#every song i hear from this project is better than the last

[jnnul]

mr. brawn and ms. brain

sum: you hate athletes. eunseok is an athlete. eunseok is in love with you. it doesn't take a genius to see that there's an issue with this equation. after a one-sided love for the past three years, eunseok is saved when the two of you are partnered to work on an english project together. which means that eunseok's first step of getting you to fall in love with him is done. next step: get you to give him the time of day... word count: 9.6k a/n: hehe i've been working on this for so long i can't believe it's finally out lol i hope that you all enjoy reading this as much as i loved writing this! <3 someone teach me how to make visually pleasing banners. quick note: feedback, comments, etc. GREATLY encourage writers! if you felt any sort of way (in a good or bad way!) about this fic, pls leave feedback warnings: mentions of reader's insecurities, sungchan being a horrible/amazing friend, simp eunseok, uhh love :D

EUNSEOK SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT TRYING TO WRAP HIS MIND AROUND YOUR SHEER GENIUS WAS A BAD IDEA. you were just so much smarter than him; he didn't know why he thought that he could even comprehend the meaning behind your actions anymore.

at least, this is what song eunseok gathers from your animated gestures and anger stained tone as you continue to motion at eunseok semi-offensively.

he's only half-listening (he's perfected the art of the blank stare) and you know that he's not listening too. but eunseok figures that if yelling at him to your heart's content is what would make you feel better, then he was glad to be your not-really listening ear.

"...and you know that i can't do it all on my own!" you yell finally, your distress coming to a climax. eunseok winces when your voice reaches a decibel he didn't know to be humanly possible. your chest is heaving and eunseok, from this, is now well aware that you're upset the fact you had to work on the partner project by yourself last night.

but he didn't know how else to explain to you that he had a soccer match last night that he couldn't just skip out to work on the project - even if it was a project that would more or less determine his grade in the class.

your arms are crossed against your torso, eyebrows furrowed as you wait for eunseok to say something. he's sat in front of you, looking akin to a statue, while you're standing up, glaring down at him and from this angle, eunseok is once again reminded of just why he lets you get away with saying pretty much anything to him.

eunseok is so incredibly in love with you that it takes every fiber of his being from telling you that any time the two of you were together. which was less often than he wanted but more often than you had had in the past so he was willing to take the wins he could get at this point.

"so you want me to the work on the project, that's it, right?" he says slowly and you damn near want to strangle him in that moment. you knew that eunseok wasn't dumb and that he had only sat through your entire lecture because you weren't going to let him hear the end of it anyway but would it kill him to at least pretend like he was remorseful?

"yes," you say finally, with an exasperated sigh. "i just want you to work on the project with me."

the corner of eunseok's lips twitch imperceptibly upwards in a soft smile before it disappears, bringing him back to his much more familiar bored expression. i just want you to work on the project with me.

that had to mean something, right? you wouldn't add the 'with me' without any particular reason, right? you actually meant to indicate something with that 'with me', right?

in all honesty, you're hadn't thought of what you were saying all that hard and had just said everything that came to mind in an attempt to rid yourself of your anger and eunseok knows that as well.

he's been in love with you for long enough to know that you didn't actually mean anything when he formed these delusions on his own but he couldn't help himself.

eunseok has loved you since the moment he saw you sitting inside the classroom, earbuds in your ears as you flipped through your notebook filled with notes while he was outside on the soccer field, squinting up at you against the relentless sun, three years ago.

he wasn't sure what it was. at first, he was sure that it was just the chase. the classic 'unattainable' trope where he was only attracted to you because of the challenge that you presented to him.

but it was strange.

eunseok wasn't a really big fan of cheesy clichés or overplayed poetry about something that he was sure didn't exist anymore but everything had changed when he saw you.

your looks, face, beauty - none of that seemed to be what clicked within him. the moment that you turned your head to peer out the window, your eyes landing on his, it was like his entire soul was breathing a sigh of relief.

if eunseok was any less of a realist, he would've genuinely believed that the two of you were soul tied lovers from previous lives.

the only issue was that eunseok was pretty sure his soulmate would give him the time of day. which you pretty much refused to do. it was like you were allergic to his type or something.

you kept to yourself in general, and didn't really have many friends but at the very least, you were friendly enough to those around you. no one really had anything bad to say about you bar the fact that you never allowed anyone to overtake you on your throne seated comfortably as number one in the whole school.

except for eunseok's friends. they all knew about eunseok's hopeless love for you and for the life of them could not understand why. you barely glanced in his direction in general, and seemed to always glare at any round object that could be used for a sport - and those who carried said offending objects.

which naturally meant that eunseok and the rest of his friends (all of whom unfortunately played some sport or another) were blacklisted by you.

he'd been curious at first why you had so much prejudice against sports and then one time, had seen you be forced to run laps around the field. needless to say, after he saw you nearly trip and fall on your face at least four times in one lap, he was vaguely aware of what prompted you to stay as far away from such activities as possible.

in fact, eunseok was relatively sure that he was going to have to graduate high school without ever actually having a proper conversation. until the fateful day that your english professor had assigned you and eunseok to work on the same project together for a final grade.

it was a simple research paper, but both of you had to submit outlines and drafts that showed how much you each contributed to the project, as well as how much of the project was done with each other - all of which contributed to your grade.

eunseok had thought that this was it! this would be his in!

he was wrong. to be honest, eunseok could count on one hand the number of conversations he'd had with you after starting work on the project together. and could count without any fingers the number of those conversations that were about anything other than project division.

which is why, when you're standing here, arms crossed against your heaving chest and looking at him with those eyes, eunseok has nothing running in his mind other than just how much he wants you to know what he feels.

"eunseok! are you even listening to me anymore?" you ask, waving a hand in his face. eunseok blinks before clearing his throat. he reaches out a long arm to pull out a chair in the desk next to his and indicates for you to sit down on it.

you eye the chair warily before sitting down, folding your skirt underneath your thighs as you sit gingerly, as if you were expecting it to explode.

the sight would normally make eunseok just roll his eyes for anyone else but with you, it makes him smile.

"okay, i'm sorry. with the game last night, i forgot to my part for the draft due friday. but i promise, i'm still going to make it up to you and finish all of the stuff i needed to do as soon as possible," eunseok says. you watch him for a moment before nodding and moving to get up out of the chair as eunseok rushes to come up with some reasoning to get you to stay with him a little longer.

"although, are you sure you're going to be able to finish the section by yourself? i had some issues with the first half of pride and prejudice because of the characterization and the time period," you say, although the last half of your thought seems to be much more reluctant than the first half, as if you didn't want to admit that you had any academic weaknesses to eunseok.

but eunseok barely pays it any mind, jumping on the opportunity as soon as he recognizes it. "oh...yeah, honestly i don't know if i can do it by myself. since we both have access to the late night study room anyway, do you wanna finish it together tonight?"

eunseok watches as the gears turn in your head, bottom lip caught between your teeth as you debate the possibilities in your mind. and even as you do, he tries to control the erratic beating of his heart at the chance of spending so much time with you.

if he could explain his feelings to anyone, which eunseok was not gifted with the vocabulary of attempting to do so, he was sure that they would ask if he was ripped straight from the novel the two of you were assigned to work on.

to be honest, eunseok thinks as he rests his temple against the heel of his palm, watching as you pull out a timetable and consult it with utmost seriousness, even he found it kinda silly.

well, not silly as in his crush on you was dumb per se (although, there were times where he realized just how unfounded his feelings truly were). more silly like i didn't even know these kinds of feelings could still exist in people.

silly like how a child discovering the world for the first time might be - awkward in their gait but curiosity shining brightly in their eyes, learning how to be human for the first time.

he knows that his whole 'true love' or 'soulmate' semantics were not for the weak of heart - and most definitely not for those who were too embroiled in the 'love' of today's day and age. but he couldn't bring himself to care.

it made him want to be a better person for you. to be the man that you would glance at in more than just passing. to be worthy of your love.

"alright. i'm scheduled for an english tutoring session but i'll ask them to meet me tomorrow instead. maybe i can use some of the stuff that we learn during our project," you say with a sigh, crossing out some of the timings written in your schedule and rearranging them.

eunseok's eyebrows furrow. "you take tutoring lessons? oh, like a private tutor?"

you eye eunseok strangely, as if you weren't sure if he was making a joke or not.

"no...i teach people. i tutor for english, mathematics, and some other subjects as well. it's how i'm adding to my resumé." the chair makes an awful noise when you push it back to stand up.

"oh," eunseok says. resumé? for what? college admissions? god, he really needed to start getting ready for that. his csat score was not high enough for him to even dream about getting into a good enough school for you to recognize him.

or, you know, secure brighter future in such a competitive job market. but that was mostly secondary.

"yeah. so..." you trail off awkwardly, toeing the ground with your arms behind your back. the sight of you being awkward or unsure of yourself was foreign to eunseok but nonetheless endearing.

"yeah. so i'll see you tonight then? after classes end?" eunseok prompts you and you seem to snap out of whatever reverie your mind was in.

"mhm." it's absent-minded and almost an afterthought, as you make your way out of the classroom, pausing at the door to look at him before leaving.

+++

classes end a couple of hours later, and eunseok is left waiting anxiously in the study rooms.

you'd agreed to meet after classes but eunseok realizes that he'd never asked for a specific time or your number to communicate with you, meaning that he'd been stuck in the study rooms for the past hour, unsure if and when you were going to show up.

eunseok had been productive with his time, of course. he'd tucked away the soccer ball he'd brought to school into one of the lockers in the back and popped a breath mint. not for any particular reason, but he didn't want you to think of him in the stereotypical 'jock who doesn't partake in hygiene'.

he'd even tried to make progress on the pride and prejudice chapters he'd been assigned (by you) to write about, only to give up three sentences in.

the one thing that eunseok had done incorrectly, however, was drinking too much water. see, eunseok had a strange habit of chugging water every time he got nervous. needless to say, about an hour of sheer anxiety of when you were going to show up made him down the whole waterbottle.

which was not good because now, eunseok had to relieve himself and you were still nowhere to be seen. and he couldn't just go use the restroom and come back because he was pretty sure you'd just leave and assume that he bailed on you if he left his post in the study rooms.

eunseok paces around the room, hoping that time would move faster if he moved faster (time-space was in same dimension after all, so technically...). he's taken about twenty-three laps around the study room when he finally hears the door click open and you enter the study room somewhat cautiously, looking worse for wear.

"I'LL BE RIGHT BACK!" eunseok manages to holler before sprinting out of the study room, not wanting to look back and see your undoubtedly bewildered face as he makes a mad dash for the men's restrooms.

it's not until eunseok finally relieves himself, washing his hands in the sink that was lower than his hips that he realizes what he'd just done.

eunseok berates himself more than once or twice in the bathroom, pacing back and forth once more when he realizes just how much of an idiot he must've looked like as he sprinted out of the room like a crazy man.

"it's ok. it's ok! having to use the restroom is natural! everyone needs to! it's not like y/n doesn't, right? don't worry, you look fine. you're so hot, she'll forget it happened."

you didn't forget. when eunseok slinked back into the study room, you can barely keep the silly smile off your face, trying your best to look understanding and apologetic instead.

"i'm - i'm so sorry for coming late eunseok. i heard there was soccer practice today so i figured you'd be late and decided to help mrs. kim with creating the study set for the upcoming math test," you explain, unable to keep the lighthearted giggle out of your voice.

eunseok offers an embarrassed half-grin as he waves you off.

"don't worry, i wasn't waiting long. i just got here too. uh, i asked coach to cancel practice since both captains wouldn't be able to make it," eunseok says, looking busily through his backpack in an effort to prevent you from looking at his red face.

"you asked the coach to cancel practice?" you ask incredulously and eunseok tries his best to act nonchalant.

"yeah. i mean, you're right after all. academics are more important than sports - it's not like i plan on going pro or anything so i figured that i should sit down and make some headway on this project," eunseok says with a shrug, and it brings him a strange sense of satisfaction when you glance at him as though you were suddenly looking at him for the first time.

"you don't plan on playing in college? i mean i've heard that you're good enough for it," you say, and you sound genuinely curious, rearranging the books in front of you.

"i mean i plan on playing in college but i can't exactly get into college just on sports. i'm not that good. i still need to have good grades and scores to get in," eunseok says and you frown, deep in thought, but eunseok can tell that it's not in a bad or malicious way.

"i'd never thought you would care that much about school," you say softly and eunseok can't help but shoot you a lopsided grin.

"we're not all just dumb jocks, y/n," he responds, his voice just as soft and he realizes just how much he likes the taste of your name on his tongue.

"yeah. i guess so," you say finally, offering him a small smile.

eunseok thinks he can die happy when he sees it.

+++

the two of you don't become best friends over the next couple weeks. in fact, you still don't have too many conversations with him other than about the project, but it's more than eunseok has been awarded with before.

you talk to him in between classes now, when you see him in the hallways, and ask him about soccer practice. eunseok always blushes, casting his eyes towards the windows so that he had something to look at other than your intelligent and probing eyes.

he even sees you wave at him during soccer practice, when you're headed out early for tutoring and eunseok nearly dies of heart attack, tripping over himself as he rushes to wave back.

wonbin didn't let him live that down for a full week after the incident occurred, laughing and waving in exaggerated motions every time he saw eunseok.

he even went as far as going up to you and asking you to come to one of the upcoming soccer matches, all in the name of good fun.

eunseok had had to literally tackle wonbin to the floor in order to keep him from spilling any vital information ("please come to the soccer match because our captain has been crushing on you since his first year and we can't see him like this anymore.") but it was clear that the message came through incorrectly.

"you don't want me to come to your match that much? i thought we were better friends than that, eunseok," you said with a frown, and eunseok had to scramble to his feet, kicking wonbin with his foot.

"no - no! it's not that. i do really want you to come to our soccer match. but i kinda wanted to be the one to ask you. you know, because you're so busy all the time and i thought you might say yes if i asked rather than this idiot," eunseok had explained, tripping over his words in an attempt to make sure that he didn't hurt your emotions.

you'd stared up at him, your face unreadable. that was the one thing that eunseok didn't like about you - he could never truly predict exactly what you were thinking unless you said it out loud. you were infamous for your poker face and it made eunseok incredibly nervous.

little did he know that that was the exact reason that eunseok made you nervous.

"i'll come if i have time," you had said simply, turning on your heel to flounce away.

"you're an idiot but goddamnit, i love you wonbin," eunseok had said, descending onto the right wing to tackle him to the floor once more with a hug.

"alright! i get it! get off of me, cap!" wonbin said, pawing at eunseok's arms to relieve himself from the bearhug he was trapped in. he'd just laughed, wrapping his arms around wonbin even tighter.

which brought eunseok to his current predicament.

not only had you come to the match, but you'd brought some of your friends with you. eunseok doesn't really recognize any of them but by the way that you're laughing as you're talking to them, eunseok figures that that you must be pretty close.

"if you could stop staring at the love of your life and finish warm-up drills, that would be great, cap," wonbin says and eunseok shivers, startled by the right wing's sudden presence.

"yeah. uh, team! keep up the drills for just two more minutes before debriefing," eunseok yells, finally forcing his head away from your direction to face his team.

"i invited her because i wanted to give you a chance to impress yourself in front of her. don't make this rare opportunity into a mess," wonbin suggests with a smirk, saluting to eunseok as he ran to sungchan to finish the last few drills with him.

"that brat. and he still wants to be captain next year," eunseok grumbles under his breath, begrudgingly joining the rest of the team. as much as he hated to admit it, wonbin was right.

getting you to come to this match was already more than eunseok had ever had in the past; there was no way that he was going to let himself fuck this up. that would be so incredibly embarrassing.

"alright!" eunseok shouts, clapping his hands and waiting for the team to huddle around him. "i don't need to remind anyone that just because our team has been doing well, we still need to play at our best, right? you all know how to play soccer so just do what you've been doing and don't let it get to your head. good and bad plays both."

he extends his hand out to the center of their huddle, and the rest of the team also extends their hands, chanting their school's soccer cheer before dispersing to discard any extra gear or possessions.

eunseok looks one last time to where you were sitting, just as a quick 'good luck glance' and he's startled to see you already staring back at him. you cock your head and smile slightly, offering him a thumbs up and eunseok feels as though he'd already won the match.

"seok, i've got an idea," sungchan, eunseok's fellow captain and one of his closest friend says, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

"what bullshit are you stirring up now?" eunseok says, his voice flat and unimpressed. sungchan grabs his chest where his heart was, as though he'd been shot, dramatically stumbling backwards.

"here i am, offering to relieve you of your pining and you say i'm stirring up bullshit," sungchan gasps. eunseok rolls his eyes, grabbing sungchan's jersey to pull him forward.

"what? match is starting soon," eunseok says, unable to keep the smile out of his voice.

"i'll make a bet with you," sungchan says. "if i score more goals than you do, you have to ask out y/n. but if you score more goals than i do, then you don't have to."

"this feels like a stupid bet. i'm not doing it," eunseok says, but he can already feel himself being swayed. he'd liked you for so long - at this point, he was just looking for the slightest push in the right direction to ask you out.

"alright fine. you don't have to. y/n's pretty cute, honestly, and she's hella smart too. so i'll make you a different deal. if i score more goals, i ask her out. if you score more goals, i won't ask her out," sungchan says, a devilish smile on his face.

eunseok's eyes look as though they'd burn sungchan to smithereens if they could but sungchan barely shivers, offering him a shit-eating grin and turning to blow a kiss to you.

"what the fuck? i should've known that you were up to something stupid," eunseok growls. "why the hell would you ask her out?"

"it's only an issue if i score more goals than you, right?" sungchan says, jogging backwards to join the team again, never breaking eye contact with eunseok.

eunseok knew that sungchan was a loyal friend and there was no way in hell that he was going to ask you out - even as a joke or as a push to get eunseok to confess his feelings - but eunseok was pissed. the idea of someone else confessing to you before he ever did made him see red.

the team barely sees eunseok the whole match. which is strange, because he's in for the entire match, but they barely even see him, his red uniform appearing as streaks up and down the field. he scores goal after goal, running towards the goalpost at speeds they'd never see the usually laidback captain move at.

and sungchan was no better than him. although his heart wasn't in it nearly as much, sungchan was hot on eunseok's heels, the two of them on opposite ends of the field and being the two people that the team relied on the most the entire match, carrying the entire team to victory.

which is why when the scoreboard reads 5 - 0, the team is shocked, but sungchan just has that stupid grin on his face. not only had eunseok scored one more goal than sungchan, he'd also gone mad, ensuring that the opposing team didn't score a single goal.

"what the hell did you do to cap?" wonbin asks sungchan, and the older boy just nods in your general direction.

"gave him the push he's been needing," he says, smirking with satisfaction when he sees eunseok jogging over to where you were sitting, after shaking hands with the opposing team and thanking the referees.

