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volkswagonblues · 4 years ago

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I wish you would write a fic about piandao and jeong jeong, like just anything about them but i'd read the SHIT out of the modern au you told me about where they bicker about politics

SO. This is the WORST time to be writing 1.5k of fiction about a modern (well, 90′s) AU starring two dudes who have never even spoken to each other in canon, but uh, the world is awful and I consider creating rarepair content a form of self-care, so here we go.

The context for this is of course, JJ is second-generation Korean-American from LA, Piandao is a foreign student from Taiwan pursuing a doctorate in the US. The year is 1993 and ideas about race, activism, the term “Asian-American” are all up in the air. We are one year post the ‘92 L.A. race riots and four years away from antiretroviral therapy becoming the new treatment standard for HIV. The AIDS crisis is in full swing, as it has been since the 80′s. Welcome to America.

“Jujube”

The week after his appendectomy, Piandao is up and moving around by the end of the third day, a full four days ahead of schedule. His shoulder aches, the scar on his stomach hurts, but still, he is up and moving, even though Jeong Jeong rolls his eyes when he catches him walking up and down the length of his bedroom, working the muscles that are suffering more from being bed-bound than from surgery.

Jeong Jeong, underneath the surly exterior, is a surprisingly maternal caretaker. Piandao has no appetite for anything flavourful in the first few days, which the nurses said was normal. So for every meal since he’s back from the hospital, Jeong Jeong cooks him a bowl of porridge and does it with a degree of care that Piandao honestly did not know he possessed. Piandao wouldn’t have minded just plain white rice and water, but Jeong Jeong, in his typical Jeong Jeong-fashion, disagreed. He spends a long time in Piandao’s kitchen every morning, making what he claims is the superior (ie, Korean) juk that his mother makes, but is really exactly similar to the zhou Piandao is used to back home, only it’s made by an angry Korean man swearing at the morning cable news, taking only occasional breaks to bemoan the sad state of Asian grocery stores in Midwest college towns.

“I’m feeling well enough to cook,” Piandao says on the morning of his fourth day home. “JJ, relax. You don’t have to do everything around here.”

Jeong Jeong looks up from his work: crushing sesame seeds in a plastic bag with the back of a soup spoon. “Shut the fuck up,” he says easily.

“I can at least wash the dishes—“

“I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to Bill Ritter.”

Piandao looks at the television in the corner. A news show was on, some Sunday morning thing he doesn’t remember seeing before. Currently, it was showing them three glossy-looking American hosts sitting on glossy-looking American couches. A man in a beige suit was saying something very earnest about the President and Haiti and also taxes. Piandao guesses that he’s Bill Ritter.

“Fucking Clinton already retracting on his fucking word,” Jeong Jeong mutters, then smashes the spoon down with ferocious force; in their plastic bag, the sesame seeds die and ascend to paste in an instant.

Piandao bites back a smile. He switches the channel: ads now, more glossy Americans driving glossy American cars, big and square. The ad changes: a family of four arriving at a motel, everything even bigger and squarer than the previous one. The mother in a big square jacket; the father smile with big square teeth. The kids chatter in excited tones: We’re so happy to be at Holiday Inn Express! Then Piandao hits the off button, and the American family disappears; the screen puckers up into dark silence again.

He slowly feels his way into the kitchen instead. He rather watch Jeong Jeong cook.

On the stove, the porridge bubbles. Jeong Jeong adds the pounded sesame and gives it a stir, then adds more sugar, then milk. He ladles it into two bowls and brings it over to the kitchen table, which is also the living room table, which is also Piandao’s desk where he grades students’ lab reports and corrects exams. There were a few back issues of various astrophysics journals still stacked there; Jeong Jeong puts them to use as coasters. Volume 10, issue 4 of Space Science Review goes to Piandao’s bowl; the special Winter 1992 edition of Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics to Jeong Jeong. Piandao, trailing behind him, brings the spoons. They sit down, knees almost touching.

“How is it?” asks Jeong Jeong.

Piandao blows on his spoon and takes in a mouthful. “Not bad,” he says. “Although it’ll be better with some – I don’t know the word – but those little red fruits.”

“Jujubes,” says Jeong Jeong, and then: “Fuck off, be grateful for what you’ve got. You know how long it took me to even locate some sesame seeds in a Salt Lake City grocery store?”

Sunday morning slants in from between the slats of the crooked window blinds. In the sharp angle of the light, his features look different: the sun picks out the bronze-ish tint in his dark hair, makes the shell of his ear glow pink and red. In front of him, the steam from the porridge unfurls in delicate, thin grey spirals.

Piandao put his spoon down. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says. “You really didn’t have to. The plane ticket from Los Angeles must have been expensive.”

A shrug. “Couldn’t let you die alone in Utah, of all places.”

“It was just an appendectomy. How much did you pay for the flight? I can…I can pay you back, the university gives me a stipend, I can afford it.”

Jeong Jeong sets his spoon down too, picks up the bowls and takes them over to rinse in the sink.

“When I got the call from the secretary,” he says, not looking up from the dish sponge. “She didn’t say what happened. She just said, please can you be informed that Mr. Liu has been taken to the hospital for a medical emergency, she had just gone down the list of his emergency contact numbers and you happened to be the first one who picked up, and then she hung up. I barely got the name of the hospital out of her before she did. Nothing more. I called back and got a busy line. And then I thought – I started thinking – I didn’t know what I was thinking. I got scared. I just came back from SF that day – I went to see Johnny and Gene at the General, and when I got back in and the phone rang and the woman said you were sick too…I don’t know.”

The bowls, scrubbed to death, are getting beyond clean. Jeong Jeong throws the sponge down, where it lands with a wet smack.

“I know you’re not like me,“ he adds wretchedly. “I mean, I know you’re not a homosexual. And besides: fucking Utah? Of all places? I knew it was probably nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Piandao says.

Jeong Jeong stabs a finger in his direction. “But don’t you dare pay me back though. Don’t you even try that shit on me. I will actually punch you if you try.”

Piandao says nothing. He pictures the cramped kitchenette of Jeong Jeong’s apartment off Hoover Street, with its ugly green plastic phone duct-taped to the wall, opposite to the grimy stove and the eternal stacks of takeout containers and the Proud Berkley Grad of ’87 fridge magnet that Piandao had bought him as a joke, when Jeong Jeong finally carried through on his threats and really dropped out, for good this time. He pictures Jeong Jeong stumbling back in fron the hospital, exhausted, and then accepting a long-distance call from Utah anyways.

Jeong Jeong had taken the call and flew out the very next morning. He had came in such a hurry that he brought nothing with him other than the clothes he was wearing and a backpack full of California oranges, because he had some idea that vitamin C was vital to every patient’s recovery, no matter the ailment. He had come to Piandao.

Times like this, Piandao wishes his English is better. Even now, after five years in this country, he has no way to express how he feels, right now, standing in the doorway of his kitchen while Jeong Jeong slams dishes and utensils back into their drawers, shoulders hunched over. Something hot and formless is coursing through his chest, but Piandao can’t shape it. He can’t forge the thing into words.

Perhaps there’s no words at all for this in English. Not in Chinese, either, and not in Korean. There are no words for this in any language in the world.

So Piandao reaches out instead. He touches a hand to the curve of Jeong Jeong’s back, and when Jeong Jeong looks over, questioning, he clears his throat and says:

“I liked it. The zhou.”

“You mean juk,” Jeong Jeong corrects him, as contrary as ever.

“Alright, the juk. It was very good.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not shitting me?”

“No. I should call your mother, tell her what a good chef her son is becoming.”

“Fuck off,” Jeong Jeong says, but he smiles anyways.

Piandao smiles back. His hand is still where he put it, resting on Jeong Jeong’s back, and he does not move it away. This, also – this is an unspoken message, but not for forever. Already Piandao can see the shape of it in his future. Something was unfurling between them, as delicate as steam, as marvellous as light.

#my fic #Avatar The Last Airbender #pianjeong #lmao my headcanon for this niche pairing is so insanely highly specific idk what to even do about this #not sure if this even makes sense #but also my brain desperately needs a distraction from the News (tm)#so to anyone who's into asian american history and rairpairs #bitch please #join me in the 90s #its also quite shit over there but i have the benefit of historical distance to cushion the misery

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inspired-by-the-music · 5 years ago

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For You: 4 O’Clock

Taglist: @jineunwootrash @jamies-kpop-reactions

Chapter 12: Untouched by Time

I woke from a restless sleep the next morning when Heechul’s screams shook the entire house. “Aish! This is why I never do anything nice! I wake up at the crack of dawn to make that woman breakfast in bed, and I end up with first degree burns from this stupid death oven!”

His outburst might have been funny were it not for a) Heechul’s genuine whimpers of pain as he climbed the stairs (I imagined) to carry a breakfast tray into Mom’s room and b) my fear that Taemin would be roughly shaken from his sleep by chaos so early in the morning.

That was nothing to be worried about, I realized, when I rolled onto my side and saw that he was still sound asleep, pretty pink lips parted and dripping drool onto the white pillowcase. Taemin looked so beautiful, so tranquil, so happy that I willed myself to ignore the sun glaring at me. I willed myself to ignore its warnings that it was time for him to leave.

