#anyway I guess this was to explain the players who don’t know those fruits but I still think it was funny how they presented it

[disownedbytiime]

I still haven’t made like a proper post (although I finally finished it!) but I still have to say that the first 2 parts of this update in the event were so gross. Not bc of what they talked about, but did they have to add those noises when they “ate” the fruits or whatever? I wanted to gouge my ears out. I hate those kind of noises, and yes I just switched off the sound after a while but I still wanna complain.

[sanguineterrain]

Brooklyn Honey - Bucky Barnes x Reader

(Repost!) Hello, this is for the lovely @wkemeup​’s 9k writing challenge. I decided to go with the song prompt “Life in the City” by The Lumineers. It really reminded me of 40s Bucky.

Title: Brooklyn Honey

Summary: Life in the city ain’t always so pretty, but you’ve got Bucky and he’s got you.  

Pairing: 1940s!Bucky Barnes x female!reader

Word count: 2.4k

Warnings: nah

***

“That’s so not how you do it.”

“Sorry, I must’ve missed the day you wrote the manual on how to put up curtains.”

“You sure did, and I can tell you as an expert, the nails aren’t supposed to resemble a mountain range.”

“Smartass. C’mere.”

Bucky’s palm opened and you took a nail, carefully tapping it into the wall.

“Or is it the skyline you’re going for?”

“You’re pretty mouthy for an assistant.”

“I keep it interesting, doll.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

“James Barnes, what on earth are you doing in there?!”

Your eyes went wide and you hurried to scramble off the chair you were standing on. Bucky put a hand on your back, shaking his head.

“Buck—”

“I got it, don’t worry. Keep hammering.”

“But—”

“Honey, don’t you trust me?”

“Absolutely not.”

More knocking, faster and louder this time.

“Coming, Mrs. Anderson!”

Bucky buttoned up his shirt, smoothing his pomade-slicked hair back, and went to answer.

You stepped down from the chair anyway, daring to peek around the corner. 

He had his arms up, trying to fill the entire door frame and hide the obnoxiously yellow curtains you probably weren’t supposed to have. Mrs. Anderson, Steve and Bucky’s busybody next door neighbor, was a small, shriveled, old woman with a perpetually pinched face that looked like it had been stored in a jar of formaldehyde for the last twenty years. She kept trying to look over Bucky’s shoulder but he wouldn’t let her, moving when she did.

“—could’ve sworn I heard hammering coming from this apartment.”

“Oh! You must’ve heard me fixing my bike.” 

“You don’t have a bike, James.”

“Did I say my bike? I meant Steve’s.”

“Steve rides a bike?”

“Absolutely. Keeps him fit.”

“I don’t recall seeing him ever—”

“Well, bye, Mrs. Anderson! Always a pleasure to see you, ma’am.”

She gave another stern look before shaking her head, walking away.

You sighed as Bucky shut the door with his foot, a too sly smile on his face.

“Didn’t I tell you to trust me?”

“I think you might be a worse liar than Steve.”

“Well, ouch, doll.”

“First of all, who’s ever heard of needing a hammer to fix a bike?”

“We can be the first.”

“Next time, I’m answering the door.”

You clambered back onto the chair, returning to knocking in the nails. 

“I still don’t understand why you wanted curtains in the first place.” 

“It adds a homely touch, doll. Aren’t you the one who’s always complaining about how drab this place is?”

“Of course, but it’s not my apartment.” 

“It could be, with how often you’re over,” Bucky said sweetly. 

“Keep dreaming, Barnes.” 

“I will,” he assured with a smile that could melt butter. 

You shook your head and returned to focus on the curtains. True, the first one was beyond help in terms of nail placement, but the least you could do was try and make the next one even. 

Bucky had offered at least ten times to do it himself but there was no way he was getting his hands on a hammer after what had happened when he’d tried to install some shelves last winter. 

Besides, you were better at decorating when it came down to it. At least, that’s what Bucky kept insisting, letting you do essentially anything you wanted to the apartment. 

The chair suddenly groaned under additional weight and you startled as you felt the side of a body press against yours. 

“How’s it goin’?”

“Bucky, this chair really isn’t meant for two people.” 

“You sure? Seems pretty sturdy to me.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Bucky wrapped an arm around your waist and you fixed him with a look. 

“What? Don’t want you to fall.”

“How valiant of you.”

“Ain’t it?”

He hopped off before you could scold him further, grinning up at you. 

“Beer?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Bucky disappeared and returned a minute later with an open bottle for you, holding it so you could sip safely while still perched on the chair.

Then you kept hammering, eyes narrowed as you focused on not hitting anything other than the nail.

Bucky watched from the floor as you did so, leaning back on his hands.

“What’re you looking at?” you asked after a while, glancing at him from the corner of your eye.

He shrugged, a gentle smile on his face.

“The city.”

***

“Honey, I’m home!”

“What did I say about that, Barnes?”

“You said… you’ll love me for all eternity because you’re as sweet as honey?”

“I think it was more along the lines of, ‘don’t call me honey unless you mean it.’”

“I always mean it, Y/N.”

And that was a little more sincerity than you were willing to explore, so you pointed to the bag instead.

“What’s that?”

Bucky grinned, setting a giant paper sack on the counter.

“Lemons.”

“What?”

“Lemons. You know, the little yellow fruits that make you do this?”

Bucky puckered his mouth and smacked his tongue, eyes screwed shut.

“Lemon’s not a fruit.”

“It sure is! Fruit got seeds. Read that in a book about agriculture. We produce a lot of corn, did you know that?“

“Okay, Bucky, the presiding question still remains: why do you have every lemon in the city?”

“There was a good deal at the docks. Dirt cheap for produce. Some guys told me they were takin’ some home for their wives. Didn’t want you to feel left out.”

“I’m not your wife.”

Bucky just grinned. You rolled your eyes.

“I don't know who taught you this, but the way to a girl’s heart is not twenty pounds of lemons.”

“Think of all the lemonade we can make.”

“Unless you’ve also got FDR and his cabinet in those bags, we’re gonna have a lot of leftovers.”

“Look at it this way: no vitamin C deficiency. One less thing to worry ‘bout.”

“Bucky.”

“They’re not all lemons, doll. I got other stuff too. Tomatoes, cabbage, snuck some cucumbers, even bananas.”

You sighed, smiling tiredly. This ration was taking its toll on everyone. You knew Bucky was doing his best, had seen the vegetables and thought of you and how much you missed having cucumber salad and tomato sandwiches like you used to.

“Thank you, Bucky, really. I appreciate you.”

You brushed past him to begin preparing the excess vegetables you three wouldn’t eat this week to pickle. Salt and sugar was going to be hard to gather, but you’d manage. You always did.

“Welcome, doll.” 

He beamed, eyes full of warmth as he watched you. 

“You gonna stay for dinner?”

“I dunno. Seems like Steve’s gettin’ kinda tired of me,” you laughed.

“Never. ‘Sides, even if he was, doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, really?”

“Nope. ‘Cause you stay for me.”

“And where did you get that idea from?”

He shrugged.

“Seemed kinda obvious, doll. You’re smitten, admit it.”

“Oh dear, you’ve got me all figured out. However did you know?”

“I’m a bright fella.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You ain’t saying no…”

“Really, I have to say no? Can’t you tell I only stick around for the great deals you get on produce?” 

“But it’s me that gets the great deals, so really, you’re still staying for me.” 

Bucky was against the counter now, shoulder to shoulder with you. 

You sighed, hand on your hip as you stared at the table. 

“What the hell are we going to do with all these lemons?” 

“We’ll figure something out. Always do, don’t we?”

You hummed, leaning your head on his shoulder, aware he was talking about more than the lemons. 

“Yeah. We always do.” 

***

Steve had been home for a while, wordlessly letting you in when you’d shown up an hour ago. You didn’t have to explain anything to him anymore. 

The record player was on, crooning gently. Steve was in the corner, drawing, away from the window after the breeze had whipped his papers around one too many times.

“Can’t believe they’re building another skyscraper down on Lawrence.”

Steve frowned.

“Really? Won’t be able to see the sunset now.”

“Yeah. And Brooklyn’s not exactly known for its scenery to begin with. Saw a rat and a pigeon fighting over a pretzel this morning.”

Steve chuckled from the floor, shaking his head.

“Times are tough. Even for rats and pigeons.” 

“Sure are.”

“Nice curtains, by the way. I like the color.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Did Bucky ask—?”

“No,” he answered, smile evident in his voice. “But that’s alright. I know he’s just tryin’ to gauge what you like.”

“What?”

“Yeah, after the war’s over and all, he’s gonna try and buy a nicer place.”

“And he wants my furnishing tips?”

Steve shrugged, gaze soft and knowing.

“Guess so.”

You cleared your throat, pushing a lock of hair behind your ear.

“Want some lemonade?”

“Jesus, there’s more? I thought we’d run out of bushels.”

“You’d think, right? I put ‘em in the icebox so they won’t spoil so fast.”

“Sure, yeah. Thanks, Y/N.”

You were in the middle of stirring the pitcher when Bucky came in.

He didn’t greet you or Steve immediately, like he usually did, instead setting down his keys, then slapping the mail onto the table. 

“Well, hey there, mister. Fancy a drink? Today’s special is sour lemonade, your favorite.”

Bucky looked up, startled, and glanced at the pitcher before nodding, attempting a half smile.

“Sure, doll. Thanks.”

“Everything okay, Buck?”

He nodded, slipping away to the bathroom with a sigh.

You turned to Steve, who shrugged.

“Long day at the docks, I guess.”

***

June twelfth. That was when Bucky was being shipped out, somewhere in Europe, too far from you. This entire year you’d been holding your breath, hoping, needing the draft to leave him alone. 

Now they were taking him away from you in less than a week. 

You were in the apartment, lying on the floor, on Bucky’s second to last day. That’s how he found you upon coming home. 

“Trying to count all the cracks in the ceiling, doll? You’ll be here all night.”

You had a glass of lemonade by your head, spiked with a bit of rum. It was already warm, because it was summer and things were supposed to be warm in the summer.

The curtains danced in front of the window, yellow like sunshine and all those goddamn lemons in the freezer. The only respite from an otherwise colorless world.

“This city is so ugly.”

Bucky looked up at the sound of your voice. He walked over, crouching by your arm.

“Think so?”

“Yeah. Can’t find a single pretty thing in the city.”

“I can.”

“Can you?”

“Sure. She’s looking at me right now.”

“That was sappy.”

“Yes it was.”

Bucky lay down, rolling onto his side next to you, taking a sip from your glass.

“But I ain’t mean it any less.”

You hummed, closing your eyes.

“Well, for what it’s worth then, I think you’re handsome.”

“Oh, yeah?”

You could hear his proud smile.

“Don’t make me take it back.”

“No, I’m just surprised to hear it is all.”

“Surprised, huh? I’m certain I ain’t the first one to call you handsome.”

“You’re the only one I wanna hear it from.”

Something fluttered in your chest.

“What d’you say then? You and I, think we can take on a city as ugly as ours?”

He smiled.

“With you, doll?”

“Yeah.”

“With you, of course.”

“Good. I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Bucky propped his head up on his elbow. It was quiet again, with only your occasional sighs and his quiet breaths.

“What’re you looking at?” you breathed, opening your eyes.

“You.”

Bucky flicked a drop of lemonade from the tip of your nose.

You turned, now face to face.

And oh, Bucky’s blues. Those had been your color even before the curtains.

“I’m gonna miss you,” you blurted.

He smiled a little sadly.

“Gonna miss you too, Y/N.”

You pushed your lips together, taking a deep breath.

“You were right, you know.”

“‘Bout what?”

“That day when you brought home all those lemons. You said that I stay for you.”

Bucky’s lips quirked, gaze fond like it always was.

“All those times I stayed for dinner and pretended to know what I was doing putting up those curtains. I stayed for you.”

You wiped your nose quickly, sniffling.

“And I’m gonna keep staying.”

“Yeah? What if the bridge collapses tomorrow?”

“I’ll swim.”

“Even in the winter?”

“I’ll get myself a pair of ice skates.”

“You don’t know how to skate, doll.”

“That’s right. So you better come back safe and teach me.”

Bucky leaned in, nose brushing your cheek. He rolled over and carefully straddled you, holding his weight.

“I’ll be there, honey.”

“Now what did we say about that?”

Bucky’s eyebrows pinched in thought.

“Don’t say it if I don’t mean it?”

You hummed, pulling him closer, arms around his neck. Bucky’s lips were a millimeter from yours, breath fanning over your chin.

“Mm, I think it was something about eternity.”

Bucky was soft, tangy and sweet. His scruff scraped your cheek and your fingers curled into the baby hairs at the nape of his neck.

He slid his hands under your back and turned so you were on top, head on his chest. You lay like that for a while, listening to his heartbeat, arms strong around you. 

Yellow fluttered in the breeze, tacked unevenly onto the wall, catching your eye. 

Bucky glanced to the side, chuckling.

“Don’t let Anderson take our curtains away.”

“Of course not. I spent a weekend on those. She’ll have to fight me for ‘em.”

“Good God. Now I gotta worry about you brawling with old ladies and Steve getting into alley fights while I’m gone?”

“Nah. Steve’ll help me.”

“Oh, great.”

You reached up, brushing his jaw with your knuckles.

“Call me honey again.”

“Honey, honey, honey.”

You reached up to get just one last kiss, except it definitely wasn’t going to be the last. It couldn’t be.

“They’re not gonna take you away from me.”

Bucky shook his head, kissing you much slower this time, trying to memorize you before time ran out.

“Never. ‘M gonna think of you and I’ll be back ‘fore we know it.”

You nodded, wishing hard, hoping somebody was listening. 

“Then, when I come back,” he whispered, promise riding on the summer air.

“We’re gonna make the best damn lemonade you’ve ever had.”

And maybe this city could take away your sunsets, your tea and jams, even your summer.

But if there was anything that was yours and yours only, it was the lemon pulp on Bucky’s lips and the undissolved sugar on your own, as bitter and pretty as home.

[gimpfortetsurou]

Beach adventure with Kuroo, Bokuto, and Oikawa

Warnings: established relationship with the characters, one prank (if you consider it a prank) on Kuroo’s part, aged up characters, curse words (maybe 2 of them)

Characters: Kuroo, Bokuto, Oikawa, f!reader

Genre: fluff

a/n: Hi everyone, sorry if this took a while. I was preoccupied with uni stuff. Anyways, thank you for your patience.

Kuroo Tetsurou

I swear this man will be so excited that you guys are at the beach.

When you change into your swimming attires he’ll be like flexing those muscles at you and be smug about it when he catches you staring.

But when you step out the changing room wearing your swimsuit, mans gonna be drooling. You can practically see the drool dripping from his chin and falling to the ground. h̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶W̶H̶I̶P̶P̶E̶D̶.

When he catches some guy staring at you and your bod, he’ll snake an arm around your waist and will stare back to that guy.

He’ll most likely pick you up and carry to the water and go to deep part of the beach then laugh at you if you cling to him cause u smol. Your feet can’t reach the bottom.

“Oya? What’s wrong kitten? Can’t reach the bottom?” Kuroo asks you and that familiar hyena laugh escapes his lips.

“Shut up you bean pole, not everyone is born tall you smug rooster!” you snap back at him.

Being the playful person he is, an idea pops in his head that you swore you could see a light bulb appear on his head. He turns to you with that smirk of his.

I’m in danger.you thought to yourself.

And your intuition was right, he went under the water dragging you with him and you were not, I repeat, NOT ready so you drank some water. You were gonna give him a piece of your mind but something stopped you.

The sight of your boyfriend with his hair down due to the water. Damn, he could practically see the stars in your eyes twinkle. It was just so rare to see his hair like that so you just stared at him, forgetting the irritation you felt from before.

“If you keep on staring at me like that, I’ll probably melt before the heat can do it.”

“Can’t help it Tetsu, it’s not like I can enjoy this look of yours every day.” You reply with a gentle smile.

Bokuto Koutaro

A topless Bokuto in his swimming trunks, you gonna be screaming itadakimasu on the top of your lungs cuz y not? With those beefy arms and those thighs. DAMN

Mans gonna be elated that you both have time to go on vacation with him being a pro volleyball player and with you being a marketing manager in the company you work for, you both are pretty much busy with your careers so having a vacation with just the two of you was absolutely precious.

I tell you that when he sees you in your swimsuit, he gonna hype you up and when he mentions how good you look, your confidence level just shoots up the roof because that’s how he really is. He can make you feel so empowered whenever he compliments you even when you do miniscule things.

I feel like he’ll suggest that you guys go scuba diving because he is a baby owl who wants to see the tiny fishies swimming about.

You can’t bring yourself to reject his suggestion because you can see the glimmer in his eyes plus, it’d be a fun activity to experience with your boyfriend.

“Really? Can we really?” he asks in confirmation just to make sure that he wasn’t hearing things.

“Yes Kou, we can go scuba diving.” You confirm him.

So here you both are, preparing yourselves to go on scuba diving. You have a scuba instructor to guide the both of you and accompany you in your dive. He explains all the details to the both of you and when you are ready, you guys jump in the water and begin your experience.

You go hand in hand with your boyfriend because he said that he’s afraid that you’ll get lost if he doesn’t hold you so you complied, unsure if it was just an excuse to hold your hand all the time. You guys just marvel at the sights before you, the school of fishes that was swimming before you, the colorful corals that you saw, and that eel that you’ve spotted. Everything was absolutely breath-taking and before you knew it, it was time for your experience to end.

When you guys return to the land, Bokuto won’t stop telling you the things he saw and felt when you were scuba diving. And you just sit there and listen attentively to your boyfriend while looking at him lovingly because you just find him so adorable and so pure.

“I love you.” You suddenly blurt out.

“I love you too, baby. Thank you for going on vacation with me, it means a lot.” He replied

“I’d follow you to the moon and back, if it means being with you Kou.”

With that statement, Bokuto melted and hugged you, knocking the air out of your lungs.

Oikawa Tooru

You are both in a beach resort because it wasn’t often that you are with your boyfriend with him being a pro volleyball player in the Argentinian team so you decided to spend your time together on the beach.

I swear Oikawa will probably say things like “Oh how beautiful the beach is, but not as beautiful as me right y/n-chan?”

Will not stop proving his point until you agree with him, but let’s be honest here. He really is beautiful.

So you were chilling on your respective chairs with a few refreshing fruit shakes on the table in the middle of your seats when your boyfriend saw a group of people screaming while riding the banana boat and as soon as the boat dragging the ride took a turn, all the people riding it were flung to the water.

Oikawa turned to you with puppy eyes and you can guess what he was thinking.

“No Tooru, we can’t.” you told him before he could even peep a word because you can guess that he will ask you if you guys can ride the banana boat.

“But y/n-chaaaaaan, it’ll be so much fun. Come ooooon.” He pleads you with those puppy eyes.

“I don’t want to be thrown into the ocean and not at that speed. We can’t Tooru.”

“But this is one of the few moments that we spend together, after this I have to go back to practicing with the team. Can’t we go on the ride and enjoy ourselves?” He reasoned with you.

Sure enough his reason was acceptable since you guys don’t see each other enough plus, you almost never go to the beach whenever you two meet. After some consideration and a few nudges from your boyfriend, you finally agree.

You were putting on your life vest and mounting the banana boat with your boyfriend when you were having second thoughts, but all of things that were running in your mind were discarded and blown by the wind when you saw the excitement painted on your boyfriend’s face. You didn’t have it in you to break his heart and turn his smile into a frown.

You felt the ride being dragged by another boat so you held on tight so that you won’t embarrass yourself by being the first one to be flung into the ocean. You managed to stay on the ride while the boat made a few turns and a lot of people were thrown to the ocean by now. You were laughing crazily with your boyfriend because you both cannot believe that the two of you survived.

“We conquered the ride y/n-chan, I told you this would be fun!” He beamed at you.

“Much to my surprise, it is exciting Tooru. Thanks for talking me into this.” You admitted.

“In your face banana boat ride! I survived!” He said while T-posing on the ride.

The ones operating on the other boat must’ve heard him because the second Oikawa said those words, the banana boat started to move and when it reached enough speed, the boat made a sharp turn which threw the both of you from your seats and into the water.

With the life vest keeping the both of you afloat, Oikawa swam towards you.

“You know what I take it back, swallowing salt-water isn’t worth it.” You told to him.

“It wasn’t my fault, the staff are just petty.” He pouted.

You both stared at each other before laughing at the competitiveness of your boyfriend and the people operating the boat.

[miyacchis]

Notes from a Con Man - Musical Great Pretender Stage Report Act 1

This is a bit extremely rambly, but I want to give some description of the distinguishing features of the staged version of Great Pretender as compared to the anime, although my plan is not to give a complete recap of the plot, as I’m sure anyone who is choosing to read this has watched the anime - or so I assume, but you know you do you. I try to control myself and keep it just to what is relevant, but I’m also a wordy bitch and that will never change, so, reader beware, I guess.

 The stage is set up with three levels (the stage level, the second floor, and the third floor where the band is). Both the stage level and second floor have a couple of rooms that can be pulled out or opened, and backgrounds are projected onto the set to create different settings. With the exception of the opening theme, which is taken from the anime, all of the music is live, and there’s very good interplay between the band and the performers, and I don’t know if I’d ever been to another show that felt so vibrant/alive/idk?

First, the biggest change made for the sake of clear storytelling on the stage is the addition of a framing device: the plot is conveyed to the audience through Edamura’s (Miyata Toshiya) narration as he tells his story to a prosecutor after the events of LA Connection. The play opens where LA Connection ends with Edamura being questioned at a police station, where it’s clear that he has been attempting for hours to convince detectives to believe the team-confidence-wild-and-wacky-adventures ™  explanation as to how he came to be in possession of a bag stuffed with foreign currency. Detectives are fed up with him and ready to go berniewiththesteelchair.jpeg on his ass. Enter Kitaoji (Kato Ryo), an elite prosecutor who seems to be on track to become attorney general, although it is unclear to those at the police station why he would take interest in Edamura’s case. 

Edamura is initially reluctant to open up to Kitaoji (Kato Ryo), certain that he won’t be believed, but after Kitaoji quotes from Shakunetsu (side note: I had no idea that in English Shakunetsu was turned into Die Hot which is an absolutely incredible pun and I really commend the translator), Edamura thinks Kitaoji might be just the person to believe him and help him to make amends to all those he had harmed through his life of fraud. Kitaoji encourages Edamura to start at the beginning and goes to eat a piece of candy, prompting Edamura to question, “What would you do if this simple piece of candy was sold for $5 million?” at which point he begins telling his story, transporting us first to a club in Hollywood where we are introduced to the plot with Sakura Magic and, more importantly, Laurent (Miya Rurika, goddess, dressed devastatingly in green), who is identified in quick succession as a French trader, an arrogant Don Juan, and the “bastard who got me into this mess.” 

Edamura bumbles through Laurent’s plot to build hype and clinch a deal with Cassano (Otani Ryosuke) by having Abby (Yamamoto Chihiro) “test” the “drug,” while giving small asides to Kitaoji to explain the main players and reveal to him that this is all a con job, but when Edamura is called to sign the contract to supply Cassano with the drug for $5 million, he flips out, pulls Salazar’s (Mikami Ichiro) gun, and flees the club, without the excuse of believing that he had taken drugs as he did in the anime. It is also not at this point that Edamura makes the connection between Laurent and Kudo and realizes that he’s been set up (Miyata!Edamura is overall a bit less perceptive than Kobayashi!Edamura, as we shall see, although I think this was a function of simplifying aspects of the characters’ interactions for the sake of clarity for the stage). 

Kitaoji pops in and out of the story from this point, donning different costumes (an unhoused person, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Razzie from the Shakunetsu series, etc.) to illustrate different aspects of the main characters’ conversations, and he serves as a way to get into Edamame’s head, allowing him to express what he is thinking and feeling as events in the story play out. It is in the metanarrative that we get some of these more comedic scenes, as well as additional insight into Edamura’s character as he grapples with his own identity as a scam artist and the son of a child trafficker.

