#experimental linguistics
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neevedicampelli · 2 years ago
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When the lights go out
When the lights go out What will we see? When our true self’s come out And the darkness run free Humanities true nature unleashed We bin driving through the night You, on the passenger’s seat Cowering and hugging your knees I can see the fear But you be following my lead We bin driving past the trees Through the mountains Away from the riots in the streets The last step for humankind this’…
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galacticsand · 8 months ago
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Movelang #001 - Phonology and Sound System
Nophhurra, and hello again everyone! It's time for another post showing off my experimental conlang, Movelang! This time around, I'll be going over Movelang's sound system: the consonants and vowels used, along with a currently loosely-defined syllable structure, as well as allophony!
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Admittedly, the Phonology has been one of the aspects of Movelang which has been altered several times over, and has gone through several iterations before reaching the point at which it exists in the present. Since the emphasis for this conlang was moreso on grammar than on the phonoaesthetic, I had largely loosely defined it at the start, with only a vague idea of what Movelang would sound like. At the start, I took a lot of inspiration from the Coptic Language, as well as several African and Caucasian Languages. Later on as I began being more deterministic about the phonetic inventory of the language, it did change from this original vision in several ways, but I ended up ultimately with something I really like!
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(My charts tend to prioritize neatness over exactness, so if there's a sound somewhere that doesn't exactly describe it completely correctly, please don't fight me 😭)
Phonemically, the consonant inventory consists of 2 nasals, 15 plosives, 4 fricatives, 2 liquids, and 1 tap. The plosives are split three ways by mode of articulation, where 5 stops are unaspirated: /p t t͡ɕ k q/, 5 stops are aspirated: /pʰ tʰ t͡ɕʰ kʰ qʰ/, and 5 are voiced: /b d d͡ʑ g ɢ/. Each mode of articulations contains a labial, dento-alveolar, palatal, velar, and uvular stop respectively. This was a choice inspired by both Ancient Greek, as well as the Coptic and Caucasian influence I mentioned earlier, and in an earlier version of the phonology, the palatal affricates were instead alveolar affricates: /t͡s t͡sʰ d͡z/. Accompanying the stops are 4 fricatives that roughly match 4/5 of the same manners of articulation: /s ɕ x ħ/. These were selected mainly for that reason, that they lie in the same POA as their stop counterparts, but I decided to throw in an oddball for the fricative furthest towards the back of the mouth. Originally, this was /h/ phonemically, but I was intrigued by Maltese's presence of /ħ/ as the sole voiceless fricative closest to the back of the mouth, so I decided to do this for Movelang, and I do love how it sounds! I personally think /x/ and /ħ/ pair nicely with each other! The Approximants and Nasals then weren't that hard to reckon, I simply filled in the gaps in the chart respectively. When I got to my /l/ sound though, I decided to make this a little bit different as well, and follow the lead of Mongolian, and make it /ɮ/ instead. I also made the decision to omit /w/ or any similar sound, since I have a habit of using this sound a lot whenever I make new sound systems, as a bit of a monkey-wrench to try and make myself work with.
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For Allophony, most of this deals with the pronunciation of consonants. There are 3 major rules that come into effect when pronouncing consonants in particular places within a word. First, the nasals, /m n/, devoice to /m̥ n̥/ whenever they are preceded by a syllable that has an aspirated plosive in the coda, any of /pʰ tʰ t͡ɕʰ kʰ qʰ/. Secondly, /ɮ/ may devoice to /ɬ/ when next to any voiceless sound: a voiceless plosive or fricative. Finally, the alveolar tap /ɾ/ becomes trilled /r/ when it is geminated. These rules as you'll notice mostly depend on a sound's locale within a syllable, which I'll explain in greater detail when discussing syllable structure...
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As for the vowels, these are quite simple. Movelang consists of seven phonemic vowels, which compliment the front and the back of the mouth. Movelang contains no phonemic length, tone, nasality, or anything else that would affect vowel quality in this way, at least phonemically, and only has these 7 plain oral vowels. There are 3 front vowels: /ɛ e i/, all of which are unrounded, and 4 back vowels: /ɑ ɔ o u/, all of which are rounded, except for the open back vowel.
In terms of vowel allophony, nothing really major happens to vowels. The only major rule which takes place with vowels, is that /ɑ/ goes to /a/ when near a palatal sound.
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Additionally, the syllable shape in Movelang is pretty straightforward, it's pretty much CVC, but with a few additional caveats. The main difference, is that /j/ cannot be a coda consonant, which is reflected by the use of D for the coda consonant in my syllable shape notation, and additionally, only 6 consonants can end a word: /m t k q s r/, which is reflected by the use of K for a word-final coda consonant.
In addition to these tactical features, hiatus is permitted in Movelang, meaning that the onset consonant in syllables is optional even word-internally, and when this happens, the parallel vowels flow together smoothly, rather than having some epenthetic consonant placed between them, like a glottal stop. Gemination also happens quite frequently in Movelang, especially in compounds, and it is under these circumstances when /j/ technically can appear in the coda of a syllable, but only as a part of a geminate /j:/.
=-=-=-=
Alright! Well, that's pretty much it for phonology, at this point I'm going to try and stick to this phonology and not impulsively change it again, but knowing me, I can't make any promises XD. I hope you all enjoyed this look at the sound system! I look forward to posting some lexical samples in the next post, with these sounds intact, where I'll be showing you Movelang's class system in action! More on that later of course... Until then, I look forward to it, and I hope you all enjoyed this post! If you all have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment, or an ask!
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nomorethanaboy · 2 days ago
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INTRO POST!!!!
Hi, I’m Moishe! I’m seventeen and I’m like an artist and I really like classic rock+Dennis Cooper+Gregg Araki+old technology!!!
I’ll probably post a lot of my photography, writing and collage art, as well as nonsensical ramblings about both my more intellectual interests and my more fandom-adjacent interests!
Specific fandom-related things include but are not limited to
Mysterious Skin
The George Miles Cycle
Early Bob Dylan
Simon&Garfunkel+solos
The Beatles
The Goldfinch
Stephen King’s IT, Pet Sematary and Carrie
DMS OPEN ALWAYS!!
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immaterial-pearl · 10 months ago
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Looking for mutuals follow me if you are:
someone with psychosis who mostly finds good representation of their experiences in literature (read Steppenwolf and also Burnt Sugar);
a Hatsune Miku collector;
a fan of music that your mother would consider "just noise";
someone whose favourite term to describe their gender is transfag;
really into surreal elements in film;
obsessed with linguistics and etymology;
a fan of eroticising catholicism;
someone who at any point wanted to blow this whole website up for what it does to female characters (I WILL AVENGE YOU SHIV ROY);
still using halloween tumblr colour schemes;
a lover of modern art;
a metaphorical dog;
constantly thinking about how Revolutionary Girl Utena is a fundamental text that everyone interested in queer approaches to cisheteronormative structures should watch (but also please read/watch non-fiction texts about these topics this is good for developing personal connections to these ideas but it's worth learning more about it in practice).
I mostly post silly fandom stuff right now, but I'm thinking about posting more of my serious art and analisis on here, but first I want to make new friends who share my interests and experiences (or maybe have a completely different life who knows).
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solipseismic · 3 months ago
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have we read in stubborn is (of hopeful of) by alix anne shaw because we should all read in stubborn is (of hopeful of) by alix anne shaw
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blueheartbookclub · 10 months ago
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"Navigating the Labyrinth: James Joyce's Ulysses and the Odyssey of the Human Mind"
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James Joyce's "Ulysses" stands as a formidable literary labyrinth, a narrative tour de force that immerses readers in the intricate complexities of the human experience. Published in 1922, this modernist masterpiece has carved a unique niche in the literary landscape, challenging and captivating readers with its avant-garde style and profound exploration of the ordinary. In "Ulysses," Joyce transforms a single day in the life of three characters—Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, and Molly Bloom—into an epic journey through the streets of Dublin, mirroring the structure of Homer's "Odyssey."
The novel unfolds with a linguistic prowess that is both daunting and exhilarating. Joyce's stream-of-consciousness technique weaves a tapestry of thoughts, memories, and sensory impressions, capturing the ever-shifting landscapes of the characters' minds. The use of multiple narrative styles, rich symbolism, and a kaleidoscope of allusions creates a literary symphony that challenges traditional notions of storytelling. "Ulysses" is not merely a novel; it is an immersive experience that demands active engagement from the reader.
Joyce's audacious experimentations with language are mirrored in his deep exploration of the mundane aspects of daily life. The seemingly trivial events of June 16, 1904, become a canvas on which Joyce paints a vivid portrait of humanity, exploring themes of love, identity, sexuality, religion, and the passage of time. Each episode is a microcosm reflecting the broader human condition, and Joyce's unflinching gaze transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.
While "Ulysses" has earned its reputation as a challenging read, its difficulty is intrinsic to its brilliance. The novel's complexity mirrors the complexity of life itself, and its deliberate departure from traditional narrative structures invites readers to actively participate in the creation of meaning. As one navigates the labyrinth of Joyce's prose, the reward is not just in deciphering the text but in the profound insights gained about the nature of existence.
The legacy of "Ulysses" extends beyond its literary merits. It has become a touchstone for scholars, inspiring countless interpretations, analyses, and even an annual celebration known as Bloomsday. Joyce's work has influenced subsequent generations of writers, challenging them to push the boundaries of storytelling and language. The novel's impact is a testament to its enduring relevance, transcending time and cultural shifts.
In conclusion, "Ulysses" is a literary odyssey that invites readers to embark on a journey of self-discovery and intellectual exploration. Joyce's intricate narrative, linguistic virtuosity, and profound thematic scope make it a work that continues to resonate with those willing to navigate its intricate passages. While challenging, "Ulysses" stands as a testament to the limitless possibilities of literature, proving that within the labyrinth of complexity lies a rich tapestry of human experience waiting to be unraveled and understood.
James Joyce's "Ulysses" is available in Amazon in paperback 17.99$ and hardcover 25.99$ editions.
Number of pages: 482
Language: English
Rating: 9/10                                           
Link of the book!
Review By: King's Cat
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beyondthetemples-ooc · 1 year ago
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(To further confuse everyone: Should we tell them about the American English muffin?)
settling a debate, reblog for reach
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parse-c · 7 months ago
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Nuclear Energy
ىة ي ن و ىه ا ىة ن قًز ينةم ىةنوًىة
‏Nuclear energy
It’s only now I realize it’s precede by a phonetic equivalent of “agape” so they’re adhering to the Christian principle of letting all that you do be done in love.
Or I was; I am that one who typed it. It’s really snarky and ironic that the rest of what I typed was sub Spanish for “is equal to that of the USA.” Started out as a post on water.
On the sly, wherever the programmers are located they said hey. We’ve got something equal to the United States too.
Time passed, things cooled down. And whatever this was became a little playful. And that’s what im going to show you.
This: ‏‎ىةيً نوى زرنقً ز ى ة ن وً ى ة
now translates as “this is a zircon nuclei”
An earlier version, below, is a credible enough guide, made proven by the end of this schpiel.
So, let’s get after it:
‎‏‎ىةيً نوى زرنقً ز ى ة ن وً ى ة
This is a blue nuclei
Despite the plurality of nucleus (nuclei), this contains calligraphic alliants:
‎ز ى ة ن وً ى ة
identifiable reps of“Os”, and “Gu”.
Os is the old Norse word for their supreme God, represented by the rune ᚩ.
Gu is Chinese (古) meaning “ancient,” though they referred to G-D as Shen.
Then there’s a second appearance of “Os” and a similar letter to “j” I can’t explain.
Anyways here the numbers I got from attempting to recombine the digits, using Hebrew and Greek numeric values. Aiming for either RGB or CMYK color coordinates.
‎ز ى ة ن وً ى ة
11, 28, 16, 25, 27, 28, 16
112, 81, 62 | 52, 72, 81
120, 162, 52 | 71, 81, 6
11, 28, 16 | 252, 72, 81
As you can see it took me a few tries.
Kept ending up with leftovers. Then i tried using the prompt as a guide.
Plenty of word play. So I had to get a little more creative.
For example, subjectively the word “This” triggers Arabic “hisan” for me, meaning horse. I once had a paranormal experience resulting in a picture of a blue horse. So I knew to tally the values of the word “this” and plug ‘em in.
I came up with a working schedule.
R: 61
B: 81
G : 152
Key: 45
Cyan : 161
Magenta : 28
Yellow : 27
Ended up scrapping some of the coordinates because they altered the color harmfully once id reached the prespecified destination.
Life’s like that sometimes. Sometimes we have to scrap blind obedience in favor of balance and accord with earlier wishes and what we feel to be right rather than what we are told is right.
Anyways, the key alters the previously entered coordinates. But here’s the hex code: #384a8c.
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It’s a beautiful hue of almost an indigo-blue.
Well, thanks for reading. I’ll keep y’all update on more of the universe’s less-than-subtle cues.
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blueheartbooks · 10 months ago
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"Navigating the Labyrinth: James Joyce's Ulysses and the Odyssey of the Human Mind"
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James Joyce's "Ulysses" stands as a formidable literary labyrinth, a narrative tour de force that immerses readers in the intricate complexities of the human experience. Published in 1922, this modernist masterpiece has carved a unique niche in the literary landscape, challenging and captivating readers with its avant-garde style and profound exploration of the ordinary. In "Ulysses," Joyce transforms a single day in the life of three characters—Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, and Molly Bloom—into an epic journey through the streets of Dublin, mirroring the structure of Homer's "Odyssey."
The novel unfolds with a linguistic prowess that is both daunting and exhilarating. Joyce's stream-of-consciousness technique weaves a tapestry of thoughts, memories, and sensory impressions, capturing the ever-shifting landscapes of the characters' minds. The use of multiple narrative styles, rich symbolism, and a kaleidoscope of allusions creates a literary symphony that challenges traditional notions of storytelling. "Ulysses" is not merely a novel; it is an immersive experience that demands active engagement from the reader.