I didn’t want him to leave even if I held the hope that he would return to my side with the rising of the moon. There was no choice but to wake him, though, when I made out the faint sounds of Heechul considering, “Maybe I should make something for Lei. I never saw her again last night after her fight with that dude with the angry eyebrows.”

I pushed the thought of Sehun— and the nauseating surge of emotions that rose in my chest with his image filling my mind— aside. Later, I decided, I would think about him.

It didn’t matter that Mom discouraged Heechul from barging into my room with pancakes or something. “You don’t have time for that, Heechul. We have to drive Mom to the airport soon.” With the house awakening, the likelihood of being caught with Taemin in my room increased with each passing second.

Laying atop Taemin, hoping to savor for as long as possible the feeling of his skin against mine, his heartbeat racing to meet mine, I carded my hands through his hair. I tried to sate my disappointment in the realization that my earliest words in our first full day of being an official couple would be along the lines of, “You have to go.” I laid a kiss on his forehead, and then another on the tip of his nose, and then one on his cheek and then the other, and then his chin, and—

“Lei.” Taemin smiled in the early morning sunlight as he tightened his arms around my waist. “Please tell me that the sun isn’t up yet.” He kept his eyes closed even when I responded only by pressing another kiss to his jaw before burying my face in the warm crook of his neck.

He whined, “Ah, the sun woke up before me again.” He was kind enough to realize without my prompting, “That means it’s time for me to go.”

Moments passed quietly, with me breathing softly against Taemin’s neck while he traced formless shapes over my shirt. He whispered, “I don’t want to go.”

Although this was precisely the kind of thing I never should have said to Taemin, I confessed, “I don’t want you to go either.”

When I lifted my head and looked down at his pouting face, Taemin consoled, “You’ll see me at the New Years’ party in a few days.”

Maybe this makes me a little childish, but that gave me little comfort. I understood that Taemin and I could never go out on dates like normal people; we would never be the kind of people who held hands in darkened movie theaters or had anniversary dinners in the season’s most popular restaurant or even walked through a park together in broad daylight. I hated that the only places where I could look forward to seeing this person who held my heart were work studios, work banquet halls, or work hotel rooms. It was unfair that we could only be so close in the dark.

I always thought it was unfair, but I was never as bothered as I was that first morning of being Taemin’s girlfriend.

Climbing off of Taemin and peeling back the blanket to give him clear access to the window— he couldn’t very well walk out the front door with Heechul roaming the halls— I mumbled, “I can’t wait that long to see you again.”

I missed Taemin already, and he hadn’t even left yet. Was it too early to cling to him like this? Maybe it was, but I couldn’t help it.

Taemin didn’t seem to mind. Wearing a goofy smile, he leaned close to me, weight balanced on his knees. “Do you want me to come back again tonight?”

What was wrong with me? Obviously, the answer was a deafening, resounding “yes,” but I couldn’t nod my head or mutter the one-syllable word. I could only pick at a loose thread on my quilt as I shrugged and avoided Taemin’s gaze while chewing on my lips.

“I want to come back tonight,” Taemin admitted shamelessly, placing a warm hand on my knee over my pajama pants. “Can I? Please? Pretty please?”

I felt a little less embarrassed once Taemin reminded me that he wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him. He looked at me with wide, pleading eyes, and I shrugged again— playfully this time. “I’ll think about it.”

For a moment, Taemin forgot that we were being sneaky. He squealed, and I hushed him. “What’s so exciting anyway, silly?”

After pressing a kiss to my hairline, Taemin tiptoed over to the window, wearing Lucas’s sweatpants and t-shirt. “It’s just—” he smiled so widely that I had to smile too— “the last time you said ‘I’ll think about it,’ it meant ‘yes,’ and I got to hold you all night again.”

Before I could argue that I wasn’t making any promises that he could sneak in again that night (although, internally, I was) or at least remind him to take his clothes, Taemin shimmied out of the window. I watched him scale the building and run barefoot through the garden to the SuperM house.

Lucas was still asleep when I tiptoed into his room after folding Taemin’s party clothes and stuffing them into the space under my bed. The overhead light was turned off and the blinds and thick navy blue curtains were drawn closed over the window. In Lucas’s room, I could almost believe that the sun hadn’t risen. I could almost believe that when I walked over to peel back the curtains, I would be greeted by the moon.

The only thing Lucas hated more than being woken up before noon on rest days was being left out of gossip. Bearing that in mind, I was able to justify flicking the light on and humming loudly as I flung the curtains open and raised the blinds.

Lucas ceased snoring to grumble, “What the hell, Lei?” His face contorted in animated annoyance before he rolled onto his stomach to press his face into a fluffy pillow. “It’s too early to be conscious.”

I sat on the edge of his bed atop a thin blue blanket decorated with tiny white anchors. The blanket was expensive, the same quality of the sheets in Mom’s bedroom. The blue blanket was meant to be mine— Mom gave it to me last year as a Christmas present— but Lucas claimed it because I was never looking to replace my familiar blue quilt.

“Come on,” I urged, gripping one of Lucas’s legs through the blanket. “I have to tell you something.”

Lucas resumed snoring.

“Don’t you want to hear about how Taemin became my boyfriend last night?”

Lucas grunted, but he didn’t roll onto his back to greet me with any enthusiasm. I should have remembered that Lucas already thought that Taemin and I were dating. Then, it would have been obvious that talking about Taemin wouldn’t stir his interest.

While I had waited all night and all morning to tell Lucas about Sehun— our fight, our apology, our confession— I had been hoping to tiptoe toward the topic. I wasn’t ready to address it so soon.

Maybe I wanted more time to work through the shock. Maybe I wanted more time to strengthen myself against the sickening clenching that seized my heart when I remembered that finally— finally Sehun loved me the way I loved him, but the timing was all wrong.

Because I didn’t want to say anything that would belittle my love for Taemin, I bit my tongue. Even to Lucas— even to myself— I didn’t want to admit that a part of me still loved Sehun as it always had. A part of me was sick because I knew that if Taemin never took my ribbon or found me in the garden, my childhood perception of a happy ending (being the one who held Sehun’s heart) would have been realized.

Had I known that Sehun would fall in love with me, that it was just time separating me from the dream, would I have waited? Would I have waited for him? I certainly could have. For years and years, I saw nobody but him. I could have waited.

Something like regret churned my stomach. Sharp pain coursed through the veins around my temples. But I couldn’t quite regret the circumstances that kept me and Sehun apart. Maybe— I knew I regretted something, but not falling in love with Taemin. This was still the best version of the universe. I had to believe that.

I don’t remember how I ended up at Lucas’s side, back pressed against his headboard. I don’t remember how I told him about the previous night’s lifetime of emotions— about the old photograph, watching Mom cry, confronting Sehun, becoming Taemin’s girlfriend, finding out that Sehun loved me.

I just remember that Lucas’s eyes were wide and full of tears when he said, “Everything sucks.” Maybe it sounds a little anti-climactic, but that was exactly how I felt in that moment. I was grateful that Lucas could put my feelings in such simple terms. “Except that you and Taemin are official. That’s cute. That’s the only silver lining in all this.”

After I nodded in agreement, tracing one of the anchors on the blanket, Lucas asked, “Did you tell Taemin about Sehun’s confession?”

“No.” I shook my head.

Even if I hadn’t swelled with affection at the morning’s first sight of Taemin— even if I hadn’t been too consumed by the instinct to kiss him and hold him and love him to even think clearly about Sehun— I wouldn’t have mentioned Sehun’s confession. That wasn’t the right thing to do.

Aside from the obvious discomfort of telling Taemin about something that, frankly, was none of his business, I thought discussing Sehun could only strain our relationship. I didn’t want to tell Taemin about all of my memories with Sehun that made his confession feel as heavy as the weight of the entire world. I didn’t want to tell Taemin about the years that I spent following Sehun, never delusional enough to believe that he would ever look at me. I didn’t want to tell Taemin (and thereby have to relive the moment) that years of admiration fell apart.

Taemin probably didn’t want to hear how much I loved someone else, anyway.

Above all, Sehun admitted his feelings to me in confidence. Even if I couldn’t reciprocate them anymore, I wanted to protect them. If holding onto this secret put a distance between me and Taemin— if holding onto this secret meant that Sehun would always hold a piece of my heart (no matter how small) that I couldn’t entrust to Taemin— that was okay. That was okay with me even it wasn’t okay. Even if it wasn’t right.

Of course, I justified relating Sehun’s feelings to Lucas. I had to tell him. I couldn’t carry the weight of Sehun’s love alone. I couldn’t carry the weight of his broken heart alone. It was too heavy. What was heavy to me was never a burden to Lucas.

Lucas huffed. “Well, let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room.” He looked into my eyes. “Do you love Sehun?”

I was grateful that he hadn’t phrased his question as, “Do you still love Sehun?” Then, I might have felt trapped by the past. Then, I wouldn’t have been able to shake my head. “No.”

Squirming as if I told a lie— and I think I knew that I did— I averted my gaze and hoped that Lucas wouldn’t ask again.

Gently, Lucas disagreed. “I think you do, Lei. If you didn’t love Sehun, I don’t think you would burst into my room first thing in the morning to talk about him.”

