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loki-hargreeves · 4 years

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Bucky x Reader - She Will Be Loved

Warnings: terrible date (being ghosted), fluff, fighting (combat), being held at gunpoint, being trapped, hypothermia, vulgar language, mentions of death, hurt/comfort sort of, more fluff Word Count: 8,8K (I tried to keep it under 4K but I can’t control myself) Summary: You have feelings for Bucky that you have pushed aside for too long, in a fear that having feelings for your colleague would be a distraction for you as an Avenger. After a terrible date, Bucky comforts you. The two of you get cozy and you say things you soon regret. You talk things through a few days on an icy mission, when you get trapped together in a sticky situation. Song prompt/Listen to: She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5 Author’s Note: This is for @nekoannie-chan ‘s writing challenge. I hope you’ll enjoy it! I’m so excited to write for Bucky again. It’s been too long. I’m sorry if it sucks, I procrastinated way too much while writing this. #bucketdeservesbetter

THIRD POV

It had been well over twenty minutes since the artificial intelligence system had informed the people at the compound that Y/N had returned. Whenever the garage was used, it would let others know. Oftentimes, no one really thought much of it. The updates and messages from the system were something the Avengers and the other people working at the compound had grown used to.

When Bucky realized that she wasn’t anywhere to be seen, he wondered if she could still be in the garage. Was she alright?

He didn’t want to pry because he knew that her business was none of his business, but he knew that she had been out on a date and she had returned quite soon.

Eventually, he decided to go and check on her, just to make sure she was alright. Whether or not he liked to show he cared, he did. Probably more than she’d ever know.

When Bucky entered the large garage, he heard the faint bass vibrations. Was she listening to music?

There she was, sat in her car with a sadness washed across her face. She just sat there, leaning against the car seat as she surrounded herself with a minor tune. Clearly, things hadn’t gone well.

To make his presence known, Bucky tapped on the window.

She seemed to snap out of a daze. Quickly, she turned down the music and lowered the window, so they could hear each other speak.

“Everything alright?” Bucky wondered, already knowing the answer.

“No,” Was all she could say. Earlier, she had felt like screaming her lungs out in frustration. Now she felt like one push was all it would take to make her cry. Why did everything always go South when it came to her life? Why did Bucky have to see her like this? Out of all the people on planet earth.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He wondered and desperately tried to find a way to comfort her. Even if it was just as friends, he wanted to be there for her, like she had often been there for him. He was angry that whoever her date was had left her like this. If he had a chance to treat her right, he would never do this to her. He quickly wiped those thoughts away, knowing damn well that having feelings for her, his team member, a fellow Avenger, would only cause trouble.

Y/N leaned over to the passenger seat door and opened it, “hop in.”

And so he did. Bucky walked around the car and then sat inside it, closing the door gently. It was just them now, where the other Avengers couldn’t eavesdrop on their conversation or walk-in at a bad time. Now that he sat in the car, he could hear the melody she had tried to turn off. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his tongue on it. Bucky assumed it was a more recent melody. He had a lot of catching up to do.

‘...I don’t mind spending every day, out on your corner in the pouring rain...’

“What happened?” He wondered and faced her properly. When he saw the glossy tears in the corners of her eyes, his heart tightened in his chest. It was terrible to see her like that.

“He ghosted me,” She cracked a smile but it wasn’t a happy one, “I waited at him for an hour and then he texted me, saying he couldn’t do it.”

Bucky barely knew of this man, but he already hated him. How could anyone ask her out and then not show up when she was already at the location? In Bucky’s mind, the man was merely a coward. She deserved better.

“I’m sorry that happened,” He didn’t know what to say. Bucky used to be smooth with his words, but these days he found it hard. Luckily, she seemed to understand.

“Well, it is what it is. At least I know not to contact him again,” She tried to see the positive side of things. That was an admirable trait. It was also why- in Bucky’s mind - she spent time with him. Despite all the terrible things he had done as the Winter Soldier, she stayed by his side.

Y/N changed the song and turned the volume on a little bit higher, trying to fill the silence. By now, she felt slightly better because she wasn’t drowning in self-pity. But she was nervous because Bucky was next to her.

Bucky, the man that made her heart do somersaults. The man she had dreamed of so many times but would never let anyone know of. It was almost like fate was tormenting her by putting such terrible dates in her path when she ended up speaking with Bucky at the end of the day anyway.

She decided to add to what she said, “I’ll get over it.”

“It’s okay to upset, Y/N,” Bucky remembered when she had said the exact same words to him before. He often bottled things up, because he didn’t like to put his problems on other people’s shoulders. But she was always willing to listen to him.

“Yeah,” Was all she could say. She felt silly for being upset over a failed date. She felt as if she should’ve expected this. After all, she was an Avenger. Normalcy wasn’t destined for her. Despite how much she yearned for connection, or perhaps for someone to make her feel good for one night, it never seemed to go well. Perhaps some day she would learn to expect less from the world.

Bucky tried to think of something that would cheer her up. “Have you eaten today?”

“If you don’t count the breadstick I ate at the restaurant, then no.”

It was his chance to take her mind off of things.

“I was thinking about ordering some takeout. It’s convenient when it comes all the way to the front door, and it might be my cheat day as well.”

The light lit in her beautiful eyes. “That sounds nice, Buck.”

She turned off the engine and the music stopped. Together they climbed out of the car and made their way to the elevator, that would take them inside. As the elevator doors closed, and she stopped right next to Bucky, she smiled. It was nice to know that he was there for her, but she felt bad for thinking of him as more than a friend.

“What do you want?” Bucky wondered, already thinking about his own order. He had heard of a new pizza place that opened nearby and perhaps he could try their menu.

“I don’t know. What are you thinking about?”

A smug smile spread on his face, “New York-style pizza,” he turned to face her. “Nothing beats that.”

She should’ve known he would say that. “Why am I not surprised?”

“What? You know I’m right,” He said confidently.

All she could do was to roll her eyes playfully. He never failed to make her smile.

“I can’t argue with you on that,” Y/N admitted. To her, pizza sounded great. Especially after the terrible date she had, if she could even call it that.

Less than an hour later, they were sat in one of the many common rooms in the compound. They didn’t have a mission for that day, or for the next as far as they were aware of, so they decided to enjoy the little time they had off. It wasn’t that late yet, so most of the other teammates were busy finishing their tasks, which meant that Bucky and Y/N had a few moments to spare just for each other.

The pizza arrived and Y/N had already logged into Netflix to find a movie for them to enjoy. The team often found comfort in watching movies together, because for an hour or two they could focus on something else than their own issues and lives. A little bit of escapism never hurt anybody.

They decided to watch Focus, with Margot Robbie and Will Smith, a movie that seemed action-packed and fun. As long as it was entertaining to watch, they were happy. The main focus of the night was the pizza anyway.

Bucky took a decently sized bite of the warm pizza, and some of the cheese threatened to slip off it and onto his lap.

Y/N, who was watching from the side, quickly grabbed the topping that was a second away from being one with his pants, and she ate it herself. “You have to watch your food.”

“How can I watch my food and the movie? I might have superhuman powers but I still have just two eyes,” Bucky explained the obvious.

As they ate the pizza and focused on the film, time passed faster than they could comprehend. They sat next to each other, and Y/N was beginning to feel tired. It had been a long day and she had been on an emotional roller-coaster. Despite how fun the movie was, she felt like closing her eyes for just one moment.

Bucky didn’t realize how tired she was until he felt her leaning against him ever so slightly. As he turned to look at her, he noticed that her eyes were closed. She looked adorable like that, but he wasn’t going to say it out loud. He didn’t dare to move a muscle, afraid it would make her wake up or move away from him. Knowing that she felt comfortable enough around him to fall asleep just like that melted his heart.

It didn’t take long until her head slid closer and closer to him until she was resting against his shoulder ever so comfortably. At that point, Bucky swore he could feel his heart trying to beat through his chest. He wondered if he should wake her up, or if he should let her sleep. Would she be upset for missing out on the movie?

For now, he didn’t know what to do. He grabbed the remote that was nearby, paused the movie and then took a deep breath. As much as he loved being like that with her, he knew it mustn’t have been nice to sleep with pants on, sitting upright on the couch.

Before he could try to wake her up, the opened suddenly and no other than Sam walked in, Natasha and Steve closing in from behind.

“There you two are! We’ve been looking all over for you,” Sam explained. He hadn’t realized that Y/N was asleep.

She opened her eyes, startled by Sam’s voice. When she realized that she had made herself cozy against Bucky, she pulled away and felt her cheeks burning from embarrassment. How did she let herself doze off like that?

Natasha had a knowing look on her face, but she didn’t point anything out. They had definitely noticed how close they had been.

“Why? Is everything alright?” Bucky ignored how startled Y/N looked, and he focused on what Sam had said.

Sam sat down next to Bucky and glanced at the screen. “No. It was just weird to not hear from either of you. Thought you sneaked off without us,” he explained with a bright smile.

Steve and Natasha sat down as well. They noticed the empty pizza boxes and drinks.

“What are you watching?” Steve wondered. He had never seen Focus before since he had plenty of other films on his watching list.

“Focus,” Y/N muttered, now wrapped up in a blanket. “I fell asleep, I have no idea what I missed.”

“It’s okay,” Bucky reassured her. “We can play it from the beginning if you all want to watch it too.”

Yes, it was fun to spend time with his friends elsewhere than on the field, it also stung a little bit. Spending one on one time with Y/N was rare these days. He hoped that she wouldn’t distance herself again after getting comfortable with him. She had a tendency to shut people out once they got too close to her. Bucky couldn’t blame her. He knew damn well how harsh one’s own mind could be sometimes.

“Sounds good to me,” Natasha shrugged and waited for the others to voice their onion as well.

Just like that, all five of them watched the movie right from the very beginning. During the entire time, Bucky and Y/N would steal glances from one another. They didn’t speak of it, but they both thought about what happened.

It was funny when Steve would make supportive comments of the main characters, who were thieves and the others would tease him for it. Ever since his ‘language’ moment, people hadn’t cut him any slack.

At some point in the movie, the main characters Nicky and Jess were in the car. They had just won a gamble, and they were talking about they had subliminally planted the number 55 everywhere. At first, the scene was harmless. They were having a great time, and it even lead to a kiss.

Despite how much Y/N liked the movie, the thought of being kissed and held like that made her long for it even more than before. It had been too long since the last time someone made her feel such bliss. Her mind got the best of her, and she wondered when Bucky had last kissed someone. Despite how much she could tell about other people and read them like open books, he was a tough person to crack. She had no idea.

Suddenly the atmosphere changed in the film. Nicky made the driver stop the car, and he handed Jess her part of the money they won. They both seemed upset. When he implied that their ways had to part, as the job was done, Y/N felt bad for the woman. She knew damn well how hard it was to love someone when they were both on the same job. Feelings just complicated things.

The man left the car and ordered the driver to take her to the airport. Everyone in the room watched quietly as he left, and she was left alone in the car with tears in her eyes.

It reminded Y/N of where she had been a moment ago; swimming in a pool of her own misery while jamming to She Will Be Loved, by Maroon 5 in her own car. Then Bucky had shown up.

“That’s tough,” Sam was the first one to make a comment.

Bucky had also thought of Y/N when he saw that scene. He wondered if that’s what she had felt when she had been left alone at the restaurant, waiting for someone who never showed up. Once again, he felt angry as he thought about the man who had let her down. He couldn’t wrap it around his head that someone was lucky enough to spend time with her and they would leave her hanging like that. It was wrong.

“Why would he leave her? What a coward!” Natasha was irritated. She knew it was merely a moment that would ultimately deepen the plot, but it still agitated her.

“He might’ve known that catching feelings for someone you work with isn’t easy,” Y/N let the words slip out of her mouth before she could stop herself. If she had watched it with anyone else, it would’ve been okay. But these were Avengers. Natasha was an excellent agent and it didn’t take a genius to pick up the trace of sadness in her voice. No one wanted to mention it, but everyone seemed to notice it.

Why do I have to open my mouth? Y/N thought to herself and wished she would have disappeared into the couch.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, Steve asked something rather harmless. “How did you date go?” He tried to steer the conversation elsewhere.

Bucky shot his friend a glance that told him to be quiet about it. But it was too late.

“It didn’t even begin,” Y/N answered vaguely. She didn’t really want to talk about it.

For the rest of the movie, she felt tense. Although she was sure everyone had moved on from that topic, she couldn’t. The moment the movie ended, she excused herself and rushed to the safety of her own room.

The door closed behind her and she let out a deep breath. The day had been humiliating and all she wanted was to take a shower and fall asleep.

A few days later, they had a mission. They left in a hurry, and they were filled in with the details as they were all geared up and in the quinjet. They were on their way to Alaska, where it would be cold since it was winter. In the remote wilderness, the satellites had picked up signals that weren’t supposed to be there. The code that they received from that was worrying.Tony even suspected that it could lead them to an enemy they had been tracking desperately for weeks now.

Y/N and Bucky were supposed to go in from the West side of the suspected enemy location, as Sam, Steve and Natasha would go in from the other side. They had the others ready for backup if it was needed, but so far it seemed like something they could handle just fine. They were unsure whether or not they had civilians locked up there, so they had to be careful. They were supposed to meet in the middle and take care of any enemies that would get in the way.

Being teamed up with Bucky was usually fun, but right now Y/N dreaded it. Although they worked well together, she had avoided him since the movie night, in fear that she had made a fool of herself. Not only did she fall asleep against his shoulder, she also had to open her big mouth and make things awkward.

“See you soon,” Natasha waved to the duo as their paths separated. Y/N and Bucky landed in the snow that was hard and icy because of the weather, the contrary of the soft snow that had coated New York. They hadn’t spoken much on the ride yet, but it was impossible to avoid now.

From a distance, they could see the base. It was half disguised by the snow on the roof, but from ground level it was obvious. It’s like they didn’t even try to hide as they had their flags on the poles, letting anyone nearby see them. Admittedly, they were in the middle of nowhere and no random people happened to pass by any time soon.

One thing was sure, this was definitely their base. These people were dangerous, armed and evil.

There were a dozen armed guards on the outside, who hadn’t spotted the Avengers that had slowly crept closer and closer. Their weapons said it all. Whatever or whoever they were hiding was valuable.

“It’s cold,” Bucky tried to ease the tension between them by talking about the weather. He was worried that he had said or done something that made her uncomfortable. If so, he just wanted to make things alright again.

“We better make our way inside fast. I’m sure it’s warmer there,” She tried to sound casual - as if they weren’t in a situation that could potentially be life threatening. That was their life, their normal. She realized that her dates could never understand this.

But Bucky could.

As they crawled closer to the base from behind the trees, hidden by the safety of the night, they noticed how small the windows were. They had to go in through a door, or somehow squeeze through the small, certainly bulletproof windows.

“Hey,” Bucky wanted to face her. He was usually great at focusing on his missions, but this was his chance. It was just the two of them now.

Nervously, Y/N faced his blue eyes. It was hard not to get lost in them. Even in the dark, they were so bright.

“Are you okay?” He asked her and felt his own heart beating a little bit faster. The way she looked at him was something he would never get used to.

“I’m fine. We’re here, on a mission, where we belong,” She decided to stay focused. If she let herself get distracted now, it would end up in chaos.

Bucky dropped it. He knew that she would open up to him eventually if it was important.

They were close enough to take out the first few guards. They would have to be silent, so they wouldn’t alert anyone.

“You go in from the right, I’ll go left,” Bucky gave her the order with a soft voice. It was the natural next move from their point of view.

Y/N simply nodded and got ready. She had to take down two guards. One was closer to them and the other one had just walked behind the corner, to the other side of the huge building. It was a perfect opportunity to strike.

She got up from the icy ground ever so silently. Before the guard could notice her, she leapt at him without any hesitation. The startled man tried to yell, but she wrapped her strong arms around his throat and he knew damn well that one wrong move could end his life. He shut his mouth, afraid that if he spoke, she would kill him.

“Do you have a key card?” Y/N asked him and steadied her feet on the ground. She expected him to try and fight her, but she was prepared for an attack

Slowly, but surely the man grabbed something from his pocket. At least this one was cooperative, but it didn’t make up for the terrible things he stood for. She watched as he pulled out a few keys and cards, dropping them all on the ground. Satisfaction flowed through her veins. It was always nice to have something useful on missions like these.

To avoid wasting time, she squeezed his windpipe hard and felt his body tighten as he panicked. Quickly, she put him out of his misery and dropped him on the ground. Y/N collected the keys and put them in her pocket, and then she made her way to the direction of the other guard. He hadn’t heard her, which was a positive.

His back was faced toward her, and he couldn’t see or hear her coming as she sneaked closer to him. Once Y/N was close enough, she grabbed him from behind, and choked the air out of his lungs.

This one didn’t comply as well as the first. He tried to squirm away from her touch, but she had a good grip. Suddenly, he managed to switch things so that they both fell on the ground.

“Oh no you don’t!” Y/N groaned, annoyed that she let it happen. Then she rolled over above him and punched his face, knocking him out instantly. Once he was unconscious, she used his own handcuffs to cuff him against a flag pole. Just like that, she was done. She wiped the snow off her hands as she stood up.

She noticed Bucky had been watching her. Why did he smile at her? He had certainly been quick.

“I got the keys,” She let him know and patted the pocket gently, so he could hear them. Taking down the two guards had made adrenaline rush through her body. The mission, despite its dangers, excited her.

“Great. Let’s go, shall we?”

They made their way inside the base without being noticed. As they walked further inside through the dim corridors, Y/N wondered how the others were doing. She thought it was strange how little resistance they met. Surely, they would’ve been noticed by now.

Bucky was thinking the same exact thing, which was why he was so cautious. He had been on missions long enough to know what when things seemed too good to be true, it usually was that way. He hated letting Y/N walk in first, because she was at greater risk of being injured. But he wasn’t going to doubt her abilities now. He knew damn well she was capable of handling things herself. When he saw her taking down those guards, he was still just as impressed as he was when he first saw her in action.

“That’s weird,” Y/N whispered when she saw a door that was wide open. It looked like it led to a cold room. She noticed that deep inside the room, there were several metallic doors that were shut. They all had small windows on the top, but they were frozen so it was impossible to see to the other side. Were they some sort of chambers?

By glancing at Bucky once, she let him know where she was going. He just nodded and let her walk inside. As she did that, he stayed on the outside to keep watch. Something told him that they weren’t as safe as it seemed. Call it a bad gut feeling.

Y/N noticed how cold it was the moment she stepped inside the room. She was happy she wore her winter gear, but the cold still crept through and slid underneath her shirt, sending icy shivers down her spine. Her breath was foggy, and the cold air hurt her nostrils. She looked around the room and noticed a surveillance camera in the corner, but the lights weren’t on. Nevertheless, she avoided it. Better be safe than sorry.

That’s when everything changed.

One of the closed doors opened and a man walked out with a gun in his hand, pointing it directly at Y/N. “Hands up!” He growled angrily, alerting Bucky who had been facing down the corridor. Without any hesitation, he was ready to bolt in there and aid her.

Being held at gunpoint wasn’t new for Y/N but she was careful nevertheless. It was a good opportunity for her to take in all the details she could from the gunman. He wore a white lab coat, heavy boots that looked like combat boots. Was he a scientist? Ex-military, perhaps? He was older than her, perhaps nearing his 60’s, judging by the grey in his beard and hair. His face was incredibly familiar, but she wasn’t quite sure where she had seen him before.

Knowing that Bucky was nearby made her relax as she raised her arms. “You don’t have to shoot me,” Y/N tried negotiating with him.

Nevertheless, the angry old man walked closer to her. The tip of the gun was shaking. Was he afraid or just cold?

“Are you alone?” The man wanted to know.

“Yes,” Y/N wasn’t going to blow the cover of the others.

As if on cue, Bucky stormed inside the room. The man barely had time to react to it as suddenly Bucky grabbed his wrist and forced the man to drop the gun. As Bucky took care of him, Y/N kicked the gun away so no one could reach it and use it.

Within seconds, Bucky had the guy pinned down on the cold floor, ready to break his windpipe for daring to point a gun at the person he cared so much about.

As Y/N stood by, she heard another pair of footsteps coming from outside the cold room. When she turned to look, grabbing her own gun so she could defend herself and Bucky, she saw a masked person. They were tall, with a slim build. The mask was white as snow and it had no details.

“Stop!” She demanded and pointed the weapon at them, but it was too late. The person slammed the metal door shut and she heard a click, indicating that it was locked.

Her heart bolted to her throat as she ran to the door and tried to open it, realizing to her own horror that it didn’t even have a handle from the inside.

The man Bucky had pinned down on the ground began to laugh, “We’re never getting out of here alive!” What the hell was that supposed to mean?!

Stay calm, Y/N told herself over and over again in her head. The others knew their location. They were going to be just fine.

“The temperature will keep dropping until we’re all icicles,” He continued to taunt them with the horror of their situation. Why didn’t it scare him? Had he already accepted his fate?

“Do you have anything useful to say?” Bucky sounded so intimidating now, speaking with no mercy or warmth in his voice. If it wasn’t for the terrible situation, Y/N would have loved listening to his voice like that. It was undeniably quite sexy of him.

Clearly, the man wasn’t going to cooperate.

And Bucky wasn’t going to listen to his nonsense. Instead, he did what he had done to the other guards and left the man’s body on the ground. He might’ve been unconscious, but if what he said was true, he too would die in this place.

Being locked up in a giant freezer didn’t bring back any warm memories to him. He walked to the other end of the room and banged on the metal wall. Nothing happened, so he hit it again, much harder this time. He tried to find a weak spot so he could get out of there with Y/N. Bucky tried the corners of the room, and eventually he ended up by the door.

Y/N tried to push the door open, but it was useless. She kicked it, and searched for buttons - anything - on the inside that could help them escape the huge freezer. There was absolutely nothing she saw that would’ve helped them. The room was like a metal box, which meant their devices didn’t work. There was no way they could contact anyone outside the room, and no one could contact them. The bangs on the metal only echoed loudly, but certainly didn’t help them escape. That freezer was built to contain even the strongest of people. It was almost eerie how much it resembled something they would find at a HYDRA base. Could they be connected?

One thing was for sure,

They were trapped.

“Well this sucks,” Y/N kicked the door out in frustration. Shooting at it would’ve been reckless, since the material would only make the bullets ricochet and endanger them furthermore. A rotten feeling bubbled in her stomach. If she had been more careful, they wouldn’t have been stuck in that sticky situation. Who was that masked person anyway? Why would they lock them in there, when one of their own was there as well? It didn’t make much sense. Perhaps these people were simply ruthless enough to risk their own in order to win in every situation. The thought of it made Y/N uncomfortable because it meant their enemies were willing to do terrible and unimaginable things.

As she turned around to face Bucky, her heart dropped. He looked troubled, almost afraid. He never looked like that on missions. She realized that the cold room must’ve reminded him of his days at HYDRA.

“Hey,” She rushed over to him.

He couldn’t face her. Bucky felt his anxiety rising and he didn’t want her to see him like that, so afraid. It made him feel pathetic. Would she judge him? He quickly knew that she would never judge him, but he didn’t feel much better anyway.

“It’s okay, the others know we’re here. I’m sure they’ll come through that door soon enough,” She tried to comfort him.

Bucky knew that she was right. He tried to focus on facts, that they weren’t alone and that it was possibly to rely on the others for help. He had relied on himself for so long that it was hard to trust that other people could help him. Right now, they didn’t really have a choice.

Her hand was right against his back, which was comforting. Bucky relaxed his shoulders and faced her with a gentle smile. Although his lips barely curved up, she saw it. Every smile from him was like a gift.

They had to stay warm. It wouldn’t be much of a problem for him, as it would for her. If what the man said was true, it would get colder the longer they were there and Y/N was in real danger of getting hypothermia.

When he looked at her, he noticed that she was already shivering. It broke his heart to see her like that.

“You’re right,” He cleared his throat. The others would find them. They had to be patient.

For now, they could try to find clues on the man who was unconscious on the ground. As far as they were aware, the metal doors were locked. Besides, they didn’t lead anywhere. It looked like the man had used one of the small rooms as a hiding place when he had heard them in the corridor earlier. What those tiny rooms were originally built for, Bucky wasn’t sure he even wanted to know. It looked like a row of tiny prison cells.

Bucky knelt down beside the body and began searching through his pockets. All of them were empty. Soon enough, he let out a disappointed sigh. There was nothing useful to be found, but it was worth checking out.

As he faced Y/N the next time, he noticed that she had wrapped her arms around her own body. He too noticed it was getting colder, but the serum protected him from it, for now. He knew how to make her warm, but he wasn’t sure if she would like it. But if it meant it would help, he had to suggest it.

“You know, if we stay close to each other, we’ll stay warmer for much longer,” Bucky let her know.

Despite how freezing cold it was, Y/N felt how her cheeks heating up. She knew he was right. They could benefit from each other’s body warmth.

“Bring it in,” She tried to act cool about it as she opened her arms widely. Bucky couldn’t hold back a smile as he wrapped her in a hug. It felt nice, despite it all. Awkwardly, they sat down on the ground and huddled closer to one another. Now all they could do was wait.

“You’re warm,” Y/N noticed. Perhaps it was because she was as chill as a snowball, she still found Bucky warm. She wondered if the serum made him that way, or if another person was truly radiating so much heat in the cold.

Bucky was glad she couldn’t see his flustered face at that moment. Her head leaned against his shoulder and she was staring at the door, waiting for it to open up any moment now. He held her tightly and hated how good it felt. If only the circumstances were different.

“It’s the serum,” He eventually replied.

Once again, it was just the two of them - the unconscious scientist was left out of the count. They couldn’t avoid each other now. They had all the time until the door would open, to discuss things. Anything, as long as it would keep Y/N awake. The cold had a tendency to make people drowsy.

“Sam will never shut up about it if he sees us like this,” She realized, saying it with a hint of playfulness in her voice.

Bucky silently agreed with her. He also knew that Sam knew of Bucky’s feelings. Sam was one of the very few people who Bucky had confided in. Sure, it had been a while since he told Sam that he cared for Y/N as more than just a friend, but Sam definitely remembered that.

Feeling brave, Bucky decided to test the waters. “Why have you avoided us since the movie night?” He was fully prepared for her to change the topic immediately, and he wasn’t going to push her buttons if she chose to do so.

Didn’t he really know?

Y/N felt bad for what she had done. She truly thought she had made things awkward, but perhaps she had been over-thinking it.

“I thought I made things weird,” She admitted.

Weird? Bucky furrowed his eyebrows as he felt confused. He thought about it for a moment and remembered how she fell asleep against his shoulder. Was that it?

“What do you mean?”

Y/N felt nervous now. Although it was difficult to talk about it, her feelings and all that, she decided to go for it. There was a slim chance the others wouldn’t find them until it was too late. The temperature in the room was plummeting, after all, and they couldn’t break out of there.

She wanted to talk about things.

“When I said that thing about catching feelings, and how it could make things hard,” She hoped she wouldn’t have to repeat herself, that he could recall the moment.

It felt like a light bulb lit above his head.

What was she implying? After pushing his feelings for her aside for so long, he was almost scared to even consider she could feel the same way about him. He had watched her go on dates several times and come back, disappointed. Every time, he was there to help her. Bucky wondered why she would put herself through that, but if she cared for someone, it made sense that she’d distract herself.

Bucky couldn’t let his mind go that far. There was no chance she cared about him the way he cared about her. Surely, she had been upset because of the date who never showed up.

“Why do you see these people?” Bucky was genuinely curious. It felt wrong to question her love life. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d do if he was in their shoes. He would treat her like the wonderful person she was. Bucky would stop at nothing to make her feel good about herself, to feel beautiful - inside out. In his eyes, she deserved to be loved. Even if it meant she’d find someone else.

“I don’t know,” That was a lie. They both knew that.

“You don’t know?”

“It’s complicated,” She corrected herself.

How long had they been there? It already felt much colder and her shivering was beginning to get uncontrollable. Bucky felt bad for her as he held her closer, feeling every tremble of her body against his. What he feared more than that was when she’d stop shaking.

Y/N’s fingertips felt like they were freezing over. It made her sick to her stomach when she couldn’t even bend them properly anymore.

Bucky noticed that and he was quick to grab her hands into his, which was much warmer. His flesh hand was so warm against hers. Since his metal arm was quite obviously cold, he had her hands pressed against his stomach and he covered them with his hand. They were safely sealed away from the cold air.

It felt amazing when his warmth spread across her skin.

Either the cold was getting to her head, or she was otherwise losing her shame and willpower. Her heart was screaming at her to tell Bucky about her feelings. Other times she would silence that voice as well as she possibly could, but now she listened. Would it be so dumb? Was she imagining things or did it seem like he wanted the conversation to go there? Perhaps she was finding too much comfort in his embrace. It was bizarre how quickly she succumbed to the cold. One moment she was fine, and now she was trembling away in Bucky’s arms. Without a clock or anything else that made the passage of time clear, it was difficult to tell how long they had already been there.

Five minutes?

Ten?

“Bucky?” She made up her mind. She would deal with the consequences if they made it out of there alive. Surely, he would be fine but she wasn’t so sure about herself. Bucky was the one with the serum.

“Yeah?”

“Do you really want to know why?” She kept the sentence short. It was so cold that it was hard to move her mouth as she spoke. Inhaling the cold air, oddly enough, felt like swallowing fire.

Bucky’s heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t expected the conversation to go like this.

“You can tell me if you feel comfortable with it,” He hoped he hadn’t pushed her.

“I am,” Y/N nodded. Her heart was racing by now. It couldn’t believe that its tiny voice was being heard. “When I said t-that catching feelings for someone you work with is...isn’t easy, I was talking about how I certainly don’t know how to deal with it.”

Bucky was shocked. Was he hearing right? He didn’t know what to say.

She decided to continue, “I’ve tried to ignore this for so long, because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship,” As she spoke, her feelings got the best of her. After bottling up her feelings for so long, letting them pour out was overwhelming. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She blinked, and one of them rolled down her cheek. It froze within seconds against her skin.

“Hey,” Bucky noticed it as he looked down. They faced each other and all Y/N wanted to do was to get lost in those eyes. Why did they have to get trapped in this room? Why didn’t she do a better job at keeping watch? She blamed herself for being in this situation. The thought of anything happening to Bucky, and knowing he was locked there which certainly put his mind to a terrible place, made her feel so guilty.

