#cascadedkiwi writes again

[cascadedkiwi]

Candles and Quiet (Comfortember 2023)

Characters: Mirio, Nejire, Tamaki, and Female OC (Lilette) Manga/Anime: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia Genre: Comfort Summary: Sometimes a stimuli break is better with friends. Word Count: 1,276

Prompts: Alternative 4: Candles (where this started), featuring 15. Plushies and 26. Friends

The bedroom light and bedside lamp were off. The curtains were pinned shut with clothespins. Her laptop was off, her phone turned over and out of sight. The surge protectors were all switched off. The standing fan was unplugged. 

The rattling of the door handle broke the silence. 

“Oh… ok… darkness,” came a familiar cheery male voice as the door opened just a little bit. Lilette stayed still as she recognized Mirio’s voice.

“And silence,” added a light female voice. Nejire was with him, apparently.

“We’ll be right back,” Mirio said, closing the door again.

Minutes went by and Lilette sank back into the empty quiet of her room. She hadn’t shifted her position on the bed, curled in the upper corner with her back to the wall. She flexed her finger, lightly petting the plush squid she held to her stomach. Her bed was flush to the left corner of the room. She was facing the door, not really listening for their return. She wasn’t really listening to anything at all but the silence. She let her mind dance with the sort of high pitched non-sounds floating in her ear canals. 

A light knocking interrupted it this time. “We’re back,” called the female voice again. Nejire had taken care to soften her tone from the concerned one she’d used earlier.

“And we brought light!” The cheerful male announced as the door slowly opened. Mirio was whispering as well, but his happy tone almost canceled out the effort.

Lilette raised her head at the soft, wavering light that pushed against her curated darkness from the doorway. Mirio was leading in their friend group with a candle in his hand, a small flame surrounded by smooth glass. Close behind was Nejire, holding a tiny fire of her own in a prettier container. Hers was wider and flat like a tea saucer and looked like a fancy bar of soap. A third light followed them, shining small and timid from within the confines of two cupped palms. Tamaki. Lilette couldn’t help but smile. Nejire hung back to close the door behind him as he shuffled in with his head down, not saying a word.

Mirio held his candle up to his face, making the lights and shadows dance over his features. He moved the light towards Lilette, studying her curled form for a moment with a smile. “Is it ok for us to be here?”

Lilette nodded, even though he knew she would’ve stopped them the first time if she didn’t feel like having company.

Nejire stepped up, resting her candle on the nightstand. “Is sound ok or no?”

Lilette held up one hand to the light, pinching her fingers together. 

Nejire dipped her head. “We’ll keep it low.”

“Is it a no talking time for you?” Mirio asked, setting his candle further away on her bureau drawer amongst her perfume bottles. The reflections from the shaped glass danced on the ceiling.

Lilette nodded, holding up her squid to show its big puppy dog eyes and smiling face.

He let out an exaggerated breath of relief. “That’s good. We were worried when you disappeared right after dinner. You just wanted to wind down?”

She nodded again.

Nejire motioned to the bed, sitting only after Lilette gave her the go ahead. “Sometimes a stimuli break is nice. I’m guessing your mind’s pretty quiet right now, too?”

Lilette inclined her head before tilting it to look at Tamaki who had parked himself in the middle of her floor, still holding the candle in both his hands. The flame glowed gently from within his lap, softly lighting his face, chest, and shoulders. 

Mirio lowered himself to the floor as well, leaning against the bed which put him between Tamaki and Nejire. Of the four, he was the last anyone would expect to just slip into quiet time, but he had proven perfectly adaptable to Tamaki when they were little, only getting better over the years. He walked his hand over the mattress, poking at one of Lilette’s feet when he confirmed he could reach it. He grinned when she blinked curiously at him, wiggling her toes.

Tamaki rested his candle on the floor and scooted over to the bed, pulling down another of Lilette’s plushies that was laying on the mattress, a small beige moose with little brown antlers. He busied his fingers petting its soft forehead, much like how Lilette was with the squid.

Nejire laid back on the mattress, turning her head to watch the candles lighting up the nightstand next to Mirio and the bureau beyond Mirio’s head. The two flames kindly tamed the darkness, seeming to work with it instead of trying to stave it off. It was something a study lamp could never hope to accomplish. Something about the candles providing just enough light to see, just enough to confirm where they were, just enough to keep the mind from getting unhelpfully creative. 

There was something about Tamaki’s candle on the floor. Nejire couldn’t see it from this new vantage point but she was comforted by the way it lit up their two guys in their entirety. Its light brushed every surface available, all four walls of the dorm room, unobtrusive in its service. 

The three looked up when the mattress dipped and shifted with Lilette’s movements. She’d laid down on her side with her back still to the cool wall, upside down to Nejire and now much closer to Mirio. This put her in direct line of sight with Tamaki, whose gaze flitted about nervously a few times before he offered her a timid smile. She returned it with a happy one, waving both of the squid’s long tentacles at him. He waved one of the moose’s little arms back. Lilette smiled wider.

