#fun fact at some point (around middle school I think?) i bought a different notebook to be my diary which was less pages since i didn't

[sugaroto]

I don't write in my diary for months and then I open it one day and write 5 and a half pages

Also I finished it! It's out of pages! Heck yeah! After 9 years!

The dork diaries who? Get ready for the first sugar diary, collectors edition only 999,99€

[tomcriuse]

@foxwulder asked: im interested in your answer to this. what do you think mulder was like at college, socially. give me all of your headcanon on this.

yeah idk why but every time i sit down to write headcanons, i end up writing an essay that could be true like none of it is grounded in. Anything

his first year, he was incredibly involved in his studies—obsessive almost. there isn’t a part of fox mulder that doesn’t love learning anything that he can get his grubby little goblin hands on. he would keep to himself, shy. quiet.

he spent a lot of time on his own. his apartment was just outside of campus, so he would spend mornings walking to class not quite seeing everything around him. if it was especially cold, he would stop and get some coffee at his favourite café on the corner of the cobblestone street where the door creaked when you opened it and the bell rang a little too loudly and the coffee was just a little too hot. every time he went there, the barista would see him coming from down the road and she would have his cup made before he walked in. he would smile kindly—awkwardly charming, almost—at the her and his hands would shake a little as he was counting out the change and he would comment on the weather like it was unusual, but the weather in oxford changes once a year and the barista would just smile in amusement and say see you tomorrow green eyes, and mulder would blink and rub the back of his neck and say see you tomorrow coffee girl. their interactions were short and limited to the five minutes he could spare on his walk, but sometimes he would bring her book recommendations or random fun facts that he learned from his school reading. it was small ritual, but it was but it was a great comfort that made him feel less alone.

he met his first real friends in one of his beginner psychology classes. mulder always sat in the second row—he thought that the first row was for the people who wanted to show off too much, and he thought the back of the room was for the people that didn’t care at all. he considered himself right in the middle and showed it in where he sat. it seemed that a lot of people felt the same way, because the entire row was empty save for him and two guys and a girl. there as a sort of unofficial official seating chart camaraderie. the boy next to him wore the same three wrinkled button up shirts in various shades of green and layered them with old sweaters with holes in them. the other boy was always put together—no matter if he got two hours of sleep or twelve. he wore designer suits in every shade and pattern imaginable. he never wore a tie but always brought a baseball cap to class, worn and old and stained. the girl recorded every lecture on her cassette player and transcribed them every night. her notes were detailed and organized and covered in coffee rings from the late nights. they were a group of ragtag kids—relics from different cultures cobbled together to create a beautiful sculpture.

since the first day of class, the boy with messy clothes and a charming grin would always come to class with no pen and no paper, and disarm mulder with his shy eyes and say hey man, can I borrow some? and mulder knew there was now borrowing, he was never getting it back but he couldn’t say no. he bought notebooks for him and cases of pens but he wouldn’t take them and so mulder just kept them in his bag and took them with him wherever he went. originally their interactions never went past that. it became their own unspoken language—a habitual tradition that followed them in everything they did.

this also means that whenever there was group work, which was quite often in a behavioral class, the four would always be assigned together. at first they would just meet in the library or sit on the lawn with the sun peaking out from behind the clouds, focusing only on the task at hand. the three of his classmates would mess around and mulder would through in a witty comment here and a sharp retort there, but he never told much about himself. all they really knew about him was that he was the american boy with messy hair, pretty eyes, and an unusually lanky frame. he wasn’t cold, but he wasn’t inviting. he didn’t want to get attached and lose more that he loved.

the more they were forced together, the more that mulder started accepting that he deserved happiness—that he didn’t have to push others away. that he deserved to be loved. they moved from libraries to his favourite café and from the lawn to the floor in someones apartment. they moved from homework to movies and witty anecdotes to stories. it was the first time that he had ever told anyone what happened to sam. they didn’t laugh, they didn’t ridicule. they told him that if anyone could bring her back it would be him.

every friday night, they would go to the indian food restaurant around the corner from his apartment and they would order half of the menu. they would laugh and argue about movies and psychoanalyse each other. they would be a little too loud and they would stay a little too long after closing and they would tip a little too much to make up for it, but they felt more at home in that restaurant than they ever did with their parents.

coming from old money in new england, the way that mulder was raised to appreciate people was through gifts. originally, he would buy sweaters new shoelaces or new wheels for his skateboard. he would buy mr perfect the ugliest ties he could find. he would buy the curly haired girl blank cassette tapes and hand-crafted mugs. but somewhere along the way, he wanted to give a part of himself to them to remember him by. he would hang out at the skatepark with sweaters at two in the morning. he would play soccer with mr perfect even though, if he had any choice, he would rather die than pick soccer over baseball.

it would be the small things. the way the curly haired girl would throw her straw wrappers at mulder when he told a bad joke. the way that sweaters threw his arm around his shoulder and leaned in like he was going to tell him the world’s greatest secret—the key to the universe. the way mr perfect would invite him to museum parties that his family forced him to go to, and the way that they would sneak off to the roof to watch the stars. listening to music as they counted the constellations. reading psychology books aloud. coming up with stupid conspiracies and trying to convince the other person that it was true. having paper airplane races. going to france for a weekend and trying every coffee place they could. trying recipes from thrift-store cookbooks that they ruin and end up ordering takeout. someone finding a small sunflower and giving it to him and him saying, we both know exactly what is wrong here. road trips to the countryside where there was a ufo sighting.

his greatest friendships in college were built on admiration and annoyance and fate and love.

at some point, people started to notice mulder. maybe it was his wild hair or his bright smile or his ringing laughter. maybe it was the way that he always kept his word or was always there for you if you needed to talk. everyone seemed to know him. he would say hello in passing to kids on campus and help you out in the library if you needed. but his focus was always on his friends—his family. outside of them, he had a couple friends maybe—acquaintances. people he would sit next to in other classes, someone doing peer review. fleeting.

it wasn’t that he avoided making other friendships, but it was that the bond between the four of them ran deep. they knew everything about each other—how crispy they liked the crust on their bread, how dark or light they like their coffee, whether or not they looped the end when they wrote a y, the way their eyes light up when they think of a comeback, the twitch of their eyebrows when they hear something that annoys them. it was nothing that you could learn from reading a book, but things only resulting from years of intensive study and firsthand experience. for every connection in their circle, one was a primary source and the other was a historian pouring over ever wrinkle and stain on the page.

however, when he met phoebe, things started going downhill. she would monopolize his time and steal him away from his family. she drove a wedge between them. it was his first real taste of betrayal—not his friends walking out on him, but someone who he loved driving them away. there was no more of the pure happiness that he felt with them. it felt wrong to take her to the places that they went together. he couldn’t eat indian food. he hated france. he bought everything new, nothing used.

it was like he was back to square one, almost: keeping to himself, shy. quiet.

[slasherscream]

A/N: i got…  just the absolute sweetest messages from a reader who’s chinese so that’s what this is the result of. we poc deserve hella specific imagines just like anyone else!! smooches @calling-out-maeday. hope you like it!!

     sidney prescott x chinese fem!reader x tatum riley                ft. that’s it …. that’s the whole concept          (and a whole lot of learning to love yourself)

                                                     ——————– 

The girls stop dead in their tracks the first time they notice you. Or        Tatum stops dead in her tracks. She’s the one who actually sees you first. She throws out her arm to psychically stop Sidney (because the moment requires some drama god dammit). Sidney is about to start glaring when Tatum, in the most love-struck voice Sidney has ever heard from her, goes “who is that?" 

Sidney finds you easily in the crowd. Mostly because Tatum is pointing at you in a way that is both not subtle and also … rude. She has to let it go because … well         Tatum has always had good taste, "No idea. I’ve never … seen them around before.” It took her a second to properly get the words out because you were so pretty. 

You must be new since the town is small enough to have a vague idea of everyone who attends even if you don’t know everyone’s name. Just being frank Tatum knows she’s not stupid enough to have missed going to school with a Chinese girl all these years since you’d have been, quite literally, the only one. Despite this being California, Woodsboro is a little lacking in diversity. 

“I’m gonna go talk to her.” Sidney thinks she just saw Tatum adjust her shirt (aka boobs) a little before she started trying to walk your way. She grabs her best friend by the arm and yanks her back. Tatum starts to pout, “What?”

“Look at her … she seems kinda ….quiet, y'know?” Sidney notices that you’re outside alone during lunch period. They’re only outside cause they were going to go get lunch off campus. Your energy says you’re outside for a very different reason        discomfort. “Shy, maybe." 

"Just means she could use some friends.” Just like that Tatum yanks her arm away from Sidney and hauls ass over to you. Sidney tries to run after her to stop her from being probably far too aggressive with you but doesn’t make it in time (Tatum runs track instead of doing the bare minimum in gym class like some people).

“Hey.” Tatum skids to a stop in front of you and you jerk back at the sight of shoes suddenly in your line of vision. When you look up there she is, grinning down at you. “Newbie? Never seen you around before.”

“Oh uhm ….yup! The new kid. Having a lot of fun.” Tatum laughs at your barely joke (a little too loudly. the way girls that are flirting always do-). 

“Can we join the party?” She’s already sitting down and dragging Sidney (who has the decency to look embarrassed) with her. 

Just like that Tatum is there to stay. And Sidney          despite her initial protests, is too. You’re fun to be around and oh so pretty. They’ve both caught each other zoning out in the middle of you talking (they can practically fucking hear this playing every … single….time) just …focusing on something like how you throw your head back when you laugh or just the way your laugh shapes your mouth. They’re too gay to be trying to function. 

You become a third part of a duo they’d never known was missing a piece. Having you around feels natural. Not having you around ruins their day (Tatum stop being dramatic-). They’re always hovering nearby and you’re always doing the same. You know you spend a lot of time together because they’re no longer Sidney and Tatum         always Tatum, Sidney, and Y/N. It makes them smile. It makes you smile too.

Tatum loves your smile. But you don’t seem to. You’re always covering it when you do it in a way that looks automatic. Like you’ve been doing it your whole life. 

It’s never really bought up until you’re all having a night on the town and Tatum sees a photo-booth that she instantly crams all three of you into. You take the first set of pictures and all hop out to see the results. The girls are wacky and wild in the photos      meanwhile you’re …restrained, to put it lightly. They crawl back in and demand you make the same poses and faces so you can be a matching set. Quietly you say, “That will show too much teeth.” The girls pause in their pushiness sensing that you’re actually quite serious. 

“What do you mean?” Sidney asks. 

“Yeah, what do you mean?” Echoes Tatum.

“My teeth are kinda….big, y'know?” You gesture at your face and purse your lips together as if you want to hide them forever. “They stick out and that will make them….stick out more. That…that pose. And…that face." 

"Your smile is pretty, Y/N! What are you talking about?” The genuine, earnest, confusion on Tatum’s face and in her voice makes you pause. “It’s one of the prettiest smiles I’ve ever seen.”

“Are you serious?” You ask, bewildered. 

“As a fucking heart attack!” and then Sidney smacks her arms. “What? Tell her, her smile is pretty, Sid.”

“It … is a really pretty smile, Y/N. It was one of the first things I noticed about you." 

"Me too." 

"Yeah because my teeth as so-”

“No         because it’s so cute.” And Tatum grabs your face and pulls you so close that you can feel her breath on your lips, “So make the face with me and Sidney. Or don’t - but don’t do it because you don’t think you look pretty doing it. You look pretty doing anything.”

Her gaze could make a nun blush but Sidney clears her throat and breaks the mood of the booth. She’s been on the other side of a look … similar. She knows how it feels. “Let’s take this picture.” You do take the picture and you don’t do the exact same face as them but one … similar. And Tatum keeps the picture in her wallet. You, Sidney, and her. Her favorite people in the world and her. 

Sidney got sick one week straight and you and Tatum did nothing but pout the whole week. “Where’s your better third?” Shouted Randy as the two of you walked by. Tatum flipped him off and you felt yourself get hot with embarrassment. “She’s at home sick, asshole." 

You two bring her notes and homework. Which means       you are bringing her notes and homework and Tatum tags along. She’s not stupid but she doesn’t do her work in-depth enough to be bringing Sidney friendly "catch-up’s” from History class. 

As Sidney’s flipping through one of your notebooks (you’d given her a whole stack) she notices this particular one’s pages are full of Chinese calligraphy. Tatum, who is sitting too close to her on the bed if she doesn’t want to get sick, sees and starts to ooh and ahhh. 

“You didn’t tell us you could write in Chinese!" 

"What?” You yelp and immediately go to snatch back the book. Sidney, who cannot read them but loves the way the ink looks on the page, dodges you annoyingly easy for a woman on her deathbed, “Wrong notebook! Give it!”

“In a minute! It’s beautiful. You can write like this?” The transfixed quality in her hoarse voice makes some of the tension leave your body. Not all….but some. 

“Just a little.” Trying to sound modest. Or maybe you sound small….like it’s not something you’re particularity proud of. You should be though. It looks like pure art. Tatum gasps when Sidney turns the page and she finds new characters. She’s now well and truly snuggled up to the other girl (definitely going to get sick). 

“How can you know just a little when these pages are full with like … a lot?” Tatum laughs, putting a finger out to brush along one of the ink strokes. Her tone is soft. “What are you writing in them?" 

"Random things.” You shrug, “ I just…I do it so I don’t forget it. Y'know?" 

"Can you teach us what some of these mean?” You blink at Sidney’s question. She’s looking up at you with wide, eager eyes. Tatum follows her lead.

“Yeah get over here!” You don’t have time to move before Tatum is yanking you in-between the two of them and settling the book in your lap. She points to one of them. You’re trying not to notice how they feel pressed and curled against you. They both snuggle closer. Tatum points with more insistence, “C'mon! What’s it say. It’s pretty!” She’s so pleading you can’t not tell her. They spend the rest of the afternoon curled up listening to you read the characters off the page. 

“You don’t seem to like any of the food they serve?” Sidney asks one day when she notices you pushing the food around your plate. The cafeteria food isn’t great but it’s not bad either. “Why don’t you ever bring anything like Tatum does?”

You look like a deer caught in headlights which makes Sidney and Tatum exchange a knowing glance. You only ever make #That Face when they’ve stumbled on one of your very specific insecurities. Now they’re determined to know what it is.

Sidney places a hand on Tatum’s thigh under the table and squeezes, a silent plea to let her try and find out what the insecurity is. 

Sidney can be subtle. Tatum is loving but  … not subtle. When she can tell something is wrong with someone she cares about she’ll raise absolute hell until the problem is resolved. It’s one of her more endearing traits but it can go  … not in her favor, at times. Sidney senses this is one of those times it could go poorly. 

Tatum, knowing this, deflates a little but gives a small nod that she knows you won’t notice. You’ve already gone back to looking at you cafeteria tray a little miserably. 

“I don’t know…” You say after a long moment of silence. The girls are never quiet for long so you know that they’re actually waiting for an answer. The fact that they’re so focused on you makes you want to crawl out of your own skin with nerves. “Just don’t like it much." 

They analyze the ever loving shit out of your response and the next time they have a sleepover at your house while Tatum distracts you upstairs with an impromptu pillow fight attack Sidney goes downstairs to talk to your Mother. 

"Hey uhm        Mrs. Y/L/N?” she plays nervously with the end of her sleeve, “Can I ask you something about Y/N?" 

Your Mother pats the seat on the couch next to her and Sidney comes to sit. She can see the worry on your Mother’s face and quickly starts to reassure her, "Nothing is wrong! Or at least …. nothing is seriously wrong? I just…. Y/N is kinda…. She can be kinda…A little-” Sidney struggles with the words for a long time before she just settles on the first one that’s most honest, “Insecure? It seems         about a lot of little things.”

Your Mother sighs deeply at the words and closes her eyes. By insecure she knows Sidney is referring to how you feel about your Chinese heritage. You’ve always been that way. The world around you telling you that you and your culture aren’t beautiful and wonderful and you        unfortunately, believing the world. “Ah. Yes, she can be… is this about something specific?”

“She hates the food at lunch. Barely eats it. And I can tell she’s super hungry by the end of the day. And I was just wondering … what her favorite food is?”

“Pork baozi. She’s loved it ever since she was a little girl but she … doesn’t like to eat them much in public.” Sidney starts to frown. Your Mother frowns back. Not at each other but at what they both know is going on.

Sidney clears her throat and adjusts herself to sit up straight, “Can you teach me how to make it? Me and Tatum? Please.”

Your Mother stares at her for a long moment and then she smiles, even reaches out to pat Sidney’s cheek, “You’re sweet girls. Come back tomorrow afternoon. She’s always at the library for hours at that time. I’ll teach you then. Now shoo         back to your sleepover.” Sidney grins all the way upstairs. 

Tatum and Sidney arrive promptly and your Mother puts them to work immediately. While they’re learning they all talk about you. Listening to your Mother talk about you is eye-opening. They realize just how deeply some of your insecurities go and just how much they care about you that afternoon. When they leave it’s to your Mother hugging them goodbye. She can tell how much they care about you. Furthermore she can tell they’re good influences on you. You’ve been smiling more since you’ve met them. 