“I’m sorry,” Y/N said softly. She didn’t want to cry, but it was hard not to. Keep yourself together!

Bucky couldn’t let go of her hands, but he wanted to wipe her tears away. He wanted to hold her differently, to cup her face, but he didn’t want her to get colder. He just couldn’t believe his own ears. For all that time, they had both been hiding the fact that they cared about each other so much.

“We can talk about this later if you want to,” Bucky noticed that she was struggling.

She shook her head no, “If I freeze to death, you deserve to know that I really like you. You’re wonderful, Bucky.”

She said those words with such sincerity that it melted Bucky’s doubts. Although her words were slurred, he found the truth in it. He felt like the luckiest person in the world, knowing that his feelings weren’t one-sided. The joy was short lived as he focused on the other half of her sentence. The sharp pain was quite the opposite of the moment of happiness. It was bittersweet.

“You won’t die here, Y/N,” he was quick to reassure her, although by now, he felt freezing cold as well. He wanted to tell her about his feelings as well, but he wasn’t sure how, when her eyes were closing slowly but surely. This drowsy stage was only going to get worse.

“Stay awake for me, okay?” Bucky grew worried at the sight of her. Earlier, she had been shaking violently in his arms and now she began to relax. He knew she was beginning to feel warm, which was a dangerous sign of hypothermia. “Y/N, please,” He tried to make her focus on his voice.

It was so cold, yet she felt a sense of warmth coming from deep within her body. It came suddenly and it was almost too hot. A part of her wanted to open her jacket, but she knew better than that. Although she felt warm, she knew it wasn’t true. Her temperature was dropping at a dangerous pace. Bucky’s body felt so soft, and she wanted to stay awake but it was so tempting to fall asleep. It was hard to think at this point. How much time had passed?

Ten minutes? Twenty? She had no idea. It was all becoming one big mess.

Bucky was terrified of how calm she was. He had seen enough in one lifetime to recognize these symptoms. Hell, he had felt like her so many times before. He tried to stay as calm as he possibly could in this situation as he held her. He rubbed her hands so she could focus on the pattern and possibly stay distracted enough to stay awake. Bucky knew the ground was frozen cold, so he pulled her on his lap, making sure she was as warm as she possibly could be in that moment.

“You’ll be alright,” he reassured both her and himself. Gently, Bucky placed a kiss on top of her head. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her now. Not now, right after she had found the courage to express her feelings. Bucky was going to appreciate that. Once they were warm and safe, he was going to show her a good time. They would be happy. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea to catch feelings for each other, considering they worked together, but they could make it work. They understood each other better than any strangers ever would. It would all be alright.

“Stay with me, doll,” Bucky’s voice was louder this time. It echoed in the otherwise almost empty room. “We’ll make it out of here, just you wait.”

She didn’t reply, and it made Bucky’s thoughts race. He had to keep her focused, “How about we go out after this? No missions, no cold, just us. It’ll be fun, right?” He realized he sounded desperate, but he didn’t care. He was going to say anything to keep her there.

Although she heard his voice, she couldn’t bring herself to reply. It felt like her body was frozen still like that and moving would make her cold again. She just nodded her head ever so slightly as an answer, since she didn’t know what to say. Indeed, the thought of going out with him sounded fun. It was all she thought of as her mind began to drift away to a much warmer place.

He would’ve yelled at the others to alert them of their position, but he knew better than that. There were guards out there. Yelling and making their positions clear would blow their cover. Bucky had to act like he didn’t know they were out there, although it pained him to do so.

They would open that door any minute now…

“Come on now…” Bucky groaned as he grew restless, worry brewing in his gut like poison. He knew Y/N was breathing, which was a good sign but it wasn’t so comforting when the air around them grew colder and colder by the second. It reminded him of his past. He had been frozen like a piece of meat so many times, just so he could be thawed later and used to do terrible things.

The thought of her freezing to death crossed his mind. Bucky wasn’t stupid or oblivious. He believed the others would find them, but it would have to happen sooner than later. She might’ve been an Avenger, but the cold was merciless to anyone.

Where on earth were the others? Were they okay? Or were they trapped in a similar frozen over hell too?

Despite how heavy her eyelids felt, Y/N felt the strong need to open her eyes. She was exhausted, and a yawn was drawn from her mouth. As she opened her eyes, she noticed that she was on the quinjet. Her body was wrapped in an emergency foil blanket and she felt warm, yet she was shivering. As she looked around, she saw Bucky, who looked sick of worry.

It all came back to her immediately. The cold room, how cold she had felt deep down to her bones, and the things she had told him. What happened then?

“What’s going on?” She made it clear that she was awake. Although she was embarrassed now that she knew Bucky knew of her feelings, she couldn’t stay quiet forever.

Natasha sat by her other side, “You gave us a scare, that’s what’s going on,” She admitted. “We didn’t catch the bad guy, but we have their next location and another team is already on its way. We, on the other hand, are going home to keep you warm.” Natasha continued explaining softly, clearly feeling relieved when her friend woke up. Seeing her like that, frozen over and unconscious, was terrifying.

“We’re glad you’re okay,” Steve said from the cockpit. No scolding from him? Must’ve been a miracle.

Y/N felt guilty for making them worry. “I shouldn’t have let the door get closed in the first place,” She sighed deeply. Had the others seen the masked enemy?

“That’s not on you,” Bucky was quick to argue with her guilty worries. He couldn’t let her dwell on it.

As they faced each other, it felt like no one else was there. Did he remember what she had said? That was a silly thought, of course he did.

Bucky was going to mention it to her once they were at the compound. Not now, when they were surrounded by the others. For now, he just put his hand on her shoulder and tried to comfort her. She was safe, and it felt like a ton of bricks were lifted off his shoulders.

“Next time, I’ll keep my foot between the door so that won’t happen again,” She was sure of that. Although the odds of stepping into a trap like that again were slim, she was going to be prepared.

“That might hurt your foot. Did you see that door? It was pure metal, ouch,” Sam imagined getting his foot stuck between a heavy door like that.

It was exactly the type of thing he would say, and it didn’t fail to make her laugh. “Always so logical, Sam.”

“Someone has to be,” he teased her and his words came from a place of love. “We’re all just glad we found you when we did.”

Bucky was glad too. When they had opened that door, he felt a sense of relief like never before.

They arrived at the compound safely, and everyone was worn out. Bucky had offered to help Y/N and she gladly accepted, for once. The rest seemed to catch the hint that they wanted privacy, so they didn’t stick around for too long.

As they reached Y/N’s quarters, she immediately sat down on her bed. She was so tired and all she wanted was to sleep, but she knew she couldn’t. Not yet. Her body was still longing for warmth and her mind needed rest, which she would find by talking to Bucky.

He was running her a bath so she could warm up. As he waited for the tub to fill up, they could talk.

“How are you feeling?” He wondered, taking in the sight of her wrapped up in her blanket.

“I’m okay,” She reassured him softly. Perhaps her limbs ached a little bit, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

He kept an eye on the bathtub to make sure it wouldn’t overflow. Then he faced her again. His heart was racing. How could he find the right words to mention what she had told him?

“Do you want to talk about what I said?” Y/N was the first one to speak of it, to his relief. Was it so obvious that he was thinking of it?

“Only if you feel like it”

She held onto the blanket tightly and stood up, walking closer to him. She had to go to the bathroom soon anyway to enjoy the lovely bath, but now she stopped so she was right in front of Bucky. His eyes never left her, and he looked curious.

“I meant it,” Y/N confirmed it and took a deep breath. Being so open about her feelings was bizarre, almost frightening. But she felt confident because Bucky wanted to bring it up. Surely, that was a good sign, right? She searched his eyes for something that would ease her wild heart, or put an end to her worrisome thoughts. When she saw the hope and joy in his eyes, she wanted to melt on the spot.

“Good,” Bucky couldn’t possibly hold back his smile anymore. Not only was he happy that she survived the ice box, he was ecstatic to hear that there was truth behind her drowsy words.

“Oh?” She wondered if he’d say more than that.

Bucky nervously put his hands on her cheeks, cupping her face gently as he looked deep into her eyes. “I was hoping you’d let me take you out someday. I think I promised you that earlier. Wasn’t sure if you heard me,” He felt oddly positive about it as he asked her out. Perhaps it was because he was almost sure that she would be delighted about it. There was no reason to worry or fear this anymore, and it felt great.

Y/N couldn’t believe how lucky she was. Right now, she couldn't have cared less about the practicality of having such strong, romantic feelings for someone she worked with. This was Bucky, and he owned her heart. She nearly died earlier that day and all she could think about was him. Life was too short to ignore those feelings for much longer.

“I’d love that,” She finally answered him. The look of pure joy on his face that followed was so wholesome. She wanted to kiss him.

Before they could initiate anything, the sound of water splashing against the floor caught their attention. The tub was overflowing.

“Fuck,” Bucky groaned and let go of her, rushing inside the bathroom to turn the water flow off. Y/N couldn’t help it when she let out of a laugh, one that was utterly precious to him. “That didn’t go as planned,” He sighed deeply. When he turned around, she was by his side and there was a look in her eyes he had never seen before. It was dark, mysterious and longing.

Silently, she wrapped her arms over his shoulders and pulled him closer until their noses brushed against one another. It was long overdue, but it was finally happening.

Bucky closed his eyes and held her by the back of her head. Then he closed the gap between them and kissed her. Once their lips met, they were okay. It felt like a spark that ignited a great fire. Although her lips were still cold, Bucky knew they would be warm soon enough.

They parted the kiss, only for a moment, to look at each other. They were both in awe, and surely the kiss had wiped their thoughts clean. Nothing else mattered but that moment.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Y/N had to let him know.

Bucky smiled, “so have I,” he murmured against her lips before sealing them into another one. And another one. And another…

Author’s Note: I hope that you, the person reading this that made it this far, enjoyed it! You must know that fluff isn’t my forte, so I apologize if it’s cheesy at the end. Nevertheless, I would love to hear your feedback if you have any to share 💚 I’m definitely writing more Bucky stuff in the future. If you like angst, stick around.

#Annie’s500KittiesWritingChallenge #Annie’s1stWritingChallenge #Bucky Barnes #Bucky x You #Bucky x Reader #Bucky fanfiction #Bucky Barnes fanfiction #James Buchanan Barnes #Bucky fluff #Bucky angst #writing challenge

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perhapsthanatos · 3 years

Text

10:32 pm with yuta ♡

nct’s yuta x fem!reader (got inspired by a dream of mine & found the idea really cute)

alternate title: be the james dean to my audrey hepburn

genre: fluff. a pinch of angst. non idol au. badboy!yuta au.

word count: 1400~

playlist: chinatown by wild nothing, lover’s rock by tv girl & work this time by king gizzard and the lizard wizard.

warnings: featuring johnny (not a warning though). smoking cigarettes. cursing. lowercase intended. not proofread.

a/n: hi i was supposed to post a vampire!haechan fic but i really wasnt happy w it in general :( the plot or overall idea of the fic was really good, but i just felt as if i didnt do it justice so here we are :( but ngl, i kind of like this concept more? maybe bc i can see it more vividly? idk, i feel like my writings r getting repetitive & its getting on my nerves lmaoo this is getting long im sorry do u guys even read this part anyway? i would also like to apologize abt the amount of projecting im doing lmao ive been having some rough days & i love my sister but hate being compared to her so often so this is a way for me to rant abt it ig? also so sorry its coming out a little later bc i woke up late today (& procrastinated for the rest of it so here i am posting really late at night) & decided to go to the convenience store to get ice cream (& a ton of other bad shit pls dont do this its rlly unhealthy) for breakfast bc i can :) any who, enjoy lovelies <3

“oh my, y/n! you’ve grown up so well! just like your sister!”

“oh! i’m sorry i’ve almost mistaken you for your sister! y/n is your name, correct?”

“y/n, darling, you are looking so dashing! you really do resemble your sister, don’t you?”

“ah, you must be y/n! i’ve heard all about you and your sister from your father!”

you swear that your reddening cheeks are threatening to fall off any moment now from all the fake smiling. the hundreds of superficial compliments, the insincere flattery and the need for these people to constantly compare you to your godforsaken sister makes you feel even weaker than you are. it gets harder and harder to keep up with a big persona that isn’t at all you. as lucky as you are to live such a lavish lifestyle, you can’t help but hate how your family has to be so perfect. you hate how you have never fit in with them, even if you are so good at faking it. you hate how you have always been stuck in your sister’s shadow, constantly haunted with the reminder that you yourself aren’t good enough. you hate how you now have to entertain the rich and brainless guests at your parent’s gala because she’s gone for some stupid prodigy competition and everyone is only talking about her in front of your face. so what if she’s better the better sister? you still have the right to earn respect, right?

you’re exhausted from all the small talk. your facade gets more brittle by the second under all the pressure. your body feels as if it's gonna give out due to your brain shutting down after all that interacting. you try to keep on going with the night as it unravels itself by being the perfectly poised poster child, trying to make your parents proud. but alive yet almost completely devoid, you decide enough was enough. what if you left right now? no one would notice, would they?

after pulling up your phone discreetly to send a few text messages, you pass through lots of people dressed in gold and finery in a way that wouldn’t have you noticed right away. keep your head down and don’t you dare make eye contact with anyone. nearing the end of the room, grabbing the first glass of whatever alcohol you see and downing it in one gulp, you start walking away as quickly as possible from the ballroom. “ignorant privileged fucks,” you angrily whisper to no one in particular, setting the now empty glass on whatever surface and begin to head to the main exit where no one could spot you running away.

“and what do you think you’re doing here, miss?”

a voice interrupts you, looking up you see that it is your father’s head butler; johnny. he is dressed in a simple black suit that makes him appear taller than he is. his long brown hair is slicked back and his bowtie seems brand new. you have known the man since he started working in your household less than ten years back. you were a reckless child, often trying to find ways to sneak out, finding a way to escape from this life and he sympathized with you. after all, he could barely imagine living your life, never catching a break for yourself and always pretending to be someone you weren’t. he often helped planning when you would sneak out into the night, scheduling things like what time you should leave and what time you should be back, more specifically a time when no one would notice. he would take care of your form of transportation and have your location on at all times, just to be extra safe. as much as he wants you to have fun and have a bit of freedom, he still worries that something might happen to you. because of all this, you two have grown to have a very strong bond. you could confidently say that he is most definitely a parental figure in your life since your parents (and even your sister) are often overseas for work.

“what do you think i’m doing? you think i wanna be in a room with those half-baked bipeds? fuck no!”

“i know, i was just joking. you looked like you were about to explode in there, i wish i could help.” he laughs, pulling out his phone preparing what you might need. “so what will it be for today? the driver? we just need to pay him to keep his mouth shut. a taxi? it’s cheaper than paying the driver, but you still need to pay… not like that’s a problem for you though. maybe an uber would be good enough—“

“actually, i got myself covered. thanks.”

his jaw slightly drops and his eyebrows furrow. he looks straight at you in shock. “what do you mean you got yourself covered?”

you look down at your feet, a nervous habit. “i got myself a ride, you don’t need to help me. i’ll be back as soon as dawn comes.”

he raises his eyebrow. “who’s your ride?”

“doesn’t matter,” you glance down at your phone seeing a notification and wave a goodbye, leaving rather suddenly. “i gotta go, i’ll text you when you need to open the gates!”

“y/n! wait! who’s your ride— and she’s gone.” johnny sighs, watching as you run towards the front gates, tossing your stiletto heels away on the grass while you’re at it. he heads back inside, silently hoping you’ll be fine.

knocking the window of the old black mustang parked outside behind the big bushes, the driver rolls down his window and sends the most charming smile.

yuta in his black beanie, long blonde hair, worn out doc martens, signature leather jacket and black skinny jeans. it almost makes you laugh on how he wears the same thing almost everyday but still manages to look so good.

he is most notable for having a big bad boy reputation and you knew that he was the breath of fresh air you needed in your life. a person who can understand having the pressure of having to be or to fulfill your persona. a person you can completely be yourself around. a person who is full of warmth no matter how cold he may seem on the outside.

“get in, princess.”

and that was all you needed. you tiredly walked to the other door and sat yourself in the car. rolling his window back up, he looks at you. you are wearing a simple yet stunning black dress along with silver jewelry adorned on your neck and wrists. your makeup is perfectly done but still struggles to hide the fog in your eyes. he has the sudden urge to clear them away. he softens at the sight of you. no one is perfect, but he finds you being perfect enough without ever having to dress up.

“where to?” he asks as gently as he could. he knows that you are most vulnerable during these moments and that it is hard to finally break down your walls after a day full of stress, so he doesn’t pry immediately. all he wants to do is to keep you here, safe and away from your burdens and for you to stay comfortable with him, even if it couldn't be for long. but is that too selfish of him to ask? he hates how you hate your life and it is taking every bone in his body to not run away with you. but who is he to tell you what to do or what to change anyway? all he can do for now is try to find a way to make you genuinely smile.

“take me anywhere,” you whisper to the latter. “i just want to be as far from myself and my life as possible. miles away or the nearest convenience store, just take the long way home before dawn.”

you look down at the cup holders, spotting an open cigarette box. you tug one out of the nineteen and light it with the lighter you kept in your pocket. you lean back and close your eyes. he only admires as you bring the cigarette to your lips, exhaling a cloud of smoke afterwards. letting the radio play quietly, he starts the car and begins to drive away from the mansion. he can’t help but wonder how you (an elegant daughter) and him (a bad boy) are millions of worlds apart, but more similar than you think.

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antebunny · 3 years

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April 27: games

A sequel to archer and bridge, an identity porn extra of a modern cultivators Olympic sports AU.

Note: this is from the perspective of an NB OC named Elaine Chao who uses they/them pronouns. I did this because 1) the number of NB people I know has exponentially increased in the past year, and they all use they/them pronouns so I wanted to make myself familiar with using they/them pronouns to refer to a single person. I chose the name Elaine Chao because that’s the name of Mitch McConnell’s wife and I think I’m funny.

Elaine Chao is taking a class on cultivation, which is a new class offered at their university and also not very popular because cultivation is supposed to be a dead practice now just used as a sport. So it was expected to have like five students, max. The professor is an expert when it comes to the culture and history of xianxia, and now decided to also offer her skills and knowledge on cultivation, which she is also an expert on, despite having previously just taught the history/culture of that era. Then suddenly at the last minute, the class gets six new students. Initially, this isn’t the weird part. With an eleven person class, the students interact somewhat, but for a while all Elaine could tell you was their names.

Soon enough, their professor goes on a tirade about the international cultivation competition. She hates it because 1) it makes a mockery of the original purpose of cultivating, i.e. night hunts and defeating monsters oh and also war, and yet it still 2) puts the lives of the competitors in danger. Not in the way that sports usually do, in that there’s a risk for injury which can sometimes be permanent, but the competitors are all world-class athletes and generally don’t come to harm. But in an active, monsters-are-trying-to-kill-you sort of risk that has led to severe/permanent injuries recently, but no (recent) deaths. And the professor hates that the lives of these teenagers and young adults are so blatantly being put in danger for entertainment. She also hates how gamemasters pass their roles to their kids, who are usually competitors themselves, and so on. So the professor rants about the international tournament and these competitive cultivators and how much she dislikes it.

Then she mentions the last international competition, which everyone has heard of just because of how wrong it went.

The recent competitions have been rife with controversy anyway; there was that whole thing with gamemaster Wen Ruohan where he was favoring his sons and almost got the other competitors killed, and usually the other gamemasters would vote him out but Jiang Fengmian (and his wife) passed away from disease recently, and Jiang Cheng was his nominal replacement since it was assumed that Jiang Cheng would be too old for competition by the time Jiang Fengmian retired, and Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were skipping that year’s competition anyway because of jfm and yzy’s deaths, but then Jiang Cheng was dragged back to vote Wen Ruohan out. That all worked out in the end, because the Wens were just removed from the competition.

But last year’s competition was the final nail in the coffin. Basically, one of the gamemasters (Jin Guangshan) rigged the game for his own purposes. Since Jiang Cheng was still competing, Jin Guangyao was chosen as the new gamemaster. When only five contestants were left–the same five as the previous years–the monsters suddenly stopped dying and their time-out flares suddenly stopped working. This maybe would’ve worked except that Jin Zixuan was surreptitiously warned at the last moment that the game was rigged in his favor, and immediately told the others once he found them. Then they realized that they were stuck in the arena with monsters that wouldn’t die and no way to get out. They had a collective come-to-grace moment in which they realized “hey maybe putting our lives on the line like this isn’t healthy or normal just because it was what our parents did”. (Meanwhile, the other two grandmasters are panicking because their little brothers are out there jgs I’m going to wring your neck–) Then Wei Wuxian goes “actually I think I can control the monsters using ~demonic cultivation~” and the others go “it may be against the rules but we’ll back you up”. So that was last year’s competition. It was even more controversial because Wen Ning died as a consequence. His sister, Wen Qing, the best cultivating doctor in the world, who has treated all of the competitors in the past, literally hit the ceiling. She treated the five returning contestants and then promptly quit. That would be a problem because there’s no other doctors willing to treat all the cultivating contestants after a competition. But the bigger problem comes when Wei Wuxian, who should have gotten first place, gets banned from competitive cultivation for breaking the rules. They try to award first place to Lan Zhan, who promptly refuses and also vows to stop competitive cultivation because they banned Wei Wuxian. Then they try to award it to Jin Zixuan who refuses because he doesn’t ~deserve~ it and he’s wrecked with guilt that all the others went through this just because his dad wanted to make him win (and also wanted to kill the others). They go to Jiang Cheng who takes one look and goes “you’re kidding, right” and everyone knows that Jiang Cheng is suffering from an inferiority complex due to Wei Wuxian constantly upstaging him but Jiang Cheng is like “if you think I’m going to take a first place prize when I should’ve been fourth and you’re robbing not only the first three but also my brother by banning him from the game that almost killed all of us just because you think I have some stupid complex then you have another thing coming and also fuck you.”

So next year’s competition is canceled. Suddenly, these professional athletes have nothing to do. The five of them sit down and say “maybe we should learn more about our supposed profession” since the only reason they survived was because of Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation. Jiang Yanli brings up the university class, and the next thing they know, all six are enrolled in the class.

When Elaine overhears Wei Wuxian needle Jin Zixuan about something to which he responds “that was years ago!”, they can’t help but ask, “do you know each other?” And Wei Wuxian glances nervously at the professor and says “we’re…uh…family friends!” (That brick wall Lan Wangji is glaring at Wei Wuxian because he doesn’t like lying, but Elaine can’t tell because Lan Wangji is a brick wall. In more ways than one). Basically, while they didn’t have any intention of hiding, Wei Wuxian panics when he remembers how much the professor hates competitive cultivators, and everyone else gets sucked into his lies because of him.

And then it all comes spilling out: Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli are siblings, Nie Huaisang is high school friends with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian is dating Lan Wangji (and that much was already obvious from the very public pda), and Jin Zixuan is Jiang Yanli’s fiancé, and his family is friends with Jiang Yanli’s family, which is how he knows the siblings from earlier. It also comes out that all six of them aren’t regular students at the university, they’re just taking this class in particular. Their answers aren’t particularly enlightening, and Elaine doesn’t understand why they’re being so dodgy on the question. Well, if “dodgy” means Jiang Cheng snapping “none of your business” and Lan Wangji staring at you until you walk away nervously.

This is how Elaine gains perspective on their classmates. Jin Zixuan is an arrogant rich prick who can’t last a conversation without mentioning how much better he is than you. Jiang Cheng would be cool (and maybe even cute, Elaine notes) if he wasn’t perpetually angry, even with the people he supposedly got along with. He’s polite enough with strangers but any personal comments and he acts personally offended. Wei Wuxian is nice enough, but he’s also an annoying troublemaker who’s always late for class, and has the social skills of an agoraphobic lobster. He constantly inserts himself in conversations and gets on the professor’s nerves. Well, the professor appreciates the questions and knows that Wei Wuxian is actually interested and also really really smart, but. Nerves. Lan Zhan is handsome, and a model student, but that’s about all Elaine can say about him. He has the emotional capacity of an old shoe, and rarely offers more than one word answers, as if talking is beneath him. The only exception is Wei Wuxian, and that’s a whole other can of worms, because Elaine cannot for the life of them figure out how those two are dating each other. It’s clear they’re the most in-love couple to ever being in love, but that doesn’t answer the question why. And how. And what. Nie Huaisang is nice enough. He actually has some social tact and can hold a conversation, but he also has zero spine and isn’t interested in anything but art and procrastination. Elaine doesn’t understand why he’s even taking this class. He’s not in uni anyway, why is he here.

The only acceptable person is Jiang Yanli, and that’s because she’s a human person with actual feelings. She’s always nice, but knows that her siblings are not, and she has interests besides ??? and none. She actually goes to university and is majoring in political science, which is how Elaine learns that she is a debate champion, and already managing a business left to her by her recently deceased parents. Elaine brings up their parents once and then Jiang Cheng the aggressive angry grape starts yelling and Wei Wuxian turns downright vicious all cold and dark and Elaine never brings it up again. So Jiang Yanli is the only one that Elaine actually likes/considers a friend. The only thing is that Elaine cannot understand why she associates with the people that she does. Siblings are understandable, but why is she engaged to that rich brat Jin Zixuan? The terrifying thing is that Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian agree with Elaine and think Jiang Yanli could do better, and Elaine knows this because they’re so vocal about it. Like are they trying to ruin their sister’s engagement? Actually maybe they are.

So that’s Elaine’s university class experience.

#antebunny's april prompts #fic outline #spring fest 2021 #mdzs #not my art #obviously

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kayparker20 · 4 years

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Inner Turmoil - Chapter 6

I'm so sorry about the wait this time around guys. I threw myself for a loop with this plot and I've been struggling a lot to figure out what I want to happen next. I decided to focus on a minor issue while I brainstorm what happens next. It's a bit feelsy but it's not super dramatic. Also kind of realized it was almost too long so the next chapter will have a spicy start before the real plot happens.

Hope you enjoy this somewhat filler chapter!

Chapter 6 - Village Gossip

FFN | AO3

Ino sat at the front counter of her family flower shop, impatiently waiting for the jonin ninja in her store to get a move on. They would always come in, pretend to look around while gossiping, and never buy one thing. She hasn’t liked them since she heard them being hateful towards Kurenai-sensei, probably out of jealousy.

“Can you believe, of all the beautiful shinobi, he dates his former student?” The woman scoffed and brushed her fingertips over the petals of lilies in a bouquet. “I think I would have rather heard he was gay, before that.” Her long, charcoal hair was curled and flowing down her back in waves.

Another rolled her eyes. “Yeah, gay for Might Guy, even.” Fiery redhead, model body. “Of course, Hatake was too perfect to have no flaws, I just didn’t think it would be something so repulsive like fucking children.”

“Do you think she fucked her way into jonin level?” The darker haired woman speculated. She turned around and looked at some roses that had been to her left.

Ino had been idly doodling flowers on a piece of blank receipt paper before hearing the topic they had been discussing. Her hand stopped mid-petal at the last comment before she narrowed her eyes at the piece of paper.

“I mean, maybe. Must have been easy to become jonin when you’re the Hokage’s apprentice, and being taught by a legend.” She scowled. “I wouldn’t put it past her. I hear she’s quite the bitch at the hospital.”

She felt her mother’s eyes on her as she squeezed the pen, staring daggers meant for the women at the counter. She took a deep breath, reminding herself she needed to stay cordial and polite because they were customers, despite how abrasive and tactless they were.

She flipped her long blonde ponytail over her shoulder before addressing the women with a sarcastic smile. “Excuse me, ladies, is there anything I can help you find?” Her tone dripped with deviance through her smile. Her whole body felt tense with her anger as she forced herself to appear relaxed and helpful.

Two can play this catty game.

The women turned in her direction, both sporting smirks on their expressions. They both stared at her as if she were boring before cocking their hips to the side and giving fake smiles in her direction.

“We’re just admiring, but thank you.” The redhead shot back in a clipped tone.

“Are you sure? I think a bouquet of yellow hyacinths, lavender, and iris would go nicely with your hair.” Ino offered slyly.

She stole a glance at her mother, expecting to see an expression of disapproval, and was surprised to see the faintest smile spreading across her lips.

The darker haired woman narrowed her eyes, clearly catching the message. “You have something to say, girl?”

Ino kept her demeanor as she shook her head. “Oh no, I was just offering. Purple and yellow complement well, you know?”

Before either woman could snapback, the elder brunette cut in politely. “Ladies, it’s time for our lunch, and we must close for the next hour, so please take your pick. We can check you out for your purchase. We’re glad to give you your flowers before we find our meal for the workday.”

Ino’s mother sounded elegant and was the epitome of professionalism as she gave a gratuitous grin towards the women.

Both women huffed in defeat.

“No, miss, thank you for your time.” The darker haired woman gave a strained smile before she walked out, the redhead following.

As soon as the door shut, Ino let out an annoyed sigh. “Thanks…” She huffed before crossing her arms across her chest.

Her mother just shook her head softly. “Your cleverness and restraint amaze me sometimes. It was rather amusing.”

“It’s exhausting, not amusing. I much would have preferred to hit them. That was far from tasteful gossip.” Ino scowled. “How could they accuse Sakura of using sex to get rank! As if she isn’t a jonin level medic! Or uh, I don’t know, the medical director of our hospital! The disrespect!”

Her mother sighed. “People are going to talk, and you have to admit it’s at least a little scandalous. Those women are just jealous, and will say anything to make themselves feel better.”

“That doesn’t make it right!” Ino argued.

Sakura walked in then, smiling. “What doesn’t make something right?” She inquired curiously. “What gossip did you dig up now, Pig?”

Ino turned, her eyes wide to see Sakura. “Oh, uh, nothing!” She chuckled nervously. “Ready for lunch?”

Sakura looked at her surreptitiously. Clearly, something was up. “Spill it. Now.”

Ino crossed her arms, before giving her a defiant look. “And if I don’t?”

“Are you going to make me beat it out of you? Was it about me?” Sakura deadpanned. “You never refuse to tell me gossip unless it’s about me and it's negative.”

Ino hated how well she and Sakura knew each other in moments like this. They couldn’t hide anything from each other. She sighed before uncrossing her arms. “It doesn’t matter, I handled it anyway.” She said matter of factly.

