friend if it comes to that. I’ll just rescue a lot of animals and bake cakes until I’m old and gray, treating all your grandchildren as if they were my own.”

Emma laughed at Elsa’s visions of her future as Ruby scoffed and rolled her eyes. She immediately waved away the thought of any such reality for Elsa.

“It’s only a matter of time. I’m telling you, I can feel it. Love is in the air,” Ruby professed.

“And that love you’re feeling has nothing to do with the fact that we work in this industry and get people hitched for a living?” Emma retorted.

“That’s purely coincidental,” Ruby said with a grin before turning back to Jasmine and leading the soon to be bride through some other last minute things she’d have to consider for the wedding this weekend. Emma took that as her sign that she was no longer needed, and when Jasmine had successfully changed, and Emma oversaw her dress being returned to where it needed to be, an idea came to her.

“I think I’m going to go out for lunch today,” Emma said to Tiana as she grabbed her jacket and her purse from her office. “I shouldn’t be gone too long. Just over an hour or so. Could you -,”

“Run things until you get back? In my sleep. You have fun and say hi to Killian for me,” Tiana said throwing Emma a knowing smile.

“I didn’t – oh forget it.”

Emma didn’t bother denying what her friend already knew and Tiana laughed, giving Emma one last goodbye before she headed out to see the one guy she wanted to chose, and the one who made her believe in second chances and potential happily ever afters. She just had one last thing to do to make sure all systems were a go. Emma pulled out her phone and dialed the necessary number as she walked out the front door.

“Hey Tink it’s me. Can I ask you for a favor...?”

……………..

As Killian arrived back from a meeting across the floor, he couldn’t keep the smile off of his face. Even though it had been a routine breakdown of advertising revenue, the meeting had him in a good mood. Profits were up and advertisers were bidding at higher intervals for spots in the magazine, but even that good news couldn’t take full credit for the grin across his face. No, that went to Emma and the parting words she’d left him with on the train today:

“Have a good day, dear,” she’d teased, but Killian felt that endearment down to his bones. It was a snippet of what life could be with Emma if given the chance, where they were more to each other than just boyfriend and girlfriend. God how Killian wanted that, but for now Emma’s light heartedness and easy flirtations were enough to make him feel like the luckiest man alive.

As he got closer to his office, Killian noticed that Tink was sitting at her desk with a big smile on her face. It seemed his happiness was going around today, and he stalled at her desk listening to her finish up the conversation that had brightened her mood.

“Okay great. See you soon!” Tink said before hanging up and then jumping when she noticed him. Well this was interesting – no one was ever able to sneak up on Tink. Something must be up.

“Someone special on the other end of that call?” Killian asked his assistant and the small woman smirked.

“Oh yeah. But don’t you have a letter to get to work on, Captain Nosey?” Tink said, straightening up in her chair and giving him a stern look before pointing to his office door.

“Aye I do. Thanks for the reminder.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Tink replied as Killian laughed. He moved into his office at a leisurely pace and laid his jacket on the back of one of the chairs, not caring to put it away.

He knew that he should get to work now on the letter from the editor that would be needed for the next issue of Citizen NY, but Killian had other thoughts swimming around in his brain, ones that involved a certain blonde temptress whose smiles lit up his whole world. Sitting back behind his desk, Killian didn’t bother pretending to draft his necessary piece and instead he put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, thinking of the look of amusement on Emma’s face when he’d asked to see her tonight during their commute this morning. They were in a routine of seeing each other very often but he couldn’t assume that she would give him so much of her time. Emma meanwhile found it comical that he wasn’t already prepping a date, but she readily agreed, sealing it as a fantastic day in Killian’s book no matter what was coming down the pike.

A knock sounded through the room a moment later, interrupting Killian’s happy thoughts of Emma and his largely ignoring his work responsibilities. He looked up and found Will with a parcel in his hand. His friend studied Killian critically, but instead of making a joke about the state he’d found him in as Killian might expect, Will attempted a sorry excuse for a smile.

“Here’s that packet you wanted from the graphics department.”

Will tossed the materials onto Killian’s desk with more force than was needed, and the usually prevalent smirk on his friend’s face was nowhere to be seen. Killian sat up straighter, reaching out for the papers as his eyes stayed on his friend.

“Everything alright there, Scarlet?” Killian asked as Will grunted.

“Fine.” That hardly sounded reassuring.

“You sure about that?” Killian asked, taking note of Will’s clenched jaw and fists. When he looked back to Will’s eyes, Will caved and sat down in the seat across from him, exhaling a breath.