"thanks for coming, y/n," eunseok says, out of breath and sweaty when he reaches to where you were sitting. "i honestly didn't think you were coming - since sports aren't really your thing."

"i promised i would come, didn't i?" you quip, and a shy smile overtakes your face, making eunseok having to use every single ounce of his willpower to keep from squealing at how cute he found you. your friends slowly start to file out to leave the two of you standing there - you in the bleachers and him on the field.

"hm, yeah, you did." eunseok's face turns contemplative and for some reason, you rush to fill the silence, in a way that you'd never felt compelled to do with anyone else before.

"i have to admit...i had more fun than i thought," you say, choking on the words as you get them out. eunseok's eyebrows ascend into his hairline - which would be hilarious if you weren't the reason that they were doing so.

"you had fun? y/n l/n? having fun? that too, at a soccer match?" eunseok says incredulously, throwing his hands on his chest dramatically. "well, i'll be!"

you roll your eyes, but you can't help the silly smile you can feel start to form on your lips.

"i can have fun, you know. i'm not always studying and boring everyone. even at soccer games where all i see is a ball go up and down and i have no clue what's happening. i think you did well, though, since everyone was chattering a lot about your performance," you say, adding the last part to appease eunseok for inviting you.

"i don't care about what people say," eunseok says easily, waving his hand in the air as if to physically rid himself of the thought of other people disturbing his mental wellbeing.

"y/n! you have to get going; your tutoring starts soon and mrs. im is always super mad when anyone's the slightest second late!" one of your friends calls out, coming closer to physically drag you away from eunseok if need be.

even his ugliest stare doesn't work on discouraging them from approaching the two of you and eunseok figures that he should work on a mean glare instead of a blank stare; the latter wasn't helping as much anymore now that everyone just assumed that's what his natural face looked like.

"alright, alright. i'm coming," you say, stepping down the stairs of the bleachers carefully, tripping on the last step. eunseok's arm shoots out before he can even think of what he's doing, catching you as you fall.

"thank you," you say breathlessly, and suddenly, eunseok worries that you can hear the erratic beating of his heart from just how close you were to each other, your chests quite nearly touching.

"you wanna hang out some time? maybe prove that the academic queen, school topper, ms. brain knows how to have some fun?" eunseok asks, and he can feel the blood rushing throughout his body as his adrenaline is at an all-time high.

he doesn't think that he was nearly this nervous or that his heart was even pumping this hard during this match. but now, as he's looking down at the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in eighteen years of life, he can't help but feel weak in the knees and just a little too stupidly hopeful.

"i'm sorry eunseok. i'm pretty busy nowadays. especially with new people that i've been tutoring. i don't even have too much time to study myself; i don't think i can afford to take too many breaks now," you explain, somewhat sorry and somewhat sullen.

eunseok tries to keep the heartbreak from showing on his face and he nods, almost too excitedly.

"oh yeah, i get it! no worries! i mean, you are the number one student in the school! you've gotta keep those grades up!" his voice sounds fake even to his own ears and your friend winces apologetically but you don't even seem phased, flashing him a sweet smile.

"we'll 'hang out' when we work on the project next monday though right?" you ask, and eunseok nods, a plastic smile on his face.

"yeah, of course," he says, and for some reason, he can't help but wonder if you knew just how great you were at letting people down. eunseok knew that you were beautiful but no one had ever dared to ask you out, for fear of the fact that they would come second to your academics.

it's hard to ask someone out when you know what the answer is.

"well, i'll get going now then. mrs. im seems like a real tiger mom and i have my first tutoring session with her son today," you say, wrapping your sweater a little bit tighter around your body as you wave goodbye, retreating into the foggy afternoon.

"how did it go, cap?" wonbin asks, a knowing grin on his face, ready to tease/congratulate his captain on his definite success in asking you out.

eunseok doesn't even turn away from watching your figure until he's just staring at empty space and fog before saying, "tell the team we're running laps."

wonbin balks, looking in your direction to see if you'd come to save them. "but we won, cap!"

"no, sungchan and i won. the team is running laps," eunseok grinds out and wonbin immediately retreats backwards, understanding the situation a bit too clearly.

he sets off into a sprint and the team is quick to follow when they see the confusing expression on their captain's face. there was a mix of shame, heartbreak, confusion, guilt, and even some anger on his face and the team was just going to have to take the brunt of his emotions for now. he had a valid point, after all.

you were none the wiser about the soccer team's struggles until your friend, kim minjeong, looks back to see her friend, park wonbin, running in repeated circles before the fog starts to cover the soccer field. she shoves her hands into the pockets of her sweater before shaking her head.

"you know that eunseok was asking you out, right?" she asks and you scoff, pushing her slightly.

"you're insane minjeong. i think that jekyll and hyde is finally getting to you," you jest slightly, referencing her english project. "why the hell would eunseok ask me out?"

"because he wants to spend time with you? because you're a fun person when people get to know you? because he likes you, i don't know!" minjeong exclaims, stopping dead in her tracks and throwing her hands up.

"no, that can't be true," you say, but when you turn to look at what minjeong was looking at, you find that your eyes search the field until they lock with eunseok's eyes, which are trained on you and he cocks his head, causing you to shiver and face forward.

"are you sure?" minjeong asks, looking back and forth between you and eunseok as you march forward determinedly.

"i'm sure. there's no way that eunseok likes me."

+++

you were sure that eunseok didn't like you. that was what you had told minjeong and ning yizhuo, another one of your good friends, when the two of them had confronted you again later. that's the truth, as far as you're aware.

that's what made the most sense too; why the hell would the ace soccer captain be any level of interested in a person who spent all of their time studying and tutoring? someone who was known to be a reserved and kind enough person but a complete hardass when it came to their academics?

yizhuo's words echo in your mind as you sit on your bed, having completed your nightly routine of taking your vitamins and doing your skincare.

he'd never ask you if he wasn't interested.

you hated when she was right. especially when it meant that you were wrong about something. most especially because it meant that you were being emotionally unaware of something.

you stare at your phone, as if staring at it long enough would produce the answers you're searching for - the same thing you'd been doing for the past half hour. you know that you should go to sleep soon; you didn't have any tutoring tomorrow but you were planning on using the time to study, not having had much time over the weekdays to study.

but almost against your own reason and will, your arm reaches for your phone and types out a message recklessly, pressing send before your brain has the time to catch up to the antics of your foolish heart.

you: you wanna go to the arcade with me tomorrow?

you gasp at your own message, scandalized by your sudden initiative and something so out of character for you. you couldn't remember the last time you'd spent more than a couple minutes doing something fun.

actually, that was a lie. you'd just gone to eunseok's game. and you'd had fun. it was something about him that made you want to set down your pens and embrace life. or something else cheesy like that.

your heart jumps when eunseok's response comes, not even a minute after you'd sent the initial message.

song eunseok: i'd lvoe to. song eunseok: **love song eunseok: no tutoring tomorrow?

you type out a response, looking up to check the time on the desktop computer, catching a glimpse of your reflection. why the hell were you smiling?

you: not tomorrow. they canceled since they're going to busan for the weekend. song eunseok: ohhh i see. song eunseok: then let's do it! 1pm? you: sounds good. you: :)

you cast your phone aside on your nightstand, not bothering to read whatever messages eunseok had sent afterwards, instead drifting off into a somewhat peaceful and somewhat anticipatory sleep as you dreamt of the next day.

+++

you're uncharacteristically nervous, knee bouncing as you check your watch for the time for the third time in the past thirty seconds. much to your dismay, it was still very much 12:45 PM.

never had you been this nervous on the day of an important exam or a recital for violin. mostly because those were things that came somewhat easily to you - practice, practice, practice and you would succeed in any task given to you.

but friends? specifically friends who asked you on dates (according to yizhuo and minjeong, that's what this was)? you were somewhere between absolutely lost and crazy scared.

it's just eunseok, you have to breathe and remind yourself. just song eunseok. the stoic soccer team captain. your english project partner. the one that you've been getting a little too influenced by lately.

you consider turning around and heading home to safer territories (textbooks) and bailing on eunseok but before you can put your escape plan into action, the bane of your existence and cause for your issues appears in your vision, jogging over to you with the classic blank face that you've grown used to.

the shit-eating grin on his face that grows when he sees you already sitting on the bench outside the arcade is something that you're not used to, however, and it makes you blush at the implication.

"i'm a very punctual person," you say as soon as eunseok is in earshot, your ego smarting.

"i never said anything," eunseok retorts and you just harrumph, crossing your arms over your chest. "besides, i thought i'd definitely get here before you. you know, to practice."

your eyebrows knit together as you try to decipher the meaning behind his words. "to practice? practice what?"

eunseok's smile grows a little more bashful and sincere as he turns to face the arcade, unable to face you. "practice showing you that i'm worth wasting your saturday afternoon on instead of studying."

you fumble for words, leaping to your feet and marching into the arcade. "i'm not wasting my saturday afternoon on you! i'm - i'm showing you that i can be fun!"

eunseok just watches you enter the arcade, a dopey expression on his face and he jogs to follow you inside, slinging an arm around you in a casual motion that neither him nor you were expecting.

"you're plenty of fun, y/n. you have nothing to prove." eunseok's voice is soft and sweet above your head, and a little too sincere for you to pass over his words nonchalantly. you step just the slightest bit closer into his embrace, an action that doesn't go unnoticed by him and his grip, previously loose and lax so that you could push him off whenever, grows just the tightest bit stronger.

"that sounds like someone who's scared of getting their ass kicked in dance dance revolution."

"oh hell no. you're on, miss school topper."

+++

as much as you hate to admit it, you have an incredible time with eunseok at the arcade. although you don't live up to your own expectations of your performance at arcade games (you chalk it up to lack of practice), eunseok exceeds your expectations.

even games that he says that he's never attempted before come to him easily, and he beats you at every single one of them, even with handicaps such as shooting with one hand for the basketball game or closing his eyes and playing whack a mole.

it's somewhat damaging to your street cred (not that you were banking on any street cred, to be honest) but eunseok manages soothe your ego by winning you three plushies at the claw machine (which he was also good at; you were starting to think that he was ai). two of them were matching so you hand him one of them, saying that it could be a good way to remember this afternoon together.

"i don't think i forget this afternoon," eunseok says when you hand him the plushie.

"hm?" you ask, somewhat distracted by the cute plushies in your arms.

"nothing," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "what do you say we go get some coffee? there's a really nice café nearby here."

"oh yeah, lets go. i love memories café; i study there all the time," you say, hugging the plushies to your chest.

"really? one of my friends works there! you should've told me before; i would've gotten you free coffee this whole time," eunseok exclaims, waving goodbye to the arcade employee that he'd become rather familiar with after all his visits to their establishment. the employee points to you subtly and gives him a thumbs up to indicate her approval of eunseok's type, and he just fake bows in agreement, walking out the arcade with a silly smile.

"which one? the tall one? i forget his name but he's pretty popular on campus, isn't he?" you say, your voice growing unsure as you try to place him in your memory.

"sungchan?" eunseok asks darkly, a troubled expression on his face. "yeah, he's pretty popular. for being pretty. and popular. and good at a lot of stuff."

"yeah, sungchan! he's the one who works there, isn't he? yizhuo always drags me to go when he's working because she thinks he's cute," you say before turning to eunseok with a gasp. "don't tell anyone i told you that! god, i can't believe i let that slip!"

eunseok chokes out a laugh, shaking his head. "i won't tell anyone, trust me. but, uh, do you think that he's cute? i mean you come to café pretty often right? is it because...because you think he's cute?"

you frown, trying to conjure his face in your mind before shrugging. "nah. i mean i see why people think he's cute but he's not really my type."

eunseok's heart leaps for joy before stopping at the end of your sentence. "uh, you have a type?"

he opens the door to the café for you when you reach it. you enter it, mumbling a quick thanks as you brush past him.

"sure. which teenage girl doesn't?" you quip, not even bothering to read the menu, already sure of what you were going to get.

eunseok scans the café, before groaning internally as his eyes land on his co-captain, flashing sweet smiles to every person that steps up to the register, never failing to make them swoon.

"care to share?" eunseok asks, shielding you from sungchan, wanting to prevent the clash for as long as possible.

"only if you do," you retort, and eunseok's stuck between figuring out how to keep you from seeing sungchan (or realistically, sungchan from seeing you) and how to tell you that you were his type, without actually saying your name.

he's saved and damned at the same time when sungchan calls out his name, and you peek around eunseok's body to see sungchan standing there in all of his tall, beautiful glory.

"sungchan, hey," eunseok says with a grumble, and you look up at him worriedly. he rushes to fix his tone, not wanting you to think that he was a salty or shitty friend.

"i see you've brought a friend," sungchan says smugly, and he extends his hand over the counter for you to shake. "hi! i'm sungchan, eunseok's co-captain."

you accept his hand, shaking it politely. "nice to meet you. eunseok's talked you up a lot. i'm y/n, by the way."

sungchan's eyes dart to eunseok at the mention of his praise, who's still brooding slightly, with a slight smile on his face. "trust me, there's no person at our school who doesn't know our resident number one academic. you haven't given up the throne since the day you stepped in our school."

you blush, trying to shrug casually. "i'm just really lucky to have the opportunities i do."

"intelligent, humble, and beautiful? how'd you get a girl like this to give you the time of day, seok-ie?" sungchan says, and it's like rubbing salt in the wound. sungchan is joking, and eunseok logically knows that he is just teasing him for finally working up the courage to ask you out three years after he developed feelings for you. but for some reason, the sweet smile on your face directed at sungchan instead of him made him upset.

"trust me, i have no clue either. she's pretty much perfect, isn't she?" eunseok says finally, and the sheer sincerity in his voice is enough for you to rip your gaze away from sungchan and to eunseok, who's looking at you with honey dripping from his eyes.

the sweetness in his eyes makes your heart race for some reason and you clear your throat, unable to turn away from eunseok for a good couple seconds before looking at the menu behind sungchan's head.

"well, uh, could i get a vanilla latte please? hot, not iced," you say, hating the quirk in your voice. eunseok's gaze is heavy on your face and he can barely find it in himself to turn away, ordering the same thing as you.

sungchan smirks, entering the order as his eyes dart between you and eunseok, both standing less than a foot apart but unable to look at each other.

"alright. i'll bring it over to your table, then. pro tip, the second floor has the best spot to watch the sunset in thirty minutes," sungchan says. eunseok nods in thanks, pulling out his wallet to offer sungchan a ten thousand won bill to cover your coffee and his own but sungchan just waves him away.

"today's coffee is on me. for the momentous occasion of song eunseok going on a date for the first time in his life," sungchan says and your head whips to see eunseok's reaction.

this was his first date? you think. but he's so popular! and so handsome...how has no one asked him out before?

almost as though sungchan can read your mind, he responds for eunseok. "he's been asked out so many times but he insisted that he was waiting for the one."

sungchan's words barely register in your mind, and your thoughts are still racing when eunseok guides you upstairs and to the table that sungchan had suggested.

"you've been waiting for the one?" you ask with an incredulous tone and eunseok tries his best to play it off casually.

"sungchan just says whatever. it's mostly because i didn't have the time," eunseok explains. and because none of the people who asked me out were you, he thinks, but doesn't voice aloud.

"hm. honestly, before you asked me out, i kinda thought i was going to die single," you admit after a couple moments of silence.

"why would you think that? we're only eighteen! and besides, you're smart, talented at violin, beautiful, and a bunch of other things i can't think of right now. anyone would be lucky to date you," eunseok says indignantly and you smile, but it doesn't quite reach your eyes.

"if i'm being honest with you, it's all just to cover up my own insecurities. in middle school, i wasn't that smart and i didn't really care about my grades. i had a crush on this kid - i think his name was shotaro? - but he didn't really notice me. i wasn't the smartest kid in the grade, or the prettiest one, or even rich enough to dress up nicely and wear the things i wanted to.

"i don't think he actually cared about any of that stuff but my own insecurities sabotaged me enough to convince myself that he wanted nothing to do with me because i wasn't good enough. so i threw myself into everything i could. violin, academics, working out - everything. i started getting quieter and quieter because i thought that no one would want to listen to what i had to say.

"and the more i did things like that, the more i got used to being like that. i got used to being alone and focusing on my academics and stuff. even minjeong and yizhuo have always been closer to each other than they have been to me. they do fun things without me and that's mostly my fault because i never truly let them in but i don't know. it's hard to remind myself that people want to be my friend.

"especially because everyone thinks that all i think about is stuff like my studies and violin. it's hard to have fun and make memories when there's no one to make memories with. i just wish that i could have days like this, where i go out and have fun and do the things i want to with someone who wants to make memories with me."

you sigh, brushing away the tears that had welled up in your eyes as you had spoke. eunseok is silent the whole time and you finally come to your senses, rushing to lean forward in your chair and explain your sudden outburst of emotions.

"i'm so sorry for talking your ear off! i have no clue what my problem is; i promise i'm not usually so full of myself. i don't know why i'm talking about myself so much - "

eunseok doesn't let you finish. before your brain can even process, eunseok's lips are on your cheek, and your entire body just freezes.

and before you can understand what's happening, eunseok's back in his chair, looking at you as if you were the one who had kissed him, rather than vice versa.

"sorry! i just - i didn't mean to kiss you without your consent. i'm sorry. i just really don't want you to continue berating yourself," eunseok says. "i really like you and it really sucks to know that the one person that you like the most - the person that you wish nothing but the best for - doesn't like themself nearly as much as you do."

he leans forward in his chair, turning his head so that his cheek was facing you.

"you should slap me. i can take it! i deserve it, anyway," eunseok says, squeezing his eyes shut when he feels a breeze descend on his cheek. but instead of the stinging of a slap, it feels as though a soft pillow has touched his cheek.

eunseok opens his eyes to see you leaning over the table to press your lips to his cheek and in his shock, he turns his head and suddenly his lips are on yours and you're kissing in this café.

it's like fireworks explode in eunseok's body, especially when you raise your hand to touch his cheek gently before pulling away, eunseok resting his forehead against yours.

"this is cute and all but do you mind doing this at home? i'm gonna lose my job and maybe my lunch if i have to watch this any longer," says sungchan's smug voice from behind eunseok, and the two of you leap backwards into your respective chairs.

"sorry man," eunseok manages to choke out, and you just hide your face in your hands, too embarrassed to look up.

"don't mind me," sungchan quips, setting down the two cups of coffee and retreating down the stairs, shoulders shaking from trying to hide his laughs.

"this is going to be all over school, isn't it?" you groan, your head letting a resounding thunk when you collapse against the table. eunseok gets up to hunt down and sungchan and swear (read: threaten) him to secrecy but you reach out, catching eunseok's sleeve.

you let go when eunseok stops to look at you, a hot flush on your cheeks. "i don't mind it, honestly. i mean, i was never expecting my first relationship to be such a public one but there's no sense in hiding things right?"