I didn’t respond. No matter how I tried to hide, no matter how I tried to lie, Lucas always saw me. Sometimes, like that morning, being seen so clearly made me want to disappear. Couldn’t he believe my lies just once? Would it have been easier if Lucas wouldn’t challenge me to accept myself?

“The issue,” Lucas said, “is that the love Sehun wants— he had it once. It’s sad that he wants it now that you’ve given it to Taemin.”

Guilt racked through me— disordered my thoughts— and Lucas threw an arm around my shoulder as if to hold me together. “It sucks that you can feel this bad when you haven’t done anything wrong. Believe me, everything will be okay. Just like you accepted it when Sehun didn’t return your feelings, he’ll learn to be happy with the way you love him now. You know, he’ll be okay because the way you love Sehun— it really isn’t less than what you feel for Taemin. It’s just different.”

Maybe I would believe anything Lucas said with a sincere smile, or maybe Lucas was right.

People like to believe in one great love, and I was no different. I wanted to believe that Taemin was mine. I wanted to believe that we would find each other in every life, that every decision, every joy and every heartbreak forged me into the person Taemin would love. Viewing the world in terms of fate and destiny made dull days seem meaningful. I was enchanted by the idea that everything works out as it should even in matters of love.

When I looked at Lucas, though, smiling at me as warmly as he had on our first day of friendship years ago— when I reflected on the years of memories with Sehun (disregarding the pain of that Christmas kiss) — I couldn’t deny that I had known love before Taemin. He probably had known love before me too.

Those realizations didn’t wind me, I guess, because Lucas reminded me that the heart is made to love many. I read once that there are all kinds of loves in this world, but never the same love twice. Maybe the trick is learning to recognize love. Or maybe the challenge is learning to appreciate love as it is without the burden of expectations.

All I knew for certain was that Lucas was right: I loved Sehun. I probably always would. I would have to accept that some loves are forever, but that doesn’t guarantee the happy ending I used to dream about. Maybe this was still the best version of the universe. By believing that, I could give my all and truly live in this time of loving Taemin.

And if there was another universe out there— one where Sehun and I loved each other in the same way at the same time— I hoped that I was happy there. I hoped it was every bit as wonderful as I once dreamed. There, I hoped, Sehun was happy too.

Lucas’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Hey.” He tightened his grip around my shoulders. “Whatcha thinking about?”

Although I didn’t quite believe in alternate universes (no matter how often I daydreamed about them), I had comforted myself with my thoughts. My smile was genuine when I answered, “Nothing much. I’m just thinking that I’m really glad we met, ya know?”

Lucas’s eyebrows darted upward. He smirked, “Is this your way of saying that you love me, Lei?”

Maybe I didn’t tell him enough. I sat there wondering if I had ever told Lucas that I loved him, but before I could confidently assure him that I did— that in every lifetime, I couldn’t exist without having him as my best friend— three knocks sounded at the door.

Without removing his arm from its place around my shoulder, without considering our compromising position, Lucas warmly said, “Come in!”

Mom pushed the door open. Standing behind Mom, Heechul demanded, wide-eyed, “What the hell is going on here?” Leave it to pervert Heechul to misunderstand friendship as if he didn’t frequently cross the same boundaries with Mom that Lucas crossed with me.

My face burned less at having been caught sitting on Lucas’s bed and more at the memory of Grandma catching Taemin in my room the night before. I squirmed out of Lucas’s embrace.

“We’re just talking,” Lucas and I responded simultaneously. I chewed on the inside of my cheek; even when we told the truth, we sounded like a couple of liars.

Unconvinced, Heechul rounded on Mom, stunned by her lack of outrage. “You knew about this, didn’t you? This is why you told me not to bring Lei breakfast!”

“Get out of my face, Heechul!” Mom swatted him away and filled the doorway. Gaze shifting between me and Lucas, Mom said, “I just wanted to tell you that Heechul and I are taking Grandma to the airport, so we'll be out for a while.”

“And that means—” Heechul pointed a harsh finger at Lucas— “that you have to leave!”

Lucas’s jaw dropped, and he pressed a palm flat over his chest which (I now realized) was bare. I rolled my eyes, wondering why we could never do anything without causing a scandal, even at home.

“Me?” Lucas pouted. “I have to leave?”

Although Heechul sternly nodded, eyebrows pinching together just above his eyes, Mom shook her head. “No, Lucas, I’ve told you a thousand times— this is your home, especially around the holidays. Just—” her mouth twitched in amusement or subdued disapproval— “make sure you use protection.”

Heechul, Lucas, and I gasped.

Brushing past Heechul into the hallway, Mom instructed, “Check the top drawer in the nightstand.”

Lucas obeyed and stared down into the drawer, too shocked by its contents to close it. Flustered, I ran a hand through my hair as Heechul argued with Mom. “That is so inappropriate!” He poked his head back into the room to lecture, “You better not do anything naughty under my roof!”

I couldn’t quite appreciate the humor of Heechul being so protective or feel amused that Mom screamed back, “First of all, this is my house! Second of all, let those kids live! They deserve to be happy and do what kids their age do!”

Was she speaking as a mother or as a manager? Even though Lucas and I were 21— technically adults— it didn’t seem like she was saying the right things.

“Come on, Heechul! Mom is already in the car! If you don’t get down here in five seconds, I’m leaving without you!”

Heechul eyed me and Lucas one more time before walking through the open door and running downstairs.

Closing the nightstand’s drawer at last, Lucas mumbled, “That was weird,” which deepened my discomfort because Lucas never thought anything was weird.

I agreed. “Yeah. That was pretty disgusting.”

“Yeah.” Lucas returned to his place next to me. He sat stiffly, holding his hands in his lap. Moments passed in silence— a rarity with Lucas— before he wondered aloud, “Do you really think it would be disgusting if you and I— you know?”

I cut my eyes at him, assuming that I could deflate his joke with a glare. There were no traces of humor in Lucas’s expression, but I shook my head anyway. “I’m not having sex with you just because Mom thinks—”

Red-faced, Lucas interrupted. “Well, obviously we’re not gonna do it! You have Taemin now.” Lucas spoke as if Taemin were all that kept us from crossing that rather serious boundary. Suddenly dropping his gaze down to the hands joined in his lap, Lucas shrugged. “I’m not saying that I want to do it. I just don’t know that it would be that gross with you. I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”

After being chased by dating rumors for so many years, how could Lucas have never considered what life would be like if the fans were right? I wanted to argue— to believe that he had considered me romantically and then dismissed those feelings just as I had considered him romantically for the briefest subconscious second before easily shaking the thoughts from my mind.

When I looked at Lucas, however, his brow was furrowed in concentration. He was re-imagining me, reconsidering me, and I didn’t like it.

“Hey! Cut that out!” I swiped at his bare arm. “It’s not gonna happen, Lucas, so don’t make things weird!”

‘Please,’ I almost said, but then I would have been making things weird. Looking back, I see that maybe we didn’t carefully toe the line between friendship and something almost romantic. Maybe the line was blurred. Ambiguous. I never would have admitted it, though, so there’s little point in trying to see us clearly now.

Lucas whined, “Ow!” and rubbed at his arm. “That really hurt, Lei! You don’t slap Taemin around like this, do you?”

I shook my head and crossed my arms, and Lucas laughed, and it felt like everything was back to normal. It felt like the uncomfortable season was passing. Although nothing was really resolved, I felt like I could finally be happy.

Let it be known that I was a fangirl first and an idol second. Somehow— by fate or some miracle— I had discovered an especially well written fanmade series about SuperM. I was lured in because Taemin and I were tagged as the main couple and, as you well know, I was starved for Taemin content. Plus, I think, I was excited that somebody else saw our potential as a couple even if I couldn’t publicly confirm it.

By the time I was about ¾ of the way through the story, however, it became apparent that Baekhyun (of all people) had been my true soulmate all along. Although flustered and vaguely disappointed that my fictional happy ending wouldn’t be with Taemin, I couldn’t abandon the story. I was too invested. And, over the course of several chapters, I had fallen for the fictionalized Baekhyun.

On the day of S.M.’s New Years’ Party, I arrived at the banquet hall hours early with Mom. Sitting alone at a table in the corner, reading the story and answering the occasional disruptive text from Taemin or Lucas, I wondered how the author planned to tie up so many loose ends with just one remaining chapter.

Maybe, I hoped to settle the knots tightening in my stomach, she would write a sequel!

As I allowed myself to smile at the thought, a loud CRASH sounded in the kitchen. Before I could rise to straighten my blue dress and set toward the sound to investigate— before I could even wonder what happened— the staff gathered in the kitchen chorused, “BAEKHYUN!”

My face burned at his name. For a second, the lines between fiction and reality were blurred as my heart raced. Now that I knew Baekhyun was there, I couldn’t resume reading. Not wanting the fear that he might catch me reading a love story about us to ruin the long-awaited ending, I closed out of the app on my phone and stuffed it into my purse.

Baekhyun walked out of the kitchen, face crimson, and beelined toward me. Wearing a midnight blue suit, black hair combed neatly to the side, masquerade mask (as that was the theme of the party) concealing half of his face, he was almost unrecognizable. Adult. Handsome. Yet, I preferred his boyish smile to his tense expression.