She was so very appreciative of her friends. Of the way they just seemed to understand her without demanding more. How they had put in the time and effort to get to know her and her needs. The way  they just popped in to check on her wanting nothing more than to genuinely confirm she was doing ok. They didn’t want the mask. In fact, individually and collectively, they fought against it, calling her out every time they recognized it. It had gotten to the point that they saw it when she didn’t even realize she was doing it. It was hard at times, accepting that kind of care even though she knew she’d always wanted it. But, she recognized again with Mirio playing with her open hair and Nejire fooling with the arms of her squid, they deemed her worthy. She saw the relational understanding in Tamaki’s eyes as he played with the moose’s antlers - Mirio had no doubt tugged him through that “you deserve the kind of care you want and need” ringer years ago and was still doing so to this day. Her heart smiled and warmth bloomed in her chest. She pressed one of the squid’s tentacles to her chin and pushed it down and out. 

Thank you. She would voice it when she felt like talking again but for now, she settled in the hushed atmosphere surrounded by her friends. It was a different kind of stillness from when she was alone. Not that it was more or less preferable, just dissimilar. This was like an unspoken hug. It wrapped around her with an unassuming presence, existing in tandem with her as she was. Like the mellow candlelights within the darkness, adding without taking away. It was something she was deeply grateful for that she never thought to ask for. She would have to work on that.

[cascadedkiwi]

Late Night Group Call [Comfortember 2023]

Characters: Mina, Denki, Sero, and Kirishima Manga/Anime: Boku No Hero Academia/My Hero Academia Genre: Comfort (but more fluff, I think) Summary: Random late night group call with some of the squad when it just so happens that Mina can't fall asleep. It's like they just know. Word Count: 642

Prompt 14: Late Night Phone Calls

Mina lays in her bed in her dark room, staring at the ceiling where a few glow-in-the-dark stickers faintly form some sort of sky. They seem to have dulled somewhat over the past hour. Maybe it’s just her eyes.

Her phone is on the nightstand, vibrating yet again. 

It's 2:37am.

That's the fifth time it's gone off in the past ten minutes. Apparently she's not the only one still awake.

She answers on the sixth call back.

“Mina!” Comes Denki’s voice, whispering but excited. “I told you guys she was still up!”

"Are you sure you didn't wake her up by calling back a million times?” Sero asks.

Mina smiles. Of course it's a group call. "Hey, guys!"

Kirishima’s voice adds to the conversation. “I'm seriously sorry if we woke you up, Mina. Denki was really insistent…”

Sero chuckles, sounding on the verge of sleep himself. “He was only so insistent with you, though. Probably because he knows Bakugo would kill him.”

“I have a cute black dress for the funeral,” Mina quips, and Denki's whine is loud and clear.

“Aw, c’mon guys, that's mean.”

Mina adjusts the phone on her pillow as she turned on her side. “Did you even call him once?”

“Blasty’s phone probably isn't even on.” Denki replies.

Mina furrows her brow. “He can't have it off, what if there's an emergency?”

Sero hums. “As long as he's not on night shift, it's not his issue. You know how protective he is of his beauty sleep.”

“I refuse to believe Bakugo is completely unreachable once he falls asleep,” Mina insists. 

“You try to call him, then,” Kirishima challenges.

“And that's coming from his right hand man,” Sero says with a laugh.

Mina grins. “If something really came up, I definitely would but I like not having to run for my life first thing in the morning.” She purses her lips. “I also value my eardrums in their current state.”

Kirishima hums an agreement. “I'm sure he has it on ‘do not disturb’ at the very least, with, like, special permissions to get through.”

Denki mocks their aggressive friend. “Layers of protection so I know for sure you wanna DIE when I pick up!”

The group bursts into giggles.

“How come Jiro's not on the call?” Mina asks.

Sero pipes up at that. “She went to bed even before Bakugo. Apparently her monthly came a week early and with a vengeance.”

Mina winces. “Oh, that sucks… I wish she had sent me a message.”

Denki makes a sound in his throat. “I checked on her before lights out. She was doing ok. Just lethargic and low energy. And hopped up on her favourite painkillers. I made her a hot water bottle. She was drinking that tea that knocks her out all night.”

Scattered applause sounds over the call.

“Good job, very manly,” comes Kirishima's approving voice.

“He had no choice but to learn after Mina’s demonstration,” Sero says with a grin in his voice.

Denki makes an affronted sound. “You guys can't tell me either of you can look at a girl carrying on like normal and be able to tell her insides are running war-level battle simulations!”

There's a silence that sounds like the two boys are sharing a look. 

“We added you to the tracking calendar for a reason,” Sero says.

“And I very much appreciate that.” 

Kirishima yawns. “I'm apologizing now if I just suddenly stop talking.”

“No worries, man,” Denki assures him. “That was the point of the call.”

Mina lights up at that, somewhere in the back of her own increasingly drowsy mind. “So I don't have to hang up tonight? Hoo. Ray.”

Sero lets out an amused breath. “We got you, Pinkie.”

Mina smiles at that, snuggling deeper into her pillow and bunching up her blanket to cuddle like a body pillow.

[cascadedkiwi]

Remind me how to post again?

Coming back to posting stories... I have a few oneshot Voltage fanfictions handwritten in my book that I FINALLY got around to typing up...

My future goals include validating myself as a writer by figuring out a writing schedule and actually STICKING o it for more than 7 measly weeks...

Now I need to refresh on how to add the links to my masterpost... and other stuff that makes it convenient for people to zip through my little contribution to the tumblrverse...