"wait, wait, wait. we're in a relationship? that you're okay with being public with?" eunseok says, and he can see you visibly debate back-peddling and taking back your statement or going forward with conviction.

it seems that you've chosen full throttle when you cross your arms over your chest, leaning on the table. "isn't that what you want too? a relationship? i'm assuming that you wouldn't kiss me if you didn't want me to be something more than a friend to you and i wouldn't kiss you if i wasn't open to exploring being that something more."

eunseok feels as though he's on cloud nine, slinking back into his chair with the satisfaction of a cat with a bowl of cream.

"trust me, there's nothing that i want more than that."

+++

as the two of you had expected, the school is quick to catch onto the budding relationship between you and eunseok and quite frankly, it feels refreshing for you to be associated with something other than excelling your academics.

eunseok breathes fresh air into your life just by his mere presence. he coerces you into coming to his soccer matches, never failing to run into the bleachers to scoop you up in his arms and kiss you like you're the only two people in the world.

the news of the resident ms. brain and mr. brawn dating had spread like wildfire, and an instagram post with eunseok spinning you and kissing you after winning the seoul championships garners over four hundred thousand views, your romance going viral. so viral, in fact, that someone had created an instagram account just to document your relationship - the account had over three thousand followers, as of the last time you checked.

you'd initially thought that the attention that your relationship spun up would cause issues between the two of you but more than anything, it caused you to work through any issues that came up with communication and healthy relationship counseling (sungchan flirting with you until eunseok finally got off his ass and apologized after fucking up - only whenever fights were about stupid things that either of you were too proud to give in about).

and just like that, months passed by within the blink of an eye. the instagram account (you're somewhat sure that park wonbin and kim minjeong were running the account from sheer amount of footage from close up the instagram page featured) posted a video of eunseok playing insanely well at a match after one of the times that sungchan had been called in reinforcements.

eunseok's dream college had extended a soccer scholarship, and he'd committed within twenty fours of receiving the offer and soon after, you committed to the same college.

when various people, eunseok included, asked you why you'd chosen to go to the same school as eunseok, rather than a bigger or more prestigious school (although this school was still top six in the nation), you'd just smiled and leaned into eunseok's embrace.

"i can study and do well anywhere. i can't make memories to cherish and share for the rest of my life if i go anywhere else." is all you say to everyone who asked and eunseok thanks his lucky stars that he'd kissed you that day in the café to be able to hold you and talk about a future with the two of you like this.

and just as fast the last couple months had passed by, a full ten years pass by. the ten years are filled with moments of happiness and sadness, laughs and tears, but filled with life that you wouldn't trade for the world.

and when you and eunseok walk together to the high school reunion held at someone's restaurant, hand in hand, looking the same as you had as stupidly in love teenagers ten years ago, next to no one is suprised.

"look who it is! it's mrs. brawn and mr. brain now," someone calls out, causing all of your classmates to erupt into laughter. the both of you just look at each other and smile, flagging down where sungchan and minjeong are sitting and taking your own seats next to them.

"by the way, eunseok, how'd you get our resident genius to go out with you anyway? or even fall in love hard enough to go to the same college as you?" someone you don't really recognize asks from the other side of the restaurant and the entire restaurant buzzes with excitement, waiting for eunseok's answer.

eunseok smiles and exchanges a look with sungchan, a teasing glint in his eyes. "let's just say that sungchan isn't allowed within ten feet of my wife."

and with that, the restaurant breaks out into cheers and laughter, everyone returning to their conversation, the attention turning to the most eligible bachelor of their grade, jung sungchan.

minjeong leans over to whisper in your ear. "it's a good thing you had a private wedding; i bet half of these people don't know that sungchan was eunseok's best man."

you shrug, laughing freely with everyone else. "half of these people also don't know that you and sungchan have been dating for the past three years."

eunseok's wedding band flashes under the light as he raises his glass to toast to the 'inside joke' that the four of you shared, clinking his beer with the three of you.

"to the bambi boy and the winter girl!"

"to mr. brawn and mrs. brain!"

"i can't believe i graduated from ms. brain to mrs. brain."

"and i can't believe that you and eunseok have been together for eleven years instead of fourteen because eunseok was too much of a pussy to ask you out when he started liking you."

"JUNG SUNGCHAN, I'M GOING TO FLAY YOU!"

"don't skin my fiancé please. you can do whatever you want after the wedding."

"i can't believe my fiancé hates me this much."

"i can't believe these people are our friends."

"i can't believe i finally scored mrs. brain."

[tetzoro]

MSBY BUSINESS — ༉‧₊˚.

ft. kuroo tetsuro !

꒰ SYNOPSIS ꒱ : kuroo goes out with the guys to give them his proposal.

꒰ CONTENTS ꒱ : f!reader, alcohol mention, kuroo is tipsy + silly , fluff ! — WC : 2.6k

꒰ NOTES ꒱ : the next installment for the all star project ! just something fun and silly hehe enjoy ! dividers by @/cafekitsune ᰔ

ᯓ★ masterlist

reblogs and interactions are always appreciated ! (*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ᰔ*.ﾟ

“hey sweetheart.” kuroo slurred into the phone. you could hardly suppress your giggle. he was still out with some of the guys from MSBY, trying to secure them as players for the all stars match.

“hi tetsu.” you smile, folding the last of the laundry away. kuroo had begged you to come with him tonight, but you figured the deal would go better if it was kept just between the guys. besides, you had your own stuff to do and drinking on a thursday night was not on your list.

“you sound so pretty.” he dramatically sighs into the phone, the noise so loud you pull it back from your ear for a second. whenever kuroo drank too much, he’d exaggerate everything, especially with you, behaving like a toddler who needs your undivided attention.

“thank you.” you walk towards the living room, debating if you should start getting ready to pick him up. “are the guys taking care of you?”

kuroo wasted no time in gathering the guys for tonight’s meeting, wanting to jump on the project as soon as possible. only a week or so after the proposal had been approved, he set up a time to talk to them. MSBY would have a big pull for this match, especially because they were centralized right here in tokyo. but getting the bulk of the olympic players was on the table, as well as a few stars who moved out of the country to follow their dreams in volleyball.

“yeah i guess they are.” he mumbled, bokuto shouting something in the background. “but i want you to come take care of me.”

“well-“ you start before you hear bokuto shouting some more at your boyfriend. kuroo yaps back at him, the two bickering as kuroo sets the phone down for a minute.

“fine!” kuroo scoffs. “bokuto says hi.”

“hi bokuto.” you laugh.

“no!” kuroo groans. “don’t pay attention to him, pay attention to me.”

“i am, don’t worry.” you coo softly. on that note, you decide to get him. “why don’t i come get you?”

“you’d pick me up?” he sounds surprised. 

“duh.” you roll your eyes, grabbing your coat and keys.

“guysss.” kuroos voice sounds further away from the phone. “my amazing girlfriend is coming to pick me up so i gotta go.”

“hold on, don’t go running off yet.” you laugh, “i’ll be there in 15.”

“okay, fine.” if you shut your eyes tight enough, you could practically see the pout on his face. “drive safe.”

after exchanging your goodbyes, or as kuroo insists — see you soon, you quickly get into the car and head over to where he said he was going to be for the night.

the drive over was seamless, city lights blurring past you as you made your way to him — your heart. music filled up the car, your favorite playlist spinning through the songs that you hold dearest to you.

pride swelled in your chest the closer you got to the bar. judging by the way kuroo’s voice sounded — and the fact he was drinking a smidge more than usual — tells you that maybe the deal went off without a hitch.

but who were you kidding, of course it did. kuroo was a man that would go after whatever he wanted, not stopping until he achieved it. and bokuto, atsumu and sakusa couldn’t pass up this opportunity even if they wanted to, their pride couldn’t handle it.

excitement fills you as you get to the parking lot, finding a suitable spot before heading inside. you couldn’t wait to hear how the night went, ready to hang on to every word kuroo told you.

as soon as you walk in, you hear a shout of your name. in a blink of an eye, bokuto is running towards you at full speed and your eyes widen as he sweeps you up off of the ground in a bone crushing hug. 

“it’s been so long!” bokuto roared, holding onto you as your arms are stuck by your side, unable to bring them up and properly hug him back.

“oi!” kuroo quickly zips towards you both, his brows furrowed as he makes his way over. “put my girlfriend down!”

“but-“ bokuto looks at you and deflates, reluctantly letting you down. 

“and it hasn’t been that long, you saw her 2 weeks ago.” kuroo slinked around a pouting bokuto and next to you, his face flushed as he presses his lips against your forehead, arm quickly wrapping around you. “hi sweetheart.”

“hi tetsu.” you beam up at him before looking back near bokuto as a flash of bleach blonde hair caught your eye. atsumu bounced over with sakusa shuffling behind. you exchanged greetings, kuroo wearing a proud smile as you did. 

“how are you guys getting home?” you asked, looking concerned at how atsumu was swaying side to side, the effects of alcohol clearing weighing on him. you whisper over to kuroo, “how much did you let him drink?”

“what? we were celebrating!” kuroo cheers, bokuto and atsumu enthusiastically agreeing.

“to answer your question, a lot. but then again miya can never hold his liquor.” sakusa sighs, ignoring atsumu making an offended noise of protest. “unfortunately, i’ll be the one driving them home.”

“good luck.” you offer him a sympathetic smile, your hand squeezing kuroo’s side. “i’ll take this one off your hands, though.”

“appreciate it.” sakusa nods. as much as he oozes annoyance around these two, you know better. the fond look in his eye tells you all you need to know about how he truly feels about his teammates.

“oh wait! i saw your interview with nagi.” atsumu speaks up, interested to hear more. “he didn’t give ya much to work with, did he?”

“he didn’t seem interested in talking about how they’re preparing for the next olympics.” you shrug, feeling kuroo’s gaze on your face. “some of them are more open to it than others but i guess we’ll find out with the rest of the world.”

“i wonder if they’ll do another blue lock project.” kuroo wonders outloud.

“y’know, i thought training camps were already fun enough but blue lock sounded like a paradise, i wish they did it for volleyball.” bokuto looks off into the distance, probably imagining how it would play out in his head.

“imagine if we got to do that before the last olympics? we definitely would’ve beaten oikawa.” atsumu joins in, looking off in the same direction. 

“did you guys actually read the interviews? it sounded like hell. sharing that space with people you hardly know for days on end, not seeing the sun—“ sakusa started. 

“alright, alright, i hear ya.” atsumu’s face morphs into a scowl, crossing his arms and looking like a dejected kitten.

sakusa gave him a smug look before side eyeing bokuto who started bobbing his head along to the music playing overhead at the establishment. “did you idiots forget that we have practice tomorrow?”

bokuto and atsumu freeze, clearly answering his question by the dumbfounded look on their faces.

“see?” atsumu practically screeches at sakusa, who only took a slight step back with the raise of his eyebrow. “i told ya kuroo was a con man! made us drink all this stuff just to get us in on whatever scam he’s trying to pull.”

“what?” bokuto’s eyes widened, turning to face kuroo. 

“hey, you guys were the one to order the sake bombs. plus, you already agreed to doing the match so,” kuroo said, a smirk lining his lips in victory. sakusa shook his head as atsumu kept babbling about how kuroo was going to take all their money next. 

“alright!” you bounce on your heels, taking this as your cue to go. “well, i’ll be taking him home now, goodnight guys.”

bokuto’s confused look melts into a frown, throwing you and kuroo into a hug before whispering to him, “i’d let you steal my money anytime kuroo.”

kuroo laughed loudly, atsumu looking on in horror as sakusa realized he could enjoy this little ploy on the way home, an evil glint in his eye as he looks at atsumu.

“goodnight guys.” you wave as they exchange their goodbyes. with your hand still wrapped around kuroo, you guide him towards the door. it’s a quick walk to the car, but kuroo starts walking towards the drivers seat. “just what do you think you’re doing?”

“opening the door for the most beautiful person in the world.” kuroo says, unlocking it and swinging it wide open with a soft expression. he was such a dope when he was tipsy. 

“thank you tets, but i think i’m the one that needs to help you get in the car, not the other way around.” you giggle, opening up the passenger seat. kuroo sighs in defeat and jogs over to his side. he gives you a kiss on the cheek before he slides into his seat.

“all buckled up and ready to go.” he nods with a little thumbs up. you close the door and make your way to the drivers seat, settling in before turning the car on, casting him a glance — eager eyes already set on you. 

“so, how’d it go?” you smile before putting the car in drive, getting on the road back to your shared apartment.

kuroo excitedly fills you in on everything. how he barely finished his proposal before bokuto was already signing everyone up. sakusa looking mildly interested at the prospect of ushijima showing up — asking if he joins that they play against each other. atsumu casted kuroo sketchy looks until the two drinks he had caught up with him, going on and on about how kuroo needs onigiri miya to work the event too if he really wants it to be a success.

and then the sake bombs came out. you’re not entirely too sure if kuroo is telling the truth when he says bokuto was the one who suggested it but you go along with his story anyway.

once he’s finished with his tale, the ecstatic buzz in the car settles and he’s quiet. you quickly look over to check on him and see him dozed off, head resting against the chilled window — the sign of a successful night you suppose.

after a bit, you stopped at a red light, having time to properly cast your glance over to kuroo, who was still peacefully snoozing. the color kisses his skin, waves of scarlet and maroon flowing over his features. the warm glow suited him, red was always his color.

only a few more turns and you made it back to the apartment, throwing the car in park and swiftly exiting the car to make your way to the other side.

“tetsu.” you whisper, crouching through the passenger door as soon as you open it, face close to kuroo’s as you prod him awake.

“hi baby.” he smiles, eyes still shut but he had the sweetest smile on his face. you couldn’t help but melt a little at the sight.

“come on mr. con man.” you giggle, tugging on his sleeve. “let’s get you to bed.”

“just let me sleep here.” he nestles deeper into the seat.

“you’d make me sleep inside all by my lonesome? wow…” you playfully sigh, feigning a step away. kuroo’s eyes bolt open, hand reaching out for your waist.

“never.” he smiles, getting up and haphazardly throwing his arm around you. “take me to bed, please.”

“well, since you asked so nicely.” you shake your head softly, overly fond of the man you’re half carrying into your apartment. 

“my savior.” he giggles, slightly tripping up the steps.

“you’re ridiculous.” you tease, smiling as you enter your shared space. “now get changed and go to bed.”

“im on it, boss.” he gives a lazy salute before stumbling into the bedroom. you shake your head with a smile, following him in there. 

the house was just as you left it an hour ago, the empty laundry basket still sitting on the bed. as kuroo undresses, you take the basket off, holding it as you watch him.

“don’t be a perv.” he teases, unbuttoning his shirt and sliding it off his shoulders before unbuckling his belt and doing the same with his trousers.

“why not? you do it all the time.” you smirk back, holding the basket just a little higher. he gets the message, bundling his clothes from the day into a ball and tossing it toward the hamper.

it lands in perfectly.

“score!” he cheers, throwing his fist victoriously up in the air, pride shining over his features. “i still got it.”

“easy tiger.” you roll your eyes, as you put the basket down. “lets get you to bed, okay?”

“okay.” kuroo moves so he's behind you, arms wrapping around you tightly, ready to wobble over to your bed like a penguin. 

“i still need to change, tetsu.” you try to move but his hold on you is surprisingly strong for his current state.

“let me help then.” he purrs in your ear, pressing his lips against your ear. a shiver runs down your spine as his fingers run along the hem of your shirt, sliding under it and smoothing his hand along your skin. 

“nuh uh, you need to sleep tonight if you’re gonna get up for work in the morning.” reluctantly, you grab his hand and pull it away from you, freeing yourself from his clutches.

“but—“ kuroo starts, looking absolutely pitiful. “i just wanted to help you get ready for bed. no funny stuff, promise.”

“yeah?” you raise a brow as he vigorously nods his head. “somehow i don’t believe that.”

“rude.” he pouts and looks away, nose high up in the air as if you’d ever question his integrity. you just roll your eyes.

“come on, you need to brush your teeth.” you take his hand and pull him with you, flipping on the blinding light.

“you’re so bossy sometimes.” he stands behind you in the mirror, looking at you through the glass with a smirk. his arms wrap around your waist, kissing your cheek before resting his chin on your shoulder. “i like it.”

you just laugh, your palm reaching up to gently pat his cheek. the two of you quickly do your nighttime routine, full of kuroo stealing glances in the mirror and trying to wink at you with a mouth full of toothpaste. 

“i’m going to go change but lie down, okay?” you say after you both finish and walk back into the bedroom. kuroo turns around and quickly pulls you in for a minty fresh kiss, letting himself melt into it for a moment before he pulls away.

“okay.” kuroo smirks and lays down on the bed, propped up on his elbows as he watches you get changed. “hurry up so i can hold you.” 

“now look who the bossy one is.” you roll your eyes, changing out of your clothes and into one of kuroo’s old shirts before slipping into bed with him.

in the blink of an eye, kuroo scoops you in his arms, tangling his limbs with yours and burying his face in your neck. 

“i love you.” the sound is muffled but you hear him loud and clear, heart swelling at his proclamation. 

“i love you.” you whisper back, kuroo’s soft snores already filling the room as he dozed off once again, more than content to be in your loving arms after the next step of his plan had gone off without a hitch.

your fingers weave themselves into his hair, lightly brushing out the strands as you feel sleep trying to claim you as well. but there’s a nervous pit in your stomach that evades you from giving into your slumber, something that’s telling you things are going to be changing soon. now that the ball is officially rolling, you hope it doesn’t topple over everything you and kuroo have built together over the last two years.

thank you sm for reading ᰔ — next part

[oldsoul007]

sweetest strings

joel miller x reader

summary: Joel comes back early and catches you playing guitar, which surprises him, and you two share a sweet moment together.

based of this request

a/n: veryyy domestic

joel miller masterlist

The sun dipped low behind the mountains surrounding Jackson, casting the town in hues of warm orange and deepening shadows. Life here was quiet, steady—a rhythm that Joel and I had fallen into like an old song. For once, peace felt like something tangible, not fleeting.

Ellie was Joel’s current project. He’d decided to teach her the guitar, and from the sounds that drifted through the house most evenings, she was… learning. It was sweet, really, hearing Joel’s gruff patience as he guided her through the basics. Tonight was supposed to be another one of those lessons, but Joel had gone out on patrol, promising to be back by sundown.

Ellie was off with her friends for the afternoon, so I had the house to myself. The old guitar Joel had been using sat in the corner of our bedroom, catching my eye every time I walked by. It had been years since I’d even thought about playing. I wasn’t exactly good at it back then, but the urge to strum the strings was nagging at me today.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed the guitar, plucked a pick from Joel’s stash on the dresser, and perched on the edge of the bed. The weight of it in my hands was familiar and comforting. I adjusted the tuning, as best I could remember, and let my fingers find their way across the strings.