Joyce's audacious experimentations with language are mirrored in his deep exploration of the mundane aspects of daily life. The seemingly trivial events of June 16, 1904, become a canvas on which Joyce paints a vivid portrait of humanity, exploring themes of love, identity, sexuality, religion, and the passage of time. Each episode is a microcosm reflecting the broader human condition, and Joyce's unflinching gaze transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.
While "Ulysses" has earned its reputation as a challenging read, its difficulty is intrinsic to its brilliance. The novel's complexity mirrors the complexity of life itself, and its deliberate departure from traditional narrative structures invites readers to actively participate in the creation of meaning. As one navigates the labyrinth of Joyce's prose, the reward is not just in deciphering the text but in the profound insights gained about the nature of existence.
The legacy of "Ulysses" extends beyond its literary merits. It has become a touchstone for scholars, inspiring countless interpretations, analyses, and even an annual celebration known as Bloomsday. Joyce's work has influenced subsequent generations of writers, challenging them to push the boundaries of storytelling and language. The novel's impact is a testament to its enduring relevance, transcending time and cultural shifts.
In conclusion, "Ulysses" is a literary odyssey that invites readers to embark on a journey of self-discovery and intellectual exploration. Joyce's intricate narrative, linguistic virtuosity, and profound thematic scope make it a work that continues to resonate with those willing to navigate its intricate passages. While challenging, "Ulysses" stands as a testament to the limitless possibilities of literature, proving that within the labyrinth of complexity lies a rich tapestry of human experience waiting to be unraveled and understood.
James Joyce's "Ulysses" is available in Amazon in paperback 17.99$ and hardcover 25.99$ editions.
Number of pages: 482
Language: English
Rating: 9/10                                           
Link of the book!
Review By: King's Cat
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crristinaa-level6 · 11 months ago
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Specialist Practice
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howdoesone · 1 year ago
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How does one investigate the relationship between morphology and syntax in a language?
Morphology and syntax are two fundamental branches of linguistics that are concerned with the study of the structure and organization of language. While morphology deals with the study of the internal structure of words, syntax is concerned with the study of the structure of phrases and sentences. Both branches are interconnected and have a significant influence on the meaning and interpretation…
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galacticsand · 9 months ago
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Movelang #000 - Introduction to the Language and Noun Class System
Nophhurra, my friends! Today I begin a series of posts showcasing an experimental conlang that I've been working on now and tinkering with for just over a year. At the moment, this language does not have a name in-conlang, and so I'll be referring to it for the time being by the language's project name "Movelang". Originally this language came about as the result of an idea that I wanted to experiment with in a conlang, and the language has since solidified and expanded in more ways than one. In this post, I'll be introducing you all to Movelang, along with the goals that I have since codified for it. As it stands, this language currently holds no connection to my Personal Conworld Project, as it is currently only an experiment, and I don't see it being adapted in any way for it, at least for the time being, but who knows, that could change one day!
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The origins of Movelang lay in a discord server that I was and still am actively a part of. At the time, a group of us were discussing neat and nontrivial noun class systems that could potentially be used in a conlang, and one of us (I can't remember exactly who right now, but I do know it wasn't me), suggested an idea for a noun class system that is based on the mode by which nouns in question would be transported or moved around. We all loved this idea right away, and we set originally to put together a server collaborative conlang to implement this idea. After some time passed though, the project fell into obscurity, but I still found this idea to be super cool, and wanted to experiment with it further, and so I ended up stealing the idea, and building it into my own personal experimental piece!
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The resulting noun class system shown above is what I ended up with after reconsidering the original class system that we had come up with together. The system I devised consists of 8 noun classes, a slight upgrade from what had originally been 6 more broad classes, which are distinguished by a mode of moving, carrying, or transport used for associated nouns in the appropriate class. I also gave each class a cool name that reflects the mode of movement associated with it as well! The class definitions are of course broad as well, as is the case with all languages that make use of noun classes, and not all nouns that fit into one of these classes will follow the category specified for each one.
In terms of goals, my primary goal was of course to implement the cool noun class concept that the group I was in had originally devised: to set up noun classes based on mode of movement for prospective nouns. Aside from this, my intention is also to experiment with a couple of other aspects of conlanging that I had been wanting to use hitherto. One of the big ones is being able to create a lot from a little in terms of derivations, which I've been able to do for the most part already, in addition to a loose adherence to naturalism, which hasn't been as big of a goal for me with this being an experiment, as already mentioned, but has helped me to keep the language looking plausibly realistic for the most part.
As I continue sharing more bits and pieces with you all about Movelang, I hope to show you how I've been able to adhere to these goals as its development has moved forward, slowly but surely, and I can't want to show you all what I've made very soon!
=-=-=-=
This is my first big post to the blog, and my thoughts can sometimes be all over the place, especially if I'm super excited, so do let me know if you'd like me to clarify anything mentioned here. Feel free to drop me an ask and I'll answer it whenever I find the time if it adds to the post! Who knows, maybe I'll even give a sneak peak of what I have to come later, if it's particularly relevant... Until then, hope you all are as excited as I am! :D
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literaryvein-reblogs · 20 days ago
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Writing Notes: Speech Development
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Several stages of development have been distinguished in the first year, when the child develops the skills necessary to produce a successful first word.
FIRST 2 MONTHS
Apart from the cry patterns associated with hunger, pain, and discomfort, the first 2 months of life display a wide range of primitive vocal sounds reflecting the baby’s biological state and activities – as in the ‘vegetative’ noises heard while eating and excreting.
Some of the most basic features of speech, such as the ability to control air flow and produce rhythmic utterance, are being established at this time.
BETWEEN 6 & 8 WEEKS
There emerge the sounds generally known as cooing, produced when the baby is in a settled state.
Cooing sounds do not grow out of crying; rather, they develop alongside it, gradually becoming more frequent and varied.
They are quieter, lowerpitched, and more musical, typically consisting of a short vowel-like sound, often nasal in quality, and usually preceded by a consonant-like sound made towards the back of the mouth.
Strings of cooing noises soon emerge, and the sounds become more varied, as the baby begins to develop a greater measure of control over the muscles of the vocal organs – especially over tongue and lip movements and associated vocal-fold vibration.
BETWEEN 3 & 4 MONTHS
Cooing sounds begin to die away, to be replaced by sounds which are much more definite and controlled, often repeated, and produced with wide pitch glides.
It is a period commonly called vocal play, because the baby seems to take great pleasure in producing these noises, especially those made with the lips.
But it is perhaps more accurate to call it a time of vocal practice or experimentation.
AROUND 6 MONTHS
Vocal play gives way to babbling – a period of syllable sequences and repetitions which can last most of the second half of the first year.
To begin with, the consonant-like sounds are very repetitive:
Example: "babababa"
But at around 9 months, the babbling moves away from these fixed patterns.
The consonants and vowels change from one syllable to the next, producing such forms as [adu] and [maba], and there is a wider range of sounds, anticipating the sounds of the accent of English to be learned.
The utterances do not have any meaning, though they often resemble adult words – and of course adults love to ‘hear’ such words (especially mummy and daddy) in the baby’s vocalizations.
But babbling does not gradually shade into speech; indeed, many children continue to babble for several months after they have begun to talk.
Babbling is perhaps best summarized as a final step in the period of preparation for speech.
The child, in effect, ‘gets its act together’; but it has yet to learn what the act is for – that sounds are there to enable meaning to be communicated in a controlled way.
With the production of the ‘first word’, this final step is taken.
NOTE
However, the first word is not the first feature of adult language to be acquired.
From as early as 6 months, there is evidence that the child is picking up features of the melody and rhythm of the adult language.
Certainly by 9 months, strings of syllables are often being pronounced in conversation-like ways which adults interpret as communicative:
‘He/ she’s trying to tell us something’ is a common reaction to a piece of ‘scribble-talk’, and such speech-act functions as questioning, commanding, and greeting are ascribed to babbled utterances.
The melody and rhythm of often-used phrases, such as "all gone", are also likely to be heard long before the vowels and consonants are clearly articulated.
It is these prosodic features which are the first signs of real language production in children.
Prosody - the linguistic use of pitch, loudness, tempo, and rhythm; the study of versification
Source ⚜ Notes & References More: Children ⚜ Children's Dialogue ⚜ Childhood Bilingualism
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honeekyuu · 4 months ago
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genius. [akaashi keiji x f!reader] chapter one.
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>>You struggle to pay rent on your limited graduate student salary, and your worst enemy agrees to help you out.
or
You realize you need to find a partner for your faceless porn account, and Akaashi Keiji is the only man who meets all your requirements.<<
series status: [ongoing]
masterlist. || next.
a/n: this series is going to be the death of me. im currently writing ch. 2, and the first scene (the first scene!!! of 9!!!!!) is 10k words. i wrote a 10k smut scene. :)))) im actively dying. please enjoy chapter 1!!!
[feel free to buy me a cup of coffee!]
---------------------------------------
“ Shit, shit shit- ” You throw things all over the apartment, searching for your keys. The clock on the wall reads 10:55AM, flipping quickly to 10:56 and making you swear again. “ Fuck! Oh-” You snatch up your house keys with a victorious cheer and then immediately race for the door, your bag hauled over your shoulder on the way.
You turn the 30-minute bike ride to campus into 20 minutes, but that still gets you to the door of the Linguistics department by 11:15. You slam down on the elevator button repeatedly while you wait, glancing back at the rest of the lobby only when you hear someone call your name. It’s a student of yours, so you have to smile and wave back politely, even though all you want is to scream ‘ I’m so fucked! ’ into the void. 
The elevator doors open, and you treat the buttons on the inside panel with the same cruelty, choosing to text your frustrations to Bokuto while you wait to arrive on the 5th floor.
[11:16 AM]
You: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
Kou: OMG SAME
You: ?? whats wrong on your end
Kou: nothing why?
Kou: IS SOMETHING WRONG???
You snort, rolling your eyes.
You: late to my 11am
Kou: OH THE READING GROUP
Kou: which one is that??? Linguisticsomething of something something??
You: you know,,, there was no way to be wrong with that answer kou
Kou: :))))) 
You: it’s LEM
Kou: LINGUISTICS AND EXPERIMENTAL METHODS
Kou: RIGHT
Kou: oh wait isnt that the one akaashis in?????
You: thats why im fucked
Kou: oh im sure he wont say anything
Kou: SAY HI FOR ME
The elevator opens, so you shove your phone away and race down the hall to the lab room. You skid to a stop in front of the door, taking a calming breath before pushing into the room as quietly as possible. A few people glance up from the round table in the center with small smiles before returning to the presentation on the screen, but you know well enough that you’re not in clear.
“-f it’s true then that case gets valued where base-generated, rather than at the landing site after Movement, we should see that these forms are nominative-marked. However, clearly, we get accusa-” 
You take the seat closest to the door, and it creaks.
Akaashi Keiji’s eyes find yours.
You grimace openly at him, and he lifts an eyebrow, his finger still hovering over the example on the TV.
“Y/n. Would you like me to start over?”
You struggle not to roll your eyes at him, your face burning with embarrassment. “Of course not. Please, continue.”
“It might be helpful if I start over-”
“I don’t need the background on case valuation in Korean, Akaashi,” you snap. “We work on the same language.”
You watch his eyes harden. It’s only you that he looks at like that. He opens his mouth, but your advisor cuts in on your left.
“Okay, you two,” he says. “Let’s try not to kill each other today.”
You lean back in your chair, arms crossed, and meet Akaashi’s eyes evenly. He stares back blankly only a moment before returning to his presentation.
“So, we can see here that accusative-marked nominals are permitted, despite the prediction that only nominative is grammatical-” 
You let out a quiet breath, trying to pay attention to his presentation – because, no doubt, he’d put you on the spot about it soon – while also recovering from the adrenaline rush of getting here. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, and you extract it subtly, glancing at the screen. There are two alerts.
Bank Account Balance (Oct. 10); $562.95
Rent Notification: Rent and Utilities; Payment ($1018.00) Due Nov. 1
Your heart sinks, a lump forming in your throat, and you shove your phone away, returning to Akaashi’s presentation. A coffee cup from the nearby cafe slides into your periphery, and you turn to see your advisor pushing it toward you silently, his own cup in front of him. He doesn’t look at you, but he does crack a tired smile.
“ Drink, ” he whispers. “ You’ve had a hard couple days. ”
You smile and bring the cup to your lips, ignoring when Akaashi glances at it and then between you and your advisor. It’s your regular order, and you’re immensely glad that most of your advisor meetings happen at coffee shops. You make it through Akaashi’s presentation with little issue – unsurprisingly for the department’s Golden Boy, his work is flawless. You agree with every argument he makes, every flaw he finds in the analyses of previous work.
So when he says “ Any questions?” in that polite, soft-spoken way of his, you’re prepared for the very few questions asked to be nothing more than clarification. No one has any comments about his thinking or his analysis, and no one challenges him. Because Akaashi Keiji is always right. 
But you can also see that these questions don’t excite him. He answers each one nicely, nodding along and mumbling ‘ Yes, that’s right ’ or humming thoughtfully – as though he needs to think about it at all – and then shaking his head, clicking through his slide deck until he can point to something and correct someone’s thinking. But he looks a bit disappointed, like he’d been hoping for a bit more of a discussion. He even glances at your advisor hopefully – but your advisor is also his advisor, so why would he have any notes? He’s already pre-approved all of this.
Well, that’s what you get for being so smart, you think with a little bit of snark. Your advisor always preaches to the group that peer feedback creates room for improvement, but what’s Akaashi supposed to do when there’s no more room? He’s already the best.