On the ride back to Tatum’s, where Sidney is going to spend the night, they finally start talking seriously to each other about what’s clearly been going on, “I think I really like Y/N. As in … like-like her.” Tatum goes first, deep breath once and then just dives right in. She’s always been like that. Sidney has always loved that about her, “Maybe even … a little more than that?”

“I uh ….. like-like her too. And maybe …also feel a little more than that?” Sidney admits before she covers her face with a groan, “What are we twelve?”

“Maybe.” Tatum laughs and pokes Sidney in the side. Only putting her hand back on the wheel when Sidney’s commands her to do so. “I’ve always kinda…. like-liked you too, though.”

“Yeah?” Sidney asks a little breathlessly, taking her hands off her face to look at Tatum’s. 

“Yeah.” Tatum nods firmly, “But it was never the right time. But now       ” She trails off with a smile and Sidney knows what she means. 

“Now’s perfect.” Sidney will not hold Tatum’s hand but she does give her a kiss on the cheek (how was that supposed to be less distracting? Tatum wants to know as she tries desperately not to fucking swerve-).

So now they’re a thing. And as they wait for you excitedly outside at lunch where they’ve told you to meet them? They’re hoping you’ll all be a thing soon. 

You know they’re up to something as soon as you see them but they refuse to say anything until you sit down. Once you do Tatum starts to nervously reach into the over-sized bag that she bought to school today for “some” reason. Sidney starts talking, “Y/N        you are amazing. You’re sweet. And funny, and beautiful, and our best friend. And we love you. But-”

“We also might wanna be a little bit more than best friends. Maybe. If you’re up to it.” Tatum finishes, and with that she puts an open container of pork baozi on the table. They wait for your reaction. Or they try. The stunned look on your face makes Tatum start babbling, “Either way we made you lunch. Your Mom taught us. It’s your favorite right? She told us it was but we know how parents are. Who really listens to their kid these day       Ow!” Sidney pinched her thigh to shut her up. The look she gives her is gratitude despite the exclamation of pain. She’d wanted desperately to shut up. 

“You guys didn’t have to do this      ” Your voice is so quiet and small it makes them nervous. 

“We wanted to.” Sidney says firmly. At first she was thinking you hated it but your expression shifted to something a little softer and now she thinks that your reaction is coming form a place of insecurity once again. She wishes she could slap anyone who’d ever made you feel like this. Instead she reaches for your hand. When you let her take it she sighs in relief. Tatum takes your other one. 

“We really wanted to. Just like how we really like you.” Tatum is catching on too now. She goes a step further and leans over the table top to kiss your forehead. You release a shuddering breath that makes her do it again. 

So        together. You’re all together and the girls couldn’t be happier. Insecurities don’t disappear in a day but they try to help as best as they can. You’re worried that one day it will finally be too much but so far every-time you reveal a new insecurity they reveal just how deep their compassion and love for you goes. 

And yes          love. Tatum said it barely a month into the official start of the relationship. She knows herself inside out and knew the moment she loved you for sure. She’d wanted you to know just as quickly.

Sidney is always more reserved and careful. But she follows Tatum’s lead a month later and says it when you’re both alone and you’re allowing her to put eyeliner on you. You’re squirming at how much she’s staring at a part of you that has always made you so insecure in particular. She kisses the corner of your eye when she’s done, then she kisses your lips for good measure, “I love every beautiful part of you. I love you." 

Maybe you cry a little. Maybe she cries with you. Maybe it brings you closer.

Tatum even opens up to you about her own insecurities hoping to make you feel more normal. "I know it’s not the same thing and the reasons are different but        everyone has things they don’t like about themselves. I think my hips are too big, and …that my nose is too pointy … and I’m not a natural blonde. If you couldn’t guess that from my totally brunette family." 

You’re quick to comfort her and tell her how beautiful she is and that’s when she snatches you by the face and forces you to look at her, her expression resembles the cat that caught the canary, "Aha! That’s the exact point. I am beautiful. Just because I found some things not to like about myself doesn’t mean I’m not. The same goes for you, babe. You’re a fucking knockout and everyone can see it but you." 

Maybe that makes you cry too. Maybe. Tatum has got thicker skin than Sidney so maybe it doesn’t make her cry seeing you cry but maybe it makes her hold you a little tighter, determined to make sure no one ever makes you feel this way again. Not even you. 

A random dance is coming up. For what no one knows and no one cares. It’s a chance to buy a new dress and party! What more does a teenager need to know?

You’re all trying to go dress shopping but you can’t find anything you like. You go back to your house feeling put out but are determined to go shopping again tomorrow. You all won’t stop till you find the perfect set of dresses that compliment each other nicely (no clashing, demands Tatum, deadly serious). 

While you’re all hanging out in the living room trying to brainstorm Sidney notices something new about the place. "Hey what’s that?” she points at a picture in a frame hanging on a wall surrounded by other pictures. This one is the most eye-catching though. The biggest and prettiest. 

“That? A picture of my grandma my Mom just found. She finally got around to unpacking some things a relative sent us while we were moving. In a box of junk was this. There’s not many pictures of her so she was super excited.” You’re trying to make yourself sound casual but they can hear that you were just as excited as your Mom at the find. They smile at each other. 

“What’s she wearing?” Tatum asks.

“Oh that’s a Hanfu. She really loved it apparently. Was her favorite thing to wear. It's        kinda pretty, huh? I could never wear something like it though.” Sidney and Tatum share another look. You could absolutely wear something like that. And furthermore you will. 

Once again they talk to your mother, “Oh she’d never go for it.” She says right off the bat, “you girls know that.”

“She’s a lot more confident!” Tatum disagrees politely which your Mother can agree on but you’re not that confident. “Maybe this is one of those … one of those one last push things? Like when you push a baby bird out the nest and it’s the one you maybe didn’t think was gonna fly but it surprises everyone cause it does.”

The optimism in Tatum’s voice makes your Mother smile at her fondly, even reach for the girl’s hand to give it a comforting squeeze, “You have done a lot for her these past few months. But this is just something she won’t do. I’m sure of it. She would feel too out of place. Too embarrassed." 

"What if we did it with her?” Sidney asks suddenly, interrupting, which she never does to an adult. It makes your Mother pause and look at the two critically. “I know it’s kind of weird for us to wear them because …you know…but if it got her to do it would it be      okay?”

“I think…. I think that might work.” Your Mother finally says after a long moment of thinking. Then she nods to herself once, “Okay girls. Into the car. It’s time we go shopping." 

The day of the dance comes around and the girls had told you to not worry about your dress because they’ve got one for you but it’s a surprise. You’re already nervous. To that Tatum puts a hand on her hip and scoffs, "No offense but I have more fashion sense in one finger than either of you has in your whole bodies. I’d never let my girlfriends walk into a dance not looking amazing.” She was interrupted by a brief, offended “hey!” from Sidney which she steamrolled over easily. You’d conceded the point and allowed them to keep their little surprise for you. They’d also insisted you not lift a finger to get ready. That they were going to do all that for you. 

“You’re our princess and we’re gonna make you feel that way!” Tatum had rubbed her nose against yours gently all while holding Sidney’s hand and giving it a squeeze (she knows the other girl is getting nervous). 

When they arrive all their makeup is done and so is their hair but they’re in simple jeans and t-shirts. They get to work quickly on you. You feel absolutely pampered. They paint your nails. Give you a facial. The whole tender loving care package. Tatum even surprises you with some make-up foundation included that matches your darker skin-tone perfectly. And a blush that compliments you perfectly, just to sweeten the deal. When you ask her about it she scoffs, “I spend all day looking at you, babe. I remember everything about you." 

When it looks like you might cry she orders you to close your eyes quickly and hold your breath. Cold spray hits your face, "If you want to cry you can do it in five minutes when that setting spray dries.” It makes you laugh so hard you couldn’t possibly cry. 

Once Sidney does your hair they step back and look at you, grinning from ear to ear, “You look beautiful.” Sidney says softly. 

“But she always looks beautiful so what’s new.” Tatum playfully knocks you on your chin. “Okay we gotta go get your dress. Don’t peak at yourself in the mirror though. Okay? You gotta wait to see the whole finished product.” For good measure she covers the mirror on their way out and gives you the “watching you” gesture that you know she means. 

It takes them so long to come back you both get tempted to peak and tempted to go find them. You start to do the first one, pulling at the towel on the mirror. Tatum of course comes back at that very moment, “Hey! What did I tell you?!” You whip around ready to apologize sheepishly but stop dead in your tracks.

There stands Sidney and Tatum. Behind them stands your Mother, a hand on each girl’s shoulder. They’re both wearing Hanfu dresses and in their hands they’re carrying a matching one for you. Silence in the room, “They knew you wouldn’t wear it on your own. So instead you’ll all go as a matching set.” She sounds as nervous as the girl’s look.

You start crying and Tatum mutters that she’s glad she put that setting spray on you. Sidney elbows her before she rushes over to hug you. Twenty minutes of reassurances and cooing and then you’re in the dress. Then the towel comes off the mirror. You look….. well, you look, “It’s beautiful.” You gasp and touch the sleeves looking mesmerized. Your Mother shakes her head and comes up behind you to adjust something, “No honey      that’s all you. You look beautiful.

You take pictures on the staircase as if this is prom. As important as prom. In some ways it is. It’s super important. More important than anything you’ve ever done before. Your Mother hugs you crying before you go, kisses your cheek and says she’s proud of you. Then she’s hugging your girlfriends tightly whispering something to them that makes them look like they’ll start crying too. Then you all say goodbye (Tatum teasingly telling your Mother not to wait up and receiving a swat along with a string of Chinese she can’t understand but she figures she can’t be too mad since the older woman is laughing and smiling-).

You’re nervous all the way to the school even though the girls are trying to distract you. "It will be fine.” Says Tatum, reaching to hold your hand from the backseat. “You look incredible.” Says Sidney, who is a safe driver and refuses to take her hands off the wheel but the fond look she shoots you might as well be a kiss.

When you get to school there’s no more time to hesitate. Tatum doesn’t let you. She steps out the car and opens your door for you, taking your hand to help you out. You feel dizzy with nerves. Sidney takes your other hand and if you’re leaning on them both as you walk into the school they don’t say anything. Just squeeze your hand tightly.

Entering the gym feels like entering another world. It’s not that incredibly well decorated but the music is loud and the lightning is nice. But mostly the change in the world is coming from inside. You’re nervous but … suddenly? A good nervous. When you look down you can see the end of the dress. The trailing sleeves. And you think to yourself        it’s beautiful. I’m beautiful.

The girls are just proud they’ve gotten you in the gym. They’re more than ready to find a table as far from the center of the room as possible and sit there the whole damn night. Or even just ten minutes. They’re proud of you. Really proud of you. You shock them by shaking your head and smiling. No, not smiling      you’re grinning! It’s a grin that shows off your front teeth you never used to like (memory of a photo booth that Tatum had first told you, you were pretty in). A grin that lights up your eyes, tear-dropped curved and pretty (memory of Sidney putting eyeliner to them and then leaving soft kisses behind). 

“I love you guys. Let's       let’s dance!” You shout over the music and they blink in surprise for a moment and you laugh. They don’t hesitate for long before dragging you to the middle of the floor. You can feel people staring but Tatum and Sidney are so close that soon a teacher is going to have to come and separate you guys.

But for now they’ve each got a hand on your hips and you can hear that, yes some people are talking. And yes they’re noticing you. But what they’re saying is       “They all look so pretty!” and “Yeah but check out that one girl in the middle.” “That’s Y/N, right?” “She looks so good! Beautiful! She’d always seemed so shy!” “Guess not anymore. Dating Tatum will do that to any girl      Look at that smile-" 

And you keep smiling. And you keep dancing. And your girlfriends think you look beautiful. But more importantly? You think you look beautiful. 

                                                     ——————–

[home-working]

The One Where I Become a Product Reviewer

Hey there, fellow kids! Jumping on the already-parked annual back-to-school bandwagon, I bring to you an AWESOME new blog post highlighting my FAVOURITE 15″ LAPTOP BACKPACK PICK! Get ready for at least 145 paragraphs of preamble before I reveal this NUMBER ONE TOP 100% BEST 15″ LAPTOP BACKPACK PICK and DIY BACKPACK HACK!!

I also realised I needed a post in my “lifestyle blog” repertoire that might convince people to send me free products? So this is that post. Search engine optimization.

Backstory

On February 19, 2019, esteemed letterer and all-around Creative Professional Jessica Hische tweeted out that she was looking for a new, fashionable laptop backpack and wanted suggestions. I happened to see this tweet that night and thought, “Maybe I, myself also a Creative Professional, need a new, fashionable laptop backpack as well?” I read through the mostly terrible (???) suggestions from her followers, saw one I liked, and then, with the quick late-night text approval of my probably-drunken sartorial consultant T, impulse-bought a $235 backpack.

The Arrival

A week later The Backpack arrives. It’s partially leather! It smells very new! It’s literally made by a Creative Professional for Creative Professionals! It’s so nice that I’m already worried about ruining it with thoughts of biking or commuting. But the straps are kind of stiff and uncomfortable on my delicate mammary glands. And did I say it’s pretty expensive?!

It’s the kind of backpack I’d be happy to keep if it were, say, $79. Maybe even $89. But $235?! For a backpack that’s not even some sexy upscale Creative Professional household brandname?? My lower middle-class upbringing prevents me from committing to such an expenditure on which I’m only lukewarm. What to do?

The Virgo/Libra Cusp Solution

Obviously I go out and buy two more backpacks.

All my children.

On Being a Virgo/Libra Cusp-er

I’m on the Virgo/Libra cusp which makes me the perfect person to review anything because I’m really picky and really indecisive. This means that if I’m forced to make a decision about anything, I generally change my mind multiple times and lose sleep in the process of over-thinking every minute detail, what fun! (For the record, I’m also strictly adhering to the deeply-scientific, back-of-your-local-free-weekly astrology column definitions of these signs. [Also, unnecessary childhood trauma story, I never really knew how to astrologically-identify growing up because as a cusper my sign categorization changed from paper to paper? The struggle was—and I cannot stress this enough—real.])

Laptop Backpacks: Necessary?

“Why does one need a special laptop backpack?” you might ask. Obviously, you don’t. No one needs anything. Why do we buy things, to feel a brief sense of happiness or accomplishment in our lives? Does it work for you the way it definitely and always 100% works for me? Leave your response in the comments!

But also I’ve never had a bag that was made for a laptop, so I figured I should probably get a backpack that's actually functional and isn’t painful to carry heavy shit around in all day?

Criteria

In order to be considered for this review, a potential backpack had to meet the following criteria:

Must hold a 15″ MacBook Pro

Enough padding to protect that laptop without a case

Must be comfortable to use while biking

Unisex design

Is black/screams “Creative Professional”

Bonus points: also screams “... who deserves a large salary”

In addition to my a laptop, I assembled a weight/capacity testing control group with the following everyday accessories:

Work essentials: mouse, laptop charger, Moleskine notebook, pencil

Life essentials: overnight kit, moisturizer, deodorant, underwear, sports bra, water bottle

Um, glasses and some other crap: eyeglasses & case, dirty socks, folded blanket, Le Creuset 18cm cast-iron pot

🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒 The Backpacks 🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒

Bag option #1: The ISM Backpack

The ISM retails for $235 USD; it’s only available online but comes with free shipping and returns in the USA. It ships in a pretty box with a pretty branded dust bag and a bunch of tissue that smells of “Instagram unboxing moment”.

I wore this bag out in public a few times: to the work lounge at the Public Hotel (a hotspot for “cool-looking people” working remotely), to pay a visit to my old MoMA office, and to a job interview. Did I feel like a Creative Professional? You bet I did! But then my former coworker commented that the bag made me look like a “techy person”, which ruined everything it had going for it. (There is a fine line between Creative Professional and Startup Chic that I refuse to cross. It involves hoodies.)

Left: fancy regal satin lining, to remind you that you’re the millennial queen you are. Right: full bag, with front pocket that is great for fitting flat stuff and maybe only flat stuff.

It fit everything in the “capacity” control group, albeit quite snugly, but its real downfall was the straps: although they were quite hearty, being both wide and well padded (which would be great for those with flat chests), their stiff sturdiness meant they were very inflexible, and basically cut into my breasts any time I raised my arms together, as one would if biking:

MEINE POOR BOOBS.

ISM owner/designer Justin emailed me after I returned the bag, and explained they were working on a smaller version for 13″ laptops. I explained this doesn’t help people with mammary glands who own 15″ laptops. Per Justin:

I feel what you mean Christy, a bag that fits a 15" laptop and is unisex has been a tough design challenge given the size difference between males and females. We have been able to shorten the straps to accommodate though.

