#anyways you can see how ch.4 is clearly approaching the same word count as ch.1-3 combined. fun development.
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i'm very sorry to bother you, but since i didn't get a chance before it was shoved in the dusty storage closet, i just wanna say that the cat & the crow is such a PHENOMENAL fic. i was literally so emotional over baby akira the entire time i was reading it. his loneliness is so acute and it is SOUL-WRENCHING. you characterize both him and goro so well. your prose just makes it too omg. it switches so well from a jovial, childhood summer to a scene that makes me sob. it's so so good. goro too is such a little shit in that i need to knit him a sweater right now. anyways yeah that's all i wanted to say gl with whatever project you're currently working on!!!
wow this is great thanks. my current project is: chapter 4.
i remember seeing this notification and smiling widely to myself but right now im feeling like a dust mite so im not very verbose HOWEVER as thanks i'll just show you a section of ch.4 i've more or less completed. i would never do this normally but i like your message a lot so know that you are Sublimely Special. enjoy!
Goro had personally shown up at Akira's doorstep twice now, but not once had he stepped foot inside. This was a tragedy, a travesty, and a tremendous oversight on Akira's part. What a horrible host he'd been! His guest would come all this way and Akira would make him loiter at the welcome mat as he held open the door just wide enough to show off the inside of his house, but not so wide to let anybody actually enter. It was like setting up a candy shop during a famine and catering only to the roly-poly rich who had more than enough to gorge themselves on, while the hungry could only paw forlornly at the window displays.Â
It was, in short, terrible, taunting torture.Â
The second Goro stepped gingerly into the clearing, prim and pretty, Akira flashed up to him and grabbed him by the shouldersâfirmly, the way one stopped a bull by the horns.
"My house today," Akira ordained lowly.
Goro's eyes blew wide open. His shoulders locked up tighter than a maximum security vault. His mouth worked wordlessly for a few seconds. "OâOkay?"
It would be interesting to see how Goro contrasted with the interior decor. This was a completely normal thought.Â
"Is there anything we need to specifically do at your house?" Goro asked cautiously.Â
Akira pondered this, then decided that a normal thought ought to work well as a normal response. "I need to see how you contrast with the interior decor."
Once again, Goro went wordless.Â
His silence persisted all throughout the trek to Akira's house. It wasn't a terribly long trek; they needed only to stick to a straight path. The forest that housed their clearing belonged to an elevated hillside, as did Akira's cul-de-sac. The further up one ventured in the hills, the bigger and farther spaced apart the houses became. Community was most prominently condensed in the heart of Inaba, down below with Junes, the mom-and-pop shops, and cozy neighborhoods, where people couldn't go two steps without running into a familiar face. This community fractured into thin spiderweb strands high up in the hills, where residents veered more on the stand-offish, reclusive end of the spectrum, loosely linked by gossamer silk that could break off at any sudden movement. Once one made it high enough that the hills became mountains, however, community came to a full stop. Nobody lived there, save for the rare few crazy people. The crazies fell into two categories: those who had gone crazy from the isolation, or those who were simply crazy for nature.Â
Those sickos went on hikes... for fun.Â
Here on the hills, wide expanses of land could go empty for a great many steps before someone's backyard began. Once out of the forest, there was minimal shade to hide Akira and Goro from the relentless sun, motivating them to quicken their pace. Some land developer decades ago had chopped down a good chunk of the forest to make room for houses. Compared to the odyssey it took to get to Junes, they reached Akira's house in no time.Â
The uncharacteristic absence of complaints following behind Akira unsettled him. A chatty birdy was a healthy birdy. A quiet birdy was a... concern.Â
Like a candlestick succumbing to a flame, Akira's confidence had melted steadily with each silence-laden step towards his house. By the time they were standing at his doorstep, he had grown quite clammy.Â
"Ummm... this is my house." Which Goro already knew. "You know this."Â
Goro finally broke his silence. "Yes, I do?"Â
Hearing his voice, Akira's candlestick confidence quickly rebuilt itself, invigorating him enough to chance a glance at Goro's face. Instead of the scary blankness he'd been dreading, Goro just looked a little confused. His eyebrows were furrowed and his stare was one full of studious intent, as though Akira had presented him a new, never-before-seen puzzle to solve by the end of the day.Â
"Is there a reason you've dragged me here? A real one. Other than to compare me to the interior. By the way, cat, that's an extremely odd thing to say. Be more self-aware, why don't you?"
Aw, beans. Not normal at all.
"Well?" Goro crossed his arms. "Are we going in or wasting the day on your welcome mat?"
Akira looked down at his shoes, where they stood on nothing but stone.
"Figuratively speaking," clarified Goro.Â
Akira supposed it was high time to get a move on things. "I don't lock the doorâ"
"You really should."
"âbut the key's usually behind the water fairy." He was referring to the never-once worked fountain statue of a pretty lady carved from stone, cradling a big blossom from which water was presumably meant to sprout. If there was a hidden button to activate the fountain mechanism, then it remained lost to all the residents of the house.Â
"Seriously? The first time you're inviting me into your home, and you're immediately granting me the power to swing in anytime I want? Why is this the first thing you tell me about your house?"
Goro sounded awfully judgmental for what was supposed to be a nice gesture. In a brilliant feat of rational thinking, Akira reasoned, "It's fine if it's Goro."
"And only me, alright?" stressed Goro, voice dragged down low by ominous implications. "Never extend this right to anybody else. You recall that chain of murders two years ago. Who knows what they'd do with this sort of power. Sneak into your house and slash your throat while you sleep? That's the likeliest possibility. A preventable possibility. Not even the worst thing that could happen. There are fates far more savage than a quick death. It's a foolish thing to do: handing your death wish to any random stranger who happens to look your way, then pointing them to the welcome mat. Don't tell anybody else about this key, Akira. It's enough for me to know. Got it?"
That was a huge PSA prompted by one little key. Akira patiently humored him, "Got it, Goro. Only you."
Goro seemed to like how that sounded, because his sternness was stolen away by a twitch to the corner of his mouth, which then grew and grew into a big, proud, peachy-pleased smile. "Don't you forget that, cat."
The door swung open with its customary creaaak. Akira had organized the shoes populating the mudroom in advance in jittery anticipation of Goro's visit. It was a plum thing that he'd done so; his mother's last visit seemed to require digging out every pair of shoes in her possession from the shelves and cabinets and closets, and then another requirement had been to flood the floor with mismatched shoes and gutted boxes, and then the last requirement had been to leave promptly. It only just now occurred to Akira that he'd have been awfully ashamed to show Goro something so sloppy.Â
"It's nice to see more of your house beyond a tiny crack when you open your door," Goro said, but where his voice would usually be brimming with bite and energy, it sounded off. Shoes still on, he stood listlessly by the entrance.Â
Akira took out a pair of newly purchased slippers and set it in front of Goro. Each slipper had its own smiling frog face protruding from the top, big and bulbous. Akira had seen them at Junes, thought them charming, and bought them promptly. While Goro stared incomprehensibly at the slippers, Akira swapped his sandals for his own pair.Â
"These are house slippers," Akira informed him, when Goro still had yet to make a move. The frogs seemed to be offending his eyes. "You can wear them if you want." It hardly mattered if he didn't; Akira had recently swept the floors, so there was no dust to kick up. He had to rely on brooms and mops instead of their handier relative, the vacuum cleaner, since it was too bulky for him to maneuver just yet.Â
After a few more nudges, Goro stiffly, stiltedly swapped his loafers for slippers, then had to be lured out of the mudroom with encouraging words like a spooked horse.Â
Akira's birdy started the house tour with immense, palpable discomfort. Disappointingly, he and the interior didn't seem to be meshing very well. He took small steps, feet feather-light, as though reluctant to even touch the floor through the pads of his slippers. Did he hate the floorboards so sorely? Maybe he thought they were dirty? Hoping to put his worries at ease, Akira assured him that he'd swept it two days ago. He could sweep it again, right now, should Goro wish for it.Â
"Wishing is for losers!" Goro snapped with unforeseen fury.