He meets your eyes briefly, and you look away. You’re not going to give him what he wants.
“Okay, then,” he says after a moment, unplugging his laptop from the TV. “Thanks for listening – Y/n?” You pull your laptop from your bag, standing and rounding the table. You take the HDMI cord from him, slipping into the chair he’d occupied. He takes yours, careful not to touch your things. You sigh softly and then smile at the rest of your reading group.
“Hey, guys. Thanks for coming.” You gesture to the TV, your slide deck open. “So, if you were here for my most recent project, you know that I got some interesting results and will be broadening the scope in order to explore them for my dissertation.”
You launch into your presentation, the material so familiar to you that you don’t have to think about what to say. Your second major project had wrapped up last year, your name sitting on a journal article set to print at the end of the month. You’d gotten a number of reviewers asking similar questions, all related to the experimental results of one of your tasks, so you and your advisor had decided that, for the dissertation, you would be increasing the technical difficulty and redoing the experiment with new materials and a more rigorous theoretical analysis.
You present this to the group, outlining your idea and the changes you’d be making to the original project in order to answer the open questions left by your reviewers. By the end of your 20-minute slot, you’ve got most of the group nodding along in agreement.
Most of the group.
You do your best not to look at him, but you can still see Akaashi sitting there with his arms folded in his lap, his expression void of everything. His eyes skim your slides, unreactive, and you just know that you’re in for it.
“Okay-” you sigh, clapping your hands on your knees. “That’s it. Thoughts?”
Your advisor lifts his brows, a smile tugging at his lips, and you know he’s thinking the same thing.
Just the grilling of a lifetime incoming .
There’s silence for a while, everyone trying and failing not to look at Akaashi, because they know how this will go. And then his lips part, a soft breath taken.
“Can I… ask a few questions?” He starts gentle, the way he always does. He fools everyone into thinking he’s sweet and soft and careful, but you know better. You know that, if you were anyone else, he wouldn’t have started like that. He would have complimented their work first, noted the things he thought they’d done well.
You’ve never heard a compliment from Akaashi Keiji in the five years you’ve known him.
“Of course,” You sigh. Some snickers pass through the group.
“How do you know that this will tell you anything at all?”
He doesn’t hold back – you’ll give him that.
“Sorry?”
“If your results indicate a misalignment between the production of this ambiguous form and the comprehension of it, why are you using eye-tracking to test only comprehension? Where’s your production gone?”
You inhale slowly, flicking back through the slides. “Like I said before, there are two possibilities for why this form was over-produced and under-accepted by participants. Either they are operating within their grammar and just attaching an emphatic element to a different word, resulting in a homophone with the ambiguous form I’m interested in-” You flick through more slides. “Or they’re operating outside of their grammar, in which case there are discourse factors at play.” 
You meet his eyes with a tight smile, trying to remain polite. “Running an eye-tracking task with comprehension will let me see, in real time and without metalinguistic interference, if they accept this form in situations that should be ungrammatical. If they don’t, then these results are due to emphatic attachment and that’s that. If they do, then..” You shrug. “There’s more to be done. But my point is that production wouldn’t be necessary here. I have what I need.”
The group all shift their eyes from you to him in an instant, waiting for the tennis match to start. Akaashi only meets your gaze for a moment and then nods, and you feel mildly victorious at having won this interaction. But you swallow it down, because he’s opening his mouth again.
“And what about case?”
You almost roll your eyes. “What about it?”
“What analysis are you adopting?”
“I’m only using accusative-marked forms for this experiment,” you say. “The object of the embedded clause is the position I need. I’m not adopting competing analyses.”
“But there are other ways to mark case on these forms – as I’m sure you’re aware.” His gaze narrows at you when he says it, and you know he’s getting back at you now for your comment earlier. “What about those?”
“I’m not interested in them-”
“ Right ,” he bites. “I understand that. But what are the case alternations available?”
It takes a special kind of person to draw Akaashi Keiji’s patience short, and you’re happy to be that person every single time. You have to purse your lips not to smile, because there’s a little piece of you that finds it funny to draw out that twitch in his eyebrow that no one else claims to have ever seen.
“Genitive and nominative, and dative under restricted circumstances.”
He lifts his brows at you. “So pretty much all of them.”
You nod simply. “But using pretty much all of them means I’d have to change the structure of the sentence for each type. It’s not a simple swap.”
“Then do it.”
“Excuse me?” You lift your eyebrows in disbelief.
He shrugs. “Your results could be due to any of the things you’ve talked about. Or they could be due to this form being preferred with different case markers in different situations. You could be getting low acceptability because of the case, rather than what you’re interested in.”  
You just stare. “That’s, like, four dissertations, Akaashi.”
His eyes have flattened out again. “Then maybe you should have done it right the first time.”
“ Okay ,” your advisor says, clapping his hands. “Hour’s up. Let’s thank Keiji and Y/n for their time.”
Your eyes stay locked on Akaashi’s while the room clears out, both knowing that you’re not allowed to go anywhere. You get a couple ‘ good job ’s from the people leaving, but you can’t bring yourself to break eye contact first. In fact, it only serves to irritate you more – why is it only you that gets those reassuring comments? Why don’t people tell Akaashi that he’s doing well? Do they think you need it? Does everyone think you need it more than he does?
“Alright,” your advisor breathes, shutting the door again and turning toward you. “Oh-Come on, you two.”
You break first, dipping your head and turning to unplug your laptop from the TV. 
“That was good, both of you.” Your advisor cuts a glance at Akaashi as he sits. “A little harsh there, but-”
“Sorry,” He mumbles, immediately deferent. But you know he’s not apologizing to you, and that makes you finally roll your eyes.
“Okay, okay,” your advisor laughs, taking his coffee and sipping at it. “Let’s just finish this up so I can get away from all this hostility.”
The meeting ends quickly, the three of you just summarizing thoughts and future steps for each of your projects. Akaashi purses his lips when you speak about your plans, but he doesn’t push at you any further. 
Finally, you’re able to leave, so you gather your things quickly and bolt for the door. Unfortunately, your office is directly across from Akaashi’s, so the walk down the hall is spent with him on your heels.
“It’s not four dissertations, by the way,” he says as soon as your advisor’s out of earshot. “Just redesign your materials to include the case alternations, and you’ll get something interesting.”
You roll your eyes and shake your head, not stopping your march down the hall. “I’ve already designed the eye-tracking materials, Akaashi. It’ll take me weeks to redo them for case.”
“Then take the weeks ,” he argues, just as you’re both arriving to your respective doors. “Do you want to do it fast, or do you want to do it right?”
You whirl on him, your anger unfiltered now that you’re alone. “What would you know? You’ve never done the kind of research I have to do. You don’t know anything about psycholinguistics – you don’t know what goes into something like this. You just sit in your world of theory, without ever thinking about the practical applications. You might be right about everything all the time, Akaashi, but I’m the one who has to take those theories and do something with them.” 
He stares back emptily while you rant, and then he leans in close, his eyebrows lifting as his voice drops. “Are you really going to be okay not including the case alternations? Now that I’ve brought it up?” When you only sigh heatedly through your nose, glaring up at him, he shakes his head. “No. You’re not.” Then he turns to his office door, slotting the key in the lock while mumbling to you. “You’re a lot of things, Y/n, but you’re not lazy.”
You stare at his office door long after it’s been shut.
You really hate Akaashi Keiji.
“I dunno, Kou, I’m not sure what to do,” you sigh, running a finger along the rim of your coffee cup. It’s the same from earlier, because you don’t have the money to buy another and because drinking it slowly helps to stave off your hunger. You’d been too rushed for lunch before leaving home, but you know dinner’s only four hours away. You can last until then.
“Well-” Bokuto talks through a mouth full of food. “-is it gonna bug you to not do it?”
“ Yes ,” you admit a little grumpily. “Of course it is. But I don’t have the time – I wanted to have pilot data for the experiment by the end of October.”
“What would happen if you pushed it back a few weeks?” He asks loudly, spooning more food into his mouth before he’s even done eating the first mouthful.
“I don’t know. It would just push my whole timeline back, and I’d graduate later than expected, and I’m already losing my mind. I need a job , Kou – I can’t live on grad student wages much longer.”
“Yeah, I feel you,” he nods, pulling more food out of his backpack. “But at least you’re still splitting that nice apartment with your roommate! $500 a month is so nice.”
You stare down at your lukewarm coffee.
You haven’t exactly mentioned to him or your other friends that your roommate had moved out. She hadn’t left for anything negative – in fact, she’s a good friend of yours. The two of you had posted in the graduate students’ forum over the summer before your first year, each requesting roommates, and you’d paired up nicely. Your personalities had gone together well, and you’d stayed roommates the entirety of grad school. But she’d had to go home suddenly, which was fine for her because she’s finishing up her dissertation and doesn’t need to be on campus.
However, that does leave you without a roommate in the middle of the semester. There’s a fee for you to break your lease early, and it would overall be way more expensive for you to move out, especially in the middle of October. But paying over $1000 on your own, with your limited salary, is extremely difficult.
You’d looked for another roommate, but there aren’t any grad students without housing this late in the year – the only people you’d seen posting on the university Facebook page about housing had been undergrads, and you’re certainly not comfortable with that. So, you’d looked for extra jobs, but your student contract only allows you to be employed a certain amount, and you’d already reached the maximum. Your advisor had told you as much, shaking his head regretfully when you’d all but begged for extra hours in his lab. You’d even tried finding jobs outside of the university, but most of them had asked for a consistent work schedule and more hours than you can afford to give. 
Which might be why you’d decided to turn to making adult content online.
You’re not particularly attached to the idea of being a porn star, but you’d seen a video online talking about the amount of money that adult content creators can make even from a single video, and you’d made an account without giving yourself time to think about it. You’d taken all the necessary precautions – things like always editing out your face and the singular tattoo you have on the inside of your ankle, or never displaying your background in a way that would be recognizable to someone who knows you. You really don’t need anyone finding out about this, especially not your friends.
You’re not sure that Kuroo would really care – the chemistry student’s nosy, sure, but he’s a big proponent of leaving people to their lives. And you know that Bokuto would probably find it interesting, but he’s got an objectively big mouth and little social control, so it would be a risk to tell him. The only person you’re really worried will find out is Yachi – your closest friend, that sweet girl wouldn’t be likely to judge, but she certainly wouldn’t understand. She’d ask a lot of questions – ‘ why would you do something like that?’; ‘well, are you sure there aren’t other options?’; ‘i would rather move out if i were you’ . Yachi’s had a very straightforward way of thinking ever since you met her, and she’d be the most likely to tell you that pursuing this line of work is drastic and unnecessary. You’re not sure you’re emotionally strong enough to deal with that.
Especially since your new occupation isn’t exactly going well . You’ve only been at it a few weeks, and you’ve garnered a decent number of subscribers on your platform – 897, to be exact (you check every day; you’re desperate). But, in the month since your roommate’s left, you’ve hardly made $300, and, while $300 of extra income per month is certainly not insignificant, it’s not enough to pay your rent.
Which is why you’re sitting here now, lunchless and sipping pitifully at cold coffee. But at least you’re in good company, Bokuto’s presence always a weight off your shoulders.
“Hi, Bokuto.”
Here comes the weight, right back on your shoulders.
You look up from your cup, meeting Akaashi’s eyes. He scans you quickly but doesn’t greet you, only setting his lunch tray down on the table and taking the seat beside Bokuto. The silver-haired man looks between you with wide eyes.
“Aw, man! Did you guys fight at your reading group?!” He rubs at his stomach. “Don’t fight now, too. It’ll make my tummy hurt.”
You laugh weakly, turning away and surveying the crowded dining hall. “Of course not, Kou. You’re neutral ground.”
“What she said,” Akaashi says, carefully mixing his food with his chopsticks. He cuts a glance at your coffee cup. “Is that the same one from this morning?” He glances at the time on his phone. It’s already past 2:30.
You’re instantly defensive. “Yeah.”
He hears the edge in your tone, shaking his head with a breath of laughter while pulling noodles into his mouth. He chews and swallows before responding, ever the gentleman. “Didn’t bring lunch?”
“Forgot it at home.”
He points at the buffet line at the back of the dining hall. “Then buy something.”
“Trying to save money,” you say. You watch his eyebrows pull together in confusion, and you know why – the dining hall’s extremely cheap, usually only $8 or $9 for a fair lunch. The issue is that you don’t have $8 or $9. You don’t have rent money, so you don’t have lunch money.
Thankfully, though, he doesn’t say anything else about it, and you’re briefly appreciative that he’s respectful of your financial situation. You’re also appreciative that he doesn’t tip Bokuto off about it. The large man is tapping away on his phone while he chews loudly, so he’d barely heard the questions Akaashi had asked you. He looks up at the silence now, glancing between you. 
“What’d I miss?”
“Nothing. We were fighting,” Akaashi says. Today’s turning, shockingly, into a day of appreciating Akaashi Keiji.
“ No, ” Bokuto whines. “No fighting.”
A body slides into the spot beside yours, and another into the spot beside Akaashi.
“They fighting?” Kuroo asks, organizing his food on his tray. Tsukishima snorts across the table, mumbling ‘ aren’t they always? ’ quietly.
“We’re fine,” you laugh. “Trying not to make Kou’s tummy hurt.”
“Fair enough,” Kuroo says as he’s lifting a bite of food to his mouth. He stops, though, staring down at your cup. “Your tummy hurts, too, I guess.”
“I guess so,” you say, smiling and sipping at the now-gross coffee. He doesn’t say anything about it, only turning to ask Tsukishima about some ongoing drama in the history department. But he does slide his tray between the two of you while he talks, shoving his chopsticks into your hand and then leaning casually over to keep chatting to the blond, as though he’s merely asking you to hold them while he talks. You purse your lips, embarrassment warming your ears, but you pick at his tray anyway – just a bit of rice and a thin cut of spam balanced on his spoon. You take two bites and then slide the tray back, muttering ‘ thanks ’ under your breath.