Mentally scolding myself for staring at Baekhyun as if I had never seen him before— as if he had walked from the pages of that imaginary story where we were in love— I asked, “Are you okay?”

He didn’t answer. He just held his hand out to me and pleaded, “Come with me, please.”

I stood, matching his height in my heels, but I didn’t take his hand. Maybe I was overthinking a meaningless gesture, but I felt that we weren’t meant to hold hands, so I wrapped my fingers around the strap of my purse. “Okay.” I nodded and bit my tongue because I didn’t want to bother him with my questions about where we were going.

Baekhyun blinked at the hand I rejected and stuffed it into his pants’ pocket. “Here.” He pressed Mom’s credit card into my hand before reaching back into his pocket for a set of keys.

The keys, I realized once Baekhyun led me outside, belonged to one of the company vans. Like he had on our late-night run to Buffalo Wild Wings in Atlanta, he held the door open for me. “We have to go buy some champagne glasses to replace the ones I just shattered in the kitchen.”

As Baekhyun climbed into his seat, I fastened my seatbelt. “Oh. Is that what caused the crash in the kitchen?”

The answer was obvious enough when Baekhyun’s face flushed maroon. I regretted saying anything at all when his hands gripping the wheel turned an unnatural white. “God, I’m such a clumsy moron!”

My eyes widened, unaccustomed to seeing an unhappy Baekhyun. Granted, sometimes the joy he derived from chaos annoyed me or made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t know how to feel when Baekhyun wasn’t smiling. As I sat there, shrinking in the passenger seat, it occurred to me that I had no idea how to make him smile again.

In a small voice, I started, “You’re not—”

But I was cut off by the sudden screeching of tires and Baekhyun shrieking, “Shit!”

Too stunned to ask, I didn’t quite understand what happened until TVXQ’s Max Changmin, coincidentally one of the most breathtakingly handsome men in the world, poked his head into Baekhyun’s open window. “In a hurry there, buddy?”

Too embarrassed to meet Changmin’s eyes, which were not yet concealed by a mask, Baekhyun whispered apologies about a thousand times in a span of thirty seconds.

I guess it’s hard to stay mad at somebody who is so contrite, even if they did just almost run you over with a company vehicle. Patting his fist on the door, Changmin said, “Don’t sweat it. You barely grazed me!”

At once overwhelmed by the realization that Baekhyun had backed into Changmin— CHANGMIN— I gasped. Baekhyun whirled around in his seat to look at me with wide eyes like he had forgotten I was there. “Lei, are you okay?”

“Me?” I gawked at Baekhyun’s misplaced concern and leaned forward to get a clear look at Changmin. “Are you okay?”

Smiling as if to prove his lack of injury, Changmin nodded. “I’m alright! Like I said, Baekhyun barely bumped into me—” I wanted to retort that Baekhyun shouldn’t have hit him at all, but Changmin instructed— “so don’t get too mad at him, alright?” so I gnawed on my tongue.

After I swore to Baekhyun’s pout that I wasn’t angry— I was just a little startled— Changmin stepped away from the window. “I gotta go. I promised Ms. Kim that I would arrive early to help her set up for the party.” He wagged a finger at Baekhyun. “Drive carefully with my little wife, alright?”

With color rising to my face at Changmin’s well-mannered teasing as I waved to him, Baekhyun slowly drove out of the parking lot. He must have been truly mourning the destruction of the champagne glasses and/or the near destruction of poor Changmin; Baekhyun didn’t ask me about the ‘little wife’ comment until we were well down the street. Super Junior’s “Somebody New,” blaring through the van’s speakers, was nearly over.

“It’s a joke,” I explained.

“Well, duh.” Baekhyun stuck his tongue out at me, and I guessed that meant his weird mood had passed. I was glad. “I think I’d know if you were married to Changmin!”

I shrugged, and Baekhyun asked, “Isn’t he, like, way older than you?”

“Just by, like, eleven years.” So I could properly hear Baekhyun,’s reaction, I turned the radio down. “Eleven years isn’t such a long time. Have you ever thought that I haven’t dated anyone all these years because I’ve been secretly married to Max Changmin, the dreamiest guy in the universe?”

Like it was even vaguely possible that I could have been telling the truth, Baekhyun glanced at me with a single raised eyebrow. Within seconds, we broke into side splitting laughter.

Between giggles, I admitted, “When I was a little kid, like way before I ever debuted, I used to say that my dream was to marry Changmin.” Baekhyun snorted, and I defended myself by saying, “Just look at him, Baek! Marrying Changmin is still a solid goal if you ask me.”

“Cute,” Baekhyun hummed. “I wonder if that’s why Sehun went through that phase where he rolled his eyes whenever Changmin was mentioned.”

My face paled at Sehun’s name, but I don’t guess Baekhyun noticed. He told me, “Sehun had a pretty big head about the fact that some cute little kid— you— looked at him with hearts in her eyes. I bet he didn’t like that you looked at Changmin the same way.”

I didn’t look at Changmin the same way. I never looked at anybody the way I looked at Sehun, just like I never looked at anyone the way I looked at Taemin. Some things are special, but I couldn’t explain that to Baekhyun, so I shrugged and turned my gaze out the window.

Would it be like this forever? I had long since been unable to remember Sehun from those days without frowning in time with the sad twinging of my heart, but life was different now that my frown wasn’t formed by anger or the sting of rejection. It was worse now.

“Are you okay?” Baekhyun asked.

Although I was certain that he had watched my argument with Sehun at the Christmas party, was it possible that Baekhyun hadn’t actually overheard anything? Even if he had heard everything, could our words have made any sense when he knew little about my past with Sehun? I didn’t know.

Regardless of what Baekhyun might have assumed or imagined, it was evident from his frown that he hadn’t known that Sehun was a sensitive topic.

“I just don’t really want to talk about Sehun.” Although Baekhyun hadn’t asked for a reason, when his frown deepened, I tried to lessen his concern by citing a trivial reason. “I’m just kinda annoyed with him, as usual.” I didn’t like saying it because it wasn’t true. I wasn’t annoyed with Sehun. I was just sorry. “He stole my mistletoe crown and—”

“He what?”

The mistletoe crown, I assumed, had been some kind of joke to Baekhyun, but when he stopped at a red light and looked at me, brows meeting between his eyes, it was evident that I had worsened his mood.

I stuttered, “I’m sorry,” and Baekhyun shook his head before turning his attention back to the road.

“What do you have to be sorry for, silly?” Baekhyun said nothing else about the mistletoe crown— thank goodness— because he preferred to turn the conversation back to the broken champagne glasses. “They were so beautiful, Lei. You know how everyone gets to keep a commemorative glass after the party?”

“Yeah.” I knew very well since the leftover glasses from years past filled cabinets in my mother’s home.

“Well, they’re always pretty, so I always look forward to seeing the New Year’s design.” Baekhyun must have been one of those people who found the small joys in life. “I’ve heard it said that you don’t have to touch to see, but when I see something so pretty—”

Baekhyun glanced over and grinned at the fact that I was carefully considering his every word. I raised my eyebrows. “When you see something so pretty?” Baekhyun was interesting because I could never predict where his thoughts would lead. I could never imagine the picture he would paint with his words.

“Huh?” Baekhyun blinked. “Oh! When I see something pretty, I get a little careless, but that doesn’t mean that I wanted to break those glasses. I didn’t want your mom to look at me so tired and disappointed before saying, ‘go downtown and pick up the extra glasses I have on reserve at that Eternal Memories store.’”

I guess it made sense that Mom was prepared for the worst-case scenario; that was a part of her job. Trying to make him feel better, I said, “I know. It was an accident.” Then, probably thinking about the broken picture frame Taemin swept into the garbage can, I acknowledged, “Glass is more fragile than it looks.”

Baekhyun parked the van in front of a store that was actually called Eternal Memories. I thought that was an embarrassing, cliche sort of name for a store, but I guess it suited their theme of personalized gifts.

“We’re not talking about champagne glasses anymore, are we, Lei?” I would never get over how perceptive Baekhyun and Lucas were because they hid their wit or supernatural senses behind blinding smiles.

“I dunno.” Glancing at the time blinking on the car radio, I suggested, “Maybe I’ll tell you some other time.”

Baekhyun repeated, “Some other time,” and held his hand out for me to shake.

A promise.

Knowing that there wouldn’t be much time to talk again before, during, or after the party, imagining that I didn’t really want to tell Baekyun about the broken picture frame even if we had all the time in the world, I still took his hand without hesitation. I made a promise that couldn’t be realized.

“Still got your mom’s card?”

In response, I flashed the card in my hand, and Baekhyun cheered, “Alright!” He bounced out of his seat. Before I had even unfastened my seatbelt, Baekhyun had barreled down most of the sidewalk, right past the Eternal Memories shop.

“Where are you going?” I leaned out of the car window to call after him.

He turned to face me, mask also serving to protect his identity from those who passed him on the sidewalk. “I gotta go get something! You go in and deal with the champagne glasses!” Without giving me the chance to argue— not that I would have in my shock— Baekhyun turned around and continued down the street.

Unbelievable.

Kind of believable.