After escaping Cassano’s henchmen outside the club, Edamura rejoins Kitaoji to ask if he’s following the story so far, which of course he is not (lol), so Edamura dives into how he met Laurent and came to be in LA. From here we flashback three days, joining Edamura and Kudo (Fukumoto Shinichi) in Asakusa as they spy Laurent as a potential mark. Edamura pulls the wallet-switch trick, and this scene generally follows the anime, although parts, such as the scenes showing Edamura selling water filters and Edamura and Kudo being raided by what seems to be the police, have been cut. After realizing that Laurent pickpocketed him and saw through his grift, Edamura quickly follows and catches him as he is about to depart in a cab to the airport. Just a moment to talk about this cab because it was such a cute, clever idea; it was really just a little push car driven by one of the supporting cast, and it can be disconnected in the middle, so as the driver pulls off, the back seat can be left behind, allowing the audience to watch Laurent and Edamura’s conversation as they are taken to the airport. 

Similarly to the anime, the successive scenes are nominally delivered in English, so Edamura switches to a dialect of Japanese to represent his accented English, which I mention only because Miyata discussed Edamura’s code switching with Kobayashi (Edamura’s Japanese voice actor) in an interview in vol. 51 of Stage Square and how he was concerned that he might confuse Standard Japanese and the dialect during scenes where he has to go back and forth quickly. Kobayashi reassured him that as he got into the character of Edamura Miyata would naturally fall into dialect whenever speaking to Laurent and Abby, and I’m very biased, buuuttttt throughout the run of the show, Miyata performed this beautifully, and as someone who for several years lived in the Tohoku region, the dialect of which Edamura’s accent reminded me of, his accent made me really nostalgic. 

Anywayyyyyy

After Laurent and Edamura bet on the outcome of Laurent’s upcoming “business negotiations” and it’s agreed that they will travel to LA together, the opening theme plays, the main cast is introduced, with Edamura running up and down the set to give a sense of action, the title in massive letters is lowered onto the stage, and we rejoin the main plot with Edamura trying to elude Cassano’s gang on the streets of LA by hiding behind the title. The supporting cast gives us some great background color as like random people in LA, like we’ve got some girls with Starbucks cups, some people breakdancing while simultaneously mugging a Dodgers fan, a skateboarder shouting “STREET”...for some reason. Perfect encapsulation of America *chef’s kiss*

Laurent finds Edamura and tells him to come home because he’s a good boy (😳), and Edamura is then introduced to Abby who, just as in the anime, kicks and knocks him out, after which they collect him and take him to an upscale hotel where Cynthia/Paula Dickens (Senna Ayase) is performing as a jazz singer. Laurent greets her briefly, but we don’t properly get introduced to her character until a later, very frustrating scene, but I’m not going to get started on that yet (it’s not her that’s frustrating, but it’s how they chose to have her and Edamura meet, but anyway we’ll get there). She sings “Summertime,” and it’s a lovely performance; all of her acting choices are very clearly informed by her experience in Takarazuka - she has these really dynamic, almost over-the-top movements and she uses that to her advantage to be one of the more comedic actors - and it’s really entertaining to watch.

Laurent orders them drinks; Edamura has something pink in a little martini glass, and he splutters when he tries to take a sip because he can’t handle his alcohol, which makes Laurent laugh, giving a lot of credence to Laurent’s statement soon after that he derives a lot of pleasure out of toying with naive boys like Edamura who pretend to be tougher than they really are. There’s also some funny adlib with Abby at this point where she gets brought different plates of food like fake fruit on one day and a tower of donuts on another. Laurent explains who Cassano is and the plan to defraud him and gives Edamura a notebook with a fabricated recipe for Sakura Magic, so the notebook is not part of what Edamura prepares himself when he goes later to get himself captured by Cassano to negotiate with him. Edamura has a couple of outbursts accusing Laurent and Abby of putting on airs, pretending to be carrying out justice, repeatedly interrupting the band who give him dirty looks and Shi-won, dressed as one of the saxophonists, loudly blows the saxophone back at him, and this prompts Laurent to be like nah we’re getting too much attention here let’s continue this back at the hotel. 

The hotel scene is fairly similar to the anime, but once Edamura is left alone, we get the first instance of him thinking about his family as he reflect on what Laurent had to say about how people don’t always believe the truth that is in front of them as they would rather believe whatever is most convenient. He flashes back to his family going home together after his father finished a case (the hotel room is on the second floor with his mom and dad entering on the stage level; the younger version of Edamura is done in voice over), and of course they seem like a happy family, although it’s interesting that what his dad has to say about ethics was cut from the script. The scene focuses more on Edamura idolizing his father as a great lawyer.

Okay, so we’ve finally come to the scene I absolutely hated and did not think was necessary, after Edamura leaves the hotel room. He is approached by three unhoused persons, one of whom he at first thinks is Kitaoji coming to interrupt the narrative again, but he soon realizes that they are “real homeless.” It was really just a disgusting, cruel stereotype; one of them is playing with a rat they found, another is acting like a junkie, and the ringleader is trying to get money off of him because they haven’t eaten in three days and then they steal his little Toyotomi Hideyoshi figurine and play keepaway with it and don’t stop until Cynthia/Paula Dickens (at this point she’s Paula tho so I’m going to refer to her that way) enters and is like knock it off. So that’s how they meet. Cool. They could easily have come up with something else and they just didn’t.

But, anyway, since he got his figurine back, he explains to Paula that his hobby is collecting capsule toys, and during his explanation, a gacha machine is projected up on the stage, out of which comes Kitaoji dressed as Toyotomi, followed by a bunch of other figures from Japanese history. This part always got a pretty good laugh out of the audience, and I think it was a pretty cute way to stage it. Paula insists they go to dinner together, so she can hear more about Toyotomi, and the capsule toy figurines all follow to a diner (serving “breadfast” 24hrs lol) where Shi-won is dressed as someone named Ricardo. The figurines all start to get drunk, while “Ricardo” fixes Edamura and Paula some tacos; meanwhile Edamura explains that Toyotomi began as a simple peasant, but because of his hard work and study, he was able to climb all the way to the top and unite all of Japan as a powerful lord. 

Edamura asks why she decided to help him before and he despairs that he must seem like a beaten dog, but she explains that while she might seem confident, she faces tremendous anxiety getting on stage every day, particularly as she wants to make it big as a performer but can’t expect to get the attention of a label just because she can sing a bit. (In the background, Francis Xavier is completely sloshed and ends up drinking with Ricardo) Edamura suggests that she take inspiration from Toyotomi as someone who was able to trick even his enemies into working with him and represent herself as someone more important than she is to get music producers onto her side. She seems fired up by this proposal, and she says that she’ll follow the example of Toyotomi, “Japan’s best confidence man,” which gives Edamura his own motivation to get back to trying to win the bet with Laurent. He asks Paula to wish him good luck and runs off, and we get the first dance scene with Edamura and a number of samurai as he builds up to confronting Cassano. The scene ends with him running into a video shop, presumably to rent Cassano’s movies.

Laurent and Abby are called to Cassano’s mansion - they argue if Edamura is capable of pulling off a job like this, although Laurent insists that he has a natural talent - but they are certain that he must be dead when they hear from Salazar that Edamura was taken into their custody at the airport trying to run. However, Edamura bursts onto the scene, dressed in a new Hawaiian shirt, and at this point, Miyata looks as though he has been in a swimming pool, but it’s just sweat lmao. Cassano informs them that he’s made a new deal with Edamura for $10 million, and when they ask how, we get a flashback showing how he got onto Cassano’s good side by praising Shakunetsu with Kitaoji, as Razzie, acting out scenes from the Shakunetsu movies on the second floor of the stage. Whenever Cassano hugs Edamura in these scenes, it was really funny because his jacket would get just absolutely covered in Miyata’s sweat just ugh gross lol 

Cassano’s accountant joins them and they play out the whole bit about confirming Edamura’s credentials as a pharmaceutical scientist, at which point Edamura finally realizes that Kudo is working with Laurent, when he calls Kudo to thank him for deceiving Cassano’s attorneys. After Cassano has confirmed Edamura’s identity, he takes the crew to his factory and insists that Edamura make Sakura Magic for them right there and then so that they can be sure to properly replicate his recipe. She does this the whole play, but particularly during this scene, you can really see how well Miya Rurika portrays Laurent as always calm and and in control before Edamura but as quietly losing his shit whenever he feels like they’ve been backed into a corner, and we also get some very cute like Laurent clearly being exasperated with Edamura but the two of them starting to be able to play off one another as they convince Cassano that the factory isn’t up to snuff for making Sakura Magic. 

They have to clear out because they hear someone coming, but Cassano promises that he will build a new laboratory for Edamura and entrusts his care to Salazar. The police bust in after everyone has left; Anderson does the absolute most to show off to everyone that he’s properly securing the scene, but he’s clearly relieved that Cassano slipped through their fingers once again oh my how does this keep happening oh well better luck next time. We get a proper introduction to Paula and Shi-won as members of the FBI who have come to investigate Laurent and his organization (Paula has changed into this beautifully tailored brown tweed pantsuit and she pulls it off so well), and Paula threatens to expose Anderson’s connections to Cassano if he doesn’t follow her lead.

After the scene in the factory, we return to the present in the interrogation room with Kitaoji and Edamura. Detectives bring Kitaoji additional files on Edamura, asking if the prosecutor has heard of the attorney Ozaki. They inform him that Edamura is Ozaki’s son, and Kitaoji is a bit shocked; he leaves, saying that he will review the files. The detectives collect the money before exiting the room, but not without getting in a dig at Edamura, telling him that he clearly takes after his father. Edamura is stricken by this statement, and the act ends with Edamura battling with this internal conflict. 

I don’t think anyone would want to read all of this, but if you have, thank you so much. I hope some of it at least was interesting or informative. I’m going to end there for now, as I’ve already gone on for too long, and I’ll finish writing up the second act in another post.

[notkageyamasprincess]

grocery shopping | miya atsumu x reader

request: Grocery shopping with Atsumu. You tell him to pick up some stuffs from the dairy counter(like cheese, milk, etc) but when you see him walking towards you, all he is holding is Family pack Ice creams in different flavours.💕😂 "But they were looking at me like 'pick us up', and so I did🥺", he explains. @nkogneatho

notes: hi dear, sorry this took so long, i was going to write headcannons or a drabble at most and then all sorts of funny ideas started popping up in my head. i included your req ofc but it’s not the main focus if that’s okay.

characters: pro vb player!miya atsumu x f!reader

genre/warnings: mostly crack tbh, fluff, very chaotic, y/n thinks she’s getting kidnapped and freaks, they take a ride on a grocery cart, y/n accidentally finds out her boss is a sugar mommy?,tsumu is a sweet boyfie

words: 1.5k

summary: you take atsumu with you on a shopping trip. chaos ensues.

It probably would have been a smarter choice to pick a day when the supermarket was less busy, but the fridge was almost empty and in dire need of replenishing. Today marks Day 3 of you and Atsumu’s new diet, one that he needs since he’s starting an intense conditioning regimen. You decided to participate as well in order to support him, and to get into the habit of eating healthier yourself.

You leave Atsumu’s side to take a basket, but he beats you to it, wheeling out a shopping cart instead. You tilt your head in puzzlement. “Atsumu, we’re not going to buy that much food, we’ll never finish it all.” He takes your wrist in one hand and starts steering the cart with the other. “You’ll see”

You stop at the fresh produce section, tossing an assortment of fruit and veggies in your trolley as Atsumu perks up beside you, getting an idea. “____, let’s get steak today so I can cook for you.” You raise an eyebrow, skeptical of his abilities. And for good reason. “‘Tsumu, you tried to make me breakfast two weeks ago and I don’t think those eggs were even edible.” He puts a hand on his hip and fakes a pout. “Babe, have some faith in me. ‘Samu might be the chef of the family, but trust me on this, I promise I’m not going to poison you.” Despite still being slightly suspicious, you decide not to question him.

You grab a few salad kits for good measure then pull out your phone to tick off your grocery list. “Bread, check, energy bars, check, produce, check, salad mix, check…okay, I think all that’s left is meat and dairy, let’s go get your steak.” You glance up when he didn’t answer. “‘Tsumu?” Your boyfriend has disappeared and so has the grocery cart.

You look for him in the meat aisle. Nothing. You look in the next aisle. Nothing. You’re about to send him a text when you suddenly feel a pair of hands seize you by waist, taking you away from the secure ground beneath your feet. Your life flashes before your eyes. Headlines of “Missing person, last seen at XX Mart” fills your mind. No way is this happening right now. I am NOT getting abducted in broad daylight, in the middle of a crowded grocery store! I have to get help; I can’t go down without a fight.

You yelp while struggling in the hold of your attacker, furiously kicking at empty space. You see an old woman a little farther down the aisle. There’s hope. “Help! Somebod- ” you shriek in panic before a hand comes up to muffle your words. “____! Chill out, it’s me!” You still at the sound of your boyfriend. Too late. The elderly woman approaches you, swinging her cane and nearly whacks Atsumu in the shoulder. “Ma’am, ma’am! This is a misunderstanding, I’m her boyfriend,” he explains, fending her off. She slowly withdraws her cane and stares at you. “Is that true?” You meet her eyes, then mumble an affirmation, ducking your head shamefully. “Young women nowadays… back in my youth, I never would have dared to cause such a scene,” she tsks, glaring at you disapprovingly before she walks away. Oops.

Atsumu sets you down, eyeing you with furrowed brows. “____. Bro, what the fuck?” You can only smile sheepishly. “Sorry that I freaked out on you. I thought I was about to fall victim to human trafficking. But you know how scared I get when my mom sends me articles about girls getting kidnapped,” you point out, attempting to defend yourself. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I told you before, nothing will happen when you’re with me. Did you forget who you were? You’re ____, Miya Atsumu’s girl, and no one gets to mess with you.”

You instantly soften at his words but puff your cheeks out afterwards. “Hmph, well something could have happened just now, and it’d be all your fault for leaving me,” you accuse, pretending to sulk. He gestures at the security cameras. “There are cameras everywhere, not to mention this whole place is crawling with people. Besides, even if something were to happen, I would come for you. No one can touch Miya Atsumu’s girlfriend and get away with it.” He taps the handle of the cart. “Anyways, get in. This is why I insisted on taking this thing.”

“ You’re not serious. We’re too old for this, we can’t be doing things like riding shopping carts,” you reasoned. He rolls his eyes. “Bullshit, me and ‘Samu used to do this a lot and still do sometimes. And don’t lie to me, I know you want to, so get in before people come into aisle.” You bite your lip. He was right, so you don’t protest when he picks you up again and places you inside with your legs over the front. “Hold on tight.”

He puts one foot on the metal bar and pushes off the ground with the other, then hops on, propelling you forward, riding off the momentum. You clutch at the sides of the cart, feeling the air whip at your face, wind running through your hair. The two of you laugh in glee like children.

All was well until a woman’s back comes into view. Your eyes widen. “Baby, stop, we’re going to hit her!” He curses and immediately steps down, reducing the speed until the wheels squeak to a stop, just in time. You turn towards him to scold him. “I knew this was a bad idea; that was so dangerous! We could have hit this lady or even gotten hurt ourselves trying to avoid her!”

“Very fortunate that you didn’t, Miss ____,” says a voice. A very familiar voice. You twist your body back around, looking directly into the stern eyes of your manager. You take a moment, becoming conscious of your current state: hair disheveled, clothes in disarray, legs dangling over the edge of a shopping cart to top it all off. Is there a worse way to encounter your boss outside of work? You hastily straighten up. Well, straighten up the best you could in the situation. You smile nervously. “Ms. Wright! Wow, hi! What a coincidence seeing you here!” You notice a young man standing beside her. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a son. He’s really handsome, you must be proud,” you added. She purses her lips, clearly displeased. “Actually, Miss ____, he’s not my son, he’s my boyfriend. We have a busy agenda today. If there’s nothing else, I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

Your face turns white as you process what just happened. The atmosphere is silent. Atsumu starts to push the cart, waiting until you make it to another aisle before bursting into laughter. “Miya! That was so not funny. I can’t believe that happened. First, she sees me in this state. Then, I mistake her boyfriend for her son? I even called him handsome! Oh my god, it’s really over for me.”

“Calm down, she said to see you at work, it’s fine. Plus, it’s not your fault you didn’t know she was a cougar. That sugar baby must be living the lif- ” You gasp and reach up to cover his mouth before he says anything else. “Shush, Atsumu! What if she’s still around? Yeah, I’m definitely going to see her on Monday…so she can fire me!” you groan. “Just get me out of this stupid cart so we can finish buying what we need, I just want to go home so I can curl up and scream into the blankets.” He smirks. “Oh, you want to scream in bed? No problem, leave that to me.” You slap his arm, and he feigns hurt.

While at the cash register, you realize that you forgot a few items. “Shit, ‘Tsumu, I forgot the butter and yoghurt. Can you quickly go grab those?” He nods. “Wait here, I’ll be fast.” A couple minutes pass and you grow worried, watching the employee scan the last of your groceries.

You finally see your boyfriend return with his arms full. Except, what he’s carrying are massive pints of ice cream. You cross your arms. “Atsumu. What did I just say? This doesn’t look like butter and yoghurt.”

He peers at you with puppy eyes. “Babe, you can’t blame me. They were calling out to me and begging to be picked up! Besides, I got both your favourite flavour and mine. We need this for movie night.”

“What about the diet?”

“It’s not a big deal. Also, you seem like you need this after what happened. And I feel like I might have been responsible for some of it. Just a bit.”

You sigh and pay for the ice cream. He’s got a point. Guess you’ll have to make another trip to the store tomorrow.

a/n: actually this is the first time i’m writing a crack fic, but i have crack hcs in my wips if anyone is curious! i’m not even sure if this is funny or nah lmaoo please let me know

[hatterstan-shameblog]

For the headcanon thing

I think Hatter likes to watch bad movies. Like the really bad ones. The ones that make you roll your eyes/laugh/cry at every single thing about it, doesn't matter if it's plot or acting. But you know what he loves more than watching those awful movies alone?

Watching them with someone else.

"hey, Mori, wanna watch a movie?"

"...no."

"c'mon, you'll like this one."

"no, I won't."

"...no, you won't. But I will enjoy your presence. C'mon bro, do it for the sake of bonding time."

"*sigh* fine..."

(inspired by real life events)

💕 Sleepover 💕

Rating: PG13 for language and alcohol consumption

Relationship: Takeru (Hatter)/Aguni

Tags: banter, friendly insults, Just Guys Being Dudes, drinking, swearing, love confessions (sort of), They Talk A Big Game But The Love Is There

Bangbangbangbangbang!

“Mori!”

Bangbangbangbangbang!

“Moooooori, let me iiiiiiiiiin!”

Clunk!

Click!

Creeeeeeaaaaaak!

Aguni opens his apartment door, wincing at the slap of summer heat that greets him as he does.

“C’mon man,” an overheated and impatient Takeru implores, “it’s miserable out here!”

“You bring me samosas,” Aguni asks, crossing his arms across his chest, “Because I’m not letting you in without my samosas.”

Takeru’s face twists into a look of shocked indignation.

“Would you really leave me—your best friend on this beautiful green Earth—to swelter and die on your doorstep in this blazing summer heat…all because I forgot the samosas?”

Aguni considers.

“No. I’d ask you to swelter and die in the parking lot. Neighbors’ll kick up a fuss if you block the stairwell.”

“Well it’s a good thing I got two orders this time,” Takeru shakes the bag enticingly, “so we don’t even have to share.”

“Someone’s splashing out,” Aguni murmurs, taking the bag from Takeru’s outstretched hand and standing aside so the man can enter his home, “Don’t suppose there’s a reason for all this…”

“Maybe I just wanted to be nice,” Takeru says flippantly, toeing off his shoes, “a little ‘thank you’ for welcoming me into your home.”

Aguni carries the bag of food over to his coffee table and sets it down, being careful not to disturb the place settings he had so thoughtfully arranged. Two plates, two spoons, two glasses of water—all neatly placed in the center of his new, sage-green placemats.

Hopefully nobody spills curry on them.

“You brought one of your weird movies again, didn’t you?”

Takeru rolls his eyes. Shoving his arm into his messenger bag, he rummages around its contents for a moment before yanking a dark, thin rectangle and holding it up for Aguni to examine.

“The 1977 horror classic, House,” he explains with an edge of exasperation, “is a critically-acclaimed work of art that has been inspiring both film fanatics and the average man for nearly half a century.”

“Straight from the back of the box,” Aguni mumbles, opening the stapled-shut paper bag and peeking at the containers inside, “Anyways, I thought you didn’t like scary movies.”

Takeru scoffs.

“Not sure what gave you that idea,” Takeru says, shoving his feet into his slippers—yes, his slippers, black velvet with red-and-gold dragons embroidered on the front because ‘I’m here enough to warrant my own damn slippers’ and ‘these are fucking awesome,’ “We saw Hereditary in the theater!”

“And you were scared the whole time,” Aguni points out, gingerly lifting their food out of the bag and arranging the containers on their respective plates, “You had to sleep with the lights on for a week. Screwed up your cat’s sleep schedule and everything.”

Takeru swans his way over to Aguni’s refrigerator and opens it, more or less sticking his whole head inside to examine its (admittedly meager) offerings.

“It’s not my fault that Ziggy is such a smart, beautiful boy who knows what ‘lights out’ means. And besides,” Takeru says while examining the bottle of white wine Aguni had put in to chill, “I’ll be staying here tonight, so it won’t be an issue.”

“So the cat gets to sleep, but I don’t?”

“You, my dear, get a evening of my company, complete with scintillating conversation, cultural enrichment, and—as we have already established—your very own order of samosas,” Takeru calls out from the kitchen, rummaging for a suitable pair of wine glasses, “And besides, I plan on sleeping deeply and comfortably knowing that any and all monsters would no doubt eat you first, giving me ample opportunity to flee the scene…”

Aguni lifts the lid off his curry, admiring the rich yellow hue and inhaling its bold spices. There are even a few extra chilis lying on top, which is a lovely surprise.

Takeru arrives at the table, glasses in one hand and wine in the other. He gives the spread a discerning once-over and then a nod of apparent approval.

“Anyways,” Takeru says, twisting off the top of the wine bottle (not without giving Aguni a look of distaste as he does it), “I’m a bit disappointed in you, Mori-chan. I thought you’d fight me more on this one…”

“It’s a losing battle,” Aguni concedes, sitting himself down in his usual spot and turning on the television, “I have too many brain cells and not enough patience to go through the usual theatrics.”

Takeru hands him a generously-full wine glass—not as full as his own, of course, but still more than what the average person might pour.

“This’ll help the brain cell problem,” he says with an over-enthusiastic smile, “probably the patience, too. Wine makes you sentimental.”

“Hmph.”

“See? It’s already working.”

“Yeah, well,” Aguni grumbles, taking a small sip of his beverage, “better get the movie started before I change my mind.”

Takeru begins his usual indignant grumbling as he fumbles with the DVD player. Aguni could help him, but, frankly, it’s entertaining to watch his friend struggle with the simple electronic setup.

When Takeru manages to get the tray open, he gives a small cheer of victory. Aguni stifles a smirk.

Hopefully the movie is this much fun.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

“Mori. Hey, Mori-chan.”

Aguni rolls his eyes, and then himself onto his side to face Takeru.

“What,” he grumbles, squinting in the dark as he tries to make out the other mans’ shape, “piano thing still got you upset?”

“It ate her fingers, Mori,” Takeru whisper-shouts, “and then it got the rest of her too! That’s enough to upset anyone!”

“It wasn’t even that scary,” Aguni mentions, shimmying his shoulders in order to find a more comfortable spot on his futon, “besides, you don’t even play piano, so you don’t have to worry.”

Takeru is silent for a moment—a blessed, beautiful moment.

“I guess you’re right,” he says after his brief contemplation, “but that’s not the only thing on my mind.”

“I’m guessing ‘sleep’ isn’t one of ‘em?”

Takeru scoffs. There’s a shuffling and fluttering sound from his neighboring futon as he turns to face his disgruntled companion.

“In due time,” Takeru says, “what plagues me now is more of a philosophical question.”

Aguni sighs.

“Remember the part where that guy got turned into a pile of bananas?”

“Yeah,” Aguni responds, “that was weird.”

“What if that happened to me,” Takeru asks, sounding genuinely concerned, “would I turn into a pile of bananas, or would I be a different kind of fruit?”

Oh, you’re different alright, Aguni thinks to himself, but he knows better than to say that out loud. Takeru’s using his ‘this is going to keep me up all night unless you give me a good answer’ voice, so Aguni starts thinking about how best to answer.

“I think you’d be melons,” Takeru concludes, “yeah…definitely melons.”

“Because of my round head and lack of hair?”

“No,” Takeru snaps, “well, that wasn’t my original thinking.”