You feel Akaashi’s eyes on you, but you refuse to meet them. Your phone buzzes in your back pocket, and you pull it into your lap.
[2:47 PM] New Comment on Your Video
Your eyes widen, and you lower the brightness and turn your back slightly to Kuroo. 
user6969 : pretty hot, would be hotter with someone fucking her tho
It already has ten likes. Your eye twitches, and you clear the notification quickly. You could never film with another person. You can’t . That defeats the whole purpose of keeping this anonymous. 
But what if that’s the thing keeping you from making money? From paying rent? At this point, would you rather bring someone else into this, or would you rather eat the cost of moving out?
But you can’t move. With breaking the lease and having to sign a new one – moving fees not included – you already don’t have enough money. There’s no way to get approved for a new place with such little money in your bank account. 
Should you sell feet pics? No, you can’t switch platforms or content at this point. You’d be starting from nothing in that case, and it’s no guarantee you’d do well there. Not that you’re really doing well with your current account, either.
Are you going to have to find a partner to film with?
“ Y/n .”
You jump, looking up. Akaashi’s staring back, standing behind Bokuto with his eyebrows raised and his tray in his hand. He looks a little annoyed.
“I’ve been calling your name.”
You blink. “Sorry. What is it?”
He lifts his brows impossibly further. “We have to go.”
You start, checking the time again. It’s 2:52. You have to go to the undergraduate class you’re TAing with him. “Oh, shit,” you mutter, standing with your bag. “We’re gonna be late.” You wave a cursory goodbye at the others, rushing to toss your coffee in the trash. 
You chase after Akaashi, cursing his long legs, and follow him across the quad to the lecture hall. You both slide past the doors just as your advisor’s clearing his throat to get the class’s attention. 
“ Now that our distinguished TAs have arrived, we can get started… ” he says into the microphone connected to the podium.
You follow Akaashi up the steps to the top row, managing to control the urge to roll your eyes at the number of undergrad girls watching longingly as Akaashi passes by. You sit with him in the back corner, huffing quietly and then hugging your bag to your stomach, because a low gurgle of hunger is creeping out. Akaashi snorts quietly, and you glare sideways at him. But he just reaches down into his bag, extracting a granola bar and offering it to you, his eyes still on the whiteboard at the front.
You grimace. “ I’m good, thanks, ” you whisper.
“ It’s going to annoy me, ” he says, jabbing the bar at you. You take it with a soft sigh, mumbling ‘ thanks ’ to him while you try to unwrap the plastic without being loud. You eat it quietly, deciding that it’s the least he can do for torturing you during LEM. And then you stuff the empty plastic in your bag before extracting your laptop, intending to take notes on your advisor’s lecture.
The screen is bright and noticeable when it opens to your most recently opened tab – thankfully not your porn account, which you’re always mindful to close before leaving home. But it is open to your bank’s website, still signed in and clearly displaying the meager $562.95 in your checking account.
You jump, rushing to lower the screen brightness and close out of the tab at the same time, and then you cut a glance at Akaashi. He’s not looking directly at your screen, but he’s certainly not looking at the whiteboard anymore. His eyes hover suspiciously in the space between your laptop and his, and he meets your eyes quickly before looking away when he realizes you’re watching him.
“ Sorry, ” he mumbles. “ Brightness caught my eye. ” 
“ Don’t say anything ,” is all you say. All that you’re willing to plead with him. He just lifts a brow and nods, saying nothing else as he refocuses his attention on the lecture. You sigh, pushing two frustrated fingers against your temple, because now Akaashi Keiji knows you’re broke and living way too far above your means.
You sit on your couch four days later, scrolling aimlessly through Tinder. You grimace as you swipe, unable to bring yourself to approve of any of the guys you’re seeing. There are obviously some good-looking ones, and even some extremely attractive ones, but every time you start to swipe right, you hesitate.
How crazy are you going to look, matching on a dating app with someone, only to ask them if they’d be willing to be your faceless porn partner?
You groan, throwing your phone down. You can’t believe you’ve even gotten to this point. Just this week, you’d sworn you would keep running your account alone. You’d sworn you wouldn’t let anyone else get involved with this, for your pride and for your anonymity.
That’s another reason you’re so unwilling to match with someone on Tinder. What if he ends up being a total weirdo? What if he leaks your name online or talks about you to his friends? Or-
Oh, God, what if he lies about his age and ends up being an undergrad? Even worse – an undergrad in your department ?
“ Ugh- ” You shudder, picking your phone back up. “No. No fucking way.” You quickly delete your account and the app, shaking your head. It’s too much of a risk, and you’re not even sure you could ever trust someone you don’t know to help you with something so private and sensitive.
Do I really have to find a partner?  
You pull your laptop from the table and open it, logging into your porn account and scrolling through the videos. You’d stuck to the same posting schedule since you’d started, maintaining consistency and posting every day over the last four weeks. It had definitely helped with your views, because the subscribers you do have know when to expect a new video. But, even this week alone, your view count has become stagnant and – in the case of the video you’d posted today – even gone down a few thousand hits.
You check the section for monetization, seeing you’d made an extra $16 dollars in the last four days. $16 dollars in four days. You might as well start selling your couch.
But if you can’t find a partner amongst the hundreds of men you don’t know, then it has to be someone you do know.
“Kuroo,” you sigh, leaning your head back against the couch. And then you shake your head. He’s the best choice – he’s private and minds his business. He would never be a risk for outting you. He’s also extremely attractive, and you have decent chemistry. But he’s also one of your closest friends, and you’re not even willing to tell him you do this for a living, for fear of something changing between you. You could never ask him to help you.
“Bokuto,” you move on, bobbing your head back and forth. He’s definitely the least likely to let anything change between you – he’d find it interesting, and he would never judge you. He’d also be more than willing to help, especially since this is for the purpose of paying your bills and not just something you do for fun on the side. He’s incredibly kind and motivated in that way… but still, it isn’t right. 
Not only does it feel a bit weird to imagine having sex with him, even for business, but it also wouldn’t be long before he accidentally lets something slip to someone. It would be unintentional, of course, but Bokuto Koutarou isn’t exactly known for his subtlety. Not to mention that you need someone who can’t be recognized on camera, even faceless, and Bokuto’s presence is so overwhelming that it would take no time at all for someone who knows him to pinpoint exactly who it is.
You shake your head, going through the mental list of every guy you’ve ever interacted with. You don’t really know Tsukishima, despite eating lunch with him most days and seeing him at almost every function, and you get the feeling he would laugh in your face if you ask. You think of guys you’d known in college and even some guys you’d met at the events that your friends have invited you to. You even pick up your phone and start scrolling through your contacts, really stretching the limits of your imagination.
None of them work.
“ Fuck ,” you groan, scrubbing at your brow. This isn’t going to work.
Your phone buzzes with a text, the message sliding into view before disappearing.
[9:48 PM]
Akaashi: i printed copies of the handout for discussion on monday
Akaashi: putting them in my mailbox so you can grab them before class
Akaashi: youll print the exams next week, right?
You stare at the messages as they come in.
Akaashi . 
His name drifts like a whisper through your mind, and you have to throw your phone on the table and stand, your eyes wide.
“No. No,” you say, rounding the couch and pacing behind it. “No, no, no.”
Not him. Anyone but him. You can barely stand him, and the idea of him knowing what you do to make rent is unfathomable. You can’t trust him with something like that-
But, he is trustworthy. He’d shown himself not even a week ago to be sensitive to your personal information and financial situation. He makes judgment calls that benefit you, even though he could be doing everything in his power to make your life hell. As annoying as he is – as rude as he can be, especially to you – he’s a decent human being. He’s private, he’s subtle, he’s quiet and keeps to himself, and-
And he’s average. A very good-looking man, yes, but overall a perfectly normal, average guy that would never be recognized.
“ No! ” You groan, starting to pace harder. “ No, no, no! ”
Your phone starts to ring on the table. You jump, staring at the screen.
You can see his name even from here. 
You approach it carefully, hands shaking as you reach for it. 
“H-Hello?”
“ Y/n, ” he says, his voice quiet but firm.
“Uh-” You laugh weakly. “Hi. What’s… up?”
“ I’m just checking you got my texts. I’m leaving the department now. ”
“You stayed there until 10 on a Saturday?”
“ I lost track of time. You got my texts, then? ”
“Yes,” you sigh. “Yeah, I got them. Thanks for printing.”
“ And you’ll-”
“Yep. I got the exams.”
There’s silence on the other end, followed by the quiet jingle of his office keys. “ Are you… You sound.. not great. Nervous. ”
It’s mortifying that he can hear that it in your voice. Why can he hear that in your voice?
“No, I’m good. Just-just busy. Stressed.”
“ Oh. Okay, then. ” He pauses a moment, and you wonder if he’s giving you time to say more. You don’t. Finally, he clears his throat. “‘ Kay. Bye. ” He hangs up before you can repeat it back to him.
A perfectly average, decent human being who’s private, subtle, quiet, and keeps to himself.
The only issue is that you hate each other.
Great.
You pace in front of his office door two days later, biting your nails while you think. Anxiety swoops low in your gut, over and over again while you imagine talking to him. Swelling and heaving when you imagine the look on his face, inevitably judgmental and maybe a little amused that you’d even thought to approach him.
God, you can’t do this.
“No,” you mumble, turning back toward your own door. You’ll find someone else.
The door opens behind you, and you jump, spinning around. Akaashi stares at you in exasperation, his glasses askew and his hair ruffled like he’s been pulling his fingers through it.
“Are you going to come in, or are you just going to stand outside all day?”
“Uh,” you stammer, shaking your head. “Uh, no. No, I didn’t-I don’t have anything-”
“Y/n,” he sighs. “You’ve been pacing out here for ten minutes. I’ve been watching your feet go back and forth in front of my door this whole time. It’s really fucking distracting – I’m trying to work.”
Your eyes go wide, because you’re not sure you’ve ever heard Akaashi swear before. He opens the door wider, beckoning you in with an impatient sweep of his arm. You find yourself stepping past the threshold, wringing your hands as you stand in the middle of the little room. He leaves the door cracked, slipping past you carefully and returning to his desk.
“What is it?” He sits and starts sorting through his papers, attention only partially on you. “Something about LING 303? I graded my section’s assignments already – do you need the answer key?”
You swallow, still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. “No, I… I have an answer key, too.”
“Then?”
A large part of you wants to leave. He’s in a bad mood, and he’s clearly busy. You’re not sure this is the best time to bring up something this sensitive with him. But then again – when would you ever find the best time to talk to Akaashi Keiji about your secret porn account?
So, with a shaky breath, you return to the door, pushing it closed quietly and locking it.
“Uhm,” you start, turning slowly on the spot and facing him. “Can we talk?”
He’s got his eyes, wary now, on the doorknob where your hand rests, your thumb still over the lock that’s been pushed in. He blicks and flicks his gaze to yours, eyes narrowing when he sees the discomfort in your expression. 
“O…kay?” He sets his papers down and leans back in his seat, his attention yours now. “...What’s up?”
You make your way to the chair in front of his desk and perch in it uncertainly. “Okay. Is it okay if I say everything before you talk?” He just tilts his head, watching you intensely, and then he nods once. Whatever had been on his mind before is clearly gone, and you silently hope it hadn’t been some groundbreaking idea that you’ve just interrupted.
“So,” you start, heaving out a nervous sigh. “You saw my bank account the other day. Last week.” He nods again, and you rush into the speech you’d practiced all morning, not wanting him to think you’re just here to ask for money. That might be easier, honestly. But your courage might never come again, so you need to barrel through this now. “It’s been that way for about a month now. I live in a 2-bedroom apartment, and – when I had a roommate-” He squints now, because he’s certainly heard Bokuto talk about your roommate as though she still exists. “-my rent was only $500 a month.”
He opens his mouth to speak, thoughts very obviously swirling in that overactive brain of his, but he shuts it again, remembering he’d promised you silence. He nods, and you nod back.
“She moved out a month ago for personal reasons, and if I break the lease and move out, too, it would cost more than just continuing to live there on my own. And-” You throw your hands around while you talk, ramping up in intensity now that you’ve gotten started. “-I know that in the long run, it’s more cost-effective to eat the move-out fees and the cost of moving, but you saw my bank account. I don’t have any way of doing that right now.”
“You need a roommate,” is what he says, unable to stop himself. You sigh, shaking your head.
“I tried. The only people searching for housing this late in the semester are undergrads.” He grimaces, and you nod. “So that’s not an option.” You sigh again, trying to remember what to say next. “Uh-Oh, right-So-” You wring your hands in your lap. “My rent’s over $1000, and I obviously don’t have that. And I’ve tried looking for extra jobs and for extra hours around the department, but I’m at max hours, and there are no part-time jobs that are flexible with my research and teaching schedule.”
You sigh shakily, staring out the window behind his head. You stay that way for a minute, gathering your courage. Akaashi watches you carefully, tracking the slight changes in your expression and the defeat that crosses your face.
“Y/n?” he asks, his voice soft now, in that way that he speaks to everyone who’s not you.
“Sorry,” you laugh. “Nervous.” You clear your throat and ground yourself, looking him straight in the eye. “So, I had to turn to some… desperate measures.” His eyebrows lift with interest, and you think you see him lean in almost imperceptibly. “I… decided to start making… content -”
You watch understanding cross his face immediately – of course it does, he’s not the Golden Boy for nothing. His eyes go wide, and he inhales quietly, leaning back in his chair and letting out a long, drawn out breath that ends in a quiet ‘ oh, boy ’. You stop talking, just watching him nervously. He stares back a moment, his mouth opening and closing with thoughts unsaid as he considers how to respond.