The first chords were shaky, the notes rough around the edges. I winced, but it wasn’t terrible. Muscle memory kicked in, and soon I was playing a song I hadn’t thought of in years. It was a slow, bittersweet melody, one that matched the stillness of the evening.

I started humming along, the words tumbling out softly.

“Because I’m still in love with you… I want to see you dance again…”

The room faded away as I fell into the music, lost in the quiet rhythm of the song. For a moment, it was just me, the guitar, and the ghosts of a simpler time.

“On this harvest moon…”

The last note lingered in the air, and I let out a soft sigh, the kind that comes from releasing something you didn’t even realize you were holding in.

It wasn’t until I felt the weight of someone’s gaze that I realized I wasn’t alone.

I looked up sharply, and there he was—Joel, leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest and his patrol gear still on. His expression was soft, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were shining in that way that always made my heart flutter.

“Joel,” I breathed, my cheeks burning. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” he said, his voice low and warm.

“Oh, god.” I set the guitar down hastily, burying my face in my hands. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“Why not?” He chuckled, crossing the room in a few easy steps. He sat down beside me on the bed, his hand resting on my knee. “That was beautiful, y/n.”

I peeked at him through my fingers, my embarrassment still burning hot. “It wasn’t that good.”

“Darlin’,” he said softly, his tone almost reverent, “it was more than good. Why didn’t you ever tell me you could play?”

I shrugged, glancing at the guitar. “I only played for a couple of years when I was a teenager. I wasn’t any good back then, and I figured you and Ellie didn’t need to hear me mess around.”

Joel shook his head, his hand sliding up to cup my cheek. “You’ve been holdin’ out on me.”

I laughed, my nerves easing under his gentle touch. “Didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“Well, you’re wrong about that.” His thumb brushed over my cheekbone, his gaze steady and warm. “Hearing you play… it’s somethin’ else, y/n. That song…” He trailed off, his voice catching for a moment. “You don’t even know what you just did to me.”

I smiled, my heart swelling at the look in his eyes. “Guess I’ll have to play for you more often.”

Joel leaned in closer, his forehead resting against mine. “You better. Ain’t no way I’m lettin’ you keep this to yourself anymore.”

Before I could respond, he closed the distance between us, his lips capturing mine in a kiss that was soft and slow, like the song I’d just played. I melted into him, my hands tangling in his shirt as the guitar sat forgotten on the bed beside us.

When we finally broke apart, his thumb brushed over my bottom lip, his voice a soft murmur. “Still in love with me, huh?”

I laughed, my forehead pressing against his. “Always, Joel.”

And in that moment, with the warmth of his touch and the memory of the music lingering in the air, I couldn’t imagine a more perfect kind of love.

request by: @underneath-the-sky-again

[goodlucktai]

one of the rotten ones

rottmnt word count: 2k pairing: don & leo, don & OC title borrowed from anthems for a seventeen year old by yeule part of the archer au :) read on ao3

x

“I don’t think Gio likes me,” Donnie blurts. 

He’d feel self-conscious if he was pressed to admit it anywhere else, but he’s in the infirmary, and the only one around to hear him say so is his twin. 

They’re moving into hour two of Leo’s “faves” playlist and the fourth consecutive Taylor Swift song even though he swore he put it on shuffle. Leo is going through cabinets and shelves systematically, updating inventory on his phone, while Donnie infodumps about energy storage and projectile dynamics and the breaking strength of crossbow string. 

Donatello’s base knowledge of this particular ranged weapon is severely lacking, which is a significant personal problem for him now that he has a sibling with a preference for archery. He needs to be the world’s leading expert on the subject yesterday. He has half a dozen half-formed plans for things like sonar bolts for 3-D mapping, which may or may not have been inspired by the Jupiter Jim Pluto Vacation run.   

Only every glance at the project folder simply labeled ‘G-01’ causes an uncomfortable feeling to squirm to life in his stomach, not unlike the Krang tentacles that had attached themselves to his carapace on the day the world didn’t end. 

Donnie isn’t good at people. He doesn’t know how they tick, and there are no reliable lines of code or handy user manuals that he can fall back on when he’s mystified by human behavior. 

His siblings don’t have the same problem. Leo is perceptive to a degree that borders upon clairvoyance, Mikey is the single-most emotionally intelligent member of their family, Raph is more charming than he gets credit for, and April can talk her way through any closed door, police tape or VIP-only entrance. None of them fumble the way Donnie does when a social interaction goes off-script, like it’s a volleyball that got served his way without the ample warning he needs to be anything approaching passable at the sport. 

But he knows he’s not imagining it—the way Gio seems to brace himself when Donnie comes into the room, like he’s expecting a confrontation every time. Like the last thing Donatello could want with him is something good. 

Donnie can be a lot. They all can. They come by it honestly, equal parts chaotic lab experiments and their father’s sons. And not every structure is built to withstand hurricane winds. Not every person is equipped to deal with a Hamato level weather event. 

But he has never seen Gio flinch away from anyone else. 

So he did what he always did when confronted by something outside his formidable repertoire—he took it to Leo. 

There had never in Donnie’s life been a problem that couldn’t be made into their problem. It came with twin territory. 

And Donnie’s twin in particular is good at translating Donatello and translating other people for Donatello, and jumps on any chance to be helpful and feel wanted, and absolutely loves problems. It’s one of the most annoying and endearing things about him. If there is any trouble within a hundred miles, Leo will find it. He will worm his way into the center of it and then puzzle his way out from the inside. Most other clever and curious people were satisfied by the daily Wordle; Leo would chew through a wall unless he had something more hands-on to occupy his mind with. As polar-opposite as the two of them could be in, in that regard, they were one and the same. 

It’s somewhat reassuring to Donnie that Leo’s immediate reaction is plain incredulity. He looks baffled, like Donnie has just started throwing stuff around the room for no reason. 

(He knows better. In the medbay, of all places, that would be a death wish. Leo runs a tight ship here and only here.)

“Sorry, you don’t think Gio likes you?” Leo says slowly. “Our Gio? The guy who let you infodump about the mycelial networks of fungi to him for almost two hours, all because Mikey mentioned he was making mushroom stir-fry for dinner?” 

Donnie scoffs, but he can’t help but feel warmed by the reminder. Gio had settled right in, the way he always did once he was sure of his welcome, and watched Donnie talk like nothing more interesting existed on this side of the equator.

“His eyes didn’t even glaze over,” Leo goes on, doing what he always does and pressing the advantage. “That’s a new personal best in this family. Even April started looking for a window to climb out of at the thirty minute mark.”

“There was bound to be at least one other mutant turtle in the New York metropolitan area with an appreciation for botany,” Donnie says imperiously, tilting his chin up. 

But the worry is still there, firmly rooted, trying to flower. Leo must be able to tell because his frown deepens, playfulness evaporating by the second. He pauses the music and sets his phone down. The room rings in the sudden silence, but it’s not uncomfortable, because it’s a room Donnie exists in with his twin. 

“I just want him to like me,” Donnie says. It’s a childish want, it makes him feel half his age, but it’s true. 

He was never one of those human kids lingering near the playground, on the edge of the classroom, desperate to fit in. He was never on the outs because he never had the chance to be. But this is probably what that would have felt like. 

Giorgio is quiet by default, absorbing everything with dark brown eyes, always pausing to think before speaking in a low, flat register that is becoming as familiar to Donnie as Raph’s comforting rumbles and Mikey’s energetic shrieks and Leo’s sweet or sly laughter. 

He hasn’t been anything but kind since he got here. He saved Leo, brought him home from a place it should have been impossible to come home from, so Donatello would put up with any manner of assholery from that quarter in exchange—but it’s not that at all. 

Once Gio’s initial guard goes up and then comes down, once they outlive that moment of consideration that verges upon scrutiny without ever crossing the line, the eldest turtle softens for any younger one like clockwork. He indulges whatever noise or nonsense they’ve brought with them like there is no better use of his time. 

It doesn’t seem like a lie. But Donnie is the least qualified person he knows to make that judgement call. 

There’s a lot at stake if he’s wrong, is all. 

Leo looks like Donnie has taken a melon baller to his insides just for fun. 

“I’d know if he didn’t like you,” Leo says with absolute certainty. And he probably would. And he would take it so personally. He wouldn’t let Gio know a single moment’s rest until the spotted turtle had a coming-to-Jesus moment and acknowledged his wrongdoings in canceled Youtuber apology video format. 

Since that isn’t the reality they live in—and Leo’s daily relentless pestering of Gio is harmless and little-sibling-shaped and decidedly not mean-spirited by any stretch of the imagination—some small part of the tight, unhappy feeling in Donnie’s heart has no choice but to accept that as the compelling argument it is. 

“He probably misses you, Tello,” Leo adds, something softening in his face that it hurts to look directly at. “His you, I mean. I know I would be a train wreck cosplaying as a person if I had to go someplace I’d never see you again. Can you imagine how screwed-up I’d be?”

Donnie’s whole soul shudders at the idea, at the nightmare that almost came true when the portal closed around the Technodrome and as good as severed Donnie clean down the middle. At the glimpse of a life he’d be forced to live with one leg, one lung, one arm, one eye, half a heart. 

“That’ll never happen,” he says, a little too loud. 

“You’re stuck with me,” Leo agrees. He means it, Donnie can tell—even after that almost-nightmare he put his family through, he means it. It’s one thing to take the nuclear option at the actual on-paper end of the world, it’s another to sit in a safe, warmly-lit room with his twin brother and try to conceive of an existence in which their dynamic duo was whittled down to a solo act. 

When they were little, Donnie once tried to explain how big the unobservable universe was. He told Leo that light from the big bang hadn’t reached Earth from all the way over there yet. It was a concept he struggled with as a child, that something could be so unknowable and immeasurable.

“That’s how big my ‘I love you’ is,” he said, all of seven years old and putting it into words the best way he knew how.

“I love you bigger than that,” Leo said promptly. 

“Ugh, you can’t,” Donnie said, frustrated at his twin for always trying to one-up him, for not understanding the huge thing Donnie was trying to compress and fit into his hands. “It’s not possible.”

“It is,” Leo said firmly, eyes gold to match Donnie’s, warm and shining in a way that was all his own. “I do.”

And then Leo went on to prove it. In a way Donnie never would have wanted him to—in an explosion that split the sky and left flash burns in their eyes, and the hollow pain of a surgical removal as the still-beating heart of their family was cut away, and the discordant electronic fuzz where a beloved voice had been rushing through last words, replaced by the sound of a radio without a signal, a device unpaired—but he proved it in a thousand other ways, too. 

He was even proving it now, this afternoon he spent leaning on a forearm crutch and ambling around to various shelves and cabinets to keep up with his stock of medical supplies that had been severely depleted in the weeks after the invasion. Leo had carried bandaids and lidocaine spray in a tiny tote bag since he was two feet tall. He couldn’t stop bad things from happening but he could try to make the bad things better. 

He’s looking at Donnie like he would right every wrong for him if he knew where to start. Like the unobservable universe was small enough to fit in his pocket compared to the lengths Leonardo would go for Donatello. 

Leo is the younger twin, but sometimes the only thing there is for Donnie to do is shuffle over and bonk their foreheads together and believe him. 

“If Gigi hated you, he wouldn’t be a Hamato,” Leo announces, muffled and silly and entirely correct. “It’s a required qualification. You must have missed that meeting with HR.” And then, because it’s important, he whispers, “I promise, okay?”

“Okay,” Donnie whispers back. 

At about that moment, TSwift’s I Think He Knows comes on, proving once and for all that there is actually no way Leo’s playlist is on shuffle. The weighted moment they’re holding on tight to transitions into a lighter one that gets flung haphazardly around as an immediate life-or-death struggle for the phone ensues. 

Stalemate is only reached when Splinter barges in to read them the riot act for daring to roughhouse while they had a non-zero number of broken bones between the two of them. Leo is bright-eyed with mischief and already fast-talking their way out of trouble the same effortless way April can rattle off her brothers’ favorite coffee orders, and Donnie’s worry has been soundly evicted, all its belongings in boxes in the yard. 

Sitting around has never been his style. He’s a turtle of discovery and invention. And now that he’s been reassured that the absolute worst-case scenario is not on the table—that it, in fact, was never on the table to begin with—curiosity rears its head and snaps up the dregs of anxiety like a hungry wolfhound who mistook it for an unattended rack of lamb. 

Hypothesis: Georgie isn’t being weird out of dislike of Donatello. Leo’s certain he’s not, so certain that he was willing to promise, point-blank and absolute, instead of being tricky and sly in the name of cheering Donnie up instead. Leo even offered a much more palatable alternative, but further evidentiary support is required. 

So after dinner a week later, as the whole family crowds comfortably around the banana split bar spilling across the entire kitchen island and argues over which toppings Gio and Casey should stack their bowls with first, Donnie blurts, “Can I see your crossbow?”

Giorgio really is one of the clowns in this circus. He proves it by putting his ice cream down, and picking the bow up from where it was relegated to the bench seat where everyone tosses their coats and shoes when they get home, and passing it right over. No normal person would put a loaded weapon in Donnie’s hands just because he asked nicely. 

As if in tacit agreement, both of Casey’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline and Raph makes incredulous scoffing noises. April says, “You did not just—” at the same time Splinter blusters, “Purple, you fire that thing off in this house even once and I am grounding you from everything you know and love, including Orange!” and Donnie screeches, over Mikey and Leo’s hysterical laughter, “I can be trusted with projectile weaponry!”

The crossbow has been carefully maintained, but it hasn’t been used in weeks that Donnie is aware of. They’ve all stuck pretty close to home since the invasion, and it’s not like Gio knows anyone but them—it’s not like they need firepower for grocery hauls or pizza runs, though, knowing their luck, that could change any given day. 

But Gio still cleans it regularly, and he’s become a familiar sight at the kitchen table; parts spread out on an oil-stained rag, meticulous and methodical with the one belonging he brought here with him from the future other than the clothes on his back and the colorful friendship bracelet on his right wrist. 

It’s important to him, clearly, but he’s letting Donnie handle it with an indulgent look on his face. Like there are no better hands to leave it in than his little brother’s. 

Because he’s at risk of having a whole emotion about that out loud, where his entire family is assembled to witness it, Donnie quickly turns his mind onto the much safer road of gadgetry.  

He has never actually held a crossbow before, has never built or used one, but he’s been doing a lot of research. He has a lot of ideas. He wants to print mechanical broadhead arrows with explosive tips, or tear gas canisters, or EMP charges. It’s a brand new world of creative chaos and that’s not even touching all the build customizations Donnie has in mind. His fingers are already itching to dismantle and reassemble the machine into something better, something that won’t ever fail, something his big brother will love. 

Only—huh. What feels like a low-level electric current thrums to quiet life like it was waiting to be noticed by the right pair of eyes, just enough of a static shock to get his attention and guide his hand to the rail. Glowing purple does the work of an allen wrench in seconds and a handful of screws clatter to the table. Donnie removes the scope in one sure motion, and moves on to snap the rail from the stock. 

Raph says, low and warning, “Donnie,” intimately familiar with gremlin gadget mode and all the kitchen appliances and shared toys destroyed in Donnie’s early years in the name of science. But he’s not breaking this time, he’s just looking. 

He flips the rail over in his hands and finds the source of that odd electricity-conductive feeling. Hidden on the underside is a small embossed logo that Donnie would recognize anywhere, because it’s his.

“A-ha!” he says, absurdly pleased with the discovery. “A Genius Built mod.” 

The rail was one of the first things he’d had in mind to upgrade, but it looks like he’d beaten himself to the punch. 

“With a custom rail, we can add whatever attachments we want to the stock, way beyond just an average scope or a rangefinder,” Donnie says eagerly, his mind darting ahead in three different directions at once. “The world is our oyster, Georgie!” 

He can’t help grinning. His logo on Gio’s prized possession is that last little bit of evidence he needed. He’s never been happier to be wrong, and will endure Leo’s smugness for an unheard of two entire business days before initiating retaliation. 

No version of Donatello would put that mark on anything unless he really cared about it. 

And Gio wouldn’t lift the rail from Donnie’s hands, and touch his thumb to that stylized “D” as if to prove to himself that it was real, an expression of painful wistful longing on his face, unless he really cared, too. 

[okkotsuus]

"TUNNEL VISION" ー kenyu yukimiya 🪽

features: kenyu yukimiya

contents: angst. possible spoilers for nel. mentions of disabilities. mentions of self-destructive behavior. portrayals of christianity. struggles with faith. there's some comfort because i'm merciful. fem!reader because i don't feel like editing this </3. 1k words.

notes: for my lovely alice ( @cheralith ), inspired by till forever falls apart by ashe and FINNEAS

yukimiya kenyu has always been the kind of man that never stops, not until he gets what he wants. he has been like this since he was young, when all he had wanted was the new anpanman figure.

eventually, he had set his sights on bigger and brighter dreams: being top of his class, learning his favorite song on piano, winning a world cup.

what he never knew was that one day, all those big and beautiful goals of his that he had dedicated everything for: those visions and dreams he spent every fibre of his being pursuing, were things he would never be able to actually see.

because he was going blind.

slowly.

day by day.

all those little things he took for granted growing up suddenly fall crashing down upon him. if only, all those foolish things he had prayed for had been for this. if only god could hear him now, crying like when he was brought into this world. if only he had never been allowed to dream: to have gotten a taste for satisfaction.

his doctor tells him that it is unlikely he will ever be able to go pro. because with every minute he spends on the field, his eyes are irreparably damaged.

optic neuropathy is a condition characterized by damage to the optic nerve. in his case, it is due to restricted blood flow: something that is only exacerbated by strenuous physical activities.

activities like soccer.

when his body is fatigued, the blood flow to his optic nerve is unable to properly pass through to supply oxygen to his eyes. this leads to black spots in his vision during these times. often, the vision is most affected in the peripherals: one of the most critical spots of vision for anyone playing a sport like soccer.

it is a degenerative condition, accompanied by symptoms like nausea and headaches (which is caused by the combination of the restricted blood flow and his brain trying to cope with his obscured vision).

should yukimiya have given up on his dream then, he likely would never have run the risk of going fully blind: at least not until he was much older than he is now.

but kenyu has never known when to stop, even if it was for his own good.

he had always been the type to work himself to exhaustion, even when exhaustion just meant falling asleep at his desk. but, now, exhaustion meant eventual and permanent blindness. sooner than later.

for him, losing everything just to taste his dream was better than never having known.

that's what he had thought for a long time.

he was simply fighting a clock, to win a world cup before his vision goes fully black. it's all he has wanted for a long while now.

it's something he finds rattled the second he meets you.

everything around him freezes for just a moment, the world seems a hell of a lot brighter than it had been for the last year. he thinks, for just a moment, the angel he prayed for has descended down from heaven to bless him.

and with the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, his sight clouding around the edges: as if forcing his focus to you. for just a moment, he finds himself cursing what he can't see, the beauty that is being hidden from him. he finds himself wishing he had chosen to preserve his sight, selfishly.