I get it. Designing for the fact that 50% of the population has boobs is hard! Did you know that basically everything is designed around men and their stupid bodies?? It's also subsequently a prime example of how e-comm genders backpack sizing: you’ll find that 15″ laptop bags are generally only found in the “Men’s” section of websites. I need a drink.

Pros

Looks and feels fancy

Separate laptop pocket from main compartment

Water and weather resistant

Good amount of padding everywhere

Real leathurrrr bottom

Bitches be loving gold zippers

I am weirdly very into the simple strap adjustment design (not pictured but trust me that it’s nicely done)

Cons

High price point for my feeble income

Cut into my boobs

Front pocket is pretty difficult to put stuff in due to being so flat

Makes me look like a tech bro

Did not get the job I interviewed for while using it

Rating

Comfort: ★★☆☆☆ Creative professional-ness: ★★★★★ Female compatibility: ★☆☆☆☆ (one star for gold zipper) Value for monies: ★★★★☆ (if you don’t bike or have boobs) Overall: ★★★☆���

🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒 Bag option #2: MUJI Water Repellent Backpack

I bought this bag at the MUJI store for a very reasonable $49 USD. Like everything MUJI, it’s pretty decent quality both in materials and design, and feels like it’ll last a while.

Unfortunately, I didn’t end up testing this “in the real world” because, whoops, it only comfortably fits a 13″ laptop. But I did uncomfortably fit my 15″ laptop inside, really stretching the limits of the side panels, and then managed to cram the test “capacity” content on top (with room to spare!). I then did a “hunch test”, folding myself over as one would on a road bike, and found that there was barely any padding on the back panel, and my spine was knocking against the hard surface of my computer. Not cool! Plus the back did not have a mesh surface, literally making it not cool on a sweaty back.

Yes I get it, I have a big stupid computer.

Pros

Nice quality

Large capacity

Water repellent

Has a secret little back pocket you’ll probably never use

Has those tacky side pockets for water bottles which are surprisingly handy for sunglasses or pocket chargers

Cons

Made for a 13″ laptop

Non-meshed back

Not enough back padding

Rating

Comfort: ★★★☆☆ Creative professional-ness: ★★★★☆ Female compatibility: ★★★★★ Value for monies: ★★★★★ Overall: ★★★★☆+

🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒 Bag option #3: UNIQLO Water Repellent Backpack

Right after purchasing the MUJI bag I walked across the street and picked this up for $29.90. YOLO!

Realising that is was yet another bag made for 13″ laptops, I could immediately tell that the quality was much lesser than MUJI’s: it was much lighter in weight, and the fabric thinner. Look at those ugly shoulder straps where the fabric is bunching. The front pocket’s structure is so weak that it sags. Sad!

But: pretty good akshully?!

I again force-fit my behemoth laptop and belongings into the small frame, yet, contrary to expectation, this thing was comfortable AF?! And even had room to spare. The straps were super soft and cushy and malleable around my boobs, and the “hunch test” revealed amazingly thick layers of padding on two sides of the back panel, with a thinner center panel that relieves any pressure on your spine. What kind of ugly genius is this?

Pros

Stupidly comfortable

Large capacity

Water repellent

Again, tacky side pockets, this time with an angled top hem

Cons

Made for a 13″ laptop

Pretty cheap and ugly looking

Pretty cheap and ugly feeling

Rating

Comfort: ★★★★★ Creative professional-ness: ★★☆☆☆ Female compatibility: ★★★★★ Value for monies: ★★★★☆ Overall: ★★★★☆

🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒 Other opshuns, you ask?

There’s a few other mid-range “nice” bag brands I was looking into online, such as the one which esteemed Creative Professional Jessica Hische ended up going with, but let’s just assume I left them out because they lack the quality needed for this rigorous assessment and not because the bag designer whom I went on a date with decided to ghost me after I sprained my ankle while in Canada. Ahem.

Final Verdict... and a Backpack Hack (!!) (...Backhack™?!)

Although I was quite impressed with the comfort the UNIQLO model provided (both to my body and my wallet), I was actually going to declare this experiment a failure and return all the backpacks. Until, that is, I took a closer look at the interior construction of the UNIQLO and MUJI bags: they measured as though they should be tall enough for my latop, and yet the MacBook corners stubbornly stuck out. Time to play detective! 🔍

Turning the bags inside-out, I noticed they both included a superfluous, space-reducing seam at the bottom of the main pocket. WTF.

UNIQLO bag before & after: the difference a simple seam (and lack of colour temperature matching) makes!

By removing this seam on the UNIQLO model, I gained a full inch of vertical room, ALLOWING THE 15″ LAPTOP TO ACTUALLY FIT IN THE DAMN BAG. Yes, it fits snugly, and some may argue that the superfluous seam protects the edge of the computer from hitting the ground, but the very bottom edge seam is actually pretty bulky and does a decent job of protecting as is.

Verdict: With the inclusion of this super deviant hack (and ONLY with this inclusion), UNIQLO wins!!!!!!!!

Epilogue

I’ve been using this bag for 7 months now. It looks kinda cheap and it tends to collect lint, but my shoulders are miraculously like never sore. And, even on a grocery run after stuffing a myriad of pokey-shaped food items in the thing until I can barely close it, it’s always very comfortable on my tender back when biking home (I did this very thing 2 weeks ago at the Farmer’s Market after buying Celine Dion tickets, because I am a white woman in her late 30s). 

Oh, also: it’s black, so yes I am a Creative Professional, thank you for noticing! 

TL;DR: UNIQLO; cheap; comfortable. Send me your products to review! 🔚

Colophon backpacks: ISM, UNIQLO, MUJI; socks: UNIQLO; t-shirt: from a Women Who Code meetup hosted by One Month; sweatpants: Alternative Apparel; laptop: Shmapple; glasses: Steven Alan clearance; stool: Target; plants: IKEA & Home Depot; blankets: Hudson’s Bay, E. Stocking; mirror & couch: IKEA; drawing above mirror: K. Freeman & P. Lyle; posters: Bruce Nauman and a Finnish Design Annual fold-out; calendar: Massimo Vignelli; bike: Miele; weight/capacity control group: thrifting, Peru, Amazon, HAY, more places; suddenly questioning the consistency of whether I’m listing where objects were bought or the brand name of the object itself: something I am going to pretend to resolve at a later date in time; brevity rating for this blog post: ★☆☆☆☆; fan appreciation: I am so sorry if you read this far

[theeeveetamer]

Helloo! Hm, if you don't mind, I have a request for some more of the modern omegaverse? Particularly how Leo and Takumi met, or the scene with good ol protective Ryoma :)

Alright here we go. I know nothing about this is specific to high school, but in my modern Omegaverse I always envisioned Leo and Takumi being high school sweethearts.

I had a lot of fun writing this, so it ended up being really damn long. Like, almost 40 pages. Couple of notes: I know Mikoto isn’t their canon mother but since she has an established relationship with all of the Hoshidan sibs I think she’s easier to write and makes more sense in Omegaverse. I based this on my high school’s class scheduling, which was four classes a semester, 90 minutes per class. We called them blocks but most places have ‘periods’ so they’re referred to as such for simplicity sake. Finally, I’ve arbitrarily decided that America’s drinking age is 18 in this fic because it should be.

Tags: Omegaverse, High School AU, Omega!Takumi, Alpha!Leo, falling in love, Lower Middle Class Leokumis, Mentions of child abuse/alcoholism

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17282396

“Alright are we ready?”

“Yep! On three!”

Takumi slid his finger under the lip of the envelope, and his friends followed suit.

“One… Two… Three!”

They all tore the glue seal, some more elegantly than others. Hinata got impatient half way through and just ripped the envelope down the middle. Oboro’s wasn’t much better, but at least she’d managed to tear it lengthwise like she was supposed to.

They all pulled out their class schedules at the same time and compared.

“Alright I have geometry first thing… Ugh.” He groaned. He liked math as much as the next guy, but that early in the morning?

“Damn, I have it third.” Oboro pointed out. “But we have the same teacher, so we can at least do the homework together.”

“Wait, I thought we were taking that next semester!”

They tried to schedule their class preferences so that they matched up, but that still didn’t guarantee they would get classes together. Hinata always mixed up at least one class and took it in the wrong semester.

“No, Hinata. We were going to take art next semester, remember?”

“Well shit.” He laughed. “You guys’ll still help me, right?”

Takumi rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

“C’mon Takumi, what do you have next?”

It didn’t take them long to hash out the schedules. He was on his own first period, but he and Oboro had gym together fourth period. He and Hinata shared American History during third period, which also meant they had lunch together. They were all taking different language courses anyways, so he knew he’d have at least one class by himself.

With that settled he was scanning his schedule again just to ensure they shared the same teachers.

“Fuck…” He muttered under his breath.

“What is it?”

“I just realized that we have Izana for history.”

“So?”

Hinata was the oldest in his family and Oboro was an only child, so they didn’t have the ‘benefit’ of having older siblings go before them. Sometimes it was nice because he knew which teachers were good, and sometimes it was awful. If he had a quarter for every time a teacher said ‘Oh, Shirasagi? Are you Ryoma’s little brother? Well he was a joy to have in class!’ he’d be loaded.

“Ryoma and Hinoka both had him! They say he likes to play matchmaker with the Omegas in the class. Plus, he assigns a lot of group projects.”

“Ugh, great! You’ll be my partner right?”

“Obviously, dude.” Even though working with Hinata usually resulted in both of them getting distracted and goofing off until last minute, he wouldn’t have it any other way. As long as he got his A he didn’t really care how the project got done.

Though, he was concerned about a little more than just the group projects. There were definitely more Alphas in their school than Omegas, and ever since he’d presented he’d been dealing with dumb ‘matchmaking’ teachers. Heck, they were doing it before he’d even presented! And pretty much every time it happened the Alpha fell head over heels for him, and he absolutely did not reciprocate.

He couldn’t even count the number of calls Mama needed to make to the school about it on both hands. And whatever number that was, he’d probably have to double it to even get close to the number of overstepping Alphas Ryoma beat the shit out of on his behalf. In fact, most Alphas were beginning to treat being seated next to him as a death sentence, which wasn’t exactly doing wonders for his romantic life. The only Alphas in their grade willing to go within fifteen feet of him were Hinata and Oboro.

He tugged anxiously at his collar. Oboro seemed to notice because she finally changed the subject.

“Well, we only have a few weeks left of summer! Let’s not waste it thinking about school!”

“Damn straight!” Hinata agreed.

“Come on, Mama said dinner would be done around six. And hey, she bought a ton of popcorn for movie night!”

_________________

The first day back was always the worst. Farewell to staying up until four am and waking up at noon, hello dragging his ass out of bed at seven am. At least Ryoma was a senior this year, so Mama let him take the car to school. Hinoka took shotgun and he sat in the back with Sakura. She was fiddling with the strap of her messenger bag and biting her lip nervously.

“You look cute today, baby sister.” She really did. He could tell she’d woken up early to do her hair and makeup, and she’d picked out one of her favorite dresses. It was a far cry from his ratty old jeans and tshirt or Hinoka’s athletic shorts and tank top. He hadn’t even bothered to comb his hair out when he woke up, he’d just thrown it in it’s regular ponytail. He almost envied his sisters’ shorter hair.

“T-Thanks! I’m just so n-nervous, you know?”

“You’ll see! High school isn’t so scary!” Hinoka threw over her shoulder from the passenger seat. “Heck, you’ll be sick of it before long!”

“Come on Hinoka. Let her have one day before you make her jaded.” Ryoma chuckled.

“You’ll do great.” He patted her hand. “Let me know if you get lost okay? I can help you walk to class.”

“A-Alright.”

______________

The day went pretty quickly. It was the first day, so most of the teachers were just going over their syllabi and doing some dumb icebreakers so the class could get to know each other. It was mind numbing, but at least he could doodle in his notebooks and just pretend to be paying attention.

He’d been silently dreading third period all day, and all was well until then. He wasn’t sure what he wanted. It would be nice to sit next to Hinata, but if Izana really was a matchmaker then that could make things awkward. Then again, he’d rather things be a little awkward with his best friend than get harassed by some Alpha that needed to learn the definition of ‘boundaries’.

Hinata was already inside the classroom. He waved at Takumi from around the middle of the classroom and motioned to the empty seat beside him. The desks were laid out very strangely: Each row had six desks, and  three columns consisting of two desks pushed together.

“No alphabetical order?”

Hinata shrugged. “He just told us to sit wherever.”

The man in question was currently behind his computer at the front of the room. The bell rang, but he still seemed intent on whatever he was working on. A few minutes of idle chatting later he stood up and stepped to the center of the room.

“Good afternoon everyone. I’ve created a randomized seating chart for you all. Please come sit in your new seat when I call your name.”

They were about ten desks in when the pattern became obvious. Of course every Omega just so happened to be paired with an alpha, despite the sizable portion of Betas in the class. Randomized. Sure.

“… Shirasagi, Takumi!” He squinted his eyes at the paper for a moment. “Weird, I think I had your brother. Or was it a sister?”

“It was both…” He mumbled dejectedly as he took his seat.

“Alright then let’s see… Windmire, Leo!”

Oh gods. Anyone but him.

Their brothers had been feuding since Ryoma’s freshman year, he couldn’t even remember what about. Something about a failed science project that both of them insisted wasn’t their fault. After that it was pretty much silently agreed upon that the Shirasagis would avoid the Windmires, and they would do the same. He’d never personally met Leo, but he’d heard stories. Mainly about how he was a stuck up pretty boy.

And yeah, just looking at him walk across the room he’d believe those rumors. He had a way about him that was hard to miss. He never slouched or shuffled; He strode along like he was above it all. And he was tall. At least six foot or so. Which, Takumi supposed wasn’t all that impressive for Alphas in general, but at fifteen or sixteen most of them were still growing and stood at around five foot eight to five foot ten. That meant he was constantly looking down his nose at everyone else. It was a little intimidating, at five foot six he’d pretty much stopped growing, and he was considered tall for an Omega. Sakura was only five foot two.

The blonde dropped his newly acquired textbook and notebooks down on the desk next to him. They didn’t say a word to each other as Izana finished assigning seats. It seemed like his siblings hadn’t exaggerated: Every Omega in the class was paired off with an Alpha. When that was done he handed out the syllabi and moved back to the front of the class to go over it.

“In this class I believe in learning the value of teamwork! So, you’ll have four group projects. Three due throughout the semester and one final project. Your project partners will be the person you’re sitting next to. No exceptions. These are big projects and will require outside work, so be sure to get your partner’s contact information.”

He heard the Alpha beside him audibly groan. He was, quite frankly, a little offended. Sure he and Hinata goofed off, but he was still a straight A student damn it! Where did this asshole get off?

They suffered silently through the remaining eighty minutes of class until lunch. When the bell rang he reluctantly turned to his seatmate.

“So…” He was loathe to do it, but unfortunately he had to. “We should probably exchange numbers.”

The Alpha rolled his eyes as he pulled out his phone.

“I’m sorry, do you have a problem with me?”

“Just don’t tank my grade. It’s bad enough that I have to associate with a Shirasagi, but an Omega?”

Ah, there it was. The old stereotype that an Omega couldn’t be smart, too. Boy, was this asshole in for a rude awakening.

“Look, I’m not happy about this either.” He growled as he typed his number in. “But I’m not about to get a B just because I’m stuck with you as a partner.”

With the exchange done he collected up his backpack and met up with Hinata, who was waiting by the door for him.

________

“Ugh, can you believe that guy!” He groused, shoving his sandwich into his mouth. Hinata was similarly scarfing down his food, but they were sitting on their own because Oboro had a different lunch.

Between complaining he was also scanning the room for Sakura. She’d texted him that they had the same lunch and he wanted to make sure she wasn’t sitting on her own. He finally caught sight of her – she was kind of hard to miss with the pink hair – sitting a few tables away with her friend Hana and some blonde girl he’d never met. Reasonably assured she was in good hands, he continued his complaining about Leo.

“I mean, the nerve of the guy! Implying that I can’t do work just because I’m an Omega!”

“Yeah, I can’t believe it either.” Hinata added through a mouthful of chips. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I would have failed algebra if it wasn’t for you.”

“Exactly! I mean–” He realized quickly that he probably shouldn’t be insulting his friend’s intelligence just to prove a point. “Sorry, Hinata.”

His friend just waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s talk about something else.”

He tried to keep his attention off of the blonde Alpha, but he kept catching him out of the corner of his eye and getting infuriated all over again.

__________

The rest of the day was, thankfully, pretty uneventful. He’d almost forgotten all about Leo and his prissy attitude until he got home and he and Sakura were helping Mama with dinner. He and Sakura were chopping up vegetables while she prepared the meats. Hinoka was still at baseball practice and Ryoma was in his room working on his college essays.

“So how was school?”

“Great!” Sakura started excitedly chattering. “Hana and I have a lot of classes together s-so that was good! And I met a r-really nice girl named Elise in first period!”

“That’s great, sweetie! What about you Takumi, did you have fun? Make any new friends?”