“And it was your only option?”
“Probably not,” you laugh. The sound is watery, and your eyes are starting to sting. “But I couldn’t think of anything else at the time, and I haven’t figured out anything better since – anything short of asking someone for a $500 loan.”
“Okay,” he says simply. You meet his eyes, searching for judgment or thinly veiled disgust, or anything . But he just looks back at you, his face devoid of everything but concentration as he thinks. “So, why are you telling me this?”
You break eye contact, staring down at your lap. You’re sweating profusely, your stomach doing that terrible flipping. “It’s… not exactly going well .”
Silence, and then-
“Define ‘ not going well ’.”
You flick your eyes to meet his briefly, seeing that he’s staring at you with an intensity you’ve never seen before. When you make eye contact, he takes a breath.
“Y/n-”
“Someone-” You swallow. “I’ve only made $300 in the last four weeks, and my roommate helped me pay the October 1st rent because she felt bad for moving out so suddenly. I’m clearly desperate, Akaashi, because I’m not making the kind of money I need to be making, but there’s nothing else. And someone commented on a video that-” You break, rubbing at your brow and breathing hard. God, this is so difficult. You don’t know how to say it to him.
“You need a partner.”
You suck in a breath, your own watery, stinging eyes meeting his. He’s breathing a little harder now, and his expression’s not as guarded as it usually is. He’s tapping a finger nervously on his desk and blinking a lot.
“Why me?”
You fumble for an answer. “Uhm-Because-”
“Why not Kuroo?” He asks, his voice calm despite the increased tapping on his desk.
“‘m not sure our friendship would survive it. I care too much about him.”
He nods, clearly not offended by the implication that you’re willing to risk things with him . He’s not your friend and he knows that. The relationship between the two of you is delicate and tense, but it’s never entered the realm of care. Professional respect at most, outright hatred at worst. There’s nothing to risk by asking Akaashi Keiji to help, aside from the risk that he’ll make you feel bad or even that he’ll tell someone else. And it must mean something that you’re trusting him not to do those things.
“Bokuto?” he asks, jumping through all the same mental hoops that you had.
“There’s a million reasons it can’t be him,” you say, sighing tiredly. He narrows his eyes at you in suspicion, but he doesn’t push it. He just shakes his head slowly.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to do this with someone in the same department.” He considers something else, rolling his eyes slightly. “ And we have the same advisor. It’s too close. If something goes wrong…” He shakes his head again. “I don’t know, Y/n.”
“Right,” you say emptily. You’re already recalculating how often you can film and post solo content without losing too much sleep, the thought of selling feet pics popping up again. Anything to keep your mind off of the fact that talking to Akaashi had been a mistake – a waste of his time, and an exposure of yourself that had amounted to nothing. 
This had amounted to nothing, baring this piece of your life to him. How humiliating.
“Y/n,” he says gently. You don’t meet his eyes, just patting your pockets for your office keys.
“Okay, well – thanks for your time-”
“I won’t say anything, Y/n,” he tries. “About any of it. I promise.”
“Thanks,” you laugh. “Yeah, I would appreciate that. Sorry for wasting your time.” You stand quickly, spinning to the door.
“Y/n- Y/n- ” 
The sound of your name is muffled as you yank the door open and slam it closed behind you. You hear him sigh on the other side, a quiet ‘ fuck’ uttered in the stifling silence. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, and you plead for it to be Bokuto or Kuroo or Yachi.
Shockingly, it’s all three, sent to your group chat.
[2:26 PM]
Kou: LUNCH? TEN MINUTES?
Tetsu: bo we eat lunch at THE SAME TIME EVERY SINGLE DAY
Kou: IM JUST CHECKING, FUCK
Hitoka: i like that he reminds us, hehe
Kou: yeah, see??? Yachi’s forgetful!!!
Hitoka: hey now.
Kou: oops-
A small smile tugs at your lips as you drift down the hall to the grad student lounge to get your lunch. But, as you’re typing out that you’ll be down soon, another text comes in.
Akaashi: y/n i wont say anything
Akaashi: i swear
Your face burns with embarrassment. It’s damage control, plain and simple, and the fact that he feels the need to do that at all makes this whole situation worse. You can’t bring yourself to open the text or say anything else to him. It’s humiliating, knowing that Akaashi Keiji knows what you do for money now. That you’re not even good enough at it to make rent.
Akaashi doesn’t make it to lunch that day. You try your best to shrug uncaringly when Bokuto wonders aloud why he’s not there.
Keiji has never known what to make of you.
From the moment he’d met you – at the department orientation five years ago – he’d found you interesting, and not always necessarily in a good way. When you’d rattled off that list of research interests during your self-introduction, the one that had been unrealistically high-reaching and ambitious, he’d written you off as naive. When you’d made friends easily, your smile bright and your laugh loud and grating against his ears, he’d written you off as annoying.
And then you’d gone ahead and proven that that list wasn’t as high-reaching as he’d thought. Or maybe it was, and you’d just had a touch of insanity in your blood. You’d proven that you aren’t just ambitious – you’re successful. You’re smart – brilliant, even. And Keiji had found you interesting again, because he could never tell if you’d realized it. He still can’t.
You carry an intensity in your shoulders and eyes that he’s always caught off guard to see. You question the work of your peers with the kind of brutal honesty that should make you unpopular. It should make people hate you, the way you pick apart their ideas and results. But they never do. They never hate you, and he kind of hates that. 
Maybe it’s because you always seem so eager to learn. You don’t criticize when you question – you just question . You don’t tear anyone down – in fact, your questions only seem to build people up, to the point that you’re often stopped in the halls and asked for your opinion on methodological choices and theoretical connections. People seek you out, and you’re all too happy to help.
But with your own work, you’re suddenly unsure. Keiji bristles when he sees it, that uncertain tilt of your head when you talk. It’s almost impossible to notice, and he’s sure that, to everyone else, you’re just being humble, or a nervous public speaker, even. You’re knowledgeable about your work, you seem confident when you answer questions, and you accept criticism with grace, taking notes diligently when points come up that you hadn’t thought of.
But he sees it – that uncertainty in your own ability. And it pisses him off.
You are annoying, he’d decided after the first time he’d noticed that hesitant nature. It annoys him, because you work just as hard as he does – you’re just as smart as he is – and you can’t seem to see it. Or is it a ploy? Is it an act, a performative relatability that only he can see? 
You piss him off.
How can both of you be so brilliant, but you seem so much more likeable? How can people call him the Golden Boy and then be too afraid to approach him? You’re the Golden Girl, for fuck’s sake. Can’t they see it? Why are you so easy for people to talk to? Why do people tell you ‘ good job’ when you give presentations, and he’s never gotten so much as a pat on the shoulder? Why do people like you so much , and all he gets is polite smiles and nervous expressions? Why does his name float around the department in reverence, but it’s your name that people say when they want to get a second pair of eyes on their proposals, their chapters?
And why , for all that is good in the world, do you not realize it ?
That’s why he targets you. It’s like an itch he can’t reach — he just can’t help himself. He doesn’t offer you meaningless platitudes or careful language when he gives you feedback, because it’s not your favor he wants. What he wants is to push you. He wants to push you to your limit – bully you to it, if he has to. 
Because it’s your research that’s born of brilliance, the kind of brilliance that makes goosebumps rise on his skin. The kind that makes his spine straighten and his gut wrench with excitement. It’s your research – your mind – that he’s drawn to. He wants to see you succeed, because he wholeheartedly believes that you could change the field.
But you don’t see that. No one seems to see that, except him and, undoubtedly, your advisor. So, when he pushes you, he know it looks like a personal attack. He knows it looks to you like he dislikes you for no apparent reason, because you’re just trying your best and he’s the department genius that thinks you’re beneath him. He knows how it looks, and he makes not a single move to fix it – because he’s seen, more than once, how what you think he is and what you think he’s doing has moved you to do revolutionary things.
He’s seen you do remarkable things with just a little bit of hatred. 
So he keeps it up, because maybe he hates you just a little bit, too. Maybe his own work is as unquestionable as it is because he’s secretly begging you to question it, begging you to give him that focused look and that critical eye that always makes his breath hitch. But you never give him what he wants, so he doesn’t either. He doesn’t give you the softspoken voice or the gentle, polite demeanor that he gives everyone else, even though he can see you yearning for it. He won’t give you that, not until you realize what you are – a genius, just the same as him.
When you come to him on October 16th, opening your life to him in ways he hadn’t expected, he means every word he says to you. It shouldn’t be him – it would get messy, the two of you having sex. He knows you had to have thought this through already, that you would never have approached him unless he was the absolute last option available, but he can’t bring himself to say yes to you. He knows you need the money, and there’s a non-insignificant part of him that actually wants to say yes. That wants to help you, because, despite how he feels about you, he can recognize the severity of the situation. Of the look in your eye, desperate and scared.
But he can’t bring himself to do it, because he knows that this intricately built web of hate and respect that you’ve built together is incredibly fragile. That whatever you two have – whatever this thing is that can’t be called friendship or anything close to it – would collapse and change. Keiji doesn’t like change. 
So he watches, over the course of October 17th, 18th, and 19th, as you become more desperate. 
He catches you dissociating more than once during your shared reading group meetings, and you don’t even pull your laptop out during the syntax class you TA together. You avoid his eyes for the duration of the 17th, but you seem to forget about him entirely the rest of the days, your gaze distant and stressed. You check your phone more than once during class, and he doesn’t dare look, because he’s certain you’re looking at your porn account for views and comments.
He catches you chasing after your advisor after group meetings, and he realizes quickly that the man’s aware of your financial situation, because he only shrugs regretfully and leaves you in the hall, staring down at nothing. He catches you turning down Bokuto’s lunchtime offer to hit up a bar on the evening of the 18th, and then he glances into your office the morning of the 19th – you’re staring blankly at the journal article on your desk, not reading a single word, and Keiji begins to understand how this might impact your research.
He confirms it that afternoon, a cloudy Thursday just before lunch. He’s passing his advisor’s office on the way to the grad student lounge, a can of iced coffee waiting with his name on it – but he stops short when he hears your voice inside.
“ ...have to find another job, ” you say, your voice clearly stressed. “ There’s no way to get an advance on next month’s paycheck from the department? ”
The old man sighs loudly. “ I’ll see what I can do, but you know these things don’t usually work like that. And they take time. I think another job’s the only option at the moment. ”
“ Okay, ” you say. “ In that case, I’m not sure what to do about my research- ”
Keiji inhales sharply, pressing his ear to the door. You’re not postponing your experiment, are you? You can’t. He knows he told you to push it as much as necessary for the case marking issues, but he hadn’t meant for it to be like this . 
“ Take some time to focus on your personal situation ,” your advisor says. “ Find a part-time job with stable hours, and we’ll work your research around it. It might double the time needed- ”
Double?!
Keiji’s starts to shake his head. No, that’s not possible. You can’t.
“ Fuck ,” he whispers, stomping off down the hall, his coffee entirely forgotten. God, is this really going to be the thing that brings you down? Is it really going to be this ? 
He barrels into his office and starts to pace the length of it. He thinks through your situation in extreme detail, rubbing at his brow and sighing in frustration every time he has to turn and pace the other way down his office. 
Obviously, you’ve thought through every option, but he runs through them anyway, if only to confirm for himself that you really are left with no option except finding a job and delaying the progress of your research.
Well, there’s one option.
One option that wouldn’t require you to put your energy toward applying for jobs and training for some side gig you have no interest in. One option that doesn’t require you to lose sleep or miss class or drop out of optional reading groups due to having to work somewhere across town. One option that would probably get you immediate payout, which he knows is the reason you started in the first place.
He looks at the little flip calendar on his desk. October 19th. 12 days until your rent is due. How long would it take you to apply for jobs? Would they let you start right away? When would you get your first paycheck?
Is finding a part-time job even a solution anymore?
“ Fuck! ” He throws himself down in his chair. There’s a very large part of him – the majority, even  – that’s concerned about your research progress. It’s unwarranted, his dedication to work that’s not his own. But it’s not even about that – it’s the fact that he knows how this will tear at you. How it will eat you alive, not being able to work on your research. How agonizing it’ll be, seeing the rest of your cohort progress while you struggle to pay rent. Because you think like he thinks, whether you’d like to admit it or not.
Maybe that’s the smaller part of him, too. The part that wants to help you because it’s you . Because, as much as he dislikes and even hates you at times, he wants to fix this for you. He wants things to be okay for you, because you’re a person with a life – a person in his life – and you don’t deserve the kind of torment you’re currently experiencing. He doesn’t want to see you crushed by the stress.
Not when there’s something he can do about it.
Akaashi texts you that night.
You sit, hunched, at your dining table, frantically fixing your resumé and sending it off to different cafes, restaurants, and bars all over Tokyo. You’ve been applying all week – two places have already rejected you, saying they’re only hiring full-time workers, and one place has scheduled an interview with you, but it’s over a week away.
You’re staring intensely at your laptop, pushing down the continuous sense of dread by finding more and more places to apply. You barely notice when your phone buzzes next to you, and you pick it up without looking, thinking it’ll be one of your friends sending a meme to the group chat.
[7:59 PM]
Akaashi: i’ll do it.
You stare down at your phone, unseeing. Your ears start to buzz, and your vision goes blurry for a moment.
He’ll do it? He’ll-
You press call before you can think of anything. He picks up on the first ring.
“ Hello? ”
“You’ll do it?” Your eyes focus in on a scuff on your hardwood floors, latching onto it so you don’t have to look at anything else. “Really?”
“ Yeah. I’ll do it. ”
“Why?”
There’s a moment of silence on the other end, and you eyebrows scrunch the longer it stretches on.
“ I could use a bit of extra money, too. Once you’re done paying rent. ”
It’s insultingly easy to spot that that’s bullshit, but you don’t press it. You can’t risk pressing this. Not when your solution – this miracle – is finally within reach.