"yukimiya, correct? my name is y/n, and i'll be your manager while you're here with training with us." wow, you even sound like an angel.

then it all rushes back to him: he's in the second phase of the blue lock project, meeting the team he has chosen to better himself with. he is here to pursue his dream, he doesn't have the time to sit here and blush over some girl.

but you're not just some girl; no, you're so, so much more. so, he finds himself discarding the training regiment he had been doing to approach.

your hand extends with a bottle, the bastard munchen insignia on the side: almost mocking him. he finds himself taking it with a small thanks, regulating his breathing and sippling a gulp as those voids in his vision begin to clear up.

kenyu knows it isn't true, but he has the fleeting thought that it clears because of you. "yes, thank you, miss y/n," he speaks, voice honey sweet as it had always been.

you smile and he swears that the clouds parted to let the sun grace him. "it is my pleasure, and just y/n is fine: we are the same age, after all."

that hits him as he finds himself thinking so annoyingly like the teenage boy he is. but he doesn't stop himself from indulging the thought of you, just this once

yukimiya allows the fantasy of taking you out, pinkies locked while you drag him to whatever sweet street vendor you set your pretty eyes on. he enables himself to imagine the thought of putting a ring on your finger, to watch miniature versions of himself running around your legs.

as he finds himself pondering whether your children would have his eyes or yours, he freezes.

this is something he will never be able to see without imagining it. yukimiya kenyu will never be able to actually see you in a wedding dress. and that rattles him somewhere deep in his core.

for a long time, all his sights had ever been focused on was the soccer ball he can dribble from one end of the field to the other: all on his own.

but, now, he finds himself wanting to be able to see you watching him from the sidelines.

and he never will.

because kenyu cannot see in his peripheral, no matter how bright you shine.

he finds himself cursing god for the fist time in his life.

⚜️ ㅤ okkotsuus ㅤ 25

[ateez-himari]

250416 ; OPEN WOUNDS

[NEW MESSAGES FROMM HIMARI]

[AM 9:12] Good morning Tiny, look at my new Hello Kitty merch! This pretty cool Billboard Plaque came in the mail today too, it'll look nice in my studio

[AM 9:12] ㅎㅎ No don't worry that's not the only one hanging on my wall, I also have the one from 'Seven' and I have one coming with 'DDAENG', surprise!

[AM 9:12] They sent me a late congratulatory email a few days ago, apparently the track made it to the top fifteen days after it was released...I'm still shocked

[AM 9:13] I don't want to be too emotional so early in the day, but this amount of success is all thanks to our Tiny ♡ The songs released under my own name were meant to be no more than individual artistic expression and I never imagined that 'Sungyo' would become so popular in such a short time

[AM 9:13] Looking at the statistics now so many songs peaked in the billboard top 10, you made all my dreams come true ㅠ.ㅠ Seeing albums I produced perform well in the international scene is already surreal but my own tracks-

[AM 9:14] Yeah, certainly! It's always emotional to look back at how much work has gone into changing my career, there used to be so much hate on my name

[AM 9:14] That's a deep question ㅎㅎ In all honesty the reason I work this hard even now...I think it's fear. Passion is the center of everything I do, but I'm also very scared

[AM 9:15] There's always been this thought of "what if people realize the members are better off without me", so I've had this overwhelming need to prove myself. In truth it's why I went on stage that day in Tokyo, I was scared of being forgotten

[AM 9:15] My work with other artists and on solo releases all stem from the fact that music has always been the driving force in my life, my purpose, 生きがい, but all the injuries from stages were because fear pushed me too far

[AM 9:16] There was so much pressure on embodying perfection in order to be accepted by fans that my hearing aid would be forgone and I would spent minutes on end throwing up because of overstimulation

[AM 9:16] Nowadays it's become easier to accept every part of myself with the success we've seen despite my presence in the group, showing my scars, opening up about my hearing disability, my injuries, but I also look at the state of my body and think "did I need to do this?"

[AM 9:17] The wounds are healing well, but there are also times where I feel so much fear when my heart begins to hurt on stage. I think...I try to hide as much as possible in front of our Tiny, but the past is still painful

[AM 9:18] Please don't worry though, you'll never see me in that state again ♡ Tokyo was a wake up call, from then on I've watched over my health carefully. I'll never scare you or the members in such a manner again, I promise

[AM 9:18] Yes, even though I'm still very busy ㅎㅎThe kids told fans already, they must have been excited ㅎㅎ I worked with BND again for their comeback!

[AM 9:19] Last time I only produced their title track's guide due to health issues, but I've come back to external projects. I worked with my babies, Xikers, on 'Breathe' too

[AM 9:19] Ahh Mingi oppa told you? I'm okay now, I received my new hearing aid a couple of days ago...it's strange getting used to it but it's actually much better

[AM 9:20] You want to learn? Our Tiny are going to make me cry already...I'll try to plan some sign language classes if you really want it, whoever can sign "Jung Wooyoung 바보' at our next concert gets a candy ㅎㅎ

[AM 9:21] Thank you for listening to my heart, I have to go now, my Bangtan big brothers are waiting for me to get breakfast ♡ Love you so much, kisses!

Translated from Korean by Google

Taglist ; @prbywoo

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 90

Alright. So you might be thinking, pondering, desperately contemplating to yourself a simple question.

“JEM. WHAT THE FUCK??? WHY????” And I hear you, I get it, it’s a lot to take in out of nowhere and that’s the point. Sit with me, peer into the biohazard that is in my brain as I explain to you why in the name of all that’s good I made a fucking Music Video.

So last time on the 100 Days of Junkan, for Day 80 I got very silly and animated a gif of Junko and Mikan kissing. And as I keep saying over and over again, every 10 pics I wanted to go BIGGER. And maybe this is just the brainrot causing all of my mental functions to degrade past the point of no return, but the only way up at this point was in fact a music video.

But surely I couldn’t. I mean, I only have that single gif as experience with animation! How the fuck could I try and put myself through a process that I have absolutely no experience making something as ambitious as a Music Video! I’ll have to do something else. But then.

I had a thought, a small thought, an evil little thought that wormed its way into my head and didn’t leave.

“Okay. But wouldn’t it be really funny if you sent a full Junkan music video to Val without any warning?” That was it. I was beaten, I couldn’t counter that. The sheer comedic shock value of keeping my wonderful oomfie, the one who has helped motivate me through this entire project, who has given amazing responses to all of these pics as I made them, completely in the dark over this, and then finally with no context, or warning, or even a hint, dropping a fucking music video on her lap and running away like I’m pranking someones god damn doorbell. It was too much, even moreso considering I could do the same with ya’ll! 

You! My varied followers, the silent and the vocal, or even better the random fucking people who have been staring in confusion as the Junko and Mikan tag got flooded with art of these two kissing out of nowhere for like three fucking months. I had an opportunity to send everyone into surprise and confusion because why the fuck did I make a god damn music video??? How??? It was too fucking funny to pass up!

This is easily the most fucking bizarre thing I’ve done for the entire event! Did any of you think this was the path this would go down?? Did any of ya’ll see that I made a gif and think “Surely this scrawny white bitch also made a Music Video.” I doubt it! But if you did, my undying respect goes to you!

So here we are. A Music Video. A fucking Music Video, one which I now have to talk about. It took a full fucking page just to get to the point where I actually talk about it and this took me THREE MONTHS TO MAKE, spanning from May 8th to August 1st! 

So here’s what I’m gonna do. First, I’m gonna talk about MAKING this fucking thing, and then when I finish that I’m going to switch over to talking about the actual contents of the music video. This is going to get really messy and will probably go into tangents, but ya’ll have hopefully coped with the knowledge that this is going to be a lot of words by the time you hit the end of this sentence. (Future Jem here! I think this was actually shorter than Day 60) So without further delay-

The Making of Snow Fairy, a Junkan Music Video. Yes. Really.

So the first step of this was obviously, The Music. What song would I use for this? Well initially the plan was to animate something using the song “Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed.” And if that name sounds familiar, yes, it is the song that Val’s fic was named after. Now the idea wasn’t to adapt her fanfic into a music video (or at least it wasn’t the idea for more than 5 minutes). I was simply going to use this song to make a music video depicting a romantic journey with these two. So why not this song?

IT’S LIKE 6 FUCKING MINUTES. Not to jump ahead of myself here but I can’t make it any clearer for ya’ll, that Gif from Day 80??? That was it. That was all I had going into this. I didn’t do any other practice, I didn’t make anything else like that gif. I made that gif, took like two weeks to make Days 81-89, and jumped into a music video. And yes, that’s fucking stupid, but you’ve all learned by this point that I don’t make sensible choices. I draw women kissing, scream, and feel endless euphoria- I got so off topic already, sorry.

Anyway that’s a 6 minute song and I had very little experience, even I knew that wasn’t gonna be viable without driving my head into the wall from stress. And while the idea of me dialing it back sounds unheard of given my track record, I did in fact scale back massively.

So I pondered, and eventually came to a quite frankly obvious answer.

(Sorry I could only find an AI Upscaled version with interpolation)

Snow Fairy, the first opening of Fairy Tail, AKA, my favorite piece of fiction. And Snow Fairy is my favorite anime opening of all time, if not just straight up my favorite song ever. The fact that it wasn’t my first thought is a shock. Though that still brought on some questions.

Firstly. What version? Because yes I actually had options. I could either use the original song in Japanese, or the english cover by LeeandLie. I was close to picking the original version by Funkfist, but there was two issues. One, because it was in another language that means I would have had to taken the time to put in subtitles and keep them properly timed, which would have just been one more thing on an already massive workload. The second reason is also why I went with LeeandLie’s version, I just like the translation for the lyrics a bit more. At least in terms of how well I think it works for a Junkan Music Video. So we had the cover of the song I was gonna use, next question.

Full Song? Or the intro edit? Because the version used in the anime is obviously much shorter, and not just that actually includes the very end of the song pasted to a much earlier part of it. So if I wanted to use the shorter version I would have needed to actively edited the song.

After much thought I chose to ask my friend (and now current girlfriend) Yves to edit the song to match the intro version of Funkfists cover and worked from there. Because even if I would have loved to use the full song, that’s around 3 minutes, which for essentially a beginner sounds like fucking torture.

So I had a song around 1 minute and 28 seconds to work with. Much easier- WRONG. WRONG IT WAS STILL PAINFUL. WHY DID I DO THIS- Anyway.

We had our song! Now we had to make the actual video!

Step 1, I actually made a Storyboard, this is the smartest thing I will do during this entire process.

As you can see from this lil joke doodle I made during the process, I didn’t even start the actual video before I had realized I had made a massive mistake, however I was of course going to persevere. The Storyboard took about, 2? 3 days? This is mostly because I had other work to prioritize, and I had to make sure I got this pretty solid. Here it is!

(The file name for this has the phrase "Why god Why" btw)

As you can see it’s very, very professional. 

You can also see there were a few things cut or changed, and even stuff that wasn’t there in the first place. That’s because even if I was going into this with more of a plan compared to other parts of this, I still really had no idea what I was getting into nor how to do it. The scene of all the girls doing their hair was cut because it just seemed like an awkward space filler to try and mimic the actual Snow Fairy Intro animation. In hindsight I do wish I kept it or found a replacement rather than just extending the following scene. And yeah that scene had to be super extended so I could actually time things properly.

As for the scene at the end, the various art pieces flashing in the background (which I will talk about later) were done because I realized without them I had way too much dead air in the scene. I then took advantage of it to show a montage of time passing in the scene itself, of the things that differed from the storyboard that’s the one I’m happiest with.

Storyboard has passed so now I have to talk about making the video itself, i feel like i’ve said some variation of that sentence like 5 times now.

So do you want a fun fact? THIS WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE ANIMATED! This was supposed to be an Animatic, and even that might not be the right word. This was supposed to be basically a storyboard with hints of motion, say for the intro with Monokuma which I always planned to properly animate given his simplistic design. Everything else was supposed to be much simpler.

And then I kept. Accidentally. TRYING TO ANIMATE IT. I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU EVEN DO THAT BY ACCIDENT! And like sure, none of it really gets as meticulous as the Monokuma, but I still ended up learning way more about animating things properly during this project because I just couldn’t help myself. It was always “Well just one more frame to make it look right. One more frame. Okay just another- Oh no.” This is the depths of hell this ship has dragged me to, and even if I haven’t had a chance to fully make use of what I learned here because I’ve been busy, Junkan somehow made me into a fucking animatory at least to the degree of a hobbyist. IF YOU TOLD ME THAT A FEW YEARS AGO I’D THINK YOU WERE LYING! Because if you asked me before this year about my opinion on animating, I’d tell you something around the lines of-

“God I wish I could, but I just don’t have the patience for that y’know?” I GUESS THAT DOESN’T MATTER WHEN IT'S A NICHE SHIP?? Mind you this was still when I was under the impression I was going to get backlash for all this, I didn’t care but I certainly thought it would come to me. The hold these two have on my brain is downright COMICAL.

And I’m sorry if I sound like this is me complaining at all, because I’m really not, I just get more excitable and whacked out during these more high effort projects. This ship has brought me immense joy on its own, and making this project despite the exhaustive work it took to do so has been so fulfilling in part thanks to being able to see the joy my work has brought all of you. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.

But you gotta fucking admit, this isn’t fucking normal right?? None of this is normal! And I don’t mean that in a “We’re all weirdos for liking this” kind of way I mean that in a “What the fuck is going on with me specifically” kind of thing because what is ANY of this?? I re-learned how to write (loosely at least), learned how to actually paint in my program, have developed a deeper understanding of both myself and how to portray expressions, have just generally gotten better at drawing cause of this, memorized these fucking designs almost perfectly (almost, i know there’s some small details of Junko’s design i leave out and Mikan’s apron can be a challenge at times), learned how to animate, LEARNED HOW TO MAKE A MUSIC VIDEO ON ONE GIF OF EXPERIENCE, made angsty shipping art for the first time, and god fucking KNOWS what else that I’m forgetting. And that’s ignoring that by this point we’re edging so much closer to me being able to say “I’ve drawn Junkan 200 fucking times” any god damn day now. 

If this isn’t abnormal human being behaviour, it at the very least has to be really fuckin funny behaviour, right?? Am I just overthinking this?? 

Oh god, right, the main topic. Sorry about that it’s just been eating away at me the sheer absurdity of this project when I really step back and think about it.

Anyway making the vid, I did have a LOT of help from my girlfriend @sunmellows, who actually does have animation experience. She’s more versed in using sprites to animate, but a lot of the techniques could be carried over to what I was doing here. That segment of Mikan and Mukuro running along past a bunch of characters? She helped me so much to get the walk cycles perfect for that.

She also helped me make sure I could actually show this fucking video to people, because fun fact. I made this on an absolute piece of shit laptop! And at first it was relatively fine when I exported projects. But when I got to the point of being actually close to completion? Oh my god not only did it take hours, it just didn’t even work. It would basically KILL my laptops performance to the absolute limit until I would eventually have to force restart the thing. Which thank god didnt’ corrupt the fucking file. So when it came to the final export, I handed off the file to her and she graciously exported it out of clip studio, and then made some minor edits to the timing of the animation in a video editing program.

This is also why, much to my constant irritation, there are still a few animation errors in this because if I fixed them, I’d have to re-export the entire video. And sure, my current laptop is 10 times better and might not try to invent a new form of agony trying to manage it, but also i’m not waiting like 2 or 3 hours for that to happen. No matter how painful it makes rewatching this video. Cause i don’t actually like rewatching this one usually, I’m very proud of it but as I’ve said in the past I am a vicious perfectionist when it comes to my work, so its hard for me to ignore every issue and oddity in the video.

I was fucking losing it by the end of this, I was pulling late nighters for like a week while trying to work on the last few scenes and fix up whatever I could, which was hard because I lacked a convenient way to just watch the whole video in good quality and speed, since playing it in my art program resulted in constant stuttering and made it impossible to tell if it would really look like that, and again, trying to export it made my laptop hate me. But on August 1st I finished it, I had to stay up till 6 AM to do it but I did in fact, fucking do it. I passed it off to Yves, she exported it after some technical difficulties, and now we’re here. 

It was, wild, trying to keep this a secret. And i’m not just talking the 3 months I had to keep it quiet to Val (Though that was difficult but VERY worth it yes), but also keeping it secret up till this point. I don’t even know how many fucking months I’ve had to keep this quiet so none of you would find out about it, I’ve been anxiously waiting to see everyone's reactions to this fucking video, and at the time of writing we’re on like, Day 76. I still have so much more time I need to wait! I’m probably gonna be a nervous wreck the day this actually goes up!

Would I ever do this again? God I fucking hope not! (the answer is yeah someday)

I should actually talk about what’s IN the music video now, shouldn’t I? Will be mildly difficult because that’s probably gonna require a lot of rewatching, and as I already said looking at this music video does make my perfectionist brain scratch bad a bit.

Okay so Monokuma.

So originally the plan for this was for the vid to be a much closer 1-to-1 of the actual opening version of Snow Fairy, and while it did eventually evolve into more of its own thing (both functioning as its own slightly more unique intro for Junkan but also just becoming a more normal music video) the one thing that i always wanted for this was to recreate the first few seconds of the intro but with Monokuma. When this was meant to be significantly less like, animation-y, he was gonna be the only part I went fully into.

It was a real pain in the ass but this guy was basically my crash course on properly animating thanks in part to his simple design. He’s also brought much laughter to my girlfriend! On discord i have this part of the vid saved as a gif, and completely divorced from the context of the music vid it just looks like a silly as gif of Monokuma flying away. Like where the fuck are you going dude??

For the remainder of the first bit I wanted to include Hope’s Peak and Jabberwock island since they’re the most iconic locations in the series, granted, jabberwock feels very irrelevant in a non-despair AU but shhhh. The LOGO! I wish I had the actual thing in my files but I guess I just never thought to save it as it’s own thing. And I’m too scared to open the actual file for the music video to just copy paste it out of there because fun fact, the whole thing is ALL one file. Tip from the Ametuer here, don’t fucking do that.

I’m still really happy that I managed to find the actual font for the Fairy Tail logo to make this with, equally happy that I also managed to sneak in one more reference to Val’s work again! It is once again the tattoo design, because I just can’t help myself y’know?

After that we hit me actually doing this and for a brief moment you get to see it actually be about as slide-showy as I had initially planned on before I decided I was gonna learn how to do a proper run cycle and that took like two fucking days i think. Very proud of it though, Mikan and Mukuro’s little runs were very fun to animate and I like the stupid ass slide I made Mukuro do. I actually wanted to make a stupid animation of her rail grinding using those frames, clearly I didn’t. 