Cursing myself for getting swept into the position of cleaning up Baekhyun’s mess while he played around, I stepped out of the car and closed the door with a tired slam. There was no point in chasing Baekhyun or arguing once he set his mind to something— especially after he turned his back to me. I swallowed my annoyance, felt that my mask was still secured around my eyes, and ducked into the Eternal Memories store.

The line leading to the sole open register wasn’t especially long. The problem was that the couple in front of me was determined to argue with the cashier, a young guy who couldn’t have been much older than me, for the rest of time. Well, the male half of the couple wanted to argue.

While he ranted about how his girlfriend’s name had been misspelled on a sparkling red ornament, the girlfriend cradled her face in her hands. I didn’t blame her. As a witness, I was embarrassed by his behavior.

A man wearing a manager’s name tag appeared from the back of the store, I hoped, to open another register. A disappointed wheeze passed through my lips when he instead focused on diffusing the dispute between the customer and the young cashier. Realizing quickly that I wouldn’t be leaving the store with the replaced glasses any time soon, I tried to soothe my temper by fixing my attention on the shelves of high-end commemorative merchandise.

After admiring snow globes, discounted (but still expensive) ornaments, and music boxes, my eyes fell on a picture frame with a small infinity symbol etched into the corner. I’m not sure which I remembered first: Donghae’s shattered picture frame or the infinity bracelet that he promised to give me that night. I’m not sure which memory prompted me to purchase the picture frame once the disruptive couple (finally) left after the girlfriend stormed out, shrieking until her face turned red, “I don’t even want that stupid ornament! You ruined Christmas by complaining about it, and now you’re ruining the new year with all this bickering!”

The boyfriend nearly knocked me over on his race out the door. He left the problem ornament sitting on the edge of the counter, and it remained there after I left. I don’t know if he ever returned for it or got it replaced with the correct spelling of his girlfriend’s name. I don’t really care.

After I instructed the Eternal Memories employee to pack the box of replacement glasses into the van’s trunk, I found Baekhyun sitting on the rim of a nearby foundation despite a sign that (I realized upon closer inspection) read: “PLEASE DO NOT SIT ON THE FOUNTAIN.”

Although I didn’t obey his gesture to sit at his side because I didn’t want to break the rules myself, I didn’t have the heart to tell Baekhyun about the sign discouraging his behavior. Pointing at the bag in my hand, he asked, “What’s that?”

Instead of answering, I deflected the question, pointing at the box in his lap, then the drink in his hand that he eagerly sucked through a neon green straw. “What are those?”

“Boba tea.” He revealed that he had hidden another cup behind his back. “Here’s yours!”

Although I didn’t really care for milk tea, I accepted the cup with a smile. “Thank you.”

He held the box out to me too. I only accepted it when he nodded, “Here, this is for you too.”

Unwrapped, it looked like the box he and Sehun gave me at the Christmas party— the one that contained the mistletoe crown I would never hold again. The crown I hadn’t wanted until it was gone.

I glanced at Baekhyun to ask where had gone and why, but my question died when I realized that his gaze had turned away from me to settle on the setting sun. It was weird. Baekhyun had never done anything without excitedly monitoring the reaction. So why didn’t he look at me?

Unsure of what to say, I quietly opened the box and blinked at the crown of white roses sitting atop pale orange tissue paper. I set my picture frame and tea next to Baekhyun so I could use both hands to gingerly remove the crown. What had Taemin said about white roses? I tried to remember.

Pure love. Secrecy. Baekhyun probably didn’t know that meaning. The color of these roses didn’t mean anything, but I blushed nonetheless. Contemplating the significance of roses, I didn’t mind that Baekhyun peeked into the bag containing the picture frame; I just wondered why he didn’t examine it more closely before setting it back down at his side.

Swallowing the lump in my throat— I could only react to such unexpected kindness with tears— I croaked, “You didn’t have to buy this.”

“Didn’t I?” Baekhyun quirked a brow at me and straightened the rose in his coat pocket. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was pretty.

I shook my head. “No, you didn’t have to give this to me.” But I was glad he did. To prove it, I fixed the crown onto my head and, clutching it so it wouldn’t fall onto the cobbled path beneath my feet, I bowed to Baekhyun. “Thank you.”

He blinked at me, face glowing the same sunset pink coloring the clouds. “Don’t make a big deal of it,” he muttered as a small smile curled his lips.

Maybe he didn’t think it was a big deal, but I kind of did.

Leaving all of our collected items on the fountain’s rim to stand by my side, Baekhyun spent the next few moments in silence before deciding, “You’re welcome.”

Because it seemed like the proper thing to do, I offered, “I’ll repay you,” but Baekhyun shook his head.

“You’ve already repaid me.” He looked away from the sunset or the fountain or whatever he had been admiring to explain, “You— uh—” his eyes darted away from me— ��you smiled when you opened it.”

Before I could wonder how a smile could be an adequate payment, Baekhyun ran away. “We should probably go, huh? The moon and stars will be out soon, and that means that the fireworks at the party will start, and—”

Baekhyun was rambling. He always talked a lot, but there was always some chaotic method to his speech even if I couldn’t understand it. Perhaps more than ever, Baekhyun was acting like a normal person— how a normal person would react to embarrassment— but Baekhyun couldn’t get embarrassed. Besides, what had he done to justify any degree of shame?

Perhaps more than ever, I couldn’t understand Baekhyun. Rather than questioning him and risk making him more uncomfortable— or, worse, risk receiving answers that I couldn’t understand— I interrupted, “Did you know this is a wishing fountain?”

He held all of our purchases in his hands. “Oh, really?” His glance into the water must have revealed that coins littered the marble floor. “Before we go, let’s make a wish, okay?”

Baekhyun dropped our bags back onto the rim of the fountain and plucked his wallet from his pocket. I hadn’t the chance to mumble that I didn’t have any coins before he pressed a particularly worn one into my palm.

“Watch this.” He stood with his back to the fountain and flicked the coin over his shoulder. It landed at the feet of the baby Cupid statue standing in the center of the fountain. Perhaps startled by the lack of a splash, Baekhyun spun around. “Did I make it?”

He rushed to the fountain, trying to see where his coin had landed among others in the water. He seemed so determined to find it there that I was almost reluctant to tell him, “It landed at the angel’s feet.” Once I noticed Baekhyun’s small pout, I said, “When Super Junior used to take me to places like this when I was a kid, we aimed for the statues. It was something like getting bonus points.”

The bonus points, I think, were just their excitement at having been destructive to public property.

Baekhyun beamed. “Then that means my wish will definitely come true!”

Did he even take the time to make a wish before launching his coin into the air? He must have. Otherwise, why would he have smiled at me like that?

One of the last times I went to a wishing fountain, Eunhyuk told me that only little kids ask others what they wished for, and Donghae quietly explained that if you tell someone your wish, it won’t come true. I don’t know that I believed in Donghae’s imagination even as a kid, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask Baekhyun what he wished for.

I don’t know if I ever believed that fountains could grant wishes, but I wished that in the coming year, everyone I knew and loved would find happiness— especially Mom and Donghae and Sehun. I even pressed a kiss to Baekhyun’s dirty coin like Donghae taught me before tossing it into the water with a big splash.

“Oops,” Baekhyun huffed. Evidently, he decided that the goal was indeed to peg baby Cupid. “Maybe You’ll make it next time.”

“Maybe,” I shrugged and reached for my picture frame and tea. “We should probably go now, especially because we have to stop by my house before we go back to the banquet hall.”

“Your house?” Baekhyun raised his eyebrows as we rounded back to the van. He opened the door for me again. “Why do we have to go there? Won’t we be late?”

Baekhyun never struck me as the kind of person who cared much about punctuality, but maybe, I thought as I watched him ease into his seat and set the car onto the street, I didn’t really know Baekhyun well at all. That was too bad. I would have to get to know him better in the future.

I started to say that we didn’t have to go if my house was too far out of the way, but Baekhyun spoke instead. “Do you have to go get the picture for the frame you bought?”

There was little point in denying my plan. “Yeah.”

Baekhyun nodded and, without saying another word, he turned toward my house. I opened my mouth to thank him, but he started to sing a song— one I couldn’t recognize— that blared through the speakers.

Unable to say what I wanted to say, unable to sing along, I lowered the sun visor and adjusted the rose crown on my head. Then, I noticed that the roses were accented by blue baby’s breath. I made a mental note to research whether there was any symbolism behind that, but I think I forgot. I wish I had remembered.

“Hey!” Baekhyun interrupted his song with a yell. “I told you not to make a big deal about it!” I didn’t really know what he was talking about until he pointed at the flower crown.

I didn’t apologize for admiring it or anything. Once I was satisfied that the crown wasn’t lopsided or anything, I closed the visor and snorted at Baekhyun’s returned blush.

While Baekhyun waited in the van, I dashed upstairs to my bedroom, where I learned to reconcile the past and the present by fitting the old photograph into its new frame. This time, when we smiled back at me, neither sadness nor regret seized my heart. This time, I realized that I would see those same smiles— just a bit aged— at the party.

Finally, I understood as my thumb traced over the infinity symbol in the corner of the frame, the smiles shone forever in my memory. There, they were safe. There, they remained untouched by time.