He shrugged. “Not really. But there was this one guy in my history class…”

“Oh? You met a boy?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Mama! It’s not like that! He’s… He’s completely insufferable!” He let out a frustrated sigh. “Mister Izana paired us up for every class project, and this dumb Alpha thinks I’m stupid just because I’m an Omega!”

“Oh dear… Well I’m sure it won’t be so bad. Once he gets to know you I’m sure he’ll warm up.”

“I dunno, he’s a Windmire. They’re, like, predisposed to hate us or something!”

“I’m sure he can’t be that bad. You know what I always say, never judge a book by its cover!”

“Yes, Mama.” He rolled his eyes. Of course she didn’t get it. She hadn’t even met Leo, she had no idea how rude he’d been!

He finished up slicing the vegetables and Mama shooed them both out of the kitchen so she could finish cooking. He didn’t have much to do since there wasn’t any homework, so he decided to bum around on his laptop until dinner.

He hadn’t really intended to start cyberstalking Leo, it had just kind of happened. It started when he tried looking up the Alpha’s social media, but the guy was a ghost. None of the Windmires seemed to have any online presence, and the only pictures he found were from what he was guessing were Leo’s friends. He’d just wanted to get a general idea of the guy, but after an hour of coming up blank finding anything became an obsession. How could he not have anything online? It was just so weird!

He finally stopped when Mama called them all down to dinner, and he realized how ridiculous he was being. So what if he couldn’t find any information? Why should he care about this asshole anyways? He shut the laptop and hurried to the dining room.

____________

The first month or so went by without too many problems. He and Leo mostly just ignored each other during class, and once it was over he made a quick escape to lunch with Hinata. They didn’t get the details about their first project until late September. It wasn’t much, just a paper. It was about three pages and due in two weeks, so he wasn’t too worried about it just yet.

He stuck the project requirements into his folder and headed down to lunch. The second he left the room his phone buzzed in his pocket.

We should get started on this project today.

He glanced over his shoulder. Leo was literally standing ten feet away from him. Was he for real?

He pulled his phone back out to respond.

Dude, you’re literally standing right there. You couldn’t talk to me?

He watched as the blonde’s phone buzzed and he typed his response. This was ridiculous, was he really so conceited that he couldn’t even talk to him?

Look who’s talking.

“Ugh!” He stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “Come on Hinata, let’s go.”

All of lunch was a back and forth.

The project isn’t even due until two weeks from now.

I’m not going to fail this class because you wanted to wait until last minute.

Fine! We can start working on it tonight then! Your house or mine?

Better do yours.

Alright, meet me by the exit after school. My brother will drive us.

Gods, what an arrogant asshole! As if waiting a week would kill them! If he were working alone he could get it done in two days! Not to mention the fact that he wanted to start working on it on a Friday night! Sure, Takumi had just planned to stay in and watch movies, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have had plans!

Sakura was already waiting by the door, along with her blonde friend. She waved at him as he approached. “B-Big brother! This is my friend, Elise.”

“Oh, uh, nice to meet you.” Now that he was closer he could see that she was an Omega as well. The heat suppressants could make it hard to tell sometimes, but only Omegas wore collars like that. Hers was made of dyed black leather and it was studded with little purple rhinestones to match her black and purple dress.

“Ta-ku-mi,” She enunciated every syllable in his name carefully. “Did I say it right?”

“Y-Yeah, that’s right.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you too, Takumi!” She beamed up at him. Geez when Sakura said Elise was friendly she wasn’t kidding. They hadn’t known each other five minutes and she was already chattering away like they’d been friends for decades.

Leo turned up a few minutes later. Takumi caught sight of him down the hall, and he seemed confused as he approached.

“Elise? What are you doing here?”

Did they know each other?

“Aw, Leo! Did you make friends too?”

The Alpha side-eyed him and then shook his head. “Absolutely not. We’re just working on a project together. What are you doing?”

“Xander said I could stay over at Sakura’s tonight! We’re gonna get together with Hana and Effie to do girl stuff!”

“Did you ask father too?”

She pouted. “You know how he is.”

“… Alright, but you need to finish your homework beforehand.”

“Yeah, yeah. Camilla already gave me the lecture. Sakura and I are gonna get it all done before dinner.”

So, Elise was Leo’s little sister? He hadn’t really considered the possibility that Sakura’s new friend was a Windmire, but he supposed it made sense. He’d forgotten about the youngest sibling since she was the grade below him and they’d never had classes together or anything.

It was almost cute watching them; It reminded him a lot of his relationship with Sakura. That didn’t mean Leo wasn’t still a complete asshole, but he supposed even assholes had their moments.

Ryoma finally came down the hall, backpack slung over one shoulder and spinning his keys around his finger.

“Who are your friends?”

“We aren’t friends.” He and Leo said it in unison. Ryoma raised and eyebrow, and Sakura giggled.

“W-We’re just working on a project.” He finished lamely.

His brother shrugged his shoulders, but he was glaring daggers at Leo already. It wasn’t angry, more like don’t you dare fuck with my little brother, asshole. Leo shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

“Alright, well let’s get home.”

He’d never really felt self-conscious about his house before. It wasn’t the biggest, and it certainly wasn’t the nicest. He’d known Hinata and Oboro for so long that none of it mattered because… Well it never had before. He didn’t know much about Leo, but this stuck up pretty boy was probably used to nicer stuff.

Mama couldn’t work because she didn’t have an Alpha to sign off on it. Papa made pretty good money, but after he died they had to cut back and make do on the insurance money. They only owned one car since Mama only left to do errands, and she could do those once they got home from school.

Their house was a standard split-level with three bedrooms and a basement. He and Sakura actually shared a room, and Ryoma and Hinoka did the same. Mama took the smallest room and his older siblings had the master bedroom. The basement was a general family room, with a nice but old flat screen TV, an old Nintendo that he’d found for twenty bucks at a neighbor’s garage sale, and a big sectional couch. The upstairs had a much smaller TV and couch that Mama mainly used to watch the news. Or to stop arguments when everyone wanted to watch something at the same time.

The nicest piece of furniture they owned was probably their dining table. Mama had been saving up for a new one for years because the old one was too small for a family of five, and she liked it when they all ate together. Plus, one or more of their friends usually came over for dinner more often than not and she liked entertaining company. It made the small space a little cramped but Mama always made sure it was clean and overall it was pretty cozy.

They all kicked their shoes off, and Takumi tried not to look at their guests faces when they stepped inside. He wasn’t sure if he could stop himself from punching Leo in the face if he got condescending about it.

“Come on. We can work on our project in my room. Sakura, are you and Elise okay in the living room?”

“Y-Yeah no problem!”

It would be a little too cramped in their small space with four people in there. Usually when they did homework they all set up on the dining room table and did it together. But he didn’t want to disturb Ryoma and Sakura since he and Leo would probably be pretty distracting with their talking.

Mama greeted them at the top of the stairs.

“Perfect timing. Ryoma dear can you give me the keys? I need to go grocery shopping.”

“They’re in the key bowl by the door.”

“Great!” She looked over their two guests. “Are you two going to be staying for dinner?”

“Oh, right! Mama this is Leo, and that’s Sakura’s friend Elise.”

“Nice to meet you Missus Shirasagi.” Leo extended a hand for her to shake.

“Please, you can just call me Mikoto.”

“I don’t know how long Leo and I will be working on our project, but Elise will definitely be here for dinner.”

“Alright I’ll buy a little extra then!” That went without saying, though. Mama always bought extra for guests. She grabbed the keys and headed out, and Takumi led Leo down the hall to his room.

“Takumi!” Ryoma called out to him from the living room.

“What?”

“Leave the door open!”

“Ryoma!” He could feel his face heating up. Gods, like he would ever do anything with this guy!

He left the door open anyways, mostly because it was better than having Ryoma randomly barge in and “need something” like he always did if Takumi shut the door.

There wasn’t a whole lot of room to spread out. Most of the space was taken up by two twin beds. Their room was about ten feet wide, and there was about four feet of open space between the beds. They each had their own nightstand, and there was a dresser shoved in the closet. It was a pretty wide closet, but they had to share. Three of the four dresser drawers belonged to him, but two thirds of the closet belonged to Sakura because she owned so many dresses.

All in all, it was pretty obvious what belonged to whom in the room. Sakura had a lot of decor of her namesake: Her lampshade and bedspread both featured cherry blossom patterns, and she had a variety of little bobbles including a little glass cherry blossom tree that Mama made for her by hand. She also had a few canvasses hanging from the walls with several different designs, one of which featured cherry blossoms once again. Most of it wasn’t her choice, it was just what people bought her for birthdays and Christmas. It was a good thing she liked pink.

His side was a little plainer decor-wise. In addition to his bed and nightstand he also had a bookshelf that was overflowing with books on history and philosophy. There were so many that he’d begun stacking them on top of the shelf as well. On top of those books an old Shogi board was perched, just in case any of his siblings ever wanted to play with him again. They had a few other board games on the top shelf of the closet. Sometimes they had game nights on the weekend, but for the most part they went untouched. His bow and a quiverfull of arrows were currently leaning in the space between the nightstands. He didn’t really have anywhere else for it, since his kendo equipment was underneath the bed and there was no more room in the closet.

“Sorry it’s not very big.” He dropped his backpack on his bed and pulled out his laptop. Mama bought them all the same cheap little chromebook one year for Christmas when they were on sale. It wasn’t the best, but it got the job done.

Leo just shrugged and followed suit. His laptop was bigger, but it also looked pretty old. He brought out the charger as well.

“Got an outlet somewhere? The battery on this damn thing is burnt out.”

Once they were finally set up on the floor he pulled the assignment sheet back out of his folder.

“Alright, looks like we have to discuss the fallout after the civil war. Three pages, double spaced, yadda yadda. And a presentation to the class.”

“You haven’t even read the assignment yet?”

“When was I supposed to read it? Izana gave it to us at the end of class, and I wasn’t going to read it over during gym class!”

“Gods I’m going to fail.” The Alpha muttered under his breath.

“Hey!” Takumi growled. “Would you stop treating me like I’m some ditz! I’m trying to get an A too, you know! So just start the damn powerpoint and I’ll start the paper.”

He flipped his textbook open to the relevant chapter and started scanning for information.

The Alpha sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m just used to my partners slacking.”

Well of all the things he’d been expecting, he certainly hadn’t seen an apology coming.

“I-It’s fine. Let’s just get this done so I can actually enjoy this weekend.”

They worked for a solid hour, only talking to ensure that their points matched up. He was probably a third of the way done with the rough draft of their paper, and Leo was about half done with the powerpoint when they were interrupted by Elise entering the room.

“Leeeeooo!” She called from the door.

“What is it, Elise?”

“Can you help me with math?”

“Have you done all of the problems you can solve?”

“Yep! And Sakura helped me with some, but there are a couple we can’t get.”

“And you finished your other subjects?”

“Uh huh! We did those first.”

“Alright, I’ll come help you in a few minutes.”

“Okay!” She skipped back down the hall and sat down with Sakura at the dining room table.

Leo shut his laptop and shoved his books back into his backpack.

“I thought you wanted to get this project done?”

The blonde rolled his eyes. He was just now noticing, but had they always been that color? Or was the dim light in his room playing tricks on his eyes? He hadn’t really been paying attention, but he swore he would have remembered such vivid red eyes.

“This is exactly why I start projects when they’re assigned. We don’t have to do it all today.”

He left all of his things on the floor of Takumi’s room and headed back out into the main living area.

Takumi had managed to get all of his homework done in class today. He was pretty bored in geometry, so he usually did the homework as he was taking notes. Plus with ninety minute classes their teacher usually gave them half of that time for homework. His language class usually made it a point not to assign any homework, and their history class assigned the project in lieu of any real homework. So he decided to take his laptop into the living room and start picking out a movie for tonight. Ryoma had disappeared to somewhere, probably over to Saizo’s house to hang out.

He was actually currently stealing his good friend’s netflix, and with October on the horizon most of the queue was horror movies. It was just easier to stay logged in since they usually hung out at his house. Hinata didn’t usually mind, as long as he didn’t hog it or remove things from his list.

Elise and Sakura really only had two math problems they couldn’t get on their own, and once Leo walked them through the first one they didn’t even need help on the second. He got the sense that this was something Leo did a lot, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed by it. Maybe he wasn’t as stuck up as everyone seemed to imply.

“So,” The Alpha finally spoke directly to him. He’d been so focused on his computer that it startled him. “You like horror movies?”

He shuddered at the thought. Horror movies always made his nightmares so much worse. “No, actually. This is my friend’s account. I take it you do?”

“Mhmm. That’s too bad, I know a few good ones you might enjoy.”

“… Nothing too scary?”

“I suppose that depends on your definition of scary.”

“Hmm… Well I don’t do paranormal. Hard no on anything paranormal. I also don’t really like monsters or ghouls or anything like that.”

“Home invasion?”

“Yeah I think I could do that.” If he were being honest he would have said not in a million years, but he also didn’t want to seem like a complete wuss.

He grinned. “I have the perfect movie. Do you want to watch it on my laptop?”

“W-What? You mean, right now?”

He shrugged. “I’m here, and obviously we’ve both already checked out of this project for today. Besides, I don’t want to leave in case Elise needs me for something else.”

Just then he was saved by the bell – or rather, his mother.

“Takumi! Come help me get the groceries in!”

He hopped up and ran to the car, thankful to get out of that conversation. Maybe he wouldn’t have to watch a horror movie after all.

“Would you like some help with those?” Leo asked, indicating the bags she was carrying. She handed them off to him gratefully and he finished getting them into the kitchen. Then Leo helped him bring in the few bags from the car, and they were done in one trip. He tried to help put things away, but Mama shooed him back out into the living room.

Leo was standing by, waiting for him to get done.

“So, how about it?”

“I don’t know if we have time for a movie. Mama when is dinner?”

“Oh don’t worry about it sweetie. There’s plenty of time for a movie.”

Fuck. Looks like he was doing this.

“Alright, sure. Sakura will probably want the basement so she can get ready for her sleepover, so we can watch it in my room.”

With Ryoma out he could finally shut his door. It wasn’t that he wanted to do anything, he just liked having the privacy. Leo set his laptop up on the bed.

“Turn off the lights.”

“W-What?”

“Come on, it’s a horror movie. You have to set the mood!”

He flicked the lights off and sat down. He tried to keep a respectable distance, but it was hard when they were watching on a laptop. They had three or four inches between their shoulders at best.

It was a little weird, if he was being honest. He’d never had an Alpha on his bed unless it was Hinata or Oboro. He hadn’t realized how weirdly intimate it was until he was sitting with the blonde. His heart was racing, though that was probably just from the movie. Though, by the end of it he was actually clinging to Leo’s arm and hiding his face in the sleeve of the blonde’s hoodie.

They were nearing the end of the movie. By now there had been a few tense moments of this woman trying to escape her would-be killer, and a few jump scares to set his nerves on edge. She was trying to crawl back in her window while the killer chased her, and he had to stop himself from shouting go, go, go, go!

The door to his room slammed open and he screamed. Not a yelp or a cry of surprise, he actually yelled out in terror and hid his face behind the Alpha’s shoulder.

“Takumi?” It was just Ryoma. Apparently he hadn’t been as gone as Takumi thought him.

“Gods, Ryoma! You scared the shit out of me!”

“My apologies. I just wanted to know if you needed anything.”

“Yeah! A new damn pair of underwear! Geez Ryoma, can’t I have the door closed for five minutes without you barging in!”

His brother put his hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright. Finish your movie, mother said that dinner will be ready soon.

As soon as he backed out Leo chuckled. “I didn’t think you would be that scared by this movie!”

“I-I wasn’t scared! He just surprised me is all!” He scooted away from Leo and drew his knees up to his chest.

“Of course, obviously.” Leo nodded. “Alright pay attention. We’re almost at the end.”

They very end of the movie was more action packed and didn’t have as many jump scares, so it was a little easier to get through. She managed to fight off her attacker and call the police in the end. And hey, the cat didn’t even die. When the credits started rolling Leo shut his laptop.

“So, what did you think?”

“The entire plot of this movie could have been avoided if this woman just owned a landline.”

“That’s… Exactly what I always say.”

There was an awkward lull in the conversation. After a moment he finally responded again.

“W-We should get to the dining room. Mama is probably waiting for us.”

He reached for the light, but in the dark he didn’t see the stack of books hanging a few inches over the edge of his bookshelf. He accidentally bumped them and brought the entire pile down.

“Shit!” He muttered. He managed to flick the light on. Only five or six books ended up on the ground, and he quickly picked them up and re-stacked them on the shelf.

“The Stranger?” Leo picked the top paperback off the stack and flipped it over.

“Well aren’t you nosy!” He shot back, defensively. Most people that saw his book collection automatically labelled him a huge nerd, including his older siblings.

“I’ve been trying my hardest not to snoop, but it’s kind of hard not to notice when you’re a complete klutz and knock over piles of books. Besides, it’s one of my favorites, I couldn’t help bringing it up.”