“What about the other stuff?”
“ We’ll figure it out. I can draft up a contract and bring it by tomorrow, if that works for you. ”
“A contract?” You want to roll your eyes, because that’s incredibly Akaashi Keiji , but you also recognize that you hadn’t thought of that.
“ Are you in or not? ”
There’s no way in hell you’re passing this up.
“Yes-Sorry, I’m just… surprised. But, yes.”
“ Alright. Tomorrow afternoon? ”
“I’m free after 2.”
“ I’ll be there at 2:30. Send me your address. ”
“O…kay. Okay.”
You hear him swallow and shift on the other end, and then he mumbles, “ Okay. See you tomorrow. ”
You’re left with the dial tone, that scuff in the hardwood burned into your mind when you blink.
“Okay,” you say to no one.
The conversation had lasted 55 seconds.
He shows up at 2:29 on Friday, rapping three quick knocks on your door and scaring the shit out of you as you pace the living room nervously. You rush to get it, fixing your hair and clothes as you go and giving the room a cursory glance. You’re suddenly so nervous to exist in front of him, feeling your appearance and the cleanliness of your home under scrutiny even though he hasn’t seen either yet.
You pull the front door open, dragging your eyes up to meet his. He’s wearing a pair of black slacks and a tucked-in white button-down, the collar peeking through the top of the black sweater vest he’d fitted over it. His glasses, black and settled comfortably on the bridge of his nose, glint in the light and block you from seeing the look in his eye when you appear in front of him. And then he shifts his weight, and you see those deep blue eyes staring right into yours.
Akaashi adjusts his backpack on his shoulder. “Hi.”
You swallow hard. “Uh. Hi.” You step back quickly to let him in, and you try not to notice the subtle cologne he’s wearing when he brushes past you. Had he always worn cologne? “Thanks for coming.”
“Mhm,” he hums, slipping his sneakers off and setting them neatly to the side in your foyer. When he stands, you watch him cast his gaze across your living room and dining area, tucked into a corner by the kitchen. He steps into the living room, wandering slowly to the side of the couch while looking at the space. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to let this place go.”
High ceilings, lots of windows, and a small balcony. Hardwood floors and an open floorplan – the kitchen is visible past the island counter, two beams capping the ends of the bar to section the area off from the rest of the room. Your bedroom door is just past the couch, your roommate’s old room hidden down a narrow hallway with the bathroom. 
When you and your ex-roommate had found the place together, five years prior, rent had been cheaper and $500 hadn’t been considered a steal for a place like this. You’d managed to keep the landlord from raising the prices over the years, the two of you stellar tenants with not a single issue to note. That’s the only reason he’d let your roommate break her lease so suddenly – especially since you’d said you could take the entire thing over until you could find a new roommate.
Not that that new roommate would ever appear.
“Yeah,” you say, following Akaashi into the room and gesturing for him to sit. You move to the kitchen to get two glasses of water while he takes the corner and sets his backpack down at his feet. “I’ve made my home here. Would hate to start over, I guess.”
He looks around, eyeing all the decorations and furniture in the room. Your roommate had left you with the furniture, thankfully – this place would be barren otherwise. She’d even left her bed and the little couch in her room, reasoning that keeping the room furnished might encourage someone to move in. 
You’re not sure you’d ever tell her what you use that bed and couch for now, a conveniently placed “studio” right in your own home.
You join Akaashi on the couch, offering him the water and just nodding awkwardly when he thanks you for it. His fingers brush yours when he takes the glass, his attention still on the room, and you fight the blush that rises. There are a number of thoughts floating through your mind as you examine his fingers, but you shake your head to clear them, because technically no contracts have been signed, so you’re not allowed to think about how pretty his hands will look on camera.
“So…” you start. “What exactly did you have in mind for these contracts?”
He blinks, as though remembering why he’s here, and sets his glass down. “Right.” He rustles through his bag, extracting two sets of papers and handing one to you. “I… had to look up a template for this kind of contract-”
You snort despite yourself, because he’s blushing slightly at having to admit that he has no clue what he’s doing. He rolls his eyes but continues anyway. 
“I think it’s standard to just discuss expectations, boundaries, and-uh- preferences .” 
You flip the first page over, finding blank lines to fill in the terms of the agreement – and then a long checklist that spans about two more pages. It consists entirely of turn-ons, turn-offs, kinks (taboo or otherwise), and absolute non-negotiables. There’s another page with blank lines, the section titled ‘ Agreed Upon Consent System ’. 
You nod slowly. “You did your homework.”
“Did you forget who I am?”
You bark out a laugh, shaking your head as you look through the checklist again. “Sorry – is ‘Shibari ’ listed here because you know it, or because you expect that I might?”
He smothers a smile, but you catch the downward turn of his lips before it’s gone. “I didn’t want to make any assumptions.”
“Fair enough,” you sigh. And then you look at him. “And… you’re sure you’re okay with this?” When he just nods, meeting your eyes evenly, you watch him for a moment. “And you won’t, like, hold this over my head or something?”
His brows furrow for a moment before smoothing out. “No. Of course not.” You don’t respond, and he sighs. “I don’t benefit from hurting you, you know.”
You relax at that. You suppose that’s true – the two of you might not like each other, but it would be another level of messed up if Akaashi were to use this against you in any way..
“Okay. Sorry. I had to check.”
“Surprisingly, I’m above blackmail.”
You shake your head, wondering if he’d always been a little funny, or if this situation’s so ridiculous that you’re finding everything hilarious. “Okay, so – terms?”
He shifts his weight forward, leaning his elbows on his knee while he looks down at the first page of the contract. “I think payment’s the most important part right now.” You nod, watching as he retrieves a pen from his bag and clicks it a few times. “I was thinking… I take 20% of the cut for each video, but only when it wouldn’t prevent you from paying rent and bills?”
“How’d you decide on 20%?”
He shrugs. “I’m relatively comfortable financially, so I don’t need a large portion. And I don’t expect anything for the first few weeks, at least – not until your finances are settled.”
You watch the side of his face while he thinks – his lips pinch into a grimace and he shifts his head back and forth. He’d always been that way, from the beginning. He clicks his pen a few more times, and then he glances at you.
“Is that okay with you? I’m good for 10%, too.”
You shake your head right away. “No, of course not. 20% is completely reasonable.”
He nods, tapping his pen to the paper and writing out the agreement for payment. He sighs quietly. “Okay, next thing… What do you do for privacy?”
You take a breath. “I edit my face out of everything, and-” You stretch your foot out and lift your pant leg, displaying the small sunflower tattoo on the inside of your ankle. “-I edit that out, too.” You point down the hall. “I film in the spare bedroom, so that no one recognizes the stuff in my room. And I muffle some of the audio, so my voice isn’t easy to recognize. It would help, too, if we need to talk to each other.”
He nods, and then he starts to roll up the sleeve on his right arm. “Would it be hard to edit this out?” There’s a medium-sized tattoo on his forearm, a stretch of the moon cycles sketched in black across his skin.
“Oh, woah-” You scoot in on instinct, your fingers hovering over his milky skin. “When did you get this?”
“Last year, when I passed the Prelim.” His voice comes from over your head, quiet and low. You smile to yourself, examining the intricate line art. “I wanted to gift myself something.” You find it interesting to imagine Akaashi Keiji being nervous enough about passing the milestone between doctoral student and doctoral candidate, so much that he’d promised himself something if he were to pass.
“Pretty cool gift,” you mumble, your fingers tracing the air over his skin but never making contact. He lowers his arm, and you seem to realize only now how close you are. You meet his eyes quickly, seeing the silent amusement in his gaze, and you scoot back to your spot. “Sorry.”
He says nothing of it, just nodding down to his arm. “Can you edit it?”
You squint at the art. “I can try, but if you move your arms a lot, it might be easier to cover it with makeup. We can test it – film from the other side, lower the camera so your arm’s out of frame. That kind of thing.”
He nods, rolling his sleeve down again. You look away from his hands as he works, taking the moment instead to reflect on how business-like this conversation is. You’d expected more discomfort, given the circumstances. But you both treat it with detachment and only a few hiccups that can be recovered easily. It’s oddly easy, in a way that you can’t imagine with Bokuto or Kuroo – perhaps because of how much history you have with them, how much would be changing by entering into this kind of agreement together.
There’s nothing holding you and Akaashi together that would prevent you from doing business together in this way. It’s reassuring to realize that.
Akaashi buttons the cuff on his sleeve again and reaches for the pen, jotting down the terms of privacy. He glances at you briefly. “About who we can tell…”
Your heart jumps. “No one, preferably.”
“Right,” he says. “But if someone were to find out on accident, or if someone puts together that we’re having sex… what do we say?”
“Oh…” You tap your nails on your thigh. “Just that we’re hooking up?”
He nods. “That’s fine. I also think it’s fine if you decide to tell someone what we’re actually doing.” He cuts you short when you open your mouth to protest. “ I won’t tell anyone, because this isn’t my financial situation and this wasn’t my idea. This is your business, and I’m mindful of that. But I think it’s perfectly possible that you might end up wanting to tell someone, for whatever reason. And I think that’s your prerogative, so I don’t mind if you tell them that I’m part of it.” He takes a breath, smiling to himself when he considers something. “Uh, but – maybe don’t show them anything.”
“Oh, God, I would never,” you reassure him, shaking your head. “That’s a huge violation. And I don’t expect that I’ll want to tell anyone-”
“Still,” he argues. “It’s good to have the option. If you’re stressed or need a friend.”
“Well, what if you want to tell someone? What if you need a friend?”
His eyebrows tent in amusement, and he sighs. “How about we just agree to ask each other first? Whatever the reason.”
You take a breath. “Okay. I’m okay with that – reserving the right to say no?”
“Of course,” he says plainly, adding that to the terms.
You nod, sighing shakily. You feel an odd sense of trust with him – that he’s good for his word, because he’s, more often than not, honest to a fault.
“Anything… else?” you ask. “Before we get to the… technical parts?”
He snorts through his nose while he writes, and you’re reminded of the absurdity of the situation. “Yeah, just one more thing.” He purses his lips now, not meeting your eyes. “When was your last health visit?”
“Oh!” You blink rapidly, realizing what he’s asking. “Oh, I’m clean. I get a yearly health check, and I haven’t had sex in– I dunno, probably two or three years, so I’m good,” you ramble, laughing to yourself as you brush off his concern. Then you stop, because he’s looking at you like he’s fighting laughter himself, and you register what you’d said. That you’d just admitted to him that you haven’t gotten laid in three years . “Uh-”
He shakes his head. “Good to know. And it’s been at least a year for me, too.” He reaches into his bag, retrieving a sheet of paper. “But I brought this, in case you needed it-” He starts to hand it to you, and you piece together quickly that this is his health check. You take it, only glancing at the date to confirm that it was, in fact, done today.
“You went to the doctor today?”
He blinks. “I thought it would be best.”
You gape at him. “You didn’t have to do that. I would have believed you.” You glance around your living room. “I don’t even know where my sheet is- I went two months ago-”
“I don’t need to see it,” he says, shaking his head. “I believe you.”
“Dude! You can’t have all these weird, anti-double-standards.” You throw your hands up and hand him his health check back, and then you stand, moving to the file cabinet in the corner. “I’m finding that little fucker-”
“ Y/n ,” Akaashi laughs, and you pause, if only because you’ve never heard your name like that from him. He looks more visibly relaxed, too, now that you look at him properly. “It’s fine . If you want to find it, find it later.”
You sigh, staring him down a moment but returning to the couch nonetheless. He tries to hand you the health check again, but you brush it off with a grumble. “I don’t need your stupid health check, damn it.”
“I went through the trouble of getting it,” he argues, lifting his brows with a smug tilt of his head. You glare, snatching it from him but leaving it on the coffee table.
“What else, huh?” You bark, half-joking. “Got any other surprises for me?”
“No,” he says with a patient shake of his head, his lips tugging his smile away. “We can get to the technical part.”
You sigh, lifting your copy of the contract from the table and leafing through it. “So, I post every day on a consistent schedule. Obviously, I don’t want you to give up every evening of your week to film for the next day’s post, nor do I have the time.”
“And it would look weird – both of us becoming suddenly unavailable to see our friends every night,” he reasons, and you nod.
“Exactly. You have a life, and so do I. I usually batch all my content one night a week, and then I spend a few hours the next night editing everything and scheduling it to post.”
“You’ve really thought this through,” he comments quietly, also leafing through his contract. You warm, realizing it’s a compliment. 
“ Thanks ,” you mutter. “I’d hoped it would have yielded better results, but at least I have a consistent schedule now.” You return to your proposal. “I think filming partner content will take longer, naturally, but I don’t want us meeting every night, so how’s twice a week? Five or six hours each?”
He hums and nods right away. “Makes sense. And we can change the days every week, so we’re not both conveniently missing every single, say, Tuesday and Thursday.”
“Yeah, good point.” He writes it down, and you clear your throat. “And I don’t think we should kiss,” you suggest, your voice quiet.
“I agree.” He doesn’t think twice about it, just writing it on the next line, and relief fills you. You hadn’t been sure how to bring up to him the fact that you find kissing personal and intimate in a way that you aren’t comfortable experiencing with him. It would probably offend you if he were anyone else – the way he agrees immediately – but you know he’s only thinking about this as logically as you are.
You appreciate, for once, that you and Akaashi Keiji think so similarly.
“And,” you start, clapping your hands as you realize something suddenly. “As for protection-”
“Oh, yeah,” he says, reaching down into his bag. 
He drops a box of condoms on the table, size large.
You stare down at it dumbly. “Oh. Okay. That’s-” You’re not sure you’d ever expected to be in the know about the size of Akaashi’s-
“I was at the store and didn’t want to forget.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s fine, it’s just-” You smile to yourself, a little embarrassed to know this. “Videos with condoms don’t really do as well as videos without.”