“No I’m not fucking sure. Actually I am – I’m certain that I’m a right idiot.” Well that had escalated quickly.

“What happened?” Killian asked.

“It’s more like what didn’t happen, mate.” Killian mulled the cryptic statement over for a minute and then it dawned on him.

“Does this have anything to do with a particularly bright reporter you’ve been avoiding seeing socially?” Killian nudged Will into the right direction, but his friend only put his face in his hands as his elbows rested on his knees.

“She’s found someone else,” Will mumbled.

“Beg your pardon?” Killian asked, convinced he hadn’t heard him correctly.

“She’s taken, mate! She’s spoken for! She’s invested elsewhere! How else can I say it?” Killian looked from Will to the door, glad to see his friend had closed it upon entering. Otherwise the whole office would have just heard that.

“Since when?” Killian asked, assured that if Belle was serious about someone the subject would have come up at some point.

“I don’t bloody know. Harrison asked her out for drinks yesterday and she told him she’s already seeing someone. I just overheard in the break room and I don’t know what to make of it. How did this happen?”

Silence descended between Killian and Will as Killian considered what Will had just imparted to him, but it was clear that he viewed the situation entirely different than his friend did. Harrison was a fine enough man, but there was nothing like chemistry between him and Belle, and Killian would guess that Belle might say something like that to let a man down easy. Until they heard it from the source herself, there should be no assumption of this being true.

“I ruined this, mate. I ruined things before they even had the chance to begin,” Will said in a defeated tone. Killian, meanwhile, couldn’t stand to see his friend this way.

“The way I see it you have two choices: walk away and live with the regret…”

“Or?” Will asked hesitatingly after Killian’s short pause.

“Or you fight for her. You tell Belle how you feel, you lay your cards out there, and you let her make a decision.”

“Are you mad?! And what if she is taken?! What if I make a mess of everything? It’d be awkward. It would starve away the little bit we do have together now.”

Killian knew it sounded crazy, and he recalled the way it had been with him when he was trying to approach Emma. The situations were different of course, but the core problem was the same: Will was too wrapped up in his own thoughts just as Killian had been, and if he hadn’t gotten his head out of his ass long enough to say hello and ask Emma for a date, Killian would have missed out on the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“Is this what you want Will? Are you satisfied with settling for a life as just her friend, nay her work acquaintance even? Because if you are then let things stand. Walk away, wash your hands of it, learn to move on. But if you’re looking for more and if you see a future with her you have to go for it, mate. You can’t just wait around expecting her to come to you.”

Will let the words hang there for a while, mulling them over and deciding what to do. Killian worried for a moment that his friend would choose the coward’s way out, and he didn’t want that for him. Will deserved to know one way or another, and Killian did believe in his heart that there was something more than friendly admiration between Belle and Will. But there was only so much that Killian could do. The choice had to be Will’s, because one way or another Will was the one who would deal with the consequences.

“As usual you’re right, but that doesn’t mean I bloody like it,” Will said standing up and wiping his hands on his slacks. “No one ever tells you it’s gonna be like this either. Everyone makes love seem a big mushy, easy thing. But this…”

“Is barely restrained chaos, aye. It gets better, mate. If she gives you the chance to make it real, it transcends everything else and anything is worth it.” At least it was when it came to him and Emma.

“If I were less self-involved I’d probably dissect everything you just gave away about you and your girl, but that’ll have to wait. If I don’t go now I’ll lose my nerve,” Will claimed uneasily.

“Now?” Killian asked, surprised that his friend would make a move like this during work hours, but before Will could start reevaluating and spiraling again Killian offered a smile and a final wish. “Well good luck. She’d be a fool not to choose you.”

“Here’s hoping,” Will said taking leave of the room and leaving Killian alone once more.

There was about a thirty second window where Killian attempted to study some of those graphics Will had brought, but then interruption came calling again in the form of another knock at the doorway. Not that Killian minded. He still wasn’t presently capable of focusing as he should.

“Change your mind so soon?” Killian asked but as his eyes moved up he found it wasn’t Will at all, but the woman who’d been on Killian’s mind since leaving her this morning. Emma was here, and instantly Killian stood up to greet her.

“I did actually. Lunch alone just wasn’t working with me today, so I thought I’d stop by, unless you’re busy…” Emma said, holding up a bag of food that she’d brought along.

“I’m never too busy for you, Emma.”

“Tink said the same thing when I called. Apparently I take easy priority over skype sessions with your LA affiliates.”

The final pieces clicked into place for Killian as he realized why Tink had acted so peculiarly before. He appreciated his assistant’s discretion though, for this was a lovely surprise and he made a mental note to thank her sincerely later.