Aguni subtly checks his phone—half-past one o’clock in the morning, too late to send Takeru home on a train to ask his cat these burning questions instead of him.

“Why,” Aguni asks, “do you think I’d be melons?”

“Well, like you, melons are strong and tough on the outside. Make a nice thud sound when you smack ‘em.”

“So do I,” Aguni mentions, “if you get the right spot. But I also hit back, so that’s not very melon-y, is it?”

“Hm. I suppose not. But,” Takeru says, “where you really start to resemble the melon is on the inside.”

“Inside, huh?”

“Yeah,” Takeru considers for a moment, “underneath all that tough rind, melons are soft. Sweet, too. Nothing fancy, they’re not trying to prove anything, they’re just…good. Like you.”

Aguni hadn’t been expecting something so…sentimental. It’s a touching departure from their usual quips and playful jabs, and it makes something warm and kind of familiar bubble up in Aguni’s heart.

“And also,” Takeru tacks on, “they’re green. And green is your favorite color! So it’s perfect.”

“I think you’d be a strawberry,” Aguni says after a beat.

“A strawberry? You mean only one?”

“Only one,” Aguni confirms, “but one of those fancy designer ones, the kind they grow in those hydroponic farms and sell in department stores for thousands of yen.”

“I heard about a guy who got murdered at one of those places,” Takeru says, “some yakuza guy who was selling weed on the side, someone put a hit out on him and used the body for fertilizer.”

“That’s…disturbing,” Aguni replies, “but that’s beside the point. Don’t you want to know why I think you’d be a single strawberry?”

“Is it because they’re red?”

“Sort of,” Aguni says, “Got a lot of seeds, too. Get stuck in your teeth pretty easily, if you’re not careful.”

“I am rather tenacious.”

“You are.”

Aguni considers his next words carefully. His relationship with Takeru is…complicated, and uncertain, and if anyone ever asked him what they ‘are’ he wouldn’t know how to answer.

“Strawberries are sweet. They’re sour, too. You’d know the flavor anywhere. And you…”

He pauses. Takeru, for once, doesn’t try to fill the silence with his own voice.

“…Well, those designer strawberries are all one-of-a-kind, just like you. So that’s why there’s one one,” he says slowly, “and I like strawberries. Might even, uh…love ‘em.”

“Oh, Mori…”

Something flops onto Aguni’s blanket—once, twice, and ah, it’s Takeru’s hand, and he’s looking for something. Aguni slips his arm from under the covers and covers Takeru’s hand with his own. This is apparently what Takeru had been searching for, because he pulls Aguni’s hand closer to himself.

“You know,” Takeru says, “now that you mention it, I think I might love melon, too.”

Aguni feels lips against the back of his hand—a soft kiss, gentle, a reassurance as much as an act of affection—and he’s glad for the dark of night that hides the blush of his cheeks.

“I feel better now,” Takeru announces, giving Aguni’s hand a light squeeze, “In fact, I think I’m falling asleep as we speak…”

“Hmm,” Aguni hums in agreement.

He’s still holding Takeru’s hand, and Takeru, his—neither seem too keen on letting go, at least, not for now.

[bonsai62]

Part 1: The Compatibility between Pisces and Capricorn

Hello everyone! Today, since I am hella bored and have nothing to do this fine evening, I am going to talk about the relationship between our two boys; Yuji and Megumi and how much they represent their signs so much.

Before I get started, I am not going to talk about their sex life even though it’s kinda important if you are into astrology, however, for this case I won’t because both of them are minors. But if you want to read more about their comparability then be my guess and look at the underline links. I will provide links in the discussion so you can have a better understanding on how the signs are and use manga pages for you to visually see it.

Also, excuse my English. I am very bad at it! Even though it’s my first language I still have lots of errors in my writing!

Also beware of manga spoilers too!!

Let’s get started on this very long essay!

Traits of a Pisces: Itadori Yuji

Positive: Compassionate (top), empathetic (middle), & creative (bottom)

We also have: Warm/gentle, caring, intellectual, animal lover, and romantic

Here we have the positive side of a Pisces and let me tell you it screams Yuji so damn much. Yuji is such a compassionate guy. I don’t think I have never seen a character who is very compassionate like Yuji (I have but we are talking about Yuji here lol). He can empathize with a whole lot of people and no matter what the situation is he understands. Yuji doesn’t need to have the same experience as someone because he can feel and get in their head to make him understand what their going through. Which brings me to that he has a really high empathy level when it comes to people (I can relate a lot because I have the same thing). However, having a lot of empathy isn’t all that’s cracked up to be but I’ll talk about it soon.

A Pisces is also very creative and they love hobbies. One of Yuji’s favorite hobbies is, I have a feeling is sports but that just based on what his old school thought of him + the baseball game. Plus cooking! Cooking is an amazing hobby and it lets you get creative with your hands and skills! I like to imagine that he is the best cook throughout the school and loves to share with his classmates and have them rate his cooking lol! Cooking is also a relief of stress so I can also imagine him having a bad day and just ends up being in the kitchen.

Now....

Negative: Overly emotional (top), impressionable (bottom), closed off (middle)

I messed up the order lol

We also have: melancholy, lazy, stubborn, moodiness, etc

Yuji is a very emotional person. We have seen him at his best and at his worse. He is such an emotional person that he felt bad for killing Choso’s brothers. His emotions gets the best of him when Junpei died, Megumi was hurt, seeing what Sukuna has done in Shibuya, and Nanamin/Nobara getting destroyed by Mahito. It’s an unhealthy feeling because we’ve seen Yuji get distracted with his injured friends and him kinda fucking up on his fighting. Another unhealthy trait that Yuji had is not talking about himself. We’ve seen him not talk about his feelings and I mean personal deep feelings that’s always going to be in the back of his head. Like when Megumi knows that something happened to Yuji but Yuji simple doesn’t want to talk about and closes it. He doesn’t really like talking about himself and rather hear other people/helping other people rather than face his own demons. If he’s facing his own demons, he rather be doing it on his own.

I also want to point out that many people think that he gets over people’s death hella easily. No... that is not true whatsoever. The boy has been through so much trauma that eventually you just get so tired of crying about it and you don’t have the energy anymore, you eventually start telling yourself “it is what it is” or “what can I do now?”. Noabra is a perfect example. He didn’t need to cry because he had the biggest mental breakdown when it happened. So when he asked Megumi about her status... he just had to say “alright”.

In my theories... she is definitely alive. Again, Gege is playing half of you guys. She is gonna pop out in the next couple of chapters or even the one coming up next.

Another things that I find interesting in Yuji which according to the links I put, Pisces tend to trust people easily:

Ease of being cheated: A desire to see the best things in other people makes the Two Fish very impressionable individuals. They trust others without any suspicions and often suffer from their frivolity. Any pressure of stronger people is accepted as a command for them and they easily agree with them without any doubts.

For instant, Todo and Choso. Those two mf were about to kill him but they didn’t because of what Yuji’s mind fuck did (I know Gege sensei said that isn’t a theory but still it’s mind fuck lol) He instantly call Todo his best friend like I can hear Nobara (Big sis) twitching somewhere lol. Whenever I think of Yuji and Todo’s relationship, I think of Vinny and Paula D from Jersey Shore haha!

Any who, while trusting people isn’t a bad thing, you still don’t know what their intentions are and everything. It’s a very naive thing to do.

But I felt for Yuji and Choso... Yuji didn’t have much of a choice...

I would like to know what changed Yuji’s mind into staying with Choso. I’m curious how Yuji “trusted” being with Choso after everything that went down. Yuji is a very forgiving character too (minus Mahito). But now, I think we can see that Choso has no bad intentions towards Yuji because he “might” be his brother. And their so cute too!!

On to our other boy!

Traits of a Capricorn: Megumi Fushiguro

Positive: Resourcefulness (top), discipline/patient (middle: also thank @pantherbeamish for the photos!), and reliability (bottom)

We also have: Responsibility, loyalty, diligence, team player, etc

Megumi is a very interesting character. Whenever I see him I get more interested in him. He is exactly what you would describe a Capricorn. We have seen Megumi be resourceful when it comes understanding how curse energy works thanks to him. He is very detailed when it comes to explaining and also a very patient man when Yuji, who doesn’t know jack shit about the Jujutsu world. Never, not once, does Megumi call Yuji an idiot for not knowing all these things. That’s what makes him amazing because if it were other Shonen mangas, the “rival” would’ve called Yuji an idiot. The only time Megumi ever calls Yuji an idiot is when Yuji literally does or says something stupid. To me, that is normal and not being a dick about it because we all know that if we had a friend like Yuji we would’ve stared at him like “why are you like this...”

It’s me... I’m a lot like Yuji lol

But no, he is very patient and tries to explain everything to Yuji as best as he can. I have this thing where almost everyone relies on Megumi a lot because he’s a serious guy + very responsible with his tasks. We see Maki trusting Megumi too. Like the time when Megumi was hyping Yuji up saying he can beat everyone in the Kyoto school if they didn’t use curse energy (something like that lol). Yuji also can confirm himself that Megumi is very reliable. He mentioned it while back at the prison because both sibling duo thought they were lost.

Negative: Sensitivity (top), seriousness (middle), reservation (bottom)

We also have: Unforgiving, criticism, suspicion, pickiness, etc

Just like Yuji, we have seen Megumi’s negative side a lot but it’s simply because he’s sensitive and thinks logically. Sometimes, I also feel like he thinks through his heart as well but that’s just me. That is where the sensitivity comes along. Megumi is hella sensitive he doesn’t need to show it because you can feel it.

In the article:

Sensitivity: It is better not to offend Capricorns who are very sensitive people. They can’t stand being laughed at and remain serious in public but feel badly deeply in their souls. Even a minor joke can result in resentment from their side!

In many, many occasions we have seen everyone fucking around or getting on Megumi’s nerves, especially in our recent Jujustroll where Gojo is saying a bunch of nonsense and embarrassing tf out of Megumi. His seriousness gets in the way and that’s what makes him sensitive.

On the side note: I also wanted to add something. As I was reading a few articles, some mentioned that Capricorns are... bland. Please, Capricorns!! No me ataques! I just find it interesting that someone, like Todo, who thinks Megumi is boring. Todo honestly thought he was boring since he first asked him what was his type and while Megumi gave us the best answer, Todo expected something more fun. But no, it was boring. Also, Megumi lives a simple life. Now, I’m not saying that Megumi is boring because as a matter of fact I like how simple he is. He likes to keep things neutral. Personally, on his activities he is considered “bland” and honestly, I can see why but I would still go out my way to enjoy it with him if I was his significant other lol I also feel like he has a good sense of style in fashion. I’m saying that judging from the official arts + “Lost In Paradise” because in that ED Megumi be looking like a bowl of fruits. A bowl of snacks lmao!

But, anyways! Megumi is also reserved to himself. He does not like talking about himself at all (hon hon does that sound like someone?). He doesn’t open up to a lot of people but I kinda feel like he does with Gojo but that’s just because Gojo raised him and he just knows when Megumi is feeling a certain way. Also, I bet Gojo just knows when Megumi is having a bad day too. We witnessed him just being in his own bubble in the current arc that is happened in the anime. Yuji and Nobara calls him out about him being so reserved to himself. He does eventually tells them what is going on, but it takes a lot for a Capricorn to open up and it’s totally understandable. I feel as if you want a Capricorn to open up, you have to let them give you time for them to get to know you. Give them your intentions and put in the effort to make them trust you.

Now in to the fun part!!

1. Trust:

Positive:

Articles 1: They will often understand each other well enough to respect their relationship and keep it clear of dishonesty

I’m a use this imagine again btw because this speaks their relationship clearly

I think what I truly love about their relationship and love the idea of them being an endgame is the trust that they have for one another(even though someone is gonna die). They barely knew each other for 2 months and their chemistry is off the mf charts.

The picture above isn’t just them having an eye opening moment but the fact that they trust each other to save one another.

Megumi had saved Yuji so many time

Yuji had also saved Megumi so many times

Tbh, when I was thinking about Megumi coming in to save Yuji from Yuuta and Naoya, I thought it would be the same as when Yuji saved Megumi and Maki from Hanami, but we got something better. We got to see Megumi never doubting Yuji and always making sure that he gives him as many chances as he gives. I hope that sparks a realization for Yuji because sometimes I always felt that he doesn’t really acknowledges Megumi doing a whole lotta things for Yuji. I’m still complaining about it because if he can say “thank you, best friend” to Todo or “thank you, Kugisaki, for letting me know that I am not alone” to Nobara, then he should definitely see how much Megumi gives a fuck about him.

I expect a “thank for being by my side and never doubting me” for Megumi.

Articles 2: Pisces, who prefers to hand off important decision-making to dominant Capricorn, feeds into the goat’s need to be in control. On the flip side, Capricorn trusts Pisces to attend to its emotional needs—something that can be very difficult to allow at first.

This is interesting because a lot of the time Megumi is always making the plans and the choices. I feel like Yuji tends to rely on Megumi a lot because Yuji respects the way Megumi thinks (I’m not saying he doesn’t do that with anyone either).

Another thing is that:

“Capricorn trust Pisces to attend to its emotional needs-something that can be very difficult to allow at first”

I want to use Yuji asking Yuuta to kill him if Sukuna comes out especially for Megumi’s sake as an example of “emotional needs” because we see that Yuji does not want to be anywhere near Megumi because of Sukuna. In Yuji’s emotional state, he would rather have Yuuta kill him than Megumi. A lot of people also have this head canon that the reason why he asked Yuuta to kill him instead of Megumi is because Megumi already has a lot on his plate or something. I forgot the theory lol

But... I have a feeling that Megumi is gonna end up killing Yuji at the end because it should be him...

But yes,

Let’s see where things end with the current event that is happening now.

But unfortunately, I have to stop right here because Tumblr only allows 10 images in one post. Tragic!

I do hope you guys enjoy and please comment if I’m missing anything with them! Let’s hope I won’t take long with part 2 because I’m hella busy at times! Overall, tell me what you guys think!

[miraclekittyandbug]

Ten Questions With a Twist Chapter 6

I. Cannot. TELL you how sorry I am for the delay. It has been a crazy couple of days, but I’m about to post the two final chapters of Ten Questions With A Twist!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ This Chapter ~ Chapter 7 ~

“Hey, Marinette!” Adrien called, waving frantically at the bluenette. Classes had just ended and he wanted to be sure to catch her before she left in a hurry.

Marinette turned and saw Adrien there, red in the face. “Hey Adrien. Are you okay? Did you just… run to find me?”

“Umm… How many more of those questions do you have?” Adrien deliberately didn’t answer the question, for fear of seeming like the desperate mess he had turned into. “You know, from that Black Cat guy?”

A light of comprehension shone behind her eyes, “Oh, those. Just a few. I’m really sorry if they were too invasive or anything. I can always tell him it was a bad idea.”

“No! Actually, I think it’s kind of a fun idea. I’d like to answer the rest of them for you.”

“Oh! That would be great!” She put her backpack on the ground and started digging through it to find the list, a formality at this point, as she had already memorized the questions.

“Why don’t we hang out for a bit? We could go back to your place and answer these questions. Maybe play some Mecha Strike? That good luck charm you gave me might even help me beat you.” Adrien wiggled his eyebrows and Marinette blushed, but laughed. 

“I’m not sure it’s that lucky, but it sounds like fun.” Her eyes widened, “Actually, could you give me just a little bit of time to clean up my room first? It’s in a pretty embarrassing state right now. Meet me at the bakery in twenty minutes?”

“Sounds good P- pal.” Adrien caught himself. He was about to call her Princess, but that would give him away. He had a challenge to win, after all.

It took about fifteen minutes to convince the Gorilla to cover for him, not too difficult to do considering he was supposed to take Adrien to his Chinese lessons directly after school. Adrien simply reminded the Gorilla that a conversation in Chinese with Mrs. Dupain-Cheng was a very practical application of the information he already knew so well. They agreed that he would pick him up from the Dupain-Cheng bakery in about two hours.

Adrien made his way, slowly, to the bakery. 

The bakery, being right across the street from the school, and having such delicious treats, was very busy. Adrien waited dutifully in line and when he got to the counter, Sabine greeted him warmly. He responded in Chinese, explaining that the only way he had talked his bodyguard into letting him come was to promise to practice his Chinese. Sabine smiled and ushered him to the back. She pointed him to the staircase and told him, in Chinese, to follow it until he reached Marinette’s room, and that there would be snacks up there for the both of them. 

Now, at this point, Adrien knew for a fact he was in love with this girl. But if there had been even a sliver of doubt in his mind, it all evaporated when he lifted the hatch to Marinette’s room. 

She must have done a wonderful job cleaning, because apart from some half-finished sewing on a desk and a few balls of yarn on her bed, Marinette’s room was spotless. But that wasn’t what caught his eye. Leaning over her computer, attempting to plug in the game console, Marinette was humming contentedly with a cookie in her mouth. The picture of it all was so endearing, Adrien hated to alert her to his presence. However, he thought it might be creepy if she were to turn around and find him staring, so he cleared his throat.

Marinette made a noise that could only be described as a squeak, and bit down on the cookie, causing a portion of it to fall to the floor. “Adrien! I didn’t see you there! Come on in, I’ve got snacks!”

He climbed the final steps into her room and reached for a cookie, “Don’t mind if I do.”

Once Marinette had plugged in the console correctly and booted up the game, they chose their players and began. It didn’t take long for Marinette to secure a lead, so Adrien thought a distraction was in order.

“So what about those questions?”

Marinette was silent for a moment before speaking, “I know you’re just trying to distract me. But to prove a point, I will ask these questions AND win this round at the same time. Just watch.”

“Jeez, B- Marinette, that’s pretty harsh,” he said, playfully. He was learning that it would be very difficult to refrain from calling her by her nicknames. “Won’t you go easy on me? Please?” Adrien made puppy dog eyes at the screen, leaning forward so that she would hopefully catch a glimpse of his pouty lips and fast blinking eyes. Not two minutes later, he flung himself back into his seat, having been defeated. 

Marinette placed her controller onto the desk in front of them, flashing him a sympathetic look. “And I wasn’t even distracted with those questions.”

“Alright,” Adrien relented, “What are they?”

“Okay, well, the question that seemed to make you sick might not be a good one to start off with…”

Adrien remembered his odd behavior earlier, and how stupid he had been to not see it sooner. “No, really, I’m fine. Shoot!”

“Okay, what’s your dream job?”

Adrien pretended to think, as if this question were a surprise to him, “I’d like to be a stay at home dad one day.”

“That’s so sweet! I’d like to be a designer one day. Have my own fashion line, company, that kind of thing. What’s your favorite movie?”

“The Princess Bride.”

“Isn’t that a bit of a chick flick?”

“There’s sword fighting and pirates and impossible odds! And anyway, what’s wrong with chick flicks?”

Marinette quickly defended herself, “There’s nothing wrong with chick flicks, I guess I pegged you as more of a studio Ghibli guy.”

Goodness, it had been a year or two since his last binge of those movies, “Oh, studio Ghibli is amazing! But still, there’s nothing like Wesley rolling down a hill screaming ‘As you wish’ only for Buttercup to fling herself down with him.”

Marinette started giggling, “I totally forgot about that part! Oh, I’ll have to rewatch that movie sometime soon. Favorite dessert?”

“Easy, the macarons from your parents bakery.”

“Really?” Marinette responded, “I’m flattered! What flavor?”

“That passionfruit one is my all time favorite, but that’s only seasonal. I really like any of the fruit ones.”

“Good to know! The other questions are pretty basic. What’s your name?”

Adrien put on a face and spoke in an accent, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”

Marinette laughed and Adrien decided it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

“What school do you go to?”

“Hogwarts.”

She rolled her eyes, “No, seriously.”

Adrien looked at her, eyes calculating, “Is there a reason you want this guy to know all the answers?”

“No!” she crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, “We just have to give the guy a chance. And anything he doesn’t guess correctly, I don’t have to tell him. So it’s not like I’m giving him all your information or anything.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Adrien said, leaning forward. Marinette blushed as if she knew exactly what he meant, but he continued anyway. “You like this guy, don’t you? You want him to guess correctly so you can go on a date with him!”

“What?!” Marinette acted repulsed by this, but her blush only deepened, “No way! He’s just a friend!”

“But you want to give him a chance.”

She seemed to hold her breath, making her face even redder, but then released and deflated, placing her head in her hands with her elbows on her knees. “I don’t know. Honestly, I probably like this guy a lot, I’ve just been so caught up on… this other guy for so long. It’s so confusing.”

“Have you thought about meeting him? You know, in person?”

Marinette lifted her head and looked at the ceiling instead, “Yeah. I have. I mean, this black cat guy is my best friend. We tell each other everything. He’s the only one who knows about this big part of my life and I rely on him for so much. He’s so sweet and really understanding about me wanting to keep our real names out of it.”

Adrien winced, but Marinette didn’t notice. He felt awful. She had always been so adamant that they not know each other’s identities. But he just happened upon it! One coincidence led to another, led to some questions, led to a point where he couldn’t turn back. “So you don’t want him to know who you are?”

“Well I wouldn’t say that.” Her hand went to the back of her neck and she rubbed it anxiously. “If we somehow found out, I’d honestly be thrilled. I even went so far as to ask Master F- forum.” Marinette blanched, looking Adrien directly in the eye, “Our forum master. The guy that runs the forum that we chat on. I went so far as to ask him about meeting in real life and he just smiled. He said ‘The wheels of life are in motion, but you cannot determine the speed’. I have no idea what that means, but he’s notoriously cryptic.” Adrien was going to say something, but Marinette was on a rant, so he sat back and listened. “And it’s like, he’s wanted to know for a really long time. Ever since the beginning. But I was so cautious, I said no. I thought it would be dangerous for us and our families.” 

“And you need to be careful, with strangers on the internet.”

“Exactly! Strangers on the internet. But then, almost immediately, I trusted him. Right away, we were inseparable. And now that I want to know, I don’t know what to do.”

Adrien couldn’t help the smile that plastered itself on his face. “Well, Marinette, I’m sure things will work out. And you never know! Maybe he’s a really good guesser.”

“Maybe.” She said, obviously glad to have gotten some things off her chest. “In the meantime, let’s sneak down and grab you a couple of macarons.”

~ Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ This Chapter ~ Chapter 7 ~

Next chapter should be up by the time you read this far!

[mcwriting]

The Marriage Project (3)

Anddddd I’m back with this bby. Sorry I’ve been slowing down some of my content. Last Friday I had to deal with family health matters on top of schoolwork and a sorority function I had to be at. Anyways. 

High school AU. Tom Holland. Yeah.

Story Masterlist

Warnings: mild language

Rating: Between T and M

Word Count: 2351

% approximately the 3rd week of September %

You’d had two away volleyball games that week and Tom had an away football game, so by Saturday you were exhausted. Your Friday game hadn’t been too far, but the football team had traveled a decent distance, so you figured they’d gotten home late.

You still showed up at Tom’s on time, though, as planned the day before.

Nikki opened the door at your arrival.

“Oh, hey, y/n! Come on in!”

You returned her greeting and entered, looking around expectantly.

“If you’re looking for Tom, he’s not up yet. They got home pretty late last night.”

“I figured that would be the case.”

You noticed that on the dining room table were a few grocery bags.

“Oh, do you need help with those? I can wait on Tom,” you offered.

“No don’t worry about those bags, but if you’re looking to do something, I was about to make some apple pies for a get together tomorrow. I’d love your help.”

You agreed and followed her into the kitchen. After peeling and chopping apples for a few minutes, someone else walked into the kitchen.

“Well who’s this? I don’t remember having a daughter,” Tom’s dad said. You turned to look at him and smile, then continued cutting fruit.

“Oh Dominic you know y/n. She’s the one Tom’s always talking about, competing and whatnot. They’re doing that marriage project together.”

Your face heated up so you continued to look down at the apple.

He talks about me? Like how much he hates me or what?

“Yes of course, how could I forget? You’re one of the best soccer players I’ve seen! Good to see you again,” he said.

“Nice seeing you, too, Mr. Holland.”

“Please, call me Dom. Now how come you’re down here and not with Tom?”

“I was waiting for him to get up. Plus, Nikki promised me a slice,” you grinned.

“Well I’d definitely call that a fair trade. Nikki’s pies are the best in the world,” he turned to his wife, “I’ll be back in a bit. I’m meeting with the publisher today.”

“Good luck, honey. I’m sure you’ll be great,” Nikki encouraged, giving her husband a quick peck.