Oh also yeah this style was reused for the cover of the Day 60 Comic, partially because I wanted to retroactively sprinkle bits of this animatic into whatever prior posts I can, partially because i really could not think of an actual cover for that comic. 

So since I was trying desperately to make this seem like the opening to some kind of Junkan Series (and again that concept for the vid dies out real quick) I decided to just include as many other characters as possible during these running scenes. Not only because it would be very fun to draw some of them in this fucked up chibi style I started doing on the fly, but also because then I could insert like three whole ships that I like. We got the Ruruseiko, the Tokomaru, the Ikuzonobuki because hey someone had too.

Fun fact there was supposed to be a little pop up of Mukuro with heart eyes in the corner when Sayaka and Ibuki showed up, but I either scrapped cause I couldn’t make it look right with the limited frames I had, or I accidentally hid all of its layers and couldn’t find it. I can’t remember, this project turning out as well as it did is quite frankly a miracle.

The train scene I don’t really remember why I did like, full linework and shading for that while the rest of the fuckin vid is just sketches. I guess it was fully still animation so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Drawing the very silly little shots of them going by the train was a lot more fun though, I also used it to reference a few more pieces from the past!

The first shot of them with Angie was a reference to the Day 70 Piece, since I always kinda headcanoned (yeah headcanoning my own art, that makes sense) that it was Angie who made it. Then we got Day 82, which at the time of writing this hasn’t been posted! Flashback to whatever day that Karaoke pic with the Ikuzonobuki trio was on for the shot of Junko watching Mikan sing.

And then after that is the Flatwoods monster part, which is the really fun one because I have no idea if I’ll have drawn anything for that by the time this gets released. I really want to though because I love the Flatwoods Monster and I love Junkan, so why not combine them! Alas, I’m working on the December 24th comic as I write this so I might not have time to make that on time. 

Yasuke and Tsumugi! I’ve given my thoughts on them before of course, I think during Day 60? My brain at this point just felt very inclined to include them in this, Yasuke especially.  Even if just as a very small cameo I kinda just associate these two with Junkan? Admittedly it’s mostly because of Val’s fic, I won’t act like that isn’t just the blueprint for everything in the junkan portion of my brain. 

I also used this opportunity to once more make up for the fact that I had drawn so very little kabedon content in this whole project.

After that this probably becomes the cheesiest thing i’ve ever made. The scene of Mikan looking sad was another scene directly based off of the original opening this all based on. After the spin transition I put a little too much effort into was supposed to be a shot of Junko doing Mikan’s hair while Mukuro and Sayaka try to do the same with Ibuki. If I remember the timeline of events I realized I couldn’t make this scene last until the next scene on the storyboard without dragging it out, so I was gonna try adding other little vignettes of antics. However in a rare act of self care I decided to not make this any harder on myself and just scrapped it, skipped to the next storyboard, and extended it out to fit the time. Do I like this in the longrun?? Ehhhhhh, personally I think I shoulda just sucked it up and just added some smaller shots, but miraculously I have people who care about me and would probably prefer it if I didn’t destroy my body for a music video, so I probably made the right choice.

Those outfits look kinda familiar! Whether because I was struggling to think of a new outfit, or because I had just drawn a kabedon, I decided to reuse the outfits from Day 74! Junko’s was a pain in the ass to animate! Never again! Also I colored the Boba to match my pride headcanons for both of them, Mikan being bi and Junko being pan. One kiss and another god damn spin transition i put too much effort into making look good, and we’re at the last scene.

And there’s a mildly fun story for the art used in the background. Like I already said, they were added last minute because the scene would be dead air without them. However I could have done more little clips and vignettes and not fully drawn art pieces. So why did I do fully drawn art pieces?? I was starving, of course. 

You all know my rule that I’m not allowed to draw any Junkan before the current one on the project is finished, correct? Well guess who wasn’t able to draw any normal junkan for like 3 months because I had to focus on making a music video. I can reread a bunch of fics or stare at art forever but the desperate and violent urge to make more and add to the pile so my brain feels nice is insatiable, especially with the rate I was making these previously before the music video began production. 

Sooo, making some last minute assets seemed like a pretty good excuse to finally draw something fresh. And it was a fucking blessing on my brain at this point.

I tried to do a runthrough of their relationship up to this point, flashing back all the way until their first encounter. Was this a thinly veiled excuse to realistically include a halloween pic? Yes. But hey, that last shot was always planned so on some level I have to be justified in my actions. Let’s talk about these pieces one at a time.

First up, hey, that kinda looks familiar. That’s right, assuming the stars aligned and allowed me to gain the strength to draw the December 24th Comic all on time (I’m 17 pages in at the moment send past me your strength, time travel is real if I say it is), then you might notice that I just took the outfits for this winter-y art and featured them in the story! 

So I did in fact draw the Halloween art first and realized I could probably do something vaguely interesting with a timeline of events, so I realized it would probably be best to put the winter art BEFORE October, because I like to dream of a year where I can celebrate Halloween and not freeze to death. It just also happens that it kinda conveniently fits the current time! Since this is releasing in winter! A miracle.

This ones pretty simple obviously, I unfortunately have nothing impressive or interesting to say on the art itself, more just stuff surrounding it.

Now the Halloween Art. Well i also don’t have a lot to say there either but god dammit i’ll sure as hell try!~ 

Listen I wasn’t fully confident that I would have the project done in time for Halloween, and as I’ve probably said before (or at least implied), while I could certainly draw more art on my own time after the 100 days were ready, until this was a public thing and the world was made well aware of my obsession, I couldn’t post it. It is extremely good luck (and also burnout) that I was able to get this done in time to actually post during October, so I did get to draw Halloween Stuff! But when I was making this?? I saw an opportunity to say “fuck it” and draw something spooky with these two, my favorite holiday and (probably) my favorite ship?? Yes please!

As for designing their halloween outfits I sure did fucking wing it! Yeah no thought process, just spooky as fuck. 

Though something interesting about this art that my girlfriend pointed out is that the way I shaded and colored it matches up a lot with my older art. Since I’m not gonna drag through my old gallery to find good examples the best way I can sum it up is that my coloring style back in the day was a lot more candy colored. If that makes sense? More saturated colors I guess? Whenever I look at pieces like those and this I just think of a bowl of colorful candy. 

I miss drawing like that, I don’t know what changed. It’s hard to go back, but maybe i’ll try.

The next shot might seem familiar, but not to any of my other pics, but rather a fic! When writing my Vampire Junkan AU I decided that I wanted to do an Aquarium Date for one of the bigger chapters, because as we all know, Fish and Vampires go together like chocolate and peanut butter. When writing it I was thinking of when I wanted to do the big kiss scene, and this art came to mind! So while it’s not very 1 to 1, I tried my best to recreate it through words.

Why did I draw aquarium art in the first place? I wanted to draw a sunfish . . . I’m a very simpleminded woman in most cases y’know?

The next image was actually even more last minute than the other 3, cause even with those I didn’t have enough to cover the timeframe of the scene. Soooo, Junko giving Mikan a flower.

Maybe this was her confessing? Asking her out? I haven’t thought about it enough. 

And after so long we’re finally back to me just ripping straight from the original opening this is based off of, and in the original its a very sentimental memory for one of the main characters. So pretty early on alongside the Monokuma bit I knew I should have that specific last flashback be their first meeting. I think this is like, my 4th or 5th time depicting a first meeting between these two? It’s always fun to do, and the one in this music vid I think you can tell was decently inspired by Kayleen’s “Smile” Fic, albeit not a direct adaptation and with like, 2% more whimsy. 

And a proposal!! We all crack eventually and there was only so god damn long I could stop myself from depicting one, and what better place than an ill advised music video? Also the gleam of the ring just made for a really good transition out of this and I’m still shocked by how well I was able to make it look. 

And that’s it! I feel like I didn’t talk about this one as much as I thought I would?? Granted I think this is still one of the longer rambles I’ve gone on, but given the jump in scale I thought this’d be a bit more, excessive?? 

I already said earlier but for as, fucking agonizing as this was, I will probably, someday, try to do another animation like this. Hell I’m collaborating with my Girlfriend on a VS Project right now and I’m hoping to at least do small bits of actual animating on it. Which I think I can do??

As for music videos, welllll I do have two in mind, one is Vampire Junkan (though not in the way you think), and the other doesn’t specifically focus on Junkan but it sure will have a Billy Joel song. 

So what’s up next??

Well I’m just gonna say this now, Day 100 does not go higher in scale than this, I won’t say what it is but its like, normal. Day 99 should be fun though! As for 91 through 98? Well! We’ve got 8 days of Fanfics! I didn’t write anything don’t worry. I made 8 pictures based off of 8 fanfics, with only one repeat author! There’s reason for that though you’ll see. There’s some direct adaptations of scenes, covers for the story, and like, something more based off the vibe, it’s hard to describe. You’ll see.

Gonna try my best to sing the praises of the fics themselves though I worry that I won’t be able to adequately sing the praises of these stories to the same degree that I did on Day 60, so hopefully I can at least convince ya’ll to give them a read yourself!~ 

Here’s hopin ya’ll enjoy the results!

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~

[pixiekiwi]

Trust | Loki x Gn!Reader

Hello!!! It's been awhile ;) I just finally finished Loki S2 and I haddd to write something angsty, because apparently that is how I cope. I love Loki with all my being it might actually be unhealthy. Sooo requests are open!!! For any character on my ML. I finally got medicated so now I can actually complete projects? Crazy.

Master List

𝐋𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Song Rec - Sailor Song, by Gigi Perez

Warnings: Angst, Season 2 Loki Spoilers, No use of Y/N, Gender Neutral Reader.

Desc: Loki’s internal struggle while knowing what the right thing to do is. But how can he leave you?

Words: 739

SPOILERS FOR LOKI S2 BELOW

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

What is it when people say, “Trust me,” that makes others immediately not want to trust them? 

Loki didn’t know, and he didn’t think he’d ever understand it, especially due to the title he carried. The God of Lies and Mischief. He wasn’t one deserving of trust. He had always refrained from asking people to 'trust him'.

However. 

The words came tumbling from his lips before he could think.

But, instead of laughing in his face at the pure absurdity of his ask. Your eyes softened. Your hands had reached for his face, brushing the sweaty hair away from his forehead. You had nodded.

You had given him your trust without a second thought.

“I trust you,” you had whispered, and his world stopped. It’s not like he hadn’t heard those words fall from your lips a thousand times before. But now, with zero explanation, zero communication, no promises, no plans, you had trusted him. 

From nothing you had trusted him. 

He felt like melting, your hands brushing against his forehead. He didn’t want to leave, he didn’t want to leave you living on without him. But he knew what he had to do, he knew that the only way you could exist was this. It was his last option. 

Trust him, he had tried.

“Don’t go where I cannot follow.” You had said to him, once, long ago, and now here he was. Going somewhere where your mortal soul could not follow. No matter what, he would be alone. He would be leaving you alone.

His hand found your hips, his forehead falling upon yours, “I love you, My Lady,” he whispered, his eyes closed, breathing your smell in. Absorbing your presence for as long as he could. And technically he could. He had spent the past few centuries trying his best to make it so you survived, where you survived together. Looping space and time for longer than he could even believe. But for you, it had only been a matter of minutes. He had the luxury of seeing your face for as long as he had wanted, as long as he desired. You only got to remember this version of him. This was the last version you would ever see.

His eyes snapped open, pulling his forehead away from yours, before leaning in to kiss you as his eyes fluttered shut once more. The kiss was slow, passionate, a final goodbye.

You had felt it, your hands going up and around his neck, pulling him closer than ever before. His hands moving from your hips to cup your cheeks gently. 

Loki’s heartbeat slowed as he finally pulled away, gazing into your eyes. Oh, your eyes. He hoped he would never forget the color.

“I love you Loki.” You had finally whispered back. You had tried to mask the sadness, the sorrow you felt. But he knew you better than that. He could hear the crack - the shattering, that happened within you in that exact moment.

It was almost impossible to look away, he studied every feature. He stared for so long he felt like he could see your soul in you, the way it pulled for him. He might just dissolve into your gaze, he’d never seen anyone look at him the way you were now. 

Mournful at the loss of him. 

So as he stepped back, he broke your gaze. In that moment Loki turned, and walked down the stars. 

Mobius and Slvyie noticed, both of them rushing the stairs, almost pushing your rigid form to the floor as you watched Loki's back move down the stairs. 

He couldn't turn back to you, if he did, he might turn back time for a millennia, just to see your face. To let things play out, over and over again.

Just for you. 

But that was selfish. Selfish of him to not let you experience time and space the way it was supposed to be played out. Live your life, the way you wanted it to be. It would be selfish of him to face you forever, while you only got mere seconds. 

He turned, seeing Mobius and Sylvie at the stairs, banging on the door for him, yelling for him to come back. Begging him that this was not right. 

His next words were one of those he had never considered.

“I know what kind of God I need to be.” 

His eyes found yours behind Sylvie and Mobius, you held a smile, but yet your expression showed nothing but grief, his throat seemed to clog. "For you."

And there he went, where you could not follow, but yet trusting him to do what he knew was right. 

You trusted him.

[eregyrn-falls-art]

And here is the final piece I did for the "Trouble" Multi-artist Lyric Comic - a "polaroid" to end the final instrumental break of the song, in the video still to come!

Of course I wanted to show Stan and Ford's happy ending, surrounded by what I think of as the extended family they now have. (Or at least part of it! Not forgetting Dipper and Mabel's parents, and Shermie Pines and his wife, and so on. But this is, of course, the core extended family in Gravity Falls itself.)

This is also a good place to put some of the remarks on the project that I originally had in the big lyric comic post, but had to cut out just to get Tumblr to post that monster.

I really can't even begin to thank everyone who participated in this huge project! The result is, IMO, spectacular, and the process was a LOT of fun! I'm just so blown away with how everyone truly brought their A-game to whatever they did on the project. It was great to see the enthusiasm and creativity, and also to see folks really get into the idea of collaborating on how their take on their line fit in with those before and after them. And then, everyone contributing to the "polaroids" for the instrumental section was another case of seeing how much people got into the idea and collaborated, both in terms of suggestion, feedback, and actually teaming up (like some artists contributing to some of the great news-clippings that @fordtato came up with!).

Further: special shout-out to everyone; but, in particular to the folks who pitched in to do extra work in order to bring this to the finish line ( @stephreynaart, @fordtato @tazmiilly @gin-juice-tonic; and last-minute help from @creativepup and @nour386!). But even beyond that, every time extra help was needed we had a bunch of people volunteering; even if I didn't end up tapping everyone who stepped forward, I appreciated so much that I had so many people to depend on!

This turned out even better than I hoped it would when I first decided to try to make a project like this. And I am super excited to have a Stan Twins "vid" to this song, at last. (I've been wanting one ever since first hearing the song in 2016.) Stay tuned, of course, as @stariousfalls is working on finishing that video, and it will be out soon!

[mydearesthrry]

i loveddd the musician reader blurb 🥹🥹 would loveee to see more

a/n: I LOVED WRITING IT THANK U FOR THIS ANON. enjoy my babies <3 i have an fc for musician!yn x har and its gonna be gracie abrams :p

warnings: nonesies, fluff!!

—

“hey, h?” Y/N called from her spot on the sofa, her laptop on her lap as she scrolled through the files for her next project, entitled five seconds flat.

“yeah, baby?” he shouted back, his footsteps soon following his words as he walked through their house, sitting next to Y/N when he arrived. “whats wrong?”

“um, to be honest, i- i don’t even really know. i just think something’s missing from here,” she sighed, running a hand through her hair. “like, i love it so far, but it’s missing something. i think it’s missing it’s ‘overarching love’ song. which is really stupid because this album has so many love songs.”

“not really.” he replied simply, shrugging and looking at her.

“what do you mean? there’s tons!”

“really? like what? go through the tracklist, baby.”

she rolled her eyes, mumbling a ‘fine!’, before pulling up the tracklist. “see! um, all my ghosts, what a shame? kinda?”

“exactly.” he stated, giggling at his wife.

“you’re so annoying. can you help me? please?”

he scoffs playfully, “as if i didn’t produce nearly the entire thing f’you, but sure.”

“okay, so i’m thinking of a poem that i wrote a long time ago called lame, and i wanna work on that. it was right before i told you i loved you.”

after cracking open y/n’s journal and flipping through the pages, they had finally had a song.

“fucking finally, holy shit!” she shouted, clapping as she collapsed on harry who laid sprawled on the couch.

“y’still gotta record it, m’precious wife,” he giggled. “and find a feature. since we decided that’s what we’re doing, f’some reason.”

“fuck my life,” she groaned, twisting in her spot to attach her cheek to his chest, hair fanning out around her and nearly tickling his nose. “why can’t you do it with me?”

“no.”

“harry,”

“no.”

“harry!”

“no, dude!”

“harry,” his wife stressed, holding the ‘y’. “pretty please? i’ll do that thing you like with my mouth?” she offered, knowing he wouldn’t refuse that.

“oh my god, fine! but this is the first and last collab im doing!” he grumbled exasperatedly.

“thank you, oh my god!” she squealed, running over to him and jumping, legs wrapping around his legs and her arms crossing around his neck.

“whatever. better hold up your end of the bargain.” he rolled his eyes, his hypocritical hands coming down to rest on her waist.

she grinned, jumping down from him and placing her hands on his chest. blinking up at him owlishly, she ran her hands down his torso and murmured, “i plan to, handsome. i’ll even start right now.”

———

liked by charles_leclerc, sabrinacarpenter, and 7,662,617 others

yourinstagram: took a tiny break and ended up at long pond with my beautiful producer husband <3. u have to wait to hear what we made there,,, butttt….. HATE TO BE LAME FT HARRY STYLES IS OUT NOWWWWW LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU

pinned yourinstagram: ps our faces when we cant figure out a chord progression 😭😭😭

comments on this post have been limited

charles_leclerc: Already streaming in the Ferrari garage!

> scuderiaferrari: charles_leclerc we can confirm 🫡

> yourinstagram: scuderiaferrari OMGGGGG MI FAMIGLIAAAAAA LOVE U

landonorris: party celebration for the surprise release when???

> yourinstagram: landonorris get podium this weekend and u can celebrate for us 🤗🤗🤗

billieeilish: crying again i love you guys

ynrrysweethearts: EEEEEK

niallhoran: Gnomeo and Juliet back and better than ever!