W-Wow. Okay.
Thankfully, expressing his anger in a new environment was enough of a foot in the door for him to finally relax. He began taking big, stomping strides forward, slippers slapping the floor, as though to physically distance himself from his unease. Akira hurried after him.Â
By the time he caught up, Goro had made it to the living room. He was frowning at the admittedly excessive number of lamps littering the space. It was as though every lamp in the rest of the house had been squirreled away into this single roomâa lamp monopoly. That was Akira's doing. Recently, he'd discovered a fondness for lamps from the lighting section in the furniture store. After spending all day under the sun, returning to a dark and dreary house had been rather jarring. The lamps had been his choice of remedy. There were actually more lamps than there were electrical outlets.Â
Across the hallway, separated by big, rectangular columns that rose up into ceiling-high arches, were the sitting rooms. The Red Room waited insidiously in the corner of his eye. Akira had drawn open the thick, velveteen curtains of every window in the house early this morning, to allow sunlight to stream into what was usually a gloomy interior. In addition to Goro's natural influence, the whole house seemed that much brighter.Â
"Oh, it's your monster under the bed." Goro was referring to the little cat plushie slumped over on the couch. That's... one way of putting it. "There was also one on your shoe stand. Don't tell me your whole house is populated with these things."
"Alright," agreed Akira. "I won't tell you." And then he pointed at a lamp. "This is a lamp." He felt like he was doing a pretty dandy job of this tour guide thing.
Goro glowered at him sourly, then resolutely looked at anything but the lamp. In doing so, something else caught his hateful eye. "Hey, is that your landline?" He seemed to doubt the validity of this landline, because he went over specifically to the little side table by the couch so he could pick up the phone, listen to the dull beeeeep of the dial tone, and set it back down. "Fantastic. I'll make a note of this."
If Akira could, he'd have a giant question mark bobbing above his head.Â
"Your couch takes up too much space," was the next item on Goro's list to gripe about. Actually, Akira had yet to figure out if that phone tangent qualified as a gripe or not. Goro had been shockingly cordial with it.Â
Akira settled on a shrug. "There's a lot of space... to take up."
"That's regrettably true. You know what?" Here came the follow-up item on Goro's list of gripes: "Your house takes up too much space."
Akira had nothing to say to that.Â
"What's that thing?" Goro pointed an accusing finger at a big, table-like object cloaked in an embroidered tapestry, tucked away in a corner of the living room. It seemed he had found his next target to tear into.Â
"That's the piano. Nobody uses it." Akira corrected himself, "Nobody has used it."Â
For as long as he'd been alive, he'd never once witnessed its use. It might have been a gift, once upon a time. His mother liked to brag about the various sumptuous offerings the "background characters" had lavished her with, on the most important, most momentous, most mostest day in history: her wedding. This was in conjunction to bragging about her wedding in general. She was a woman who thrived exclusively on the memory of a single day.
Once a reflective obsidian sleeker than silk, the grand piano had now faded away into a mundane fixture of the houseâanother piece of decor against which to prop more decor. Oftentimes, Akira struggled to recognize it as a piano and not as a uniquely shaped table.Â
Goro was prompt in concocting a condemnation for it. "What a waste. Sitting there and rotting away. The keys have probably collected so much dust, mold, and dirt that they're more biohazards than instruments. You've never even bothered practicing?"
"Practicing? For what?"
"Practicing playing the piano, Akira."
"Oh." Akira nodded. That made sense. "No. I don't know how."
"Then why is it still here?" agonized Goro. "Why don't you justâsell it off already?"
Akira wrinkled his nose. Selling required socializing. "That sounds like a lot of work." And the piano wasn't hurting anybody. It seemed to have adjusted well to its new life as a table.Â
"Hopeless," was Goro's concocted condemnation for him, personally.Â
"Would Goro like to try?" Pause. "Practicing?" Pause. "Playing the piano?" No more pauses.Â
Goro grumbled, "You don't have to clarify what you mean so thoroughly. I'm not you." Objectively true. "And, no. What if I'm not immediately good at it? What if I fail from the get-go? I'd never live it down."
 Akira suggested more than said, "Nobody's immediately good at anything...? I don't think..."
"I am," declared Goro with unshakable certainty.Â
Someone was missing the obvious here. "But you don't try things."
"I try the things I know I'm good at."
"But how do you know you're good at them if you've never tried them before?"
"Let's move on, Akira," Goro concluded abruptly.Â
They moved on.
"Why do rich people insist on depriving their homes of every conceivable color besides white?" Goro's complaints were ceaseless. "They're so obsessed with mimicking mental institutions. All this money, but they still can't buy taste!" He did finally cease, however, when they walked past the Red Room. "T...That's... new."
"If you like perfume or blood, go in there." Akira pointed helpfully. With the way Goro was staring at him, as disturbed as a cow in a meat-packing factory, Akira wagered that he probably didn't enjoy either option very much. "That room's got a lot."
Goro's disturbed cow stare was growing more complex. "Of... blood?"Â
Akira had learned the hard way of how ineffectual wet paper towels were when pitted against blood-stained Persian carpets. The same for vacuum cleaners. And hand soap. And dish soap. "Yeah."
"Oh." Goro didn't sound too happy. "Hey, look, there's your kitchen, cat."
"This is my kitchen," agreed Akira.Â
Goro examined his surroundings with the critical eye of a health inspector, gaze panning from one end of the room where the fridge sat humming and wearing its winter coat of papers, magnets, stickers, and glue, then panning all the way to the other end, where the length of the black marble island came to a sleek stop and the circular breakfast table (rarely used) came to a circular beginning. The vase of sunflowers, having been moved from the middle of the hallway to the middle of the breakfast table, was slightly wilted and missing some of its petals, but its striking yellowness meant it especially stood out from its black and white environment. Goro lingered on it for a prolonged second, a faint smile ghosting his frown, before he swept over the rest of the kitchen once more. "How excessive."Â
Nothing could satisfy his eye, it seemed.Â
The second thing Goro said upon entering the kitchen was, "Why is there another cat on the windowsill?"Â
"We need eggs for omelettes," announced Akira abruptly. He'd realized partway through the house tour that he'd really, really like to cook something for Goro.Â
"Now that I think about it, you really do have those things scattered everywhere. Hoarder much?"
"Eggs."
Side-eyeing him, Goro huffed, "I'm hardly your maid," but went to retrieve the eggs from the fridge, whichâOkay. Hadn't been Akira's intention in the first place, but was still awfully nice of him anyhow. Goro was ever-so thoughtful.Â
His thoughtfulness extended to his need to narrate his thoughts regarding the state of Akira's fridge. According to those thoughts, it was not a very good state. "Why's this great big casket so empty?! Tsk, what a waste! And what is that? It looks like it used to be a tomato, but now it's growing itself an empire of mold. Disgusting!"
"The tomato lives there," Akira tried to explain, but, in truth, failed to achieve much of an explanation at all. "Ummm. Residency."