“I actually haven’t finished it yet.” He admitted. “Nihilism isn’t really my thing, and I can’t stand the main character!”

“Really? I think it leans more absurdist myself. How far did you get?”

“Uh, I think I was about half way through part one.”

“You should try again. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

He took the book from the Alpha and tossed it on his nightstand.

“You know, for a pretty boy you’re kind of a dork.”

He was into philosophy and history? What was next? Would Leo tell him that he’s on the school’s chess team?

“I could say the same of you, Takumi.”

Wait, did Leo just call him pretty? Did he just call Leo pretty? To his face? Oh gods, like he needed another reason to go red as a tomato. He hurried past the Alpha and took his seat at the table with the rest of his family and Elise. There were seven places set at the table. Ryoma was sitting on one end, Mama on the other, and Elise, Sakura, and Hinoka on one side. That left two places on the other for he and Leo to sit. He took his usual seat nearest Mama, but Leo hung back a moment. He checked his watch.

“Actually I think it’s time I headed home.”

He wasn’t about to stop Leo, though he was a little disappointed. He’d just found out that they had so much in common, and he’d been kind of hoping that they could chat more.

“Please stay for dinner at least! Sakura was just telling me about how helpful you’ve been, it’s the least I can do.”

He looked conflicted, but he ultimately sat down.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Mama smiled at him, then leaned over and whispered conspiratorially in his ear.

“Is this the boy you’ve been complaining about? He’s so polite!”

“Mama please!” His face was already red enough from that earlier pretty boy comment.

“So, Leo.” Oh gods. Ryoma was going to do this to him? Tonight? “You’re working on a project with Takumi?”

“That’s right.”

“Uh huh. How’s your GPA?”

“Ryoma…” He muttered under his breath.

“I have a perfect GPA, actually.”

“Good, good… Because, you know, my brother doesn’t waste his time with stupid men.”

“Ryoma!” He growled. Mama patted him on the arm.

“Now come on Ryoma, he’s our guest. There’s no need for this.” Yet. He could hear it in her voice. Gods, had his entire family gone crazy?

The rest of dinner went pretty normally, aside from Ryoma’s incessant what-are-your-intentions-with-my-brother grilling. When it was over he helped Mama clear the table, and Leo excused himself.

“I really must get going.”

“Do you live far? I can drive you home, if you’d like?” Mama called out from the kitchen. She was in the middle of doing the dishes, and Ryoma was helping her dry.

“It’s not far.” He answered quickly. “Really, I’d prefer to walk.”

“Alright. It was nice meeting you!”

Ryoma was just glaring daggers at him over her shoulder. Takumi pushed him toward the stairs and followed him into the entryway.

“Uh, sorry about him.”

Leo just shrugged. “Believe me, I’ve seen worse. Why don’t we get together on Sunday to finish the project?”

“Y-Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

“I’ll text you.”

He headed out and Takumi shut the door behind him. It was still pretty warm out, but he hoped Leo didn’t have to walk too far. It was starting to get dark, and it looked like it might rain later that night.

All in all he was no longer absolutely dreading seeing Leo again. Hell, he was a completely different person than he usually was in school! He’d even called Mama ‘ma’am’!

He headed back upstairs to see if any more help was needed. Sakura and Elise had long since retreated into the basement to get things set up, and Hana and Effie would probably be there soon.

“Your friend seemed nice.” Mama was just finishing up the dishes and wiping her hands on a nearby towel.

“I don’t like him.” Ryoma slammed a plate down in the cupboard a little harder than usual.

He rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to like him, Ryoma. We’re just doing a class project together. Besides, he hates me anyways.”

It was true. Just because he was polite didn’t mean he liked Takumi. He was probably just minding his manners for once.

“Oh I don’t know about that, sweetie. The two of you seemed to get on just fine.” She had this glint in her eye.

“I told you, Mama, it’s not like that.”

“Good.” Ryoma muttered under his breath.

Gods, what a pain! He loved his brother, but he could be too overprotective sometimes. Heck, he still glared daggers at Hinata, and they’d been friends since they were five!

“I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

He spent the rest of the night watching dumb youtube videos to try and shake the horror movie from his mind.

_____________

Saturday went by pretty uneventfully. He and Hinata went to kendo practice in the morning and then they spent the rest of the day bumming around the park while the weather was still warm. Then later that night Oboro came over for their regular movie night.

Hinata hooked his laptop into the TV and started flicking through the movies. He and Oboro were already sitting on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn between them.

“So how did working on your project with Mister Prissy-pants go yesterday?”

“Actually, not terribly. It was, uh, actually kind of fun.”

Both of his friends stopped what they were doing and looked at him.

“Woah, hold the phone. You had fun. With Leo?”

“I mean… Look, he was still kind of a dick but I don’t know. We have a lot in common, and he was actually really sweet with Mama and his sister.”

Hinata whistled. “Well looks like it’s the end of the world everybody. Oboro, do you still have that zombie invasion action plan we wrote up?”

She shoved him. “Who said it was going to be a zombie invasion?”

“Who said it wasn’t?”

He was thankful that they didn’t push the subject, at least. Mama had been giving him that look ever since and Ryoma kept pulling him aside to have the talk. Just the memory of it made him shudder, and he was glad that Hinoka needed him for something before he could really get into it.

“I know you don’t like them, but can we please watch a horror movie? I know of a really good zombie flick now that you mention it!” Hinata urged.

Zombie movies, strangely enough, didn’t really bother him. Maybe because he knew how unlikely a zombie apocalypse was, and most of the movies were pretty bad anyways.

“Fine. But no more until Halloween!”

He started playing the movie and sat down on the couch next to Oboro. They were only about ten minutes in when he got distracted by a text from Leo.

Hey, sorry but I’m not going to be able to meet tomorrow.

What? Why?

Some family stuff came up. Sorry, we can talk about it more on Monday?

Alright, just don’t go tanking my grade with your slacking.

“Hey!” Oboro snapped her fingers. “Eyes on the screen!”

“Sorry, sorry!” He shut his phone off and set it aside.

He was a little disappointed. Maybe Leo got scared off by his family after all? But still, they could have met up at the library or something. He just hoped his overbearing brother wasn’t about to be the reason he failed a class.

______________

After awhile he started wondering what exactly came up to stop Leo from working on their project. Just three days ago he’d been so insistent that they get the project done immediately, but now he was delaying?

Though, it didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened. He walked into third period, and the first thing he noticed was the blonde in the second row. His left eye was swollen and bruised up. Takumi took his seat and set his backpack down.

“Geez, what happened?”

“Oh this? It’s nothing.” He brushed it off. He didn’t seem interested in talking about it, so he dropped it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant.

“… Did you want to get the rest of this project done today? I was thinking we could go to the library after school.”

“Yeah, sure. Sound’s good.”

He couldn’t pay attention for the rest of class. He knew it wasn’t any of his business, but he couldn’t help speculating. What the hell happened? Heck, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ryoma hunted him down after he left their house. Not that it’d happened, he could think of plenty of people that would want to punch Leo in the face.

______________

They decided to head to the library separately after school. Takumi arrived first. It was a pretty big library, and they’d agreed to meet near the back. There was a section specifically designed for teens to hang around in. There were a few tables, some computers, and a couple of board games, TVs, and even a game console. He didn’t usually come back to this section, but it was the most recognizable one so he’d picked it on a whim.

He was currently sitting at the chess table they had back there. He didn’t really have anything to do until Leo got there, and his phone was running low on battery so he was absentmindedly moving the pieces around.

There wasn’t really anyone else around, so he perked up immediately once Leo came in.

The Alpha nodded at the board. “You play?”

“Oh gods, you are a chess nerd. I knew it.”

Leo shrugged and dropped his backpack on the ground next to his chair. “My father used to play with me when I was a kid.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah, it was… Do you want to play a game?”

“Sure, but I’m not that good. I prefer shogi.”

“Show-gee? Is that like chess?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

As it turned out, Leo was quite good. He won pretty easily, and as much as he wanted to let his competitive spirit out he pushed his chair out and moved to one of the tables.

“You don’t want to play another game?”

“Oh believe me, I’m going to kick your ass in the future. But Mama wants me home for dinner so we should probably work on the project.”

They managed to finish up their project over the next two hours of working. He finished the paper, Leo finished the powerpoint, and then they swapped to proof read. He was pretty happy with the work overall, but he did veto some of Leo’s color choices for the slides.

When they were done he packed up his things, and Leo did the same.

“Would you like me to walk you home?”

He didn’t live too far from the library. It was about half way between their high school and his house. All together it would be about a fifteen minute walk from there to his house, but Mama and Ryoma wouldn’t usually let him walk anywhere by himself. They lived in an okay neighborhood, but they definitely bordered on a bad part of town. Another fifteen minutes of walking past his house and there was nothing but ramshackle ranch houses and trailers. He’d originally planned to call up Ryoma or Hinoka to get a ride, but it was a nice day, and if he had Leo with him…

“Are you sure? I can get a ride?”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s on my way.”

“Y-Yeah, sure.”

It would be nice to get some time to talk without his family or school projects getting in the way. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was actually starting to like Leo. But hey, how couldn’t he? It was like someone reached into his head, pulled out all of his favorite things, and stuffed them into the body of a tall, pretty Alpha. And those eyes? Gods, those piercing, red eyes. It almost wasn’t fair.

He found out that they had even more in common on the walk home. His favorite food was beef stew, which was kind of like a soup. Though it was second only in his heart to tomatoes. Takumi had brought up the subject accidentally, and Leo had begun rambling on about them.

“… And when you bite into them! Gods it’s divine!”

“Woah, hold up. You eat raw tomatoes?”

“Yes, don’t you?”

“No. Actually, I don’t think anyone does.”

“You’re missing out.”

He scrunched up his nose. “Gross.”

Leo gently nudged him as they walked. “Hey, don’t make fun. Someday I’m going to have a garden full of just tomato plants. Then you’ll see.”

Takumi pushed him back, just a little harder. “Don’t be such a weirdo, then!”

Those fifteen minutes almost went by too fast, and before he knew it they were standing at his front door. He didn’t really want to say goodbye, but Ryoma would probably just embarrass the hell out of him, and if he didn’t come home for dinner Mama would be upset.

“So I’ll uh, see you in class tomorrow?”

“Couldn’t miss it if I wanted to.” He answered dryly. It was one of those jokes that wasn’t really a joke, the kind Takumi couldn’t help laughing at.

Leo waited for him to get inside the house before he left.

“Takumi? I thought you were going to call for a ride? You didn’t walk home alone, did you?”

“No Mama, Leo walked with me.”

“Really, he did?”

He rolled his eyes. “He was just being polite. He said it was on his way anyways.”

“Is it?”

He shrugged. He’d just taken Leo’s word for it but he didn’t check to see if the Alpha had turned back the way they came or not.

“I’m going to finish up the rest of my homework. Do you need anything?”

“No I’m fine dear. Dinner in an hour.”

Ryoma and Sakura had long since finished their homework, but Hinoka was still sitting at the dining room table when he put his backpack down. She’d probably just walked home from practice and taken a shower – Mama always made her take a shower before dinner so she didn’t stink up the place.

He loved Hinoka, but he didn’t really get to spend that much time with her. Once she got to high school most of her free time was spent either at practice or hanging out with her teammates. That, and she and Ryoma were quite close. Pretty much anything he shared with her got passed on to his brother, whether he wanted it to be or not. He supposed it made sense, he was far closer to Sakura and they were far closer to each other, but it made it much harder to relate to her.

“So…” She opened up the conversation. “Leo?”

“Oh gods, not you too!”

“Hey, I’m not judging! I think it’s great that you’re getting along! He’s a good kid.”

“He’s sixteen, he’s not a kid. And how would you know what he’s like?”

She shrugged. “Just the impression I got from him at dinner. And sometimes his sister helps out at bake sales and things for the team. She talks about him a lot.”

He did vaguely recall a busty, purple haired Alpha coming by a few times in the past to see Hinoka. She hadn’t been around long enough for him to register the connection, but now that he thought about it he did hear quite a bit about Camilla. Mostly jealous rumors from the girls in his grade, or the guys bemoaning how she only ever seemed to flirt with other girls.

“Well you don’t have to go running to Ryoma. Like I told him, we’re just doing our class projects together.”

“Alright little brother. I believe you.”

_______________

The due date for their first project came and went. They got an A, obviously, and strangely enough Takumi couldn’t wait for the next one. He and Leo worked well together, and it was nice having a project partner that didn’t distract the hell out of him for once.

In the meantime, they started spending more and more time together. In addition to his Saturday movie nights with Hinata and Oboro, he and Leo had a Friday movie night now too. Sometimes they watched them in his room, sometimes the basement. They’d begun switching off between B horror movies and terrible sci-fi flicks. Sometimes they didn’t watch a movie at all, they just played video games or a board game or just talked.

It was a few days before Thanksgiving, so they’d decided to have their movie night after school on that Tuesday instead. Though they’d never gotten around to picking a movie. His computer was lying a few feet away, HDMI cable plugged in and idling on the Netflix home screen.

He was lying down on one end of the couch, knees bent, and Leo was on the other. Their legs were just barely close enough to touch.

“What do you guys do for Thanksgiving?”

“Nothing really.”

“Really? Nothing?”

“Father hates holidays.”

“Your father sounds like a dick.”

The Alpha snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”

He’d been wondering for awhile. Leo never talked about his family, or at least he didn’t talk about his dad. Over the past few months he’d been slowly piecing some things together, but the picture was still frustratingly incomplete.

“… Hey Leo?”

“Yeah?”

“You remember that black eye you had a few months ago?”

“What about it?”

“… How did you get it?”

He immediately regretted asking. Leo sat up, and Takumi mirrored him.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Leo just shrugged. “Why bother hiding it? My father isn’t exactly the most even tempered guy. He kind of flipped his lid when Elise came home that Saturday morning. Kept ranting about how she was whoring around with Alphas – I guess he smelled your siblings on her. I tried to stop him from throwing her out.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It is what it is.”

Takumi scooted closer to him. He didn’t really know what to say, so he did what he always did when one of his siblings was upset. He hugged him. The Alpha seemed surprised, but he didn’t pull away.

Leo smelled nice. Like a forest on a sunny, warm day. Like dirt and grass and… honeysuckle? It was a lot to take in at once. And he was so warm and his skin was so soft…

Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and he pushed the Alpha away quickly just before Ryoma could see them. Leo scooted back quickly and he turned to his computer screen so Ryoma wouldn’t suspect anything.

“Are you two doing okay down here?”

“Get out of here, Ryoma! Mama told you not to bug us!”

He was trying to hide his blushing face from his brother, but it was a losing battle. He might have been mistaken, but he thought he saw a small tint to Leo’s cheeks too.

“As long as the two of you are… getting along.” He gave Leo the I hope you aren’t fucking around down here look before he went back upstairs. Gods, he was only fifteen, why did Ryoma not trust him to keep his hormones in check?

“A-Anyways… Do you want to spend Thanksgiving here? I’m sure Mama won’t mind, she always makes too much food.”

“You don’t have to be nice to me just because of my father.”

“It’s not because of that! I would have invited you, anyways. Geez, who doesn’t have a holiday celebration?”

“… I’ll think about it. And thanks for the offer.”

______________

He’d been friends with Hinata and Oboro for a long time. They were both Alphas, but he’d never felt anything special for them. He’d never gotten butterflies in his stomach thinking about them, and he’d never spent hours going through his closet to find the right outfit before he saw them. But here he was, Thanksgiving morning, doing exactly that.

He tried to justify it. Well we’ve never had guests before. At least, no guests that weren’t Hinata, Oboro, or one of his siblings’ friends.

But then wasn’t Leo just one of his friends, too?

Mama was okay with him coming over, just like he knew she would be. Ryoma was less than thrilled, something about how he was “too young to be dating”. Whatever, he’d get over it. He and Leo weren’t even dating. He wasn’t even sure if the Alpha liked him.

He pulled at least five things out of the closet and laid them over the bed. He was staring at them hopelessly when Sakura came into the room. She was already dressed for the day in an oversized orange sweater-dress and some plain black leggings. She even had a pair of matching orange slippers and a matching headband and gods he’d never envied girls for having so many cute clothing options, but he was right now.

“A-Are you trying to look good for Leo?”

“Help.”

He’d never in a million years admit to crushing on someone to his older siblings, but Sakura was different.

“J-Just be yourself! I’m s-sure he likes you just the way you are!”

“Yeah, but I still want to look nice! But I also don’t want to look like I’m trying to look nice, you know?” He’d been wearing sweatpants and plain v-neck t-shirts the last couple of times they’d hung out. He couldn’t help himself, it’d been Friday! That was his comfy day!

“A-Alright, let me see what I can do.” She giggled.

It wasn’t too far off what he’d normally wear, in the end. She pulled out one of his usual black v-necks and a pair of jeans, but she also managed to dig out an old button down that he was pretty sure he’d gotten as a hand-me-down from Ryoma. The sleeves were a little long, so he just rolled them up to the elbows and left the front unbuttoned.