Sakura stared at her friend before shrugging. “You’re telling me at lunch, come on. Off to get our dango and tea. Director or not, I still run on a schedule. And I got behind after being gone a couple of days.”

Ino lips spread into a teasing grin. “Behind because you were off saving my ass or behind because qualities like procrastination and tardiness are rubbing off on you?”

Sakura gave her an unimpressed look. “I was late one time. Definitely behind from saving your ass from our deranged classmate.”

They started walking towards their favorite cafe. It was nice outside even if it was a little cooler. Leaves lay around the ground, dry and crinkling under their footsteps. She could only wonder what Ino was all in a tiff about today, being as she saw the very same women she knew to leave the shop with all too knowing smirks. She was also slightly discomforted by them because when they saw her, their expressions suddenly turned downright venomous.

It wasn’t too uncommon for her to get those as the news of her and Kakashi spread, once rumors became truths. It made her wonder about Anko’s offhanded ‘sex god’ comment. Maybe they were a couple of those one-night stands? She frowned at the thought, not thinking Kakashi would have entertained such rude women.

“Aren’t those the women that you got upset at for talking at Kurenai some time ago?” She wondered to her friend aloud.

“Oh, yes.” She snapped back. “They’re worse than me for spreading everyone’s business and their bullshit two cents about it.”

Sakura couldn’t remember the last time she heard Ino sound unenthused about new gossip. Usually, it meant it was about someone she cared about, and that it thoroughly pissed her off. Even more so unusually, she would normally be more than ready to rant her pretty reddened lips off about said women being conceited and judgemental and downright horrible.

Yet today, her blonde friend was being clipped and avoiding discussing the topic. She decided to test it out again. “So what treachery were they discussing today?”

Ino hesitated. She didn’t want to tell Sakura the things people were saying about her and Kakashi. Her friend had been so happy. She seemed to glow this past month since she had started dating him. She didn’t need to be troubled by people thinking the exact opposite of a situation.

She smiled at her friend. “Oh, not much. I just hate how they loiter in the shop and force me to deal with their presence, yet never buy anything.”

Sakura just gave her friend a bored look and rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m sure.”

“That’s her. Can you believe such a young girl is with a man like him?”

Sakura instantly frowned, refusing to look in the direction of the people they just passed. She tried to remind herself what people said didn’t matter.

“I don’t think I want Mika to have a male sensei. Do they all prey on their students?”

Her expression turned into a downright glare. How dare someone to accuse him of such horrible things? Why did they blame him? Why was it so hard to just believe they loved each other? Hearing the things people said on the street made her miss the way their friends easily accepted them.

“Must be easy to make jounin when you’re the Hokage’s bitch, and fucking one of the commanders.”

Ino watched as all the same bullshit those women had said in her little shop floated around them. Maybe she wasn’t really able to protect Sakura after all, but she’d be damned if she was the one who brought that sort of mood on.

“Don’t listen to it. They're wrong.” Ino said sternly, flinging hard glares directly at anyone who dared say something within their earshot.

“It was me those women were gossiping about in your shop today, wasn’t it?”

Ino snorted. “I told them rather professionally exactly how I felt about their false ass opinions.”

Sakura sighed. “I think the ones I hate the most are him being a pedophile, or me using him to get rank.” Her face contorted into anger. “I’ve been a jounin since before I even realized I loved him, for fuck sake!” Sakura growled out.

“Does she pine after her whole team? First the traitor, now the sensei. Jinchuriki and socially inept next? Maybe she just whores around for them all.”

Now that one was just funny. She laughed as she and Ino entered their shop. “Alright, as if! Did you hear that one?”

Ino raised an eyebrow. “Do you think Sai knows how to fake an orgasm like he does a smile? That’d be rather disconcerting. Being cute only gets you so far.”

They sat down at their table and ordered their tea and dango. The homey atmosphere of this place always put Sakura at ease. The place had always been so down to earth, and the staff here were so nice and she had known most of them for at least quite some time now.

She remembers coming to this little cafe for the time with her team as a genin before Sasuke left. He claimed it was a treat for doing so well on a mission, before disappearing when it came time for the bill to be paid. She remembered feeling so angry back then, how dare their sensei pull some sheisty trick like that! But now it was just funny, thinking about times when their lives hadn’t changed so drastically.

“Watch out, Team Seven’s Mistress, coming through.”

Sakura wrinkled her nose. “Okay, now that sounds like a scandal for sure. I could never even dream of taking Naruto from Hinata, let alone sleeping with him. And don’t get me started on Sai.”

“Shouldn’t she be here soon?” Ino inquired.

As if on queue, the bell rang as another customer entered, and it was their black haired Hyuga friend.

“Hina, over here!” Sakura called.

Hinata meandered over their table and sat next to Sakura. “Hi, guys!” She spoke softly, happy to see her friends.

“Tell Sakura here to ignore these stupid rumors jealous nimrods keep spreading,” Ino said blandly. “Well, at least the boring ones.”

Hinata raised an eyebrow. “There are ones that aren’t boring?”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “Apparently there’s one that I’m fucking my entire team.”

“Oh, now that’s just dirty! Who would do such a thing?”

“Which thing, fuck the whole team, or fuck Naruto?” Ino said in a teasing voice.

Their friend turned beet red. “I-I don’t either Sakura or myself would uh… Have relations with an entire team.”

Sakura slumped in her seat. “You’re right, but people think my sensei is a pedophile. Which hurts because he would never have thought of me, or any of young girls, in such a way.”

Ino and Hinata watched as Sakura looked so hurt. How do you tell your friend to ignore things she hears whispered as soon as she comes into a room, or simply a vicinity. No one had to deal with something like that. Then again, neither of them were dating men much older than them, or ones who had been their teacher. But why does that matter when they’re adults now? Sakura had been a jonin for two years now after she and Shikamaru had gotten promoted when the fourth war ended.

“They are just jealous that a younger, prettier, and more talented kunoichi took their eye-candy off the market.” Ino insisted. “Easier to keep their ego intact if they blame him for being gross, or you for using him.”

“I guess…” She sighed. “Look at me, worried about stupid gossip when my old teammate is hellbent on making me join him…” Sakura shivered at the thought. “Even now, there are three ANBU following me at all times.”

“Wait, even at Kakashi’s…?”

Sakura nodded.

“I bet they watch…” Ino smirked deviously.

“Ino!” Hinata squeaked.

Sakura just shook her head, more than used to Ino’s antics. She knew it would take her ‘innocent’ friend some time to get used to Ino’s crudeness, but she felt better being around both her close friends.

“Do you think people truly think that low of Kakashi? People think he would groom one of his students?” Sakura asked seriously.

Hinata shrugged. “You can’t expect people to necessarily think super well of someone who openly reads porn in public.”

“Hey, Icha-Icha is a wonderful series.” Ino piped in. “Even Sakura agrees with that.”

Sakura laughed at the comment. “It’s true, but I guess you have a point. No one sees that unless they’ve dared to read the beloved Ero-Sannin’s work. Lady Tsunade swears to burn every copy of those books, but she secretly has her first edition collection, signed by Jiraiya himself.”

“I guess society might accuse us of being molesters next, huh, Pig?”

Sakura frowned. “I sure hope not, considering I’m certain being a molester consists of much more than enjoying romance novels that might be slightly too pornographic at some points along with the good plot.”

Hinata giggled lightly. “I think anyone who had ever actually paid attention to you and Kakashi-sensei interacting would have realized you were the one going after him.” She smiled softly.

Sakura thought about that. She knew she never made intentional moves on Kakashi, but apparently everyone close to them knew they loved each other, or that there was at least something going on. She couldn’t help but feel touched at how accepting his friends were, even if Anko and Genma teased her relentlessly. Or made threesome jokes, which Kakashi bluntly shut down quickly. However, a large majority of people were the stark opposite.

She should have known that Ino’s ideals about them being shinobi bending morals a bit was closer to romanticism than what society thought in reality. She felt like she was just as much an adult as Kakashi and the rest, even in her 20s. She’s gone on deadly missions just like Kakashi, let alone with Kakashi. She’d been through a war. She’s damn near died, multiple times, and she had saved people’s lives and held the ones she couldn’t save.

Yet people dared to treat the situation like Kakashi was dating a child, instead of an equal? So what if he had trained her, it’s not like he ever made a move on her?

Hinata was right, she made the move on him.

“I knew what I wanted, even if I only got the courage to express it with a little encouragement from sake. At first.” Sakura crossed her arms. “But why do we have to justify our damn happiness?”

The waitress walked up to get Hinata’s order after that. “What can I get for you today, miss?”

“I’ll have green tea and a rice ball, please,” Hinata spoke softly with a pleasant smile.

“Sure thing!” She flashed a smile at them before striding away to take care of the order.

Ino sipped her drink before shrugging in response to the question. “I thought you already know people talk about anything we do, no matter what. Especially when they’re jealous, and you have plenty of things to envy.”

Sakura huffed before. “Yeah well, I didn’t get them without effort, and that especially includes Kakashi.”

The girls fell silent. Hinata and Ino could only say so much in attempts to make Sakura feel better. It’s not like you could ignore an issue when everywhere you went you were hearing whispers or receiving horrible glares sent in your direction.

The waitress brought Hinata’s order about and paused a moment. She looked like she wanted to say something, but seemed a bit nervous. She chewed her lip subtlety before looking at Sakura.

“Miss?”

Sakura raised her eyes to make eye contact with her and gave a polite smile. “Yes?”

“Is it true that you’re dating Kakashi now?

Sakura nodded, her smile fading slightly in fear of some directly aimed judgment. She came here often with Kakashi, he used to bring the whole team here.

“I just wanted to tell you I’m very happy for you guys. I’ve seen you guys together often, and sometimes I wondered if you were the one he bought the lattes for every so often. He’s come here for a long time, but he always seemed so…” She searched for the word for a moment. “Aloof. Always polite, but kept to himself.”

Sakura nodded softly. “He’s uh… He’s been through a lot, even more so than the average ninja.”

The girl gave a sad smile. “So I’ve heard. When he started bringing you and those boys here, he seemed to change. Like a spark in him ignited. Is it true that the blonde was his mentor’s son?”

Sakura’s smile turned a little less stiff as she nodded again. “The Fourth Hokage, yes.”

Hinata and Ino listened with small smiles, glad to see their friend getting some positivity towards her relationship from someone other than friends. Hinata’s face flushed slightly at the mention of Naruto as she thought of him distantly.

“I’m sorry about the things I’ve heard people say. Anyone who truly has been around you can see the chemistry you have, sometimes I wondered if you were secretly together. I have never seen him so relaxed around anyone besides you.” She smiled brightly. “He had friends of course, like those dashing men, Asuma and Genma. Or the….very lively Gai.”

Ino wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know if I’d consider Asuma-sensei dashing.” She muttered softly under her breath.

Sakura's eyes widened softly. “Thank you… It’s nice to hear someone say something nice about it.”

“Sakura, it’s almost the end of your lunch break isn’t it?” Hinata wondered aloud, catching the time on the clock. She gave a soft smile before

“Oh, look at that, it’s the rank climbing whore with her flower bitch of a friend.”

I guess that’s one way you could refer to Sakura and Ino, at least within the last month. She couldn’t imagine how upset Ino would be if she would only ever be remembered as her ‘flower bitch of a friend’. She would probably be remembered as Ino-Pig, and she hates that nickname.

She could attest to the fact that she hated being referred to as a ‘rank climbing whore”. Didn’t have to sleep with multiple men or do something dirty like have an afraid to fall under the description of whore? She had only just lost her virginity to Kakashi a month ago…

She sighed and reminded herself that these women wouldn’t care to hear technicalities and that it would probably only antagonize them to carry on with more horrible accusations and scornful comments.

The waitress instantly frowned at the woman. “I can ask them to-”

Sakura shook her head. “It’s whatever, don’t scare off your business. Thank you for your kindness.”

Ino instantly slid her gaze towards the nasty tone, sending daggers. “Are you even acutely aware that Sakura was made a jounin almost three years ago?” She spat. “Pretty sure she only got with Kakashi roughly a month ago, now carry on with your trivial lives.”

Sakura sighed and rolled her eyes, hoping the sting that suddenly arrived would go away with them. “Right, I need to go back to work. I’ll catch up with you guys later.” She stood from the table and turned for the door.

“Oh, did I hurt your feelings? Are you gonna go run and tell mommy Hokage?”

Sakura’s eyes twitched as she started gathering chakra into her fists, ready to shut them up herself. How much disrespect could someone dare to have? Was this really out of pure jealousy?

She kept telling herself none of this was worth getting this upset over. She couldn’t figure out if she wanted to cry from the humiliation or punch them through the wall of the restaurant. She had never felt so ridiculed before, and it was infuriating.

“I’ll bet my old student would be an easy target to get some action from when I was bored. Especially from emotional types like yourself. Just a few sweet words and you probably melted for him.” The other woman cackled.

Sakura bit her cheek before she left briskly, ignoring the shrieking she heard from Ino, or how Hinata tried to run after her. She felt stupid for letting those women get under her skin, but she couldn’t help it.

This is what people were saying? What else was there? Did she seem that naive, that her sensei could take advantage of her? She knew there would be talking about this, but she never expected those sorts of accusations. She expected disapproval and even some daunting glares.

She went straight for her office and buried herself in the paperwork she had to catch up. It was a decent distraction. Verifying shinobi physicals, signing them with her approval. Later they would need to be given to Tsunade. She signed paperwork regarding the children’s clinic she was opening with Ino, mainly financial documents for the grants involved in the program. More paperwork was needed to be signed for hospital grants for unfortunate patients.

Kakashi was walking to the cenotaph, feigning ignorance to all the looks she was currently receiving from the majority of the people he passed. Many whispers went about. Mostly about wretched of a man he was, accusations of pedophilia and grooming. Some against Sakura for whoring herself into rank, which didn’t make even a lick of sense if you asked him, considering she was made jounin after the fourth great war.

He sighed softly. There were much bigger issues now that these people couldn’t even begin to think about. If he ever thought that beginning a relationship with Sakura would have put her in danger, he wouldn’t have indulged in the idea no matter what, if it had meant she would have been safe.

Granted, it was starting to be believed by Tsunade that Sasuke was coming for her either way because he did Orochimaru’s bidding. And healing arms isn’t related to Sakura’s love life. Sasuke was bothered by the fact that Sakura was with somebody else, but was it that she moved on, or that she was with Kakashi in general? That was the question that was begging to be answered in his mind at the moment. No matter what, she would be safe. She might not have any special jutsu, but she had quite the punch with her chakra latent strength, so even in the event he wasn’t there, she believed in her to protect herself. Not to mention the three ANBU guarding her at all times, and he knew one of them was Genma, though she didn’t.

His mind wandered a bit as he walked from the cenotaph to training ground three, the same one he always used with his beloved team. His thoughts were everywhere, mainly on just how happy he had felt.

Nothing felt more right than when he laid in bed at night with Sakura in his arms. Her hair splayed about the pillow, her face buried against his bare chest. Her skin felt so soft against his, even with the few scars she held in comparison to his body. Listening to her breathe lulled him to sleep every time she spent the night at his home. She was so warm and inviting, and she always clung to him.

She still had nightmares. Sometimes she just trembled in her sleep, others he woke up to her sobbing into his shoulders or screaming his name with so much agony in her voice it ripped his heart out. He couldn’t imagine what she was seeing, he didn’t like to think of the ways Sasuke may have conjured up to murder him. He always held her close and tried to comfort her, but this had never been his strong suit. He stroked her hair and told her how much he loved her. It seemed to work well enough most nights, and he was glad because he didn’t know what else to do and it made him worry.

The copy ninja expected to find the training ground empty, but what he found was craters and cracks all over the landscape, along with uprooted trees. Usually, this is what you found when Sakura was training.

Or when she was coping with emotional stress which she has plenty of at the moment.

Was it Sasuke, or has the ridicule finally reached her? His clenched as he thought of everything he has heard whispered the past few days or the actual direct comments. Mostly from jealous women, some from other jounin who didn’t know a lick about them.

He meandered along, following the scent trail of jasmine perfume, as well as listening for either the next impact or the sound of her voice. He followed it well into the woods of the grounds. It seemed the damage done lessened the further he went, which concerned him. It felt like the anger was fading and turning into something more morose. He moved faster through the forest, catching a glimpse of a porcelain mask he recognized.

What he found was far from angry, at least now. She was kneeling on her knees, still in her hospital uniform. She was covered in dirt and green stains from nature she decided to take her stress out on. Her hands covered her face, covered in blood, dirt, and scrapes; the telltale sign she had been too far in her emotions to protect herself or even think about putting her gloves on. Her shoulders shook and as a choked sob escaped her throat, his heart just couldn’t take it anymore.

This wasn’t the first time he found her like this, and it wrenched him every time. But it was different this time because it felt like it was his fault to some degree. He never wanted to be part of something that could hurt her so deeply.

He approached her slowly, giving her all the time to notice his presence. When he came up to her, he crouched down and ran his fingers through her messy hair, letting the pads of his fingers drag against her scalp. She shuddered softly but didn’t say anything. He slowly sat down behind her and slinked his arms around her waist to pull her back snug against his chest.

She tried to force herself to calm down in Kakashi’s presence, but it only seemed to worsen. She reminded herself he wouldn’t judge her, that he’s never judged her. Wasn’t that one of the things she loved most about him? She still felt so stupid for getting this upset over some stupid bigoted opinions, from people who didn’t know a damn thing about her and Kakashi.

Then again, was that the only thing that hurt so much right now? It’s not like Sasuke hadn’t just kidnapped her best friend or threatened her team leader, that she just started dating. That Sasuke hadn’t shown her just how he might wish to make good on his threat to kill her lover.

The feeling of his fingers running through her hair made a shiver run through her and she let out a shaky breath. She felt him sit behind her and the safeness of his arms pull her close. Her chest hurt and swallowed another sob, still feeling this dumb need to act strong in front of him. If he had found her here, clearly he saw the damage she had dealt to the poor training ground before her anger morphed into pain. She turned her body into him and rested the side of her face against his chest. The silent tears soaked into his shirt but she couldn’t stop them.

“Sakura…”

She wiped her eyes hastily before the sob she’d been holding back ripped through her. The sound of his voice undid it and she was clinging to him desperately.

“I’m here for you,” He placed a chaste peck on her forehead before tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve got you, Sakura. I always have, you know that.”

He held her tightly before beginning to stroke her hair. “I know there’s so much going on right now. This stuff with Sasuke, and the talk around the village. Your nightmares. It can’t be easy, on top of continuing to work full time.”

The sound of his voice was a thread she clung to. Hearing the rumble in his chest when he talked, alongside his heartbeat gave her something to focus on that wasn’t Sasuke, or horrible gossip, or Kakashi being killed in some way or another. She took a long, deep breath. Everything felt so heavy.

She had just wanted to be with the man she loved, and she finally got that. Why did all this other stuff have to happen? Right as things started to get better, a wrench had to come in it. She knew that she still was with Kakashi, and she had high doubts he was going to leave, but she just wanted to enjoy it.

“Sakura, it’s going to be okay…”

He took her face into his hands and guided her to make eye contact with him. Her aqua hues were shining with tears that were still flowing down her cheeks. He wiped them gently and smiled softly at her.

She huffed and slid her fingers into his mask, dragging it off his face. “Better.” She muttered under her breath.

Kakashi chuckled softly before pecking her lips with his now bare ones. “Oh, I’m sure you think so. Just think, you’re the only one who gets to see me like this.” He held her tighter. “Who gets to have me like this, all to yourself.” He pecked her cheek.

“I know…” A small smile spread across her lips. “Ino keeps saying to ignore it, that they’re just jealous.”

“Hm, she may be on to something. I’m quite the looker.”

She rolled her eyes before sniffing once more. “Oh yeah, if only they knew what was under the mask.” She huffed. “Maybe some of them do…” She grumbled.

He shook his head, chuckling at the clear jealousy coming off of her. “Oh no. Not a single one night stand had ever seen my face. They would try, no doubt.” He pinched her ass playfully. “Only medics, who usually were too busy looking at the life-threatening issue on my body, and close friends have seen my face.” He smirked as he whispered in her ear. “Some medics are much cuter than others, and I might have let them drag my mask down and kiss me when I was drunk.”

She raised an eyebrow at him before a smile broke out across her lips and she giggled. “Better only be one of those.”

He nodded sincerely before pecking her lips. “Now, you’re smiling again and able to talk. What lead you to wreak havoc on this sentimental training ground of ours, and then break down?”

She averted her eyes instantly, not willing to fully pull her face out of his hands when they were so warm against her tear-soaked skin. Great, now she’s going to look ridiculous.

“Do think they’re right? That I used you to climb rank?” She mumbled.

He frowned. “I think that no more correct than me being a pedophile, considering the last time I check you were twenty. People twist things as they want to make reality appeal to them.”

“Ino said something similar. A bunch of women took offense that you found someone prettier, younger, and more talented. If they blame us, then their ego is still intact…” She almost laughed as she remembered another one. “Did you hear the one that I’m fucking my whole team?”

Of course, she found the humor in that one. “Whoever started that rumor must be oblivious because you’ve chased Sai and Naruto through the village with your chakra fists of wrath.” He laughed before pressing his nose against hers.

“Now, what is actually bothering you? Because I know that you don’t truly care about anyone thinks unless it our friends or Tsunade, who have all expressed happiness for us, with threats to my life if I hurt you here and there…”

He was meant with silence.

He sighed. “I’m the one who taught you to look underneath the underneath, and I especially know you’re bothered by way more than some gossip we knew would come.”

Sakura sighed and hugged him tightly. “I can’t stand this. I’m being guarded like a dog, all because Sasuke suddenly decides I matter because his snakey sensei put it in his head he needs me. I think I liked it better before when he was cold towards us.”

He ran a hand through her hair. “I know. But it’s best to keep you safe, and are you going to complain that you have to sleep with me at my house.”

She blushed lightly. “I gave no complaint about that part. More about this part.” She gestured her hands before pointing.

“One.” In a tree a few yards back.

“Two.” Leaning against a tree in the opposite direction.

“Three.” Right above her in a tree. “Which I believe I learned is Genma, because awhile a senbon just fell in front of me before a curse was muttered by that one.”

Kakashi looked up, noting she was right, that one was Genma. Shame on him for losing his anonymity so easily, but it wasn’t like Sakura hadn’t known who most of the ANBU were from treating them anyway. It’s a given he was the only one brave enough to be that close to his fiery little pinkette when she was at such an emotional high. He never knew when to leave anyone alone. He was one of the only people other than Sakura that insisted on ‘being there for him’ when he was having bad days.

“I also hate that I used to feel safe at home, and now I’m paranoid. All the time. He made it into the village without anyone knowing, all the way into my office! And he got out with Ino the same way!” She looked at Kakashi with an annoyed look.

“That bastard could be watching me right now, and I��d have not a single fucking clue!”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He felt all the same, except he was the one who had figured out he was in the village, and he hated the lack of action he had taken then. He should have done something right then and there. But he gave his former student too much credit.

And that’s how he feels like this is all his fault. But saying that wouldn’t help her. There wasn’t much he could do to change what was done, but he’d be damned if something happened again.

“Let’s go home and get you cleaned up, okay? I bought you some books while you were at work before I came here.”

She smiled softly. He always tried, no matter how hard he felt like comforting was. Whether he knew it or not, he always made her feel better. As he stood up and put his hand out for her to grab, she grasped it tightly as he pulled her up. She inched up on her tiptoes to give him a chaste kiss before his hands gripped her hips and held her there to kiss her back.

“Thank you, Kakashi.” She smiled softly before pecking his cheek. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d probably tear up all the training grounds, not just ours.”

She giggled softly. “Probably, but you didn’t have to say it.”

He let go of her, just to grab her hand and start walking towards the end of the woods in the training ground. “Come on. Asuma and Kurenai said something going on a double date, and I think you might want to look a little less haggard for that.” He smiled.

She glared at him. “Haggard? That’s a bit extreme!”

He chuckled as he dodged the fist he knew was becoming before he sensed it. “I love you, too.” He gave an eye crease as he pulled his mask back over the majority of his face.

“Hinata?” Naruto called out softly from his couch as he heard his door open.

“It’s me, Naruto!” She called back cheerily.

“How was lunch with Sakura? Is she… Doing okay?” He asked timidly.

Hinata sighed. “She’s… doing alright. The gossip around the village bothers her but I don’t think that’s really it.”

Naruto thought for a moment before sighing. “I don’t understand why he would do this. I thought his main goal in life was to gain power and kill Itachi, so what does Sakura have to do with that?” He grumbled. “She was so happy before all this. I just want to see her like that again.”

“Me, too,” Hinata said before sitting on the couch. “Ino said he acted possessive and jealous over the fact that she was with Kakashi. Do you think he’s always felt some way about her? Like maybe he’d come back for her once he killed his brother?”

Naruto frowned. “I think that’s what Sakura used to hope for, honestly. That he just had to do this one thing, and then he’d be able to come home. To love her, to be a family with our team. It’s what we all hoped for… in a sense. I think Kakashi was able to accept it sooner than we ever could that Sasuke was probably… never coming back.”

Hinata nodded, reaching over to grab his hand. “I know this is hard for both of you…”

He just nodded as he continued to frown at the floor. “Whatever hopes those were, they were ruined. I’ll never believe he loved Sakura if he was willing to cause her so much pain, whether it was over jealousy or whatever.”

“You should go train with your team some. It always helps me when I’m being bothered by something going on in life. I think it would be healthy for all of you.”

“You’re assuming that Sakura hasn’t gone and destroyed our favorite grounds yet.” A smile slowly spread across his lips. “Kakashi is the only one willing to go anywhere near her whenever she’s that upset. Sai and I prefer to stay far away from her chakra enhanced attacks.”

He thought for a while on that. It had always been that way. She and Kakashi were always there for the other. Just like most people left Kakashi alone when he was at the memorial, they left Sakura alone when she was destressing in training ground three. Yet, they both never left each other alone. He thought about how that’s what love is, what Sakura should get to experience. Not the way she felt for Sasuke, just this endless devotion with nothing in return.

She deserved the way Hinata always made him feel, and hopefully how he wanted to make her feel in return. A relationship with trust, admiration, sincereness, and respect was what anyone deserved. He wanted that for Sakura, and he still believed that Kakashi was where she got that from. He had never seen anyone look so happy as they did when they finally got together.

It was so hard not to preach at anyone that said so many ill things about his two teammates within his earshot. It angered him to see their happiness brought down the way people were judging them. Granny Tsunade already warned him it would do no good, but he knew if someone dared say something bad about Sakura close to her, a chakra infused from the Hokage herself was coming their way. So why couldn’t they get mouth load from him? Seemed unfair if you asked him, but he wasn’t in the mood to anger her with arguing.

“Kurenai-sensei and Asuma-sensei were planning a double date with them. I think they are trying to make Sakura feel better about the...dissent around the village.”

“Maybe that’ll be good for her. I don’t understand what the deal is anyway, I mean so what, he was our teacher? We’ve been in equal rank with him for almost three years now. And I couldn’t give a damn about some age difference when she could die tomorrow at 20 years old. Any of us could, right? We’re adults. It’s not like we’re kids anymore.” He huffed in annoyance.

Hinata sighed softly. “Just because we see it that way, doesn’t mean other people do. However, I’ve noticed most of the people spreading the rumors are women that wanted Kakashi themself. Ino said they’ll blame them to keep their ego intact.”

Naruto raised his eyebrows. “So basically a bunch of women Kakashi’s age is mad because he hardly gave them anything past a one-night stand. And that’s they were one of the lucky ones in the last decade, and now he’s with Sakura, who is youngers, prettier, and probably ten times the kunoichi they ever would have been…?”

Hinata giggled softly. “Yes, pretty much Ino’s exact words. Like typical, they’re putting down our friends to make themselves feel better.”

“Leaf shinobi are supposed to be better than that.” He grumbled before getting up from the couch.

“Not everyone has the same ideals as you, Naruto. But your ideals are one of the things I love about you, that so many people love about you, and why you’ve inspired many others. It’s one of the reasons why one day you will make a great Hokage.”

He smiled. “You believe in me, don’t you?”

“I always believed in you, even when I didn’t believe in myself.” She smiled tentatively.

He pulled her up by the grip he still held on her hand before kissing her softly, winding his arms around her hips. “I love you, Hinata,” He mumbled against her lips, pulling her against him.

She smiled before pulling away. “I love you, too.”

“Maybe we should plan a double date with them. That’d be awesome, wouldn’t it?” He grinned at her before pressing his forehead against hers.

“I think it's a good idea, and I’m sure they would enjoy it too.”

Kakashi brought Sakura a cup of tea and sat down next to her, handing her the hot drink of peppermint. She took it from him, instantly taking a sip from the cup.

He watched her closely. She was curled against the arm of his couch with her knees against her chest. Her pink strands just barely fell around her shoulders, perfectly framing her face. Her face was still stained with tears, but she had changed into one of his shirts and a pair of her shorts she had brought here. She seemed a little more relaxed, not so overwhelmed by the anger and pain. He could still sense how uneasy she felt, and he just wanted to make her day better. He hoped the dinner with Kurenai and Asuma would help lift her spirits some, a positive in all the negatives.

He loved her so much, and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. He’d heard everything the village had to say, some of the things he had once thought about himself. That he had been disgusting. He hated himself for it.

But now, he couldn’t think of life without her. Without being able to hold her at night, or to kiss her. Without being able to see the way she smiled whenever he told her he loved her. The warmth she held for him in her beautiful green eyes whenever she looked at him. He didn’t want to think of a day when his bed no longer had the faint smell of her jasmine perfume.

“Kakashi…?” Her voice sounded soft and hesitant.

It pulled him from his thoughts instantly. “What is it?” He asked softly, looking up to meet her eyes.

“You’ve got that distant look you get when you’re thinking about something sad…” She set her tea down on the coffee table.

He tried to smile lightly to shake off her concern. “I’m okay, it’s nothing.”

She rolled her eyes before shifting over to his side of the couch. “Okay, sure. I’ll pretend to believe that. Now lay down...”

He shifted so that he was laying on his back, and watched her curiously as she crawled over his body. She laid between his legs, resting her cheek against his chest. He shifted slightly to get more comfortable before wrapping an arm around her back. She let out a contented sigh before closing her eyes.