“That’s putting it lightly,” Killian agreed and Emma chuckled to herself as he pulled her in for a kiss. God it felt good to have her here, and Killian was more than thrilled for whatever had happened in the world that led Emma to him right now.

The gleam in Emma’s eyes when they separated from the kiss, still a breath away from each other and both clearly wanting more, made Killian wonder exactly what had brought her here today. There were gears turning in that beautiful brain of hers and though Killian didn’t expect any ulterior motives on Emma’s part, there was definitely something on her mind. Yet Killian didn’t have to ask about it. Instead Emma freely said what she wanted to say.

“I just wanted to say for the record that I’m choosing you and this relationship, and that I’m really glad you broke the ice that first day. If you hadn’t…” Emma looked away and Killian tilted her face back up to look at him. He didn’t understand exactly what prompted her words, but the sentiment was one he wanted to immediately address.

“There was no choice to make, Emma. Some things you just know, and I knew I needed you in my life.”

Killian also knew even then that he loved her, or that he could love her very soon. It was the easiest thing to do in Killian’s opinion, as if he’d been born specifically for the task of giving his heart to one Emma Swan. Nothing felt as right as giving her everything he had, and no dream could outshine his one to always be with her. It had happened quickly to be sure, but some loves were like that. They started at first glance and evolved into something all the greater, and that, Killian believed, was what he’d found with Emma: a love that grew to so much more when given the opportunity to do so.

The confessions on both of their parts sparked another kiss, and the food was long forgotten. All Killian could comprehend was Emma. The way she gave herself so willingly, the way she was investing in him and their relationship together. It was incredible, and yet it was only the surface of what made Emma so miraculous. She was so complex and dynamic, a person he still didn’t fully know, but who he wanted to spend a lifetime trying to understand.

“You know the last time I was here I had this thought,” Emma whispered when she pulled back too soon for his liking. Her eyes stayed on his lips, her smile curving upwards. “I was thinking that your office has a lot more privacy than mine does and as such it lends more options for how to spend a lunch hour.”

The seductive tone of Emma’s voice and her hand on his chest teasing ever so slowly downward made Killian gulp harshly. He knew exactly what she was hinting at, and he’d never been even remotely tempted to steal such an interlude in his office. This was where he worked, and for his whole life up to now he had kept his romantic life as far from here as he could, but with Emma things were different. The idea of spending however much time they had here chasing some sort of pleasure made his heart pump loudly and his veins fill with a rush of adrenaline.

“And did these thoughts of yours have any more specificity, Swan?” Killian asked, his voice gruff and gravely. He hardly recognized the tone, but damn he loved the way Emma flushed at hearing it. She played the seductress so well, but she was just as far gone as he was and that was an aphrodisiac in itself.

“Some. But I’m always open to suggestions,” she replied breathily and Killian sought to take advantage of her current state.

“Lock the door, love.”

The fire in Emma’s eyes at the command made her all the more beautiful, but she heeded the request, getting up and swaying her hips with a bit more flair than usual as she walked to fulfill his request. When she turned around, her sinful smile had returned and Killian felt his hands clench into fists as an active attempt to not just grab her right now. Instead he waited until she was back with him before wrapping his arms around her.

“Now what?” Emma asked.

“Now you decide, Swan. Should I ravish you on the desk or the couch?” Emma blushed at the words, but her eyes never waivered, staying trained on his before she replied.

“Desk. Definitely desk.” The way she said the words made Killian groan. There was no doubt Emma had thought of this before, and he certainly had lost his train of thought more than once imaging such a moment as this.

With time not on their side, Killian had to fight with himself. His usual instinct when it came to Emma was to savor every moment and to elicit every last drop of pleasure that he could from her. It came back to the idea of proving himself worthy and showing her how good he could always make her feel. That he found his own immense satisfaction from satisfying her was a mere bonus. Typically his one-track mind was dedicated only to seeing her content.

Now though there wasn’t every option under the sun available to him. He couldn’t tease her like he wanted, or bring her to the brink and then pull back so as to elongate her eventual climax. No, this needed careful consideration and it would test the mastery he’d accumulated over the past few weeks of what Emma craved and what she most desired. The thought of needing to get creative made him impossibly harder.

“I should have told you when you walked in that you look beautiful today, Emma,” Killian murmured when she was perched atop his desk, her legs spread wider so he could stand between them. The hem of her black dress inched higher than was decent, but in here no one would see aside from him. He loved thinking that she was all his, and a possessiveness that he’d never had before her settled over him. Emma was his, and he would spend every last bit of energy in him to show her he was worth putting her faith in and choosing in return.