You feel his eyes on the side of your face. “I… did not know that,” he says. “But I can understand why.”
You swallow, handing the condoms back to him with an awkward grin. “I’m on the pill, is what I wanted to say.” You’re glad to see that the apples of his cheeks are becoming rosy.
“Got it,” he says, turning to put the box in his bag again. He scribbles ‘ birth control ’ haphazardly on the sheet, and you let out an accidental snicker. He shakes his head at it, and you catch the grin on his face just as he’s turning away.
“Uh,” you start, trying not to laugh again. “I was also thinking pet names might be necessary.”
“Oh, if we need to talk to each other,” he realizes, nodding. “Yeah. Do you have a preference?”
“I think that question might be better for you,” you muse. “I’m good with most things-”
“ Sweetheart ? Princess ? Pretty girl or baby girl ? Darling ?” he asks without thinking. You watch his mouth move, words you’d never expected from him just falling from his lips like nothing. 
“S-Sure. That’s all fine with me.”
“Okay,” he says. “I think for me… I mean, baby ’s fine. I’m not really into the… more stereotypical names.”
You tilt your head. “What, like daddy ?”
He grimaces. “Yeah, that’s not my thing-” He cuts a glance at you. “Sorry, if it’s yours.”
You smile wide now, utterly amused. “Can’t say it is. But – are you a dom, Akaashi? Or a sub.”
“Why?” he says, a single eyebrow lifting as his lips quirk in a grin. “Because I like to be called baby ?”
“I’m just curious,” you say, feigning a seriousness you simply don’t feel.
“Well, be curious in bed, not now.”
You laugh loudly, throwing your head back. “Yes, Sir.” His fingers twitch on his pen, and your eyebrows lift with interest. You lean forward. “ Sir ? Is that it?”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
“But you reacted when I said it-”
He rolls his eyes and starts to flip the page toward the checklist of preferences. “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it.” 
“How’d I say it?”
He stands, glancing down the hall. “Like a brat.” Your smile drops, right along with your stomach. It flips violently, and your fingers start to tingle, but he barely gives you a second look. “Give me a tour of the spare bedroom? While we go through these.”
Your legs shake when you stand. “Sure.” You lead him down the hall, contract clutched in your hand and heart in your throat. You weren’t prepared to hear that from him.
You push the door open, letting him in. He wanders to the center of the room, turning in place. You’d put plain white sheets on the bed, the comforter a deep red color. The couch in the corner is covered in a pale green sheet, and there are a few throw pillows and blankets laid over the arm and back of it. There’s an empty desk in the corner, one that Akaashi eyes with an amused lift of his brow. 
“It’s nice in here,” he says blankly, his eyes still tracking the decor in the room. It’s all plain enough not to be recognizable, but the room is comfortable to be in. You’d put string lights all around the wall, your phone equipped with an app to change the colors whenever. You’ve got one tripod for your phone near the bed and another near the couch, and there’s a chest at the end of the bed. Akaashi taps it with his foot.
“Functional or just decoration?” Your harsh flush is his answer, and he reaches for the latch, pausing for permission once he’s got his fingers on it. You nod curtly, and he drops his contract and pen on the bed so he can crouch by the chest and lift the top with both hands.
He gives you no indication of his thoughts when he looks inside – it’s filled with sex toys, harnesses, props, and basically anything else you thought might be useful. Looking at it now, you’re certain it looks like you’re into a lot of interesting things, but he only glances at you for a second round of permission before he reaches in. He seems to understand that it’s one thing to look and another entirely to touch , but you give him that permission, too.
The first thing he extracts is a whip. “Have you ever used this?”
You smile emptily. “On myself, once. Wasn’t very fun. And I didn’t upload the video.”
He sets it back inside gently. “I prefer to use my hands, if that’s okay.”
“Oh.” You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to this. “Sure.”
He spends the next few minutes quietly pulling out a variety of dildos, butt plugs, and vibrators and laying them neatly on the bed, side by side. You grow warmer with each one, unsure what to do with this situation. He also retrieves a stretch of black cloth that you’d used once to blindfold yourself. It hadn’t gone as well as you’d hoped.
He stands with it now, tugging on it experimentally. “I like this.”
“Okay.”
He nods to the items on the bed. “I like all those, too-” He glances down and reaches into the chest again, setting a bottle of lube next to the vibrator on the end.
You approach him finally, standing beside him as you survey the collection. “Okay. Why?”
He picks up his contract, scanning the list and pointing to your bed as he speaks. “Guided masturbation.” He points to the dildos and the vibrators. He points next to the butt plugs. “Anal-”
“Oh, I’ve-” You fidget with your fingers. “I have yet to be successful with that.” He stares down at you in confusion, and then gestures to the fact that there are three of them on the bed, varying in size. You smile pitifully up at him. “I thought the issue was the size.”
“O…kay,” he says with a breath of laughter. “We don’t have to include anal-”
“No, I’m…” You chuckle to yourself. “I’m not opposed… obviously.”
There’s a long moment of eye contact, one where you become incredibly warm and his lips fight to tug into a smirk, but he eventually turns back to his contract. 
“Understood.”
You wonder how much longer this torture will last.
He moves to the couch, sighing quietly and clicking his pen again. You’re starting to get the idea that that’s a nervous tick. “Should we just go one at a time and say yes or no?”
“Okay. Sure.” You close the lid of the chest and sit on it, ignoring the pile of toys behind you. 
You spend the next ten minutes that way, voting on a list of kinks with Akaashi Keiji, as though you haven’t spent the last five years dreading every second with him. You learn that he’s into choking – giving and receiving – but that he prefers giving oral more than receiving it. You tell him that you like being tied up but that you’ve never tried it with a partner before, and then you admit to a slight oral fixation. He jokes dryly that you’d have to settle for his fingers in your mouth, in that case, and you bite back a warning that the oral fixation includes marking your partners up where others can see. He only lifts a brow and asks if he should check off ‘ exhibitionist ’, and you joke that your balcony isn’t visible from the street. You ask more certainly if he’s a dom, because it’s becoming obvious that he is, and he rolls his eyes and asks if you’re always this bratty.
The list goes on and on, and you’re surprised by how honest both of you are being. He checks ‘ dacryphilia ’, and you tell him with waning embarrassment that he can go ahead and check ‘ somnophilia ’ while he’s at it. Even things you’ve never tried but have been quietly interested in make the list, and you wonder if maybe it’s because this is a chance to try all those things without fear of judgment from the person you’re doing it with. There’s no pressure with Akaashi, because there’s no crushing fear that he’s going to find you strange or uncomfortable. 
He’d shrugged and nodded when you’d said the word somnophilia, for fuck’s sake. He utters the words ‘ temperature play’ , ‘ overstimulation ’, and ‘ ruined orgasm ’ with ease, and you rattle off ‘ edging ’, ‘ praise ’, and ‘ dirty talk ’ like it’s nothing. There’s nothing to worry about with him.
Eventually, he sighs, turning to the last page of the contract, which only has the ‘ Agreed Upon Consent System ’ section and lines for your signatures. “And… is it alright if I’m a little mean?”
You tilt your head at him, your embarrassment long forgotten. “Like, degradation? Calling me names?”
He hums and then shakes his head. “Not exactly.” He thinks for a moment. “More like… disinterest.”
“Oh.” You consider it. “I suppose that’s a kind of degradation.”
“I suppose it is.” He shifts. “Just worried, since you mentioned praise.”
You feel a little embarrassment now. “Well, is there a way to do both?”
His smile is surprised, and he ducks his head when he laughs. “Yeah, I think there might be. Disinterested praise.”
“Yeah, see? Just make sure not to smile at me when you say nice things,” you joke.
He shakes his head and then taps the paper. “What’s our consent system?”
You shrug. “I’m only really familiar with the color system.”
“Green, yellow, red?” he asks, already starting to write it down. You hum in agreement, and he holds the contract up when he’s done. “Okay. I’m ready to sign if you are.”
You leave your blank copy on the bed and hop off the chest, joining him on the couch. You watch as he signs his name and marks the date on one of the lines – he hands you the pen after, and you do the same, your name sitting neatly under his. 
“Okay,” you breathe, staring down at the paper with fresh eyes. He nods beside you, and then he turns his head. You feel his eyes on you, so you meet them, and he sticks his hand out to you.
“Let’s get you your rent money.”
You can’t help but laugh when you take his hand, shaking it firmly.
He texts you later that night, after you’ve had time to lie in your bed and process what’s just happened. 
You feel, weirdly enough, more comfortable with him – not completely, and certainly nothing of the friendly sort, but you feel like the afternoon hadn’t been that tense or difficult. It had mostly been awkward and a little funny, which is only to be expected in this situation. It makes you wonder, while you’re showering and making dinner, if maybe Akaashi’s not all that bad outside of an academic context.
Of course, things between you inside an academic context are so hostile that it had always bled over into whatever social interactions you’d been forced into by your mutual friends. You can’t imagine that those things will change anytime soon – it feels strange to picture Akaashi as anything but rude and torturous within the department, and you find that you’re not so enthused at the idea of him suddenly warming up to you. You like how things are between you. You like him just how he is, predictably annoying and cold.
So, when he texts you, you’re unsurprised that your guards go up.
[10:16 PM]
Akaashi: i need your account name + site
[10:18 PM]
Akaashi: please
You feel the floor drop out from under you, and you answer in a frenzy.
[10:19 PM]
You: no fucking way
Akaashi: ???????
Akaashi: i need to study before tomorrow??????
Yes, you’d agreed to spend the majority of the day tomorrow batching content for the week. But you have no idea why you hadn’t anticipated this. 
Aghast, you don’t bother typing, just jabbing down on the button to record a voice note.
“You need to study?! ” You say, exasperated. “My body’s all over that account! I’m doing a lot of things on that account! Naked things!”
You send it and wait, pacing the space around your bed. He sends a voice note back. You click play with a shaky thumb.
“ Are you insane?” he says, and you hear that he’s laughing at you. You swell with annoyance as he talks. “ Did you plan to have sex with me with all your clothes on? ” You roll your eyes, sitting at the edge of your bed. 
“Yeah, that was a stupid point,” you mumble to yourself.
“ I need to see what the general aesthetic of your account is, okay? To see how you film. ”
You press the microphone again to record. “Yeah, but this feels super unfair! You’ll have seen my whole body, and I won’t have seen yours – this is skewed!”
He texts back this time.
[10:23 PM]
Akaashi: oh, sorry. let me link you to my porn account, too, then.
Akaashi: are you hearing yourself???
You groan, throwing yourself back on your mattress. You know he’s right, but it’s terrifying to know that Akaashi will have seen you naked – more than naked, really – and you will have no clue what you’re walking into tomorrow. Still, you just flail on your bed a few times in protest before sighing and lifting your phone to your face.
[10:26 PM]
You: xxxvids .com
You: username tokyolovely
You throw your phone down and roll over to bury your face in the mattress, screaming into the comforter when your phone buzzes with his response.
Akaashi: … no comment.
You want to smack him.
Akaashi: and why couldnt you choose one of the big sites that everyone else posts on???
Akaashi: onlyfans?? pornhub even???
Akaashi: i swear to god if i get a virus from xxxvids .com
Akaashi: rent is not the only expense youll need to worry about
You definitely want to smack him.
Keiji throws his phone down on his desk, shaking his head with a sigh.
“What even is that?” he mumbles to himself, typing the site into his laptop. “ XXXVid- This is so stupid. Just use PornHub at that point.”
He’s accosted immediately by thumbnails of naked women and men with penises that just have to be cosmetically enlarged. He plugs his headphones in quickly, very much not needing any audio surprises from this site, and makes an account, rolling his eyes when he needs to come up with a username.
When he’s done, he types your name into the search bar.
“ Tokyo…lovely, ” he says as he types, and then his middle finger hovers over the Enter key. 
His goal really is just to look at how you’ve set up your account. He just wants to see the general tone of your channel. If you’re loud or quiet. If you’ve marketed yourself as one of those gentle, virginal girls or as a sex freak that makes a lot of noise. He needs to know these things, so he knows how to perform tomorrow. It’s logical. It makes sense.
But still, he sits here, finger hovering over the key while he contemplates it. He’d gone through the entire contract with you and revealed his deepest interests – previously experienced or otherwise. But this feels like a move he can’t take back. Once he does this, he will have seen your body, and that’s irreversible.
You agreed to this, you idiot.
He groans, jamming his finger down on the key before he can think further about it. The website buffers long enough that he wonders about that virus again, and then it loads.
Oh.
His heart jumps, and he finds himself looking away from his screen and glancing nervously around his living room, as though he doesn’t live completely alone. And then he looks back, met with the sight of your body.
He can only tell it’s you because he knows it’s you, and – looking at you in a set of black lingerie in the first thumbnail – this body looks like yours. The next thumbnail has you in a mismatched bra-panty pair, and, in the video after, you’re not wearing anything at all. He sucks in a breath, glancing away every few seconds while he scrolls, because it feels wrong to stare. He focuses on the titles, testing every ounce of his reading comprehension in this moment.
[Oct. 19] Shy Girl Fingers Herself to Orgasm
“Shy?” he mumbles, shaking his head. “Yeah, right.”
[Oct. 18] Virgin Sends Masturbation Video to Boyfriend
“Not a virgin,” he says. “No boyfriend.”
[Oct. 17] Girl Makes Herself Squirt on Friend’s Couch
“Not a friend’s cou-Wait.” He blinks. 
You can squirt ?
The room becomes noticeably warmer as he stares down at the little thumbnail of you curled up on the couch in your spare room. He’d intended to watch one video, just to see the extent of your editing, but he’d meant only to skim through it, skipping parts and examining the video from a purely analytic standpoint.