He ran his free hand through her hair gently as a smile spread across his lips. He kissed the top of her head. “If you wanted to cuddle, you could have just said so.” He spoke softly, a little surprised she had demanded affection.

He thought she might get distant from him, too bothered by some of the things people dared to say, maybe even think they were true. He should have known she wouldn’t believe them for a second, but it didn’t stop him from preparing for the worst. He played with the ends of her hair, twirling the strands loosely around his fingertips. Her body felt warm against his, and it was a comfort he never realized he needed until the first time he held her so intimately.

“Does any of this gossip bother you at all?” She wondered aloud.

Her voice sounded so small to him. It was rare she sounded so unsure. She was usually so confident these days. He wasn’t surprised to see that it bothered her, even if she felt it was stupid. He knew what was going to happen when everyone found out, but it didn’t mean he liked it or that it didn’t bother him. He used to listen to all the things that were said about his father, so the village dissent wasn’t new to him. Minato had urged to learn to ignore it long ago, but it did seem more difficult to ignore these, at least the parts where he was accused of some things he couldn’t even dream of.

“Some of it does…” He sighed. “I can’t act like people just assuming I’ve always had a thing for you doesn’t upset me. I also fear that you might feel they’re right, and it’s not true.” He tightened his arm that had been around her.

He tried to figure out what to say that didn’t seem accusatory, but also still be honest with her about his concerns.“I don’t care what they think, but I worry about how what people say will affect you, and your view of me…”

He watched her closely as she lifted her head to look at him. “I love you, and nothing anyone says will make me think any different of you. I just hate… It angers me that they just instantly assume you’re this gross creep when it was ME who initiated this relationship.”

She huffed before resting her chin against his chest. “If anyone should have ever felt harassed, it was you… But no, they just automatically assume you’re just this lecherous man that groomed me from the time I was twelve.”

“Well, I do read porn in public, so people have the right to believe I’m lecherous…” He smirked. “Not everyone knows it had some real plot to it, or care to know.” He brought a hand to her cheek and stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. “Just like they won’t care to know the real story behind us…”

She was looking into his eyes, at his face, before she bit her lip. “So, you don’t think I just used you and clung around you to climb the ranks as some of the women are saying?”

He scoffed. “Don’t tell me some jealous sluts are making you doubt your real abilities as a kunoichi? How would you have ever charmed me into giving you jonin rank? I was tough on you guys, not to mention I’m not the one to credit for your abilities.” He kissed her nose and then her Byakugou seal. “Tsunade is to credit for all your skills, not me. I’m not even the one who gave you the recommendation. I wasn’t allowed to be a proctor for your exam either, because you were my student and it leads to bias- negative or positive.”

He pushed some of her hair out of her eyes again before smiling at her. “You earned jonin, and I’m damned proud of you for it. The other jonin kunoichis are just pissed because you’re better than them and they know it.”

“Mmmm, and maybe because I have Konoha’s number one bachelor all to myself?” She grinned, blushing softly at his words.

“Well, of course. Thank gosh, because the ‘hot-ake’ pickup lines at bars were becoming rather boring. And now, when a girl doesn’t know how to take a hint, I can just ask her if she likes chakra punches for a drink?”

Sakura burst into laughter, burying her face into his chest. “Oh, yeah, that’ll make a great reputation for us to have.”

He sat up, taking her into his arms. “Team Seven already has quite the rep, I doubt that’ll change. Now, go shower for that dinner with Asuma and Kurenai. It’s my job to make us late, not yours, remember?” He carried his slender pinkette into the bathroom and set her on the edge of the sink.

She was beaming at him as she placed her hands on each side of his face. “I love you so, so much, Kakashi.”

He gazed into her eyes, thankful for the happy glow returning to them. “I love you, too, Sakura. I always will…” He gave her lips a quick peck.

As he stepped back, she slid off the bathroom sink counter until her feet were on the floor. She began to strip before her eyes widened with sudden realization. “What the hell am I supposed to wear to this dinner on such short notice?”

“Oh, I got that covered. Dress in the bedroom. I hope you like it…” He gave a sheepish smile before leaving the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

He chuckled at the tinge of pink that spread across her cheeks. He wasn’t sure how that was worth blushing over, considering all the other things they’d done lately. He picked up her teacup from earlier and walked into the kitchen to put the dishes in the sink for later. When the shower turned on, he moved onto the bedroom, gathering up things he had grabbed from her house while she was at work.

He’d seen her go out in various settings enough in the past few years to know that his favorite person took care to do her hair and makeup. He had grabbed her makeup box, along with both her straightener and curler. He almost forgot the hair dryer at her house but had turned around at the door to get it. He wasn’t exactly sure what shoes she would want to wear. Looking back on past conversations he had overheard, this was supposedly a difficult task, according to Ino. He just grabbed the black, ankle high boots that had a buckle(which he realized was just for looks), and a small heel. Surely, those went with anything, right? Hopefully.

He grabbed a few more things before taking them back to the bathroom. He hung the dress up on the towel rack, as well as some underclothing he bought for his own eyes later. He looked around the bathroom. Never once had it ever felt small to him, but now he was wondering where the hell he was going to put three new additions. Did women need both a straightener and a curler?

“I think I’ll need to invest in shelves if you’re gonna be here forever.” He said in mock annoyance.

“I’m using your razor, just in case your mind, but it’s too late if you do…” Sakura said languidly, clearly paying more attention to her legs at the moment. “And what are you talking about?”

“You’ll see.” He smiled before pulling the shower curtain aside. “Your lotion is on the sink when you’re done. If you need my help, I’ll gladly lather your legs with it for you.” He gave a wink before leaving again.

“Oh god, we’d never make it dinner if I let you do that.” She mumbled affectionately as she finished the last stroke up her leg.

He stared blankly at the curtain once it was closed, wondering just how the hell Kakashi knew what lotion she even used. She shrugged it off, not putting it past him to look rather odd sniffing random lotions in the store until he found a scent he recognized. The thought made her heave with laughter as she rinsed the excess shaving cream off her legs.

She stepped out of the shower, and her mouth fell open in her surprise. She quickly realized what he meant by needing to get shelves, as there was nowhere to put all her hair tools besides the straightener on the sink, hair dryer on the back of the toilet, and the curler on top of his medicine cabinet. Her lotion, which was the same bottle from her house, was sitting next to the cup that held his toothbrush.

She grabbed the towel on the hanger, to see the dress hanging there, and her heart was full.

It was a dark emerald green a-line dress. It had a sheer lace overlay that had floral patterns stitched into it. The lace continued over the chest into long sleeves, completely see through around her shoulders and arms, the solid colors would frame her chest. It was so dressy but simple all at once. Pretty but not too much, it was perfect.

And then there was the navy blue lingerie set next to it that just made her turn rosy-colored all over again as she started to dry herself off even quicker.

“Kakashi, you bought lingerie?!” She screeched in embarrassment.

He laughed, having finally heard the response he had expected. “Sakura, I buy porn in public, I don’t think buying lingerie for you is that shocking.” He came into the bathroom. “I also noticed you were severely lacking any.”

She huffed and pouted in his direction. “Oh yes, because I had so much reason to wear it.”

He raised an eyebrow in her direction in surprise. “You don’t need a ‘reason’ to wear hot things.” He stepped behind her and reached for the garments.

He held them to her form as he spoke against her ear. “This navy will look stunning against your smooth and light toned skin. It’s strapless, so it won’t show through the sheerness of your dress. The woman said this lace is comfortable. And I honestly just wanted to see your ass in thongs. I am a pervert afterall.” He kissed the side of her head. “I’ll hook the clips for you if you’d like.

Sakura stared down at the blue fabric. She’d seen plenty of Ino’s lingerie, having been made to help her blonde rival choose which to wear on particular occasions. She had never felt the need to buy any. Ino seemed to only wear it on dates, and she never even bothered with those. Not to mention, it’s not like she even had all that much to show off. She bit the inside of her cheek before turning to face Kakashi. “Uh… Sure.”

He frowned. “Is something wrong? You don’t have to wear it if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“N-No! It’s not that. I love them, I just… don’t have the body for it.”

Kakashi looked at her dumbly for a moment before turning her body to face him. “Sakura, I promise you, you do. If you didn’t have the body for it, they wouldn’t make your size, which I had to ask Ino for before you ask.”

“Oh, god! I’ll never hear the end of how romantic or hot or whatever it is that you bought me underwear that...might feel slightly more appealing than cotton.”

“Much more appealing than cotton.” He corrected her with a smirk before tilting her chin up and kissing her.

She returned the kiss before pulling back. “Okay, fine. Much more appealing. Now, get out so I can get ready. Your lips are way too enticing.”

“My kisses or the fact you can see them in general now, hm?” He teased.

Damn him.

“Both, now go before we’re late! You have to get ready too, don’t you?” She playfully pushed him towards the door.

“I won’t take anywhere near as long as you.” He shot back as she effectively pushed him from the bathroom.

When he heard the hair dryer turn on, he looked at the time and realized maybe he should start getting ready. He lazily walked back to his room. He pushed through the hangers that had old, worn out ANBU uniforms hung on them. He wondered if they would ever be used again. He found the smoky gray long sleeve button shirt he had been looking for. He couldn’t remember the last time he had even worn this shirt. He vaguely wondered if it had been the funeral service for Jiraiya.

He stripped down to his boxers before grabbing the black slacks on the hanger behind the shirt and slipping them over his form. He grabbed the shirt and the tie, laying them over the bed. He pulled a white t-shirt from the drawer and pulled it over his lithe form. He grabbed the button up and slid his arms through the sleeves. He buttoned it up to the top, leaving it open. He glanced at the tie, debating if it was necessary to wear. He tucked his shirt and buttoned the pants. He adjusted everything until it felt comfortable and wasn’t pulling one way or another. He grabbed the dress shoes from the floor of his closet, and her boots before walking back to the living room.

She came out of the bathroom to see Kakashi folding up the sleeves on his shirt, which was a much hotter sight than she thought it could have been. She smiled lightly before sitting down next to him.

“Thank you for the clothes… And bringing all that from home.” She spoke softly.

He nodded as he looked over, finding her as beautiful as always. The dress had gone to the middle of her thighs. He could see the difference in her wearing the bra instead of wrappings in her chest which was an appreciative sight he hoped for. She had put on some shimmery gold shadow and smooth liner along her lashes that ended with a small wing. Her lips were tinted pink and shined with gloss.

She looked gorgeous.

“Nobody would ever think you were kunoichi if they didn’t know the only pink haired person in Konoha was none other than my lovely Sakura Haruno.” He smiled before kissing her cheek. “That dress looks way better actually on you than it ever did on a hanger.”

She smiled before leaning against him. “I like it. I’m kind of excited to go on a double date with them. It’ll be fun, right?”

He cracked a half smile. “I’m sure you’ll make it fun.”

She smiled before slipping the shoes and standing up. “Well, let’s go!”

She was brimming with excitement. She couldn’t remember the last time she had even worn makeup, let alone fully dressed up. She grabbed Kakashi’s hand as soon as they got outside of the apartment complex, and had not let go of it since. The subtle click of her heels as she glided through the streets to the park they were supposed to meet their friends at was enough to draw everyone’s attention to them.

He followed her idly, almost being dragged as she insisted on walking so much faster than he ever did. The way her eyes shined with happiness, and the way the light from the streetlamps caught the glitter in her shadow, was mesmerizing to Kakashi. She didn’t look like that for anyone, but she had done all that for him. He never thought she needed makeup, but the gold went well with her eye color.

She didn’t seem to notice anyone looking at them as they walked together. When she looked back at him, all he saw was pure love and joy, and it made his heart clench. That’s all he ever wanted to give her, no matter what.

“You look beautiful, Sakura…” He gave an eye crease and squeezed her hand lightly.

A light blush dusted her cheeks before she looked away and walked to the gate of the park. Asuma and Kurenai were already there.

“Hey, guys!” She grinned.

“What do you know, Kakashi did wear something other than the jounin uniform.” Asuma said in a defeated tone. “I guess I owe Genma twenty bucks now.”

“I told you.” Kurenai said as she rolled her eyes.

“I still can’t believe he’s with her, of all women.”

Another woman sighed in annoyance. “Clearly, you don’t know what life is like as a ninja. Sakura is one of the most caring people in the village, and that vet was her sensei but only for a short time, she was mainly trained by Lady Tsunade.”

“She’s a child!”

Sakura turned her head towards the conversing women, surprised to see someone she didn’t know defending them. Curiosity shone in her eyes, and she felt Kakashi pull her towards him, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Don’t worry about any of that tonight.” He murmured into her ear. “I’m not having some random opinionated people ruin your excitement.”

She turned to him and smiled. “You’re right, I guess.”

“Kurenai said the women are being more brutal about this than they were when we started dating.” Asuma chuckled.

Kakashi scoffed. “Oh, trust me. I’ve heard enough for a lifetime, and it’s not even the only scorn I’ve dealt with, however, it’s for sure the worst.”

Sakura leaned up and kissed his mask cheek, leaving a slightly sparkled spot on the fabric. “Blame Naruto for convincing us to confess.” She giggled.

He looked down at her before sliding his hand down to rest on her hip. “Sure, why not. But I don’t regret it either way.”

They walked alongside their friends into one of the fancier restaurants and sat down in a booth. They chatted idly for a while about anything and everything. Kakashi mostly watched Sakura, just happy to see her smiling nonstop. Happy to think it was things he did that made her smile and feel so happy.

He watched her lips as she talked, starting to understand a little bit why she wore the lipstick in the first place. She always had pinker lips, but the red made them more prominent and seemed to demand his attention. He moved his hand to rest on her thigh, a bit surprised by how warm her skin was.

“Wait for a second, you don’t even know who the ANBU that are assigned to guard you are? I mean I know anonymity is their thing, but usually, in guarding situations, at least the person being guarded knows?” Kurenai shook her head in disbelief.

Sakura shrugged. “I wasn’t told. It must not be that dire to hide who they are, because I doubt Genma would be careless enough to accidentally drop a senbon in front of my face.”

“The other two don’t know you outside of being Tsunade’s apprentice, my former student, and now my lover who is being threatened by a missing nin who was formerly your teammate.” Kakashi said lazily as he blinked a few times to focus back on the conversation.

“In other words, they probably don’t see a reason to reveal who they are if they don’t already know you.” Asuma affirmed.

“I picked who was watching you. I would have preferred Tenzou and Genma, but he’s still on our team and not with ANBU anymore. So just Genma will do, but I trained the others myself. They also think I’m a pervert.” He gave an eye crease.

Sakura rolled her eyes. “Overprotective? I’m pretty sure Shishou would have chosen decent candidates. I’m almost her daughter, according to Shizune. And that’s because everyone knows you are one.”

“Nope. She asked me to choose.”

“Ino keeps insisting the ANBU watch you guys fuck, and I insisted that there’s still privacy in guarding, especially when the last person she is getting guarded against is Kakashi, contrary to some of the villager beliefs here.” He added with a chuckle. “However, now that you mention Genma is there, I have some serious doubts.”

Sakura’s complexion instantly heated up into a cherry shade. “You don’t actually think-”

“Shizune threatened before I did, apparently.” Kakashi said with a chuckle.

Sakura stirred her miso soup a little more before taking another bite. “I sure hope it worked.” She mumbled.

She thought loosely about this moment, just out on a date with their friends. She had always wanted something like this. Just comfortable and genuine, just love. His hand on her thigh was surprising at first, but comforting. She didn’t miss the gazes that were pointed toward their table, or how people whispered, but she forced herself to focus on the date.

Which wasn’t that hard as she kept stealing glances at Kakashi dressed more casually. She definitely could get used to him wearing clothes that fit his form a little snug compared to the standard jounin garb. She enjoyed the way the fabric moved over his well-toned figure but was still loose enough to only just barely give an outline of the muscles that flex under it.

She felt Kakashi’s hand slowly moving across his thigh, and she dared to glance at his face, which looked perfectly normal, and nothing like he was stroking her skin under the table. She gulped as she crossed her legs over his hand in an attempt to hide it from others. His fingers felt cool against her heated skin, and she was trying to fight off the building arousal. He only squeezed her thigh in response which led to her stifling what would have been a small moan.

It was awfully hard to focus on anything people could have been whispering about them when she was trying to keep control of her pleasure, and she wondered if that was his goal. Or if he was just being the pervert he was and enjoying toying with her, having known how sensitive she is to even only his touch. Judging by the imprint of a smirk under his mask she could see if she squinted, it was probably both.

“I don’t think even Genma is stupid enough to test Kakashi on that matter.” Kurenai flashed a comforting grin. “So, how did you two finally figure out you both loved each other?”

Sakura smiled in return. “Well, drunk us shared a kiss, but he got all “this isn’t right” and I told Hinata about it a couple of days later.”

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “Naruto came to my apartment ready to beat the breaks off of me because she didn’t just tell Hinata, she sobbed to her about it.” He corrected her as he removed his hand from her thigh, letting his fingers slowly slide off her skin.

She shivered slightly before huffing with a pout. “I’m sensitive.”

“Oh, I know.” He gave her an eye crease. “I tell Naruto I love her and some other sappy shit, and he tries to convince me to tell her but I won’t. And he ended up convincing her to tell me.” He pulled her against his side and brushed his lips against her temple. “And now here we are.”

“Is this part where you skip me finding you two together?” Asuma asked with a knowing grin.

“I had suspected you had some type of feelings for her before the bar. I knew she did because she never smiled as much as she did around you. After the way you threatened the guy at the bar, I was for sure about you.”

“Now just what made me so obvious?” Kakashi furrowed his eyebrows.

“You, well you with three careens of sake in his system, acted more like a jealous boyfriend as opposed to a protective team leader. Right down to openly wrapping your arm around her waist and stroking her hip.” Asuma deadpanned as if that was a stupid question.

Sakura’s cheeks dusted pink once again. “Ah, so that part didn’t go unnoticed by everyone else like I thought it had…” Her voice was quiet and timid as she felt Kakashi rubbing her hip through the fabric of the dress in the same manner as the night before.

Kurenai laughed softly. “Kakashi hardly ever got involved with women, so when he does we pay close attention. Anko was the first to point out that he was way more touchy with you than any other one before.”

“Wait, really?” Sakura asked as her curiosity became peaked before amusement shone in her eyes. “Well, no wonder why every freaking woman in the town hates my existence right. now.”

Kurenai and Asuma both laughed at her amusement at that new fact. Their plates were about finished and it was seeming to be the end of the night out. They all said their goodbyes before heading back home for the night.

The whole walk home, she couldn’t help but wonder how Kakashi was rumored to be phenomenal in bed. Well for her it was far from a rumor now. But how did he have that when he didn’t want to be touchy with the women? He would touch and stroke and kiss every inch of her body whenever they made love, and she couldn’t picture him being any other way. It seemed like it was half the fun for her. Then again, she’d never had sex before Kakashi, let alone casual sex. Maybe that was the difference?

#kayparkerwrites #kakasaku fanfiction #kakasaku #kakashi hatake #sakura haruno #kakashi x sakura #inner turmoil #fanfiction #naruto #naruto fanfiction #ino yamanaka

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neighbourskid · 4 years

Text

2020

What a year, huh? Surely not anything anyone has expected to happen when we woke up on this day a year ago. I certainly haven’t. I’m not even sure, now, where to begin to sum up this year like I’ve done years prior. But then again... I may just as well just dive right into all the media I consumed this year, as I have done every year. I haven’t kept track as detailed as I have last year, but my year was definitely punctuated by pieces of entertainment that have come into my life.

Continuing on from 2019, my obsession with Good Omens was still going strong. Which was ideal, since I was gonna spend the first half of the year writing my Bachelor thesis on it. The intensity of the obsession may have waned a bit since, but I still love that show and book dearly and hold it close to my heart, and I don’t think that will ever stop. But while Good Omens was certainly an overall theme throughout my year, there were some other things that actually stood out.

With January came new episodes of Doctor Who, and having returned to that particular bandwagon the year prior, I was all about that. Jodie’s second season finally brought what I had longed for in her first--a darker kind of Doctor. She wasn’t quite as bubbly anymore, you could finally see some of the depths in the character that I loved so in the previous regenerations, which made me love Peter’s Doctor so incredibly much. In this season, I felt, Jodie was finally becoming the Doctor. Overall, that season catered to me personally every single episode. So many of the time periods they visited were of people I loved, and the introduction of Sacha Dhawan as the Master was absolutely....well, masterful. Sacha is brilliant in that role and I am utterly stunned by his talent. Although both John Simm and Michelle Gomez brought things to the Master that I liked, it’s Sacha’s completely unhinged take on it that made me finally like the character. He’s a madman and I love it.

The next major thing was The Good Place. I tend to have a talent of getting into shows just as they either ended their entire show, or the final season is just coming up. It’s happened quite a bit, and it was the same with this. I finally binged the show early in January and it would end its final season at the end of the month. True to form, I was completely obsessed with it for about a month, before I only occasionally thought about it again. But, thinking back now, I get this incredibly fond feeling for this show, and I remember that the finale absolutely wrecked me and I basically ugly sobbed through the entirety of it. Also very true to form, actually. I want to rewatch it again some time, but honestly preferably with someone who has never seen it before. Which, obviously, is a difficult thing to do given, well, everything.

Next up is something that surprised me a lot. In the middle of having to write my BA thesis, my procrastination thought it would be a great idea to rewatch and catch up on the entirety of Criminal Minds. And so I binged 15 seasons of that instead of writing my thesis. Which, coincidentally, had also just aired its final season not long before I started my binge in March. Rewatching this, I realised just how little I took in of the actual, like, stuff in the show when I first watched it as a teen. Although I mostly cared about the characters and their found family this time around--although I do find the cases really fascinating most of the time too--I noticed just how much I am not watching this for the fact that they are in the FBI. I was hyperaware of how often they shot at people before doing anything else, how many of the suspects died before ever being questioned or being brought in, and it made my skin crawl. I am aware how fucked up the criminal justice system is, and especially in the US, how the police functions and how incredibly glorified they are in the media. But rewatching this show, I realised how little I actually paid attention to anything when I was younger. Big yikes. Still, I remembered my love for these characters, and I really enjoyed that rewatch a whole lot. Found family will always get to me.

Once I finished writing my thesis and handed it in early in July, I then found my next momentary obsession: Community. The show had finally come to Netflix earlier in the year and a friend of mine had watched it then. I remember watching that pilot episode back then and being completely uninterested in watching it. The comedy felt like it wasn’t quite up my street, the characters were entirely unlikeable, and I especially disliked Jeff who the show was more or less centred around. I binged Criminal Minds instead, but then decided to give it another try. And, well, I watched it twice through without taking a break to watch something else in-between. Ironically, and maybe actually unsurprisingly, Jeff ended up being my favourite and I found myself relating a lot to him and his arc throughout the series. I even found myself writing some short ficlet-like things in the notes app on my phone. I made an attempt at starting a third watch, but I guess then the month was up, and my brain decided it was time for something else. My hyperfixations usually tend to die out after about a month. Which is why my complete devotion to Good Omens was a pleasant surprise. I did, however, end up watching quite a bit of Joel McHale and Ken Jeong’s The Darkest Timeline podcast throughout August.

Early in September, while already preparing for the new term at uni, and my first semester in my Master’s studies, I then turned to New Girl. Friends of mine had seen it and recommended it, and I remember watching probably the entire first season on TV while I was in San Diego the first time around back in 2016. Or at least I think it was the entire first season. Either way, I binged that whole thing, realised through Nick Miller that the go-to character I am drawn to and tend to project on in any piece of media is usually what I like to call “the garbage man,” which Nick is a prime example of. And although I spent a month watching the show in-between starting university again and volunteering at a film festival, I didn’t spend much time afterward thinking about it and moved on to other things rather quickly. I enjoyed watching it, that much I remember, and I’m pretty sure I cried at the finale because it was done wonderfully, but seeing as another month was up, my brain was probably like “okay fine that’s enough”.

I then spent most of fall and early winter watching every single bad Christmas movie available on Netflix, which was quite fun. In that moment of festivity, I also watched a movie I found absolutely brilliant and fell in love with immediately. It’s a beautiful movie called Jingle Jangle, it has a magnificent soundtrack and is absolutely incredible. I had no idea Forest Whitaker could sing and he completely blew me away. If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend it. It doesn’t matter that Christmas is already over, it’s beautiful either way.

By the time December finally rolled around, I was already over the whole Christmas thing, to be honest and I turned away from festive movies or shows, and eventually ended up finally picking up a gem I had heard much about and had been meaning to watch for a while. A show which, as it were, also aired its final season earlier this year. This little show is Schitt’s Creek. I will be going on about what this show means to me probably in another post at length, but for now just let me say: if you haven’t seen it, find some place to watch it, and put this beautiful show in your eyeballs. I am on my second run through already (although I’ve seen the second half of the show a second time already while watching it with a friend on their first run through), and it brings me so much fucking joy. It’s a gift, this show. And it will likely stay with me for a very, very long time.

That’s about it for the big things. I also watched a whole lot of other stuff, including entirely new things, or just newly released seasons of things I was already watching. Here’s what I can remember off the top of my head:

Charlie’s Angels (2020). The Night Manager. The Witcher. Dolittle (2020). The Librarians (rewatch). Harley Quinn (2020). Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). The Chef Show (S1 part 3, S2 part 1). Avenue 5. Money Heist (part 4). The Good Fight (S4). Brooklyn Nine-Nine (S7). DuckTales (2017 reboot). Frankenstein live. Staged (2020). Hamilton. Sense8. Julie and the Phantoms. The Boys in the Band. One Night in Miami. Enola Holmes. Supernova. His Dark Materials (S2). Happiest Season. The Great Canadian Baking Show.

I also got some reading done in-between what I had to read for my thesis in spring, and then for regular university courses in fall. Here’s some of what I can remember:

Anthony Horowitz, The House of Silk. Ramona Meisel, Sunblind. Donna Tartt, The Secret History. Good Omens novel and script book. Matt Forbeck, Leverage: The Con Job. Keith R.A. Decandido, Leverage: The Zoo Job. Greg Cox, Leverage: The Bestseller Job. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Lost Lamp. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Mother Goose Chase. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Pot of Gold. Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602. Christina Henry, The Lost Boy. Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology. John Green, An Abundance of Katherines. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh. Maria Konnikova, The Confidence Game.

Having mulled over all this entertainment I consumed in 2020, there are also some non-tv or book things I need to point out. As many, many other people around the globe, I have also spent a large amount of time this year on my Nintendo Switch, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It is a game I have waited for since the Switch was first announced, and I fell in love with it from the moment the first trailer dropped. It has brought me great joy in this weird fucking year, and I have more or less consistently played it since it came out in March. I ended this year with the in-game New Year’s Eve celebration and I feel like that summed up this year quite neatly and appropriately.

This year also brought with it another game very close to my heart: Super Mario Sunshine. With their release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars in September, Nintendo finally brought my all-time favourite Mario game to my all-time favourite console, and I played the entire game through in the first week of owning it, in-between university courses and volunteering at the film festival. Also contained in that package was Super Mario Galaxy which I have also played through in its entirety since. All that’s left for me now is Super Mario 64, which I am excited to play through in the coming year.

And to round off my year of entertainment, there are two more things I would like to mention. First, David Tennant Does A Podcast With..., which released its second season this summer. It is one of the only, if not the only podcast I keep up to date with and listen to immediately whenever a new episode drops. I’ve loved the first season dearly, and David came back with some incredibly fantastic guests for the second season as well. I can’t wait for what the podcast will bring in the future, but I will wait patiently until it is time. I can highly recommend it for everyone who likes interesting conversations between lovely people who clearly adore each other a whole lot.

And finally, while this year brought a whole lot of bullshit with it, it also gave me something I never thought possible and did not even dare to imagine in my wildest dreams. My all-time favourite show announced that it would be rebooted with the same main cast (minus one), a new wonderful member, and involvement of the original creators, and even started filming already in summer. Leverage is coming back. I still cannot believe it. I hoped for a movie, always. That maybe one day, they might bring the gang back together, for one last job, just one more encore. But to get a whole new tv-show with Aldis, Christian, Gina and Beth returning? With the addition of Noah Wyle? I can’t wrap my head around it. I am so excited for this. I predict that I will ugly sob through the entirety of the pilot episode, if not the first season, and will have to rewatch every episode because of it, but I have no doubt that it will be brilliant and wonderful.

True to form, I have now gone on about tv shows and movies for far too long, and haven’t really said anything about this year at all. 2020 was fucking weird. And I don’t think 2021 will be much different quite yet. I wrote an entire BA thesis in 2020. I successfully finished by Bachelor’s degree and started my Master’s studies and even got some excellent first grades in as well. I was lucky enough to be able to see some friends and family throughout the year, and even celebrate my birthday with a small circle of friends. I’ve become closer with friends, shared experiences I wouldn’t trade for the world, and, I think, maybe also grown a bit as a person.

I started this year excited to finally be able to start taking testosterone in February, and to finish the first part of my studies by summer. Although I did both of these things, they didn’t happen quite how I imagined them, but I am glad that I could do these things nevertheless.

2020 was a hell year, for sure. But there were some moments in there that I wouldn’t want to lose.

I’ve tried very hard to not be optimistic about this upcoming year, and rather take a more realistic, even pessimistic approach. But I can’t help but be hopeful. Hopeful that this year will be kind to us, and if it isn’t, that at least, we’ll be kind to ourselves and each other. It won’t be easy, and not much will change, I think. But we have to approach the coming time with kindness and compassion. That’s where I’m at currently. And I think that’s all for now.

Be well, friends, and take care.

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writinginthesparetime · 5 years

Text

A place far away pt7

pairing: actor!Park Haejin x student!reader

Warnings: famous!au ; college!au ; litte bit of swearing?

genre: fluff ;

chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

(If needed I will add more warnings and upload the genre tags in next chapters)

Summary:

So that’s how all started.

It was a rainy day in Seoul and I was the new girl in town. Precisely the new girl in college, just moved from europe to study abroad.

Little did I knew Seoul was not the only korean thing I’d fell in love with.

————————————————

21st November

“Lillian! Your caffelatte!”

I looked up from my books just a moment, only to see a girl holding two cups in her hands desperately trying to get her friend’s attention.