One must be mindful when mourning the passage of time. If you spend too much time looking back, you risk missing the beauty currently before you, and that is no small tragedy. You can’t look too anxiously toward the future, either. You can ruin the night if you spend the time worrying about what could happen when the sun rises— that’s what Taemin taught me.

The only option, then, is to live in the present. I decided to try harder to live for now.

After setting the picture frame down on the vanity, convinced that it would make its way back to its rightful owner— Donghae— even if I didn’t return it to him myself, after glancing fondly at Donghae’s smiling poster (which Lucas had helped me return to its place on the wall the morning after the Christmas party), I ran downstairs and out the front door to find Baekhyun smiling in the van’s driver’s seat. I would have asked what he was so happy about were it not for the sudden buzzing of my phone.

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mischiefandspirits · 4 years ago

Text

Doppelgänger (8/?)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Lucky in Love, Part 1}

A heatwave had hit Amity Park, which meant all the teens could be found in one place: Floody Waters.

“It’s way too hot,” Tucker said and winked at a guy that was passing. “Just like the people.”

“I don’t think it’s hot,” Sam said, choosing to ignore the second part.

“Are you kidding, I’m broiling,” Danny huffed, tugging at his swim binder.

Sam frowned at him, then took off her hat and put it on his head. “That better, baby?”

Danny gave her a look as he pushed the hat’s veil off his face. “I don’t know, are you sure you’re not going to catch on fire if you let the sun touch your skin.”

“Seriously, how are you not hot in this?” Tucker asked as he tugged at the edge of the black cloak she was wearing over her bathing suit.

She shrugged. “It’s just not hot. And I need to keep up the goth aesthetic.”

“Well far be it for me to mess with your aesthetic,” Danny chuckled and pulled the hat off to give back to her.

“If you’re overheating -”

“I’m fine, really.”

She gave him a look that said she didn’t completely believe him, but took the hat.

“Hey, Danny!”

Danny smiled and turned to Valerie as she walked up. “Hey, Val.”

She smiled back, then turned to Sam and Tucker with a pinched expression. “Foley. Manson.”

“Whatever,” Sam said, turning to face the front of the line they were waiting in.

Tucker followed her lead.

Danny frowned at them before focusing on Valerie. In a quiet voice, he asked, “Is your thermos working okay now?”

“Yeah, thanks for the help. I don’t know why it didn’t work before.”

“You got an older model, electricity-powered. The new ones are powered by ectoplasm. I don’t know how one of the old ones even got on the market.”

“I don’t either. I guess it’s a good thing I know you,” she said, setting her hand on his shoulder.

Sam snorted.

Danny sighed and let Sam and Tucker go ahead without him when the line moved up. “Sorry about them. They’re just protective.”

“It’s alright, I get it,” she said, squeezing his shoulder then letting it go. “Are we still on for tomorrow?”

“Of course. See you then.”

“See you.” Danny watched Valerie wander off then ran up to join his partners.

“Done flirting with disaster?” Sam asked.

“I’m not flirting, and she’s not that bad.”

“Tell that to our bruises.”

“We don’t have any bruises,” Danny huffed. “And I’m the one that usually fights her since I have the best chance at evading so I don’t see what your guys' problem is.”

“That’s exactly our problem,” Sam hissed, turning to him with yellow eyes. “She shoots at you every chance she gets and you’re still trying to cuddle up to her.”

“I’m not -”

“You are, even if you’re too clueless to see it. And she’s definitely trying to cuddle up to you!”

Danny blushed. They weren’t… Valerie was just his sparring buddy. That’s it.

Their ghost senses went off.

Sam rolled her eyes. “I’ll go deal with it. Make sure clueless doesn’t get himself killed while I’m gone,” she told Tucker, shoving Danny towards him.

She had just gotten out of sight when the screaming started. Danny and Tucker looked over to see a dark shape hovering over the running crowd.

“It’s Johnny’s shadow,” Danny said. “We should find a place to hide in case Sam needs help.”

Tucker nodded and they jumped the railing, but ended up getting separated in the crowd. Danny ran for the bathrooms, only to be pushed out as soon as he slipped inside. He flushed as he realized he’d gone into the wrong one.

“Hello, ladies’ room!” Star said.

“I’d tell you to go to the men’s room, but I don’t think you qualify.”

Danny scowled at Paulina, one of the few classmates who went to elementary school with him. “That’s a low blow, even for you,” he muttered to her as he passed.

He was almost to the men’s room when he heard an unfamiliar scream in a familiar voice. He turned to see Shadow hovering over Valerie, glaring down at the huntress.

“Oh no you don’t.” He ran for the two, grabbing the Fenton Fisher out of his Space Fold. “Hey! Tall, dark, and formless, remember me?”

Shadow turned to him and roared.

Danny tossed the line like a lasso to bind its arms. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Growling, the ghost flew into the air.

“Danny!” Valerie yelled as he was pulled along for the ride.

Shadow shrunk down to slip free then swooped down to grab Danny out of his free fall. It brought them face to face.

“I swear, if your biker pal is flirting with my sister again…”

Shadow snarled and dove.

Danny looked down to see them heading towards the sharp points topping a wrought iron fence that bordered the edge of one of the pools. His eyes darted about until they locked onto the emergency drain for the pool.

“Come on, slick,” he said and cast the fisher’s line, catching it on the fence on the other side of the pool. “Let’s see how well you mix with water.”

Using a bit of ghost strength he pulled the line hard enough to send them into the pool. Danny swam out and climbed up to the lever. He glanced back to see Shadow melting in the pool. He pushed the lever, saying, “Enjoy your trip to the sewers! Oh, and if you see Monday’s meatloaf, say hi for me.”

Danny jumped over the railing and was immediately grabbed. “Danny, that was so amazing!”

“Thanks, Val. You okay?”

“I’m great, thanks to you,” she said, then kissed him.

Oh. Oh! Maybe Sam wasn’t completely wrong.

Danny pulled back and tried to say something, but whatever had been on his tongue was lost when he spotted Sam floating behind the huntress with glowing green hands.

The half-ghost vanished.

“That’s for saving me.”

Danny blushed and pushed Valerie so she was at arms’ length. “Val, I, uh, I’m flattered and I like you, but I don’t know if-if I like you that way, you know.”

Valerie grabbed his hands and stepped closer. “Well, there’s only one way to know. Tomorrow, you and me.”

“We, uh, already had plans for tomorrow.”

“Those were plans, this is a date.” She kissed his cheek and walked away. “I’ll meet you at your house. Four o’clock.”

“Okay?” He watched her for a moment then buried his face in his hands. Sam? Tucker?

There was no response.

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

“For the record, she kissed me.”

…

“Come on, guys, you’re being ridiculous.”

Sam spun around and grabbed the front of his shirt. “You put yourself in danger! Put our secret in danger!”

“I couldn’t just sit back and let Shadow hurt Val.”

“What if she had seen your eyes when you used your power? What then?”

Tucker set his hand on Sam’s shoulder and gave Danny a blank look. “Dude, that was really dangerous. You know our human forms are a lot less durable. You could have really been hurt.”

“I’m sorry, guys, but I didn’t have time to change and Shadow knows me. Human me. I thought I could distract him long enough for Sam to get there.”

“You did a wonderful job of it,” Sam snapped and the two turned to walk away.

Danny sighed and went to the water fountain. He pressed the handle, but nothing came out.

The pipes rattled and Danny’s ghost sense went off.

Shadow burst from the nozzle.

“Oh no.”

The ghost’s green eyes landed on him and it grabbed him, phasing him through the floor.

“Come on, I’m already in trouble for tussling with you once. Can’t you find someone else to kick your butt?”

It glared at Danny and its hands tightened. Then Danny was sinking into it.

“What the -- Let go!”

They came out in the boiler room, but Danny only caught a quick glance before his head slipped into the darkness. There was a moment of weightlessness, then light stung his eyes and he was falling.

Arms wrapped around him, knocking the breath out of him.

Danny coughed and looked up to see Sam floating in front of him. He looked up and gave Tucker a smile. “Thanks.”

They nodded and flew back up through the ceiling. Once they were back in the halls, Tucker set him down.

“Danny!”

The two growled and Sam disappeared.

Valeria ran up and pulled him into a hug. “Are you okay? I saw people running and screaming.”

“I’m okay. That shadow ghost showed up again, but Doppelgänger saved me.”

She turned to Tucker with a smile. “Thank you.”

Danny’s jaw dropped and Tucker flinched back before disappearing.

“Did… you just thank them? You hate Doppelgänger.”

She blinked, then gave him a flirty smile. “Well, if they saved you they can’t be all bad.”

“Really?” Danny asked, excited. Was Valerie really reconsidering her stance on Doppelgänger?

She hummed then kissed his cheek. “Sit with me at lunch?”

“S-sure.” It wasn’t like Sam and Tucker were talking to him anyway. Maybe he could finally get through to her.

Something moved in the corner of his eye, but when he turned there was nothing there.

Shrugging, he took Valerie’s hand and walked with her to the cafeteria.

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

“You seem happy,” Jazz said as Danny came into the house.

He sent her a smile as he passed her perch on the couch. “I am. Val’s meeting me here at four. I’m going to go toss my backpack in my room.”

“You’re not usually this happy about your sparring sessions with Valerie,” Jazz said, suspicious.