“Thanks, dear. Once again, it was nice seeing you, y/n. Feel free to come make desserts here any time,” he joked and you just laughed and waved.

A few minutes after he’d left, Nikki spoke up again.

“You know, y/n. I’m glad you and Tom were paired up for this project. I’ve really liked having you around the past few weeks, and it seems like Tom has learned a lot from you. I mean, He even went out and bought some pads and tampons and things for his bathroom this week.”

Now your face really burned. 

“He did?”

“Yeah. He said he’d better be safe than sorry. I’m glad you two look out for each other like that, even if you are rivals. By the way, I made sure he didn’t get the cardboard ones,” she added. With that, you fell into rhythmic silence.

Not long after, you heard footsteps coming down the stairs. From the hall, Tom’s voice called out.

“Mom? It’s almost 2. Have you heard anything from-” he walked through the kitchen door. “Oh. You’re here. What are you doing?”

You grabbed a towel to wipe off your hands as you turned to face him.

“I got here at 1 but felt bad about you getting home late so I’ve just been helping your mom make pie. She promised me a slice.”

“You’re really gonna give her some mom? She doesn’t even deserve to see how they’re made!”

“Oh Tom I swear. Y/n is a nice girl, just get over yourself. But, if you two want to go get to work I think I’ve got it handled from here. I’ll bring you both some when the first one’s done.”

You grabbed your bag and headed up behind Tom and got to work quickly. Eventually you took a break when Nikki brought up pie and ice cream as promised with a couple waters. 

You ate in silence, Tom leaned against his bed and you against the wall across from him, when something she had said earlier popped into your head.

“Hey, Tom?”

“Yeah princess?” he replied, not looking up. You rolled your eyes and continued.

“Your mom said something earlier that I wanted to ask about.”

“If she told you anything incriminating it’s not true.”

“Suuuureeee. Anyways, she said you, uh, stocked up your cabinet in the bathroom. That’s really cool of you.”

“Yeah, well, can’t have you bleeding everywhere now can we? But, em. Yeah. The fact that you were so panicked over something that seems so trivial spoke pretty loud. I thought it’s better to just stay safe.”

You sat in silence for a little bit, just eating.

“Mind if I ask you something?” he said.

“Shoot.”

“What does it feel like? You know? They don’t mention that stuff in health articles.”

You contemplated for a little bit before answering.

“Well… like I said before, it’s different for everyone, but I’ll try my best. Cramps are kinda like being scratched and punched from the inside all at once. Freebleeding just feels like… wet and sticky. I find it disgusting so I wear mostly tampons.”

“Interesting. Thanks, princess.”

Once finishing off your snack, you got back to work. By the time you were done, it was almost 4.

“See you Monday, y/n”

“Yep. Oh, by the way, I have a small volleyball tournament next weekend so I can’t do Saturday. Is Sunday okay or do you wanna get together another day?”

“Can you do Thursday? We just have morning workouts that day.”

“Yeah I have practice last period so I’ll just shower and meet you in the parking lot? We can go to my place.”

“Can’t. I have to take the boys home.”

“If you want, you can take them home and I’ll pick you up. It’ll give me time to shower and change and then we can just carpool.”

“I don’t know. Sure you even know how to drive?”

“I’ll have you know I passed that test with flying colors sophomore year.”

Eventually he agreed and with that you were back out the door, giving one final thanks to Nikki.

%

By Wednesday you and Tom had finished your little quilt and Mrs. Flynn loved it. 

You and Tom obviously didn’t play when it came to grades, even if it was home economics.

Thursday, you were leaving your last class before practice and reminded Tom you were picking him up that afternoon, to which his friends looked at him funny and kinda messed with him.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

When you pulled up into his driveway after school, he plopped into the passenger's seat and held out a foil-wrapped object in his left hand.

“What is that?” you asked.

“My mom wanted you to have it. She made bread.”

“Oh. Well thanks. I’ll have to thank her for it next time I see her. You can just set it in the back seat for now.”

You drove back to your place, pulling into the garage and leading Tom through the door. Your parents were still at work, so you told Tom you’d just work in the living room.

“I don’t want them to say anything weird about us being home alone in my room,” you explained.

You sat on the floor quietly typing when you remembered something.

“Hey, how did you do on the calc test?”

“95. You?”

“Damn. 94. I’ll make a comeback next time,” you joked, earning an eye roll.

After a half hour, your mom came home.

“Hey honey, how was your day? Did you beat Tom in whatever you were competing with him in today?” she asked, part joking since she knew of your rivalry well.

“It was fine, and mom. We have a guest, remember?” you said through gritted teeth.

She looked over the couch, where she found Tom waving at her awkwardly.

“Oh. Hi there. I forgot you were coming over today. So sorry about that.”

“No worries, Mrs. y/l/n. I beat her by a point today so it evens out,” he joked. You were annoyed at his banter with your mom and cut it off.

“Okay, well, Tom. Let’s go finish this in my room now that my mom’s home,” you said, getting everything and carrying it to the bedroom.

You tossed your bag and papers on the floor and quickly picked up some random things laying around, such as a pair of volleyball shoes and stray athletic socks. You especially rushed to snatch a rogue lace bra.

From the corner of your eye, you could see Tom standing still, looking around the room like you had the first time at his house.

Your walls were light grey but covered in your paintings and other art. One shelf mounted to a wall held all of your ribbons and trophies from sports, quiz bowl, and art fairs. Your bedspread was baby pink and sheets light yellow, and the same pink was strewn around the room in the form of desk accents and other blankets. You had a large plush cat resting near your pillows.

“Wow. So you’re like… a real girl. Huh.” he stated flatly. You stood up from tossing everything into your closet.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, like, you’re all tough and smart and sporty but you have pink everywhere and a stuffed animal on your bed.”

“You do realize women are complex creatures right? Considering we’re human and all?”

“Yeah, of course. I guess I’ve just never seen this side of you. I shouldn’t have worded it that way. Sorry.”

It surprised you to hear Tom apologize over something so small. Usually he would stand his ground, wave you off, or just move on. 

“It’s fine. I just hate when people stereotype, you know? Like I can love science, art, sports, pink, sweatpants, and skirts all at the same time. And I do. And I’m not trying to sound like the ‘I’m not like other girls’ girl, because I am a girl, but I’m more than just one side or the other.”

“So why do you hide the ‘typically girly’ stuff? I’ve never seen you at school wearing a pink dress and makeup. I mean even at dances you always wear dark colors and at parties I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in something other than jeans or shorts.”

You shrugged as you made your way onto the floor next to your computer, Tom following suit.

“I guess I try to stick to one aesthetic. I mean, it already seems to shock the administration that I’m good at and enjoy doing two sports, art, and honors stuff. I don’t think they could handle another layer of me,” you chuckled. “Isn’t there anything you hide?”

He thought about it for a few seconds, leaning his head against the wall.

“Well, I guess you know this now, but I like Spider-Man.”

“Yeah, but it’s considered normal for guys to like comic book characters. When I tell people I like Spider-Man, they just assume I have a crush on the actor. Come on, there has to be something you don’t show off at school.”

“Okay fine. I’ve got a couple. One, I actually like to cook. A lot. It almost kills me to be partnered up with the guys sometimes because they’re so clueless in the kitchen. And two, I love dance. I did it for a bit as a kid but got embarrassed and decided to go the normal sports route. I still go to the Nutcracker every year, though.”

You found yourself smiling at his honesty.

“Really? You know my mom put me in little kid ballet classes for a while, but I was really disruptive in class because I had too much energy, so I got into other sports instead. Has the football team never done a ballet class? I know some schools make them.”

“One summer. Maybe two years ago? We were doing a team building thing and they made us take one. I couldn’t make myself pretend to be bad so I just let everyone believe I was a natural talent,” he laughed, causing you to do the same. “You should’ve seen those guys. That’s probably one of my best football memories.”

You both sit in comfortable silence for a while. You couldn’t remember a time that you both were open to each other without the slightest bit of tension.

After a few more moments, you both got back to work.

%

You didn’t realize that it was past 5 o’clock until your mother was at your doorway telling you dinner was ready.

“Feel free to stay. We’d love to have you for dinner, Tom,” she offered, then went back to the kitchen. 

“Do you mind? I can just walk home if not.”

“Just stay, man. What’s one dinner? I’d feel at least somewhat bad to make you walk all the way home. We’re done for the week anyways, so I’ll just drive you after we eat.”

You led him to the kitchen, where your mom had cooked some ravioli and tossed a salad. You built your plates and thanked your mom, then sat at the dining room table.

You ate in awkward silence since your parents were in the living room. Your dad had greeted you and Tom when he came home from work, not really realizing who Tom was.

Once your plates were practically cleaned, you cleared the table and took Tom home.

“Thanks again for dinner and driving me. Good luck this weekend.”

Who is this guy and where did he take Tom? He never wishes me luck.

“Yeah no problem. Thank your mom for the bread. And good luck on your game tomorrow, too. I hear it’s gonna be a tough one.”

”They just haven’t met me yet,” he joked, then got out of the car and headed to the door. He tossed one last wave back as you pulled away.

%

A/N: I’m happy to be posting the next part and with the free time that I have at the moment of formatting this I’m hoping that I can reedit ch 4 and have it up by next week. As always, love you all and thanks for reading!

If you want to be added to TMP or my permanent tag list, please send an ask/message so I can verify that you get added!

Story Tag List: @jackiehollanderr, @one-big-fangirl, @l0lmk, @primadonnasdream, @bookworm06, @thenoddingbunny-blog

[concealeddarkness13]

A New Dawn Part 16

In which Kai plays video games, gets manipulated, and finds a family. Tagging: @ratracechronicler and @merigreenleaf!

Here is the post with the previous parts’ links!

I couldn’t sleep that night. Not really. I had been too tired the night before to actually think about it, but Rat had said we could be family. I had agreed, but I hadn’t really thought about what that meant. I had never really understood the concept of having a family who wasn’t related to you. It was like a foreign concept to me.

On my planet, everyone valued flesh and blood family, living in the same house with their extended family. If you weren’t doing that, you were seen as an anomaly. Taeo had had to overcome the stigma of living by himself to become popular. There were plenty of people who still whispered about it.

I knew that it was a long shot for me to find my actual family. If the jellyfish had me before I lost my memory, they might have killed my family when they took me. Or I could just never find them. Maybe it would be better, less heartache, if I just…

I took a deep breath. I just couldn’t give up. But it wasn’t a bad concept, a family that didn’t share blood.

I glanced over at Rat and Eli. I didn’t want to lose them too, not to the jellyfish, and, honestly, not because I got back to my planet.

*

Rat and Eli left for their date (yes, I was still going to call it that), and Rex and I went back upstairs. I had been thinking of strategies for Galoshlimb all morning, but Rex actually put in another game, explaining that it would be more fun for just two players. It was a fighting game with weirdly designed characters that looked like aliens.

As we competed against each other, he glanced over at me. “So…how’s life on Mars?”

I frowned over at him as my character died again. “Um…Mars?”

“Y’know. Back home an’ all.”

Oh. “It isn’t called Mars. I haven’t heard of that planet, actually. It’s called Versteria. And I guess it’s going good.” I shrugged. “I haven’t been there for at least a month, so I’m not sure.”

“Oh, okay. Cool, cool.” He looked a little surprised. “Any invasions as o’ late, or you kinda keep to yourselves on this Versteria?”

My character died again as I thought. “There really aren’t any invasions. There are already so many different kinds of aliens on my planet that we’re pretty welcoming.”

Rex opened his mouth to say something else, but I tensed as something moved out of the corner of my eye. I jumped up and ran to the window, and the shadow of one of the jellyfish aliens zipped across rooftops. I stared at them for a little bit before I shook myself. I had to go after them. Why were they even here? I had thought I had scared them off in Fre Jac-Mac.

I turned back to Rex. “Speaking of aliens, I just saw one of the aliens that followed me here. Would you want to help me pursue them to figure out more about what they want?”

He leapt up. “I’m gone, mate. Lemme grab my hat! Should I bring the blackthorn along?” he asked excitedly. He stumbled into his room and grabbed a battered old sports cap. The cap had the words: “Cryptid Seekers Squad”. He gestured at a dangerous-looking stick, which I assumed was the blackthorn.

I shrugged. “If you want to.”

He grinned, grabbed the stick, and ran after me as I left through the window. The alien hadn’t left my line of sight yet, which was a little weird. But I pushed that out of my mind as I followed them. What really mattered was that the aliens were still here. And I had to figure out more.

The alien led me to the street, past buildings covered in graffiti. I wanted to stop and stare, but the alien didn’t stop, so I couldn’t either. I would have to ask about all the graffiti later.

Rex broke the silence. “So whadda these chaps look like anyhow?”

I frowned. It almost seemed to easy that I was following this alien. As if they were slowing down on purpose to make sure I would follow. Great. “Weird looking faces. Hair that looks like jellyfish tentacles instead of actual hair. Steadily more see-through skin the farther down the arms you go.”

Rex whispered under his breath. “Wicked cool.” I couldn’t agree with that.

We seemed to be going toward a place in the distance where smoke was coming up. Was something burning? But then we made it to a dead end, and the alien turned around and grinned at me. “It’s so good to see you again, Kaira.”

I glared at them and pulled out my knife. “My name is Kai, and why are you still following me? I would think you would be scared of me now.”

“Scared of you? I’ll only be scared of you if you can turn on that light show again.” I grimaced. It could only be activated when I was hurt badly during a fight. Rex tried to say something in the background, but I didn’t listen. They laughed. “Then I’m not scared of you.” They paused and held out a transparent hand. “And if you’re smart, you’ll come with me. Don’t you want information on your real home, your real family? We are the only ones who can give you the answers.”

I sucked in a breath and shook my head. I wanted to learn more, but I couldn’t trust them. It wasn’t worth it to turn myself over to them. They probably wouldn’t tell me anything anyway.

Rex spoke up, louder this time. “OI! How see-through’re we talkin’ here, mate? I can’t see nothin’. Just a wall there.” He moved toward the alien, crouched down, and he prodded the stick he brought at them.

And the stick went right through them. They clicked their tongue and shook their head. “Unfortunately, our ruse was found out too quickly. See you soon, Kaira.” They laughed and disappeared.

I clenched my fists. I had let myself get tricked again. Shit. I looked over at Rex. “I was wrong. They were messing with my head. They can make me see them when they’re not there. Let’s go back.”

He turned to me, looking a little disappointed. “They ain’t…You’re sure? They can do that?”

I frowned. I should have known better. Stupid. “I mean, they could be here. But they could be anywhere. It would be pointless to try to find them. And they can do that, from what I know.”

“Like, to anyone?” He held the sides of his head and looked around suspiciously.

I shrugged. I honestly didn’t know. “I think only to people who were stung by their jellyfish tentacle hair things. But I didn’t even know I was stung when it happened.” I sighed and started walking back. “Sorry for wasting your time.”

“Oh…yeah. Whatever,” he muttered, stuffing his hands in his pockets, with the stick having been clipped to a keychain. Cool. “’Pologies for all the questions an’ sticks.”

…Huh? Why was he apologizing? He hadn’t done anything wrong. I had led him on the chase that ultimately led to nothing. I frowned back at him. “I didn’t mind. Actually, I think your stick is cool.”

He sounded confused. “Thanks?”

That didn’t sound entirely encouraged, but hopefully it was enough. I looked back to the front. “Anyway, thanks for coming with me. If you hadn’t pointed out that there was no one there, I would have kept letting them mess with me.”

He jogged to catch up to me. “Hey, yeah, no problem.”

We headed back, with the smoke still in the distance. I eyed it, but didn’t ask Rex. He probably wouldn’t know why something was on fire.

It was nearing sunset when we got back. I hadn’t realized how far we had gone, chasing after the phantom alien. And when Rex opened the front door and we walked inside, Rat and Eli ran up to us. Eli looked worried, while Rat looked furious. I shrunk down instinctively. “Are you two okay?” I asked, trying to relieve the tension.

“We’re fine—where in Perdition did you two go?” Rat demanded.

Shit. She wouldn’t be happy about this. “Uh…I thought I saw one of the aliens. And I followed them…”

“An’ I followed her,” Rex said, then yelled over Rat’s shoulder at one of his parents. “So, no, I did not spend the whole day up in my ‘cave’ playin’ games! We got exercise an’ sunshine an’ all that goodness!”

Rat smiled, but her eyes were still angry. “You seem incredibly well-equipped to handle those aliens.”

Shit. Before I could say anything, Rex spoke up again. “Nah, but we didn’t need to, see, cuz they ended up not bein’ there for real, just in eye tricks.”

I couldn’t look Rat in the eyes. “I had thought that the aliens wouldn’t bother us again, so when they showed up, I had to figure out why. But I did ask Rex to come along so I wasn’t alone.” Hopefully, that would make them feel better.

“That’s good!” Eli smiled encouragingly. “That was a really good thought, Kai. Rex is strong, and he knows this city better than any of us. Asking him for help was great.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Rat seemed to calm down a little, not so much anger in her eyes. “Uh. Smart.” She stood for a second before punching me lightly on the shoulder. “Gave me a scare, though.” She flicked Rex’s hat. “You couldn’t have messaged us?”

“I had way bigger fish to catch,” he scoffed.

They seemed to be feeling better, so time to distract them. Also, I really wanted to know how it was. “So, how was your date?” Rex’s jaw dropped at what I said.

Rat’s expression remained neutral. “We didn’t eat any dates, or raisins or prunes or other dried fruit. We stopped for sushi on the way back from our trip to the forest, though.”

What? “So…it was good?”

“Yes,” Eli said pleasantly. I could not figure out if there was something else behind his words or not. Too aromantic and asexual for that. “It was. Thanks for asking. How was the rest of your day?”

Should I pry more? Should I just leave them be? I wasn’t the right person for the job. So, I just blurted out, “Video games,” and left it at that.

Rex’s eyes widened. “I think I left it on paused,” he whispered and sprinted up the stairs.

And now, we were alone. Rex’s family hadn’t come to talk to us. I fidgeted with my hands. “I’m sorry for running off after the aliens. I should have thought more.”

“Well…” Rat said. “You thought a little. That’s some progress at least, right? And nobody got hurt, right?”

I…I didn’t want to lose them. I had to think a little more before I did something stupid. I fidgeted some more and sucked in a breath. “And—and you weren’t lying when you talked about family, right? You’d be willing to let me be a part of it?”

“I wasn’t lying,” Rat said at the same time that Eli spoke.

“Of course, you can be a part—” They both spluttered to a halt and fell silent before Rat spoke up.

“Yeah. Absolutely. It’s a weird family, but you’re invited.”

I…I was part of a family. I wasn’t alone. I breathed out, long and slow. “Thank you. I don’t know if I’ll be able to return to my own world, and I’m glad I’m not alone in this world. I care deeply for you two.” I hesitated. Would this be too much? But I really wanted to hug them. So, I moved closer and hugged both of them at the same time.

Eli hugged back, wrapping his arms around both me and Rat. “I’m glad I’m—I mean, you, you’re—I’m glad you’re not alone too, or either, or y’know,” Rat said. She snort-laughed and ruffled my hair. “You’re okay.”

I sniffled as tears threatened to overtake me, but a few tears slipped down my cheeks. I sighed and relaxed, leaning into the hug. “Thank you both so much.”

They didn’t say anything, but they were both also sniffling.

[kenkamishiro]

Ishida Sui’s Review of 2019

I didn’t think I’d ever finish this with my onslaught of classes including pharmacology, but I somehow managed! 6k word count, the longest TL I’ve done to date besides Parvati’s interlude for FGO. Lots of insight into Jack Jeanne’s production and what Ishida’s been up to for the past year. It was tough to translate because it was so long, but I had a lot of fun.

Let me know if there are any mistakes, I’m sure there’s a whole bunch. Have fun reading!

Original can be found here.

＊＊＊

2019. I’m reflecting on this past year while flipping through my agenda. Since I’m writing this for my sake, there’s going to be a lot of sections without much explanation.

January

○ This was when Jack Jeanne had yet to be announced, so I was mostly doing preliminary work at the time. Stuff like “BU” and “character facial expressions” will be finished some time this month, is written in my schedule book.

○ New Year’s party in Tokyo from the 16th - 19th. The New Year’s party is a joint party that’s comprised of the 4th editorial department (Shueisha’s seinen magazine branch) that’s held every year in January. I attended the party with the staff every year during serialization, minus my first year.

2019 will be the first New Year’s party since the series ended, but I thought I should stop inviting the staff to attend since we’re not working together anymore (plus it’d be a hassle), so I didn’t really invite anyone. But the day before the event, Editor M brought up the topic inside the taxi and asked, “Are none of the staff coming this year?” (Even if they’re invited now, it’s going to be impossible, asking them to fly the next day and causing a ruckus…) When I replied, “Hey, I’m sure it’d be fun if you invited them and they all came~”, the editor contacted Goubaru-kun, and after said, “He said he’s going.” Guess he wasn’t busy. In the end, the staff during serialization and several people from OB and OG came, almost identical to the lineup from previous years, and it occurred to me that maybe I should have just invited them from the start.

Anyway, at this year’s New Year’s party, I don’t really remember much of what happened. I talked with my senpais from back when I was an assistant for Kingdom, and outside the venue I sobered up from the agoraphobic dizziness I was feeling inside. At the second party I remember people talking to me haphazardly and being photographed. I wish I’d refused. Also, I was sexually harassed by Rikudou Matsubara, my senpai from the same region as me. This New Year’s party will be my last.

February

Briefing session for the game held in Tokyo. Key visual created. It says here [on the agenda] that I want to go to Kagoshima. Every week there’s a checklist for 10 km of jogging and weight training 2-3 times a week. I spent about a week doing some composition work. It ended up being helpful for me, but it made me decide not to work anymore with people with different levels of interest from me.

○ TRPG is written for the 28th. Usually we use the DX (Double Cross) system, but this time one of our participating players, M’s schedule was under mysterious attack. As game master, taking consideration of everyone who’d made time in their schedules for tonight, I thought we could switch to Cthulhu and asked them to wait an hour. 2 hours later I finished coming up with a scenario and began the session. It was fairly fun.

March

Finish BU this month, is clearly noted down. BU stands for bust-up, which are drawings of characters in standing poses [sprites] that are common in ADV games. Normally, since it takes a huge amount of work, the BU work is always divided up. The original drawings are done by the illustrator, in this case I do the base illustrations (line drawing & colouring), and using them as the base, the department sharing the work cleans up the line drawings and recolours it...that’s how the process goes. But since I’m a mangaka and don’t have the technology needed to make gaming assets, I thought it’d be best to leave it to the pros in that field, so that was how that stage proceeded. At that point in time at least.

I also had plans written down to go to Kagoshima. Looks like I didn’t go.

○ TRPG on the 25th. Player M’s schedule lined up with ours, so we played DX with 6 PL plus me as GM. We went to the aquarium, were attacked by witches, and so on.

April

Finish BU, is faintly written down. It seems like the work was more or less completed earlier this month.

○ High school friend K’s wedding on the 6th. Up until then I’d only been to two other wedding receptions. The weddings were for a different friend from high school, and Tajika-san, one of my senpais from Kingdom. This suddenly reminds me of that time at Tajika-san’s reception, when I took a super early flight because I absolutely didn’t want to be late whatsoever, but I ended up not being able to fly for about an hour and a half because of engine trouble or whatever, so I entered at almost the same time as the bride and groom during the reception…

K’s wedding was the first time in my life where I was present all the way from the wedding to the reception, but how should I put it, I was struck by a beam of light. I don’t know who he’s getting married to, I have no clue what their relationship is like. But I was somehow bombarded...by all these thoughts that became jumbled in my head, like the energy in this place, the power of their oaths, questioning what it was, how light isn’t always justice.

I got the feeling that this was what proper, respectable humans take part in, but since I'm fine with not being a proper, respectable human, I decided to not do anything other than what my heart desires.

I'm definitely not good with places where I’m in the spotlight. But congratulations.

○ “Play Sekiro” is strongly noted down. Thank you for supporting me in the first half of 2019.

○ TRPG for the 29th - 30th. DX. Player M’s character dies.

May - June

My schedule book is starting to look more scattered now. On the other hand, since I’ve got a good memory of this time, I can write while recalling the events.

○ I did the covers for the Touken stage play book.