The fridge door was closed with a shuttering, shivering SLAM! that had it shedding some of its winter coat. Magnets clattered to the floor in one go.Â
"Was that on purpose," asked Akira mildly.Â
Goro didn't deem him with an actual answer. "You need to purge that thing." I'm not going to do that. "Here. Your stupid eggs." Whoa. Egg hatred.Â
Akira thanked Goro genuinely and generously, because Goro was acting as though the egg retrieval had been some terribly taxing task that he'd nearly broken his back bending backwards and over completing, and thank you's ought to match the severity of the injuries incurred along the way. "Birdy's the best."
"That's right, cat," Goro preened, before he practically slammed the egg carton onto the countertop, the same way one might slam a plank of wood into someone's skull. The egg hatred went to the extremes, it seemed.Â
Akira stopped this hate crime at the last second, shooting his hands out to cradle the carton from its tabletop torment. "Thank you so much," he stressed.
Goro frowned. "If you want the eggs so badly, just ask for them." He handed them over with considerably greater care, in a manner that conveyed his earnest belief that Akira was more fragile than an egg. If only he'd been that gentle when he'd been slapping cartons onto counters. "Also, why are we suddenly making omelettes?"
"Aren't you hungry?"Â
A careless shrug. "I usually am. So what? It's nothing new."
How horrible! "Omelettes and onigiri," decided Akira.
Goro was astounded. "Stop adding more food?!"
Akira hadn't been nearly as thoughtful as Goro, and so had neglected to tell him to retrieve the rest of the ingredients with the eggs. As this was entirely his fault, Akira brought back the leftover rice from yesterday, a square frying pan, a spatula, and the seasonings by himself.Â
Goro didn't like that. "Hey!"Â
"What's wrong, Goro?"
"Why'd you bring back ten times as many items as me? That's a fundamental injustice!"
"You can hold them if you want." Akira shoved bottles of soy sauce and sesame oil into Goro's hands. Hopefully, these would keep him and his sense of justice occupied.Â
Goro immediately went to complain, "This is a thankless task." But the complaints ended there, so he couldn't be that mad about it.Â
"Thank you," Akira added, just to be sure.
Growling, Goro creaked his hostages rather dangerously. Akira didn't know bottles could creak like that.Â
O-Okay, back to cooking. Akira announced hurriedly, "Let's prepare the eggs."
Goro halted his creaking to squint down at the eggs. "What do you do with them? They're eggs, so you crack them, don't you?"
Cracking eggs took serious skill. "Do you know how to crack an egg?" Goro was Goro, so of course he knew how to do something as skilled as this, right?
"Of course I know how to do something as simple as that!" Right!
Delighted by Goro's Goro-ness (this was a common occurrence), Akira accidentally let loose an enthralled, "Really?"
It was taken the wrong way. "Yes," Goro hissed, steaming-hot with offense. And then, dropping his hostages, he ripped an egg out of the carton, reeled his arm back, and smashed it onto the counter.
Akira watched it splatter in the most spectacular, most gruesome manner he'd ever seen an innocent egg be massacred.
...Maybe Goro doesn't know how to crack an egg.Â
Goro took notice of Akira's stare and bristled, all pent-up rage and porcupine-y. "It's cracked now, isn't it?"Â
"It... sure is," was what Akira eventually settled on. Because it really was cracked nowâcracked all over the counter and all over the floor, with bits and bobs sticking to the wall, too. The blast radius was truly admirable, all things considered. He might have admired it a touch more had it been localized in a mixing bowl, where eggs were meant to be crackedânot exploded, simply crackedâand yolk was to be mixedânot exploded, either.Â
And what else had cracked? The bottle of soy sauce. Goro was a wonder.Â
"What other ingredients do I have to conquer?" Goro asked darkly, and then Akira was hastily re-introducing him to the wondrous safety of rice.
As it turned out, not even rice could curb Goro's bloodlust.Â
It became obvious at a very quick, very destructive rate that, for all the years she'd been alive, Goro's mother must have been actively barring him from the kitchen and handing him only the easiest, least explosive foods to manhandle. Because Goro and cooking were clearly two intrinsically incompatible forces of nature.Â
"What are you nattering about?" scorned Goro, voice curved high from instinctual defense on his mother's behalf. "Of course I was allowed into the kitchen. We didn't have the luxury of sectioning the kitchen into its own massive ballroom, you know. We ate in there." Having defended her memory an adequate amount, his voice calmed down to its usual melody. "But my mother did never allow me near the stove, or any ingredients, if that's what you mean. She also stopped letting me touch knives near the end, for some reason."
Clearly, Goro's mother had been a sublimely smart woman.Â
"She wouldn't even let me wash the dishes." If Goro had been treating those poor dishes the same way he'd treated the fridge and the eggs, then Akira could certainly see why.Â
Goro slapped the onigiri he'd been shaping (more like: compacting into the world's most condensed ball of matter) onto the table. Not a plate, nor a cutting board, but the table. Thank goodness Akira had already wiped down every surface in the house that morning. Akira silently relocated it to a plate. "Now, cat, let me have another go at those eggs."Â
After three eggs ended up splattered on the wall and the butter stuck to the ceiling, Akira sent Goro off to the living room to watch some commercials and maybe calm down.Â
"NO!" Goro snarled, covered in yellow yolk and looking more than a little feral. "I can do this! I canâpulverize some eggs!"Â
"How about you pulverize... some... television," Akira suggested gently, then tried to tidy Goro's face with a towel and immediately gave up after three of his fingers were nearly bitten clean off.Â
It was a wonder how caustically, catastrophically cataclysmic Goro was when it came to cooking. Akira was suitably impressedâand doubly fearful of what he might have done had the stove been on.
Without Goro afflicting his idea of "help" onto the ingredients, Akira wrapped up the dishes with refreshing ease. Thanks to Goro, he could now appreciate what he'd been taking for granted before: the ability to cook unimpeded by threats of bodily harm and property destruction. Goro exerted a certain revolutionary effect on perspectives. He could make Akira thankful for even the most itty-bitty details of his life.Â
Akira surveyed the damage done to the kitchen. A teeny-tiny sigh escaped him. It looked like another wipe-down was in order.Â
At the very least, he tried to reassure himself, it's not as bad as letting loose a stampede of wild hogs into the house. This was a very average and comforting philosophy that had him cheering up in an instant. Thank goodness Goro was less destructive than a hog stampedeâif only by a little bit. Yet another detail to be thankful for.Â
Following the distant rabble of pew-pew!s and sha-shing!s, Akira found Goro sulkily holed up in the living room, in front of the blitzing, blaring television. He was cleaned of yolk, slightly damp, and in the process of making a soggy, Goro-shaped imprint on the leather couch. A stray plushie was half-buried in the cushions of the couch next to him. This was, in every way, better than a hog stampede. It looked like he'd just emerged from the downstairs bathroom, which Akira recalled had a layout of dizzying red tiles that covered the walls and floors and also had zero windows. He hoped Goro had enjoyed that visual experience.
On the television, masked heroes flew across the screen. They wore all the colors of the rainbow, tip-topped with golden, feathery frou-frou. It made perfect sense; naturally, Akira's birdy liked to watch his fellow birds.Â
Akira came to a silent stop behind Goro's watery seat. "Would birdy like to eat at the breakfast table or the dinner table?"
Goro whipped his head around. Water droplets ricocheted like bullets. "YOU HAVE TWO TABLES?!"
Akira hesitated, unsure of what he'd done to set Goro off this time. "We don't have to eat at a table?"