> harrystyles: Rude.

madisonbeer: ur literally perfect in every way goddd i miss u guys so much

> yourinstagram: madisonbeer we miss u our precious daughter

harrystyles: We’re so cute. I love us.

harrystyles: I love you times infinity. It makes sense that you’ll probably be my first and last feature. H Xxxx

> yourinstagram: first and last but a few more right 🥹🥹

daylightyn: our parents!!!!!

alexandrasaintmleux: my beautiful angel girlllll

> yourinstagram: alex my love i miss u to bits

francisca.cgomes: we miss u on the paddock sweet bby 💞

> yourinstagram: oh my god kika i miss u so much its a problem

——

liked by yourinstagram, niallhoran, and 9,266,166 others

harrystyles: HATE TO BE LAME. OUT NOW.

view all 78,189 comments

yourinstagram: 🤭🤭🤭

yourinstagram: love youuuuuuu so muchsies

> harrystyles: I love you moresies. Xx

yourinstagram: ok look at us being models

yourinstagram: am i hyping u up enough

> harrystyles: yourinstagram Yes. Fueling my ego.

yourinstagram: my precious baby angel sugar cookie muffin pie <3 <3

> harrystyles: You’re insane.

user1: MORESIES??????? WTF

user2: he just said moresies yn is influencing him too much 😭😭😭

> yourinstagram: user2 its my job!!!! 😁😁

user3: they’re both on the writing credits they prob wrote it together 😭😭😭

oscarpiastri: dad!!!!!!!!

> harrystyles: No. ❤️

user4: harry calling yn insane is so funny like hes def heard worse

user5: i love them so bad oh my god

user6: I DIDNT KNOW HARRY AND THE F1 BOYS WERE FRIENDS

> user7: yes!!! yn’s sister was a mechanic for ferrari and is now lando’s race engineer so they all get along really well!

yourinstagram: sorry im back here again WE R SO CUTEEEEEE

[tojiluv]

EYES DON’T LIE — choso kamo [chapter one]

﹟ description: IN WHICH a girl unwittingly becomes involved with a handsome stranger in a club, oblivious to his true identity of being in a famous boyband…OR IN WHICH you and Choso must conceal your secret meetings from your friends and his bandmates, especially from his younger brother and your best friend, Yuji.

warnings: none at the moment | words: 1,289

note: choso kamo x fem reader. available on wattpad —babyatsumu

"Is your brother finally back?"

With a radiant grin, Yuji vigorously nods, and his excitement is palpable from the gleam in his eyes. The news of his elder brother's return after almost two years apart has filled him with joy.

"He's been back for nearly two weeks, but he was staying at the hotel with the band to iron out some scheduling issues. He came home last night!" He exclaims, enthusiasm bubbling over.

Having completed your last class of the day, you step out of the door, and Yuji rushes towards you to share the exhilarating news. As you both make your way away from the building, you and Yuji decide to meet up with Megumi and Nobara at a cafe on campus to catch up on some homework.

You respond with a hum, reciprocating the grin on your friend's face. "That's wonderful news! What are your plans now that he's back?" Yuji leisurely walks beside you, arms casually behind his head, deep in thought about the possibilities. "Well, I don't know yet, but I think one of his bandmates is hosting a party this week to celebrate the success of the tour."

Hallow Domain – the boy band with a total of five members, Choso included. Yuji always mentions the band, but you never took the time to look them up, only catching a few songs that your best friend would insist you listen to. Their music suited your taste, appreciating any genre with a good beat and meaningful lyrics.

Yuji is their number one fan, especially with his older brother being an integral part of the group.

"A party, huh? Where's it going to be hosted?" you inquire, placing your bag on the table at the café before settling into your seat. Megumi and Nobara are already seated, papers scattered around them as they work, until the mention of 'party' catches their attention, one expressing interest and the other sighing.

"A party? Why wasn't I informed?" Nobara squeals, her papers losing priority.

Yuji chuckles awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. "Well, it's a celebration for my brother's band."

"Your brother is back?" Megumi asks before sighing, "That means Gojo is back, damn."

"What's wrong with Gojo?" you inquire.

Megumi shakes his head, "Everything. But mainly, he used to babysit me most of the time when my dad wasn't home, even though I was old enough to take care of myself. He always bothered me."

Yuji chuckles, "Well, Gojo is hosting the party at his house since it's the biggest."

Nobara narrows her eyes, clasping her hands under her chin as she scrutinizes their youngest friend. "Are we invited?"

"Well, I don't think—"

"You better get us an invite. No. Matter. What," she seethes out slowly, glaring as Yuji flinches before nodding quickly. You chuckle at the scene as you proceed to work on your project that is due soon, while the rest of the group engages in a lively discussion (mainly Yuji and Nobara) about the upcoming party until your name is mentioned.

"Maybe you'll finally get to meet Choso in person rather than hearing a bunch of nonsense stories from Yuji," Nobara states, grinning at you.

"Hey, they are really good stories!"

"Keep thinking that."

"Why you—"

It's true, though; you've never met Yuji's older brother since you became friends two years ago. Nobara and Megumi have already met Choso and the rest of the band due to their connections and having known Yuji since high school. You've met some of the bandmates, such as Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, as they had breaks in the middle of the tour for a couple of days. Still, every time you had the chance to meet Choso, something always came up that prevented the encounter.

Yuji has shown you pictures of the man, but they were pretty old, and apparently, Choso hated having his picture taken most of the time. Yet, the stories your best friend has shared have made you appreciate how Choso always prioritizes Yuji, especially being the only blood family he has left besides their deadbeat mother.

You shrug, "I doubt I could go, I have some homework to catch up on."

Nobara whines, "What? No, you have to go! It will be a lot of fun, and you'll regret not coming, come on!"

"You know she's right, homework is more important," Megumi comments lowly, his eyes focusing on his paper as Nobara glares at the Sea Urchin.

"Stay out of this, you're making it worse!"

He shrugged, not really caring for his remark, "I was just stating the facts."

Sighing, you know that Nobara won't let this go until you say yes, and you don't feel the energy to go, especially since you already went partying almost two weeks ago at a club with her and Maki. But the girl keeps begging, and you know she won't stop anytime soon, as you can see Megumi plugging his ears from the whining.

"Fine! I'll go, but please stop the begging," you exclaim, annoyance evident on your face from the pressure.

Nobara grins, sitting back down in her seat in victory with no complaints as the dark-haired male shakes his head at your response for losing your main focus.

"You will thank me later for this! Plus, you'll meet Choso, he's quite the looker, you know." She winks while Yuji scrunches up his face in disgust.

"That's my brother, don't say that stuff," he whines, covering his ears.

Nobara rolls her eyes, waving their friend's tantrum away. "What? That your brother is hot? It's just an observation."

"Yeah, a disgusting one at that! None of you can think like that about my brother, that's just weird and would be going behind my back," Yuji claims, shivering at the thought of one of his friends hooking up with his half-brother.

Chuckling, you place your hand over his in comfort, "Don't worry, Yuji. She's just making jokes, right Nobara?" The ginger rolls her eyes, "About him being attractive? Nope."

You glare, urging her to just resolve the issue.

"Yeah, yeah. That won't happen, relax, Pinky." Nobara sighs, looking at her pedicure without care. Yuji's eye twitches, "I told you to stop calling me Pinky!"

"Well, your hair is pink if you haven't noticed,"

"That's not what I mean!"

You and Megumi sigh, already annoyed with the constant arguing that happens at least once every day. Standing up from your seats and grabbing your bags, you both choose to ignore the bickering friends and decide to head out to focus better.

"They never will stop, will they?" You question, linking arms with the taller boy who shakes his head. "It's funny if you think there's a chance they ever will."

"Hey, don't leave us here!"

As you and Megumi walk away from the cafe, leaving behind the chaos of your friends' arguments, you can't help but laugh at the familiarity of their interactions. Despite the constant bickering, it's clear that your group shares a strong bond.

Megumi holds a ghost of a smile, glancing at you. "They're a handful, but I wouldn't trade them for anything."

You chuckle, "True. It's never a dull moment with them around."

As you stroll across the campus, the conversation shifts to the upcoming party. Megumi, always the reserved one, seems less enthusiastic about the idea of attending a celebration. However, you can't deny a slight sense of curiosity about meeting Yuji's older brother, Choso, in person.

"So, any tips on surviving a party hosted by Gojo?" you ask, raising an eyebrow.

Megumi sighs, "Prepare for chaos. Gojo knows how to throw a wild party. Just go with the flow and try not to get involved with any of the members."

Noted, you think.

⇽ meet the characters | chapter two ⇾

© 𝐭𝐨𝐣𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐯 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/18/2025

much like phil, i feel like i cannot quite ever get physically comfy this week. something is always not quite right.

listening: god save the queens by vienna vienna

reading: love's harvest by peggy j herring

watching: cinderella

playing: pokemon

making: return of the baby blanket

listening

im going to start out a little bit mean and say that this self-described glimmer rock song, God Save The Queens by Vienna Vienna, really shone in the ten-second social media clips i saw of its live version. the actual studio version sucks so much. and even the full version of the live version, i want it to me slightly different but in a way i cannot articulate. i am excited to see if other people start covering this in fun ways and maybe it'll be the rare song where i like the cover much more than the original.

I saw a man out in Hollywood He carried a sign that said he hated me I said, "Please, get in line" He stopped to ask me a question He said, "Do you know Christ?" I told him, "Maybe I do, does she work the nights?" He said, "No, I mean Jesus" I said, "That guy was tight But I'm not living in a city built upon your lies" He tried to save me, but somebody already did last night They said their name was Alex, baby, and they showed me the light

like here's the studio version. give us nothing i guess??? i think if you are going to sell merch with GOD SAVE THE F*GS censored out maybe you should say that in the studio version of your song. this is probably a label decision but i want this song to be about 15% less corporate sponsor of a pride parade than it is. i feel like this song got heavily edited from a first draft and i would have liked to hear that probably much angrier first draft. hell of a hook though.

-

reading

this gay and/or lesbian romance and/or erotica project is turning into a little bit of a slog, so with the gentle encouragement of @sybilius going "what if you read good books you enjoyed?" going forward we are going to try a novel of dubious quality from my shelf and an acclaimed queer novel from history in the hopes that one of them will be tolerable. so next week we have the dubious pairing of a mob girlfriend in WITSEC romantic thriller from my shelf, and Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe has just come off hold.

last week's assigned book was Heart on Fire, which was supposed to be even!! better!!! than Naiad Press's previous bestseller Curious Wine by Katherine V Forrest. so of course we had to detour to Curious Wine, which had a very short hold time.

reader, i did not finish this book. seven (7!) different women are introduced in the first chapter with almost no physical or clothing descriptions. they are all extremely mean to each other in the way older women who are dissatisfied with their life often sabotage all their relationships. i didn't have it in me to make a cheat card for myself with who the fuck each woman was, bc i expected somewhat lighter going in a contemporary romance with no extra genres tacked on top.

i am glad i did not continue bc while reading reviews everyone mentioned the Graphic On-Page Sexual Assault??? and this is still somehow every older lesbian's favorite book??? truly the times have changed.

Deep in the heart of France's majestic wine country, the sun drenched hills and lush vineyards of the Jeton family estate seem like the perfect setting for a passionate affaire de Coeur. But the life of workaholic winemaster, Nicole Jeton, is anything but romantic. From one harvest to the next, she runs the world-renowned winery, cares for her invalid father, and bails her no-good brother out of trouble—never stopping long enough to consider her own needs and desires. Until she meets the lovely Camille Cartier...

thank you girls. Love's Harvest by Peggy J Herring is one of the books acquired by Bella when they bought out part of Naiad Press. originally published in 1997, this 156p book was reprinted in 2007 with no additional changes or author's notes. it is the same quality as all the Bella reprints: a kind of terrible to hold perfect-bound softcover. i am beginning to suspect i simply do not vibe with the naiad and/or bella publishing market. i may not be their intended reader. im not really sure who their intended reader is, except maybe the 1997/2007 version of people who patiently comb through self-published kindle ebooks? what is the point of having a physical press and an editor if you can't make the line breaks and the quotation marks correct?

i couldn't find out much about Herring except that she died last summer and was part of her own tuesdaypost endeavor:

To further enhance communication within the women's community, [WomanSpace San Antonio] newsletter staff initiated a regular event known as Tuesday Night for discussing topics affecting women's lives. Topics ranging from real estate law to rape/incest were prepared for each Tuesday session. As ties to related community resources and events increased, the Tuesday Night events were superseded in 1995 by other events and meetings for the lesbian and gay community.

i did not like this book. such a wild amount of somewhat disjointed events take place during this novel and i really wish it was good. there is a for-real ghost, her great aunt killed by her grandfather and everyone just kind of shrugged about it??? that can dramatically interact with physical objects and STOPS A MURDER??? people are so calm about this ghost as a daily fact of life when there is exorcist level shit going on in the foreground. nicole has to cancel one of their weekend getaways bc the ghost is simply too on one and she can't figure out how to explain the ghost to camille, a presumably more normal outsider who presumably did not grow up with a ghost. the ghost is not the focal point of this book but it is by far the most interesting thing in the book.

this book felt like a barely fleshed outline. they go here. they do this. they see that. here is a great example of a section where i would have loved more elaboration in literally every sentence. the build up to this call and the call itself could have been a full chapter instead of half a page.

the least amount of dialogue i have maybe ever read in a book, and even fewer thoughts or feelings or interiority. the sex scenes read like stage direction. which is crazy bc they start fucking on page 42 and keep fucking every time they meet. they do NOT waste any time which was really refreshing. if only it was hot.

things mostly seem to happen to vineyard owner nicole— taking care of her dad (who dies quite early in the book) and the vineyard, her brother randomly shows up instead of her summoning him back to get some emotional closure (he doesn’t even show up for their father’s funeral), her gay bestie summons camille back after the third act breakup instead of nicole doing any emotional work and reaching out herself. everyone has at maximum one thing going on at a time that is neatly wrapped up before the next thing happens.

i think the 3.3 on goodreads is overly kind, but people seem to really love her other books so what do i know. maybe all these books ended up at the thrift bc their original owner was unlucky enough to somehow pick the worst book from each author and had to unload them.

-

watching

Cinderella (1950, dir. Geronimi, Jackson, and Luske) was on in the background while i was wrangling my bestie's children. probably the least scary (if you are not quite six or not quite two) disney princess movie. the bubble sequence makes me insane in a good way. i think this sort of thing is so easily replicated digitally that it looks unimpressive in 2025 but this shit is 75 years old!!! we were nineteen years away from landing on the fucking moon with a computer outpaced by my current microwave!!!

-

playing

having a real brain time with pokemon. i was gently bullied into playing the app two weeks ago by my best friend's husband after trying and failing multiple times to get into the actual video games, but after getting the 45 wins i needed to get the fanciest current event emblem i went ok great! i won pokemon! i am done with pokemon! and have sort of mentally checked it off in my head. anyway i loved my murkrow/toxicroak combo. loved to flip a coin. loved my darkness deck apparently.

the deck autobuild feature is really great bc i am able to basically hold my own while knowing nothing about pokemon other that what ive culturally osmosed. im assuming this is a pretty fun app if you like this sort of thing and your brain chemicals are balanced without outside assistance.

-

making

the baby i started this mint green baby blanket for is about to turn two in a couple weeks. better late than absolutely never i guess. my original notes called for 10 repeats but i think we're going to up that to 12, just finished the ninth repeat.

[the-gayest-show]

I wrote an Esteban fic!!

This thing has been in the works for a long time and God fucking damn it i am FINISHED!!! I HAVE RELEASED IT FROM ITS CAGE!!!!

Refer to the summary for what it's about (it took me so long to write it, i dont know how to summarize the shit i spent so long on i guess) but it's basically the AU that I created specifically for this story specifically for Esteban to suffer haha.

Under da cut if u wanna hear yapping bout this shit

I wanted to play with the idea of the following:

- Shuriki is BACK. I got this complete baller idea from a tumblr posts that I don't remember the contents of but I think it implied shuriki surviving the stuff from Song of the Sirenas

- Esteban and his fuckass trauma which i believe he has and drzone's stupid chart post changed me on this forever

- Panic attacks bc what better way to torture my fav than to have him break downnnn. Tried doing this in an unfinished Cedric (sofia the first) fic but my hyperfixation gave up before I could finish it. This one was kept alive by my incessant ordering of dvds, and I now own 3 elena of avalor dvds (bringing my collection of total dvds to a concerning 7)

- Francisco being the only one who forgave Esteban in the court sequence in The Magic Within. This is shown to us but I've always wanted to see a real in depth thing going for it. One last stand ya know?

This entire damn fic was me going "welp no one's supplying the stuff I wanna see so I gotta BE the vision."

Or like the stupid quote I see passing by a certain school every day states, "Be the You You Knew Was In You"

Yeah so I locked tf in nightly (all my best prose comes at night guys) and got this done. Some of the descriptions n shit im proud of.

I left the ending a bit open ended but I literally don't wanna write in this AU thing. Maybe I'll return to it in one way or another but this is a oneshot and you will not see a direct continuation unless somehow I flesh out a good idea for it. But I'm also a big fan of open ends so yeah

I tried to use one of the interesting formatting techniques for character thoughts that I'd only seen in Fahrenheit 451 when I read it, which is to leave it completely raw and unformatted. I think I'll keep doing that I love the appeal it gives the story

[dramaticpandabear]

I have never written fan fiction before, but I got so inspired by this song that I just had to write something. So, this is my first one and I hope you enjoy. Please let me know what you think! It’s Hancock x f!sole survivor.

God Only Knows

“You’re still messing with that thing?” said Hancock, watching with amusement as his vault-dwelling companion kept turning the dials on a beat-up radio. They were holed up in an abandoned, yet cozy, Red Rocket in front of Sanctuary Hills. The vault-dweller insisted on going to her “little hideaway” before Preston could bombard her with another settlement that needed helping.

And so, the two of them sat with a reprieve they seldom ever get, relishing it before they have to get going once more. The machine in her hands switched from a chorus of static to classical music to Travis’ stuttering and back to static once again.

“I swear it exists,” exclaimed his companion. “I heard it playing when I found an abandoned cabin not too far from Sanctuary. Apparently it’s called the “Old Gold” radio, and it plays music from before the war. Reminds me of when Nate and I--” She paused.

Opting to distract herself than deal with her grief, she directed her attention to the radio in front of her, turning the dials every which way hoping to find the elusive station. Every day she spent around Hancock it became easier to let those memories slip, but even she couldn’t bring herself to finish that sentence. Perhaps someday, but not today.

She could feel the ghoul’s eyes on her. The more they travel together, the better he gets at reading her every thought. Nevertheless, he decided not to push it as they fell into a comfortable silence.

Suddenly, the eclectic sound of an accordion mixed with a hypnotic beat starts blaring through the radio’s speakers. Hancock jolted for a moment -- he’s only ever heard Magnolia’s songs and the music Travis was able to salvage for his radio. But this, this was something else entirely.