I drew the cover illustrations for the Touken [Ranbu] stage play that Mikasano-san, who I’m grateful to for his work on the anime and movie scripts for TG, worked on. In my mind, it feels like I'm watching the back of who I'd consider my older brother in the creative world, or a fellow comrade on another battlefield fighting to the death. I think it came out quite charmingly, so I’ll include the links for now. Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3

During this time of work for Jack Jeanne, I was working on “model sheets”. Blueprints for the characters’ attire, not just from the front but also the internal structure.

Unlike most other games, Jack Jeanne has “performance costumes” in addition to normal attire. Because of its “revue” theme, costumes that will be worn onstage needed to be prepared. I was shocked when I suddenly admitted that I needed model sheets for 5 different performances (spring, summer, fall, winter, final) for the 6 main characters, making 30 designs in total.

Back in the TG era, these kind of drawings that I just explained, or drawings that needed a lot of layers, were a pain in the ass. Plus I wasn’t good at them, so I thought that I didn’t want to do it for the rest of my life if possible. But it seems like I have to do this myself. With a sense of determination, I decided to work solely on this for all of May. At the same time, I made nothing but curry for all my meals. There’s no deep reason behind it, but my aim was to kinda boost my ability to concentrate daily by choosing to be decisive in that action.

○ Working on model sheets It came with an unintended effect. Because I spent a month on work that required balance and consistency, my right-left checking skills got better, and completely unrelated, I improved in drawing perfect copies. The design work for the model sheets itself became really fun to do, starting around when I became obsessed with the scarf design (sumo wrestler drawing) I definitely couldn’t use for Neji’s summer costume. I discovered that it’s precisely because I’m not good at this that my labour bore fruit. I feel like this was my experience for the latter half of the year.

July

The cast members were chosen. Unlike TG, there are 6 people + 1 person who can be referred to as the main character, so it was interesting to have a cast with some breadth.

Seems like lyrical work was the main thing I worked on.

Lyrical work. In Jack Jeanne, each performance contains several songs to sing and dance to, so each one is supposed to be sung. ...hence the lyrics.

The topic of what to do with the lyrics was brought up in November 2018. What happens typically is that, let’s say there’s singing in an idol game, then a company that specializes in it is asked to produce the songs. Even for Jack Jeanne, there were several candidates I could pick and choose from. But after a quick look-through, frankly speaking, they all looked the same to me. There’s one person that’s good, it’d be great if we could get them...is what I thought, but, “Even though I don’t have the skills, I’m the one who understands this world the best,” crossed my mind. ...should I try? I tried it. To be honest, I was super embarrassed since it’d be seen by a lot of people, but it evolved into, “Who cares if you’re doing it?” And so Jack Jeanne’s lyrics were tasked to me.

I mentioned this earlier, but there are multiple songs for each performance. So if you combine those plus the opening and ending songs, that makes 17 songs in total. Lyrics for 17 songs that I’m fully responsible for. What the hell...am I doing? Maybe it was from that moment that I started losing it.

Including the lyrics that I’d been working on bit by bit every month, the remaining ones were finished in one go this July. By the time I finished everything, my current state was, “Give me more songs...let me write more lyrics!” But it wasn’t over just yet.

August

Every time I meet someone I tell this story. I’m thinking of keeping it up. Here I am, relieved to have finished the lyrics, when a message pops up on the Skype group chat. It’s from Yamashita Daisuke of Broccoli.

To briefly touch upon Yamashita Daisuke, he is a young man who’s been involved with this project since October of 2018, and a poor soul who was tasked with conducting very important meetings on his third day of working at the company.

The producer from Broccoli was going on maternity leave, so he was scouted as her replacement. As an aside, if I have to be honest, the exchanges between me and Towada-san, and Broccoli’s Jack Jeanne team up until then were quite frustrating. “How about doing it like this?” they would counter. And we’d respond with something like, “This part is going to be developed later on, and since this will become foreshadowing for the entirety of the story, it can’t be modified that easily.” This kind of situation, having to explain everything in detail one by one, going 3 steps forward and being held 2 steps back, had been going on for about 3 years, so the two of us would often whine about it over drinks, going, “When should we quit, this is ridiculous,” etc.

Finally when things began going more smoothly, the producer who was leading the project took her leave, so I wondered if we’d be able to get along with Yamashita Daisuke, but he was, how should I put it, very diligent. For the last year I've been working with people who don’t put in their best effort, so I was very hopeful and thankful to him.

But I digress. This was the gist of the message that Daisuke sent.

“Kosemura-san’s who’s in charge of musical composition wants ‘scratch vocal tracks’ for when the singers are recording.” “Does Ishida-sensei happen to know anyone he could ask for this favour?” “I’m sure it won’t be a problem for you!” “Frankly speaking, it’s okay even if they’re bad.”

Huh. Well, as you might have already guessed, even with the lyrics, it’s impossible to really understand the song at first sight without knowing what kind of rhythm, what kind of emotions are being expressed in the bar measure. Of course we’d need ‘scratch vocal tracks’ to explain the general feeling of the song.

Now, what Daisuke said was, “Do you have anyone you can ask? It’s okay even if they’re bad. Or even you can do it.” But if I found a “it’s okay even if they’re bad” kind of person, we’d still have to show them how to sing it and explain how the rhythm goes. Daisuke already knew which was probably why he asked for the favour. “The person writing the lyrics would be able to make the scratch vocal tracks the fastest.” ...come to think of it, the demo songs that Kunimitsu sent me every time that were sung using Vocaloid, weren’t they also scratch vocal tracks?

Daisuke must have been in a pinch trying to figure out how he should ask me candidly. Ishida-sensei, I couldn’t just ask you to sing it, so I had to ask in a roundabout manner.

I’d already given my answer, but I was still hesitant. It’s true that after I finished writing the lyrics for the 17 songs I’d already lost sight of myself, but if I sang, my singing would reach Broccoli and Kosemura-san’s team’s ears. But I couldn’t just leave poor Daisuke hanging.

So I consult Towada-shi, whom I’d been collaborating with in creating the scripts for Jack Jeanne, for advice. (He had been in charge of TG’s novels, and I’ve known him for a long time.) “Did you check Skype?” “I did.” “What do you think?” “Start by looking up scratch vocal tracks,” so we paid a visit to YouTube. The first search result that came up for ‘scratch vocal track’ was a video of a vocalist who was used to sing a scratch track for AKB or something. I see, so that’s what it looks like. Innocuous, but I could see it was very professionally done.

And the second result that came up was Tsunku♂-shi. The figure of Tsunku♂-shi himself recording a scratch track for his idols. The producer himself became an idol, and was singing really cutely, in his emotions and how he sang it. “This is it?” I said. “Yeah, it is,” Towada-shi agreed. If Kosemura-san and his team, and the people who will be performing the songs have to listen to it, it’d be a disservice to them to half-ass it. I don’t like people who don’t try their best. That means I have to show that attitude myself. Let’s come out of my shell for poor Daisuke as well.

“You’re gonna become Tsunku♂.” “Yeah...I’m gonna be Tsunku♂!” And that was how I became Tsunku♂.

I replied to Daisuke on the Skype group chat. “Understood, I’ll do what I can.”

So this guy, who doesn’t even know what the ‘D’ in DTM stands for, first downloads the software, and begins setting up a recording environment. Other work is pushed aside. I set 3 days to work on this.

I timidly begin working on the scratch tracks. From the perspective of someone who doesn’t have to listen to their singing for a living, it starts out as a living hell, but you get used to it as you listen to it over and over.

And so I kept learning new things. I noticed I was harmonizing with myself.

Just like Tsunku♂-shi, I’d change the voice for each character. If it was Jack (male in a male role) I’d sing like a man, and if it was Jeanne (male in a female role), then like a woman, while the main character Kisa (female) should sound cute... No, Kisa needs to be cuter! I re-recorded her part many times. Depending on the song, I’d sing for 7 people. I was Jack Jeanne now.

Tsunku♂ (I) recorded 17 songs in 3 days, and sent the data first to Towada-shi. Since I was now Tsunku♂, I no longer felt any sense of embarrassment.

“I listened to it,” the reply came, and I called him. Towada-shi was roaring with laughter. I regained the embarrassment I’d forgotten.

“Oh no, I was laughing ‘cause I was impressed,” he said, but my heart was already as fragile as that of an abandoned dog.

“Even this is a big help to Kosemura-san, and Daisuke should be grateful, right?” Yeah. Although Towada-shi guffawed at me, Daisuke will surely thank me. And then he’ll definitely tell me what a good job I did!

I dumped the music into the Skype group chat. “I did what I could,” I added.

How will Daisuke react to my Tsunku♂? I waited restlessly. Three days later on August 5th, a formal message arrived after it was received.

“Thank you very much. We will schedule a meeting with Kosemura-san…”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. My hard work got dismissed with, “Thank you very much.”

Daisuke, why? I thought you were in a pinch, so I...were...were you fooling with me from the start? Answer me! Daisuke! Just tell me I did a good job, or follow up with something, I’m fine with anything! So much for my heart being like an abandoned dog, it’s more like a grown-ass man left naked on a snowy mountain. I did what I could! This feeling was welling up inside me, but was it myself that managed to do it?

○ Later, at a meeting with Kosemura-san “It’s great that you could do this much for us. You didn’t have to do all that.” With the gist of those words, a warm blanket was finally placed over my heart, which had almost frozen to death.

“I didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t sure if Sensei was the most who did it in the first place,” Daisuke said, so I decided to satisfy myself by threatening, “I’m gonna tell this story until the day I die.”

September

○ Responses to the Questions to Ishida Sui contest We did a “Ask anything to Ishida Sui” contest as a project for the art book “zakki:re”, where purchasers could apply with a postcard. I was writing the replies for them.

I thought there’d be a lot more questions about TG or its contents, but surprisingly there were a lot of questions asking for life advice. There were quite a few questions that I had to seriously think about to answer.

It was kinda tough since there were over a hundred of them, but I thought it’d be nice to get in touch like this every once in a while.

○ BU work for Jack Jeanne Once the music-related tasks like lyrical composition and scratch vocal tracks were completed, I worked on BU. ...BU work? Wasn’t it finished back in April?

Well, a similar situation arose just like what happened with the lyrics. Regarding sprite quality I might not be able to beat the pros, but since I’m the one who best understands how the characters look best and their body balance, I had decided to do all the line drawing colouring myself in June. I had no clue whether I’d make the deadline or maintain the quality, but thanks to Broccoli’s understanding, I was allowed to make it myself.

I realized once again that I’m terrible at splitting up work. If I can do it by myself, I will.

Plus, it’s, how should I put it, starting from my TG days, even though it wasn’t a lot I got to see various types of workplaces. I’d see places where there was no sense of responsibility whatsoever, or the work may have been divvied up appropriately, but it felt like they were making something without a sense of purpose, like a main plot line that isn’t going anywhere.

It’s impossible to accomplish big things with that kind of stance, and I understand that the more people that intervene, the more uncertain the core becomes, so I didn’t like that kind of approach. It makes me wonder whether there’s any meaning in creating a work that’s conservative and unchallenged, and if it’s nothing more than a money grab.

Since I don’t have any desire for material things, getting fed up about it is useless, but I just can’t help thinking about it.

Of course, it may be difficult to get what I want 100% of the time, but I want to create things in an environment that I think is beautiful, even in places that I’m slightly involved in.

...in other words, BU work is tough, but I began remaking the sprites once again by myself. This was the toughest work I’ve ever done out of everything, including the serialization...

○ Scratch vocals training camp at the end of September I went to the recording for the scratch vocal tracks. Based on the scratch tracks that I made, we got professional vocalists to sing it again properly. This is what the actual cast would use as a reference to sing. (So my version was like the pre-scratch vocal track.)

I was stuck in Tokyo for almost a week. Wake up, get ready, go to the recording studio. Come back at 8 or 9 pm, rest and sleep, repeat.

It was like I was back in school, and since I don’t have a steady lifestyle, I enjoyed it.

Kosemura-san’s team is really great, and I know I mentioned this before, but I felt like their workplace was a very healthy production site. When I was drawing manga, I never had much time to talk with fellow manga artists, and I’ve never had the chance to experience what other professionals’ workplaces were like, so it was very exciting for me to see people as professionals tackle one thing seriously. The vocalists were as amazing as I expected, and although my scratch tracks were played at a loud volume to annoy me, I had a great time.

The game might have a high level of entry, but it’s worth listening to just for the songs, is what I truly thought.

○ Parting words to Editor M-shi This might have been back in August, but from 2018 to 2019 I had a lot of things on my mind, so I began talking to the editor.

In between the 11 years of serialization starting from my rookie days, I’d received guidance from him so it wasn’t easy, but I expressed to him that we should keep our distance for any future works.

“I want to become absorbed in myself, not to Ishida Sui or Tokyo Ghoul,” I told him. The other part said he also felt the same way, and accepted it. The next time we meet, I hope we can talk about what we’re into, what we’re going crazy over, he said.

And so, 2 months after that conversation was the scratch vocals training camp in Tokyo, and I had the chance for the two of us to talk again. That day I was completely tuckered out from recording the scratch track, but it was a day filled with accomplishments.

He took me to a restaurant with delicious food in Ebisu or somewhere, and after concluding our brief business meeting, I tried throwing out the cliched, “So, what are you up to lately?” As the lead writer, there was a part of me that was curious about how he was doing after that talk we had.

The editor began talking about homemade curry.

...that’s what he’s into? I decide everything from selecting and picking the ingredients myself, and next time I want Ishida-kun to also see how delicious the curry is...he told me passionately, but how should I put it, the conversation wasn’t very spicy.

The food was delicious.

October

○ BU work

What’s hard about BU work is that it’s difficult to separate the layers according to the face, hair and clothes, and they all have to have the same style and touch to it. If it was manga, then maybe...no, even in manga, there’s still some need to match the outfits, but it doesn’t really matter to that extent.

It’s because I don’t like game sprites. “This character has so much energy from their sideways pose! Amazing!” This never happens…

Around this time of the year, my older sister called this elaborate task, “the task you’re probably the worst at.”

○ The bean life I’m not really fat in particular, but I made up my mind to try dieting. At the time, my body fat percentage was at 18%, and I’ve never been below 10% ever in my entire life, so I’m thinking of aiming for that. Instead of eating rice with unseasoned chickpeas and black soybeans, I began my lifestyle of consuming vegetables and cuts of meat with less fat. Hopefully I can achieve my goal in about six months’ time.

○ Ano-chan, Honda Keisuke, and I After Ano-chan left “You’ll Melt More!”, her official Twitter account removed every single account she was following, but for some reason only two people remained. Those two people were Honda Keisuke and Ishida Sui. To Ano-chan, Honda Keisuke and Ishida Sui belonged in the same category. After some time passed, even we were removed, but I consider this one of my hottest mysteries of 2019. Ano-chan! I’ll always be waiting, so let’s have tea some time with Honda Keisuke!

November

○ BU Need I say more.

○ Main cast’s first recording session from the 26th - 27th.

I visited Tokyo with Towada-shi to supervise the main cast members’ recording session. Wow, everyone was so amazing~

Of course, not just the main characters. Terasaki Yuka-san who plays the main character, Tachibana Kisa, was wonderful as well.

In this kind of game genre, the position as the main character feels less important than the male characters, but I want her to stand firmly in this story’s script. I thought it’d be nice to have the main character not stand out too much and have her watch over the male characters, and I felt that Terasaki-san’s voice and acting fit that image perfectly.

About the cast members, it seems like there’ll be a chance to speak to them eventually, so I’ll come back again.

○ 1 month into the bean life I’m steadily losing weight. Basically I always work from home. I go to the gym and supermarket 2-3 times a week. I started cooking for myself. I got a brand new refrigerator to replace the one that suddenly broke. It actually cools things down now. Living standards have risen.

December

○ I break off ties with M who I played TRPG together with. He was a former classmate who was even chief assistant at some point during the series’ run, but eventually he ended up getting fired due to falling asleep at work. He said he’d attend the last session for the story that day (although his own character had already died), and I was working on a schedule to accommodate him, but once again he cancelled at the last minute.

It’s fine to cause trouble for me (although I’ll probably get pissed), but I can’t overlook treating others the same way. And it’s not the fact that his schedule didn’t match up, it’s because he was complete trash who didn’t know how to behave like an adult once he made plans with others, that I felt sorry for the other TRPG people who took time out of their schedules. Since I felt ashamed when I was together with him, I decided I’d had enough.

This was a year where I cut ties with a lot of people, but I think what they had in common was that I was ashamed to be with them. From now on, I don’t want to associate with such people.

What’s more, when I finally told him, he didn’t even try to deal with it and just gave up, responding, “So that’s how you felt about me. Okay. My bad.”

I won’t go anywhere with those kind of people again.

○ The bean life ⇒ the potato life. I changed it to potatoes.

○ BU is over...

On December 17th, I finally finished the BU work that I spent ageeeeeeeees on.

Although I said that serialization is tough, as long as I finished 18 pages a week that was it (although there were times where I was chasing myself with other work), so I could finish it as long as I didn’t sleep. I somehow managed to finish both the manuscripts and the colour illustrations this way, so expecting BU to be similar, I wasn’t really scared about it never ending, but BU truly was despair. When is this gonna end? I’m even working super hard… This is how it went on the entire time for over a month.

There were about 200 different sprites I had to make myself, including the different costumes and poses, and I had to do all of them.

For one thing, when, “This process is necessary,” came out, I had to go through the same process roughly 200 times, that it felt like I was facing the final boss who already transformed many times. Also, it’s like not equipping myself with a lot of equipment and recovery items in the previous town, but the dungeon I somehow managed to enter is extremely dangerous and even though there’s no safe points anywhere in sight, the boss suddenly comes up behind you, and you go I’m gonna die I’m gonna die

○ If you eat a lot while you’re losing weight, you’re going to have a bad time.

On December 15th I had trouble concentrating, so I tidied up the living room, created a space in the middle of the room, and darkened the lights. After an hour of meditating, only the sound of my breathing could be heard in the room, and so I went back to work with renewed concentration after confronting the issue (like a monk?).

On December 16th, I’ve been working the entire time since morning. I thought today was going to be the last day, but an entire day has passed and I don’t have any energy...

I’ll buy a midnight snack, replenish my energy, and end it once and for all. I’m trying to lose weight, but I went to the convenience store while thinking about how I’m gonna eat a katsu sandwich (I didn’t have the energy to cook).

While looking for something at a convenience store I can eat during weight loss, I think back over the last few months.

Like how it seems like BU is finally over, how a lot of things have happened, how I’m working hard, how lately I’ve been eating only potatoes, vegetables and meat.

And then I suddenly thought, “I wonder if the reason I don’t have any energy is because I haven’t had any rice lately.”

...I thought I should go on a diet in October, so I’ve been living a very modest life since then. Thanks to that, my weight has steadily decreased, and my body fat percentage has gone down 3% to 15%. What will happen if I continue with my relatively strict dietary restrictions during this difficult time?

...even if you’re losing weight, there’s a technique you can set up to binge eat during periods where weight loss stagnates, called cheat day (though results may vary), but what is it that makes no-cheating so inefficient even for weight loss?

...should I have a cheat day today?

“Huh, is it really okay?” I asked my mind. “Do it!” was the answer I got. From that moment, everything around me morphed into things I could eat.

No exaggeration, my knees trembled.

I crammed into my shopping basket carbohydrates, carbs, more carbs… It’s okay just for today, I say as I shove cream puffs, dorayaki, pudding, Family Mart chicken and ice cream. (Even if it's a cheat day, it’s probably not a good idea to take non-nutritional foods, but shh.)

With food in both hands and in high spirits, the first thing I ate was the delicious part of the Family Mart chicken.

I groaned loudly, all alone in the room.

Alright, let’s finish this work! I was energized, but my blood sugar levels spiked so much that I felt extremely sleepy and went to bed instead.

The next day on the 17th, I wake up at 4 am and immediately notice something unusual. My body is burning. I’m sweating.

I immediately wake up, and overflowing with energy, I head for my desk. I’m working actively, and I finish the BU work. It felt like I was pushing forward with only positive energy, feeling uplifted.

I break out a laugh at a slight joke I found funny from a foreign drama (The Mentalist) I’m playing while working. The greenery of the plants and the lighted sink glisten, and the scenery is vivid.

What is this?

I suddenly recall the story of a YouTuber I saw recently. He lives in a region where medical marijuana is legalized, and he explained in detail what changes would occur if you smoked cannabis.

To put it roughly, you feel calm and your senses sharpen. Trivial things can become funny, and funny videos can make you roar with laughter.

Then maybe...I thought, I'll watch Nagareboshi (a comedy duo) on YouTube. Usually I go, haha, that's funny! But that day I exploded with laughter...all of their videos were just too funny.

I learned that when you’re losing weight and suddenly eat a lot, it alters your mind and body as if you smoked cannabis. (※ Just to be clear, I don’t know what cannabis is like.)

Thus the BU work ended with me being high as a kite.

(※ I’m covering it with mosaics for now. I’ll remove it once I can announce it.)

○ I stopped playing TRPGs. I’ve been doing it for about two and a half years, but it also helped me in honing my creative skills. I’d sometimes perform, so it was useful when I was recording the scratch vocals… It was a good experience, managing to vicariously live the energy of ending a story. It was a story about a group of friends, so it was easy to appreciate.

Summing up 2019

After the weekly series finished in 2018, I was in a daze for a few months, but in 2019 I worked only on Jack Jeanne for the year.

This year I tried various things, and trite as it may seem, felt the possibilities within myself expanding. I had many opportunities to realize how important it is to keep a distance from bad things that don’t do anything for me.

During my work on Jack Jeanne, I vaguely thought about my future creations. The work I’m doing now in game production is fun so I wonder if I can keep working in this field, but I’d also like an environment where I can release things more constantly.

I can’t promise anything specific, but I’m going to work on things that I want to do.

I look forward to what 2020 has to offer. Have a happy New Year.

2019.12.31 Ishida Sui

[shinjukuspiritcommittee]

Health and Sports Team Building- Prologue

Here it is, the fruits of my labor and my passion project I hinted at in my update post the other day. I’ve been always meaning to write an event around my Housamo OCs (btw I have fan OCs for this game) and after some planning and delving more into how they’d fit into the world that is Housamo I decided to write this kind of event. Yoyogi has my favorite cast of characters as you may know, and I feel they’re the perfect cast for events like this since they tend to shine well when it comes to friendship and such. I hope you guys will bear with me and this project of mine for about 5 parts or so.

~~~

“Have you peeked through a window before? It could be for any number of reasons- because something caught your eye, maybe you were looking for something specific or maybe just on a whim. What did you feel? … I see. While it depends on what you look at, I often find myself curious. I can’t really say I know why. But I just want to see what’s going on… what it’s like on that side of the window. Maybe I’m just nosy. Or maybe… uh, it’s nothing…”

~~~

It was quite the busy week at Yoyogi Academy now with summer closing it’s doors and autumn in full swing. Plenty of the student and faculty were quite excited for a certain day that was coming up and quite a longstanding tradition at the school. This day was really one of the handful of days Yoyogi students excelled at- the national Health and Sports day, so naturally the school was alight with excitement and everyone buzzing around to get their preparations in order. There was one student in particular who had been eagerly awaiting for a chance like this…

He had finished packing all his repaired work orders into his ever reliable duffel bag and put away all his supplies back into their proper closets and shelves. It was definitely a hefty workload to manage as of late, but somehow Tatsuya managed to clear it all before club practice ended for the day. You see, Tatsuya is a member of the Yoyogi Kendo Club. However it’s a club consisting of only two people, one of whom already had arrangements with Tennis club, so as of late he found little reason to attend practice. Even less with the fact they don’t attend competitions as nearly as often as they should given their low head count. His peers live and breathe off these competitive natures which he understood and totally supported, but he didn’t have that edge with Kendo. He had begun to question why he didn’t have any attachment to the sport recently which led him to smaller revelations…

As he was locking up the room a familiar voice called for him. “Tatsuya!” He turned to find Yui, his club mate, peer, and close friend, coming to him from down the hall rather excitedly. “Oh, you’re all done for the day?” Tatsuya nodded in response. “Perfect~. That means you can come out with us. Since we finished practice early, the seniors and a few of our classmates invited me out for some food, wanna tag along? You can be my plus one~.” She made sure to add extra emphasis on that last bit as though it was supposed to be incredibly enticing.

“I’ve got these orders to deliver.” Tatsuya answered with his usual calm manner.

“Well, duh. We’d go after you’d do all of that. We could even lend you a hand. If not, then I don’t think they’d mind the wait.”