It took a while, but Goro did, at least, with equal parts grand mulishness and grander reluctance, concede, "...The dinner table."
"'kay!" A happy clap! rang in the air. Having sufficiently expressed his joy, Akira peered around Goro at the television. "Oh, I like that show, too. Feathermâ"
Goro's finger practically speared itself clean through the remote out of bloodthirsty vigor. That poor power button never stood a chance. The television blinked black. Akira had half-expected some of the remote's abuse to travel to the television, perhaps short-circuiting it with an electric zap! and reducing its screen to screaming neon color bars. Miraculously, everything remained relatively intact.Â
"Is your finger okay?" Akira cradled Goro's hand as though it might clatter apart at any moment.Â
"Irrelevant." Regardless of that ruthless remark, Goro allowed Akira to lightly blow on his finger. Hoo! "And I wasn't watching what you thought I was watching. That was simply a... commercial. Those trifling wastes of time. I've got no power over what cable throws at me. Before the commercial, I'd been watching a crime show. About investigating crime. With detectives and legalities."
"And crime?" Akira absentmindedly patted Goro's hand. The pat-pat's lent it structural strength.Â
Goro pointed his nose high up in the air. "Yes. The crime is critical." Akira hummed. "Since it was a crime show," Goro apparently thought this was necessary to expound, "as you know."Â
"As I know," nodded Akira, then tugged him up by the hand (although, it was really more like Akira had lightly suggested getting up with an even lighter tug, and Goro had been gracious enough to comply). "Let's get our omelettes, birdy."
Goro's noise remained sky-high 'til it was time to settle into their respective seats, after which he finally deigned to look down. Before him waited two plates, one for each of them. On each plate lay a fluffy omeletteâtamagoyakiârolled up and sliced into plump pieces, and a triangular ball of rice grilled and sauced to a golden crisp. A warm, savory aroma wafted through the air. Akira had foregone any filling for the yaki-onigiri, for two reasons: 1) despite his fondness for experimenting with the cookbook, he didn't have the ingredients on hand, because hoarding ingredients that would sooner or later spoil with nobody to eat them was a wasteful thing to do, and 2) he worried it'd be too much to eat in conjunction to the omelettes. There was a separate plate of more yaki-onigiri in the middle of the table, since it would have been a shame to let the leftover rice go unused. It was leagues more food than the amount Akira would make for himself, but leagues less than what a nuclear family on television would chow down on.Â
His recipe book had featured these two dishes in separate sections, but since both required a pan, Akira had figured he could combine them into one meal with minimal difficulty. Using his square pan, he'd rolled the omelettes into fluffy prisms first, sprinkled them with salt, then sizzled the seasoned onigiri second. The recipe book had advertised the eggs as such: "These eggs will be wondrously savory and so soft that you'll barely need to bite down before they're splitting apart in your mouth!"Â
"These onigiri... You only had to mash the rice together with the seasonings before you grilled them, didn't you?" Just from listening to Goro's tone, anybody could tell that he was feeling slighted. "With a spoon or something. It wouldn't even have required an open flame at that stage. Just mashing."
This was true. "Birdy's right."
"I could've done something as tedious as destroying grains for you, but you simply had to kick me out of the kitchen." Goro looked remarkably royal sitting in his seat, with the carved mahogany backing of the chair framing his head just so, the way the best oil paintings had the fanciest frames. He didn't look out of place at all. Akira always felt a little awkward sitting in these chairs. They dwarfed him miserably. Goro, on the other handâoh, wait. Goro was still saying something. "Mashing's not a feat of rocket science."
This was also true. "Birdy's right again. I should've thought of that." Akira didn't sound very sorry when he said, "Sorry."
"What're you always apologizing for?" Rather than wait another tedious ten seconds for a one-word reply, Goro answered himself with a sigh. "As long as you learn from this and take it into account in the future, it's fine. Besides, I don't like sitting around while you do everything. It's unequal. You hate that, don't you? Inequivalent exchange?"
"Inequality?" parroted Akira. It had historically led to a great deal of bad things. "Sure. Hate it."
Goro puffed himself up proudly. "I'm never not right."
Akira nodded. "Birdy's right about that, too."
"See?" Puffed to the max. "When things work themselves out so effortlessly like this, you know that's how they're meant to be."
Meant to be... Akira rolled the idea around in his head, feeling it run along the grooves of his brain, its glassy surface as smooth as water, and felt it roll to a stop in a perfect marble-shaped nook. Clink. A thought occurred to him. It was a good one. Proud to have arrived at this thought but not nearly so puffy about pride as Goro had been, he voiced it aloud, "Like us."
"What?" Goro looked startled. He thought about it some more, then looked even more startled. Stupefied, really. "What?"
"Omelettes," Akira instructed him.Â
"Alright, alright!" Goro looked at him witheringly. Withering look turned apprehensive, Goro picked up a fluffy omelette slice between two delicate chopsticks, inexplicably held it there for half a minute, and took what could be an insultingly small bite of his already small piece if Akira chose to feel insulted. He chewed, looking deeply pensive, then lit up with astonishment. "Oh! It's edible."
Edible.
Akira supposed expecting anything more than barebones acknowledgment from Goro was a pipe dream. The aggressive sushi acknowledgment had been more than enough to last a lifetime. Besides, this was high praise compared to the usual dialogue his cooking would win from his mother. "What is all this green rot for? I don't want this. I want that. No, I'd like this instead. No, no, back to that. It's got a peculiar odor. Why is this so small? This is far too big. Also, I'm on a diet right now. I'm not eating."
Akira couldn't be more pleased than if Goro had actually liked his food.
"I... I do actually like your food," confessed Goro in a quiet mutter, before he grew louder. "It's better than watery gruel, at least. A step above fertilizer. It's not going to land you a Michelin star any time soon, but you're getting there. Your progress is too slow. Can't you speed up? This needs more seasoning."
"You think I could earn a Michelin star?" asked Akira in his own version of a quiet mutter, except his mutter wasn't deliberate but a default setting for him. Awe colored his voice. Wings fluttered in his chest. He felt almost airborne.Â
Goro harrumphed, nose in the air. "Think what you want, cotton brains."
"But this is about what you think, birdy."
"Oh, so you're stuffing ideas into my head now, are you? Thinking my own thoughts for me, hmm? How presumptuous of you. How right you are. I did need the help, thinking for myself. It was getting troublesome. Being mindlessâisn't that better? You would know, darling cat. You truly are too generous, too philanthropicâ" And off he went, stomping down that long, winding, and well-worn trail that the rickety sign, shaped as an arrow, decreed to be "Deflecting."Â
Moving past all that deflecting, it became clear: Goro liked his cooking. This was new. This was big. Nobody had ever liked Akira's cooking before. In fact, up 'til now, he'd been staunchly convinced that his cooking was horrible. Subpar at best. But if Goro liked something, then that meant it was top-of-the-line. Goro only liked the best of the best.Â
The best must have extended to the yaki-onigiri, because Goro had stabbed his chopsticks into one and was aggressively chomping a bite out of it. So, it's not only the omelettes... The onigiri, too?Â
He liked them both!
Akira felt so happy, so flighty, that he had no idea what to do with himself. Left with little else to do and far too much energy to spare, he hopped down from his seat, bounced over to Goro, and flung his arms around him. It was extraordinarily warm. Sunny rays after a rainshower. Hot chocolate on a winter's day. He murmured into soft hair, "Goro. Thank you, really."