Danny froze. What could he even tell her? Yeah, I’m thrilled because my friend is finally seeing that my ghost half isn’t an evil poltergeist out to ruin her life.

Jazz’s eyes widened. “Oh my gosh, are you going on a date?”

“What? No, of course not! Val and I are just friends!”

She smiled and turned back to her work. “Sure, little brother.”

“It’s not a date, Jazz,” he said, pushing aside the fact that Val wanted it to be a date.

“I won’t tell our parents, don’t worry.”

Danny marched up the stairs. He threw open his door, ready to spend the next ten minutes groaning into his pillow about how everyone in his life seemed to think he had a crush on Valerie, only to freeze at the sight of the ghost leaning against his desk.

“Where is she?” Johnny growled.

Danny glared at him and shut the door. “Like I told your shadow, you need to leave my sister alone.”

“I don’t care about your sister, punk. I want Kitty.”

“Who?”

“My girlfriend.”

He narrowed his eyes. “If you’re messing around with another girl’s head.”

“Calm down, punk. She’s a ghost. I only even went after your sister because Kitty got caught between here and the zone and needed a body.”

Danny opened the door. “JAZZ, GET TH-”

Johnny yanked him back and slapped a hand over his mouth.

“WHAT WAS THAT?”

The two teens shared glares then Danny shrugged the biker off. “NOTHING! NEVERMIND!”

There was a moment's pause, then Jazz gave the affirmative.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blast you all the way back to the zone?” Danny said, shutting the door.

“My girlfriend’s overshadowing yours.”

That was a very good reason. “Excuse me?”

Johnny pointed down at his shadow. “Shadow’s been tracking Kitty since she took off. He finally caught up to her right as she overshadowed your muscular girlfriend.”

“Valerie’s not my girlfriend!” Danny snapped.

“Sure, kid. That’s not what Shadow saw.”

Danny suddenly remembered the flicker of darkness he’d seen before lunch and rubbed a hand down his face.

Then he realized.

“Let me guess. Kitty overshadowed Val at the waterpark.”

“Yeah, right before you attacked Shadow.”

“In my defense, we didn’t exactly leave things on the best terms and I thought it -- he? -- was going to hurt Val.” So all the stuff about wanting to date him, the kiss, it was all Kitty. Which means Val wasn’t reconsidering her stance on Doppelgänger either. “And he’s the one who escalated from capture to kill.”

“Maybe if you learned to keep your nose out of other people’s business…”

“Uh, my sister. My friend. You and Kitty made it my business. Speaking of which, why is your girlfriend trying to date me?”

“Hell if I know. She just stormed off out of nowhere. Girls, you know.”

Danny stared at him. “Dude, I’ve spent enough time in a girl’s head to know that whole stereotype of girls getting angry for no reason is bs.”

“You’ve spent time in a girl’s head?” Johnny asked incredulously.

“You’re a ghost. You shouldn’t be surprised by weird psychic nonsense that happens around here.”

“You’re human.”

“My bedroom is directly above a portal to another dimension, a nerd who died in the fifties haunts my school locker, and my partners aren’t talking to me right now because my sister’s ex’s girlfriend kissed me while overshadowing my friend who they don’t like because she hates the local ghost kid that half my school has a crush on. My life is weird.”

Johnny didn’t respond.

“Yeah, so what did you do to tick off Kitty?”

Johnny huffed and leaned against the desk again. “Nothing.”

“Sure. What were you doing when she took off?”

“Driving around the next town over, keeping out of the ghost kid’s reach.”

Danny narrowed his eyes. “And how’d you get there without tipping them off that you were here?”

Johnny smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“We’re coming back to that. So you were driving, that’s it. What were you doing while driving?”

“Just checking out the sights. Maybe had Shadow run off some guys when they tried to hit on Kitty. Snagged a ham when she phased us through a meat truck.”

“We’re coming back to the theft too,” Danny said and Johnny rolled his eyes. “Why’d she phase you through a meat truck? Is that a thing you guys do?”

“I didn’t see the truck ahead of us while we were on my bike.”

“And what distracted you?”

The older teen shrugged. “The girls in the car next to us were cute.”

Danny facepalmed. “You’re an idiot.”

“Watch it.”

“You nearly crashed your girlfriend into a truck because you wanted to ogle other girls and you can’t figure out why she’d be mad?”

“I didn’t mean nothing by it. She knows that,” Johnny snorted.

“Are you sure about that?”

“We’ve been together since before you were born.”

“You literally said you still get jealous, so why can’t she?”

Johnny scowled and crossed his arms.

“So what are you going to do to fix this?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. It’s your girlfriend,” Danny said, then shrugged. “I mean, I can do it, but my idea of fixing it is calling up Doppelgänger to have them rip your girlfriend out of Val so we can all kick both your butts, but I didn’t think you’d like that plan.”

“And how do you expect me to fix it?”

“Apologize. Get her candy and flowers. I don’t know. She’s your girlfriend. How do you guys usually make up after a fight?”

“We make out.”

“You guys need help.” Danny opened his door.

“Where are you going?”

Danny ignored him and went to the stairs. “Hey, Jazz.”

“What?”

“My friend’s girlfriend caught him checking out other girls and now she’s ticked.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, so how would he make it up to her?”

“She can do better.”

“Come on, Jazz,” Danny said, losing the fight against his smile as he heard Johnny grumble behind him.

Jazz sighed and put down whatever she was working on to look up at him. “First, he needs to apologize. And actually mean it. A gift couldn’t hurt, but it should accentuate the apology, not pick up it’s slack. It should be something specific to her, to show that he’s thinking of her. Not flowers or candy, that’s too general. Though he can get her favorite candy or flowers to go with the main gift. Get something that connects to her interests. Preferably something she’s mentioned wanting, to show he’s been listening. Maybe there’s a book she doesn’t have that she’s been talking about or a dress she’s been eyeing. But remember, the main thing is the apology. Telling her that he knows he messed up and he’s sorry and he’ll work on being better in the future because he doesn’t want to lose her. Clear communication is important, got it?”

Danny glances back at Johnny’s pinched face. “Yeah, thanks Jazz.”

“Any time, little brother.” She started to turn away, then stopped. “Also, your friend should know, she might not forgive him. Especially if this isn’t the first time he’s done this. He needs to respect that or it will only make things worse. Apologize, then step back and give her time to make her decision.”

“Right.”

Danny returned to his room with an annoyed Johnny.

“That plan sounds stupid. She even said it might not work,” he scoffed.

“Well if you don’t like Jazz’s plan, we can go with mine.” Johnny gave a growl that sounded more like Shadow. “So what is Kitty interested in?”

“Me.”

“Considering she’s trying to hook up with a random human boy right now, I don’t think that will work.”

“I wouldn’t call you random.”

“… Oh my god, did you complain about me to your girlfriend?” Danny laughed. “Is she trying to date me specifically to make you as jealous as possible? Well, now I feel used.”

#danny phantom #sam manson #tucker foley #johnny 13 #valerie gray #Doppelgänger au

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determinationisnotcrash · 5 years ago

Text

‘Like Gunbuster, but with Dudes’

I wanted to try and capture the passionate, energetic tone of a scene from one of my favourite OVAs in writing, so I attempted it with characters from the GB Discord I’m on.

Kit belongs to @topazshadowwolf

Impact belongs to me.

The scene this is a reference to is this one!

“I-I… I can’t go on…!”

“Impact!?”

The raptor’s jet abruptly halted, formation breaking as Kit unintentionally overtook him in this strange space. Hurriedly fumbling with the controls, the half-Blaster turned on the commlink to reveal his friend huddled in the cockpit, trembling.

Concern for the larger, yet younger skeleton welled up inside him. What had happened to make him break down all of a sudden…!?

Impact’s voice was usually either calm and controlled, or completely over-the-top and bursting with energy. But now… “I can’t do it anymore…! It’s useless… all useless…!”

Flashes of what the Papyrus described to him of his home timeline ran through his mind. It was likely that this wasn’t something sudden – rather, it had been festering inside him ever since he first mutated. “Impact…”

“Even if we succeed in our task, there’s no point to it all! The Ray Empire’s still choking the Earth! With the Emperor hoarding all the power for himself, he could easily rip away everything from us at any moment!”

The beast brought his misshapen forepaws in front of his face, clenching and unclenching them. At the stage he was at now, they could barely be called hands anymore. “I’m trapped in this disgusting body, which could give out and degenerate at any moment! And…!”

He slumped against the controls with a pathetic-sounding ‘thunk’. “There’s no one waiting for me back in my home world! My friends and family are all gone… and there’s nothing I can do about it. With neither past nor future… I may as well just die!”

Kit pressed his paw-like hand against the monitor, as if trying to physically reassure his friend. “Impact… please get yourself together. If this continues, we’re both done for!” As if to emphasise this, the massive aircraft violently rattled, like caught in turbulence. Their enemies had taken advantage of Impact’s hesitation, bombarding the two with relentless attacks.

Regardless of his growing panic, Kit continued, “While you may never be able to return to the past, you don’t know what the future holds yet. You could have the chance to experience more happiness than ever before… but if you can’t take that step forward, you won’t be able to even try!