“Nah, it’s alright. I wouldn’t wanna make them wait on me. You enjoy yourself though.”

“Oh…” Yui was disappointed in his response, but she did her best to not let it show beyond her initial reaction. “A-Alright then. Just um… text me when you’re done. I’ll bring you something on the way back, yeah?” Tatsuya gave her another nod and watched her off. There wasn’t any super serious reason or thought process why he turned her down. As of late they hadn’t been hanging out as frequently, in no small part to Tatsuya’s workload ever since classes started back up. Not only that, their peers have really started taking a liking to Yui and he wouldn’t want to drag her down or embarrass her. After all, he was the dorky kid brother in her eyes.

Tatsuya went about his deliveries practically routine at this point. Often giving the uniforms to the team captains or instructors around campus, and delivering individual orders personally. While his work couldn’t hope to compare to Ms. Arachne’s, he still helped students maintain their clothes for as long as possible. While he rather enjoyed spending hours working on these sort of things, the one part Tatsuya absolutely dreaded was the delivery part of the day. Not necessarily because he had to run around campus and praying his clientele hadn’t run off for the day, though still being a minor annoyance, he more dreaded what would happen if he did find them.

Wow, thanks! Another great job done by the Den mother!

You really are like a Den mother you know? It suits you!

I can see why the upperclassmen call you Den mother, thanks!

“Den Mother…” Tatsuya found himself murmuring it with a displeased tone. It seemed that stigma was starting to bleed into the underclassmen as well. He didn’t mind helping his peers or the heavy workload, but did they really have to call him that? What a frail title that was. How gentle and unintimidating that name was. He could’ve had a cool nickname like a superhero or something more run of the mill for his talents. But no, his peers had to start calling him Den Mother…

On his way around campus he noticed one of the underclassmen coming back onto campus seemingly out of breath. He recognized them as Kyuma Nakatsugi, a baseball player from the first year class. Out of concern Tatsuya rushed over to the first year rather quickly. “Ah, Noboru! D-Don’t scare me like that!”

“What are you doing, Nakatsugi? I thought baseball practice wasn’t on today.” Tatsuya asked, still keeping his usual demeanor.

“W-Well, I...” Kyuma struggled with coming up with an answer for his upperclassmen. In part due to how tired he was and not being the best liar when on the spot.

Tatsuya noticed him struggling and decided to cut to the point. “Never mind all that, you’re exhausted. Here, let me help you to the infirmary.”

“N-No, it’s fine really.” Kyuma panted out. “I just forgot my water and… didn’t realize the jog without it would be this intense.” Typical attitude of a first year. Totally ignoring the necessities when starting out new regiments. Taking pity on the first year, Tatsuya reached for his own water bottle and silently handed it to him. Kyuma’s eyes lit right up. “Oh wow, thanks!” He said before gulping it desperately. When Kyuma had sufficiently quenched his thirst he let out a big sigh and panted one final time. “Thank you, Noboru! You’re really kind. I’m starting to get why Gunzo refers to you as Den Mother.” There it was.

“No need to thank me. Just don’t forget your essentials when you go to train or whatever.” Tatsuya sighed. “You can keep the water bottle, I have a spare.” With that Tatsuya went on his way briskly. While it was subtle, Kyuma couldn’t help but notice a twinge of something in Tatsuya’s expression. Maybe it was because Tatsuya forced out a smile… Anyways, now that he had water, he didn’t want to keep David waiting…!

Tatsuya was able to shake off most of the frustration from the day. He had to stop by the infirmary today anyway, not because of a delivery, but a… requirement of sorts for the upcoming Health and Sports day. He entered the Nurse’s Office making sure no one really saw him enter on his lonesome. The school’s medical doctor, Mineaki Arima. He was rather busy as his desk with numerous papers flitted about. “Instructor Arima?” Tatsuya said as he wandered inside.

“Ah, Noboru. All done for the day I’m assuming?” Tatsuya nodded. “Good, good. Please have a seat.” Mineaki gestured to the chair right in front of his desk. As Tatsuya did so, Mineaki fished out for a particular file he had kept away in his desk. “This is the list of all your approved activities…” Judging by Mineaki’s tone it wasn’t something to be happy about.

Sure enough, the list was a lot smaller than what he was anticipating. “Seriously…? Only that much?” His heart sank at the list. Just a mere handful of activities.

“I’m sorry, but those are all the activities I was able to approve you for. Your health comes first, after all.” Mineaki explained. “Even then, I wouldn’t recommend you partake in all of them just because I’m worried about the strain you might put yourself under.” As he tried to soften the blow with concern, Tatsuya had fallen silent, eyes unable to tear away from the list. “Are you alright?”

“…Thank you for getting me this much.” Tatsuya said rather softly.

Mineaki took a moment to think before he spoke again. “To drop formalities for a second Tatsuya, I do understand where you’re coming from, but as your doctor I can’t put a risk to your health. Please just try to enjoy yourself during the day.”