Goro immediately began choking to death.Â
Frightened, Akira tripped backwards into the fireplace. "Goro?!"Â
A cloud of soot exploded into the air. Eggs on the wall, eggs on Goro, and now soot all over the place. What a great, big mess.Â
It seemed a third wipe-down was in order. The stampede of wild hogs was beginning to look better and better by the second.Â
â˘â˘â˘
By some miracle, the omelettes and onigiri had been mostly spared by the uproar of soot.Â
After washing up in the nearest bathroom, Akira set aside the few that had been misfortunate enough to gain a coat of soot, but as for the ones who had a light sprinkling on their edges, Goro refused to part with them. He insisted that it would be a grievous waste of precious food. Akira was at a loss. His birdy who was usually such a stickler for cleanliness was now clinging stubbornly to some sooty eggs?Â
"Come now, it's hardly a big deal." Goro's voice was pitched to be pleasantly placating, in stark contrast to his actions: hunching over and caging his plate within his arms like a jealous dragon. "Just leave them be."
Helpless, Akira could only acquiesce, "Um... If birdy likes soot that much..."
"Don't imply weird things!"
Akira scratched his head. There wasn't much to imply what wasn't already screamed aloud for all to hear. He climbed back into his seat, looking down at his own egg. It was still as untouched as it was before The Soot-ening. A gentle pleasure buzzed in his chest. The last time he'd made an omelette, it had gone dissected and uneaten. This time, his omelette was being treasured so devoutly. What wasn't there to be pleased about this turn of events?Â
Distantly, from beyond the breezy screen door of the patio, he could hear someone's pet musician practicing the piano, as well as the crunchy roll of a car's wheels against pavement. Wind chimes tinkled twinkly tunes. A dog was barking, as always.Â
"Are you going to take a bite sometime this century?" came a drawl across from him. Goro had his chin in his hand and his eyes fixed lazily on Akira.Â
"Huh?" queried Akira smartly.Â
"You've been staring at that thing forâ" Stare still fixed, Goro tilted his head towards the digital clock on the wall. "âtwo minutes, fifteen seconds, and counting. Are you some alien species that only eats with your eyes? How novel."
It'd been two minutes already? Akira looked at Goro's plate. Empty! He hopped off his chair. "Birdy! Do you want more sooty eggs?"
"Sit down!" Goro barked, jabbing a fierce finger.Â
Akira sat down.Â
"You're not leaving this table until you finish that." Uwagh. "And quit associating me with soot!" Ugagah.Â
Akira went back to staring at his egg, only this time with heaps more misery slouching his shoulders. He poked his egg despondently. Imprisoned in his own house! What a fate.Â
Goro had his brows all twisted in vexation. "Just take a bite. Is that so hard? It's not even disgusting to eat. It's quite good, actually. I don't understand you."
That's right! Akira's birdy thought his food tasted good! Andâand, last time, he'd called his sushi delicious. Goro thought Akira might earn a Michelin star one day. Michelin stars were Big Deals. Any restaurant, from food carts to big buildings, would jump over the moon from the electric joy of winning a star, and then they'd plaster news of this star all over their carts and buildings, so that any passerby might learn of this star and be lured in for star-ful food. Akira had nearly forgotten this Big Deal because of Goro's near death experience in the fireplace.Â
His self-esteem freshly invigorated, Akira picked up a little portion of egg and stuck it in his mouth. Akira was shocked by the presence of flavor. Usually, food was little more than bland mush to work his jaw around until he grew sore and bored of the whole charade. These omelettes had been whisked and cooked 'til they'd turned soft and fluffy; unlike tough grilled omelettes or slippery boiled eggs, biting into a roll required so little effort that the egg split in half with the ease of wind sluicing through a cloud. And it really did taste quite goodâsurprisingly so! A bit cold, perhaps, but that barely detracted from the taste. He even realized that he had a bit of an appetite.Â
It was a resoundingly fresh revolution to his life experiences up 'til now.
"How have you survived this long?" Goro asked in genuine wonder, watching Akira delicately chew his omelette, his eyes wide from revelation and looking like he'd had his mind blown to smithereens.Â
Akira ate his omelette, Goro ate one yaki-onigiri, and the rest was either stowed away in the refrigerator or packaged up into a big bento box for Goro to take back (he was not made aware of this bento box just yet). The mysterious, dense ball of matter that Goro had made was squirreled away for safekeeping.Â
The ball had come out... remarkably solid. Consuming it required copious amounts of gnawing that had his jaw aching, so Akira was forced to set it aside for later. He'd also had to nibble on it in secret, because the second Goro had seen that thing he'd raised a ruckus about throwing it into the trash where it belonged, and only turning the television on to Feathermen had distracted him enough with a new ruckus to raise that allowed Akira to sneak off with his prize. Maybe this ball, larger than his hand, would grow mushier with time. Like a grape. One could only hope it might someday reach a stage of semi-edibility.Â
Also squirreled away, flush against his heart, was the quiet joy of having someone finally enjoy his cooking.Â
Happiness was tasty.Â
â˘â˘â˘
ITEMS GET!! Leftovers
â
â
â
â
â
Lots of leftover yaki-onigiri. Looks like you'll have to postpone your daily melonpan for a little while, huh?
â˘â˘â˘
Come evening, Akira sent Goro off with the bento box of yaki-onigiri. He'd had Goro leave earlier than when they usually went their respective ways in the woods, lest Goro be forced to navigate the mountainside in the dark, which could be treacherous terrain to navigate without light. Tree roots and cliff sides and loose rocks abound and aplenty! More than one person had been reported missing, only to be found months later at the bottom of a sheer drop sprouting fungi.Â
The persnickety subject of hugs was still on Akira's mind while he stood outside on the doorstep, the muggy evening air simultaneously soaking and steaming his skin dry and sticky, and in front of him was Goro, inspecting the bento box with squinty suspicion. Paranoia was par for the course when it came to Goro and food. His reaction to hugs, on the other hand... Had that been considered par for the course? It had proven to be hugely consequential and catastrophic. Akira sort of feared what new catastrophic consequences might be wrought with a repeat incident.Â
"'kay!" Akira clapped his hands. The sudden, sharp sound seemed to sluice through what had been a lazy sunset ambience.Â
It also startled Goro out of his investigation of the underside of the bento box. "What? What is it?" In retrospect, to Goro, that clap really had come out of nowhere.Â
"You're going now."
"Huh? I am? I mean, I was already going to, but you don't have to boss me aroâ"
"Bye-bye, birdy!" Instead of hugging Goro the way Akira really, really wanted toâbecause hugs were on his mind, and he wasn't able to stop thinking about how nice it'd feltâhe settled for softly headbutting him the way cats did when overwhelmed with contentment.Â
"Y-YouâYouâ" This still had the alarming effect of flustering Goro to the point of stuttering and repeating words, like a skipping CD. He'd nearly dropped the bento box, whichânot really the most durable thing on the planetâwould have been consequential and catastrophic. At the very least, not hugely so. But it would've cracked open and wasted food, which was certainly a consequence that was catastrophic.Â
Well. They had all the time in the world to work their way up to hugs, Akira supposed.Â
â˘â˘â˘
ITEMS LOSE!! Leftovers
â
â
â
â
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Welp, nevermind. Looks like melonpan's back on the everyday menu.Â
â˘â˘â˘
It came in the quiet of the night: a shrill, shrieking RING-RING-RING-RING-RINGâ
"Wallop whatever that is!" Mona demanded.Â
Whatever turned out to be the landline, going off the rails with a call. Standing barefoot in the dark of the living room, yearning for the slippers he'd forgotten in his haste, and illuminated solely by weak, barely-there moonlight, Akira held the phone up to his ear. He'd missed the first time, smacking the receiver into his cheek and looking around blearily for the culprit. The second time, he just about barely lined everything up nice and proper. Â
What was one supposed to say in a situation like this?Â
"Hello?"Â
That seemed about right.