This cafeteria in the campus often looked like this: loud and busy. I didn’t enjoy spending my time there to study, but that morning only the idea of staying home made me sick.

I spent the last two weeks studying for three exams, now focusing on the last one of those. Class? Chemical behind the skincare.

I went back to my notes, looking at graphics and formulas well written, trying to revise some useful acids for peeling and the benefits of vitamin c for our skin.

I sipped my coffee and looked at the time. Almost 11 o’clock.

It was so weird to think that the whole campus had the free morning. Someone definitely decided to spend it in bed sleeping, someone just enjoyed their free time and someone, like me, chose to keep on studying.

I never wanted to be the best student, but indeed I wanted to prove myself I could. I just needed to tell myself so, and actually work hard. Luckily, lessons were interesting and I found myself being capable of getting on the top of class.

Even cooking class was satisfying.

In the table next to me, a group of girls were chatting loudly, all smiling and well dressed. They were talking about the real reason why morning classes were cancelled and most of the girls went on campus anyways. The reason they all wore their best dresses and used tons of makeup.

An idol.

Or someone famous.

Again.

Yes, if months ago there were some weird visit by an entertainment company, that morning was the confirmation of a collaboration with the college.

So, an idol in that exact moment was in one of my college’s class filming some stupid advertisement about some stupid product, probably to attract teenagers who are still influenced by whoever is in the commercial.

And it worked just fine.

I sighed lightly reading again the same phrase on my notes. “What’s uva and uvb rays? And how uv sun rays damage our skin?”

Let’s say in the morning, especially on these cold ones, the last thing I think of is putting sunscreen on.

Just waken up then, after embracing a sky full of clouds, that’s definitely not my first thought.

And suddenly I thought about Nana who was surely still sleeping in her warm bed.

I lost every kind of concentration, desolated I closed my books and stopped looking outside the window.

I still had some time before the first lesson started, but it was so obvious that I wasn’t able to keep on revising.

This exam looked infinitely long to study and I still had one to go before the end of the year.

And then I suddenly started thinking about that lesson, one month and a half ago. About that speech the teacher made, about working in a company.

I sank into the chair, trying to make myself as little as possible.

I didn’t know what to do with this information. All my classmates saw the list and picked their favourite company. Some girls, after reading important company names, even started to study more.

And I was the only one in the class who hasn’t choose yet. Well, I didn’t even decided about doing this work or not.

I was one of the best students, suitable for the opportunity, but I was afraid about the whole working and going to classes and studying for exams at the same time. I could have just failed.

Plus, I really couldn’t understand why we had to choose a company, I could really work everywhere they wanted.

I snorted.

I knew my time was almost over, I couldn’t keep on procrastinating. A teacher already stopped me in the hallways to know if I made up my mind. I simply run away.

And then I suddenly thought about the no-boys rule, that has been recently broken by Nana a week ago at a really late halloween party. She kept on saying that she didn’t really broke our promise since she make out with a girl, but we both knew the truth.

On the other hand, I didn’t date anyone, girl or boy. I kinda made friends with other classmates, even ended up in a project group with Jackson, who kept being an acquaintance.

That’s it.

That’s it, like any other Hae-jin story then.

I looked up.

Y/n, stop thinking about him.

Yet, sometimes his kind smile came back to mind.

And even how we never met in the last month and a half, after bumping into each other almost every week.

Slowly the voices in the cafe became quieter and many people left, dispersing in the campus.

I sipped my coffee and I saw myself reflected in the window.

My eyes were tired from the lack of sleep and my cheeks bright pink because of the cold November.

I wrapped myself in my blue hoodie, judging again my morning decision to choose comfort over style. Countless times Nana tried to find any item in my wardrobe to save my outfits, that are so basic to her.

Anyways I did find a trick: just wear an elegant coat over every outfit and suddenly I didn’t look like a mess. Not completely.

I noted mentally to go shopping as soon as my mother sent me some money.

I got up picking my things up and throwing them inside the backpack and, against my will, I exited the cafeteria heading to class to revise the next coming exam. I wasn’t prepared for it, neither for the day ahead.

While i was quickly walking i kept hearing people chat about what was going on in college, and i even saw some people randomly run through the campus, going wherever they heard the idol’s last location was.

And it was just one of those crowds that crushed me. I stumbled, getting hit by thousands hands and shoulders that tried to get me out of the way.

I was almost falling when I ended up crushing a girl, she quickly grabbed me by my shoulders, holding me.

“Everything’s okay?’ She asked worried.

This girl definitely looked older than me, well I could guess she wasn’t going to college anymore. Her neat appearance made me feel ashamed. Everything about her made me think she was one of those girls who really treated herself good.

“I’m fine, thank you.” I said softly and bowed at her. She took a step back, feeling the embarrassment between the two of us.

With her right hand, closed into holding two different phones, she moved a lock of hair with her pinkie.

Only then I noticed she was holding, with her other hand, a big brown leather briefcase. She kinda looked like a business woman, only her windbreaker didn’t suit her style: an huge stuffed one, long ‘till under her knees, with an embroidered word on her chest, probably the name of the company she was working for.

She quickly excused herself and left, not giving me enough time to read that word. I only saw the logo, made by three little triangles that reminded me of the three Giza’s pyramids.

“Y/n!” I heard my name being called while trying to walk in the hallway. “Wait, y/n!”

I turned around to where I thought this voice came, only to see Nana, of course, running to me. In a couple of seconds she joined me and, well, actually she bumped into me, with the biggest hug.

“Y/n-ah, you have no idea how it’s so good to wake up late, i feel so fresh!” Saying so she slapped her cheeks lightly.

“Lucky you.” I looked up.

“Oh my god, what are those? Eye-bags?”.

“I haven’t been sleeping well lately.” I said shrugging my shoulders.

We walked side by side, in silence. Nana knew my weird sleeping habits, she knew it’s been weeks since I had a proper full night of sleep and, luckily, she knew when was the time to not say a word.

And I didn’t have to tell her more.

In the hallways people kept walking and talking, even louder than any other day, it was becoming annoying.

Everyone was frenetically moving, girls stopping mid walking looking at their phones, little half runs and continuously checking their hair.

I was getting curious to know who was the reason of this whole mess.

“Hold this: I have a concealer that matches your skin color.” Nana suddenly gave me her make-up trousse. We have so differently skin color, even different undertones, but I wasn’t shocked at all: we often tried make-up products together, even sharing them for fun. “If it’s not your color, you’re good enough to make it work it out. I know lately you’re not into this, but your eye-bags could literally scare the teacher.”

I smiled at her, knowing that she was trying to make me feel better and she definitely didn’t want me to look like a zombie.

We left in front of the class door, she headed inside to take seats while I just tried to remember where the closest toilet was.

Needless to say that I didn’t know at all: campus and buildings were huge, every lesson was taken in a different classroom and I still couldn’t orient myself. I only followed the signs.

I found myself walking for the whole hallway and after turning twice, fifty metres ahead, I ended up in a blind alley, with some doors on the sides.

Above one of them, a sign with a drawing of a lady. And behind that same door a group of girl exited the toilet. Coming across, we bowed slightly.

All of the sudden, behind myself I heard a soft sound, getting slowly louder until the rustle clearly turned into quick steps in the hallways.

I turned around confused, but I could only see me and the other four girls.

I was so focused on that sound which was gettin louder and kinda deafening because of the echo on the walls, that I didn’t notice I was slowly going backwards.

And when I turned, I didn’t have the time to clearly see the person I bumped into.

Raising my gaze, I saw some details.

A black button down shirt. A strong arm. Fine jawline.

And then the shoulder I literally crush into.

The man was taller than me so his shoulder was at the same height as my face, and because of my abrupt movement I ended up hitting him.

I got hurt on the side of my face, a strong smack at my right ear.

Suddenly my head started spinning, there was a loud strong whistle that kept shutting my thoughts. I stumbled untill I lied to the closest wall.

Every sound was padded. I brought my hands to my head, I could literally heard my blood angrily pulsing.

I didn’t know what was around me anymore. My vision was blurred, it was hard for me to focus on anything.

I ended up squeeze my eyes multiple times.

The man stopped, and I only knew because I couldn’t hear any close steps.

My legs were shaking and the whistle still there, not letting me think straight.

“Oh.” A manly voice that sounded so far away. “I am sorry.” His cold and formal words made me shiver.

The only thing I was thinking about was to find a quite place to sit, any place.

And then, like someone opened a door with air stream, steps and voices got louder.

The whistle left, letting me finally hear but every little sound now was painful as a stab. I looked up trying to recall the place, feeling the rough wall behind me.

I was so shocked to see a crowd of people coming towards me, and a man I could clearly see because he was taller than anyone. That man. He just run out to another hallway.

I didn’t see more because once I recognised the toilet door I only thought about laying on the little couch each bathroom in campus had.

I moved quickly.

I closed my eyes while sinking on it. Slowly I started feeling better, no more dizziness. My heartbeat was regular now.

Outside, finally the silence.

It still took me a couple of minutes before getting up. I decided to splash my face with some cold water and suddenly I felt a little better, more awake.

I could still clearly see how sick I looked.

Maybe it was time for that concealer to save me.

I quickly applied some makeup, trying to hide my dark eye-bags. I fixed my hair tying them up into a ponytail to look more clean.

“You look awful.” I whispered.

I exited the toilet and redo the same way backwards. Empty hallways and silences.

Only my steps echoing between the yellowish walls.

Three times I bumped into someone that morning. Three differs ways, three different people, three different pair of arms touched me.

Hold.

Loved.

Hurt.

Slightly bent over, I got closer to Nana who took a seat in the middle raw.

I tried to be as quiet as possible and to be the more invisible I could. The teacher already started the lesson and he was writing fast on the blackboard.

“Y/n, what happened?”

Nana asked after looking at the clock on the wall, and then at me. I let myself fall onto the chair, giving back her trousse.

“I don’t think I am feeling good, after class I am going home.”

I was slowly walking through the campus, heading to the exit while thinking about taking a long nap before getting back to study.

I needed to rest.

And i needed a painkiller for my headache.

“Miss. Y/l/n! Miss!” I heard a door slamming and quick steps. Beside me, my history of makeup’s teacher was closing our distance.

“Yes?” I asked. Behind him, inside the hallway people were talking and looking at us.

“I am truly sorry to disturb you, but I needed to know if you decided about the job. As I have already told you, this is the last week to sign up.”

“I am really thankful for your interest, but I haven’t had the time to look at the list, so I think I’ll have t-“ I couldn’t end the phrase because the teacher, after looking up for a folder and finding it inside his briefcase, interrupted me.

“Here it is.” He gave me the folder smiling.

“Honestly, I still won’t have the time to choose, I’m too busy studying for exams.”

“Miss y/l/n, that’s not the first time we talked about this.”

“I am truly sorry, I don’t think I’ll be able to study and work and attend classes, all together.”

“Miss, I never thought of you as a lazy person, but you know better than me that classes are ending soon and there are just a few exams to be taken. Do you really want to risk to lose this opportunity?”

“What if I can’t do it?”

“Miss, you’re on the top five of the class, we are positive you’ll be able to make it just fine. And if you won’t, we do not expect you to pass every exam this semester.”

“But it will be humiliat-“

“It will be more embarrassing to lose such an opportunity to work with professionals. I don’t want to force you, but I think you’ll regret this in the future.”

He kept smiling the whole time, trying maybe to reassure me, while his words were sharp.

I really just wanted to go home, forget about everything and sleep. Thinking too much made my headache stronger.

I raised my gaze, ignoring his face. Behind him, I could see some people staring.

“All I ask you is to think about it.”

I grabbed the folder and hold it tight.

I just needed to resist one more week, and wait for the deadline.

But the idea of meeting persistent teachers made me feel sick. More than I already was.

“Are you feeling good?” He asked worried, taking on step closer.

“Not really. Teacher, I don’t really have time to choose between the companies right now.”

“I have a proposal. Actually, you can even meet them now if yo-“ He stopped talking mid sentence. “A-are you feeling good? You look pale, do you need some water?”

“Thank you teacher, I just need to go home and rest.” I quickly smiled.

“Please, think about my proposal. I actually highlighted the company in the list and at the end of the folder I gave you some informations.”

He sounded so noisy.

“Okay okay. I surrender, I accept. Please send me via mail al the papers I need to fill and I’ll gave it back to you as soon as possible. But now, I really need to go.”

I quickly bowed and left, heading to the closest bus stop.

The headache was painful as ever. I found myself crying on my way home.

————————————————

A/n:

I am truly sorry, it took me ages to write this chapter. I keep on revising it because I think it’s kinda dark and sad: it resembles what happened in the last weeks.

AnywaysI hope you still like it, and please dm me if you want to be tagged in next chapters!

Look forwards to the next ones, they’re gonna be gooooooood!!

#park haejin #park hae jin #korean actor #story #park hae jin x y/n #park har jin x reader #park #k actor #kdrama #writing in the spare time #writing #a place far away #original #forest

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visambros · 5 years

Text

For the sake of my future, I am leaving Tumblr.

I haven’t been very active on here, and I know I haven’t been particularly talkative either, but I’m making this post to let people know that I’m going. I may delete this blog in the future, but I’m keeping everything for now.

There is a long list of reasons why I’m doing this, but if you don’t want to read the entire post then the long story short version is: My life is a dumpster fire that will not change for the better unless I devote as much of my free time as possible into improving my craft so I can make a living through my art/writing.

Full details under the cut.

I’ve been planning on making this post for a while, but I didn’t want to abandon this account forever because despite not being as active on here as I used to be in the past, I’m still emotionally attached to my account and still wanted to use Tumblr as a means of entertainment when I wasn’t working. And I knew that if I made this post, I’d have to commit to staying away and I wanted to avoid that. But two things happened last Sunday that acted as a major wake up call for me.

1) There was a false alarm at a power plant not too far away from where I live. I don’t live in the same city as the power plant, but I live in what would be the danger zone should the power plant have a melt down. The false alarm for the power plant was issued in the morning. I don’t have a cell phone, but my sister (who I share a room with) does and received the alert for the “meltdown”. Since it woke her up, she was tired and accidentally exited the alert without reading it first. She then went back to sleep.

Now I don’t blame my sister for doing this. Hell, I probably would’ve done the same thing in her shoes. My issue lies in the fact that, had there been an actual emergency, I would’ve a) slept through it or b) had no reliable way of getting out of the city. I can’t drive, never learned how, so I couldn’t have driven myself to safety if my mom had decided not to leave the house (I know what you’re thinking; “why wouldn’t she leave the house?” and honestly she most likely would’ve left the city, but my mom has made enough stupid decisions throughout her life that her staying home isn’t outside the realm of possibility for me to believe).

Even though I know it was a false alarm, it’s still scary to think about how I could’ve died- or at least gotten very sick- had it been a real meltdown. I hate living in this city and I want to move, but I don’t have the means to do so at the moment.

2) My stepfather. For those who don’t know, my mom married a man she only knew for a few months and he is a horrible human being. He has threatened to kill me and my mom in the past, has been arrested multiple times since arriving to Canada (late last year he was arrested for possession of heroin), and is altogether an unpleasant and annoying man to be around.

So last Sunday night, I was doing the dishes when I heard a knock at the door. It was my stepfather, who had left the house for whatever reason and had returned. However, as I neared the door, I noticed that it was unlocked. He could’ve let himself in, but for whatever reason he was still knocking. I suddenly got it in my head that he wanted me to open the door so he could yank me outside without having to drag me through the house first.

I know that sounds paranoid, but the man is disturbed. I don’t think I’ve gone a week without at least worrying once that I was going to come home to my stepfather having murdered everyone else in the house while I was out. Added to the fact that he and I really hate each other and I was the one to call the police on him two times, and I think you could forgive me for thinking that he might try to hurt me if given the chance.

Despite my fears, I still opened the door for my stepfather. He didn’t attack me. He just went back inside and did whatever it was that he did. But even though nothing happened to me, I was still wound up for about five minutes and it felt like all the nerves in my body (especially my arms) were somehow taut and weak at the same time.

Aside from my sister, who is my only bright spot in this house, I don’t want to live with or have anything to do with this family anymore. I would’ve left years ago if I could. But again, I don’t have the means to do so at the moment.

This is why I’m leaving Tumblr.

I know that it’s super hard and almost impossible to make a decent living off the arts. I know I could try and try for the next decade and still not get anywhere I want to be. But I need to try, because I’m tired of my life being the way it is right now and I’m scared that things will never get better if I’m too passive.

I currently work at Walmart. I’m on my feet during the majority of my shift and my legs and knees hurt so bad I think I might be doing long lasting (but hopefully not permanent) damage to them. I work evenings, so I only have mornings and the weekends to get my art and writing done, but I’m so tired that my artistic productivity tends to drop off after Monday morning.

It’s too easy to spend my mornings and weekends procrastinating. It’s too easy for my life to turn into sleep>eat>Walmart>sleep>eat>Walmart until the day I die. The fact that it’d be so easy for me to be an old woman and still be at a similar stage in my life, even if I work my ass off trying to get my art/writing career going, fills me with so much existential dread I can hardly stand it.

But I’m tired of being so poor I could only visit my biological dad once while he was in the hospital for cancer. I’m tired of living with student loans that never seem to end. I’m tired of working at a job that demands so much of my time and energy. I’m tired of living in an area where people keep getting murdered in a less than a ten minute walk from my house. I’m tired of being afraid that I’ll come home from work and see police outside my house and body bags being taken into an ambulance. So I have to try, even if my chances of success are low.

I know I chose a bad career path for someone who wants to be financially comfortable. “Starving artist” is a stereotype that exists for a reason. But aside from it being my passion, I know I’m not good enough at anything else to make a proper living doing anything else. If I can’t make my dreams a reality, I’ll just be stuck in retail for the rest of my life, and I would honestly rather die than live like that. And I don’t want to die. Despite my anxiety and depression issues, despite the fact that I sometimes struggle with suicidal idealization, I don’t want to die. I just want my life to get better.

So when I say I’m leaving Tumblr, I don’t mean I’m just leaving Tumblr. I mean I’ll be using the internet as a whole for mainly a research/resource tool for my art and writing. Which means I’ll be spending very little time for leisure on the internet. It also means I won’t be socializing much anymore, which sucks because I like having internet friends (even though I’m bad at keeping in touch) but if I want my dreams to come true, I can’t be distracted by anything, even other people. From this point onward, I’ll essentially be working (almost) nonstop, only taking enough breaks so my brain doesn’t melt from the stress.

I know this is all very extreme, but I really haven’t fully expressed how absolutely desperate I am for my life to stop being so horrible. Maybe if I grind hard enough, things will be okay someday.

If you made it this far, thank you. And I’m sorry if I ever did anything to make you uncomfortable or hurt you in any way.

Goodbye everybody.

#personal

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mrsren · 5 years

Note

👀🤓

I’ve been sitting on this since the end of July, and I’m determined to get to the end of it and post it all this year! There just aren’t enough Remus/Hermione stories out there.

Chapter One

October 29th, 1998

Hermione exhaled, blowing her stubborn bangs from her face as she made her way through the castle. Of course, Harry and Ron wanted to leave their assignment for the last possible moment. That was so like them, wasn’t it? Though when she stopped to think about it, there was a falter in her step.

After everything they’d been through, weren’t they owed the chance at a regular year in Hogwarts? A regular year—not that any of them had ever had one—would include procrastination when it came to assignments, Quidditch, and breaking curfew. They had done the last one quite a few times, but only when it came to underhanding a psychopath.

She heaved another sigh. Apologies could come later, which her two friends would milk until the novelty of it wore off. A part of it was a result of her own issues, ones that could hardly be placed on their shoulders.

It wasn’t as if Hermione had been reasonable, and just talked to them. That would have been too simple!

Ginny passed her in the corridor with Luna’s arm looped through hers. “Hey, Hermione! We’re headed down to the pitch for a while if you want to come by later. I know it’s not as entertaining for you... “ She trailed off. “Is something wrong?”

Hermione shook her head. “Not at all. I’m going to work on a Charms assignment, but I’ll try to make my way down there soon.” She smiled. “Hi, Luna.” Ducking around the two girls before the more eccentric half could say something, well, eccentric, Hermione escaped through the nearest entrance of the library.

There was something to be said about the way her heart pounded during the simplest interactions with the classmates she considered friends. As if there were something just below her skin, itching madly until she escaped, it was all she could do to hold a conversation or half of one.

Shouldering her bag, Hermione made her way down the shelves, dragging her finger along the ageing spines, until she landed on the book she needed. It was a ragged copy, the spine collapsed, and the cover was about to fall off. It would completely fall apart within a few more terms, and magic wouldn’t be able to stitch it back together, she imagined.

Carefully holding it together, she spotted a slip of parchment sticking out from the front. A student probably left their notes. She settled into the chair she always used, crossing her legs at the ankle as she opened the cover. “Mother of Merlin,” Hermione gasped.

It was well of six hundred years old if the title page was to be believed. Surely it was the oldest tomb in the Hogwarts library, or close to it. Why wasn’t it kept in the Restricted Section for safekeeping? Madam Pince was overbearing when it came to her books…

She chanced a look at the librarian, half expecting the woman to notice the tome she held, and rip it from her hands. For some reason she didn’t understand, Hermione hated the idea, and angled herself with her back faced toward the front of the librarian.

The spine gave a low creak, and her eyes widened. She would just need to be very careful to not damage the book anymore. As was her habit, Hermione pulled the parchment from between the dusty pages. It was curiosity that led to it. Sometimes she found meticulous notes, or other times a girl had doodled on the edges of an assignment.

In second year, Hermione found a note that was a love letter addressed to Harry, from one Ginny Weasley, and she’d set it on fire. It wouldn’t have done anything but cause a dilemma had Harry received it.

Hermione unfolded it, laying it on the table and flattening it with her hand.

Do you believe in this rubbish? was written in a messy script, rivalling Harry’s.

Yes. The reply was written in cursive, the loop of the first letter neatly looping into the second, and Hermione lingered on that. Just because you only believe in getting into a girl’s knickers and leaving doesn’t mean everyone else does, you ponce. Though the parchment was aged, it was clear that the one to write the second had been pressed down roughly, the ink bleeding furiously from their quill.

It was interesting.

I don’t just leave them, Moony.

Sixth year. Prove me wrong.

SIXTH YEAR WAS DIFFERENT. YOU SAID YOU UNDERSTOOD!!

About that mate…. I lied.

Hermione’s hands shot to her mouth to stifle her laugh. She wondered who the two arguing were. Moony was clearly a nickname, and one she’d heard before, but evidently, someone else had thought of it too.

You’ve taken one or two tumbles in a broom cupboard. Don’t pretend that you’re any better than I am.

Yes, I snogged my girlfriend—a key word missing from your vocabulary—in a broom cupboard after patrols. You wouldn’t know what those are, but when a student is very, very good, they get a shiny badge. It gives them powers to take points from you for being such a dumbarse.

That’s shite. Where’s my shiny badge then?

You’ve never been good in your life.

Neither have you, shitehead.

Yes, well, I’m better at hiding it. Just this morning, you openly flirted with McGonagall.

She was giving me detention. Minnie loves me.

Hermione’s eyes widened. Minnie?

Sure she does. That’s why she gave you three detentions instead of the one.

Hermione folded up the parchment, her lips curved into a wide smile while her shoulders shook. She set to writing her notes, fact-checking the information she’d already learned as she went.

As she scribbled a soulmate charm can transcend time and space and it can invoke itself without a caster, Hermione neglected to notice the pages sparking below her left hand, hidden by a curtain of riotous curls.

October 30th, 1978

“Moony…” Sirius sang.

Remus buried his face in his pillow, covering his ears as he bent the pillow around his head. “Go away. It’s Saturday.”

His bed dipped below a sudden weight, probably Sirius’ knee. “Wake up, you said you’d come with us today. James and Peter are already downstairs.”

He groaned. “I don’t want to go.”

“Are you mental? Marlene McKinnon and a bunch of other birds are doing yoga by the Great Lake. How can you not want to go?”

Wearily, Remus lifted his head just long enough to glare at his friend. “I don’t want to watch them, Sirius. It’s a bit too creepy for my taste.”

“Creepy?” Sirius echoed, looking aghast.

“Lecherous, whatever,” Remus waved his hand. “Why is James going? He’s already won Lily over.”

“Lily is also doing yoga, and we both know James isn’t going to give this chance up.” Sirius shook his shoulder. “Come on, you can have a lie-in anytime!”

“No, I really can’t Not with you lot always waking me up for something. Leave me be.” Remus ripped the blanket over his head. “I’ll meet you later, but not before noon.”

Sirius grumbled under his breath, calling him several colourful names, but the door swung shut moments later.

Finally, Remus thought. He’d been running behind on sleep since the full moon and had yet to catch up. It was already difficult to drag himself through classes in the week following, but why Sirius thought he was going to tag along to watch yoga, he had no idea.

As he was on the edge of sleep, dreams skirting around him, the bedside table seemed to be...vibrating? Remus shot up, his eyes narrowing as he took in the sight. His glasses tipped over the edge as the entire table rocked back and forth. Opening the drawer warily, Remus found the book he’d checked out yesterday was glowing.

He ought to not pick it up. It would be better to involve a professor since he didn’t know what could happen, but Remus stretched out his hand anyway. The book written on soulmates was decrepit, a few users away from disintegrating. At first glance, it didn’t appear to be particularly interesting.

At a later glance, considering it was glowing around the edges, it might have been special.

He picked up the book, magic pooling around his fingertips as they made contact. Remus sat crosslegged, rubbing his eyes, as he opened the book. Curiously, the parchment that held his and Sirus’ squabble had vanished.

There was a set of notes in place of it. “What?” Remus quietly mused while he lifted it. The notes were much like the ones he had in his own bag, detailing soulmate charms, the causes, and effects. Only they hadn’t come from him. The writing was feminine, the i’s dotted neatly, and the t’s crossed with a straight line.

He stared at the parchment for a long moment, several seconds passing as he searched it. There wasn’t a name, but he found the initials H.G. and there was a date in the upper corner of 29/10, the year left off the end.

He’d checked the book out yesterday morning, just as the library opened. How could someone have put their notes inside of it, and taken his when it had been with him since?

Between the next two pages, he found a short paragraph. It seemed to be a journal entry, and dread filled him as his eyes focused on one word: war.

I’ve decided not to meet Harry and Ron at the pitch even though I know I’m acting like a coward. Something has shifted since the end of the war. They make the effort to remain friends, but I know they’ve moved forward, and I’m… I’m stuck. I remember everything, a sick replay in my head, and I can’t forget. I don’t know how they can adjust to being back at Hogwarts where everyone—

I can’t even say it to myself. I don’t know how they can stand to walk into the Great Hall. I’m not sure I’ll ever reach that point.

Parchment was thin, light, but as he held it, he found himself with a weight that only grew heavier. The war was ongoing, current, just outside the castle walls. Remus didn’t know where all of them would go after school, but he was certain that all paths would lead to violence, one way or the other.

She spoke as if the war were over, as if Hogwarts had been ground zero.

Remus didn’t know why he pocketed her thoughts. They weren’t his, but he found that he was unable to help himself. Reaching for the table, he plucked a quill and scrap of parchment from inside.

Who are you? He shut the book, trapping his words amongst the pages, and waited.

October 31st, 1998

Hermione stared at the note for twenty-four hours, opening the book several times throughout the day to be sure she hadn’t imagined it. Her paper was gone, and her stomach was in knots ever since. Everywhere she looked, she wondered if she was looking at the student who had nicked her words for themselves.

Over the day, nothing happened. No one stared at her in her classes, and not one person approached her.

“‘Mione!” Ron yelled.

Her head snapped up and she slammed the book shut, wincing immediately at her harsh treatment of a book that was already going to fall apart. She didn’t need to speed up the process any. “What is it?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “You didn’t hear a thing, did you?” Ron laughed. “They’re throwing a party in Hogsmeade for Halloween.”

She knew that, she just hadn’t planned to go. “It’s for Samhain, Ron. There will be rituals for it.”

He’d already tuned her out, as soon as her tone switched to the one she used for academics. “Yeah, yeah. Adults will be doing that, but we’ll be up to our ears in Firewhisky in the Three Broomsticks.”

It sounded like a time that would result in her throwing up for the majority of the next morning. “I’m not getting drunk.” She muttered, and Harry bumped her shoulder without breaking his conversation with Ginny. “I’ll come, but I’m bringing my book with me.”

Ron sighed, but let it go since it was the only way she could be coerced into going.

How did you get my book? I’ve had it since yesterday.

Hermione finally swallowed her pride, unsure of what would follow, but one thing was for certain: it was a mystery, and she wanted to unravel it. The Three Broomsticks was a flurry of chaos around her, her friends clinking their tumblers together, and booze sloshing from the edges. She cast a water repelling charm to keep the book from being ruined.

After sixty-nine agonising seconds--she had counted while the contents of her dinner rolled over in her belly--Hermione watched the paper she’d just slid against the spine vanish. Squeaking, she lifted the book, her high regard for keeping it in pristine condition slipping as she held the book by the cover and shook it.

Nothing fell from the pages beyond dust.

“Hermione?” Ron said from beside her, arching an eyebrow. “What are you doing?” His speech wasn’t slurred, not yet, but his breath smelled of booze.

She swallowed. If Ron had noticed her odd behaviour, it was likely everyone else would too. “I lost my notes. I just didn’t want to rewrite them.”

He laughed lightly. “I’m sure they’re in your dorm. Why don’t you have a drink? You’ve been on edge, haven’t you?”

Her eyes widened. “You noticed?” Hermione breathed.

Ron looked offended. “I know I used to have the emotional range of a teaspoon, but I’ve got at least the range of a tablespoon now.” He slung an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her. “Come on, just drink something. It doesn’t have to be firewhisky.”

Surprising him, but mostly herself, Hermione ordered just that. She sipped it slowly, the liquid burning a path down her throat.

She couldn’t be sure when the reply appeared because Hermione had been too busy talking, or drinking, or some combination of the two. Still yet, there was a folded piece of parchment tucked inside where hers had been.

I ought to ask you the same thing. I checked this out days ago, and no one has had it since. Who are you?

Hermione glanced around her. No one was watching her, too busy minding their own business to notice that while she always had her nose in a book--they thought that, but she hated that she was put into one category--this was no normal book.

My name is Hermione.