Tatsuya paused for a moment trying to process what was being said. “I guess you’ve got a point. I’ll do my best.” While it may not have been the best chance in the world, it was still a chance.

~~~

“Have we… met before?”

[v0id-necr0mancer]

Mirror Self

Helsona, anyone?

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

Sar didn’t think of much of it when they went to the Nether for resources. It was usually a quick trek to get some quartz, soulsand, and sometimes some glowstone before heading back to the Overworld. Their void-touched status didn’t change much for them when changing dimensions, nor did it impede them from any normal player functions. However, they didn’t exactly stop to ponder if the change affected someone else as well…

Sar went around a group of fires constantly burning due to the netherrack, wary of the flames and not wanting to be set on fire today, thank you. They continued on to find a vein of quartz in the ground. They took out their pick and started mining, hoping for a good haul so that they could go back to the Overworld sooner rather than later.

As they worked away at the white crystals embedded in the netherrack, a shadow crept up unbidden behind them. With a swift hit to the head, the void-touched human was made unconscious with a bruise surely to form where their assailant had knocked them out. The figure didn’t say anything, only taking up Sar’s arms and dragging them away, making sure to pass over sharp rocks and gravel.

The person dragged their haul far, deep into the Nether. They finally stopped at a nether fortress, none of the mobs paying any heed to the strange duo. The mystery person brought Sar to a sealed off room, chaining the passed out human to the far wall. They then took out a clipboard and papers, noting down some notes as they waited for the one from the Overworld to wake up.

Time passed, and after a while Sar woke up. As they regained their senses, the first thing they regained was touch. They could feel manacles around their wrists and the stifling heat of the place they were in. After that came hearing and the scratch of pen on paper as well as the clicking of distant bones belonging to skeletons.

Opening their eyes, their vision was hazy for a moment before clearing up. In front of them was a person, with black hair and dark greyish skin. Tall red horns poked out from the other’s head, bigger than Sar’s own light purple ones. Their only visible eye was a bright yellow, surrounded by a dark red colour, not dissimilar to the Overworld player’s void-touch. The person had a two-toned red waistcoat with a black button-up shirt underneath.

The other also wore some purple headphones, the speaker on the right side of their face. They had dark grey slacks and black shoes. All in all, they looked very business-like and composed, compared to Sar’s messy hoodie and demeanour. Seeing that the person was writing things down on a clipboard, they were probably more organized too.

“you’re awake, finally.” the other remarked, a slight echo to their voice. They hadn’t looked up from their writing, not pausing in their note-taking.

“guess I am. Who do I have the honour meeting then?” Sar jokingly asked, hoping that their slightly cheerful attitude wouldn’t betray their nervousness of this situation.

“you may call me Raz. I suppose I should explain who I am, though it shouldn’t be too hard to guess, even for a peasant like you” the stranger, now named Raz, answered. Sar raised an eyebrow at this Raz individual. Peasant, huh?

“Ok then, Raspberry” they replied, giving a little smirk at the affronted sound Raz let out “I might be guessing here, but you’ve probably got something to do with the Nether…? I mean, it’s just a guess, really-“

“yes, yes, I have to do with the Nether, you may stop guessing now” Raz irritably interrupted, a frown taking the place of their previously deadpan expression “and I’d rather you not call me a fruit, it’s rather undignified”

“Mmmh, nah, imma still call you Raspberry” Sar retorted, grinning at the irritated Raz “anyways, what are you, really? Can’t say I remember anything about Nether beings kidnapping people lately”. Raz let out an exasperated sigh, pinching their nose as if they were getting a migraine from just interacting with Sar. They started explaining once their hand fell back to their side.

“I am your opposite, your mirror, your negative polaroid. I am you, yet not. I am what you aren’t, with a large emphasis on the less good and moral side of you. In layman’s terms, or I suppose, idiot’s terms, I am your evil self” Raz explained, deadpan the whole time.

“…honestly, that’s just really cool” Sar admitted after a few seconds of contemplation “I didn’t really think I’d have an evil self but here I am I guess”

“you know, I watched you through mirrors and portals, but your stupidity really astounds me. Especially now that we’re in person. Well, as much of a person as I can be, I suppose…” Raz had muttered the last part, which piqued Sar’s interest ad curiosity.

“you aren’t a person?” They asked, tilting their head inquisitively.

“well, not in the physical sense, I suppose. I don’t exactly have a body” Raz explained, shrugging lightly. They went over to a wall and put their arm, up to the elbow, through the wall. Their form shimmered, became more transparent until they pulled their arm back to themselves. Raz had always been slightly transparent, Sar quietly realized to themselves, they just hadn’t noticed because people aren’t usually very ghostly like that.

“so, if you’re me… do you also have a newspaper?” Sar asked, grinning at their slightly taken aback evil self.

“I just demonstrated my situation of not having a body… and you ask me if I also have a newspaper?” They said, dumbfoundness colouring their tone instead of the usual deadpan “i knew you were strange but…” They shook their head, composing themselves for a few seconds before answering the question.

“Yes, I do also have a newspaper, called the Heralding Demise. We’re currently in competition with the bigger and more popular Heralding Hermit. I will say though, that the piece I wrote about the campion of Hels being our saviour was much better than the piece the Hermit did. I can sway the population much better than they can…” Raz explained, ranting slightly about how their newspaper was the superior one.

“wait, that sounds like propaganda” Sar interrupted, frowning at Raz.

“of course it does. That’s because it Is propaganda” Raz replied matter of factly.

“Raspberry, how dare.” Sar said, looking at Raz disapprovingly “the press shouldn’t be biased, it should be neutral and used to inform the populace on all sides of the story! How could you write propaganda!”

“Bribes are nice, I can use those things people give me to write to bribe other people” Raz replied, shrugging “also, stop calling me raspberry.”

“Raspberry. Anyways, what were you even planning to do with lil old me? You had to have kidnapped me for a reason, right?” Sar asked, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

“Ah, yes, finally a sign of intelligence. Now that you’ve asked, it’s time to get to business. I plan to take your body and use it to go to the Overworld. Then, you’ll be the one stuck here as I kill all of your friends” Raz monologued.

“yikes, slight complication with that, mirror self. One of them is kind of an elderich being, one of them is already dead, and lastly I’m gonna escape from here so you can’t do that” Sar said, shrugging with a smile saying ‘what can you do?’. Raz frowned, not comprehending how their good self could escape… until Sar bashed their head against the wall.

“what the-“ Raz let out, taken completely off guard “what are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?!”

“Yep!” Sar cheerfully replied with a grin, a stream of blood going down the side of their face as they hit their head again “see, if you really are my mirror, a complete swap of my personality, then you’ll be orderly as hell. I’m chaotic as everything, so you won’t ever be able to predict what I’ll do, which is great for me, not so much for you!”

Then, the chaotic void-touched human slumped over, eyes emptily staring forward as they disappeared in a poof, all of their items scattering on the floor. Raz stared at the single stain of blood on the floor, a drop of blood from Sar’s head wounds.

They put a hand up to the right side of their face, where the red Nether matter crept up to their eye, a mirror to Sar’s own Void matter. It had appeared a small while ago, as the Overworld dweller became void-touched. Raz sighed, shaking their head as they let their hand drop back down. It seems like acquiring a body would be much harder than they anticipated.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 5.4

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, in chapter 5’s first day of free time, which should by all rights have finally been a segment with barely any Kaito focus, multiple invitation dialogues had me talking about heroes and sidekicks, we hung out with Maki and heard adorable stories of her best friend from the orphanage and the sacrifices she made for her… and then Himiko’s FTEs somehow managed to be an incredibly fitting metaphor for what’s been going on between Shuichi and Kaito, which may or may not be on purpose on the writers’ part but I sure had way too much fun with it regardless.

Shuichi:  (It’s nighttime. I *would* have been training…)

You could train without Kaito! You’ve done it before. Buuuut I don’t know how much good that would do to take Shuichi’s mind of his problems in this situation, because his biggest problem right now is intrinsically connected to the training itself, so he’d just be constantly reminding himself of it and worrying about it more.

*ding-dong!* *ding-dong!*

Unnecessary hypothetical tangent time! I’ve seen a few blind Let’s Players respond to this by wondering if it could be Kaito having come to talk to Shuichi. To which my immediate thought was “don’t you know it obviously can’t be Kaito; the doorbell didn’t ring a million times”.

But! Then I thought about it some more. If this was hypothetically Kaito having mustered up the courage to talk to Shuichi about what happened in the trial, he would still be convinced that Shuichi feels let down by and ashamed of him. Kaito would believe that Shuichi wouldn’t want to talk to him, and therefore that Shuichi probably wouldn’t answer the door if he knew it was Kaito. So Kaito would not want to make it clear it was him at the door by ringing it incessantly and would only ring the normal-person amount of times, to make Shuichi think it was somebody else. Which would be a fun reversal of the time in chapter 3 when Maki deliberately mimicked Kaito’s doorbell habits because she still felt that Shuichi wouldn’t answer the door if he knew it was her.

Anyway, that’s all a total hypothetical and Kaito does not in fact have the courage to face Shuichi whatsoever. It’s Maki at the door.

Maki:  “Kaito asked me earlier… to show him my research lab.”

Shuichi:  “Huh? Your lab?”

Maki:  “I might as well show him, since I know he won’t take no for an answer… So you have to come, too.”

She just says Shuichi “has” to come without explaining why that’s so apparently necessary. This is all about her trying to get Shuichi and Kaito in the same space so that they can potentially talk to each other and sort things out between them, but she’s not mentioning that here. Maybe she thinks that if she tells Shuichi that then he won’t want to come.

She then leaves after saying this without checking if Shuichi is actually coming with her. Clearly she has learned that if you tell Shuichi to do a thing in an assertive enough tone, he will probably do it. Kaito taught her that one.

Shuichi:  “…” (Maki invited me, so… I should go.)

Implying that he’s only going because Maki invited him and he doesn’t want to disappoint her. Meaning that he doesn’t want to go for Kaito’s sake and the chance of making up with him, like he’s just expecting everything between them to continue to be painful and awkward and there’s nothing he’d ever be able to do to fix that.

Tsumugi is hanging out in the courtyard looking up at the stars, and reminds Shuichi of what Gonta said once before about them looking different. She could have reminded us of this at any time up to this point, but she’s choosing to do so now. It’s almost like this is finally the chapter where all of the hints about the space thing are being dropped at once and she’s deliberately adding to that.

Tsumugi:  “With all the horrible things happening, I was always looking down… I need to thank Gonta.”

She’s still committed to her thing of caring about Gonta, at least. She didn’t drop that once he died (even though she’s one of the people responsible for his death). I guess he really was her favourite character.

Shuichi:  “Ah, sorry I’m late…”

Kaito:  “Hm? O-Oh… so you came, too…”

Kaito was not mentally prepared to suddenly be in the same room as Shuichi right now, was he.

Shuichi:  “Y-Yeah…”

Kaito:  “…”

Shuichi:  “…” (Silence.)

So much for Maki hoping that this would magically get them to talk to each other. They are both still convinced that the other doesn’t want to talk to them, so this was never going to happen just because they’re in the same room.

Maki:  *sigh*

(As if utterly bored by the painful silence, Maki started up a conversation.)

She is so frustrated at her friends continuing to be idiots like this.

Maki:  “Why did you ask to see my research lab so suddenly, Kaito?”

Kaito:  “Well… I just wanted to see what kind of weapons were here.”

Maki:  “What? Why would you want to see my weap—”

Kaito:  “But wow! There’s a ton of stuff here!”

Because he’s going to need a bunch of weapons for his brilliantly heroic plan that he’s been working on, of course! It’s a little surprising that he doesn’t mention that that’s what this is for here, especially the way he seems to deliberately cut off her question about it. Maybe he’s worried that Maki is going to try and talk him out of doing something reckless if he tells her the plan right now.

Kaito:  “But there’s no swords of any kind here – Japanese or western – right?”

Maki:  “I don’t use swords of any type. Not after I botched a mission with my katana.”

Which Kaito should already know, but that was an optional scene so we’re awkwardly pretending like he doesn’t.

Kaito:  “Either way, I don’t feel like weapons really suit women.”

Aaand here’s the final Misogyny Bullet to hit its mark. This one I can’t actually prove to be something that is objectively out of character for Kaito to think, because we’ve never heard anything about his thoughts on weapons at all up until now. But based on the fact that every other comment of Kaito’s like this was provably out of character, we can assume that this isn’t something we should take to heart as being a defining point about him either.

(This final one is literally only the fourth instance of this in the whole game. Four single lines. Just picture how absolutely tiny that molehill is, compared to the mountain of everything else Kaito ever says and does throughout five chapters of being one of the most prominent characters, all of which thoroughly contradicts him being that kind of person.)

Maki:  “Care to explain why you wanted to see my weapons?”

Kaito:  “Didn’t I tell you this morning? I’ve got a plan all figured out. Oh! What’s in that black case over there?”

(As if backing away from the conversation, Kaito headed to the far bookcase…)

He still seems to be trying to avoid talking about his plan as much as possible, probably because he doesn’t want Maki to question him on it and learn that he does not, in fact, have anything “all figured out” at all.

I also get the sense that Kaito “backing away from the conversation” like this is him finding a distraction that’ll give him an excuse to not have to talk to Shuichi either. Kaito knows perfectly well why Maki invited him, after all.

Kaito:  “Hm, so when you put them together, they become a crossbow. Looks interesting.”

Kaito is so curious and interested in anything and everything! Even when it’s a weapon, which he just said… well, let’s pretend he just said he doesn’t really like weapons in general. (It would make sense for Kaito to think that, since he’s all about people working together and communicating and using human creations to achieve great things, not using the fruits of human ingenuity to hurt each other.)

And Kaito’s really only interested in the crossbow for curiosity’s sake, rather than in terms of his plan, because he doesn’t include any crossbows in his big pile of weapons in the gym tomorrow.

Kaito:  “Hey Maki Roll… can you teach me how to put it together?”

He’s not even planning to use the crossbows on Monokuma and he has no idea he’s going to want to use one later either! He just wants to learn a cool thing!

Maki:  “And then, put that other part in the opposite way… Ah wait. That’s wrong.”

Kaito:  “Oh, my bad. It goes this way.”

Maki:  “Mmhm. Then, next it’s—”

It’s pretty cute to see Kaito being the one in the role of student, messing up sometimes and having Maki guide him and fix his mistakes. That’s a role Kaito is not usually comfortable putting himself in at all. Presumably he’s okay with this here because this is just an intellectual thing and there’s always more to be learned in that regard. This is quite separate from the kind of emotional and personal growth that he is always supposed to be in the teacher role for and definitely never need any help with himself.

Shuichi:  (While watching those two, the memory of a similar scene came to my mind.)

Shuichi’s talking about himself and Kaede, specifically the time she held his hand and encouraged him to be braver about his issues of facing the truth. Which… doesn’t have anything to do with Maki teaching Kaito how to build a crossbow? The only vague similarity is that Maki is giving Kaito guidance, but I just talked about how it’s a completely different type of guidance from emotional support and therefore not really that analogous at all. Any moment in which Kaito was encouraging Shuichi or Maki to fight their “enemy” earlier in the story would have been a far more appropriate moment for Shuichi reminiscence about this – after all, Kaito, rather than Maki, is the one who’s really parallel to Kaede.

The only other similarity is that there happen to be romantic feelings involved in both cases, which is clearly what the game is actually trying to get at. And that’s annoying. It makes no sense to try and link them together just because of that when they are otherwise completely different – they both involve two people bonding in some way, perhaps, but they’re completely different kinds of bonding and neither are inherently romantic and could just as well have happened if all the feelings involved were nothing but platonic. Maki certainly isn’t thinking about what she’s doing as some kind of peak romance. She’s just teaching Kaito how to build a goddamn crossbow. The fact that she incidentally happens to have feelings for him is completely irrelevant, and there’s nothing in her behaviour that suggests that’s on her mind right now.

The narrative’s treatment of Maki’s thing for Kaito can occasionally get a little amatonormative, which frustrates me. (It’s still pretty minor, though – I see far, far worse all the freaking time.) But Maki herself never makes as big of a deal about it as the narrative does, which is appropriate for her character and which I appreciate. The writing is slightly awkward about it, but it’s not the writing of Maki which is awkward, just the writing around her, so I don’t have an inherent problem with the fact that Maki feels this way.

Kaito:  “Whoa, since I built it, it became an extra-cool crossbow!”

Naturally. A Luminary of the Stars crossbow! He’s such a dork.

(And, given the state of mind he’s been in lately, he’s almost certainly completely faking his overblown opinion of himself now.)

Kaito:  “It seems like it’s a bit complicated… but I think I can do it by myself next time.”

You’re not even currently planning on there being a next time, Kaito!

Maki:  “…Shuichi, do you want to learn, too?”

While Maki started teaching Kaito because he asked, she offers to do the same for Shuichi out of nowhere. I get the sense that she’s trying to include him in what’s happening and give him and Kaito some common ground to maybe, just maybe, actually start a conversation over and slowly begin to close the gap between them.

(And the fact that she offered this to Shuichi goes to show that teaching someone how to build a crossbow is, funnily enough, not some kind of deep metaphor for romantic feelings.)

Shuichi:  “Ah, no, that’s alright… I sort of understand from watching anyway.”

…But it seems Shuichi doesn’t quite want to be included in this way and possibly brought closer to having to maybe talk to Kaito. Dammit, Shuichi, you’re not helping the situation here.

Maki:  “Then let’s put it away. You can easily take it apart by reversing the steps.”

Kaito:  “Wait, do I have to do it?”

Maki:  “Who else is going to do it?”

Kaito:  “Yeah… s-sorry… I don’t… feel too good again…”

Maki:  “…Huh?”

Kaito:  “It seems like I’m not at 100%! So I’m gonna go back first!”

This is not about Kaito not wanting to put the crossbow away. He has never actually been as lazy and flaky as he can sometimes come across – and most of the times that he has come across that way, it’s really been because of his illness. This is because of his illness too. He’s probably started to feel another blood-coughing fit coming on and desperately doesn’t want to be around them for it (and we are indeed going to see him coughing up blood soon after this). So he’s using not wanting to put the crossbow away as his cover for leaving – and since being lazy and unreliable is not something it’d be in his character to admit to so he can’t just claim that outright without it sounding like an obvious excuse, he’s making it sound like he’s using his illness as the obviously-fake excuse to get out of that.

He’s making the truth sound like a lie in order to convince everyone that it’s not really the truth at all. That is some Kokichi-level deception there. Kaito is getting really desperate.

Shuichi:  (Ignoring Maki trying to stop him, Kaito fled the room.)

“Fled”. That sure is a word to describe it, Shuichi. Somehow I don’t think having to put a crossbow away and tidy up after yourself is something anyone would ever have a reason to flee from.

Maki:  “I knew he wasn’t the type to clean up, but I never thought he’d run away with a crappy lie…”

It worked. He convinced them that the illness part was the lie and not the other way around. Maki even remarks that it doesn’t seem like him to lie about that, yet she still bought that that’s what he did. God damnit, Kaito.

Maki:  “…How frustrating. He’s the worst.”

I love her pouty face as she says this. Why does she care about this idiot so much. (Because he still saved her, even though he’s an idiot.)

Shuichi:  “Ah, well, that’s just Kaito…”

Is it, Shuichi? I thought you were always the one to stand up for him when he couldn’t train because he was phobia-sick and Maki acted like he was just making pathetic excuses. Shouldn’t you be standing up for him here in that same way, since you know Kaito never really makes excuses like that? Apparently not, because that would mean suggesting that Kaito really is still sick and that wasn’t just an excuse. Even though it was clear at breakfast that nobody was convinced Kaito was really back at 100%, Shuichi still does not want to suggest out loud that this could be the case.

Maki:  “I’m sure you know why I invited you, right?”

Shuichi:  “Y-Yeah… I do. You were trying to get Kaito and me to make up.”

Of course Shuichi knew that as well. They both did – they just didn’t want to acknowledge it because that would mean admitting that they should be trying to talk to each other.

Really, Maki was going about this in a very unhelpfully indirect way that was just giving both of them plenty of excuse to continue to awkwardly ignore each other. What she really should have done is just talk about it, explicitly bringing attention to the fact that they should be talking to each other and try to force them to do so one way or another. If she was willing to be less indirect, I can honestly see her just declaring that she’s not letting them leave until they’ve talked to each other, then shutting them in here and guarding the door from outside. Granted, Kaito would probably immediately decide he’s not going to say a word in the hope he can out-stubborn Maki and get her to give up and let them out, because doing that would seem less painful to him than actually talking to Shuichi about this. But Shuichi at least would attempt to talk to Kaito for lack of anything else to do (he doesn’t think he can out-stubborn Maki), and in the process Kaito would start to realise that he’s completely misunderstanding Shuichi’s whole state of mind here and they might actually get somewhere.

If only Maki had realised that just them talking to each other in any shape or form would immediately start to fix things.

Maki:  “It’s not like he hates you or anything.”

Very correct! I’m glad she knows this much at least. (If she thought Kaito really did (inconceivably) hate Shuichi now, there’d have been no point her even trying to get them to make up here.)

Maki:  “He’s just being stubborn.”

…Less correct. Stubbornness would mean that this is about his principles and he’s stubbornly sticking to them even if it means shunning Shuichi. As I went over countless times during the trial, that was never truly the point. But the fact that Maki thinks it is explains why she doesn’t realise how easily talking would solve things – she thinks talking would just make it worse as long as Kaito’s still in this stubborn mood and it’s instead a case of needing to slowly wear down his stubbornness, hence her completely unhelpful indirect approach.

Shuichi:  “But… I just don’t know what to say to him.”

He doesn’t say anything else before this “but”, so he never specifically agrees that he knows Kaito doesn’t hate him. Shuichi, please tell me you at least know Kaito doesn’t hate you. You can’t be that painfully wrong, surely?

Shuichi:  “I-I had no choice! Gonta… If I didn’t do something, everyone would have died… I… I don’t think it’d be right to apologize for that…”

*very deep breath*

EXACTLY! Of course you shouldn’t apologise for that when you didn’t do anything wrong! This is precisely Kaito’s opinion on apologising! It is not possible that he could be expecting an apology from you!

This right here is the other reason I kept stressing Kaito’s principles on apologising so much – because it proves beyond a doubt that it does not make any kind of sense for Kaito to be angry at Shuichi here and wanting some kind of apology before he’ll talk to him again.

This isn’t something that necessarily requires multiple playthroughs to appreciate, either. I noticed during this moment on my first time through that what Shuichi said matched Kaito’s previously-stated opinions exactly and therefore Shuichi was wrong to be assuming Kaito wanted him to apologise. This is the biggest, most unambiguous clue that would let someone pick up that there’s more going on with Kaito here than meets the eye, but apparently most people still don’t, and it makes me sad. I’ve watched several blind LPs of this game – probably something like ten by now – and out of all of them, only one eventually sort of vaguely wondered if there might be more to this than just Kaito being angry. The real truth of this situation is so compelling, and it doesn’t deserve to be written off as its apparent face value and nothing more.

There’s also the part where Shuichi was almost certainly witness to the time Kaito most clearly expressed his opinions about apologising, to Kaede back in chapter 1 after the tunnel incident. You may recall how I awkwardly went out of my way to point out that despite how Kaito and Shuichi each leave after having their optionally-ordered conversations with Kaede there, it makes the most sense to think that Kaito canonically said his bit first and so Shuichi would have overheard it. This is the future point at which that is relevant that I promised back then. Buuuut, even though Shuichi probably heard Kaito’s speech that time, apparently he forgot about that, because if he remembered then he should be able to realise that Kaito can’t possibly want him to apologise here. I guess we can put that down to the fact that at the time his dependency was focused on Kaede and he wasn’t really paying attention to Kaito that much, so the things Kaito said weren’t necessarily likely to register or stick in his mind.

Something else interesting to note is that while Shuichi had a tendency to apologise unnecessarily in front of Kaede a lot, he never did so in front of Kaito, not even earlier on. He can’t have done, because if he had, Kaito would have given him the whole don’t-apologise-when-you’re-not-in-the-wrong speech and he’d definitely have remembered that. “Don’t make yourself feel bad unnecessarily for something that isn’t your fault” was in fact the general gist of a lot of the advice Kaito was giving Shuichi near the start, since that was Shuichi’s biggest problem. But Kaito never specifically mentioned apologising during any of that advice, so Shuichi never picked up on that part of his philosophy in particular – and I wonder how deliberate that was on the writers’ part in order to get this chapter to work.

It’s also quite remarkable that Shuichi is self-assured enough to be able to stand by what he did here and be sure that he shouldn’t apologise. That chapter 1 Shuichi who apologised too much to Kaede, and maybe also the early-chapter-2 Shuichi who blamed himself for Kaede’s death, would almost certainly have caved into telling himself he was in the wrong about this. And that growth from Shuichi is most likely thanks to Kaito’s influence anyway, albeit in a more indirect way that he’s less consciously aware of. Shuichi’s become able to think this way at least in part because some of Kaito’s general conviction and self-assuredness has rubbed off on him, even without him needing to follow specific words of advice.

Shuichi:  “I’m sorry, Maki. I just… need more time…”

You’re not the one who needs it, Shuichi. The responsibility to fix this isn’t on you. If you could figure out what was going on in Kaito’s head and manage to help him, that would be really good… but you shouldn’t have to.

The reality of it is that Kaito was the one whose actions in the trial were in the wrong, not Shuichi. Kaito ended up making things more painful for Shuichi in a way that could have been avoided if he hadn’t acted the way he did. It’s like a worse version of the time he punched Shuichi at the end of Kaede’s trial, which was him losing control of himself and lashing out when he never really wanted to, and he apologised for that the morning after. Kaito is the one who owes Shuichi an apology here, and there’s no way he’s not aware of that. This is the one time in the story that Kaito shows an exception to his principles about apologising in the opposite direction from usual: not apologising when he has done something wrong. It’s not that he doesn’t think he should – it’s just that the thought of how badly he failed Shuichi during the trial hurts him so much that he doesn’t have the strength to accept it and face Shuichi and admit that he messed up.

The problem isn’t that Kaito is being stubborn, but rather that right now he’s basically being a coward. Which has a very different ring to it than all the times I’ve called Kokichi a coward, because Kokichi is almost always a coward and nopes away at the slightest sign of anything he doesn’t like. But Kaito is usually able to be pretty damn brave and face unpleasant things head-on – that even seems to be one of his general principles, like when he was encouraging Himiko to face up to Tenko’s death. So the fact that he can’t bring himself to face this even slightly just goes to show how absolutely terrified he must be about admitting this failure to Shuichi.

(Ready for an even-more-overthinking-it and somewhat personal tangent? Kaito concluding that he’s obviously failed Shuichi is very much a result of his issues about heroes and sidekicks, and I don’t want to sound like I’m about to diminish the importance of that. But the fact that this perceived failure is then apparently so unbearably painful to him that he simply cannot face it suggests to me that Kaito is also dealing with a thing called rejection sensitivity dysphoria, which amplifies this type of emotional pain to far more intense levels (and has a somewhat misleading name because it can also be about failure as well as rejection). This is one of the lesser-known symptoms of ADHD, and once this occurred to me, I then thought of everything else about Kaito and realised that huh, this actually makes a lot of sense. So ADHD Kaito is a pet headcanon of mine, one which totally doesn’t have anything to do with me having realised that I have ADHD and researched more about exactly what it is while being hyperfixated on Kaito. I have a lot more thoughts about this that don’t belong in this commentary because they aren’t really relevant to the story – the only point at which this headcanon potentially impacts the story, hence why I’m even mentioning it here at all, is right here in early chapter 5. I can confirm from experience that RSD sucks and makes even seemingly innocuous things hurt like hell, so if Kaito really does have ADHD and this really is contributing to his pain right now, holy crap I do not blame him one bit for not being able to face this.)

Maki:  *sigh* “I didn’t realize you two would require such high maintenance.”

I love the way Maki puts this, like she’s unintentionally wound up taking care of two very difficult children. She’s such a good child caregiver!

Shuichi:  “S-Sorry…”

Not your fault, Shuichi. Well, okay, slightly your fault for being so oblivious, but one can’t really blame you for what you’re not aware of. It is definitely far more Kaito’s fault for not having the courage to do what he knows he should be doing to put this right.

Shuichi:  (I didn’t realize… Maki would be so concerned about us.)

And speaking of you being oblivious, Shuichi! How do you not already know by this point that Maki is a very caring person who would obviously worry about her friends when they’re being like this?

Shuichi:  (In the end, I was the one who ended up disassembling the crossbow.)

So Maki did end up teaching him how to do it (albeit backwards) after all. Sort of beside the point though when the reason she offered in the first place was to try and encourage him and Kaito to talk to each other here, and it’s too late for that.

Shuichi:  (And then there’s the… thing with me and Kaito…) “I need to make up with him… For us… and for Maki.”

Shuichi is still assuming it’s his responsibility to do this and not having it even remotely occur to him that actually maybe Kaito’s the one who needs to take action. But it’s nice that he sees it as even more important to do now he realises it’s not just hurting the two of them but also Maki as well. This is definitely something Kaito would realise too after tonight… not that that’s going to be enough to give Kaito the push he needs to do something, so he’s just going to be feeling even more guilty and awful about his cowardice now.

Shuichi:  (I fell asleep thinking about it…)

This is the first time in a while Shuichi has gone to sleep while thoughts of his current problems have been going around and around in his head. Kaito’s training was supposed to help him not do that! But here we are again… thanks to Kaito’s mistakes.

Meanwhile, Kaito is helplessly coughing up blood outside, presumably in some hidden corner of the courtyard where Shuichi and Maki wouldn’t have accidentally happened across him on their way back.

Kaito:  “Wh-Why…? Why… now? Why… me?”

This “why me?” is the closest Kaito ever gets to expressing the sentiment that it’s not fair that he’s the one who has to go through this. No-one else is dealing with anything like this; he’s the only one who has to carry this unimaginably heavy burden on top of everything else. Kaito would never directly voice the idea that he doesn’t think it’s fair, because that would centre things around himself – he’s bad enough at thinking that his suffering even matters at all, never mind putting it above everyone else’s. He is far too painfully selfless to ever consciously think that way, even beneath the façade he puts on for others – Kaito would sooner go through this a thousand times over than wish it upon anybody else in his place. But even so, there is a tiny part of him that does still feel that injustice that manages to come through here, just subtly enough that he probably doesn’t even register it, while he’s alone and no-one will ever see him feeling this way.

Also, though, why Kaito indeed? There’s three different answers to this question depending on the level of fictionality you look at it through.

In the most fictional sense, in terms of the in-story story about the meteorites and the virus that everyone on the Gofer Project was supposed to be immune to, it’s because he’s the astronaut. If they’re going to be flying in a spaceship and reaching a new world, an astronaut is the one talent they’d benefit from more than anything else, to the point that they’d be willing to take compromises over the immunity thing in order to get Kaito on board. An astronaut who’s only partially immune to the virus and who will be sick and drop dead a few weeks into the trip is still better than no astronaut at all. If any of the students was going to turn out to be only partially immune to the virus despite having been chosen for the Gofer Project, the most plausible one for it would be him.

In a less fictional sense, on the level of this being a story written by Team Danganronpa, it’s because Kaito was written to be the figure of support for Shuichi’s character arc of being a weak Ultimate Detective who grows strong. In aid of that, they wanted Kaito to give him that push in the first place, but then for Shuichi to have to slowly learn to stand on his own without Kaito. First they did this by extremely lazily nerfing Kaito’s effectiveness in chapter 3 with his arbitrary phobia. And now they’re nerfing Kaito in the most comprehensive way there is, by killing him. It’s possible that he would have gotten killed by the killing game at some point anyway, but the in-universe writers couldn’t leave that to chance and wanted to be sure Shuichi would eventually lose him, so they made sure Kaito was dying no matter what for an external reason that could be conveniently tied into their backstory.

(Oh, man, if Kaito ever learned that the reason he’s dying, on the truest level that matters to him, is simply that the mastermind just wanted him out of the way and out of the “story” so that Shuichi could take the spotlight and be the real hero who doesn’t need his help anymore… fuck, that would be vicious. That’d stab Kaito exactly where he’s already hurting the most. Maybe it’s a good thing he never actually learns the truth.)

But on the not-at-all-fictional level, it’s because the real, out-universe purpose of Kaito’s story isn’t just to be the mentor for Shuichi’s development, but also to be a deconstruction of those kinds of heroic mentor characters. (I can think of four other characters in other works of fiction who remind me of Kaito in that they seem like perfect heroes but know that their best friend can become even stronger than them and inspire said friend to reach that potential – and all four of them die.) In order to deconstruct that, Kaito needed to be, on some level, not okay with only being there to inspire Shuichi and then die, and to do that he needs to know that he’s going to die. Kaito would already have been messed up to some extent by his percieved inferiority to Shuichi even if he weren’t dying, but the helplessness caused by his impending death and how he tried to deal with it by clinging to the feeling that at least Shuichi needs him only to lose that too has made his breakdown far more spectacular than it would have been otherwise. Kaito’s entire character arc is delightful and his looming inevitable death is a vital part of it, and the out-universe writers know exactly what they’re doing. (The in-universe writers don’t, though. I really believe they only see Kaito as a disposable crutch for Shuichi’s development and not as someone to have a character arc of his own. Boy were they wrong. Boy are most of the best parts of this story not something the in-universe writers had planned at all.)