"Akira? Is that you?" Goro's lovely, honey voice crackled over the line, sounding a lot like how pop rocks felt on the tongue.Â
"Goro!" Akira exclaimed. In his shock, he nearly dropped the phone he'd exerted so much effort to line up. Cue clumsy fumbling, which undoubtedly translated into a hideous racket for Goro to endure on the other end. "I can't wallop you!"
A dragonfire sigh dominated the line. "What is it with you and walloping innocents? And what was that? Did you drop the phone?"
A million questions were running through Akira's head. He picked one at random. "Birdy, you know my number?"
"It's not like it was hard to find," scoffed Goro's voice. His scoff sounded even sharper than it did in person. The phone had him sounding tinny, flinty, and jagged. "All I had to do was pull out the phone book and look up your family's number."
"Ohhh, right." Phone books did indeed exist.Â
A soft silence settled over the line. Eyes having adjusted to the minimal lighting, Akira studied how his living room looked in the dark. It was fascinating how what was once so yellow and bright could now look so blue and shadowyâeerie, almost, when one looked at misleading shadows from the corners of one's eyes. He toyed with the loopty-loops of the telephone's coiled cord and shifted from foot to foot. The floorboards, previously ice-cold, had warmed up the tiniest bit.Â
Goro broke the silence to complain. Of course. "You sound different."
"Probably because I just woke up," Akira said innocently and not snarkily in the slightest. "In the middle of the night." Zero snark here. "It was very sudden." Absolutely snarkless.Â
"If you're trying to get to something, A-kira, just say it out loud. Subtleties are lost on you."
"I'm not getting at anything."
"It's probably the phone," Goro posited, clearly giving up on acknowledging Akira's snark, or lack thereof. "People always sound different over phones and in recordings. If you were to meet a beloved actor from television in-person, you'd be shocked at how much worse they might sound. How much worse they'd look, too. It's easy to mask oneself through technology. With phones, there's no face to be burdened by, so you can pretend to be anything and anyone. Then, even with TV, there are filters and edits, along with the natural blur of camera quality. Did you knowâthere was once an actress renowned as a great beauty when, in actuality, she had deep pits marring the face that brought her millions? Her husband had to engineer a special camera lens just to obscure her faults and fool the public. Isn't that troublesome? In all mediums, humans crave acknowledgement, but cower from true recognition."Â
Had Goro gone through the trouble of excavating Akira's number and rousing him awake at an utterly obscene hour just to gripe about humanity again? What an... interesting upgrade to their relationship. "Wow. That's. Great."
"Are you aware that you're always in a foul mood when you've just woken up, Akira?"
"No." Akira didn't feel very foul, just very woozy. "I don't know. Goro, why're we..." How to put this... "Why are you... um..."Â
"Why did I call you?" Goro saved him the toothache of fumbling his words. "I wanted to see if I could."
That sure was something. "Have you seen enough now?"
"Yes. I've determined that this is an acceptable avenue for communication. I'll call you at a better time in the future, when you're less moody."
"I'm not moody," Akira argued, a bit moodily.Â
"I'm hanging up now," Goro warned. "You need the sleep, I'm sure. Don't forgetâyou have to exchange goodbyes to conclude a call."
"Okay, then," Akira obliged. "Bye-bye, birdy."Â
Goro's voice was softer than dandelions. "Goodnight, cat."
The line fizzled out.Â
Moving proved to be a mistake. The world smeared itself into a mess of shadows as Akira flailed atop numb feet. His head felt light as a pound of air one second, then heavy as a bundle of bricks the next second, leaving him wobbling around, top heavy and bobble-headed. It took a great deal of blinking and breathing for vision to return to him, then a great deal more for the phone to click back into its cradle, instead of clanking onto the table or the floor. After carefully reviewing his situation, Akira elected to spend the night on the couch. Even though it was cold and leathery, it was a familiar bed. Many nights had been spent snoozing in a half-asleep state on slowly warming leather, the curtains pulled back to frame the moon in whatever state of dress it had chosen for that date.Â
Besides, Mona was here, too.Â
"What did your rival want?" Mona's curious eyes reflected silvery glints of moonlight.Â
The leather couch creaked and squeaked with every movement Akira made as he curled up comfortably by his friend's side. "Nothing, really."
#mailbox đ#the fact that multiple people have cried over my writing is so wild to me#what fuckass parts are making you cry??? mystifying#i hid away my fic for now so i can read it in peace. cant stand knowing people are reading my mistakes. it literally gives me heartburn.#anyways you can see how ch.4 is clearly approaching the same word count as ch.1-3 combined. fun development.
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Beyond the Facade
Dee x Male!OC!Olezka
A/N: I tried my best to approach this with care. Let me know if I did okay or even if you don't like it. I appreciate constructive criticism and feedback. I hope you enjoy.
Warnings: blood | abuse | injury | trauma | lots of crying | swearing | let me know if I should add anything else
Word Count: 1 438
Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 7
Chapter 6: Reason
Unlike he was expected to, Olezka doesn't run home. Instead he runs through the park into the wooded area on the other side of it. He just keeps running and running. Who knew he had so much stamina?
Andrei is kind of keeping up, but Heavy and Dee are beginning to fall behind.
When he finally stops, he drops to his knees and it's now obvious that he's crying.
"Ollie!!" Andrei calls out to him.
"Leave me alone!!" he screams back and tries to get up but collapses back onto his knees. Everything hurts. He's tired.
Andrei reaches him and is trying to see how bad the damage is but Olezka is hysterical. His breaths short and shallow. Tears and pencil eyeliner streaming down his face. He's shaking. Oh Ollie.
When Heavy and Dee arrive they notice the same thing right away, "Your arm!! You're bleeding!!" they pant. What a wonderful day to have worn white.
Andrei is trying to calm him down, "Deep breaths," he says slowly, putting a hand to Olezka's chest and demonstrating, "Deep breaths."
His breathing steadies.
"We need to get you to a hospital," Andrei says, concerned and uncertain of how they're going to make their next move.
"No!! No, I'm not going there again," Olezka protests.
Again?
He tries to get up again but only manages to prove how roughed up he is.
"Our house isn't far. My dad can help," Dee says, watching Andrei help him stand up straight. This is really bad.
It seems Olezka has no more say as they're hurriedly helping him walk towards Dee and Heavy's house. Why is Dee here anyway?
-
"DAAD!!" Dee yells into the home after fumbling with his keys at the door. "Heavy, get the first aid kit. Dad?! Are you here?!" he says as he speedwalks through to the other rooms.
Andrei helps Olezka onto a chair at the kitchen table.
"Yes! What is it?!" Glam rushes out at the distressed tone of his son's voice and sees the state Olezka and Andrei are in. "What happened?!" he gasps and moves towards the two, noticing Heavy come in with the first aid kit.
"What's all this yelling abou- holy shit," Vicky enters the kitchen as well, "The hell happened to you guys?"
Glam is already trying to assess the two boys while they're trying to give an accurate explanation of what happened.
"I'm okay. Please start with him," Andrei pleads, his panic only now beginning to set in.