The only accessory he really owned an extensive collection of was hair ribbons. Mama usually bought him the same thing for every birthday or Christmas: A book and a hair ribbon. He loved both, so he wasn’t complaining. Sakura found a plain orange one to match the Thanksgiving theme and he quickly tied his hair up with it.

With that all sorted, they spent most of the rest of the day cooking with Mama while Ryoma and Hinoka cleaned up. They didn’t really do the traditional American thanksgiving, instead Mama tried to cook everyone’s favorite foods. There was almost always miso soup for him, salmon for Ryoma, and pickled vegetables for Hinoka along with rice, duck, a salad, and some stir-fried vegetables. She also made tea, and Sakura’s favorite mochi for dessert.

It was a pretty big task to cook it all, and they always had a ton of leftovers. Mama joked that she was glad they were finally old enough to help her out, since she used to do all of it by herself.

Hinoka popped her head in around four o’clock.

“How many places should we set?”

“Hmm… I think we’ll be having nine?”

“Nine? Who all is coming?”

“Well there’s the five of us, Leo and Elise makes seven… And since they’re coming I told them to just invite their whole family, so Xander and Camilla makes nine.”

He heard Ryoma groan from the living room. “You invited Xander?”

“Well I wasn’t going to invite everyone but Xander! That would be rude, Ryoma!” She yelled back.

He’d considered inviting Oboro and Hinata as well, but Oboro was travelling to visit family this year and Hinata’s parents were inviting over some relatives so he had to be at home. Plus, he’d avoided having Leo meet his friends thus far. Not that he was embarrassed of them or anything, he just wasn’t sure how well they’d all get along.

Everyone arrived around five, and he ran down to get the door before Ryoma could jump at it. Only Camilla, Leo, and Elise were at the door, and the eldest was holding a bottle of something. It was lightly snowing outside, so he ushered them in quickly.

“Thank you so much for inviting us, dear!” She handed over the bottle.

“Yeah, no problem. Make yourselves at home.” He hung their coats up on the nearby coat rack. Camilla and Elise ran upstairs, but Leo hung back with him.

He pulled the bottle out of the bag to get a better look at it.

“Sake? Where did you guys even get this?” As far as he knew, none of them were of age. Well, Xander might be eighteen, but he wasn’t there.

“Father won’t miss one bottle. He doesn’t even like sake, it’s just been sitting around the house.”

He shrugged. Mama sometimes drank sake, and usually she would let them have a taste around the holidays. He just put it on the kitchen counter and started getting down the serving dishes for the food. Camilla wandered in a few minutes later.

“Is there anything at all I can help with?”

He’d never seen an Alpha offer to help with kitchen stuff, but there was a first time for everything. Ryoma and Hinoka would usually help out, but only if directly asked.

“Oh don’t worry about it. You’re a guest! Besides, we’re almost done here. Just go take a seat, dinner will be in a few minutes.”

He caught a few snippets of conversation as he and Sakura carried dishes out to the table. Mainly Hinoka and Camilla discussing what the baseball season would look like come spring. Ryoma occasionally added to the conversation, but overall it was nothing he was too interested in. Elise must have been in the bathroom, and Leo was boredly sitting at the table. It didn’t take long to get everything on the table, so when it was all ready he took his usual seat next to Leo.

“Won’t Xander be joining us?”

“I’m afraid he had to work, actually.” Camilla answered. Mama took the empty plate away and he, Leo, and Hinoka all shifted over a little to make things even. He ended up sitting directly across from Sakura, Leo was in front of Elise, and Hinoka was facing Camilla.

“This all looks wonderful ma’am! I hope you had some help!” Camilla added as they began passing things around the table.

“Yes, Takumi and Sakura are quite the little chefs now!” She laughed. “I remember when they were little they tried to help cook and they nearly burnt the house down! Little Takumi came sprinting down the hall, hair singed to drag me out of bed… And what do I find in the kitchen? Ryoma and Hinoka standing over a smoking pan and Sakura crying in the corner!”

They all laughed about it now, but he remembered that year all too well. That was the year Papa died. He was maybe five? Mama didn’t get out of bed for weeks unless it was to take care of them, and little seven year old Ryoma thought it might help cheer her up if they cooked for her. Of course they were kids so none of them knew how to cook. It got her out of bed, though. It was easy to laugh at in retrospect, but at the time it had probably shocked her back into being alive and a mother.

But it wasn’t really the time for such discussions, so he laughed along.

“Mama kept the knives out of reach and I wanted to make soup. So I just dumped whole vegetables into a pot of water. Didn’t even turn the stove on. I thought her head was going to explode!”

“Kids just do the strangest things, don’t they?” Camilla added. Though, wasn’t she still a kid herself? “When we were little Elise wanted to play princesses, and unfortunately poor Leo was the only one around at the time. Elise dressed them both up in mother’s clothes and used up every last bit of her makeup! By the end they both looked like something straight out of a clown horror movie!”

“Oh? Is that where the love of headbands stems from?” He teased, nudging Leo’s foot under the table. The Alpha scoffed.

“Coming from the guy with a collection of hair ribbons.”

“Hey, don’t knock ‘em. Do you even know how hard it is to use scrunchies when you have all of this hair?”

“Why not just cut it?”

He mock-gasped. “Blasphemy.”

Leo kicked him playfully under the table, and he laughed.

Thankfully, it ended up being a very bearable holiday. Ryoma didn’t spend half of dinner re-grilling Leo like he usually did when the Alpha came over, and his brother even seemed to get along with Camilla. Plus, after dinner they all went down to the basement to watch dumb holiday movies. It was a pretty big couch, but with eight people was still a squeeze. So, naturally in the interest of making space he had to get as close to Leo as possible.

He wasn’t on top of him or anything, but he was practically glued to his side. They also didn’t have too many blankets in the basement, so he and Leo had to share. About half way through the movie the overwhelming scent of honeysuckle and grass and Leo was starting to get to his head, and he was getting antsy. They didn’t normally sit this close when they were alone, and his Alpha scent was doing very weird things to his hormones.

He started fidgeting with his hands, scratching his nails down the leg of his jeans or tapping his fingers. Leo tapped the back of his hand with his knuckles. He froze, and once he was still the Alpha grabbed his hand and laced their fingers together under the blanket.

He was at a complete loss for words. At no point did Leo’s eyes leave the screen, but he did squeeze his hand when Takumi looked over at him from the corner of his eye. He felt like he was about to explode. Leo was holding his hand. He could have died happy then and there.

When they left he was on top of the moon. Maybe Leo did like him back. He was so giddy he could barely get to sleep.

________________

He was hopeful when he returned to school the following week, but the Alpha didn’t seem keen on acknowledging that anything had happened. He didn’t bring it up, and it certainly didn’t happen again. Even when they were completely alone in his basement.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to happen after Thanksgiving, but it certainly wasn’t nothing. They finished their last two projects together, and they kept their regular Friday night hangouts, but nothing happened.

Tomorrow was their last day before the end of the semester. He and Sakura were already in their pajamas and ready for bed, but they weren’t sleeping just yet. He was lying face down with his head buried in the pillow, and she was sitting on the end of his bed with him.

“I don’t know Sakura, maybe I’m an idiot. I thought he liked me.”

“Maybe he does? I m-mean, he did hold your hand.”

“But that was a month ago! Why hasn’t he done anything else? I thought he’d ask me out or try to kiss me or something, but he’s acting like nothing happened!”

“W-Why don’t you ask him out then?”

“Are you crazy? What if he said no? Gods it’d be so embarrassing!”

“Maybe he’s j-just waiting until the end of the semester?”

He looked up from his pillow. She had a look to her that immediately set something off in his head.

“Sakura… Do you know something?”

She giggled. It wouldn’t be unusual… She was friends with Leo’s little sister, and Elise was becoming notorious for being a bit of a blabber mouth. Sakura got up and scurried back to her bed.

“C-Come on, it’s late. Worry about it t-tomorrow.”

It didn’t make him feel better, but it did give him a little hope.

___________

He waited anxiously for third period. It was the last day of classes before winter break, so most teachers didn’t have anything for them to do. He had his Geometry final in the morning, but that was about it. He hadn’t even bothered studying because even if he completely failed he’d still be getting an A in the class. Third period they were just doing presentations for their final projects, and he and Leo had already presented theirs.

Leo leaned over to him when he sat down in class.

“Hey… Can you wait for me after school? I want to ask you something.”

His heart was already pounding, but now it was doing double time.

“O-Okay.”

The rest of the day couldn’t go by fast enough. He barely even touched his lunch, and Hinata spent the entire time teasing him about his “future boyfriend”. He didn’t want to get his hopes up too high. For all he knew Leo wanted to talk about something completely unrelated.

When the end of the day came he anxiously waited by the exit for Leo. Ryoma still had to drive them home, but he hoped that his brother wouldn’t show up and kill the moment until after Leo had asked him whatever he was going to ask him.

The Alpha was with one of his friends, the white-haired one with the eyepatch. They looked like they were debating something, and eventually Leo gave an exasperated sigh. His friend apparently got his way, at least if his giddy look was any indication. The other Alpha sniggered and pushed the blonde his way.

“Hey, Leo!” He tried to be casual, but his excitement was bleeding through in his voice.

“Hey, uh… Look this is going to sound stupid, but Niles wanted me to ask…”

“Uh huh?”

“I was just wondering…”

“Yeah?” He tried not to get his hopes up, but damn were his hopes up.

Leo sighed.

“How much would it be?”

“For what?”

“For you to blow me in the bathroom.”

He had no words. He just gaped at the Alpha for a minute, and finally stuttered out an “Excuse me?”

Ryoma was less calm about it. He’d apparently been coming down the hall behind Leo, and unfortunately for the blonde Alpha he’d heard the whole thing. His backpack thunked to the ground behind him. Leo’s eyes widened as Ryoma grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around.

“What makes you think that you can talk to my brother like that?”

“W-Woah, hey hold on-”

But he didn’t get to finish his sentence. Ryoma punched him straight in the mouth. Leo recoiled, then bolted in the opposite direction. His brother tried to run after him, but Takumi grabbed him by the arm.

“Ryoma no!”

“You’re just going to let him disrespect you like that? I know you like him, but come on Takumi!”

“He’s not worth it. You only have one semester left until graduation, do you really want to get suspended or worse?”

That seemed to level his head. He took a deep breath, then picked his backpack up off of the floor.

“Come on. We’d better get home before I change my mind.”

The drive home was a quiet one. As soon as they were home he dropped his backpack in the entryway.

“Hey how was school?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He called over his shoulder and ran up to his room. Mama tried to follow him, but he slammed the door and curled up in bed.

What an asshole! Just when he’d started actually liking Leo, he goes and acts like every other Alpha! Was that all he was to these people? A set of fucking holes? They had so much in common, they’d had so much fun together over the past few months, but all he cared about was getting his knot swallowed? Fuck it, he was never talking to another Alpha ever again. They could all shove it, for what he cared. He’d just die alone.

He’d just resigned himself to wallowing in self-pity when there was a soft knock on the door.

“Not now, Mama.”

She came in anyways and sat down on the end of his bed.

“Ryoma told me what happened. Do you want to talk about it?”

He sat up and let her wrap an arm around his shoulders. He buried his face in her shirt and just let the tears loose.

“I thought he r-really liked me! I’m s-such an idiot!”

“Shh, it’s okay baby. There’ll be other Alphas.”

“They’re all the same! They’re just looking for somewhere to stick their dicks!”

“You’re still young. There’ll be other Alphas. I didn’t meet your father until I was in my twenties.”

“Yeah, but Papa wasn’t awful!”

She let him cry it out, until his chest hurt and his eyes were dry and he was sniffling and hiccuping. It probably took a good three hours, but she didn’t leave his side. She just held him and waited. Only once he’d cried himself dry did she speak up again.

“Why don’t I take you all out for dinner?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Consider it a reward for your good grades?”

“We haven’t even gotten our report cards back.”

“But I know you all did wonderfully. Come on, it’ll be fun. You can have all the miso soup you want!”

“… Alright. Thanks, Mama.”

He blew his nose and washed his face off. His eyes were still a little red and puffy still, but he grabbed his coat anyways.

Everyone else was already ready to go. Ryoma must have filled them in too because Sakura ran over and gave him a hug as soon as he got to the living room.

They almost always went to the same restaurant when they went out for dinner. It was a little Japanese place on the other side of town. Mama liked to go there sometimes because that was where she and Papa met when she used to waitress there. The food was pretty good, and they ran special all-you-can-eat sushi deals so they could get a lot for pretty cheap. Plus, Mama got a discount.

Everyone tried their best to keep it light. He ate about five bowls of miso soup, and by the end of it he was feeling a lot better. He even managed to smile at a few of Hinoka’s dumb jokes.

By the time they were done it was snowing pretty hard outside, and it took them awhile to get home in the blizzard. It was already pitch black outside, but when they pulled up to the house there was someone sitting clearly on their front stoop. He caught a flash of blonde hair as their lights went past, and he heard Ryoma swear from the front seat.

“That bastard!”

Mama pushed him inside the house as soon as they were in the garage. Takumi tried to follow her, but she stopped him.

“Just go talk to him, sweetheart.”

“But Mama–”

“I understand, just ask if he wants a ride home. I’d send your brother to do it but…”

He rolled his eyes and pulled his scarf over his nose. Leo stood up when he saw him come out of the garage. His lip was busted and bloody, and he was shivering but otherwise he seemed fine. He brushed off a fine dusting of snow from his shoulders.

“Takumi I–”

“Don’t.”

“Look, I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, and after I say this I’ll leave if you want me to.”

“Fine. What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why would you say that to me in the first place?”

“It was just a stupid dare. I was going to apologize afterwards, but your brother kind of decked me and I wanted to avoid being beaten to a bloody pulp.”

He shook his head. “You don’t get it! It isn’t funny! Do you know how many times I’ve had Alphas seriously say that kind of stuff to me?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you would be so hurt by it, I thought it would just be a dumb, harmless joke. There’s no excuse, and all I can do is apologize.”

He was shivering like crazy now, and his cheeks and nose were bright red. He must have been standing out there for awhile if he was in such a shape. He knew Alphas ran a little warmer, but Leo’s coat wasn’t very thick to begin with and he didn’t have a hat, gloves, or scarf.

He let out an exasperated sigh and grabbed the Alpha by the wrist.

“You’re going to freeze to death out here, come on.”

He dragged him into the house. Ryoma was already waiting for them in the foyer.

“What is he doing here?”

“Don’t start, Ryoma.”

Takumi pulled him into his room and swapped Leo’s coat out for one of his thick wool blankets. He tossed his own coat and scarf aside and sat down next to the Alpha on the bed.

“… Thank you.”

“You looked so pathetic out there.”

Leo chuckled. “I must have just missed you, I’ve been waiting for an hour.”

An hour? It must have been ten below out there!

He bumped him with his shoulder. “You’re an idiot. Why didn’t you just text me?”

“Because I felt like an ass, and my father took my phone away when he saw the split lip.”

“Still, it could have waited until tomorrow. You could have frozen to death.”

“But I didn’t.”

“No, I guess you didn’t.”

Leo shivered under the blanket. He pulled one half of the oversized blanket over his shoulder and scooted closer. Leo’s skin was cold to the touch, and now that they were in the light he could see his lips had been turning a bit blue. His blonde hair was dripping as the snow melted off of it, but he rested his head on Leo’s wet shoulder anyways.

“Takumi?”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to ask you something, too. I mean, I meant to ask you something after I completed Niles’s stupid dare.”

His heart was beating out of his chest. “What was it?”

“I wanted to know if you would go out with me? I mean, the theater is doing some showings of old documentaries and I thought you might want to go with me… But I understand if you don’t want to, after all of this.”

“Y-You mean like… On a date?”

“Well… Yes, that was the intention?”

He’d been waiting for this for months now. And, in spite of the events of the day he was still ecstatic.

“… Swear you’ll never talk to me like that again?”

“For as long as I live.”

Leo didn’t hesitate in his response. So, neither did he.

“Alright, but you’re on probation. And you’re buying the popcorn to make it up to me.”

“Of course, I am a gentleman after all.”

“A gentleman that asks Omegas to choke on his dick?”

“Not all Omegas, just the ones I like.”

He laughed in spite of himself.

“Well, good luck getting Ryoma to like you after that one.”

“Baby steps, Takumi. Baby steps.”

[grantfieldgrove]

Your friends want you to fail.

It’s true.

It’s true and it sucks.

But the sooner you realize this, the better off you’ll be. You can set yourself on the course for success while leaving them behind.

That’s exactly what your friends don’t want, but you have the capability to make it happen.

I’m not trying to be negative, but I’ve learned this the hard way.

Let me back up a bit.

Ten years ago I was working a dead end job at a grocery store. I hated it. The pay was crap. The work was crap. Most of the customers were crap. But I had friends!