Kaito:  “Damn it… I’m running… outta time.”

Not for himself. He already said this morning he was going to get “you guys” and not “us” out of here. He’s running out of time to finally make a difference and be a hero to everyone else after how badly he feels he’s failed so far.

Kaito:  “I can’t die like this… Like hell am I gonna… die here…”

“Like this”, meaning he can’t die the way he currently is, as a failure. “Here”, meaning he can’t die while everyone’s still trapped in here and at least wants to see them escape and know they’re going to be okay before the end.

Kaito:  “I… I still… haven’t gone… t-to space… Damn it…”

Final reminder: Kaito cannot die before he has gone to space. Five times he says something to this effect. It is So Important.

…But this time, I don’t think Kaito really believes he’s going to manage it. I think this is him brokenly lamenting the realisation that he’s never going to make it to space after all. Everything else he wants is for others. This is the only thing he wants that’s purely for himself, and it’s the one thing he knows is already a lost cause.

I really like how the illustration here is framed such that the background behind Kaito is the stars he thinks he’ll never get to reach.

This is almost the same illustration as the scene at the end of chapter 3, except there’s a lot more blood, and his expression is even more anguished, to the point that he’s crying. The previous times Kaito cried, it was for other people who’d died, for all of the pain that everyone had been feeling in general. Here, Kaito is only crying for himself. So it’s only natural that he’d only ever do this when nobody else will see him.

Also, mad props to Kaito’s voice actor for this scene. You can hear every bit of his fear and helplessness beneath his desperate attempts to still sound determined, and it’s wonderful.

(His Japanese VA’s performance here is equally good, mind you; do recommend checking out both.)

Also also, props to the out-universe writers for even including this scene? This is one of not many times that Shuichi’s POV is broken, and that usually only happens during chapter opening/ending stingers. And we already know full well by this point that Kaito is definitely dying, so it’s not like this tells us any new plot information that we didn’t otherwise have. We’re shown this solely because it’s important for us to understand how Kaito is feeling about this, that the façade he puts on in front of the others is very much a façade for the others and he isn’t able to lie to himself about the way he really feels. Even if he has trouble admitting it to himself in words, because that would be tantamount to giving up, he is clearly quite consciously aware of how bad things are beneath it all. (This is, of course, in contrast to Kokichi, who was still thoroughly lying to himself about everything when we saw him alone at night.) The writers care so much about getting Kaito’s character arc across as much as is possible considering how much he hides from the surface and how oblivious Shuichi is to it all, and I’m so glad they do.

On a related note, it’s time for my favourite Monokuma Theater! Which happens to be the only one of the actually-meaningful ones whose meaning should be readily apparent on a first time through.

Monokuma:  “Recklessness is a beautiful thing.”

Because he’s obviously talking about Kaito.

Monokuma:  “It’s so beautiful, I want to print the words ‘Reckless Beauty’ on a t-shirt.”

(I low-key want there to be Danganronpa fan creators out there who have actually made t-shirts like this.)

Monokuma:  “Because recklessness is the stuff that dreams are made of.”

Dreams like going to space, no matter how impossible that might seem!

Monokuma:  “It’s what makes you run at full speed, with no regard for your limitations.”

It’s what makes you cheat your way in and take a test you know you’re too young for, with no regard for what might happen if you get caught, all so that you can get to space that much sooner! It’s what makes you keep giving it your all to support your friends, with no regard for the fact that you’re dying!

Monokuma:  “It’s what makes you excited by anything.”

Like space! Like snow! Like crossbows! Like every single kind of human endeavour imaginable! Like magic and made-up kids’ games you know aren’t true but who cares because pretending they are is fun!

Monokuma:  “Some say it’s foolish, but recklessness is what causes new events to unfold.”

Like encouraging everyone to risk using the first Flashback Light when most of them were too scared to try it! Like reaching out to a lonely assassin who would have remained alone without your help because nobody else wanted to risk getting close to her! Like taking action to fight back even though you have no idea what you’re doing, because if you don’t then no-one else will!

Monokuma:  “So while you’re still alive, live your life so recklessly that it makes you immortal.”

And maybe if you live so recklessly in the time you have left, with such brazen disregard for your limits and weaknesses, maybe it’ll help you feel like you aren’t really weak and dying at all.

Monokuma:  “And if haters laugh at you, let them. They just don’t appreciate reckless beauty like you do.”

Stick to your convictions! Be true to yourself! Never stop being you, no matter how much everyone else tells you you’re an idiot! You know your recklessness is beautiful, so who cares what others think!?

This whole thing is clearly written to celebrate so many of the things that are great about Kaito, and I love it.

---

[Next post]

[thefuriousstarlightstudent]

So, I got the next chapter of Literally Billy Batson out. Hopefully y’all enjoy it!

Ao3 Link: Chapter Three: The First Impression 

Fawcett City, U.S.A.

October 4th, 2010

Billy is one of many students who pour out of Fawcett City Elementary School and into the chilly autumn air. He likes it, being a nameless person in the crowd. It makes him feel more normal, more like if he sticks with the crowd he may hear his mom calling him or see her looking for him. He won't, but it gives him a moment to imagine she might be there.

The moment is gone as soon as the crowd starts to disperse. Half of the students are picked up by parents and the other half walks home. Billy sticks with the half walking home as long as he can before splitting off and heading towards the east side of Fawcett City (know for its slums and abandoned/condemned buildings). No one else goes that way.

Billy walks with his head down and the hood of his aptly named hoody pulled low over his eyes. He's pretty confident in east side Fawcett City, but always better to be safe than sorry. People can be nasty.

He's so distracted that he doesn't even notice the figure standing in front of him. He accidentally bumps into the older boy, sending them both sprawling to the ground.

"Hey, watch it, Billy," the boy complains.

Billy looks up at the boy and grins, jumping to his feet and holding his hand out. "Sorry, Freddy," Billy says sheepishly. "What are you doing here anyway?"

Freddy shrugs, a smirk playing on his lips. "I figured I'd come to say hi to you before my trip. I mean, how will you survive without me to keep you company for a whole week?"

"I'm sure I'll be fine," Billy says drily.

"I don't know," Freddy says. "You may die without me."

"Haha," Billy deadpans. "But seriously, have fun camping with your grandpa. Take lots of pictures for me!"

"I will," Freddy promises, shoving Billy with his shoulder a little. Billy shoves right back.

"Wanna come to my place?" Billy asks. "Will your grandpa mind?"

"Nah, I told him I was going to your place. He said that was fine. I think us not going to the same school and seeing each other less makes him more willing to let me hang out with you."

"It's not my fault you're in middle school," Billy says. "You're just too old."

"I'm like a year and a half older than you."

"Your point is…"

"It's not that big a difference. Next year we'll be in the same school anyway," Freddy dismisses. "I'll be in sixth grade and you'll be in fifth. That's pretty awesome."

"Yeah, it is," Billy agrees. "Middle school, dude! I'll be an official middle schooler."

"It's really not as exciting as it seems," Freddy says dubiously.

Billy shrugs Freddy's attitude off. They both know it's only because Freddy doesn't like school. He likes sports and superheroes. Billy know this because they're best friends, have been since Billy first started school again and they were in the same building, albeit not in the same grade even then. Freddy was the only person to not call Billy annoying back when Billy first got back to school after almost a year of missing it. He was also the only person who talked to Billy.

In turn, Billy knows one of the reasons Freddy calls Billy his best friend is because Billy was one - is one - of the only people to not be drawn in by Freddy's popularity and the fact that he's an amazing baseball player. At least that's why Freddy tells him that he chose Billy as his best friend.

"Hey, you need any help with homework?" Freddy asks.

"Nope. I just have to finish a paper due next week. I think I'll be good today. Why? Do you have any homework?" Billy asks innocently, knowing full well Freddy probably does.

"Yeah," Freddy sighs despondently and runs a hand through his brown hair. "I have a ton of science stuff to do. Grandpa says the only way I could hang out with you today was if I did some of it with you. So, wanna help?"

"I guess I can," Billy sighs.

"Don't act like you're sad about that," Freddy snaps good-naturedly. "We both know you live for science stuff."

"And history," Billy agrees. "I love history."

"Especially all those weird myths from Rome, Egypt, Greece, and stuff," Freddy says. "What's up with that, by the way?"

Billy shrugs. "My parents were archeologists," he says. "You know? So they found all sorts of stuff about ancient gods and stuff. I probably know, like, all the stories. It just makes me thinks of them, so I like to read about them."

Freddy makes a sympathetic noise. "I know what you mean. My dad used to play ball with me all the time before he and mom went to jail, and I know he's not a good guy, but I like baseball because it reminds me of when things were okay."

Freddy always knows just what to say to make Billy feel better, or at least take his mind off of things. Freddy is the only person who knows Billy is homeless. He's the only person Billy trusts not to tell. Freddy was going to when Billy first told him, but Bill had explained… not everything, but enough to convince his friend he'd be fine alone.

Freddy still worries though, which is why he comes over so often. Billy thinks it's nice, having someone care about him so much. It's also kind of funny to him, that Freddy thinks he needs taking care of. Billy is Captain Marvel, for goodness' sake! Not that Freddy knows that, of course.

"Hey, we're here!" Freddy exclaims. "Come on!"

"Wait up," Billy squawks as Freddy run into the run-down dirty yellow apartment building ahead of him. "It's my apartment!"

"I'm not waiting for you!" Freddy yells without turning. "You're so slow!"

"Am not!" Billy shouts back, running to catch up to Freddy, who is already heading up the rickety stairs.

"Are too!"

Billy slows down after a moment. He knows he won't catch up to Freddy. He also knows Freddy has an extra key, so he won't need to wait to go into Billy's apartment.

Freddy has only asked how Billy manages to stay hidden from building inspectors and keep the heat, electricity, and water running. Billy explains it by saying he hides and he must just be lucky, respectively. It's a good answer, but it's not true. It's all magic. Magic keeps it warm and keeps the building inspectors from even going to his floor. They just skip it like it's not even there.

Billy sometimes wonders if part of why the Wizard chose him is because he already has a natural affinity for magic, just needed training. Billy knows all his magic (in his mortal form) is enhanced by Captain Marvel, but it's still his, not Captain Marvel's magic. He just has the proper tools and books to use it now.

"You coming?" Freddy shouts from a few flights of stairs up.

"Coming!" Billy shouts back, starting to walk again. He'd stopped without even noticing, too caught up in his own head to notice. "I'm coming, Freddy!"

Fawcett City, U.S.A.

October 5th, 2010

It's cold, even colder than it had been yesterday. It's the type of cold that settles in your bones and makes you wish for summer. Normally Billy loves autumn. The color of the leaves. The cheeriness that seems almost contagious. But today he just wishes that it could be warm. He doesn't like it to be this cold. It almost feels like the weather is warning him. About what, he doesn't know.

He doesn't dwell on vaguely unsettled the feeling that's been hitting him since he woke up. It's probably nothing but paranoia. Or maybe there's a storm coming. Billy always gets kinda uneasy before a storm hits Fawcett City, even when he doesn't know a storm is going to hit.

He leaves the schoolyard and heads west, towards the middle school nearby. With luck, Freddy won't mind if Billy comes over to his house.

"Hey, do you know where Freddy is?" Billy asks a grimy teenager smoking something that's definitely not a cigarette. The teenager definitely goes to the high school nearby, but almost everyone in this area of the city knows who Freddy is. Freddy is just that type of charismatic person.

The teen leers at Billy like he's trying to scare him. Billy doesn't react, despite the teen gross yellow teeth being bared at him in a feral grin.

The teen moves back and nods to himself as if Billy's passed a test.

"Tall kid? Baseball cap?"

Billy nods eagerly.

"He got in this old guys car after school got out."

"Duh," Billy says to himself slapping his forehead. Freddy started his camping trip today after school. Billy should have remembered that. Man, this cold must really be messing with him. "Thanks, dude."

"No problem, kid," the teen says. "Have a good one."

He goes back to smoking. Billy turns around. Now what will he do all day? Yeah, his apartment is warm, but that doesn't mean he wants to spend the whole day alone in it. Maybe he should go shopping. But he doesn't really have anything other than a few dollars left from his last shopping trip. He'll need to find a way to earn some more cash. Mowing lawns won't exactly work this time of year.

Maybe he can rake leaves?

Ugh. That means he has to do that today, make enough to last for a least a month's worth of groceries, and extra for new winter gear. Then again, if he works quickly enough, he may even get some extra spending money to afford food other than ramen noodles, cereal, mac n cheese, and a few fruits and veggies. Eating healthier food is always nice. Maybe he can even get some frozen pizza.

Plans made, Billy takes off for the nearest residential neighborhood he knows is full of adults who find it cute when kids come and ask to do jobs like rake leaves, mow lawns, weed gardens, and shovel snow.

Billy's pretty sure he has half of that neighborhood he's a kid that lives there. It's one of his favorite places to live. Some of the people even give him snacks and lemonade when he works.

Afterword, he can patrol as Captain Marvel, then he'll go shopping. Or he'll go shopping tomorrow if anything big happens while he's Captain Marvel. He doesn't think there'll be anything more than a few shoplifters today though. Even the criminal element in Fawcett City know when it's too cold to commit a crime. Cold as it is, autumn and winter are the slowest seasons to fight crime.

Billy is so glad he lives in Fawcett City where the criminals are reasonable and know when it's too cold to be committing a crime. He can't imagine how annoying it must be for Batman to fight crime in Gotham City in the middle of winter since crime never slows down in Gotham.

"Hey," a voice says, and Billy feels a hand land on his shoulder. Billy jumps about a hundred feet in the air and lets out an embarrassingly high-pitched yelp. "Sorry, sorry!" the voice says quickly.

"It's fine," Billy says, catching his breath and looking over the owner of the voice. A kid with messy black hair - possibly a young teen - wearing sunglasses and relaxed clothing (Billy's leaning towards him being a kid. Probably twelve. Too short to be a teenager). "You just surprised me."

"Yeah, I tend to have that effect on people," the boys says ruefully, running one of his hands through his hair in a gesture that reminds Billy of Freddy. "Sorry again. I was just wondering if you could help me."

"Main Street is that way," Billy says immediately, pointing north. "Go there and you can pretty much find wherever you're looking for without too much trouble."

"No, I just needed help finding someone who goes to the elementary school," the boy says. "William Thomas Batson? Maybe you know him?"

Bily looks over the boy more closely. It doesn't seem like he's looking for trouble. You can never be too careful though.

"Why do you need him?" Billy asks. "Do you know him?"

"Nah," the kid dismisses. "My guardian had an old letter from the kid's mom, Marilyn Batson. He figured William may want to see it."

And Billy's tempted to ask how they even know where he is; it's not like he's an official student - not that any of his teachers or the other students know that. But at the mention of his mom, that thought is erased from his mind.

"I'm William. I prefer Billy though." Billy holds out his hand.

"Well, that was serendipitous," the boys says, grabbing Billy's hand firmly. "I'm Dick."

Billy doesn't manage to stop himself from snorting.

"I'm sorry," he says right away. Not for thinking it's funny, necessarily, but for being rude and laughing about it.

"It's fine," the boy says. "I've heard pretty much everything, believe me. Anywho, Dick Grayson, as I said."

Billy does a double-take. "Wha- Dick Grayson!" he whispers furiously, looking around. "Like, Dick Grayson?!"

The boy- Dick Grayson, looks amused. Something about the expression combined with the sunglasses is familiar, but for the life of him, Billy can't quite put his finger on why. It bugs him, and he's sure he'll think about it later, but for now, he's too focused on the immediate issues. Like that fact that Dick-freaking-Grayson is looking for him.

"Yes," Dick says, amused. He even takes his sunglasses off briefly, and sure enough, it's the teenager. Billy may not have a TV or watch the news, but he knows what Dick Grayson looks like. Mainly because Bruce Wayne funds the Justice League publicly and that means he's pretty familiar with both of their images.

"My mom sent a letter to Bruce Wayne?" is his next question.

"They met abroad before your parents were married," Dick explains. Anyway, I'm gonna call Bruce and have him meet me here." At Billy's confused look, Dick looks away from the phone he pulled out a moment ago. "He was looking for you closer to the elementary school."

"Ah," Billy says.

Dick speaks briefly into the cell phone before pulling it away from his ear and hanging up.

"He'll be here in a minute," Dick informs Billy. "You don't mind waiting here?"

"No," Billy says.

"Good."

A few moments later a tall, broad man in a suit appears. He's wearing sunglasses like Dick. Unlike Dick, he seems uncomfortable. It isn't hard for Billy to tell this is really Bruce Wayne, which automatically makes him more relaxed. Bruce Wayne funds the League, Batman even approves of him doing so, so that means Bruce Wayne isn't a bad person. Batman would never associate with someone if they had something even vaguely shady in their past.

"Hello," Bruce Wayne says. "You must be William?"

His voice is surprisingly gentle, considering his size. Billy still can't get over the fact that Bruce Wayne came to Fawcett City just to find Billy and let him look at an old letter from his mom, even though the letter certainly isn't anything Billy needs to see.

"Yes," Billy says. "I prefer Billy though, if that's okay, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce Wayne seems surprised by how eager Billy is. Or Maybe he's just surprised Billy's so trusting. Anyone who has ever seen Billy as a street kid is surprised by that. It's not that Billy's that trusting; he's not. Billy's just good at reading people. Also, he's not nervous around Bruce Wayne because Justice League funding. Not that Bruce Wayne knows that. Even though it's public, it's not exactly common knowledge outside of League members who their main funder is.

"I have the letter your mother sent me, Billy, if you want to see it?"

"Yes, I'd really love that, Mr. Wayne," Billy says.

"She sent it to me right after you were born," Mr. Wayne says. "It ended up getting lost in my desk, which is why I didn't find it until recently."

"Were you and her friends?" Billy asks. "How did you meet?"

"I'd like to think so," Mr. Wayne says, a surprisingly fond look on his face. "We met in Peru before she or your father were going to be married."

"That's interesting," Billy says honestly. "What was the letter she sent you about?"

Mr. Wayne sighs deeply. Something in Billy's gut twists uncomfortably.

"It was about you. I mentioned she sent it right after you were born. I have it here if you'd like to see it now?"

"Yes, please, Mr. Wayne," Billy says.

Mr. Wayne pulls a piece of paper out of his suit pocket and holds it out to Billy. Billy grabs it gently with shaking hands.

It still smells like her perfume. It's a reminder that she had been real, once. It's nice because even though Billy logically knows she'd been real before she died, having a reminder is nice. He misses her so much. Her and his dad.

He unfolds the paper with a gentleness that surprises even him. Her handwriting is just like he remembers it being from the notes she'd leave for him on his lunch box and hidden inside his books or even just shopping lists on the fridge. He spends what's probably more time than necessary just looking at it without reading.

When he finally does begin to read the letter, he almost drops it a moment later. He fumbles for a moment before regaining his grip and reading even faster.

No. No no no no no no no no. This can't… this can't be true. (But it has to be, a voice whispers in his mind. This is her handwriting. She wouldn't lie about it.)

Oh, god. His mom had written to Bruce Wayne. His mom had told Bruce Wayne Billy was his son. But it just can't be - Billy refuses to believe it's true. His parents would have told him if it was true. They wouldn't have kept it a secret. Why would his dad even love him and let Billy call him that if he wasn't Billy's real dad?

This has to be a lie, a trick. It can't be true. It just can't.

Billy's dad is C.C. Batson, not some rich guy his mom probably only knew for a few months in another country.

"This isn't true," Billy says, ashamed by how much his voice is shaking. "You can't be my dad. My dad is C.C. Batson. You're lying. I know it."

His voice breaks on the last word. Billy hopes neither of them notices it. He ignores how hurt Mr. Wayne looks and how shocked Dick Grayson looks.

(Billy knows this isn't a lie. Somehow, someway, he knows this isn't a lie. He just doesn't want to believe it.)

"I'm sorry," Mr. Wayne says honestly. "I really am. But your mother was one of the most honest people I ever knew. I don't think she's lying."

Billy refuses to even think about this. (He ignores how similar he looks to Bruce Wayne. How he's even more similar to Bruce Wayne that C.C. Batson. Really, if he was with both of them, people would assume he's Bruce Wayne's son, not his dads.)

Billy shakes his head desperately. "No. No! You have to be lying. I don't believe you."

"Listen, Billy," Dick begins. "How about this. You know what a paternity test is, right?"

"Yes," Billy says shortly. "I'm not dumb."

"Then take one," Dick says. "If it matches then that means you're Bruce's son, biologically. Your dad is still your dad. Biology doesn't change that."

Mr. Wayne adjusts his jacket, seeming spectacularly uncomfortable. "I'd been planning one of those already. I don't think she's lying, but maybe she was wrong. I figured you'd like to know the truth."

And Billy does want to know the truth, even if it's a truth he doesn't like.

"I'll take the test," Billy says, the anger from earlier evaporating as suddenly as it had appeared. Now he just feels kind of tired. He's glad this street is empty. That no one can have possibly seen this.

"I brought my friend, Dr. Leslie Thompkins with me. She has all the equipment to do the test in my hotel room. We can go back there if that's okay with you," Mr. Wayne says. It doesn't really sound like a question, but Billy can tell it is a question.

"Okay. Okay. Are we walking?"

"I have a car?" Mr. Wayne suggests.

And the first rule of being a street kid is you don't get in a strangers car. Billy knows this. It's one of the first lessons you learn, either from getting in a strangers car or hearing the horror stories of what happens when you get in a strangers car. Billy may not like Bruce Wayne right now, but he knows he won't try anything. He knows Bruce Wayne is a good person. And even if he wasn't a good person and Billy was dumb enough to get in the car, Billy can protect himself, both with Captain Marvel and the magic he always has at his disposal.

"We can take that," Billy says. "I mean if that's what you want to do?"

Mr. Wayne smiles slightly and Dick Grayson beams at him.

[osmw1]

Dimension Wave   Chapter 29 — Dimension Wave: Conclusion

—?!

It wasn’t clear who landed the final blow, but Cerberus let out as if he had been torn apart. At the same time, a flash of white light blinded everybody in the instance as they braced themselves for the next attack. The light dissipated and revealed white clouds on a backdrop of blue… just as the skies had been before all of this happened. White petals blew across the battlefield; we were now in a field of flowers in full bloom.

“We did it!”

Everybody was in high spirits and some were crying out from our shared triumph.

“Good job, team.” “Well done!” “That was a doozy.” “Hell yeah.”

A victory fanfare played in the background—this is an MMO, so of course it did. I sat down on the bed of flower as both my—as both Kizuna†Exceed’s body and mind were exhausted. The tension and anxiety I was holding back crushed me all at once now. It was extremely stressful avoiding getting hit as a Spirit.

—The first wave of Dimension Wave has been defeated!

The game popped up a message in my vision. There was also a ranking of who contributed the most. Let’s see where I placed…

—Overall rank #77: Kizuna†Exceed

Looks like I’m 77th place among all other players. There were a few other rankings as well.

—Total damage given rank #1: Tsugumi†Exceed

No surprise there. That scythe was great for crowd control.

Oh, there’s a ranking for resources contribution as well. Alto and Romina were in the top 10. They did a lot to back us up, eh?

Another category was “Everyday”. I assume that’s for like activities, like cooking and other roleplaying elements? I’m at #542 for that.

“Holy! Look! There’s someone who took 80,000 points of damage!”

That guy was #2 for most damage received, but who’s #1?

—Total damage received rank #1: Kizuna†Exceed

… hey, that name looks familiar! I fell prostrate on the ground. Now that I look at myself, my clothes had been unequipped, leaving me in my underwear.

Name/ Kizuna†Exceed Race/ Spirit Energy/ 19,550 Mana/ 8,100 Serin/ 46,780

Skills/ Energy Production X, Mana Production VII, Fishing Mastery IV, Hate & Lure I, Gutting Mastery IV, Cleaver III, Speed Gutting III, Naval Combat IV, Transmutation I

… well, that makes sense.

“Required level to equip… Energy, in my case…”

I never knew there was a level requirement for my clothes. They got unequipped because I don’t have enough Energy now, I assumed. Guess I don’t have much of a choice but to use my old equipment. I’m glad I kept everything in my inventory. I clicked out of the rankings and looked through other information.

—Buffs and item usage

There were patch notes for new skills, equipment, and other changes as well. More weapon types were added too. Something I was just talking about is the new specialization for scythes, called war scythes; dual blades derived from one-handed swords; and katanas from two-handed swords. I can’t tell for sure unless I check with the next one, but I’m sure there are new items and skills that are affected by each Dimension Wave.

Oh, hey, it said that fishing rods can now be equipped with reels. I’ve gotta get me one of those. I kept scrolling through the notes.

“Racial powers unlocked?”

That line caught my attention while I was skimming. First off, lemme see what’s in store for Spirits.

—Stone of Mediation implemented.

A crystal that allows its user to project their soul. Or, at least, that’s what this Spirit-exclusive rock claims to be able to do. Every Stone of Mediation has a different effect. Some may shorten the amount of time needed to produce Energy or reduce skills’ Energy usage.

Finally, it looks like we all get something from participating in Dimension Wave. Ranks 1-5, 6-100, 101-1,000, 1,001-5,000 all get different items.

And since I’m number 77, I should be getting something pretty decent. I clicked Yes on the dialog box asking me whether I’d like to receive my reward. Then, a slot machine with numbers and fruits on its reels popped up in my vision. After a quick spin, three icons of souls lined up in the center.

—Energy Blade obtained.

It looked so fitting for a Spirit like me, though the description looked far from normal.

Energy Blade Weapon type/ Not applicable Attack/ 0 Prerequisites/ Must be a Spirit User must have at least 2 Energy to equip this weapon. The user charges up the blade with Energy then unleashes all of it in one single blow. Beware that all charged Energy will be expended upon making an attack, regardless of its success.

All that’s there to the weapon is just its handle. It’s reminiscent of old movies and anime, like how the blade part would only appear if the sword chooses its wielder. It sounds cool and all, but I’ll hold off judgement until I try it out. Personally, I don’t have strong feelings either way. Since it’s a Spirit-exclusive weapon, it’s quite the oddball. I bet it’ll be tricky to use as well. At the very least, it’s not an option for me in my current state. It won’t be long until I’m back in business, so I’ll just keep it safe for now.

“Kizuna.”

Shouko showed up just as I had finished stowing away the Energy Blade into my inventory. Just like everybody else, I congratulated her with a “Well done out there”. But even though we’ve defeated the Dimension Wave, she looked less than happy. I couldn’t help but worry about her.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” “No, it’s just that… I overdid it out on the battlefield, causing you to suffer such terrible damage…” “Oh, that’s what’s bothering you? Don’t worry about it. The true winners in games are ones who enjoy themselves, isn’t that right?” “Still—”

Shouko seemed to be bothered about me losing my Energy. I had been swarmed by the mob, hurt myself in trying to protect Tsugumi, and nearly lost my life when I was drawing the boss’ aggro. Even if I had voluntarily done all that, she must be feeling guilty about all of the damage I faced. But I knew. I knew Shouko had tirelessly used her counterattack skill to protect me. Still, the fan-type weapon needs to be charged so, of course, she couldn’t block 100% of Cerberus’ attacks. Nevertheless, it was touching to hear that she had been thinking of me the entire time.

“More importantly, the sea! I mean, I’d love to head back out onto the water, but with the little Energy I have left, I’ll just be dead weight.” “Nonsense. I will help you reach… no, rather, I wish to be by your side and reach beyond the horizon together.” “I couldn’t ask for anybody better. I knew that before, but seeing you out there today, I’m even more sure of it.”

I can’t forget how graceful of an acrobatic Shouko was when facing Cerberus. And frighteningly, she’s as skilled as Tsugumi. Even though her prowess suits the frontlines much better, knowing her and her personality, I’m sure she’ll choose to stay with me. But I know better than to outright ask her to return to the frontlines.

“It’s been a long day. Let’s head back to the First and get some rest.” “Oh, but…” “Hmm?”

Shouko pressed her index finger to her lips, cueing me to stay quiet. Then, she looked over at Cerberus’ corpse. I get it now… gutting, eh? I was going to tell Roz and his party about the power of gutting-type weapons, but I didn’t get the chance to do so. I definitely had a hard time keeping cool back there. I mean, it’s only natural to get mad when someone insults you and your friends, right?

We made our way over to where Cerberus fell and eyed the other players. Many of them were already teleporting out of the instance since the raid was finished. The thriftier ones were walking home while the frontliners didn’t even bat an eye when they used their Tomes of Returning. Some of the braver ones were even saying how they’re headed off for the next battle. There were still too many people around for me to start gutting—that is if I still wanted to keep this a secret.

“Shall we stay here for a while? It’d be a waste to not enjoy the scenery.” “… yeah, why not?”

The bed of flowers was simply fantastic—both in the sense that it was beautiful but also unrealistically so. It’s almost as if the devs put it in here for us players to relax after the raid. Well, Cerberus’ corpse lying there kinda spoils the view though.

“Miss Kizuna!” “Oh, hey, Yamikage. Good work back there.” “I thank ye, but I bear exciting news.” “Ooh, what is it?” “I am now the highest ranked Spirit!” “Number one in the Energy rankings, eh?”

It’s no surprise for someone who has accumulated a total of more than a million Energy. I bet Circle Drain contributed a lot to her growth too.

“Where’s Sheryl anyway?” “… I have been here the whole time.” “Agh! Don’t scare me like that.”

Sheryl suddenly spoke up from behind me. I had no idea she was with us. It’s almost like she concealed herself or something. Well, I’m probably unperceptive because I’m just too tired.

Near the end of the raid, Sheryl was still fighting the mob to not get in our way. It’s boring, but someone’s gotta do it. Or rather, it shows exactly how considerate and attentive Sheryl is. Like that time with the bird-type monster who tried to run from us. She’s always there to back us up and to take care of loose ends. Anyway, it looks like we’re all back together now.

“I don’t think I need to explain much, but let’s enjoy the garden here while we’re waiting to do that thing I always do.” “‘Tis a splendid idea!” “‘kay.” “Yes, let’s.”

I’ll be honest. I’ve never sat around in a park to enjoy the cherry blossoms or anything like that in real life. But perhaps I’m still feeling the adrenaline rush from the fight, this was a little exciting. … I mean, as exciting as looking as flowers can be.

“It’s a little boring to sit around with nothing. I’ll make sure I take up cooking next time, so we can have a picnic or something.” “Will it not be straining your Energy reserves, Miss Kizuna?” “You’re right, but it’s something I should learn sooner or later. It’ll be useful for our voyage on the seas.” “That would not be a bad idea. We bring some food on board, but if we run out, we can rely on cooking.” “Since we have Shouko and Yamikage as specced purely for combat and Sheryl for crafting. I guess that leaves me as the team’s cook.” “… only if you’re okay with it.” “It’ll synergize well with my weapon type too.”

I’ll catch and cook our meals. Now that I think about it, I don’t do much with the fish after I catch them. Why didn’t I take up cooking sooner? The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. Hmm? It sounds like someone’s running up to us. It was Tsugumi and Roz’s party.

“Big brooooo!”

She barreled towards me and squeezed me tightly in her arms. Maybe because I’m low on Energy, but I didn’t have the strength to pry her off of me.

“That was some amazing support there, Kizuna.” “You too, Roz. Almost all of you are ranked in the top 100, right?” “Ah, we were just lucky.” “You guys wanna join us? We were just about to celebrate our victory.”

Roz looked like he thought about it for a quick second. Well, I don’t blame him for being hesitant in front of total strangers.

“I hate to say no, but we’ve got to get going.” “You guys heading out for more grinding?” “Nah, but we’ve gotta figure out our equipment and skills.” “Frontliners sure have it rough. Well, good luck with that then.”

They’re throwing themselves back out onto the battlefield right after a huge raid battle. Honestly, I’m ready to pass out already. Frontliners are just so impressive. Well, I mean, I’ve been in their position before too. I know just how addictive games can be. Roz didn’t look like he was here just to say hi.

“Anyways, I was hoping to talk to the girl with the fan.” “Yes? What is it?”

Shouko looked at him with suspicion. He’s gonna ask her to join their party, I bet. Well, after seeing Shouko perform like that during the raid, everybody should be begging her to join their parties.

“I was wondering if you’d like to join—” “No, thank you.”

She cut Roz off before he could even finish his sentence. Yamikage and Sheryl looked like they wanted to say something but judging by how quickly she rejected him, I don’t think anyone could change Shouko’s mind. It was a bit of a shock, frankly speaking. I wouldn’t have expected her to flatly reject him like that, given how considerate Shouko is. She was quick to understand what he wanted as well. But even for being such an upright and proper lady, Shouko has her brash moments too, I guess. To refuse him like that is not unimaginable. Rosette seemed a little taken aback as well.

“But with your skill, you’d be perfect for the frontlines.” “I will follow Kizuna no matter what.”

… I’ve knew from the get-go that Shouko is like that, but still, that’s super embarrassing for me. I can still remember how politely she bowed to me when we first met.

“I see… sorry for trying to poach your party member like that, Kizuna.” “No worries. That’s just how Shouko is.” “Yeah, I can tell… those bastards have no idea what they’re missing out on.”

I’m guessing he’s referring to Shouko’s previous party members. It’s easy to judge us Spirits by the rumors that surround us. A lot of people fall into a bad habit of blindly listening to whatever strategy sites or wiki pages instead of seeing it for themselves. It really is a shame for them. I’ve really hit it off with Shouko. Not only is she a great person, she’s real skilled at combat too.

“Alrighty, then we’ll be heading off.” “Gotcha. I can’t wait to fight alongside you guys again.”

Roz and his party waved goodbye before teleporting away. But my sister, Tsugumi, is still clung onto me like a koala.

“Listen…” “What’s good, bro?” “Your party’s gone already, y’know?”

Tsugumi looked over her shoulder to see no traces of her teammates anywhere. Then, she shook her head and looked at me.

“What’s up?” “… big bro, are you guys going to sit here and chill for a bit?” “That’s what we’re planning to do. What about it?” “…”

For some reason, Tsugumi was staring straight into my eyes. She only looks like this when she’s really concentrating at her games. She must be thinking long and hard about something. No one—not even Kanata—can break her concentration. It’s like Tsugumi gets into some sort of a trance. Shouko gets into a hyper-aware state like this sometimes too. But Tsugumi? She only gets like this when she’s doing something she likes… that is to say when only when she’s gaming. And seemingly as if she’s figured it all out, she beamed with a smile.

“Alright! I’ve made up my mind! See ya, big bro!”

Then, she disappears after using a Tome of Returning. What was that all about?

“Anyway. Let’s go enjoy the flowers, shall we?”

We sat around chatting until everyone around us had left.

contents: /prologue/ /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /ch017/ /ch018/ /ch019/ /ch020/ /ch021/ /ch022/ /ch023/ /ch024/ /ch025/ /ch026/ /ch027/ /ch028/ /ch029/ /next/

(leave me a tip on Patreon?)