As Glam begins to inspect Olezka's arm he realises he won't be able to take a proper look with the clothes he's wearing, "Would you mind taking off your top so I can see better?"
Olezka freezes. He looks positively mortified. As if he was asked to kill someone's cute cat or steal money from an orphanage.
He takes a deep breath and does what he's asked. "Clearly," he thinks, "Nothing was thought through."
When his second, tighter undershirt comes off, the room goes silent. The arm that's bleeding already has a bandage, the wound must have reopened. He's also got a bandage on the other arm and a plaster patch on his chest. There's one long scar across his left ribcage between the last two ribs. There are lots of smaller scars, some faded, some seem fresh. He also has a large, dark, purple bruise on the right side of his abdomen. There's no way most of those come from the fight just now. Probably just the smaller bruises. And that's just what they can see on the front side.
Olezka glaces at all their faces and looks away. Those tears from earlier might just make their return.
They're astounded.
He lifts his arm slightly towards Glam and that seems to snap him out of his shock. "Heavy, kindly bring some more gauze and disinfectant," he asks as he opens up the first aid kit.
Remember that thing about purple elephants?
"What... What happened?" Dee asks quietly.
It's now or never Ollie. Deep breath.
"Sh-she just-" he stammers, "She gets angry sometimes. I never know when an-and I try my best to avoid it but she just...does," he says, slow and careful.
"Who does?" Andrei asks, trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together.
"My...mother..." he trails off.
"You're saying she's the one who did this to you?" Andrei asks.
He bites his trembling lip and nods.
"Why have you never told me?" Andrei asks, his broken voice just above a whisper.
The dams break, "I didn't think you'd believe me."
"Why?"
"Because no one ever has," his voice cracks. "Not the teachers, not the hospital, not even the police believe a word I say!" his frustration with the situation is beginning to show. " 'You shouldn't make up lies about your mother Olezka'. 'Just tell the truth, I won't be angry Olezka'," he mimics their voices and drops his head, wincing in pain.
His vision is blurry. His head is pounding. His knuckles are throbbing. The disinfectant burns. Anyone would wish this were a dream they could wake up from at any moment. Unfortunately, he hasn't figured out just how to do that yet.
"There has to be someone who can help," Andrei says.
"She has connections everywhere," he continues to sob. "They're all always on her side because 'she's just a little lady and boys get into fights all the time.' "
Heavy hands him some tissue and he tries his best to calm down and wipe away his tears.
"Why don't you run away or something?" Heavy asks, his big puppy dog eyes wide and watering.
"I don't have anywhere to go, and she'd probably find me anyway. Even the parts of her family I've met have issues with her and they don't like me because... I am the way I am."
"Ya know what I'm thinkin'?" Vicky chimes in. "Let's go over there and have a nice a little chat with her," she holds up a fist.
"But what if something were to happen to you too?" Olezka asks as though nobody is listening, only daring to look down or to the side, unable to meet their gazes. The gravity of the situation is a lot to bare.
-
When Glam finishes dressing Olezka's arms, he made sure to revise all the other wounds, discovering the scars on his back are clearly from a whip and more bandages that needed to be redone on his legs.
Olezka thanks him while saying, "They're so much neater than when I do it," breaking Glam's heart just a little more, reminding him of his own childhood.
Olezka goes to wash his face, followed by Dee who apologizes for the last time they spoke. He learns that the reason Olezka got so angry that day was because each time a friend has responded the way Dee did, something terrible happened afterwards. They would try to sabotage one of his insect projects, or they'd get him in trouble with his mom on purpose and he learnt to simply leave people alone to avoid those kinds of things.
Andrei gives Olezka a gentle hug, apologising profusely that he never felt he could come to him about something that affected him this much.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry I never- that I never told you," Olezka continues to sob into his friend's shoulder.
"I'm the one who should be sorry, but hey, better late than never, right?" Andrei tries for the third time in one day to get his friend to calm down. He's never seen him cry this much. In fact, he's never seen him cry over anything serious whatsoever.
"I shouldn't have snapped at you like that," Olezka says. "I'm really sorry Dee," he puts his fist out, "We cool?"
"...Yeah," them heart strings pull real hard at times like this, don't they Dee?
When he stops crying again, Andrei takes him to the bathroom to wash his face and get dressed.
"Wow. I look like shit," he says as he sees how his makeup streamed down his face and is smudged all over from him trying to wipe his tears away.
"You really do," Andrei says, laughing when Olezka pushes him out of the bathroom.
Now, Olezka has to go and face his mother and get her to believe his side of the story before school next Monday.
"I don't think I can handle two beatings in one day," he tries to joke as he and Andrei begin dashing out the door. "Thank you so much for all your help!"
He has to be home before dark and the clock is ticking. This really is stressful.
#metal family#metal family dee#metal family heavy#metal family vicky#metal family glam#oc#character x oc#dee metal family x male oc#x male reader#x reader#metal family oc
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Love Can Melt the Ice, ch. 12
Aka ice skating au ch. 12!
A/N: Thatâs right my peeps, this fic /finally/ has a name. I hope you find it fitting! (Obviously Iâm not referring to literal ice this time, but instead a certain character whoâs acting a bit cool sometimes :P) I donât really have much else to say this time, enjoy and review! This chapter continues directly from the events of last chapter :)
Previous chapters: Â 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Companion pieces (note: these are all post Olympics happenings so reading the main fic first is recommended): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Next chapter:Â [x]
Words: 1940+
Genre: flooof in this chapter, even a tiny bit of humor? (I feel we are back to ch 1 in a way)
Warnings: swearing and some drinking on the background
âSo, howâs everything going, brother? Howâs your leg?â Al asked when he and Ed made their way into a quieter corner in the room. With the room full of Edâs teammates and music playing loudly, it was hard to hear your own thoughts, but the brothers decided to at least try since they had a lot of catching up to do.
âI wish I could already get rid of the cast, but other than that, itâs fine. I just want to skate already.â
âIâm sorry, brother,â Al said with genuine sympathy. âHey, I brought something to cheer you up.â
Al handed Ed a gift bag and he took it curiously. Inside it was a book that Ed recognized as one he had wanted for a long while, Advanced Biochemistry, but much to Edâs surprise, it wasnât the only gift. There was something between the book. Two small, thin foliage packages that must have hadâŚ
âAl!â Ed yelled with a red face. âHow the fuck did you⌠why⌠what the hell is this supposed to mean?!â
âThought youâd need some extra protection with the way your love life has been progressingâŚâ Al chuckled. âI know you well enough to know that youâd never have the guts to get them by yourself.â
âOh my God. I canât believe you. We arenât even dating!â
âItâs funny you say that when you both are practically undressing each other with your eyes every time you look at each other.â Al pointed out, nodding towards Winry significantly.
âIâm not⌠Fine, sheâs hot,â Ed said through his teeth, âbut surely Iâm not the only the only one whoâs noticed that! Just look at Havoc trying to tell her jokesâŚâ
âShe doesnât look too impressed,â Al noted. âOh, look at that, sheâs coming here. Hi there, Winry!â
âHi guys.â She turned to Ed and noted his mortified expression. âWhy are you so red? You sure you donât have a fever or something?â
Ed didnât have time to answer when Roy started speaking into the mic and everyone turned their attention to him.
âSo, as you all know, we have all gathered here to celebrate the 18th birthday of our very own Fullmetal Forward, Edward Elric. Congrats, kid! Now that youâre officially allowed to buy alcohol, donât forget the promise you made me!â
âHah, you havenât won anything yet!â was Edâs immediate response, and everyone burst out laughing.