Then you don’t go to Hogwarts. The reply appeared instantly, and Hermione rose from the bar after downing the rest of her glass.

“I’m going to head back to the castle.” Hermione whispered to Ron, apologetic as she interrupted his retelling of Gringotts. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He nodded. “Do you want me to walk you back, or are you okay?”

Hermione murmured that she was fine before stealing out of the building. Off the path, she sat on a bench that was halfway to the castle, sitting cross-legged.

Pardon? I’m currently a student here.

What’s your house?

Gryffindor.

Impossible then, because there is no Hermione in Gryffindor. I would know.

Since you’re a prefect? It seems to me that you’re slacking then. As Hermione replied, and the note vanished, a stone sunk in her stomach. She didn’t fancy herself as popular, far from it, but there wasn’t a witch or wizard in Wizarding Britain that didn’t know her name. You don’t recognise the name, Hermione Granger?

Should I? I’m a seventh year, and I can assure you that I’ve not once heard of you.

Seventh year. Seventh year.

That didn’t make any sense. Hermione picked up the self-inking quill, scribbling a reply that would either force the other party to admit this was a far-fetched joke, or that--

She gulped. The other option was that she was toying with magic she didn’t understand at all.

Have you ever heard of Harry Potter?

Seconds turned into minutes, and Hermione thought she’d won. It was all just a juvenile prank, nothing to work herself into a tizzy over. It wasn’t as if--

The only Potter I know is James Potter. There’s his parents, Charlus, and Dorea, but. I’ll ask him if he knows a Harry.

Her screech echoed in the trees, forcing several birds from them. She scribbled furiously, digging her quill into the parchment. DO NOT DO THAT.

Why not? He’s right beside me. Granted, he’s pissed, but he’ll remember the names of his relatives.

Please don’t. Hermione couldn’t breathe. Her heart pounded in her chest as something vicious twisted her stomach. Can you tell me the date?

It’s Halloween.

No, I mean the year. I need to know the year. Do you have a newspaper clipping you could place inside the book?

You’re very strange. Her worst fears were confirmed as a clipping of the Daily Prophet appeared to her. She lifted it, panic clawing its way up her ribcage.

31. 10. 1978.

DARK FORCES GATHER IN THE WIZARDING WORLD

She vomited, the firewhisky burning her throat as she heaved in the brush. A cold sweat broke out across her forehead, her hands growing clammy. Twenty years.

There were twenty years between the two of them. The realisation that she could be speaking to someone who was dead now weighed on her, and she glared at the book, still open on the bench she’d abandoned.

Hermione?

What is your name? She had to know, didn’t she? Speaking to someone from the past could have devastating consequences. What if it changed the timeline and the war they had gone through was for nothing?

Yet she still asked, still had to know, and she didn’t look away when a familiar name landed in front of her.

Remus.

She slammed the book shut as if it burned.

This wasn’t happening.

It couldn’t be allowed to happen.

#Remus Lupin #Hermione Granger #Remione #MrsRen #Sneak Peek

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evalinkatrineberg · 4 years

Text

Unexpected

A/N: Yet another RP with @arin-schreave :)

Life had gone back to normal for the most part since I had left Clemence’s room four nights ago. I had settled back into my routine as if nothing had happened. Wake up early, run, shower, breakfast, read, lunch, study, dinner, relax - wash, rinse, repeat. The monotony of it all was kind of comforting. It wasn’t that I hadn’t enjoyed the ever-changing atmosphere of the palace at all since getting here, but there was a familiarity about having time to myself, to get done what I needed to do. To think.

I had a good bit of thinking to do, and yet, here I was, procrastinating on thinking by working on some summer readings for my fall classes. I had gotten the go-ahead from all of the professors of the classes I had planned on taking to complete their classes online for as long as I was away. The only issue that had arisen was the laboratory portion of my biochemistry class, but the professor had informed me that she was going to reach out to Proctor and see if she could get the lab work I had done under Proctor’s supervision to count for the lab work I was missing out on while I was here. I had thanked my professor profusely for offering to do so, though I didn’t have high hopes that she would succeed. I hadn’t spoken to Proctor since leaving, hadn’t even heard her name since my last phone call with Lukas, but from what I had gathered, she was still rather unhappy with my decision to come here, as well as my decision not to assist her in reaching her non-academic pursuits.

That was one of the things I was trying not to think about. The other was the proposal that each of the Selected were going to have to submit by the end of the week. I had a topic, thanks to my conversations with Itzel and Safiya in the gardens not too long ago, but I wasn’t content with the feasibility of my proposed plan yet. I would’ve felt more comfortable if I could somehow have gotten access to the royal budget, just to see the numbers, but there was no way that was happening. It was for good reason, but at the same time, it was a mild inconvenience. I didn’t want to look like a fool if there weren’t nearly enough funds for my proposal. There was also the fact that I wasn’t sure my proposal was nearly as impactful as it could be. Again, having access to official numbers would have helped me to conceptualize it a bit, but I’d have to go without, I was afraid.

I put down the black pen I had been using, switching to an indigo color to signify a different carboxyl group in my notes as the next song started to play through my earbuds. The light, airy tones of a violin floated through my ears as I finished writing, looking down at the page in front of me. I took great pride in my notes. They were like an art form for me - a way to express myself and organize my thoughts on one neat, lined sheet of paper. My siblings had always joked that I could sell my notes for money, and maybe they had a point - the extra money would also certainly help fuel my caffeine addiction, I was sure - but I didn’t plan on ever following through with it. They were my notes, after all. I was the one who had put in the time and effort. Yet, it was nice to know that other people saw and appreciated that.

I smiled down at my notebook, satisfied at the quality of my work so far today, before sitting up and twisting in my chair, cracking my back. Only fifteen more pages to go by the end of the week! Done with stretching, I reached over for my water bottle, finally looking at the library around me as I took a sip. It was empty, for the most part. The majority of the people living here must have decided to take advantage of the nice weather and spend some time outside. I couldn’t blame them, but I had work to get done, and the peace and quiet was a welcome change.

My eyes narrowed as I looked to my right. I wasn’t alone, after all. There was Arin, emerging from the stacks with a book in hand. His footsteps were light - almost silent - as he walked towards the door, like he didn’t want to be seen.

I frowned. Would it be worth it to say anything? What good would come of it? If he didn’t want to be bothered, me saying anything would likely just put him in a bad mood, and yet, that possibility in and of itself sounded kind of entertaining to me. He had made it pretty clear when we had last spoken that he didn’t want us Selected girls here, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy myself while I was here.

I took out one earbud, intent on keeping my voice quiet, as we were in a library, after all. “Hello.”

His shoulders tensed up at the sound of my voice, despite my low volume. Did he think someone was going to attack him in the library, or something? Why would a potential attacker even greet him to begin with? Any good assassin would stab first and ask questions later, in my opinion. It only seemed rational.

His shoulders fell as he looked over his shoulder and caught sight of me. “Hi, Evalin.”

His startled expression set me laughing for a brief moment. I’d never seen him caught off guard like this, even when I had literally collided with him in the hallway. It was kind of refreshing, actually - like it made him more human, somehow.

Composing myself once again, I paused my music and took out my remaining earbud, gesturing with my free hand towards the book he was holding. “Doing some light reading?”

He paused for a moment, sizing me up with his eyes, as if he was debating whether or not to respond. I had to admit, that stung a little bit. After a few seconds, though, he lifted the book he was holding, waving it through the air in a small motion. “A bit.”

“Anything in particular?” I put one of my pens in the spine of my textbook, which was sitting open on the table, to mark the page. I could come back to biochemistry later, I supposed. Turning to face him, I swung my legs towards the side of my chair, crossing my left leg over my right.

He hesitated for a second, but then took a few steps towards me. Why was he acting so cautiously? Is he afraid of me? The thought almost had me laughing again, but maybe I was on to something. I could understand if he might think that I was upset over what he had disclosed to me in the hallway when we had last seen each other.

That was one of the other things I had been trying not to think about.

“Systems of Necessary Authority and Power by Ian Mondeli,” he answered, glancing down at the book in his hands.

“Ah, I see,” I replied, nodding slowly and pursing my lips. The name of the book was familiar, though I was certain I had never read it. It sounded like something off of the syllabus of a political science course, but I had never taken one, so I didn’t know for certain. Sure, we had to take two social science classes as a general education requirement at my university, but I had elected to fulfill that requirement with history courses. History was almost straight memorization, which I could do well. Plus, it was more interesting to me than most other social sciences, and didn’t encourage the same level of introspection as a course like psychology.

Still, maybe I could use this as a talking point. I had been telling the truth when I had told Arin that I would like to get to know him better. “Are you a fan of nonfiction, then?”

He nodded slowly, taking a few more steps towards the table. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Me too,” I responded with a sheepish smile. I enjoyed some fiction, sure, but even as a kid, I would beg my father to buy me books about topics such as dinosaurs or marine animals, instead of just reading one of the many fiction novels my siblings had offered me. Political science was quite different from dinosaurs, though, I mused as I glanced back at my notebook for a moment. Maybe he did have an interest in other topics, though. The only way to find out was to ask. “Though I assume you tend to stick to the social sciences?” I looked up at him, inclining my head slightly to the right, bracing my right arm on the back of my wooden chair.

“It depends. It’s good to know about different subjects.” He set the book on the table, taking care to make sure that it didn’t make any noise, and that the edge of the book was perfectly lined with up with the edge of the table. It was oddly particular. So he likes things done a certain way, then. Maybe.

The fact that he had other interests outside of political science and its related fields shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. He was human, after all. It was only natural for him to have a wide variety of interests and hobbies. However, every time I had inquired as to what his other interests might be, he had brushed me off. I hummed thoughtfully, looking at the book and wondering if this might be my chance to finally get to know something more about what he was interested in. I turned my gaze upwards, meeting his eyes once again. “Such as?”

He shrugged. “Anything. Everything.”

Okay, so, my mission had been unsuccessful after all.

I rolled my eyes at his non-answer, still smiling at him, though. Maybe a joke would work, then. “Mm, somehow, I have a hard time picturing you reading about math.” I picked up one of my other pens, tapping it lightly against my chin as I attempted to imagine him reading Fermat’s Last Theorem. The mental image fizzled out before it ever focused, though, like even my subconscious knew there was no way it would happen.

“Well, it’s a graduation requirement at all schools, so…” he trailed off, rocking back and forth on his heels.

So he actually did his assigned readings, then. I raised my eyebrows at him, before I realized that him doing the readings for classes made a good deal of sense, assuming he did actually enjoy reading nonfiction. Course syllabi must be like a free list of book recommendations to him, then.

“True, but most math classes tend to focus on problem solving instead of theory. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course! It’s a useful skill.” And problem sets are more fun than memorizing theories, anyway. My eyes were drawn once again to the book he had set down on the table, and my curiosity got the better of me. “Dare I ask what that’s about?”

He hesitated once again, looking down at the book as he answered. “It’s about the caste system.”

Ah, so maybe that was why he hadn’t wanted to be seen then. What was he doing reading about the caste system, anyway? Proctor’s parting comments to me nagged at the back of my mind, but I tried my best to mute them, raising my eyebrows a bit at him. “Oh, neat!”

I probably sounded way too intrigued for my own good. I was tempted to explain myself, but I nixed the idea, deciding it was better to stay quiet. How many times had my mouth gotten me into awkward conversations since I had been here? I had lost count.

He didn’t seem to notice or care, though, simply nodding as he shoved his hands in his pockets, glancing over at my books. “What are you reading?”

Ah, that. I laughed once lightly, my head angled down as my eyes peered upwards at him. “My biochem textbook.” God, it sounded so lame. Who read textbooks - besides me, apparently? “Pretty dry content, I’m afraid.” I bit my lip, more curious as to why he was reading out the caste system than I was willing to explain glycolysis to him. My own curiosity began to mingle with Proctor’s words in my mind, but still I kept my mouth shut. It was too dangerous of a topic. I shouldn’t.

“Ah, well, you’ve got me there.” He nodded again, a slight frown forming on his face as he continued to look at the textbook.

I nodded once. I couldn’t take the awkwardness of this conversation anymore. If it was going to be tense, I might was well make sure my own yearning to know more was satisfied, for the sake of me being able to sleep at night without the questions lingering in my mind. I gestured towards his book, asking, “So, what made you choose that book in particular?” An innocent question. Nothing more. Nothing treasonous about it. Yet, I could feel my heartbeat picking up.

His gaze shifted from my book to his as he considered my question for a moment. “The author has some very interesting opinions - but I’ve read it already.”

“Interesting,” I mumbled under my breath, furrowing my brows as I studied the cover of the book again, making a mental note to look into reading it at some point. It looked pretty innocuous - plain cover, typical fancy lettering - and yet the book seemed to give off a sinister air. I had to be imagining it.

I looked back up at him again, smiling. “It’s nice to re-read books sometimes - to look at them again with a different perspective.”

“Yeah, it can be,” he answered with a nod, watching me for a moment before looking away.

Don’t think I didn’t notice that, Arin.

I followed his gaze, narrowing my eyes slightly as I turned my head. I had been expecting to see someone else coming our way, or at the very least, something of interest, but the library appeared to be empty, besides the two of us. What was he looking at then?

I felt his stare on me once again, and looked back at him in time to see him blink once. Right, it’s my turn to speak. “So,” I began in a ploy to buy myself some time to think of something to say, of what direction to take this conversation in. Clearing my throat, I considered my options. The caste system or biochem appeared to be my only two choices, judging off of what was on the table. Biochem was familiar to me. I didn’t need to hear his opinion on that. I brushed my hand over my notebook and looked back up at him, my mind made up. What was life without a little risk, anyway?

Less stressful.

“Do you ever wonder why the caste system formed in Illea, but not in other countries?” Was this too far? No, calm down! I looked down and shook my head, as if I could knock my fear right out of my brain. It was clearly something he was interested in, which should make it fair game. “I mean, maybe it’s only crossed my mind because my grandparents are from Swendway, and they’ve never really understood it, but…” I trailed off, unsure of where I had even planned on going with this.

He sighed, and immediately something in my chest fell. Maybe he hadn’t been that interested in it after all. However, he then came around to the edge of the table, leaning back on it as if he wanted to take a seat without fully sitting down. Looking down at me, he stated, “It’s a complicated issue.”

“Right.” Was he talking down to me? Bold of him to assume that I was incapable of wrapping my head around anything that wasn’t a science. I avoided social sciences and humanities because other topics interested me more, not because I couldn’t comprehend them. I looked up at him, tapping my pen against my chin again one more time. “I’ve gathered that much from the history courses I’ve taken.”

His head tilted towards the side as he watched me, considering what I had just said to him. “And what did they teach you? Other than that it’s complicated.”

I looked to the side, trying to dredge up as many details as I could from my memory before looking at him again. “I know it started after the first war with New Asia.” I could remember nothing after that, though, and not because I had forgotten it - I was sure of that much. I frowned. “Professors never really explained much beyond that. They were always pretty vague about it. To be honest, I don’t even know how my grandparents were -” I searched for the right word “- assigned, I suppose, their caste when they immigrated here. I would assume it was based on occupation, but…” I didn’t want to finish my sentence. Maybe he had been right - not in talking down to me, but in recognizing that this really was something I knew very little about.

Maybe I should’ve listened to Proctor a little more closely.

The thought sent chills down my spine.

He raised his eyebrows at me, unfazed by any visceral reaction I may have had to my own thoughts. “Well, we have a lot of good history books in here.”

I hesitated for a moment. Between him and Reggie, I might just have hit the book recommendation jackpot. “Can you recommend a few?”

He peered over at my textbook as he nodded. “If you want.”

“That would be great thank you. Of the social sciences, history was always my favorite.” I was still looking at him, but he didn’t seem to be paying attention at all, completely enamored by whatever had caught his attention in my textbook. Surely he wasn’t that interested in protein synthesis.

He nodded once more at my words, squinting at the small font of my textbook. Was that genuine curiosity I saw on his face? I followed his line of sight, trying to figure out what part, in particular, he was reading. Did he find my biochem textbook more interesting than me? I wanted to laugh, but I cleared my throat instead. “If you want, the notes I’ve taken might make more sense than the book itself.” I gestured to my notebook, my color-coded molecule drawings seeming to smile back at me, surrounded by little blurbs of text with the necessary facts and formulas, any words that required definitions highlighted.

“I’d…” he paused, looking at me and frowning a little, “appreciate that.”

Well, it was something. I pushed my notebook in his direction, offering him a small smile as I did. This was certainly not how I had ever pictured my note-taking skills coming in handy. My siblings were going to have a field day with this one.

He picked it up gingerly, as if it might break under his touch. Good. I had worked hard on those notes. He had better not wreck them. I watched as he began to read, a look of genuine interest plastered on his face. We sat like that for a few minutes, him flipping through the pages and me just watching him do so, until he eventually paused on one. Turning the page to face me, he pointed to one of the drawings and asked, “What does this mean?”

Well, this was my time to shine! I took a quick glance at the diagram he had pointed to, my smile growing immediately. “Oh, okay, so that parts about DNA mutations! This is actually related to what I used to work on in the lab.” This could not be more perfect! I began to explain each diagram, pointing to them one-by-one in turn. “That first one is insertion or deletion, which is basically when one or more nucleotides are added or subtracted within a sequence of dna. The second one is point mutation, which is one when nucleotide is changed - like if an adenine turned into a thymine. The third is translocation, which is the movement of one segment of dna from one chromosome to another. That last one at the bottom of the page is inversion, which is essentially just a 180 degree flip of the DNA, so it’s basically reversed to what it was originally.”

He blinked, and I could see through his eyes that the wheels within his brain were turning in overdrive as he tried to process what I had just said. “You’re really smart.”

I looked down at the table, my face turning red as I tried to keep myself from laughing at his oh-so-intelligent response. Fidgeting with my hands in my lap, I waited until I was sure I could speak without snickering, and then looked up again, offering him a smile. “Thank you.”

He turned back to my notebook, continuing to read through the pages. I couldn’t help but wonder what in particular he found so interesting. He seemed a tad confused by the science, so was it the notes themselves then? Did he like my handwriting, or maybe the care I put into each page of notes? My organizational skills were definitely on good display, at the moment. Maybe he was impressed with that. God, I wished I could read his mind as I peered over at each page he scanned over, my focus alternating between that and his face, searching for any sign of recognition or questioning.

“Aren’t you usually the one who asks me why I’m staring?” Ah, crap, he had caught me. He was looking right at me, in fact.

“Yes, I am.” I let out a breathy laugh, feeling the tips of my ears turn red. “I’m just a little surprised that you’re interested in this, is all.”

“Why's that?” There was no malice in his words or face, just genuine curiosity.

I frowned as I considered his question. “I guess it’s just never come up before. Plus, most people I try to explain this to tend to blank out once I start talking - you know -” I began to gesture with my hands as I spoke “- the whole, blank face, glazed-over eyes look.” I laughed lightly, even though the more I thought about it, the more upsetting the truth became to me. Most people just didn’t care to hear what I had to say on the topic. With people outside of my major, the complaint was that I was showing off, or that I made no sense. When dealing with other biology students, I found that I was very rarely taken seriously, or had to justify every thought and idea I voiced aloud, and at that point, everybody had already moved on to some other task.

He ran his fingers over a line of words I had written. The gesture felt intimate somehow, and had my stomach doing cartwheels, as if he was touching my arm or something, instead of only my notebook. Why? “And did I do that?”

“No, not at all.”

He blinked, his eyes widening for a fragment of a second. “Well then, maybe I'm not as bad at acting as everyone said, because I didn't understand a word.”

Oh. Ouch.

I laughed it off, trying to rationalize what I had seen from him with what he had felt. “Understanding and listening with interest are two different things, and the fact that you didn’t understand probably reflects more on my poor teaching skills than anything else.”

“Evalin.” I could’ve sworn my name was accompanied with a sigh. He looked over at his book, and then back at me.

I looked right back at him. “Yes?”

He opened his mouth, words on the tip of his tongue, when my notebook slipped out from his hands, tumbling across the floor.

“Smooth,” I teased, laughing at him as I stood up. Within the span of a few seconds, I had walked over to it and picked it up, my eyes on his as I made the walk back to my chair. “You were saying?”

“Thank you,” was all he said as he took the notebook from my hands. Not done with it yet, then. Interesting. Before I could retake my seat, he added, “You didn’t do a bad job.”

“Oh.” The corners of my lips tugged upwards in a small smile. That was oddly nice of him to say. My thoughts lingered on it as I smoothed out my dress beneath me, taking my seat again and recrossing my legs before looking back up at him. “Thank you.”

He stared at me again, his expression similar to the one that had frustrated me with its elusive meaning every other time we had interacted, but there was a little something more to this one. It was as if he was seeing me for the first time - all of me. It was like I was finally more than just an unwanted guest in his home, more than just some girl invited here for the sake of tradition, from his point of view. I followed his eyes as they moved from my hair, to my own eyes, and then down towards something a little lower on my face.

My lips? Oh, God.

Suddenly I was fifteen years old again, sneaking my brother Gabriel’s friend out to our backyard, leading him behind the oak tree by the shed, and asking him to kiss me. He had been my first kiss. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but it really hadn’t been a very good kiss. It had been sloppy, and rushed, but absolutely exhilarating at the same time. It was a part of my teenage years that I’d always looked back on with nostalgia.

I was eighteen years old again, attending my first college party, a little tipsy for the first time ever, the warm August air mingling with the heat of the bodies around me. June and I had moved to the back deck of the house, an empty beer bottle in her hand. A few people followed us, including a few rather attractive boys. I spun the bottle. I lost track of how many times I had kissed and been kissed that night, more drunk off the rush of someone else’s lips on mine than on actual alcoholic beverages.

I was nineteen years old again, at a Christmas party in the lab. Lukas and I had walked in together, as we almost always did. Someone had hung a piece of mistletoe over the doorway - a trap laid just for us, I was almost entirely certain. “Kiss!” they all yelled at us. Lukas had shrugged, his eyes fixed only on my lips as he had closed the distance between us faster than I could even think. I had allowed him a little peck on the lips before I had jerked away. I had felt nothing, except embarrassment. It had meant nothing to me. I had never told anybody about it.

I was twenty years old, and the prince of Illea was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me.

I tilted my head slightly to the side, smiling back at him. Maybe I was overthinking this. Maybe I wasn’t. Either way, I couldn’t get enough of the way he was looking at me. I wanted to capture this image in my mind like a photograph and hold on to it forever, a memory in a shoebox that my grandkids would find one day.

I stared into his eyes. “What is it?”

His expression didn’t change in the slightest. “What’s what?”

So we were playing this game again. I leaned forwards a bit, placing my arms on the table. “Nothing,” I answered, shaking my head, my smile growing every so slightly. Maybe I had been imagining it, but I still wasn’t so sure of that.

“You’re staring at me.”

Indeed. I raised an eyebrow at him, retorting, “You’re staring at me, too.”

“Am I?”

Very much so. “You are,” I informed him, chuckling lightly and nodding once.

“You don’t seem annoyed by it this time,” he mused, his eyes still on my face.

I had to laugh a little at that. “A very astute observation. Are you bothered by it?”

“Hmm?” He moved a little closer, clearly at least a little spaced out.

He was staring at my lips again.

“You’re hopeless,” I informed him, chuckling. Clemence had been right when she’d said as much, but I didn’t think she had quite pictured this scenario when she had called Arin hopeless.

“About?” His eyes met mine again.

Now I was the one looking at his lips, my one-track mind useless as all of my brain power was channeled into imagining what it might be like to kiss him. I had a gut feeling he’d be a good kisser. Maybe it was instinct, maybe it was the look of his lips, or maybe it was my own naivety that led me to believe that - I didn’t care. I had to conduct an experiment to draw a conclusion on the matter, if he would let me.

I laughed, meeting his eyes again. “Are you going to make your move, or are we just going to sit here?”

His eyes went wide at that, his mouth fluttering open and closed like a fish out of water. “Evalin, I -” He didn’t finish the thought. Fuck, maybe I had read the situation wrong.

I raised an eyebrow at him, still smiling. All my doubts dissipated as he leaned in closer, keeping his eyes on mine for only a moment before looking at my mouth once again. The anticipation was killing me, but I refused to be the one to make the first move. I had to know that he wanted to do this, to kiss me, not just to be kissed by the first girl he had happened to run into. God, did I want him to kiss me, though. I leaned in a bit, my eyes focusing only on his mouth as the distance between us shrunk with each passing heartbeat. So close. So fricking close.

He finally closed the distance, leaning down and planting his lips on mine as he placed one of his hands on the back of my head, the other still braced against the table. His lips were just as soft as I had imagined them to be. The realization filled me with no small amount of satisfaction, but that was washed away as I closed my eyes, kissing him back, moving my hands to his shoulders, my fingers resting against his back. My mind shut down, my body going on autopilot for moments that seemed to last an eternity in the best way possible.

He pulled away first, lingering for a few seconds before leaning back a bit. I opened my eyes to see him staring at me breathlessly, a smile growing on my own face as I watched him in return. I knew my own breathing was a little heavier than normal, but I didn’t care. That - that kiss - had been amazing, indescribable, really. It had left me at a complete loss for words, my mind still empty as we held each other’s gazes.

This. This had been what I hoped for when I had filled out the application for the Selection.

I had never been more glad that I had.

He leaned back a little further, opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t yet form the words. “I-”

I exhaled lightly, my smile only growing. “Yeah.”

We sat like that for a few more minutes, simply drinking in the sight of each other, attempting to reboot our own brains and form a coherent sentence. I had never been great with words, but they had never been this elusive, either.

I leaned back now, the gears in my brain turning once more. “I, uh…” I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

“I should have asked,” he stated with a frown, leaning back even more.

I wanted to agree, but I had also clearly invited him to kiss me. Or at least, I had thought I was pretty clear. I shook my head. “No, it…” He’s right, though. He should have asked. “Don’t worry. Sorry if I didn’t make it clear enough that I was okay with it.”

“Don't apologize.” Right, we had talked about that a few night ago. Now it was his turn to shake his head.

“Right, well…” I trailed off, narrowing my eyes at him as I tried to find the right words. “Don’t you apologize either, then. No apologies are warranted in this situation.” I let out a single laugh, my eyes searching his face for any clue as to what he might be thinking. Did he not enjoy it?

He kept his eyes on me for only a brief moment longer, and then pushed himself off the table, bending over to pick something up. Oh, we must have knocked something over when we were kissing. That was only mildly embarrassing. At least there was nobody else here. When he stood up, he had my notebook in his hand, which he held out in my direction wordlessly.

“Oh.” My cheeks were flushed red at this point, and a nervous laugh accompanied my words. “Thank you.”

“Here you go.”

A little late to the draw there, Arin.

“Right, thanks.” My fingertips brushed against the bare skin of his hands as I grabbed my notebook back from him, my cheeks flaring red again as I slowly pulled my arms back, pulling my notebook into my chest. What to say in a moment like this? “So, uh,” I tried, clearing my throat, “that happened. Nice.” Another nervous laugh escaped my lips before I added, “Um, we could do it again, sometime - if you want to, of course.” The words left my mouth in one rapid-fire jumble, a succession of waves quickly crashing over each other as they raced to leave my mouth.

Earth to Evalin! Get your shit together!

He looked lost in thought, but he nodded. “Yeah, sure.” He began looking around then, though for what, I had no clue.

I couldn’t control my face from falling. Had it been that bad, for him? I didn’t think that was possible. Worse, if he didn’t realize where he was, was it because he was picturing someone else, in another place, when he had kissed me? What had I done?

“Right, well,” I began, fidgeting with my hands in my lap as I looked down at the table, “I uh, didn’t mean to keep you from your reading. Though, this was a very welcome study break.”

“Evalin?”

So, he knew who I was then, at least. That was good.

I looked up at him, a small close lipped smile on my face. “Mhmm?”

His smile was nothing short of shy as he said, “Thank you.”

I blinked. “You’re welcome?” I had never been thanked for kissing somebody before. That must be a good sign, right?

He quickly stood up then, straightening his tie and walking around to the other side of the table. I followed suit, gathering up my own books and pulling my backpack out from under my chair. How many times had I run into Arin when I had this backpack on me now? Twice? Once was random, twice was a coincidence. Were we aiming for a third? I kind of hoped so.

“That was nice,” I said earnestly, looking up at him as I zipped my backpack. Then, pushing in my chair, I decided to go for it. “So, see you around, I guess?”

He nodded. “I’ll see you around.” He walked towards the door of the library then, pausing in the doorway to give me one more nod, before exiting completely.

A few seconds later, I left as well, my thoughts still an incomprehensible, garbled mess of emotions and exclamations. Had that actually happened? I must be dreaming. Yet, if I wasn’t…

This might have just been my best day here so far.

#selectionoc

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marshmallowgoop · 5 years

Text

I write stuff, at times. I swear.

(Check it out! These are my research books and plot outline for this novel that I’ve been working on for nearly half a decade!)

So, it’s National Novel Writing Month, and I’ll probably be a little absent from this site for the rest of November ‘cause I’m trying to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days and am also the boss lady (ML) for the event in my area and have boss lady things that I should be doing.

Buuut since my novel is my Kill la Kill fairytale AU (which I even have a tag for!), posting about the project isn’t totally procrastinating, right?

Anyway, I’ve written drafts of this story for two NaNos already (2016 and 2017), and the first draft is basically getting totally flushed down the toilet, but the second draft is closer to what I wanna go for, so I’ve been revisiting it to see what I wanna do with my NaNo 2019 attempt.

And did you know? Maybe kinda relevant to all the anon hate lately, one OC I wrote for the story is a villain that exemplifies a lot of what I hate about myself. Her situation is of course different than mine—I ain’t beautiful, lol—but her jealousy, vindictiveness, egotism, etc. are all things that I despise about me.

Like, I guess maybe you could consider her my evil self-insert. Pfft.

I dunno how much of her backstory will really be in the final draft, and it’s definitely way, waaaaaaaaay too much right now ‘cause it was written for NaNo and all, lol, but tl;dr, tl;dr, I guess one big message of my entire story is that being bitter and envious isn’t fair to anyone, destroys others and yourself, and I gotta knock that crap off or be just as awful as this awful, awful woman (who arguably literally caused some of the biggest problems in the book).