Now the lights within the craft were starting to flicker. More and more nightmarish shapes were latching onto their vehicles, trying to crush them. “This conflict… it’s grown beyond the scope of a single world. If we let the demons from between dimensions devour any of our worlds… no one will have a future! The entire universe – reality itself – will be eaten up by the Void, and not even Determination will be able to bring it back!”

Impact’s sobbing ceased, his body having gone still. Hope starting to well up inside him, Kit pressed through with his encouragement. “Doc, Sabre, Hikaru, Red… all of them are counting on us to get through this! They chose us to be the ones who would venture through the gap, stop all the demons, and save everyone!

“If we fall here, everything that’s happened up ‘till now… everything that will happen… it’ll all be for nothing! For the sake of our world… for the sake of the people living within it… we need to go on!”

The half-Blaster voice cracked, putting every last drop of his emotion into his plea. “So please, Papyrus…! Fight!”

…

After what felt like an eternity… Impact rose up. His eyes were filled with resolve. “Kit… I understand. We fight together!”

“Impact…!” Despite the dire situation, the Sans couldn’t help but grin. Eagerly, almost as if on autopilot, his arm shot to the special ‘MODE’ lever. From ‘transport’ mode to ‘battle’ mode! “I’ll focus on the weaponry and energy output. You just do your thing with the controls. I’m behind you all the way, bro!”

Kit’s grin was contagious, a huge toothy smile spreading across the Papyrus raptor’s maw. “Alright…! LET’S DO IT!” With a burst of light, the demons clinging to the planes were blown away! The two vehicles drifted closer to each other, glowing as the fusion sequence started.

As the machines combined, Impact’s thoughts wandered back to his Sans and Undyne. Sans… Undyne… watch me, from wherever you are. I’ll see this battle through to the end.

The planes underwent several shifts as they merged together, each movement far faster and more complex than the untrained eye could follow. After mere moments, the light disappeared to reveal a humanoid shape. Two flames had united to form an inferno! The True Dimension Knight, warrior of justice! Defender of the innocent! Saviour of all Earths… had finally arrived!

Like moths drawn to a flame, dozens- no, hundreds of skeletal dragon-like demons swarmed towards the steel titan, rushing through the interdimensional space like ravenous sharks in pursuit of their prey.

The Blasters’ response? “Impact, remember the plan. We just need to make it to the centre of the Dimensional Gap. That would be… right past these guys.”

“Kit, shall we use ‘that’?”

Kit let out a genuine chuckle. “Heh, I thought you’d never ask.”

“UUUUUUOOOOOOHHHH---!” A battle roar exploded out of the main pilot as he launched the machine up into the ‘air’.

Within the mechanical knight’s hands, a giant sword materialised! A glowing golden weapon, illuminating the darkest of nights and cleaving through evil!

“ULTIMATEEEE…”

“HEAVEN-MEETS-EARTH…”

“SWOOOOOORD!”

True to the second pilot’s philosophy, the strongest attack came first. The blade of light cleaved through the abominations effortlessly, leaving titanic explosions in its wake. It slowed down in time to reach a floating chunk of rock, using it as a temporary foothold.

Despite the sun’s rays being unable to pierce this space, it nevertheless glinted off the mech’s armour. Its arms folded, announcing to the entire battlefield, “Don’t assume that this Dimension Knight is some random machine! Everyone’s legacy, from the past…”

His brother’s companionship.

Undyne’s fiery passion.

Alphys’ enthusiasm.

Toriel’s and Asgore’s warmth.

The compassion Frisk showed him, even if it was fake.

“Everyone’s dreams, for the future…”

Sabre’s kindness.

Doc’s care.

Red’s support.

Hikaru’s hope.

“THEY ALL LIE WITHIN IIIIIIT!”

The draconic helmet of the suit parted, revealing a mechanical Blaster head. It looked and functioned just like the real thing! An immense beam surged forth from the maw, blowing apart the formless monstrosities in their path with searing, pure magical energy.

A beep on Kit’s monitor alerted him to more danger. “Heads up, Impact!”

“Ah…!” Following his friend’s warning, he turned the mech’s head upwards, the blast coming with it. When he could see the giant meteor-sized ribcage bearing down on him… he had already bisected it. But that wasn’t the end of the demons’ counterattack. This time, Impact’s monitor was the one that flashed with the warning sign. “Kit! Incoming from below!”

“You got it! Beam Spikes, scatter!” The tail of the draconic mech whipped around with a slash, firing out several spikes as it did! With a force rivalling the most powerful of mother nature’s storms, the leviathans rising up from below were rendered harmless pincushions.

All this was enough to even inspire Kit, filling him with the energy to utter another speech of his own. “No matter how thick or smothering the darkness choking this world threatens to become… our hearts will only shine brighter!”

Impact would have given him an affirming pat on the back if he could. “Couldn’t have put it better myself! No matter what gets in our way, we’ll break through!”

As if in response to this challenge, wall-like beasts, living shields approached… their intent to hit them like trucks… but Impact wouldn’t allow that. “ROTATION LASERRR!” In a slick, fluid motion, he threw his shield and fired a sword beam, diffracting it off the spinning shield to slice through them all like butter.

Eager to seize upon this opportunity, he retrieved his weapon and rushed forward… but perhaps, he was a bit too eager. “Impact, pull back! We’re going too fast!”

Hundreds of blasts, made of choking darkness and equal in intensity to their own, obliterated the spot where the Blasters’ mech… used to be. Kit’s warning let Impact pull back just in the nick of time, separating the Dimension Knight into its component aircraft and evading the attacks!

Kit kept watch over the readings on his screens. Dodging everything while setting up a counterattack was a hassle… but pushed onwards by his motivation for a bright future, he could do it. Keeping one eye on the enemies outside, while the other eye on the system inside, he yelled to Impact, “Doesn’t look like the concentrated fire will let up! You know what to do next.”

Within the other aircraft, Impact grinned. If the enemies wouldn’t give them a break… then they would just have to make one! The jets boosted forwards as they re-combined, the humanoid figure already in a battle-ready stance. “HOLY GREATSHIELD!”

The knight charged, thrusting its shield forward as it smashed through the demons like a living battering ram. From a zoomed-out view, it would be as if the off-white clusters of twisted bones and teeth made way before this golden meteor!

Another boast left the pilot’s maw. “You think that’ll be enough to deal with the likes of US!?” Lowering its shield to expose its mouth, another blast from the mech tore through the unholy creatures.

Kit took advantage of this break in the enemies to check his display. “We’re almost at our destination! Just a little more to- WHOA!”

He barely had a second to react before he found himself almost literally holding up the heavens. A titanic planet, covering his entire vision, quickly came down on him. As if the mindless enemies were crowing, ‘There’s more where that came from,’ another living planet of bones and spikes rushed up at the mechanical knight from below!

Even the 250m steel titan started to struggle from this, the joints of its limbs creaking ominously as the pressure intensified… However, in stark contrast, the pilots were more composed than ever. Impact lightly chuckled, carrying the same air as someone who saw mildly interesting sight on a roadtrip. “Who would’ve guessed? That they could even become celestial bodies.”

Kit winked at his co-pilot. “The power of these things is truly astronomical, eh?” The Sans casually pressed a button, producing a blast to hit the ground beneath the mech. It didn’t even scratch the vast object.

“Not bad.”

“However… our own power – that of righteous hearts – is not to be underestimated!” Impact briefly closed his eyes, steadying his breathing… before announcing the mech’s true ultimate technique. “LIMITLESS LIIIIIIIGHT!” The golden glow about the mech intensified further, to almost blinding levels! It even burned his own body, every inch of him sizzling with pain… but for how much Impact was hurting, it hurt their enemies hundreds of times more.

With one last surge of energy, everything in the Blaster duo’s nearby area violently shook, before exploding in a flash of light! When all the smoke and flames cleared… the True Dimension Knight was still standing.

However… so were their enemies. If even one demon was left alive, it could reproduce endlessly and create more spawn. That was why…

“We’ve made it to the core. You ready, Impact?”

“Yes!”

The mech was powered by Light itself. If they overloaded it here, at the centre of the demon’s spawning grounds, it would certainly spell the abominations’ ends.

Kit entered the code for the self-destruct sequence, and the change was almost instantaneous. Unlike the golden, passionate aura that the two pilots could make it exude, it now took on an almost ethereal glow, indicating it wasn’t much longer for this world.

As the glow engulfed its body, it also spread to the space around it. The ghastly, roiling purplish-black of the Void began to clear, peeling away to reveal a pleasant, gentle blue sky beneath.

Kit and Impact couldn’t stay to appreciate the sights, though – it was still unknown what the Light would do to normal creatures. A lone jet, much smaller than the massive crafts that formed the mech, emerged from the Dimension Knight’s chest and sped away.

The remaining hellbeasts shrieked and writhed as they fizzled away into nothingness, like ghouls that vanished with the coming of dawn.

Impact turned his head back, looking for one last time at the remains of the creation that helped carry them so far. “Thank you for everything, Dimension Knight. This is farewell…”

Flying back to the portal from which they entered, the warriors returned towards their world… towards where their friends were waiting.

#undertale #gasterblaster au #gasterblaster sans #gasterblaster papyrus #papyrus #sans #my writing

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