I was miserable. I had a temper, I was angry about everything. I was bitter that I worked this job I didn’t like when I knew I should be doing better. I was all over social media, posting about everything, even belittling people I didn’t even know by snapping pictures of them and posting them, then enjoying a laugh at their expense.

That’s bottom of the barrel, self-esteem wise.

I would fight with people who held different political beliefs than me, different opinions about religion, or even movies. I was the loud mouth Fred Flintstone type, but I always got laughs. At least some.

It didn’t take long after my son was born to realize that something wasn’t quite right with him. He was extremely delayed and obviously autistic. I blew it off and didn’t believe it, making excuses as to why he was so behind.

We had to enroll him in a special school at age 2. The bitterness grew.

One day I decided to buy an iPad. Just because.

I took it home, unboxed it, and sat on my floor to play with it. But instead of playing games, I started writing.

I literally started writing a novel out of nowhere. It was a hoot. I started carrying a little notebook around work, thinking of plot points. It was great, because when you carry a notebook and pen around while working, people assume you’re working really hard!

Before I knew it, I had a book. I didn’t know what the hell to do with it, but I had one.

I found out you can self-publish books on Amazon, so that’s exactly what I did. I gave it a once or twice over, figured out how to format it, and it was published. And wow, did it have a lot of typos. The story was good, though. Some people bought it and it actually got good reviews. Some friends even bought it, though I doubt many of them read it. But still, it felt good. So I started the second book and finished it in record time. This one was even funnier and I liked it a lot, although, once again, I skimped on the editing.

Shortly before the release of that book, I had a falling out with most of my friends. I had planned a big party in Las Vegas, everyone was going to attend, but it was just a disaster. We had a suite at the Aria, but none of my friends even stayed in the hotel. Not a problem, but they stayed way down the strip at Paris. Then got so drunk at the pool, not a single person showed up. So yeah, I was pissed. And the party wasn’t just for fun, it was a special occasion for my wife. And every one of them let me down. So that’s that. We left first thing in the morning, leaving them all in the dust.

Nothing was really the same after that.

All of this is just specific backstory that doesn’t pertain to you, but the basic elements could. The moral of the story remains the same.

Cut to ten years after I first sat down to write that novel. I now have 11 books, including the first ever murder mystery series for kids, which even, somehow, became the runner up for some award I already forgot the name of. Three of my books have been produced into audiobooks and two have advanced to the semi finals in an Amazon-sponsored fiction contest where out of 10,000, 400 advanced. I’ve gotten positive reviews from Kirkus, and a few other publications.

These are facts that I am proud of. I share these from time to time on social media, although I am still not comfortable with talking about myself.

But, now my friends don’t buy my books. Maybe one or two, not even my “Facebook friends” who were on board at the beginning. The last book published is my favorite. I’m so happy with it and proud of it. I literally tried to give away copies to people I know. I didn’t have a single taker.

I would promote the book being free on Kindle during a particular day or weekend, or whatever, and not a single person would respond to it. I tried to give away Audible audiobooks. Not a single taker.

It’s so bizarre.

Why?

I could understand if the books were garbage. There are a lot of genuinely bad books out there, especially since self publishing has gotten so popular and easy to do. But my books aren’t those books.

I started a small publishing services company, just as a side job to help people out. People who were lost like me when I first started.

My friends didn’t care.

Granted, it’s not very exciting, and with the emergence of “multi-level marketing,” starting a business isn’t that impressive, apparently. (Remind me to tell you about this amazing magical wrap thing! Kidding.)

One thing I forgot to mention earlier, is that I went without Facebook for about a year and a half. I hated it. I hated the fakeness of it. And I was bitter. Bitter that I was trying to better my life, to branch out from a dead end job and try to make something of myself, and I never got any good feedback from it.

My son is severely autistic, he’s ten now and still completely non-verbal. We don’t have a typical life. We have to adapt to whatever life throws at us, and that’s what I was trying to do. My son hated when I had to go to work. He didn’t understand why I had to leave, often in the middle of the night. So I tried to change things.

And still I got nothing. So, bye bye Facebook. Good riddance.

It was weird at first. I still had this urge to let everyone know what I was doing. Like, them knowing would someone validate me doing it. If your Facebook friends don’t know what you do, are you really even doing it?

While I’m typing this, my Facebook is back. But there is a reason. Over the summer, while I was doodling on my iPad, I had an idea. I could put these things on tshirts. I would totally wear them.

So I looked it into. I saw that the possibilities were seemingly endless. Why stop at tshirts when you can make leggings? Why stop at leggings when you can make backpacks?

It goes on like this.

So I went all in. And I mean, ALL IN!

I had quit my job at the supermarket a few months prior. I had enough money to survive for a while while I explored new paths. So I sunk everything into this little venture. I was going to make horror related clothes. The horror market is severely underused. There are, of course, some major players in the horror game, but they all had to start at the bottom, too. So I went for it. I made a website. I made an Instagram and a Facebook. And after a week of the site being up, I made a sale. And then another sale.

Turning a profit is tricky, though. I needed word of mouth. I needed friends.

So I got back on my personal Facebook page after a year and a half, and let everyone know what I had been up to while I was gone.

It landed with a thud.

Nobody cared.

In the time I was gone I had a kid’s book, and novel, and this clothing company all launch.

I got nothing.

I started booking comic cons and would post pictures.

Nothing.

I have a little booth downtown, with all my stuff displayed, where you can walk in, buy something, and help support me and my family, by buying small, staying local.

I’ve had one friend visit it.

One.

It’s been there for six months.

I posted a few pictures of horror-celebrities wearing or showing off something I created.

Nothing.

I drew posters for a few events, movie screenings, even a stage play. I posted them. The most recent one I posted got 6 likes.

I have 590 Facebook friends and 6 of them liked a poster I did for a Scream 2 screening.

I have a family member whose daughter wanted “something Michael Myers” for Christmas. I have tons of Myers stuff. Stuff I poured my heart and soul into. Stuff you can’t find anywhere else.

This person did not buy from me. She bought a generic Myers t-shirt from a major store and probably spent more than she would have with me.

Right now, through luck and hopefully hard work, my work is in the processing of being officially licensed. Which means, with a little more work and a whole lot more hustle, it could end up in stores like Hot Topic, etc.

And then what?

I don’t know. I like to daydream. And I would like someone to be proud of it, someone who doesn’t live with me.

But, there comes a time when you have to let that go. Your friends won’t be proud of you. They will belittle you. They will find something to nitpick about what you’re doing.

And it sucks.

Strangers will support you. Your friends will not.

The sooner you know this, the better. You can delete your personal Facebook, you can shrug your shoulders at all the people holding you back and making you feel bad about leaving your comfort zone and taking a risk.

There is no law that you must remain friends with the people you were once friends with. Cut em loose.

This is about you. It’s about your dreams. Your life. Not theirs.

If they don’t want to follow you on your journey or cheer you on, cut them loose. Release that anchor from around your neck and push full-speed ahead.

You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish when you stop worrying about what so-called friends think and start realizing that no matter what you do, there will be someone who admires you and looks up to you, just as you’ve looked up to someone else when you started your self-fulfilling journey.

Be the person you would want to look up to.

You can do it.

Start today.

Two months ago I had to attend a wedding where all of these people would be, all these “friends.”

All I heard were complaints. Whoever we struck up a conversation with, complained.

Complain complain complain.

I understood what was wrong.

We didn’t complain. My wife and I, we only told positive stories.

Our complaining days are over. We’ve moved on. We seemed out the positives from our lives and choose to focus on that.

All this did was draw out more complaining from the wedding guests.

So tone deaf and these people we’ve left behind, they were complaining about students (the teachers we knew) that are very similar to our son.

Like, really?! This is our life. You go home at 3. We live with this. And we still don’t complain.

So far back these people are, I had to hear outdated and cringeworthy jokes, I had to hear casual sexual harassment, breasts referred to as fun bags, in front of the girl they were talking to, and the groom’s nieces. They still use the R word to describe anything, despite knowing my son is extreme special needs.

Once you realize that you don’t want to live in the world these people still inhabit, the sooner you can progress to where you want to be.

You’ll never be happier leaving them, and their outdated thinking, and their complaints, and everything else that makes you miserable to hear about, behind.

And you can do it.

You can do it right now!

Log out of Facebook and get to work.

Find people to look up to and follow them. Do your own thing. People will begin to follow you.

I’m not saying it will be easy. I’m just giving you a heads up of what’s to come.

You can sidestep it completely.

You just need to realize that your friends want you to fail.

Prove them wrong.

Don’t even tell them.

Start now.

Go.

[godesssiri]

There’s a million stories about falling out of love. There’s songs and books and movies and whole tv series dedicated to the topic. Sometimes it’s like a car crash, sudden and catastrophic. Sometimes it’s a slow, unnoticeable, drawing away, until one day two people who were once almost one being are now complete strangers   No one talks about how you can fall out of friendship the same way.

I met the woman I used to call my BFF on the first day of high school. We just clicked, we were the quiet weirdos who sat in the corner and giggled over our inside jokes. For 23 years she was the first person I called when something wonderful or horrible happened in my life. I was her surrogate sister because she was an only child, her surrogate mother because she had a weird relationship with her own mother and couldn’t depend on her, I was her replacement family. When she broke up with her fiance I nursed her through her broken heart. When she met the father of her children I was the one she nervously introduced him to, praying that I would like him. I threatened to beat him to death with a shovel if he ever hurt her (yes I stole that line from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). 

We loved each other intensely. We spoke on the phone for hours 4-5 times a week, texted every day, tried to get to see each other (we lived in different towns) at least every other month. And we had so much fun together. 3 years ago we celebrated 20 years of friendship. I wrote her a notebook, every page filled with memories. She gifted me back the teeny tiny vest that was the first thing I bought for her when she was pregnant with her oldest child, she’d saved it as a keepsake. We were certain that we were going to be blue haired old ladies, cackling together in a rest home, giving each other crap about our saggy tit’s and adult diapers.

She drinks. A lot. I don’t, at all. No judgement on anyone who does drink, I just don’t enjoy it so don’t see the point in doing something I don’t enjoy. I also don’t like being around drunk people, it’s just plain tedious being around drunk people when you’re sober. I’ve made an exception for her for years because she was my BFF and I wanted to talk to her, share my day, hear about hers. She’s drunk almost every evening and that’s pretty much the only time we both have free so we would talk when she was drunk. It got harder and harder. Her memory is terrible sober and even worse drunk so we would have the same conversation over and over because she’d forget that we already talked about this. She’s also a very opinionated and judgmental drunk, there’s no fucking reasoning with her if she’d made her drunken mind up.

9 months ago my step-dad (who I was very close to) had a complete mental breakdown, committed a terrible crime, and tried to kill himself. I needed her more than I had ever needed her before and she failed me so badly that I’m never going to be able to forgive her for it. One evening we had an argument about the crime my step-dad committed. I did not and never will excuse him. Yes he is suffering mental illness but there are billions of people in the world who have mental illness who don’t do what he did. I said something that she took as me excusing him, I was tired and stressed and and not really thinking and phrased something badly, and as soon as she said ‘that’s fucked up’ I went ‘shit, you’re right, that’s not what I meant, let me rephrase’. She didn’t let me. She hammered me no matter how I tried to explain what I actually meant. I ended up bawling my eyes out, ugly, snot-streaming-from-my-nose, wracking sobs that made me feel like I was gonna puke. And she still didn’t stop hammering me.

I didn’t speak to her for 3 weeks, which was probably the longest we’d gone without talking for 23 years. I had trouble trusting her again and was proven right almost as soon as we started talking again. One night she asked after my step-dad and I told her that I wasn’t comfortable speaking to her about him right now. She went off at me about how I was holding a grudge. We spent hours exchanging text messages where I mostly managed not to be nasty (because I was sober and trying not to let things get too bad) and she just got nastier (because she was drunk and dgaf). She said some really horrible things, things that mean she’s no longer welcome in my mother’s house and most of my family urged me to cut her loose. I think that even worse than the nasty things she said was the fact that I needed my best friend more than I had at any time in my life and not only was she not there for me but she actively made that awful time worse.

I eventually forgave her because she was going through some heavy shit and forgiving her was the only kind thing to do. But now our friendship is pretty much over. I’ve trained myself out of thinking of her as my BFF. We talk on the phone maybe once every 4-6 weeks. Every couple of weeks she’ll send 3-4 texts and I’ll send back 1-2, maybe, if I respond at all. She’s come to see me twice, both brief visits, I’ve made excuses not to visit her. The longer between contacts the more comfortable I get. Once I couldn’t imagine my life without her but now I’m ok with that. I grieved at first. I went through a stage where I was incredibly angry (I still slip back into that occasionally). I went through a stage where I was incredibly sad. I went through a stage where I missed her so so much, my heart bled with missing her. Now I’m at peace with the end of our friendship. I accept it. I’m not going to grow old with this woman and I can live with that. There’s even a part of me that is almost ready to go out and find a new best friend, the way that people who have gone through a romantic relationship break up start to feel ready to find love again.

I guess I just wanted pour all this out because I’ve been surprised by it. It never occurred to me you could have all the mess and disintegration and anger and disappointment and grief and acceptance, over the end of a friendship, the same as you can have over the end of a romantic relationship. They don’t tell these stories in movies. I don’t want it to catch anyone else by surprise.So if you’re in the middle of a friendship break up, it’s ok, what you’re feeling is valid. It’s gonna hurt like a bitch but you’ll come out the other side, maybe you’ll patch things up, maybe you won’t. But don’t feel like you shouldn’t be feeling all this because it’s just a friend not a partner. 

[throwinggrapesoffthebalcony]

preface to PARIS GUILT

Most of my works were written to escape the realities that exist in life, realities that always hurt more than the abstraction of those realities. Literature’s a craft, nautical in nature, a method of escape. It’s easy not to shed a tear writing novels, creating distance between myself and the work. Not so easy when writing about the dry lucid heat of life and what had me wanting to write the novel in the first place, a task that engulfs so many hours of life. This preface concerns the writing of Paris Guilt, written in D.C. and placed in Paris, where it felt easier to express it. It was years before and the outer shell of the matryoshka doll was her son. I remember meeting Ivan in Texas. A tall good looking boy. My best friend growing up had met him in D.C. and Ivan came to visit. I’m pretty sure it was during the summertime. Strangely he was quickly one of the closest friends in my life. He liked Texas a lot, so he decided to move there. I was living with my girlfriend in Austin at the time and was keeping an extra room with Ann and David, two that I’d known from high school in Corpus. I’d agreed to rent a room in the house they’d been renting in Hyde Park because Kelly and I weren’t getting along and the fights were agonizing. Kelly and I’d been together so long I think we were more friends than lovers at that point. Then we were getting along again, so because I was rarely there at the house Ivan took the room, on the condition that when and if I wanted the room back he would find another place. It was a wonderful time, a wonderful summer. Jake was bartending at some place that had opened up called Cedar Street. It was a martini bar and being someone who grew up with all the run of the mill beer, whiskey, cheap wine, etc. it was like walking down into a garden of spirits. And when you’re poor, having a best friend bartending isn’t the worst thing that can happen. I had no real job, I was working for Greenpeace at the time. But going down into that martini bar was a chance to feel sophisticated, and the live music there was a blast. When the time came and I wanted my room back Ivan refused to vacate. We had a huge fight over it. We could fight like dogs and just as fast have a drink and be friends again. My favor had somehow become a democracy, and he won the consensus. I think he’d been romancing Ann, not sure, but that’s what it seemed like. What the hell, it was a mixed blessing, I wanted to get out of Austin anyway, and the weather’s always nice in California. I loved it there, so when I was sure that Kelly and I were through, it wasn’t hard for me to leave. Ellis was there, another close friend growing up, and was telling me over the phone to hurry up and get the hell out there. I sold my 70’ dodge dart swinger to a guy that lived down the street who couldn’t believe how cheaply I was selling it, and he still talked me down a hundred dollars. I was anxious to leave, just another chapter in Black Holes and Revelations; my child, ink, between the pages of spiral notebooks. And I hid my indiscretions, like a child myself. There was a lot I couldn’t tell Kelly about. I think she would have understood, but at the time I didn’t think so.