If anyone’s interested in reading, I’ve included her segment under the cut! (As well as a little segment about Senketsu ‘cause that’s just where it was placed ‘cause this novel is a disaster in terms of organization, lol.) It’s super messy and unedited ‘cause it was written for NaNo, and I only lightly cleaned up some grammar and placeholder names for this upload, but eyyy, I swear I do write creatively, sometimes!!

And maybe me being so honest about the stuff I hate about myself will do something for others, I dunno. I can only hope ^^;

From Chapter 5, “About King Prasenajit’s Daughter Ugly Adamantina”

As it would happen, the curse that befell the beautiful empress’s princess was quite the complicated affair. If the man in the cave could have been there and could have known, he might have begun the story by speaking in great length of a woman from a kingdom far beyond the Kingdom of the Reed Plains.

The woman, you see, was a magnificent, wondrous healer. She knew her medicines and herbs better than anyone had ever seen, and she knew how to combine them better than anyone had ever seen, too. And so it was said, as it may be imagined, that she was a prodigy of her craft, and she was a genius, and she could only be a miracle doctor sent from the gods.

But it was not purely the healer’s knowledge that made her well known throughout her kingdom and others. The healer, much as the empress of the Kingdom of the Reed Plains, was also extraordinarily beautiful. People would come from far and wide to set their eyes upon her, just as people would the empress, and those who were lucky enough to be her patient would say, in great sincerity, that the healer’s beauty alone was enough to cure them of all sickness and pain.

So you must imagine that when the empress sent for all the best doctors and healers in her land and lands far beyond that this miracle doctor was called for. The healer received the invitation one quiet afternoon, and she tried her very hardest to hide her displeasure as she listened to the empress’s messenger speak.

All those with the healer were left open-mouthed by the messenger’s letter. They oohed and ahed, and then they very quickly turned their attention to the woman to whom the letter had been addressed to.

The woman smiled her politest smile, bowing before the messenger as though the messenger herself was the empress

“It is a great honor that you have come all this way,” the healer said, and she hoped very heartily that her irritation did not seem apparent in her voice. “I am much humbled to be called upon by the empress of the Kingdom of the Reed Plains herself, and I pray for the empress’s health and happiness, and for the health and happiness of her child.”

The healer rose from her bow now. “However, I cannot leave my patients, and so I must decline.” She bowed again, her dark hair falling over her shoulders and concealing the cruel smile on her lips.

Silence fell over the room. To decline a royal order was unheard of, and the poor messenger seemed at a loss for what to say to the woman’s refusal.

Everyone’s eyes had fallen upon the woman. She was no longer smiling. There was a great sense of dread building inside her, as though she had swallowed an entire snake whole.

It was a royal order, the healer realized, even if it was not a royal order from her own country.

And so, with another great bow, and knowing that there was nothing she could do, the woman said, “Please forgive my manners. I will be on my way.”

The healer did indeed travel to the empress’s kingdom. It was a long journey, quite uncomfortable if the healer could say so herself, and all the while, her human heart grew colder and colder.

To help the empress of the Kingdom of the Reed Plains! the healer thought to herself. It was the very last thing she could have ever wanted because, you see, she was quite worn of hearing of the empress’s beauty.

“They say, good healer,” she had been told, time and time again, “that she is even more beautiful than you yourself!”

The healer had to listen and listen to such sentiments and always smile so politely back at them, as though she truly liked to be compared in such a manner! It was a disgusting thing, the healer thought to herself all throughout her journey to the Kingdom of the Reed Plains. Not only did she have to go so many ri away from her homeland, but she had to use her skills to help this woman who could not possibly appreciate her own beauty!

How could she ever appreciate her beauty as I appreciate my beauty? the healer asked herself. Only small people came to tell the healer of her wondrous looks, you see, and the healer always adored every single one of her admirers, but the empress was adored by big people, and very big people came to even catch a glimpse of her, and she could not be like the healer herself, the healer knew, because she had to be very haughty and condescending and must surely not be thankful for the great gift of beauty she had received!

But I am thankful, the healer told herself, and she continued to tell herself this as she went on her way. She thought to herself that someone as high and mighty as the empress did not deserve her talents, and a woman like that also could not understand what it would be like to be born ugly, because a woman like that could never, ever appreciate what a great gift beauty truly is in the cruel, inhospitable world that they both lived in.

It is here, then, that the healer began to entertain a great, terrible idea.

She thought to herself, It would be most wonderful, if the empress’s child is born hideous!

And so the healer laughed to herself, and she thought herself quite amazing to consider such a thing, but she never did consider the thought anything more than a thought.

That is, you see, until the healer first arrived at the empress’s palace.

The story of the bitter-hearted healer is a story that the man in the cave could not tell you.

The man in the cave could also not tell you about love between humans and demons to Satsuki or anybody else. That is also a story the man does not know.

Perhaps, too, he does not want to know.

But the little red demon knows this story. It is the story that fills his blood and built his bones, and it is the story he will dedicate his life to believing.

Indeed, to the little red demon, the story that the man in the cave tells Satsuki one day—of demons and humans as mortal enemies where peace is impossible, and only one can be the victor—feels as wrong to the child as a waterfall that he has never seen flowing backwards, up a cliff.

But it is this story, you see, that the little demon heard time and time again from his mama’s setsuwa and stories.

“Why is it,” the red demon asked his mother one day, long before he catches his sister prepared to drink their mama’s blood and long before he comes across the young Ryuko collapsed in the snow, “that in all of Mama’s tales, the demons want to hurt the humans?”

He had thought at first that it was simply the case of a few villainous demons. There are surely many stories where humans play the role of the evil force that must be vanquished. But the demon soon saw that humans were allowed to be heroes and kind princesses and great shining beauties. All demons ever could be were empty-headed and ugly and horrible, ravenous beasts.

The demon saw, too, the way his mama’s face would turn red in the same manner in which his face would turn green as she told him, “Do not let these stories about the bad demons make you feel as though you are destined to be bad and nothing more. There are many good demons, too.”

But Mama could not seem to tell the little red demon a single story she had heard about a good demon.

Mother had been at the loom when the red demon asked why it is the demons must always be the villain. She was weaving, chan, chan, chan, karin, and this she continued to do as she answered the little demon’s question, her amber eyes fixed on her work.

“Those stories are very ordinary human stories, my love,” she said. “If I were to tell you demon stories—and I could not, I must say, because I am not very much good with words like your dear mama—then you would see that the demons see the humans as the humans see the demons.”

The red demon was left very confused indeed. “But why would the humans and the demons want to see each other as evil?” he asked. “Isn’t it ordinary for humans and demons to be together?”

Mother still did not look the little red demon’s way. She seemed distant, as though a thousand ri away. “No, my love,” she said. “Your Mama and I are... not very ordinary at all.” A smile was on her lips as she told him so, but she seemed almost sad at the statement, as though the admittance of being unordinary brought a sort of pain, the kind that the demon would come to feel when he looks upon the fallen girl in the snow.

“Demons and humans are not meant to mix,” Mother said. “That is what everyone will tell you, both humans and demons, and even the little birds that come to visit this home will tell you, too.”

The little red demon still did not understand. The situation became ever more puzzling to the child, as incomprehensible as the world saw the red demon’s very existence.

“But you are very happy together,” he said. He frowned, the usual chan, chan, chan, karin of his mother’s loom no longer the soothing sound of his childhood but an anxious rhythm that the demon could not free from his mind.

“No, we are very happy together,” he insisted.

Mother laughed. “Yes, my little smart one,” she said. She patted the demon’s head, careful to avoid the horns that were just growing from his scalp. “But most people, my love, human and demon alike, do not believe it is possible.” She smiled again, though it still looked strange and distant, and she took her hands from the loom where she had been weaving, finally turning her eyes upon her son.

The little demon saw that she had been crying.

“Most people,” she said, “believe it is a curse for a demon to let a human into their heart, and for a human to let a demon into theirs.”

Mother turned her wet eyes away from the little red demon. “But I would do it,” she told him, unwaveringly, as though speaking a grand declaration no matter the quiet whisper of her voice.

And the red demon felt it was more to herself than to him that his mother then said, “If she would let me, I would grant her every wish and keep a piece of her within me, always.”

A story the man in the cave does know, as it would happen, is the story of how demons hold within them the power to grant any human’s wish.

This, you see, is a story that more humans once understood, back when the Kingdom of the Reed Plains had not been cursed to be covered in an endless, inhospitable snow that would not disappear and could not disappear.

It was a story that the bitter-hearted healer who had gone to see the empress had known, and she considered this story her first evening she spent in the beautiful empress’s palace as she peered outside to the lands that were not her kingdom and not anything much like her home country.

If I would give my heart to demons to have a wish granted, she thought to herself, I would not have my wish be to make the empress’s child born hideous.

But it would be such a nice thing, she considered some more, if I could truly make such a reality with my own two hands.

Another healer interrupted her thoughts with a great curse of her own. This healer was unabashed in her complaints and did not keep them locked deeply away as the bitter-hearted healer did.

This healer said, “I am number 37, can you believe it?” She expressed a great many more curses, crossing her arms and pouting in a manner that the bitter-hearted healer could not help but find quite admirable.

“I am number 43, myself,” she said. She smiled politely, as she was so very used to doing in her practice. “I am sure I will not be able to return to my home kingdom for quite a long while yet.”

At this, the other healer offered a sympathetic look. “Oh,” she said, and she shook her head, as though ashamed of herself. “I live very near this palace, and here I have been cursing!”

“You have every right to be upset,” said the bitter-hearted healer. She tried very hard to restrain herself from clenching up her fists at the thought of the beautiful empress and how that woman had successfully called her to this wretched palace.

The other healer smiled at that. “I most certainly do have all the reason in the world to be upset!” she said. “Calling upon so many healers and doctors! You must forgive our empress.” She lowered her voice, until she was near whispering. “She is just very afraid of losing a fourth child, you see.”

This the bitter-hearted healer understood perfectly, and had the empress been another, uglier woman, perhaps the healer would have been meant it, when she said, “I wish the best for her and her child.”

“With all these healers and doctors, there won’t be any need for wishing,” answered the other healer, and then she was quite quiet for a moment before she added, “To tell the truth, I wasn’t happy with my number because I wished to return to my family as soon as possible, but also....” She paused, as though bashful. “It’s maybe a bit silly, but I’m afraid I won’t even be able to meet the beautiful empress with my late number! I was hoping to make my family very jealous for getting to be in the same room as her!”

The bitter-hearted healer’s smile slipped, just slightly. She then made her smile all the brighter as she answered, “I have heard that she is quite a sight.”

“So the talk of her beauty goes beyond even our little Kingdom of the Reed Plains!” cried the other healer. “I so wish to see for myself.”

The healer then looked very carefully at the bitter-hearted woman.

“I hope you don’t mind my saying, Miss, but I almost find it hard to imagine a woman prettier than you.”

The bitter-hearted healer’s smile became very wicked. “You flatter me!” she said. “I am sure I cannot hold even a candle to the empress’s beauty.”

“I suppose we will see about that,” said the other healer.

But the bitter-hearted healer very much did not want to see about it. She had only been in the empress’s palace a few mere hours, but already it seemed an eternity, and so there came the time when the bitter-hearted healer—surely not thinking clearly, mind you—left her room that night and walked very resolutely to the palace gates. The other doctors and healers looked at her quite oddly as she did this, and the guards of the palace questioned her quite thoroughly.

“It is unwise,” said one of the palace guards, “to walk the streets at night, when the demons are about.”

The healer considered it might almost be a blessing, if she could be eaten by demons and never have to come before the horrible empress she did not want to see!

But the healer smiled very politely, as she was so very used to doing from her practice. “My number is very far off, you see,” she said, and she showed the guard the parchment with 43 written cleanly upon it. “I have relatives not far from this palace, and I would very much like to spend the night with them, if you understand.”

The guard shifted uncomfortably. “I understand...” he said, “But you were to come here, on royal orders—“

“And I will return,” said the bitter-hearted healer. Though she had interrupted the man, the tone of her voice had become sweeter than sugared honey. Her impertinence almost seemed kind.

“Yes, I hear what you are saying,” said the guard, and once more he shifted uncomfortably, “but you must understand....”

He could not finish his words. The bitter-hearted healer ran fingers through her slick black hair. She batted her eyelashes, only a small amount. “I know it is dangerous,” she said, “but I am a healer, and I am very good at what I do—as I am sure you know because I am standing here before you right this moment!—and if any demon were to try to hurt me, I could heal myself in just an instant!”

The bitter-hearted healer bowed down very low before the guard. “Please, good man, I am begging you to let me go.”

It was with a great hesitance that the guard did exactly so.

But the truth is that the bitter-hearted healer had no family in that kingdom. She knew no one at all in the Kingdom of the Reed Plains, and she entertained the thought that she could run away to a new settlement somewhere, perhaps by the mountains, and then she could avoid ever seeing the empress and ever living with the shame from refusing a royal order from a kingdom allied with her own.

The person she was at that moment could be considered lost. She could start a new life, and she could become a healer even more renowned than she had been in her backwater hometown. The healer’s head buzzed with ideas, bun, bun. Of course she could start up a new business someplace far away! She was so beautiful that she would quickly become the talk of the town no matter where it is she went!

This thought brought the bitter-hearted healer to stop in her tracks. No, she thought, she could not become the talk of the town in a town where the only beauty anyone could speak of was an empress who did not appreciate her beauty nor deserve it!

The healer clutched the lantern she had taken with her on her journey away from the palace quite tightly. Why did all her thoughts keep returning to such a terrible woman? Even when she had been thinking of the new life she would build for herself, the healer could not help but think of the empress.

She frowned to herself, all by herself in a great kingdom with a wondrous empress, in the forest just beyond the palace, no less, and she thought to herself that she must be such a pitiful sight that even demons would take pity upon her and spare her life should they ever find her.

The bitter-hearted healer, however, did not realize that she was so stuffed full of bitterness and cold that she smelled quite terrible to the demons who were indeed wandering about the Kingdom of the Reed Plains that night.

“That atrocious stench is ruining all the wonderful ones,” the woman heard a demon complain (though she was not aware that it was a demon speaking because the healer did not truly expect to come across demons in her great escape from the palace).

Zushin, zushin, the healer heard, thud, thud, stomp, stomp.“It must be another cold heart,” said another demon (that the healer again was not aware was truly a demon at all).

But it is quite disconcerting to hear voices that you cannot see the source of in the midst of the night, and so it was then that the healer, whose heart was beating very quickly at that moment, raised her lantern and shone it all around her.

“Who is there?” she asked. The light danced all about the darkness, and when it settled upon a face, the bitter-hearted healer was rather surprised that this face was a considerably good-looking face.

She was even more surprised when she saw another face besides the first face that was equally attractive, and indeed perhaps even more so.

“Ah,” said the owner of the first face, who looked to the bitter-hearted healer to be a young woman with eyes that sparkled like bright red rubies.“So it is you who are making this horrible, ghastly stench all throughout these lands.”

Of course, it is even more disconcerting to hear a beautiful stranger in the woods describe you as smelling atrocious, and so perhaps it is not unusual that the bitter-hearted healer felt her bitterness grow and grow within her, puffing out and expanding much like her medicinal breads did in the ovens back in her home.

She said, “Well, now, how terribly rude! I will have you know that I have traveled quite a long way!Even the bath that I have been offered in this kingdom has not treated me well, it seems!”

The owner of the second beautiful face, who seemed to the bitter-hearted healer to be an older woman with great red lips that were a deeper color than even the setting sun, shook her head at the healer, her long, dark hair brushing against her shoulders and elaborate flowered kimono.

“You misunderstand, Miss,” said this second beauty.“No amount of sweet soaps or fragrances or wondrous baths could save you from this disgusting stench that falls off you much as snow falls from the sky.”

The second beauty lifted her chin up very high.“This reek feels even more endless than snow, too,” she said.

This, too, made the bitter-hearted healer even more bitter hearted than she had been before.

The two beauties coughed before the healer could even begin to speak.

“You are making it worse!” said the first woman. “It is no good to upset a human who already smells so terrible.”

These words were the first that the bitter-hearted woman could perhaps smile at. She said, “Come now, are you traveling storytellers looking for refuge by the palace? It is quite funny of you to try to include even your audience as part of your story, but I must confess that I do not have a single coin upon my person at this moment.”

The bitter-hearted healer laughed, and the sound was surely as horrible a sound as her heart was a horrible heart and her stench was a horrible stench. “I must say, though,” said the bitter-hearted healer, “that it is not quite an appealing act to begin by insulting your audience and then continue by calling them 'human' as though you are not humans yourselves!”

These words made the two demons laugh quite heartily indeed, gera, gera, ha, ha. They laughed much more heartily than the woman, and they laughed much more genuinely, and when they had finished this laughter and wiped the tears from their eyes, the younger beauty smiled in a way that the bitter-hearted healer did not find so attractive.

Indeed, she found the grin quite terrifying.

Because, you see, the bitter-hearted healer saw that this beauty had teeth that were perhaps not quite so beautiful. There were long fangs, sharp, and it seemed very much to the healer that she was looking straight at the smiling jaws of a great monster.

“As though we are not humans ourselves!” repeated the once-beauty. The strange creature laughed once more, looking less and less beautiful to the bitter-hearted healer with every second. Its form seemed to distort and mutate before the bitter-hearted healer, and the sight was to the woman very hideous and unsightly, but somehow, you see, she could not look away.

And so it was that the bitter-hearted healer watched with wide eyes as rosy skin changed to a slick blue, shiny, dark hair became as long and wild and white as snowflakes in a great storm, and the once-beauty seemed to grow several feet, towering over the bitter-hearted healer with eyes that the healer then realized to be the shining eyes of a demon.

She also realized that they were the shining eyes of a very hungry demon.

The bitter-hearted healer, in her immense fear, toppled to the ground with a great gasp, haa, haa, wheeze, pant. Her lantern shattered, and the flames jumped out, lighting the leaves scattered upon the forest floor on fire and threatening to burn the trees as well.

Here the demons’ laughter was quite diminished.

“Look what you have made the foolish human do with your silly sideshow display,” said the older beauty. She had shifted her form as well, now bearing the appearance of a massive, red-haired blue demon clad in tiger skins, with three great horns upon her head.

She stomped out the fires with her feet, zushin, zushin, thud, thud, and the younger demon only helped with what the bitter-hearted healer would have considered reluctance, if she had the mind to think clearly. Soon enough only a small bit of flames remained, and this the younger demon held in her hands as though it was a small, fluttering little heart.

“It must be strange to you to see that flames do not burn us,” said the demon, perhaps not knowing—or perhaps knowing very, very well—that the bitter-hearted healer could think nothing on how a demon would not be burned by flames.

“As it would happen, silly, stinky human,” she explained, “demons are not affected by the cold or the heat like you flimsy creatures.”

The bitter-hearted healer could not quite take another moment of this torture. Her heart was nearly threatening to jump out of her chest, beating so very quickly, baku, baku, thump, thump, because, you see, though the healer had often come face to face with death in her practice, she had never given very much thought to the idea that she could truly, actually be the one facing death one day!

She pressed her head against the singed, cold ground with her hands in front of her and said, “Oh, please, demons, please, please spare me! Once you understand my sad tale, you cannot possibly wish to eat me!”

Of course, the bitter-hearted healer did not understand the tale of the demons themselves (and this she would never understand, much as the man in the cave would never understand the love between demons and humans, but, ah, that is a story for quite another time). The bitter-hearted healer did not understand that the demons she had encountered that fateful night were demons from a smaller settlement, and she did not know that this settlement had grown very tired of hunting humans and so had pledged, with great sincerity and passion, to refrain from ever tasting the sweet flavors of human flesh and blood ever again.

It is easy to say that the bitter-hearted healer could not have understood this tale, and it would be correct to say so, because no human in all the Kingdom of the Reed Plains at the time could say that they knew of the demons within their own lands who had sworn off eating them forever. But the bitter-hearted healer would also not have understood this tale should she have ever been told it, because, you see, to the bitter-hearted healer, a demon was a demon, and demons ate people, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

However, the bitter-hearted healer did think very much that she could avoid being the human the demons chose to eat, if she were only clever enough.

And so the woman pushed her face even farther into the dirt (which she didn’t quite think possible), and she said, “You would understand my tale, too!” The woman’s voice absolutely dripped with desperation, and there was enough that the demons could scoop it up with their hands and drink and be filled. “You are very beautiful demons,” the woman cried, “and my sad tale could only be understood by those who understand the gift of great beauty, and I know very well that you understand this gift!”

Now, the demons had no desire to eat the woman or even drink her blood on account of their pledge, and truth be told, they would have no desire to eat the woman or even drink her blood had they not been bound by such a pledge. There was such a terrible, ghastly stench coming off the woman and her cold, frozen heart, and the demons were quite sure that, should they even attempt to eat her, she would taste as terrible and ghastly as she smelled.

The bitter-hearted woman could also not have known that the younger demon entertained the thought of wiping her tongue off on the bark of trees after tasting someone as disgusting as the woman who sat crouched before her, and indeed, she would not have even considered such a thing. To the bitter-hearted woman, all that mattered was her beauty, and as her thinking went, beautiful creatures must also taste quite delicious, and so she must have seemed quite the delectable treat to the two demons before her.

As the bitter-hearted woman saw her situation, she would have to try her very, very hardest to not be eaten.

The demons played along with the woman. “A tale, you say?” asked the older demon woman. “Perhaps you are the one who should be the traveling storyteller?”

In all her fear, the bitter-hearted woman thought herself at least wise enough to agree with a demon when asked such a question. “Perhaps, perhaps!” she agreed, though deep inside she could not imagine being in such a lowly, silly, worthless profession as a traveling storyteller.

The demons tried very hard to refrain from gagging at how the woman’s stench became much more terrible with her lie. They continued to play the woman’s game.

“We shall see how skilled you are,” the younger demon woman said. She still held the flames in her hands, coaxing the fire as though it were a small animal.

“Yes, yes, you shall see!” cried the bitter-hearted healer, and she then told her story in the best manner she could muster. She spoke of how the beautiful empress did not deserve her beauty and did not appreciate it, and she spoke of how all the empress deserved was a hideous child, and she said that she had half-considered running away from this horrible place and starting a brand-new life because she quite abhors ungratefulness, you see, and the beautiful empress is surely the definition of ungrateful!

The bitter-hearted healer could not have known how the demons reacted to her story. She could not have understood how the two looked at each other with great plans and ideas blooming in their minds, and she could not understand the language that they spoke to one another in quiet tones, because to the bitter-hearted healer, you see, the language of the demons sounded much the same as the go-o, go-o of the wind.

And so after the bitter-hearted healer had spoken all she had to say, she stared a great, long while at the two incredible creatures before her, knowing all too well in her frozen heart that there was nothing else she could do.

But it was such a long, painful time that the demons spoke to one another, and as you might imagine from a woman who believed very sincerely that she was at death’s door, the bitter-hearted woman became quite consumed by fear. Though there was a great bitterness inside her that would not go away, there came too to be a great terror.

How horrible and unfair is everything! the woman could not help but think, tainting her scent ever more as her heart grew ever colder. Here she had not only come to the ungrateful empress’s kingdom to do her a great deed, but on her first night in the supposedly beautiful empress’s lands, she is held hostage by demons and sentenced to death! Her great kindness to come to the empress’s aid had only resulted in her very downfall!

And so the bitter-hearted woman fumed quite thoroughly to herself, and her bitterness grew and grew, and the demons spoke more and more quickly because, you see, they were not so certain how much longer they could stand being so close to such a cold-hearted, cruel woman.

It was only once the bitter-hearted healer became very convinced that she was going to be eaten on the spot that the older demon woman said, with a hesitance that the woman did not recognize as hesitance, “You have told quite an amazing story indeed.”

The bitter-hearted woman thought immediately upon hearing these words that the demon was genuine in saying them, and she would have been correct, to an extent, because the demon woman did find her tale amazing, in a sense.

The younger demon woman said, “We like your story very much, and we would like to help you! It is true; a cruel fate has come upon you, and it is not fair that you have been sent away to this kingdom! To think that you have been sent all this way to help such an empress as the human empress that reigns in the Kingdom of the Reed Plains! It is disgusting! Despicable!”

At these words, the bitter-hearted healer could have broken out into tears, and it is only the older demon’s next words that keep her from doing just that.

“If you would come with us, just a ways, we can make it so your dreams can come true,” she said.

The bitter-hearted healer felt the great relief that had only just filled her dissipate away, tainted. Her fear came back, and this fear was a terror so great that it felt to the bitter-hearted healer to be almost as tangible as the rain that began to fall upon her at that moment, zabun, zabun, plop, plop. With dread and anxiety building deep within her, the bitter-hearted woman considered many possibilities for what the demons planned to do now.

They were discussing which of my body parts they are going to eat, she thought to herself. They are going to take me back with them to their home, and they are going to enjoy me while they drink away all the water in the river that they must live by, because of course demons must live by a river! I am going to die here, and these demons must consider me quite foolish, to think that their compliments and kind words are enough to tempt me straight into the jaws of death!

The bitter-hearted woman grew more and more bitter, but she smiled very kindly at the demons, the way she had become so accustomed to from her practice, and she knew that even in the rain, she looked very beautiful when she smiled.

“I will go with you,” she said, and she got to her feet, and the demons smiled back at her, though even the bitter-hearted woman could sense that these smiles were not fully kind.

And so the bitter-hearted healer went with the demons because there was surely nothing else she could do, and she thought to herself that when they stopped and tried to devour her whole, she could perhaps kick their teeth, or perhaps they were thinking of saving her for another day, in which case she could steal their shoes and surely run a thousand ri in just a moment.

On and on the bitter-hearted healer’s thought went in this way, and she was so very preoccupied with her illusions that she did not notice at first that the demons had stopped. The bitter-hearted woman had only the little flickering light of the demon’s fire (that had somehow not been extinguished in the rain) to use to see in the darkness, but it seemed to her that they had stopped before what the healer recognized to be an herb garden much like the one she had back in her own backwater hometown.

“It is exactly what you believe it to be,” said the younger demon. The older demon then proceeded to pick from the garden something that the healer could not recognize, even with her great skill and beauty at her craft.

The bitter-hearted woman wondered briefly if whatever it is that the demon had picked would be used to make her tastier, or perhaps it was poison, and the demons truly had been moved by her tale and wished for her to have a peaceful demise rather than be swallowed whole.

It took everything the bitter-hearted woman had to not shudder terribly at this thought.

But the older demon explained, very matter-of-fact, what it was in her hands. “We do not grow the same herbs as you humans do,” she said. “Demons are much stronger than humans, with hearts that are much lighter, and we are far more advanced in our medicines.”

The bitter-rated healer did not believe this in the slightest, but she smiled her very politest smile. “I would very much like to learn more about your herbs,” she said, though she wished to say, I want absolutely nothing to do with your cursed medicines because they would be sure to poison me and all my patients!

“Unfortunately for you, I cannot share the demons’ secrets with a human,” said the older demon. “But I can provide you with this herb, to present to the empress.”

This the bitter-hearted healer found very surprising indeed.

“An herb to present to the empress?” she repeated, a strange sensation of excitement filling her no matter the fact that she was surely just seconds away from being tricked into her own demise by demons.

“Yes,” said the younger demon. “If you present this herb to the empress, her child will be born very, very healthy, because we demons have healing magic, you know, and we have the power to cure nearly any ailment known in the world just using our own power. You must imagine that our medicines are capable of much, much more.”

The bitter-hearted healer felt her excitement wane. Her polite smile fell to nastiness, and this she did not even make the slightest attempt to hide. “Why in the world would I want to give the empress exactly what she wants?” she asked. It seemed so very horrible, and she considered herself such a very sad creature, to be in a position where even the demons sided with a disgraceful, ungrateful empress over her! Was she not beautiful enough to be given whatever it is she wanted? She, who so respected and was so very grateful for the gift of beauty that she had received from the gods?

And though the bitter-hearted woman did not take any note of it, the older demon would think that perhaps she was too harsh with her next words, but she could not help it, you see, because it is a demon’s curse to be extraordinarily honest, even if humans could not comprehend nor understand this honesty.

She said, “We would hope that even the most wicked of humans would not wish for a child to be born so sickly that they perish shortly after birth,” but then she shook her head and said to the bitter-hearted empress, who smelled even more terrible at this point and seemed very much to be fuming, “But we would like to make your dream come true, healer from a faraway kingdom.”

The bitter-hearted healer crossed her arms and surveyed the demons quite thoroughly now. “Are you saying?” she started, and she could not quite finish, even if that was quite unbecoming of a beautiful lady.

“Yes,” said the younger demon. Her face was lit up by the flame that still danced in her palm. “If you give this herb to the empress, her child will be born uglier than any human and far uglier than any demon.”

A great, horrible smile came upon the bitter-hearted healer’s face at this revelation. She very gladly took the herb from the older demon, and she even more gladly presented this herb to the beautiful empress when she returned to the palace to a very relieved guard and when it came to be her turn to come before the terrible empress who had brought such pain and misfortune upon her life.

“Take this,” the bitter-hearted healer said very confidently to the empress, smiling her very politest smile that she had grown much accustomed to smiling from her practice. “Place it in your tea, and be sure that the tea is very warm, and your child will be born very healthy and very lovely.”

The bitter-hearted healer, you see, was not like the honest demons. She very much relished her lie, and her very politest smile would have seemed distinctly not polite, had anyone looked closely enough.

But no one looked closely enough, because the bitter-hearted healer was simply a small healer from a faraway kingdom, and though she was a great beauty, no one could be bothered to look her way, not when in the same room as the most beautiful empress in all the world.

However, perhaps the woman’s heart was not as cold as the demons had seen it, because even this bitter-hearted healer felt within her a sting of remorse as she stood before the empress. In the woman’s mind, you see, the empress was surely not as beautiful as she was made out to be, but this silly empress held herself up as though she was the most beautiful creature on all of the Earth! The bitter-hearted healer almost felt sorry for the poor creature, left thinking that she is so amazingly lovely when she is so clearly not.

And yet, as it may be expected from a tale such as this one, the bitter-hearted healer’s small bit of remorse was not enough for her to treat the empress properly, as she would one of her own patients back in her hometown that the woman found herself missing in increasing amounts, and so she kept her smiling as the empress thanked her for her work.