“You did tell me this morning remember?” Emma teased, her eyes searching his and then dropping back down to his mouth again, her tongue poking out to wet her lips and drive him mad. His hands on her hips tightened until one moved down to the soft skin of her thigh.

“Once isn’t enough, love. You should know it every second of every day,” he professed.

“That might get a little tedious,” Emma said, a sharp sound of need tailing the last syllable and causing Killian to smile wider. Just as he expected she was ready for him already. One graze of his fingers against the lace that covered her sex and he was certain.

“Ah, but the way I’d tell you isn’t with mere words,” Killian said as he delicately removed the fabric that separated them, taunting her a little more in the process before putting the scrap of lace in his pocket. “I think we’d both rather enjoy my showing you just how enamored I am with you more than simply saying it.”

Emma made a sound of agreement that turned into a quiet moan when he knelt before her. She no doubt knew of his intentions in that moment and though she shook her head and protested that they didn’t have time, her body arched towards him, pleading for the attention he was about to bestow.

“Just a taste now, Swan. Enough to drive you to the edge before I take you fully.”

Emma looked liable to speak again but she didn’t get the chance when Killian had her where he wanted her, perched at the edge of the table and opened to him completely. He didn’t tease in the slightest, but made love to her sex with his mouth, reveling in each frustrated sound Emma made. Her need to keep quiet was no doubt burdensome for her, but Killian knew a thing or too about disappointment. He wanted more than anything to take Emma over the edge like this. He knew exactly the series of licks and sucks he’d need to give her that completion but he pulled back and stood up again right when she was about to come, the taste of her arousal still sweet on his tongue.

Understanding his thoughts on what would happen next, Emma moved up and made quick work of undoing his pants, pushing them down far enough so he was free to take her as he wanted. With one quick thrust, they were both of them groaning, but they covered the sounds with a hungry kiss that was hard and demanding. The thought that this was dangerous was never far from Killian’s thoughts, and honestly it was the only thing keeping him in check at all. But soon enough Emma was crashing into her orgasm and taking him with him as she pulsed against him, and the release was just as satisfying as all the one’s Emma had granted him in the past few weeks.

“I think I can safely say that this has been the best lunch break ever,” Emma said, when she caught her breath again, her forehead resting against Killian’s and her eyes lazily opening and displaying every last bit of the pleasure she’d just found. He wanted to take her all over again when she looked like this, sated and happy and infatuated with him.

“And it’s not over. Not just yet anyway.” They still had a bit of time left, and Killian fully intended to make use of it.

The two of them cleaned up and got themselves situated, moving to the couch to eat their lunch, and though it was a bit more rushed because of their other chosen activities, Killian cherished every second that they had together. They sat close, sharing the two items Emma had procured for them with a familiarity that spoke to far more time shared between them than they’d actually had. Killian found himself wanting more afternoons like this and he was willing to procure them from Emma through whatever means necessary, but he held back on making that request as he learned about her day. He listened as she broke down the scene from Bliss earlier this afternoon that had prompted her visit, and he felt himself truly happy for Emma and her friend.

“So they found each other again in the end,” Killian acknowledged, watching Emma’s smile appear as he made the claim.

“Yeah they did,” she confirmed, intertwining her fingers with his in a quiet show of togetherness.

“Promise me something, Emma.” Emma looked back to him and took in his earnest plea. “Promise me that you won’t run if ever there’s some sort of misunderstanding. I would never hurt you, love, and the thought that you would think so…” Killian couldn’t bare to put those thoughts to words.

“I’m not going anywhere, Killian. I know what kind of man you are and I know that I can trust you.” Killian would be hard pressed to think of sweeter words that his ears had ever heard.

“That you can, love. That you can.”

They shared one last kiss before Emma took note of the clock along the wall and realized she had to get going, but saying goodbye was difficult for Killian, even if today’s visit had never been planned in the first place. Nevertheless he sent Emma off with a vow to see her later and as he watched her go, offering a friendly goodbye to Tink and some of the other staff around the floor on her way to the elevator, Killian felt himself falling a little more under the spell of this woman who brought so much magic to his life just by being herself.

Post-Note: I am leaving this chapter here hoping that you guys take as much enjoyment from all the fluff as I did. I know some of you might be thinking that there wasn’t as much direct CS engagement as you might like, but don’t fret. Next week and all the subsequent chapters there will be much more. As I said earlier, next chapter also brings Liam’s arrival (and some more intrigue on that front) and I can hardly wait. Anyway thank you all so much for reading and I hope you have a lovely rest of your day!