“Finally! See, I told you it was real,” she exclaimed as he turned towards her. He saw her misty eyes, squinting nostalgically as though she could see the actual sound waves projecting from the radio in her hands. The sound of sweet, dulcet voices filled the air as they sang:

I may not always love you, but long as there stars above you…

Hancock took in a breath, and was about to ask, when she beat him to it. “It’s the Beach Boys,” she said in a daze, mesmerized as though she couldn’t believe she was hearing a song from before the world burned before her.

…You never need to doubt it, I’ll make you so sure about it…

“God, I haven’t heard this song in years!” he smirked but just before he could make a quip, she hit his shoulder playfully. Although he could read her thoughts pretty well, she easily did the same for him.

“Don’t you start with that crap. I may be 210 years old, but at least I don’t have any wrinkles, unlike some people,” she started as she shot a mischievous look his way.

“You’re right on that one Sunshine,” he replied with a raspy laugh on his lips. “I guess being frozen for all that time works wonders on the skin.”

“Oh absolutely, dermatologists hate me,” she quipped as he lightly chuckled despite not knowing what the fuck a dermatologist is. Turning back to listen to the music before her, she steeled herself with a deep sigh. “Last time I heard this was the night before Nate was deployed to Alaska. He asked me if I could dance with him.”

As she spoke, Hancock looked at her -- really looked at her. Somehow the sun shined just right as it hit her chestnut hair, casting a golden glow as she faced the radio. Although her eyes dulled with melancholy as she reminisced, he still caught the way her body swayed ever so slightly to the music, almost as if she were living inside that memory.

For a while now, they’ve been dancing around each other, both knowing they were beyond friendship at this point. Hancock knew she missed her husband dearly, but she expressed long ago that she’s ready to move on. And yet, neither of them has made the first move towards something more.

As the song entered into a (from what he considered) quirky instrumental section, Hancock figured that it was either now or never. He stood from the couch and approached her with his hand extended.

“I don’t come close to the man he was, but, if you don’t mind this ghoul before you,” and the way his black eyes gazed so tenderly into hers almost made her heart burst, rendering her speechless. “May I have this dance?”

Blinking up at him, all she could do was nod as she placed her hand in his. They began to lightly sway, coming closer as instruments were joined by carefree voices. As the music swelled, Hancock twirled her around as more words surrounded them.

…God only knows what I’d be without you. If you should ever leave me…

He spun her around so that her back was pressed against his as they continued to sway. He listened closely to these words as he looked down at her pensively. Her eyes were closed, basked in that gorgeous glow of sunlight. She looked like pure sunshine -- his sunshine.

…The world could show nothing to me, so what good would living do me…

This enchanting song was echoing the words he held deep in his heart. Words he wished he could say to her, but never felt he could. After all, who would want to spend their lives loving a ghoul such as him?

And yet, here she was -- his sunshine nestled warmly in his arms. Dancing in this abandoned Red Rocket as though it were a slice of Heaven on Earth and that the Commonwealth’s troubles didn’t exist. Hancock never thought he deserved such bliss, and as he spun her to face him, her soft voice nearly swept him off his feet as he heard her singing along with the music:

…God only knows what I’d be without you…

Hancock basked in the sight before him. Her lidded eyes were peering right into his, and he could feel her light breath as she whispered those words. Now, he’s never sang in his life, but something about this moment gave him the confidence he needed to sing these lyrics that echoed the words in his heart. As the song slowed, he gave the main melody a try with a raspy voice that was slightly off-key. But every word echoed his sincere feelings for her, pure and utter devotion poured out for her. And it was music to her ears.

…God only knows what I’d be without you.”

The chorus of voices repeated these words, blurring together as the music surrounded them in a haze. Hancock slowly inched his face closer to hers until they finally met in the middle. Never did he taste such a kiss so sweet that it made Sugar Bombs sour by comparison.

As they embraced the music continued to swell around them as if it was the sound of their own hearts singing to each other. Hancock wasn’t even sure if he deserved her, but in his mind he was silently thanking these so-called “Beach Boys” for giving him the chance to finally have her in his arms. Their kiss grew deeper as he felt an ecstasy that no chem could come close to achieving.

Even as the song made its eventual end, the pair made no effort to stop as the radio played another melody. Who knew they could ever reach perfection in the middle of a wasteland?

[auxxrat]

mother, where have you buried all your children?

Hi everyone !! this is a really quick oneshot that I just had to write out. I'll probably expand on it later, but !! had to get it out. my pookies gave me the idea so :>

I hope u enjoy it !!

the throat singing is inspired by this song from Avatar, bc I think it's beautiful and it emotionally moves me.

Tags !!

angst, shaak ti, delta squad

The Jedi believe that everyone is tied together within the Force. That no matter what, our souls remain connected, no matter how far apart. And once someone’s gone, they disappear from the Force completely—a noticeable wound—the feeling of emptiness. 

That was all Shaak Ti knew now: the waves of dread, the feeling of a hole punched through her chest, the knowledge that they were never coming home. Each clone had their own song, each verse and chorus an achievement or milestones reached. 

But every song had to have a last verse. 

Too many bodies came home. Sometimes the only thing that can be salvaged is a piece of armor, anything–just to take home and bury properly. These funerals could only be held at certain times when the storms of Kamino calmed their rage and the waves dulled. What was left of the fallen was decorated with the highest of honor.

The faces of the dead were painted, gifts given for the crossover into whatever waited after this life. The clones had to believe in something. 

Goodbyes were said as the eldest of them carried the bodies down to the depths of Kamino, where the platforms lowest to the sea hung. Everyone gathered, solemn faces, many hidden by helmets. The waves may have settled but the rain didn’t, it pelted down against armor and skin, matting the clones’ dark hair onto their foreheads. 

Shaak and Appo stood at the front while Delta Squad led the line of bodies. There were no voices as the bodies were set down, even the smallest of clones had the harshest glares. The rain didn't ease up, streaming down Shaak’s face in replacement of tears. She could not cry. 

Boss made eye contact with her as he set down the last body. But it would never be the last body; they both knew that. There were so many brothers here, so many pieces of them. When is it going to be enough? How many more need to die for this great plan? They both asked each other with their eyes only. 

Even now, Shaak could feel their bodies dropping. She could feel every single one dying, it didn't let up, not even when she was supposed to be burying them. 

Boss joined the small group at the front, while the rest of Delta worked on lifting the first coffin onto their shoulders. He joined the small group of boys, standing beside them, serving as an example. Backs straight, you're honoring your brothers. 

He began a guttural, pain-filled throat song, projecting their mourning for the Universe to hear. The boys joined in depending on how high or low their voices were, but the song was all the same. 

It was something deeper than pain, deeper than loss. They sang that pain through their chests, crying out in beautiful octaves. Boss’ voice ran deep towards the end, drawing out a long cry as the last body was cast into the roaring sea. Deliver them to somewhere better than here.  At the end of their long cry, there was silence again, the rain sounding like bullets on the metal of the platform. Shaak Ti and Boss made eye contact again, and this time Shaak was crying; eyebrows tied into a knot as the rain poured down her face. How many more are going to die before this is over?

Read it on AO3!!!

[ran-orimoto]

• { Iniziando da capo una tempesta nella testa } Restarting again from a brainstorm •

[ LMAO I said I would put my effort in writing and I did it. I put my butt on gear and kept the promise, -because I had already broken one, so I didn’t want to risk to make the same mistake twice in a row-. Now, if I could adopt the same attitude to write my bachelor thesis, I would be the happiest in the world, so once I cross publish this here, off I’ll go⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️. I believe in me! ]

[ Context: Junpei and Izumi met again in Parma four months ago and have started hearing from each other more often. The calls Izumi shares with him and Takuya instill in her a sense of nostalgia that takes her back to Italy sooner than the boys had expected. She couldn’t miss a snowy trip to Val di Fassa organized by a Kouji who could have never imagined he would spend holidays with the whole group.

The story is set during San Silvestro, on the 31st of January, or better, some minutes after it because anything can happen in the first beats of a new year, even to Junpei. ]

XXX

“I like this song, y’know? It would be nice to go dancing it together, eh eh.”

“Va bene! What a great idea, it will be fun!”

…

Every spell was meant to wear off at the stroke of midnight and his, whatever it had consisted in, hadn’t been an exception. However, he hadn’t been warned by the usual, sumptuous bells of a clocktower, but by the screech typical of a CD that has been abruptly interrupted, so by one of those awful noises that could really spoil even the best weather.

And yet, the music had kept on going, indifferent to the lancinating stridor never ending in his ears, to the stasis it had frozen his mind in despite thick pillows and big stoves, to the wince of slight fear he welcomed, once he gulped at what had sounded like the first heart pulse he had ever heard in his life.

Confused and disoriented in his own world and skin now that the enchantment had taken off, without even giving him the chance to ask for a little, if not minuscule, concession. After all, it wasn’t like he would have praid for the miracle of a reverting night, of stars spinning backwards to disappear behind Val di Fassa’s mountaintops, of the Moon diving in some dark lake like a biscuit dipped in a mug of chocolate. He would have simply settled for just a crumb of what it had stolen away from him too soon. All that boldness, recklessness, that hint of arrogance too which would often often fog the meaning of life in the mind of some during the first hours of the new year.

It was a special kind of nonsense inebriety coming after having gobbled down one or two drops of Teroldego or having left a glass of spumante full to the brim on the table. It would allow people to do what they would never do in other occasions, because it would bring along an accentuated sensitivity to the flow of time, the dash of the years, the succession of the songs.

It was the common sight of the shadow mounds of grey swabs project on Earth.

So, yeah, he guessed things might have gone a bit differently. Endowed with those special gifts, guided by such a magic and urged by the awareness it wouldn’t last forever, he would have grabbed that hand at once. And , maybe, he would have also managed to look into the eyes of a beautiful cyclone without pushing his gaze downwards, not certainly at the level of those fingers and their flashes of violet, but even more downwards, on his thighs which his palms had attached themselves to with a refound stickiness.

“ Su !” Izumi exclaimed and he could only reply through an awkward chuckle, reaching out to try dragging her along with him, down into a dive in his universe of perplexity and bubbles transforming certainties into ambiguities.

Thus, he soon felt her arm hesitantly pulling away, then her parting from him with some steps backwards taken on her ticking boots. By doing so that rapidly, she gave him the impression of a gradual suck of air draining him of the freshness of the still distant spring, with the consequence that he got left inert in the asphyxiating embrace of his body’s heat.

Fortunately, she spoke again as soon as she returned onto her seat, in front of her coca cola and its munched straw, at the opposite end of the table…Or so he believed she had, at least, not expecting he would find himself stranded below a marine sky having just opened above the Alps like an unexpected aurora borealis.

“Oh, I see,” After having occupied the chair Kouichi had been on, until he, - the quiet, sober Kouichi in the flesh!-, had been incredibly persuaded by Takuya and Kouji, and Tomoki too, to join them for another toast, she seeked for satisfying comfort in the sinuosity of a contorted pose. With her head resting on her knuckles and bending to a side to follow the slope of her lips, she giggled through an echo of embarassment which he was so used to seeing on the reflection of his face, in the opaque mirror of a bottle, but he wasn’t when it came to hers at all. “I think I got carried away by the general excitement. You weren’t serious, were you?”

There might be a pinch of irony in the fact that for the whole duration of that dinner, that one had been the only instant he had spotted clarity in both words and thoughts, and the mere reason what that she was right…Like always, needless to specify that.

Actually, when he put a certain amount of effort in picturing a dimension in which he had brought himself to accept her invitation, - as if he hadn’t been the one who had invited her in a first place!-, he gasped at the realization he had no idea how that story would have unfolded next.

From experience, some sixth sense whispering from inside his chest reassured him he would have made a fool of himself. Therefore, he immediately grimaced at the fantasy of a nightmare dotted with stutters, forced coughs and sneezes, hands rubbed against the checkered feast of yellow on his waistcoat as, of course, they would have grown so sweaty at invisible touches grazing the rosy fabric of a pretty winter dress. Oh, and a final, sonorous face-plant that couldn’t miss to coronate the performance, one drawing the attention of everyone present the hotel hall after having spoiled their jubilation.

In truth, he couldn’t remember a single party during which he had ever messed up that terribly. Indeed, he couldn’t really remember a party during which he had messed up in a first place and hadn’t attracted each single spotlight over him. He had also danced with his fellow sopranos during the celebrations of their successes and he hadn’t only managed to carry out the delightful task brilliantly, but he had also taken their squeals away by putting on display his surprising skills, -and for the record, those were the words of the ladies in question!-.

Still, when it came to Izumi, he was aware it would be totally different. Everything was in her company…Especially the reliable, confident, eloquent, gallant young man he had grown into, that person she hadn’t regrettably got to meet yet in those four months of frequent videocalls. He had hoped she would in those days of holiday in the cold Trentino, but she hadn’t had that luck over there, either. On the contrary, she had stayed by the clumsy Junpei’s side for the whole time, included on those occasions he had slipped on ice and had created impromptu snow angels by frantically agitating his limbs out of frustration.

Honestly. What the hell was I even thinking!?

A little overwhelmed, he sighed and gave up on controlling his shoulders’ resigned sagging: his brain seemed to want to work only to sabotage his plans, or better, him himself. Staring at the glass in front of him, he decided to finally pick it up, but he did just to fiddle with its content, make the precious liquid rotate, generate little waves that failed to make the foam on its surface fade at each lap.

“ Now that you’ve asked me, I’m not sure whether I was or not.”

Nevertheless, he still attempted to clean the one floating on his conscience, though he made sure to occasionally send strained laughters in Izumi’s direction, certainly not as fleeting as only hers could be. Actually, the very first of them, already heavy and lumbering, ended up dwelling on her flickering petals for more seconds than he had planned, waiting for them to completely open and uncover the majestic scenario from before. When he forced it to hastily return on that thin, transparent edge off which it was easy to fall in the thick mist stretching below, he felt like something had changed but his absent focus couldn’t seem to want to sharpen that perception.

“I had figured as much, but I didn’t want to make assumptions. It…Would have been rude to let your words hang like that. So, I came and tried.”

“Had you because you believe I can’t dance?” However, since those lilac buds could open the door to the only place in which he was convinced he could retrieve the transparency he had been longing for, that’s where that smirk went back, plunging the tip of its curve in alcohol just to be carried away by the tide, in a journey through libeccios, lightnings and, inevitably, thunders.

As soon as he woke up on a dreamy shore, the sensation that something was so different from what it had been lately came before the one of pinkies twitching, dim colours reigniting, gusts of a strong breeze whistling. “Eh eh, that wouldn’t have been rude at all. Many think I can’t dance and, I mean, I can’t blame them: I’m aware I hardly look like someone who can.”

“I have no reason to have got doubts. Many, me included, also believed you weren’t able to sing, and yet…?”

Then, he sat up, no matter where he exactly did, whether on humid sand or his chair, because in both dream and reality he eventually smiled at the crystallinity of a clean sky, though in the latter he didn’t with with the immense relief of a castway, but with the goofy grin only Junpei could crack.

Especially at Izumi.

“And yet what ah ah…?”

“Don’t act as if it’s hard to predict what I was implying,” She retorted in a steady tone while hugging her torso, her natural frankness making him lose teasing duels before they even began. Yet, probably unluckily to her, it was right because her orbs were soaked in so much honesty that they themselves betrayed her, by showing him new unusual signs of that shyness his ears had previously been tickled by. “And whatever, who cares if you’re also decent at dancing, right? The song you said you like finished ages ago.”

Never stopping staring at each other like if they had been condemned to live as statues together, they blinked in unison as they listened to the slow duet that was currently advancing in the heart of the room.

“ Oh mio Dio ,” Izumi trusted her giggles with her comment. She didn’t add anything else, except a millimeter of tongue she promptly hid behind her hand.

“Yeah, you can absolutely say that,” His amused reply followed immediately afterwards, babbling about opinions that hadn’t been phrased, -and to him, they had never needed to be for their gist to be grasped-. “It’s from a cult movie I watched as a teen. It’s mushy, but I remember it gets very catchy as it progresses.”

While diverting his pupils from her after what had felt like so long, no desire for more determination, courage, impulsiveness, stupidity and whatever else you could add as ingredient for an illusion ever crossed his mind. There was only he and the dear struggle of imagining her hand in his, of trying again and, like that, a spell that had never existed, one which, most all, he had never needed, definitely broke. If he had asked her once, he could do it for a second time, glueing his nose on the same wood, taking the same deep breath, inhaling in the same warmth, pronouncing the same stammering question.

More or less.

“I-I like this song. Just a bit, though, I promise I’m not sentimental! It would be nice if, y’know, we could-“

“Go dancing it together?”Actually, she cut him short, and happy as he was, he allowed himself to get persuaded she had completed his sentence not because she had already heard it, she had been invited to dance twice, but because she had got the glimpse of pure honesty in his ponds of honey as well. And…Maybe, why not, of something else too, which poured red wine she had never tasted in her cheeks.

“Uh, y-yes! Exactly!”

He stood up as soon as he felt smooth velvet caressing his palm, tenderly mocking her intention of lifting his big size. Still, he allowed himself to be led to the dance floor by her as if he was as light as a feather, free from all his trivial worries, futile complexes.

Marching, clapping, spinning and rumbling next to that tornado she was, he wondered if someday he might come to find limpidity in the tempest they could assemble together, in the clouds of a storm.

But for now he, indeed, they would go on dancing, not wanting to waste further time, other seconds of that night, another single song from that party.

XXX

Buon anno, Junpei. Buon anno, Izumi. Buon anno a tutti noi!

Because, of course, I wish you all spent a good beginning of this promising 2025, -we always have to hope in good things!-.

Italian notes (not many this time, another present!)

• I want to start from a note about the title, as here come they, the beautiful language gaps. Brainstorm, which I ‘ve found an ideal term for what is happening in Junpei’s mind for well-known reasons, is not a term I can translate in italian with the same “pun”. We have got nothing similar here, so I had to be lamer in my own language merely replacing it with a simple “Tempest in the head”. However, I love how the whole thing sound in my head tbh. I love the random rhyme (I hadn’t planned it lmaoooo).

• Va bene!: The longer, italian “ OK! “ In my head it sounds like the same Izumi pronounced at him in Train of Hope, when he tells her he has got a present… *puts thousand of heart emoticons *.

• Val Di Fassa: A valley of Dolomiti, mountain groups dominating the Eastern Alps. Val di Fassa is precisely in Trentino, in its north-east.

• Teroldego: red wine typical of Trentino. The end. Ah listen, I don’t drink just like the Izumi of my stories, so I know nothing about this stuff, even if my father is a wine sommelier lol. Now that I think about it, I could ask him about more details tomorrow.

• Su!: Common exhortation to push someone to do something. A bit like c’mon…?

• “Oh mio Dio”: Oh my God. It’s always that, but I don’t want to skip any clarification despite repetitions among chapters.