The bitter-hearted healer, of course, did not know that it was not the demons who had made it so the medicine would cause the princess of the Kingdom of the Reed Plains to be born horrifically ugly. She could not know, and she could not understand, because she did not realize her own bitter-heartedness and would never understand it, not for as long as she lived (and this, you see, was not a very much time longer).

“Humans with hearts as cold as this woman,” the old demon had said to the younger demon, back when they had first heard the healer’s sobbed tale, in a language that the bitter-hearted healer did not understand and could not understand, “are capable of tainting even the strongest medicine with evil, but it is they who suffer the most from their bitterness. A human heart is not meant to be cold. Humans are not designed for the cold as we demons are, and a frozen heart can only beat for so long before it wears itself away with its darkness.”

And so, perhaps it was not odd that the bitter-hearted healer did not live to see the day that her tainted medicine had done its work, and the empress’s daughter was indeed born as hideous as a snake. The healer was a miracle doctor from the heavens and a healer who could heal all, it seemed, except herself. The bitter-hearted woman’s coldness made her incurably ill upon returning to her kingdom, and the people sighed for a moment at her passing.

“She was quite a beauty,” the people said, because it was quite sad to lose someone who looked so lovely, just as it is quite sad to lose a lovely flower to an unseasonal bout of cold weather. “It is a shame to lose her and no longer see such a lovely face.”

But as all beauty eventually fades one day, so did the memory of the healer, who, you must understand, was not truly especially skilled at her craft, and indeed, had relied heavily on the skills of her not-so-pretty assistants whose stories the world did remember far beyond their time.

And so the bitter-hearted healer’s tale was forgotten, and when the time comes that a man in a cave tells this story of the beautiful empress’s ugly daughter to the Crown Princess Satsuki, not a soul remains who remembers the bitter-hearted healer at all.

#shut up goop #goop makes a (kinda) personal post #ramblings #maybe #writing #klk fic #klk fairytale au #blood #body horror #kill la kill #ish #this au is pretty original though tbh #confetti emoji i'm on my moon sickness right now but i'm gonna write a book yeahhhhhhhhhh

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purplecloudsinmycoffee · 4 years

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Everyday People

Earlier today, my best friend and I were talking about a particular older friend from our hospital group and how she was always the type to push people to become better. I think I’ve been really lucky that I am surrounded by people that I can learn a lot from. So I felt like making an entry about all these amazing people just because I love them and I need to brag about them (also something to read again when I’m looking back because I’m a sentimental piece of crap).

My hospital group has become sort of a family to me and I relied on them a lot during my clerkship and internship years. The older friend I mentioned was a member of my small group as well. She’s always felt like an older sister. If there was a person that taught me that I should never remain stagnant and should always seek to improve myself, it’s her. She’s also shared so much wisdom from her own life experiences that helped me lot. I talk to her a lot even now. I’d ask her take on difficult decisions and she’d also tell me about the challenges in her marriage.I remember months ago when I told her that I felt vacant and lost and she’d send me books and apps reminding me that it’s my job to get myself out of that pit.

The other female member of our subgroup is this hilarious girl I enjoy spending time with because we just laugh at everything. Corny jokes and puns galore. We share one brain cell when we’re together. She’s so chill and light to be with but also takes her work seriously. I’m happy I still get to work with her sometimes because I miss her and she lives the farthest.

The best friend I keep mentioning in my posts is someone I talk to almost everyday. I consider the friendship I found in her so rare and golden that I am amazed to have met someone who gets and knows me like she does. I talk to her about anything and everything with no fear of judgment. I’ve always admired her silent strength and how she kept herself together after everything life has thrown at her. We always joke about how we’re soulmates cause we’re so in tune with each other and so much on the same wavelength that it’s crazy. I don’t think I would’ve survived if I’ve been through what she’s been through, so I am always in awe of her in that way.

I have another best friend who I’ve been friends with since first year med that I also talk to a lot. She’s really really cool and she takes care of people so well. I think she’s always a bit too hard on herself cause she’s such a hard worker. She’s always been a bit more grounded than I am so talking to her gives me a new perspective. She’s a surgery trainee now so I don’t get to talk to her or spend time with her as much as I used to but I cherish times that I am able to talk to her.I love hearing about her new life and her adventures or even something as mundane as being able to still discuss manga and shows.

If my older female groupmate is my older sis figure, my older brother figure is this other male groupmate. He’s also a drinking buddy and one of my breakfast buddies. What’s so amazing about him is that I can say without any doubt that he’s a genuinely good person. Kind to the core. He’s extremely hilarious as well which makes hanging out and drinking with him fun. My other small group male groupmate is this energetic guy who’s so enthusiastic ALL the time. I can never match his energy tbh and there were times that I clashed with him during work. I really respected him for how hard he works though and I’ve always been jealous about how he always knew what he wanted to achieve in life and where he’s going. The last male groupmate is unique in his way of thinking but everyone loves him because he’s adorable.

The other 2 female members of my group are also really awesome people. I think I share with both of them the love for learning. I love discussing interesting cases with them. We’re all IM nerds so maybe that’s why. One of them is a free spirit who is so entertaining as much as she is frustrating. She always does things her own way and her confidence I always admired. The other one is the top of our batch and she’s such a sweet girl and I’m always so proud of her and her number one fan. I try to check on them every now and then and they’re doing so well in their chosen paths.

If my hospital group are people given to me (through alphabetical grouping) to help me survive my last 2 years in med, my OG med school gang are people I chose after floating around for a bit. I was the only one among my college buddies to go to my med school. So I didn’t really know anyone. Initially, I hung out with the people closest to my seat and I got along with them okay. I socialized a bit, befriending the girl closest to me at the time. She told me she wanted to hang out with this group of people we coincidentally saw at the place we were having lunch at. Initially, I was ok with just the two of us cause she was good company but they seemed like an interesting bunch so I agreed.

I hope they don’t take this against me if they see this (and I’m pretty sure they won’t see this but just to be sure), they weren’t the most socially adept kind but I’ve come to see and appreciate the good things throughout the years of knowing them. We had a lot of fun and the scope of my hobbies and interests definitely expanded because of them.

I’ve talked about the first one (the female best friend from 1st yr med). My other female friends are so different from each other that it’s funny. One of them is rather quiet but can be a bit blunt and has bizarre interests. What I’ve come to love about her is how loyal and generous she is. It was fulfilling to see her gain more friends throughout the years. The other one is a shy girl who’s always a bit unsure of herself. She’s also very sweet but very logical in the way she thinks (and sometimes overthinks) that it’s interesting to see her perspective on things (even if there are times that I disagree). I like hearing her stories about work and when she tells me when she does things that are out of her comfort zone. The last one is the one I’m probably on the same wavelength as (probably because we’re both INFJs? I dunno). I don’t get to talk to her a lot because she kind of comes and goes haha. She’s probably the most mysterious because she doesn’t reveal a lot about herself but I love talking to her about life and random stuff. We kind of have sessions that we talk about anything for a long period of time and then she kind of disappears for a while until the next session. I’ve come to accept that about her.

My two male friends are also very different. One of them I frequently call Bestie or Satan or Susan to annoy him (he’s gotten used to it now that I need to change tactics) is kind of like a go-to person for new content of anime/manga, movies or whatever. He kind of likes a lot of the same things I do. Underneath the bullying and crass behavior, he kind of cares in his own way (even if he tries to deny it). Similar sense of humor so the shows and shit we like are similar. He’s really smart but also really lazy but also really lucky so it balances out. We talk a lot about work these days which is very different from the times we were trying to outshine each other in procrastination back in med school.

The last friend tbh is the most difficult one to talk about. I want to talk about what I liked and miss about this friendship though.He kind of lives in a world of his own. He’s the unconventional type. He’s awkward and often misunderstood (but sometimes he’s so unaware that I have to admit it’s kind of his fault too). He has a lot going on though which I try to understand (try is the keyword here because there were times it’s an active effort). What I really loved though is that with this person I have felt most at ease in a way. Kind of those people that it’s okay not to talk when you’re around them but you’re also comfortable enough to talk about yourself when you wanted to. I’ve always been fascinated and appreciative of how creative he is and how much he knows. We also shared a few common hobbies and he’s a really nice movie buddy. He listens when you talk (but can sometimes zone out but it’s ok) and his sense of humor I also jive with. I can’t claim to fully know him or understand him but I loved spending time with him and trying to get to know him. I was extremely proud and happy when I heard that he got accepted to the training program he wanted.

There’s actually a lot more people and friends who made med school so happy and colorful but this is already a long post and I’ve indulged myself way too much with this. I really just want to be appreciative of all the people who I saw and interacted with everyday for the past few years.I have the time to reflect and see much fun I had and what I learned from them and what they contributed to my life. All this free time is thinking time anyway.

#personal

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goodticklebrain · 5 years

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Q&A August: David Prosser of the Stratford Festival

Remember back when I called Austin Tichenor my Comedy Fairy Godfather? Well, the subject of today’s Q&A August interview is my Shakespeare Fairy Godfather. David Prosser is the Literary and Editorial Director at the Stratford Festival of Canada, and is also indirectly responsible for much of Good Tickle Brain’s growth and success. (Also, if he’s reading this, I would like to sincerely apologize to him for all grammatical errors in today’s post, most likely related to misplaced punctuation, the correct disposition of which I have never properly mastered.)

I met David on Twitter a scant four months after I had started Good Tickle Brain. Fresh out of the gates, with few followers or readers, I was desperately trying to get my work in front of as many eyes as possible. To that end, I went on Twitter and promptly followed everyone I could find who was remotely associated with the Stratford Festival. One of the people I stumbled upon was David, whose wonderfully dry and witty tweets immediately attracted my attention. On day, embroiled in a bit of an ongoing brouhaha with some Oxfordians, David tweeted a riff on “Duke of Earl”, rewriting the chorus as “dupes, dupes, dupes, dupes of Earl”. Never one to shy away from a song parody, I provided the rest of the lyrics. David was amused enough by my efforts that he followed me, and started retweeting my comics. I cannot tell you how much that meant to me at the time.

Later on that year, I was visiting the Stratford Festival with my family, and (of course) tweeting about it when David slid into my DMs and invited me up to the Festival offices to have tea with him before that day’s matinee. I jumped at the chance, and we spent a wonderful half an hour or so chatting in the sunshine on the Festival Theatre balcony. It was like meeting my long-lost benevolent Scottish uncle. David was not only immediately supportive and encouraging of my work, but he also began actively brainstorming ways in which to help me reach a larger audience, specifically among the theatre community. To that end he introduced me to the Shakespeare Theatre Association, which quickly became my Shakespeare family and has helped me grow and develop Good Tickle Brain into what it is today.

There is absolutely no reason why the Literary and Editorial Director of the largest classical repertory theatre in North America should have given the time of day to a random person on the internet who drew sub-par stick figures and routinely committed egregious spelling errors in her text. However, David did not hesitate to lift me up, and has been a constantly warm, supportive, and thoroughly entertaining presence in my life since then.

But I’ll let him talk now. He’s much better at it than I am.

1. Who are you? Why Shakespeare?

Who am I indeed? Isn’t that the mystery that haunts us all? “Who’s there?” asks Barnardo in the opening words of Hamlet, and that same question echoes down through centuries of subsequent literature. Call me David. Or Prosser, David Prosser.

I was born and grew up in Scotland, where, in early childhood, I first encountered Shakespeare as the author of the “Scottish play” and didn’t realize till some time later that he’d written anything else; came to Canada in my twenties; had a fourteen-year career at a small daily newspaper, where, among other things I was the theatre critic (boo, hiss) and editor of the TV listings (zzzzzz….); then quit in order to spend more time with my wife and cats and to pursue new opportunities for financial ruin; and finally washed up on the shores of the Stratford Festival, where, under various unconvincing job titles (most latterly that of Literary and Editorial Director), I have been an in-house wordsmith for the past quarter-century.

And why Shakespeare? As a nearly dead white male myself, I have a particular affinity for the work of dead white males in general—and Shakespeare in particular has intrigued me ever since childhood, when my father (an English teacher) showed me some black-and-white slides of scenes from a staging of that Scottish play referenced above. I’m sure if I could see them now, those images would prove cheesy; at the time, though, they haunted my imagination; it wasn’t till some time later that I began to discover that there were words to go with them.

As I started to discover the actual plays, I found to my excitement that they had the mind-expanding power of dreams, in which human life is transformed into something rich and strange—an alternative universe of experience, if you like, but one that brilliantly illuminates the “real” one.

2. What moment(s) in Shakespeare always make you laugh?

Sticking with the Scottish play, I generally laugh at Macbeth’s (oops, said it) “‘Twas a rough night,” and I always smile whenever an actor has to tackle the unsayable “O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart / Cannot conceive nor name thee!” Also, I’m afraid I can never suppress a schoolboy snigger when Mountjoy, in Henry V, comes in and announces himself with the words “You know me by my habit.” I can’t remember where I heard it or read it, but someone, somewhere, made a joke about the entire English army responding with rude gestures suggestive of that habit, and I have never been able to get that out of my mind.

3. What’s a favorite Shakespearean performance anecdote?

See Mountjoy above. Also this, one of the many stories from the late Richard Monette’s memoir This Rough Magic: an autobiography “as told to,” er, well, me. Peter Ustinov was playing King Lear at the Stratford Festival in 1979; Richard was playing Edmund.

“At one performance,” Richard recalled, “Peter began, ‘We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage. . . .’ and then he dried. ‘We’ll sing . . .’ he repeated, ‘and then we’ll sing some more. Oh, we’ll laugh. . . . We’ll dance. . . . And then . . . we’ll sing some more.’ Realizing what had happened, I tried to save him by coming in early with my line: ‘Take them away.’ He regarded me with mild curiosity, then waved me away with his hand—'Foof, foof, foof’—and began the whole speech over again, determined to say it all.”

4. What’s one of the more unusual Shakespearean interpretations you’ve either seen or would like to see?

In 1998, or thereabouts, at a theatre festival in Quebec City, I saw a production of The Tempest directed by Robert Lepage. More precisely, it was La Tempête, a translation into French by Normand Chaurette. What was novel about it were the settings, which were computer-created projections—but not just flat background images. The audience wore polarized 3D glasses throughout, which created the illusion of a three-dimensional landscape and objects (such as the royal ship) that seemed to come floating out into the auditorium. It was a stunning effect, perfectly suited to the magical powers referenced in the play, and it had a huge effect on me.

5. What’s one of your favorite Shakespearean “hidden gems”?

An obvious one, obviously, but it’s the “wretched strangers” speech from Sir Thomas More.

6. What passages from Shakespeare have stayed with you?

I am constantly on the alert for opportunities to work any of the following into my conversation:

“Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul, / And there I see such black and grainèd spots / As will not leave their tinct.”

“I’ll no pullet sperm in my brewage.” (Have to be careful about that one when placing an order in a bar or restaurant, though, or the server might spit in my Sauvignon.)

“For this relief much thanks.” (Always apt in washrooms.)

More seriously, I always get a wave of nostalgia for the homeland when I hear Macbeth say, “Light thickens, and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood.” For some reason that line evokes Scotland for me so strongly for me that I feel sure Shakespeare must have toured there when the plague was on in London.

7. What Shakespeare plays have changed for you?

When I was an undergraduate, a professor told me that Titus Andronicus was an absolutely dreadful play, what could Shakespeare have been thinking; and for many years I believed her. Then I actually read it, and thought, wow.

8. What Shakespearean character or characters do you identify the most with?

Wow, that is a question, isn’t it? Erm, well…. Oh, I don’t know: it might be…. Or, no, maybe not. No, shoot, I just can’t make up my mind. Sorry, I know I’m procrastinating, but I’m going to have to set this aside for a while, while I think on it more precisely. Maybe get a bit of sea air to clear my mind….

Okay, that’s better. I’d like to think it maybe would be Benedick, but I’m very much afraid it might be Falstaff. Or King John.

Actually, a few years ago, I really identified with the King of France, but, lacking a Helena, I had surgery for it, and I’m fine now.

9. Where can we find out more about you? Are there any projects/events you would like us to check out?

I pop up from time to time on Facebook (though not Instagram, which I’ve never seen the point of). Occasionally I make snarky remarks on Twitter. Otherwise, I can sometimes be found in the lobby of the Festival Theatre, giving Lobby Talks before selected performances. C’mon down! They’re free!

(Back to Mya) Thanks so much to David for taking the time to answer my questions! If you can, pick up a copy of former Stratford Festival artistic director Richard Monette’s memoir, This Rough Magic, which David worked on. It’s a wonderful read.

COMING THURSDAY: My other self, my counsel’s consistory, my pocket dramaturg!

#Q&A august #shakespeare

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purplesurveys · 5 years

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630

SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Sin 1: Lust 1. Who was the last person you checked out? Did they check you out too? Surprise surprise, it’s my girlfriend. Yeah she did - I think I’d start worrying if she didn’t, lmao.

2. Who was the last person you desired, but they didn’t feel the same? Gab, at one point. Other than her, I haven’t desired anybody else; but I was on the ‘didn’t feel the same’ side at least once, back when Mike used to like me.

3. Ever cheated on a significant other? If so, have you learned from it? No, I’ve never cheated.

4. Do you watch porn? Yes. I’d have phases where I’d view it 2-3 times a week, then I’d completely stop for months – kinda like how everyone plays The Sims lol. I don’t know why it works like that for me.

5. Do you masturbate? Sometimes.

6. Best physical features on your preferred sex? I don’t have a preferred sex, and my favored features differ per person.

7. Who are some celebrities that you think are totally hot? Kristen Stewart, if you don’t me already haha. Also Eugene Lee Yang from the Try Guys, Beyoncé, and Jennifer Aniston.

8. Did you ever lust after a best friend’s significant other? How did it turn out? Mmm nope, I never found myself attracted to Hans in any way. The fact that he has always been associated with Angela ever since high school also helps.

9. When was the last time you had sex? Like a week before Christmas, I think.

10. Ever pursued someone, even though they were taken? No, that’s a little awful.

Sin 2: Gluttony 1. When did you last eat at a restaurant? What restaurant was it? Last Monday – Gab and I went to Yabu to catch dinner. We had been entertaining my mom’s guests and their kid all day and thought we couldn’t leave the house cos it’s a bit impolite, but I had such a craving that I ended up asking permission if we can go to Yabu by 8:30 even though the mall closed by 9 lol. I realize I talk about Yabu an awful lot on here so for those who wanna know, it’s this local Japanese place that serves theeeee best katsu.

2. When did you last have fast food? Where did you get it? I don’t actually remember. If I’m not wrong, it was around two or three weeks ago, and we had KFC delivered to our house because we were too lazy to cook or go out. I had the Zinger Steak, which I hope they never phase out because it’s insanely good.

3. What was the biggest meal you had all day? I haven’t eaten yet, and it’s only 10:51 AM.

4. Do you have too many clothes? How often do you go shopping? I wouldn’t say it’s overwhelmingly many, but I definitely own more clothes than the pieces I’d usually wear, and that’s because I don’t like throwing old stuff out just in case I’d need them in the future (definitely got my great-grandma’s hoarding tendencies). I go shopping once in a few months, which in itself is pretty seldom, but that’s because when I go shopping I usually already buy a shit-ton of new clothes, enough for me to be able to mix and match to come up with new outfits for the next few weeks.

5. What’s something you have a LOT of? Black clothing. I’ve made an effort to get more colored tops, but the blacks still overpower.

6. Do you eat a lot? I’m very takaw-tingin, which is a Filipino term used when you get a crapload of food either because you’re hungry or because you’re confident you can finish it – or both – then you never do. Takaw means greedy or glutton, tingin roughly means sight, so it literally means that you just kinda want to get everything because it looks like a lot. So to answer the question, I always feel like I can eat a lot, but at the end of the day I just end up with stomachaches and I never learn.

7. What was the last thing you splurged (spent a lot of money) on? If a bunch of stuff counts, then I splurged on Christmas presents for various people that I all bought in one go – I got massage oils, a garlic press, a frisbee, Marikina sandals, lipstick, and Instax film. If you’re talking about a single thing that I had to drop a ton of money on, it was for my dog’s blood test and some arthritis meds that the vet recommended.

8. What do you spend most of your money on (besides bills and anything necessary like that)? I only ever spend on necessities like gas, clothes, and food, honestly. Other than that... I spend on (and this is very seldom) whatever hobby I’m into at the moment. At one point I spent on slime because I got interested in them, and before that – and y’all know about this – I spent my Christmas savings on adult coloring books and pencils.

9. Last time you ate candy? What was it? A week or two ago; I had a Crunch bar.

10. Last thing you ate too much of? Eggs, I think. My mom makes it for breakfast so I have it almost every day.

Sin 3: Greed 1. Do you share things? How often? Yeah I can be pretty generous with my stuff. I know I’d appreciate it when other people lend me their belongings, so I try to do the same. I once lent my phone to Rita for over an hour just because she wanted to play Mario Kart, and I also lent a book that’s really important to me to an online friend I barely knew; it was with him for like two years, lol.

2. Someone asks you for a piece of your cookie. You break it in half, but the pieces aren’t equal. Who gets the bigger piece? Usually it would be me; but if the person who asked for it was Gab, or if that particular person likes the cookie I have, then they get the bigger piece.

3. When you see change on the ground, do you pick it up? Only if it’s a 10-peso coin, because I’m greedily picky like that lmao. Other people might need a peso or a 5-peso coin more, so I leave it be.

4. How often do you lend money to people? I don’t, and that’s one thing I wouldn’t tend to lend. My parents just give me allowance and it’s usually enough for necessities and for treating myself once or twice a week, so I wouldn’t be able to have some left for others. Besides, that’s my parents’ money and it would be pretty fuckin’ unfair to them if I just give it away to others lmao.

5. Do you loooove money? I hate what it’s done to society, how it’s divided the rich and the poor, and how the people with the most money also tend to be the most selfish coughcoughBILLIONAIREScoughcough. But I love spending for my own, hah.

6. If someone offers to pay for you, do you decline or readily accept? Oh no no no. Decline all the way. If they keep insisting then I’ll probably give in because it’s the polite thing to do, but if I can, I’ll keep declining.

7. Which of your friends is the wealthiest? Rita. Her grandpa is a former senator and she lives in literally the swankiest neighborhood in Metro Manila; I was a bit intimidated when she invited us to her place for the first time lol. She’s the simplest person I know, too; and that’s my favorite kind of rich.

8. Would you take a high-paying job that you didn’t really like just for the money and benefits? That’s definitely what I plan to do, lmao. At least this is how I know myself now: I have enough money to buy whatever I want, and I’m a happy camper. That may change in a few months or within the next year and I may eventually wanna search for a passion – but for now, it’s the mindset I’m going with when I go job-hunting soon. If I survived four years of college with a very burnt-out, emptied passion for journalism that I thought I had, I could probs do the same in the workplace.

9. Ever stole from anyone? What about stole from a store? What happened? I unknowingly stole a box of crayons from a store back when security equipment wasn’t that rigid yet lmao. I realized I ‘stole’ it because I had it in my hands and not in a paper bag when I walked out, so I immediately went back to pay for it. I’ve never stolen anything from anyone.

10. Do you ever have enough money? I don’t think anyone ever feels this way. Ever heard of billionaires?

Sin 4: Sloth 1. Last thing you procrastinated on? Washing the dishes last night.

2. When you’re at a strip mall and the next store you want to go to is at the other side, do you drive over there instead of take a short walk? It depends how far “the other side” is. <-- Yep pretty much. If it’s literally on the other side of a street, then obviously I’d go walk. But in places like my school which is super big and where ‘other side’ could mean 2 km away, a drive would be more convenient.

3. What’s a typical day off of school and/or work like for you? I’d normally spend the day lazing around on the couch with my dog beside me and lurking around social media.

4. What’s one talent you have that you don’t really work on, even though you have the ability to be good at it? Public speaking, or debating.

5. How many hours of television do you watch a day? I keep Friends as a background noise on Netflix nearly all day because I hate when it gets too quiet around me. As for watching on an actual television, I haven’t used one in years.

6. What about the amount of time you spend on the internet a day? The internet takes up my entire day it’s crazy lol. I kinda need it for everything now.

7. How many hours of sleep do you get a day? Do you sleep in late? It’s always different. I can go anywhere between 3 and 10 hours of sleep. I don’t sleep in often, though.

8. Do you drive to places that are less than three blocks away? I don’t know how big blocks are supposed to be since we don’t use that system here. But yes, I usually drive even though Point A to Point B is very much walkable hahaha. My friends make fun of me a lot for it but I don’t care, at least I don’t get to my destination all sweaty and smelling like the sun.

9. When was the last time you exercised? November, on my last PE class.

10. Ever copied and pasted your homework from a website on the internet? I never did this. My schools always emphasized the consequences of plagiarism so as someone who always stuck by the rules, I always made sure I at least paraphrased the content I see on the internet.

Sin 5: Wrath 1. If you could kill one person and get away with it, would you do it? I know it’s pretty dark to come from such a place, but I’ve always thought death is an easy way out for people who’ve done awful things. I could answer this question with a name of a corrupt politician, rapists, or animal abusers, but tbh they don’t deserve the sweet escape of death, even if it were from murder.

2. Is there anyone you honestly and truly can say that you hate? Anybody who has hurt cats and dogs.

3. Is there anyone you want revenge on, whether you want to get them back big-time or just play a little prank on them for hurting your feelings? Like I said, I’d daydream about getting revenge just to satiate my desire for it, but I think it’s pretty childish and downright cartoonish to actually go through with it. I’ve only ever seen people getting petty revenge in movies, but it seems a bit stupid in real life.

4. Are you fighting with any friends right now? Why? No. The most that’s happened was me kinda scolding Andrew for not letting me know beforehand that he submitted our thesis proposal to our prof through VIBER, which is incredibly unprofessional and I definitely let him know what I thought about it. I didn’t fight with him though.

5. Last time you were really angry? What happened? The aforementioned thesis prof letting me know we’re missing a part of our thesis on the last day for profs to submit their grades. That meant that however early we submitted a revision, she wouldn’t have been able to give it a mark anyway. That definitely pissed me off, especially considering that she was silent for two weeks and didn’t give back any comments which made us think we were good to go.

6. When you’re angry, what do you do to calm yourself down? I watch Friends or any one of my favorite YouTubers so I can have some relief. Other times, I’d force myself to sleep.

7. “Hate is just the fear of loving someone.” true or false? No. That makes no sense to me.

8. What’s the best revenge you ever got on someone? Never done this before.

9. Was there any hard feelings after your last break-up? On whose end was it on? There were definitely hard feelings in the beginning because she executed the breakup so poorly and I thought I didn’t deserve any of the treatment I was getting, and I was also mad that I wasted my time for that long only for her to break up with me in the end.

10. Ever been cheated on? How did that make you feel? No.

Sin 6: Envy 1. Is there anyone you’re jealous of? Name a person and tell us why. Envious is the better word, and I feel this way towards anybody who live with both parents. My dad’s worked overseas all my life, and as grateful as I am for his sacrifices, having a dad at home is more foreign sensation to me than the idea of having a dad who’s gone for 4-6 months a year.

2. List three physical features some other people have that you’re envious of (no need to get specific and name people; you can just say something like “brown eyes” or “having perfect eyebrows”). Straight teeth, fixed eyebrows, legs that don’t need much shaving.

3. List three personality features that other people have that you’re envious of. Confidence, independence... is privilege a personality trait lol?

4. Are you a jealous significant other? I can be. I don’t make a big deal about being jealous as much as I did two or three years ago anymore though.

5. Could you date someone who was really jealous? Gab can be a little jealous but for the most part it’s endearing because it’s never turned into abuse.

6. What celebrity’s looks do you envy the most? Audrey Hepburn.

7. Do you think anyone is envious of you? In your opinion, what characteristics (physical and mental) do you possess that you think someone might be envious of? Being in a long-term relationship, definitely. A lot of people my age want significant others so bad, and I know this because a good chunk of them post the same wish over and over on social media lol.

8. What are a few things you wish you were good at? Drawing, playing an instrument, dancing ballet, changing a car tire, COOKING.

9. Did you ever date someone, break up, and then see them dating someone very attractive a few days later? Were you jealous of that person? This has never happened to me.

10. When looking at a love interest’s exes, do you often find yourself jealous of their good-looking exes? I haven’t had to do this, because I was Gab’s first. I wouldn’t want to fixate on exes if I were in a different situation, though.

Sin 7: Pride 1. What’s something you brag about a lot (be honest–we all brag sometimes)? My school is easy bragging rights. Everybody wants to be in UP.

2. What physical features do you take the most pride in? My body figure in general. Also my fingers, legs, and jawline.

3. Are you satisfied with what you have? Yeah but as the above questions have made it clear, I can always use more money lol.

4. Be honest… when someone is telling you something, do you often change the subject so it’s about you and your accomplishments instead? NEVER. That’s one of the worst things anyone can do. I feel like I used to do this when I was younger, then it just hit me one day about how tasteless it can be so ever since then I’ve let other people hype themselves up and be excited about accomplishments or new things in their life as much as they want with me, as long as they aren’t being so conceited.

5. Do you like talking about your achievements? If I’m in a group and we started sharing our achievements then yeah I’d join in. But I wouldn’t bring it up if it wasn’t already being brought up. It’s better to let the accomplishments speak for themselves.

6. Do your parents tend to brag about how well you came out? My mom is definitely more ~braggier than my dad, but she’s never come off as an asshole about it. If she was, I’d pull her aside.

7. Do you strive to be better than others? Do you think competing with others is healthy? I keep a mindset of competing with others, but I keep it internal.

8. What do you do better than most people? See the little details. I’m always surprised at how most of the people I work with just look at the big picture – like how they don’t pay attention to the red squiggle under misspelled words on a group paper (or if they do see it, they don’t do anything about it), or how they don’t seem to care about proper spacing on a Powerpoint and proceed to just dump a bunch of text on one slide. Now this is something I can brag about too, cos a lot of people are just so not detail-oriented lol.

9. Do you believe in taking pride in things you can’t control (ex. being proud of your heritage, being proud of your skin color, being proud of your natural artistic ability)? I don’t see why that’s an issue.

10. Who are you competing with right now (it could be anything–classmates for a grade, co-workers for a position, other girl for a guy, etc.)? There’s no particular person, but like I said, I’m always in this perpetual mindset of wanting to compete with others just so I’m more motivated to perform well and get things done.

#survey #surveys #this was fun

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