But… Well, if he’s going to watch one, anyway… 
He drags his mouse over it, about to click into it, when a pop-up banner appears from the left side of his screen.
TOKYOLOVELY IS ACTIVE NOW – SAY HI!
Keiji jumps, feeling as though he’s been caught doing something awful. And then he sighs heatedly and clicks on the banner, watching it open to an empty chat box.
[10:35 PM]
tokyohandsome: stop anxiously scrolling through your own videos
tokyolovely: YOU FUCK, YOU CHOSE THAT NAME ON PURPOSE
tokyohandsome: get offline, tokyolovely
tokyolovely: youre not allowed to watch the one of me with that dildo in doggy
Keiji blinks hard. The what ? Where you’re what ?
tokyohandsome: go to bed, youre driving me nuts
tokyohandsome: wait-
tokyohandsome: can you see which video i view????
tokyolovely: …. if i say yes will you exit this website
tokyohandsome: ill take that as a no.
tokyolovely: YOU HAVE TO TELL ME WHICH ONE YOU WATCH
tokyohandsome: goodnight, lovely <3 
tokyolovely: i hate you.
He laughs to himself, bright and hidden in his hand.
tokyohandsome: do you get paid for interacting with viewers in dms?
tokyolovely: yes.
tokyohandsome: do i decide how much they give you?
tokyolovely: … it’s a rating after i log off.
tokyohandsome: then you better say goodnight to me and log off, lovely <3
tokyolovely: ….. goodnight, handsome.
tokyohandsome: :((
tokyolovely: …. <3
tokyohandsome: :))
TOKYOLOVELY HAS LOGGED OFF
He sighs, pleased, and gives you a five-star rating like he’d always intended, closing the chat. He’s tempted to go looking for that video of you in doggy position, but he respects your hyper-specific request and returns to the video he’d originally seen. He clicks on it now, nerves a bit eased after that absurd interaction with you, and settles back in his chair.
The video starts with you in your underwear, touching yourself gently through the fabric. He watches with distant interest as you squeeze your breasts through your bra and then drop one hand to the spot between your thighs that’s currently hidden by how you’re curled up. You touch yourself vaguely, and he hears the beginnings of a moan, quiet in his headphones.
The sound grows the longer you continue, and he wonders if those moans sound faked because they’re obviously so or because he knows you. From the many years of hearing your voice – albeit never in this situation – he can’t imagine that this is what you would actually sound like if you were feeling good. He clicks his tongue, shaking his head as he watches you start to slide the panties down your thighs. 
He’s certain he can pull better sounds out of you than that.
He watches a few moments longer, genuinely critiquing the video and your performance, if only to gauge how he should act, too. 
But then you drop your panties on the couch beside you, sighing breathily, and move to unhook your bra. Keiji’s eyebrows lift as you slip the straps off, and suddenly he’s not thinking about things he plans to do differently as your business partner.
You prop your feet up on the couch and spread your legs, and he spreads his, too, unconsciously, eyes dropping to your exposed core. His tongue darts out, wetting his lips, and he shifts in his seat, his sweats becoming suspiciously tight. He watches you on his laptop screen – the way your fingertips swipe over your clit in two tight circles before dropping to your entrance – and he swallows, committing the motion to memory, because he’s here to study. To study .
He blinks hard, shifting again and ignoring the way his cock twitches in his pants and strains against the band. He watches you dip both fingers into your entrance before slipping out, and he has the torturous thought that your fingers look a lot smaller than his. You repeat the motion three or four times, working yourself open until you can fit both fingers up to the knuckles. 
You moan in Keiji’s ears, loud and a little gratuitous – but he moans back.
He palms himself through his sweats, watching you finger yourself. His breath hitches, and his stomach swirls with nerves, and he feels a wave of desire crash over him.
And then he hears your voice, in that note you’d sent him.
‘-feels super unfair – You’ll have seen my whole body, and I won’t have seen yours-’
He groans, throwing his head back against his chair briefly, and reaches for his phone before he can overthink.
“ Fuck it, ” he mumbles in a strained voice, opening the camera and propping his phone up against the stack of books on his desk. 
He presses record.
At 11pm, you get a text.
You’ve sat on your bed the last thirty minutes, scrolling through Twitter absentmindedly as you think about what Akaashi could be watching. You wonder if he’s actually watched anything, or if he’s just skimming the thumbnails and titles, or maybe if he’d just logged off right after you, satisfied with teasing you a little. 
You feel painfully vulnerable in your state of not knowing. You have no clue what you’re walking into tomorrow. At least before, you were partially comforted in that neither of you had seen the other naked, and also in that neither of you had been with someone else in at least a year. There had been an air of safety, knowing that you and Akaashi were on relatively equal ground.
You’re horribly underground, now.
So, when his first text comes through, the banner pulling down over the top of your screen, you think the worst.
[10:59 PM] 
Akaashi : [Video Attached]
What is that? What did he do? Did he record your videos on his phone? Is he commenting on them? At the very worst, he’s making fun of you, and at the very best, he’s offering you tips to improve your filming or editing. You really don’t know which you hate more.
But then his second text comes in, this banner replacing the last.
Akaashi: making it a little less unfair.
“ What? ” you mumble, brows furrowed as you click on the notification. Your phone jumps to the text thread, and you squint at the thumbnail of the video. It’s just him leaning toward the camera with a furrowed brow, seated at his desk in grey sweats and a white t-shirt, with his glasses perched on his nose and his hair slightly wet from what’s probably a recent shower. He’s got headphones in, and there’s something bright on his laptop screen.
It’s the glare in the corner of his glasses, a reflection of his laptop screen, that makes your heart leap.
You know that pale green sheet.
“What… the fuck …?” You bring the phone close to your face, too scared to press play . “Is that asshole live-reacting to my video?” With a trembling finger, your click on the video.
And you realize immediately what’s happening.
Akaashi settles back in his chair with a heated sigh, his tongue darting out as he watches his screen. It’s because he leaned back that you can see properly now – the tent in his pants, the hand he presses over the outline of his cock with a quiet sigh.
Your jaw drops. He’s-
His eyes track your movement on the screen, which you can now see clearly in the glare of his glasses, and his bottom lip catches between his teeth. He breathes hard, palming himself through his sweats as he watches your video. He glances once at his own camera, clearly nervous about recording this, but then his eyes widen and fly to his screen, whatever sound you’d just made in his headphones drawing his attention completely.
“ Oh, f- ” He purses his lips, and you feel yourself leaning in, wanting to hear what he’d been about to say. He blinks rapidly, eyes trained on one spot – you can see exactly which video it is now, and your heart jumps when you recognize the way your own body moves in the reflection of his glasses.
So that’s what he’s into.
You spend so long staring at the reflection in his glasses that you nearly miss the way he starts to move. You drop your eyes in time to catch him lifting his hips just enough to slide his sweats down to his thighs. He tucks one hand into his boxers, and you watch with parted lips as Akaashi Keiji’s eyes roll back into his head.
“ Fuck, ” he breathes, his head dropping back momentarily, and your mouth falls open more, your brain stunned into nothingness as you watch him masturbate to a video of you masturbating. As you realize that this isn’t just anyone watching one of your videos – liking one of your videos.
This is Akaashi Keiji.
Akaashi Keiji’s just given you the confirmation that you’re good at this, after so many weeks of feeling quite the opposite.
“Oh,” you breathe, the sticky heat of understanding washing over your skin. It worsens when he uses his free hand to tug his boxers down, making this ground feel suddenly a lot more equal.
Oh.
Akaashi keeps his eyes glued to his screen, and you catch a glimpse of your on-screen self coming more and more undone. You examine him closely while he watches it, too – his lips are swollen and wet from pursing and biting at them, and there’s a flush high on his cheeks and a hooded, hazy quality to his eyes that makes your stomach flip with nerves. His tongue darts out again, wetting his pink lips just as he’s parting them to sigh. 
Your eyes drop, watching how he slides his palm against his cock, slick with precum and making the most impolite, soft squelching sound whenever he flicks his wrist. Your thighs press together instinctively, a hard throb pulsing through your core when his hips jerk slightly. 
His breathing speeds up, as does the flick of his wrist, and you realize in the reflection that you must be starting to squirt. Akaashi grips the arm of his desk chair with his free hand and presses his lips together, his moan muffled but still audible. His hips jerk and stutter, and then his eyes roll back into his head again as he comes all over his hand and stomach, streaks of white painting the back of his hand and wrist.
His lips part in a gasp and a rough sigh as he’s coming down, and he slumps against his chair, breathing hard as he stares at nothing – the screen is dark in his glasses now. He drags his clean hand through his hair, tugging hard and breathing out a soft ‘ fuck ’. He breathes twice more, and then his eyes flick to his camera, as though he’s only just remembered it’s there.
He sees himself in the video and rolls his eyes immediately, a breathless laugh leaving him as he shakes his head and looks away.
“ Uh, ” he says, still laughing. He leans forward, reaching with his free hand for the phone, and shakes his head again. “ See you tomorrow, I guess.”
The video cuts there, leaving you with silence and a sudden, overwhelming attraction to Akaashi Keiji.
Oh.
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headspace-hotel · 1 year ago
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I've been able to neither read nor write stories in a long time. Poetry too, for the most part. I guess what I mean is that the art of the written word has become a stranger to me.
I hate what poetry classes did to my writing. Yes, the Wikipedia poems, but they are easier because they're not my own words, and I have gotten so many comments on those saying they are powerful pieces of art, but for me personally they're a way of hiding from the awfulness of trying to assemble my own words into poetry.
I hate the poems I wrote in poetry classes. I hate the version of me I showed others in those classes. I hate the way poetry classes taught me to draw from my own experiences and thoughts for poetry. I hate everything I learned about how to interpret poetry, the eye with which I learned to read poetry, and the vocabulary I learned to talk about poetry, and ultimately, I hate "literary" poetry.
"Literary," by the way, is the category of art that has more meaning, value and legitimacy than the "other" category, which is not "literary." A "literary" poem is published in special, fancy "literary" magazines and almost invariably written by a person with a MFA or PhD in poetry.
You could say that the distinguishing feature of "literary" art is its overwhelming sense of legitimacy. A "literary" poem is a poem in the same way that a nonprofit organization is charitable, that a CEO is rich, or that an SAT score demonstrates your academic prowess. It is a poem completely immune to the possibility that someone will think it sucks. It expects to be absorbed, analyzed, studied, and discoursed upon because something feels "official" about whatever designates it as Good Art.
Literary poems are not only written by and for a special subset of people that have been formally taught to read and interpret poetry, they are written exclusively for audiences that will automatically assume they are Good Art; beautiful, meaningful, and worth interpreting. Because of this, most literary poems are literal incomprehensible nonsense.
Just take this one:
Say I climb the ladder of wheat/and at the top there is a faucet dripping beads of water/but the water takes a year to turn into an eagle/and the sky's forty-three shades of gray pierce/the first inflection of my heart, the point where the signals/throw grass into the river. Say the river sags/and the horizon sucks the lance out of the ghost's hands/like the moment of being born, the point where a shadow's/tongue slides through the faultline./Grace. Sunlight, cherries.
(it continues like this)
And conceptually, I love art as collaboration between the creator and viewer, where abstract, indeterminate and murky things are forced to take shape through the participation of the viewer as they interpret and associate things that stand out to them in the work! The "aliveness" of art in the abyss between what the artist attempts to communicate and what the viewer feels is the coolest thing to me!
But this philosophy of art is incompatible with the idea that there is an elite category of art that is worthy of interpretation, analysis, and reverence. I can fuck around with this random word generator and get something that is roughly as meaningful as the above. I don't mean that as demeaning to the poem, I mean that I feel demeaned by the poem, because its linguistic play and experimentation is something that everybody can do, that everyone should try doing, but this poem has been designated as something exceptionally meaningful and worthy and its writer teaches writing at the University of Chicago. You can click through that website for hours and not find a single soul without a MFA or above in poetry or creative writing.
For me, the world of "literary" writing was like a room with a splatter of vomit across the floor that no one else would acknowledge. The ability to formally study poetry in college was a privilege, but I was constantly aware of privilege, and the thing about privilege is the more you have, the less you think about it. What of the ability to pursue a PhD in poetry? What small fraction of people could expend so much time and money on something that didn't really have a career associated with it? And of that fraction, which fraction would be seen as "good enough" to publish poetry books and to teach? With poetry this indeterminate, how were the "good" poets selected at all?
Literary writing excludes poor people, and the existence of published literary poets who are immigrants or minorities doesn't negate this. Increasingly, published writing in general excludes poor people. A LOT of popular authors graduated from very elite schools!
But literary poetry I hate especially, because it puffs itself up on unlocking the universe and human experience and pain, as if insight into those things is a seldom-appearing gift instead of something many people have, except they don't have the time and money to train themselves into expressing it in a way that appears Literary.
The "literary" vs. "non-literary" paradigm had an inescapable rottenness to it. I couldn't stop thinking about the luminous conversations I'd had with people who lacked the formal training to express ideas in a "literary" manner, but still showed me something vital about the universe.
I've been bitching about literary poetry for like two years now, and really, I just hate what studying all that shit has done to my own writing style. It's so frustrating that the joy and playfulness won't come back.
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grimm-the-tiger · 1 year ago
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We need more mad scientists that aren't engineers, chemists, or biologists. Where are the mad linguists learning eldritch tongues? Where are the mad archaeologists digging up ancient objects of power? Where are the mad physicists sending ships into black holes or sticking people in experimental spacecraft to test their theories? Where are the mad computer scientists hacking powerful organizations to spread mind-melting memes...wait, that's just Anonymous. Never mind.
I just think we need more representation of fields of mad science than engineering, chemistry, and biology. Those are all fine and dandy, of course, but the POTENTIAL-
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