âAnyway, Iâd like to suggest we sing for the birthday boy. Everyone, on the count of three. One, two, three.â
Roy gave his sign, and the choir of more and less talented singers started: âHappy biiirthday too you, happy biiirthday too youâŚâ
Ed felt a bit overwhelmed when a room full of people sang for him but waved his thanks when they finished. Soon Roy continued speaking to the crowd:
âBefore we let Fullmetal give us, without a doubt, a very amazing speech, there are a couple of other people in this room as well we should congratulate. The little birds have told me that in less than a year this team will have a brand new member. Congrats, Maes and Gracia! Your kid will without a doubt become an amazing skater.â
Nearby, Maes started rambling about the greatness of his future wife to anyone who was willing to listen, but Winry barely noticed because she squealed happily at the news and rushed to hug Gracia who had been approaching the trio.
âA baby! Thatâs absolutely wonderful! Iâm so happy for you guys!â
âAw, thanks Winry-dear. I got the confirmation from my doctor about an hour after the free skate. Iâm gonna have to discuss this with him and Maes, but with this piece of news, I think I might skip the individual competition.â
âBut you would have done amazinglyâŚâ Winry said, upset for her friend.
âMaybe, but Iâve seen you skating and I dare to say you would beat me 9 times out of 10 these days. And I already won gold 4 years ago, so really, Iâm not too upset. How could I be when I look at him?â
She turned to see her fiancĂŠ flailing as he told Riza, the only person patient enough to listen to him ramble for ages, how he would decorate the babyâs room and how he secretly (or not so secretly) wished the baby was a girl.
Ed hadnât had a chance to say anything while the women were chattering, but now he decided it was his turn to get himself heard.
âCongrats, Gracia! Iâm sure youâre gonna be a great mother, but Iâm a bit worried about your fiancĂŠ. I bet heâs that person whose locker will be 100% covered with photos of the kid and heâll forget how to skate when he keeps staring at them.â
âDonât worry, I will make sure to kick his butt if he starts slacking because of it,â Gracia smirked.
âThatâs good to hear. But seriously, Iâm happy for you guys. Babies are amazing!â
âThank you. I think someoneâs gonna be one lucky lady to be a mother to your kids in the future, Edward.â Ed wondered if it was just him or did Gracia look at Winry one second longer than necessary when she said that. And did she emphasize the word someone? He felt himself getting flustered for the second time within minutes and he was about to turn away when Winry asked, pointing to the pack still in Edâs hand:
âDid you get a present from Al? What did he give you?â
âJ-just a biochem bookâŚâ he stuttered and left before she could ask more questions. Damn Al. Heâd show him. Speaking of the devil, Ed noticed his little brother was snickering almost uncontrollably nearby after seeing the scene between Ed and Winry unfold.
âAre you trying to kill me?â the older brother growled and punched Al on the shoulder when he got close enough.
âRelax, bro, it was just a joke! I wonât change my mind about you two though, I have never seen you this flustered over a girl before. Itâs adorable. I didnât have a chance to ask you earlier, so did you tell her?â
âYeah, I did. I hate to admit it, but you were right. I do feel better now. And things⌠are going quite nicely.â He turned his head towards the spot where Winry chatted with her friends (Paninya and Rose had joined her and Gracia now) and Winry gave him a small smile.
âThatâs great to hear,â Al interrupted Ed from his thoughts. âHey, I heard Mustang saying something about a speech, so how about it?â
âDo I have a choice?â Ed sighed and wheeled to where the captain of his team was clearly waiting for him. Taking the mic from his hand, he started: Â
âItâs so weird to see so many of you here! To be honest, if it werenât for a couple of friends, I wouldnât even have remembered what day it is. And the worst part is that Iâm not even allowed to drink because of my condition!â
Many of Edâs teammates laughed. They knew Ed had never particularly cared about drinking.
âIâm not one for long speeches, so I guess thank you everyone for coming, and special thanks to that one gearhead who made this happen.â His gaze met Winryâs for a moment, and he thought he could see her blushing slightly. âNow, letâs have some fun! But not too funâŚâ His gaze stopped at Havoc this time. â⌠because some of you have a big game tomorrow!â
The guests chuckled and continued their partying. Mustang was now dancing with Riza, Havoc was having a drinking contest with Breda despite Edâs warning, Armstrong was wiping his tears into a huge tissue, Paninya was trying to sneak a small bottle from Royâs back pocket and Al was probably telling Winry some embarrassing stories about Ed. For some reason, all of that made Ed feel calmer than he had felt in a long while.
Later that evening, Winry was sitting alone on the balcony, enjoying the fresh, cool air when Ed appeared behind her.
âHi.â
âHi. Why are you sitting here alone?â
âI guess I just wanted a moment to hear my thoughts. No offense, but you hockey players are loud.â
âYouâre not wrong about that.â Ed rubbed the back of his head. âBut your friends are kinda interesting bunch as well. You should have seen Havocâs expression when that Paninya chick made a show of kissing Rose right in front of him. It was almost as if his hopes and dreams had both been shattered into pieces and fulfilled at the same time.â
âOh, that definitely sounds like a Pan thing to do,â Winry laughed. âTheyâre great though. After losing my parents theyâve become like a new family to me. I guess you could say the same about your team.â
âI guessâŚâ
âYou said you have tried to push people out of your life, but you know, one way or another, you have affected all of them,â she gestured towards the full room. âThey all care about you. And for some weird reason, so do I. You donât have to carry your weight alone.
âYeahâŚâ
âI guess what I really wanted to tell you after our chat earlier is that if you think youâre the only person in this world whoâs feeling guilty about something, I have some news for you. For so many weeks, I kept thinking that things would be so different if I had simply told my parents to not go into that car. Finally, my granny wrenched some sense into me and told me that I canât change my past, but I can chance how it affects my future. It didnât sink into me right away, but I understand what she meant now. Iâm not saying that Iâm never thinking about it anymore, because thatâs a lie, but I know my parents would want me to live my life, so thatâs what Iâm doing. And thatâs what you should do as well.â
Ed stared at her with surprise. He realized Winryâs words were very similar to the ones he had used when confronting Rose, but he wasnât living by his own advice.
âI probably deserved that.â
âYes, you did.â Her tone got softer when she continued: âBy the way, I want you to know that Iâm not going anywhere. We are way past that point now.â
For some reason, Winryâs statement made Ed remember the realities of their situation, and he asked: âHow are we gonna stay in touch after the Olympics, though? We are both busy with our sports, traveling on different sides of the country and sometimes even out of country.â âPhones exist, Elric. If you know how to use one. And itâs not like Iâm always gone, there are off-seasons, breaks, and so on⌠And to be honest, at the moment I canât say how long Iâm gonna continue my skating career. Iâm kinda itching to move onto mechanics soon enough.
âSounds like you have already given a lot of thought to your future.â
âWhat about you, though? Do you have any plans?â
âI want to continue playing as long as I can and study as much as I can. Maybe I have some other wishes as well, but⌠one day you might know.â
âYou think so?â
âYeah.â
Ed leaned his head against hers and wrapped one of his arms around her shoulder. They stayed like that for a good while, until the tender moment was interrupted by a crash inside the restaurant.
âWhat was that?â Winry asked worriedly.
Ed just sighed. âI think itâs time to take Havoc back to the hotel.â
#edwin#edward elric#winry rockbell#my fics#fullmetal alchemist#ice skating au#that has a name wooo!#i'm so stupid happy about that#ps. sorry for the possible typos
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