Some years later, at another point of disenchantment, I think 1997 or so, I decided to head to D.C. Jake was there at the time and I thought it would be nice to run around with someone I could trust for a while. LA’s always a metaphysical deathtrap and I hadn’t become numb to it yet. Every weird happening was still like a shock to my system, and D.C. felt as faraway as I could get from it. Jake was at his family’s house in the Palisades right along Battery Kemble Park that’s like a forest. What a beautiful place, definitely a breather from a Los Angeles apartment, but of course there would be weather, real weather, but I’d arrived in time for the cherry blossoms. A high screened-in patio, great coffee, and gin and tonics. It was one of those moments when you set your work out and the birds are twittering and it’s all peace and quiet and you think to yourself, if I can’t write here I can’t write anywhere. At the time I was pounding away on a little grey plastic apple laptop that I’d bought in Los Angeles, that had felt so futuristic compared to a typewriter or handwriting. It was my first laptop and I’d already spent a lot of hours on it and it felt like as great an instrument as the pen itself. I disappeared into that first afternoon clicking away. Some days later I met Deborah, a beautiful redhead that worked at a flower shop close by and I thought I was in heaven. She had this mentality that had me kicking myself for not being as spontaneous as I could have been. I’d told her that I’d wanted to lock the door of that flower shop and make love to her that afternoon that I’d wandered in and found her there arranging flowers by herself. She asked why I didn’t, as if she were disappointed. And it’s like a cold sweat in the middle of a warm afternoon. And amongst the smell of cut roses, would have been memorable. And it wouldn’t be the same if we planned it. So I was just getting settled in and the regrets were already piling up. That was one kind of love; natural, youth on youth. Ivan’s mother was a different story, in fact a kind of love, a variety of love that I would experience for the very first time, one of companionship and intellect. I hadn’t met Alona yet. But Ivan was coming for a visit and a dinner was already planned. His grandparents and mother lived just outside of D.C. in Virginia. I’d already heard the names of all the Russian dishes. I thought I was headed for just another life experience, but the Russians know how to do two things very well, love, and suffer.

I was curious to meet Ivan’s grandfather who was a famous Novelist, Vasily. He’d written a novel called The Burn. I thought it would be a privilege to have a talk with him about the craft and the works he’d accomplished and what I was hoping for myself, already referring to myself as a novelist. He spoke nothing of the craft to me. He already had that look on his face, that I’ve since had on my face. Disgusted by the weight of all the hours. And I don’t think there’s a novelist alive that actually takes another human being seriously as a novelist. It veers so far from the surface that I think there’s very little to speak about. Every novel is unique and so personal that it just leads to the silence of someone reading it. Alona, for me was the main attraction. I’d had borscht before, but not like that. And vodka had always agreed with my blood, so that was nice. Right away I knew we were going to be friends. That it wasn’t going to be dinner and then back into the beltway. We were all there, but I felt like I’d spent that evening with her. I didn’t dare say how I left the house feeling that night. I didn’t want to hear what Ivan would have to say about me being attracted to his mother, regardless of the reasons why. And I’m sure he would have cursed me in that mix of Russian and English and laughed. Vanya. I don’t know if he and Jake even knew that I was capable of loving an older woman. I was a strange boy just beneath the skin, and she knew it. She knew I wasn’t out of my element and only a few people I’ve met in my life had ever understood that so quickly. I lived in the filth and squalor of preconceived ideas, misperceptions, and underestimations. Maybe I didn’t mind it. Low exceptions can sometimes be freedom. To know her was more than what I wanted, it was what I needed, to evolve in this craft that I loved. Our conversations put my thoughts into perspective. You don’t know if what you’re thinking about literature and how it pertains to life is even valid until you speak to someone who has experience and a love of those same interests. It’s like speaking a language and you can’t speak it until you’re with someone else who speaks that same language. And then it’s just like an open window. Then it’s just like a glass of vodka. Then it’s just like wanting someone who you need.

And because of her experience I was nervous about her seeing my work. I wasn’t just shopping it around, throwing it to the breeze. I’d be putting myself beneath the eyes of a woman who read professionally. Not only for enjoyment, but also as a reader for Vasily and other authors, authors on the world stage. So I knew her comments and criticisms would be the most constructive criticisms that I’d ever had. I was anxious for that, but at the same time afraid of it. Of what she might say. Our phone calls would stretch into hours sometimes. Jake was like a brother to me, so it was nice to have Alona as a friend, someone I could talk to. I was living this vital life. D.C.’s a beautiful place full of fun spots, but I couldn’t wait to see her again. And just meeting her had already caused me to pay closer attention to my work, now there being a deadline a reason and goal. Meeting her caused me to slow down, to refine, to polish, to try and get her something that could be bound and printed. And it was amazing how when trying to polish one of my pieces, how easy it was to overlook mistakes. And that’s the most tedious stage of writing for me, the last few passes, when having to look at it closely, while considering what I’m trying to say more carefully and clearly. And in my opinion, a novel is never finished. It’s never like finishing a song or placing a period at the end of a sentence. I can never say, okay, this is perfect. And that’s possibly due to the enormity of the process, or that every one of my novels or novellas is my life. I could never call Paris Guilt, finished, because I don’t even know if she’s still living, and afraid to know. So my life lives in me, unfinished, until I’m dead. 

Deborah lived in Georgetown, but had met some woman at the flower shop and was house sitting for her, or maybe it was the woman who owned the flower shop, I can’t remember. The house was in the Palisades on the other side of the park close to the river, not far from the flower shop. She impressed me one night with candles and a bath. And I was really amazed that she’d taken the time to do that. She was creative, she arranged flowers after all, so she was that type of girl. And she expected the same. I remember her being upset one evening when after spending time with her on the patio I didn’t walk her to her car that was parked a little further down the street. She’d parked there just to make sure Jake’s grandmother wasn’t waken up. I thought it was ridiculous how upset she’d become, but I loved it at the same time, it was a measure of love to me, as well as an indication of what a gentleman I wasn’t at times. She had this friend Kat, that she lived with, and a little friend, Frannie, Francesca, this young hairstylist from Italy, who I ended up playing tennis with. Deborah had a get together at that house she was sitting. We sat outside to eat and drink wine, talking about music and life that evening. Frannie liked that I liked Laura Pausini, but mentioned that it was sad that I didn’t understand all of her lyrics, because I wasn’t fluent in Italian. I didn’t say anything, just watched her go back into the house. Girls can try to make you want them, even with a slight.

Alona and I finally arranged a time for her to pick me up at the train station in Virginia. If I was super early I could always call her from one of the pay phones there. She said she was pleasantly surprised when she saw my work. They had connections in New York and I was on my way and we even talked about going to France, where they had another house on the Atlantic in a little seaside town called Biarritz, and we could stay there and I could write. The pictures of the place were beautiful. I’d grown up on the water and it would have been perfect, and I thought from there, I could explore Europe. We had these conversations that were vital, horrible, lovely, but always conversations. In-depth, meaningful conversations. She’d read most of the authors that I loved and turned me on to others that she thought I should read. I remember her giving me a few books by Iris Murdoch, I hadn’t read her books yet. She was pulling them from the literature that they had there at the house. The conversations about novels with her were as wonderful as the novels themselves. The way she’d describe the styles of writing helped me understand my own way of writing, understand what I was doing. She said these things to me that made sense of what I only had a vague sense of before, unable to define what I was trying to do with certain techniques and methods, finding my way naturally. And because of my temperament, I wouldn’t be able to show her works that I’d spent the most time on. How to Grow Roses, was this hateful book at the time, about not being allowed, regardless of talent. The knife is not like a kind hand slowly closing off the air supply. You can’t cut through paper with the strokes of a ball point pen and expect it to be published that way, with the way that you really feel. Reality is unpublishable. So instead I found myself reading her something from Head Amongst the Flowers, this piece that I’d kept trying to turn into an epic novel but that had kept falling apart on me, into a novella or just a short story. And there was something that she said to me that made perfect sense of that. And that was there being the necessity or the importance to hold the thread. And when she said that, it was so clear, so perfect. That’s the feeling I was having with that work, there being this delicate thread that couldn’t survive the entire novel. It was a metaphor that suggested patience and that a novel could never be forced. Maybe it was my trying to write about a wealthy world in a place I’d read about as a kid. It was romantic and then I wanted to tear it apart with the human condition, psychology, love, the flesh, the abstraction that I’m prone to at times.

Eventually when speaking more freely and openly about our feelings, Alona was polite when she understood what my mentality was like concerning this world. She was disappointed but polite, especially concerning what I had to say about Los Angeles. We’d drink together and being lubricated, I’d say these hateful, terrible things. She was from another world, a serious, heavy, historical world, bestrewn with immense human tragedy. She attributed my way of seeing to youth, to a lack of experience, etc. etc. The word fascism to her was a bitter pill. I loved that she wasn’t the type to just turn to aversion. She grabbed me and wanted to shake my way of thinking out of me. She didn’t want me to be a Nazi, she would say, in her Russian accent. She wanted to confront me, she wanted to save me. But like every young man my way of thinking was hard and true. I’d already seen how the world worked in certain respects that had given rise and validation to my acidic way of thinking. I think she still loved me, even while I wasn’t of the same mindset as her son. He had a more beautiful take on the world. We enjoyed this life just as much, but Ivan and I had such a different perspective on poetry. He believed in poetry. And so did I really, only I called it language or the distillation of something, not as pretty. I shied away from that word poetry. In my opinion, when you called it poetry it was an attempt to elevate, to artificially heighten the sense of what was written. Calling something poetry to me was like wanting some line of words to take flight. Get that word poetry out of my fucking face. Ivan’s hand reaching and playfully messing with me, knocking it away while trying to take a drink. What happened to make you not want to live so much? Was that poetry to you?

If we were there at the house, Jake’s grandmother would expect us on the patio at a certain hour in the early evening for gin and tonics and cheese and cracker plates. The patio was spacious, the size of a living room with couches and all. Jake would whine about it but I would actually look forward to it. He’d become tired of the routine over the years, while it was new and exciting to me. Gin has its own unique buzz and the early evenings, before dark, were breezy and warm. It was the kind of routine that I could easily get used to. So for an hour or two Jake, Jakes dad J.R., and his grandmother and I would sit out on the patio and talk about life and politics. She’d lived a traditional and prominent life and wanted to keep that going, even in modern times, and I had a lot of respect for that.

Deborah was a free spirit and I could never pin her down on a moment when I could call her my girlfriend. She was at Georgetown and college is college. I don’t know if every beautiful girl knows she’s beautiful. But she was the kind of girl you could say, was beautiful and knew it.

Ivan came back into town during that summer. I made a point of not telling him that I was giving one of my novels to his mother to try to move myself up in the world. I could predict the comment. If she’d already told him about her helping me along with my aspirations, he never mentioned it. We drank for a while and then went to the mall to watch the fourth of July fireworks, just in time. The whole scene, the trees, the park, the monuments, the people, were already lit with the array of the fireworks. I could tell he seemed different that entire evening. He wan’t himself. He was never the type to cut the evening short, ever. I don’t think the three of us had ever gotten home before two o’clock in the morning when going out. After the fireworks display we were walking amongst the departing crowds. Ivan was yelling something about no tax without representation. But when we started talking about what bar we were heading to, he let Jake and I know that he was getting on the subway and heading back out to Virginia. What the hell are you talking about? He didn’t even want to argue with us or explain himself.

I cut through the woods to get to the flower shop on this bright afternoon. I got close and I saw they had customers and didn’t want to disturb her while she was busy at work. I would never find her there again alone. I was always hoping I could have that afternoon back. But real life isn’t literature where we can correct mistakes or missed opportunities. I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me that was holding her back. I would have liked her as a steady girlfriend.

I remember getting back to the house one afternoon, when Jake’s grandmother had received the call and she informed us of the accident. Ivan had fallen from the roof of his apartment building in San Francisco the night before. We couldn’t believe it. During our first drink over the matter, we debated whether he could have actually jumped or if it had been an accident of some kind. Maybe he was balancing along the edge of the wall, like a young man in a drunken mood might do. We went over the possible scenarios, including foul play. You never know. It doesn’t matter why, he’s gone, was the conclusion. But the look on his face and the way he was acting the last time we saw him, made me think it was suicide. Supposedly, a couple of girls he knew were over him while he was still breathing his last breaths while trying to speak to them. Jake had spoken to a few people on the phone, some friends of his there, and it was said that what he was saying to the girls was, to let him die.

For Alona it wasn’t a turning point, it was her own death, a before and after who she was, what she looked like, what she sounded like, what she felt like. I was hesitant to see her. I knew she’d be different. I’d already heard her voice on the phone and I knew we wouldn’t converse in the same way ever again. She wanted me to write something for the wake. I knew he always held a secret contempt for me. And I’d thought his suicide was such a selfish act, that now I held a secret contempt for him.

I think a year had already passed since I’d arrived and Jake’s grandmother had given subtle hints as to her wanting us out of the house. The hours we kept were erratic and she’d always wake up when we’d come home late, and insisted on getting up herself and going about the house. Jake agreed to share a place with me that I found on Connecticut Avenue in Van Ness, and so we found ourselves in that neighborhood, which I thought was wonderful. It was right near Politics and Prose, and spending time in bookstores was high on my list of things to do. I would miss the house of course. It’s a gift to live like that. I’d have to find a new writing place. That expansive patio, high up in nature was nice, and had spoiled me.

And of course Alona was going to be obsessed with her son’s death. That was to be expected. She wanted me to tell her everything about every moment I knew him. She just wanted to hear as much about him as she could. Funny moments, furious moments, everything, anything he might have said. Please, you have to remember, she begged me, what did he say, exactly. I couldn’t tell her what he would have thought about anything or what he would have become if he’d lived. She was still in shock, asking me things I couldn’t possibly answer, at times forgetting that I wasn’t Ivan. She would laugh but they were absentminded laughs. Just skin deep over what was really turning in her head, ceaselessly turning in her heart and head. Every moment for her became a challenge to find some way to escape the suffering. The Russian water of life wasn’t enough to cure the pain she was experiencing. It was sinking in and she was every bit connected to a boy who’d passed away. Sometimes she seemed dissolved into that afterlife looking for him and at other times like she’d hit a wall, completely forbidden, curled up against a gravestone. I didn’t even mention my writing again. And anyway, I was already filling my journals with the life I was currently living, not forgetting that I needed to leave room for the reader. That advice really freed me up. I remember spending so much time on description before. And after she’d said that to me, I felt like I had permission never to have to describe anything ever again. The reader falling between the lines doesn’t necessarily mean that all is lost. A story can mean something different to a million different people, and that can be even more beautiful, than a story perfectly conveyed, and that was beautiful to me. I’d written for so many years before, but sitting with her I finally felt like I was part of the literary world. It was so sad to watch what was happening to her. She’d lost her zeal for just about anything she spoke about, unless it was about Ivan.  

You couldn’t watch Alona suffer. You couldn’t stay removed from it, her suffering was so potent. I could feel it radiating from her body, with the sun in her eyes. If she was drowning in the unseen then so was I. Our screaming voices, turning into something beautiful. Conversations in a trance, speaking so calmly all of a sudden, about something from our past that we remembered in finite detail. We took turns dwelling in those moments. Like the sex of words and memory. The smell of some girls sweater. The shape of her beneath. My lost love was petty to hers. I knew that. But she allowed me to suffer with her, to acclimate to her suffering, to live in the weather of her world. The advice she was giving me was as if to save her very own son. Move on, if the girl didn’t love you then she’ll never love you. She’d say Vanya, and I wouldn’t say anything. And even while she was trying to save me, her suffering was exacerbating my own misery. I felt this immediacy after one of our conversations to call Jill, trying to convince her to move to D.C. I felt at the time I could make a move into a more professional life and live properly with her and our son. It’s much more accessible in D.C. or at least it seemed like it was, compared to the counterfeit place like Los Angeles, where a straight man has no chance. The misfortune of living in this ephemeral era, with their spandex safety net and pastel tribal mentalities. She wouldn’t interrupt me. She wanted to understand me. I’d had the patience to try to understand her. But it was very easy to understand, that she’d lost her son and was dying of it, surely dying of it. She loved and hated me. Why couldn’t I have been like Ivan, or one of his sweet little friends. I didn’t want to say it, but I was thinking about how afraid they’d be of a woman suffering like this. Her suffering was the most beautiful, horrible, dirty experience I’d ever had. Not dirty in the typical sense, dirty in a mental sense, in a disturbing truthful sense, that caused me to think more deeply about the human being. It wasn’t poetry, or for anyone with the love of poetry. It wasn’t an experience with a neat bow wrapped around it that would leave you unaffected. The sound of her voice, her strong hot hands grabbing onto me, not wanting to fall completely into hell, wanting to hold herself in life, not seeing anything in life to stay for. Her reading chair seemed like the only safe place that she had, not the flesh of an imperfect world. She was reading as much as she could to rest her mind in those passages. Fantasy to keep from thinking about her own circumstance. Reading as a means of escape, a way to stay alive. Alona was a beautiful woman and I couldn’t believe how fast and how drastically what had happened was changing her. Sick of me, or human of me, to consider how desirable a woman is while she’s suffering like that, wanting her to keep her figure. Suffering from the inside out, from the outside in, I don’t know where that pain truly laid in her, whether in the spirit or in the body itself. Just as I couldn’t tell at a certain point, whether all the vodka she was drinking was killing her or keeping her alive.

I’d waited on a woman one night, who lived right down the block from the restaurant I was working at. She had this apartment, something larger than an apartment, you couldn’t call it an apartment, with large paintings resting against the wall. I was laying there in the morning as the sun was just rising in the french doors open to the balustrade. It felt like another place. She was laying on the bed falling to sleep. Who was this woman, maybe in her late thirties to early forties, and how did she end up living like this. She asked if I would want to see her again. I wasn’t sure. I started my walk, down the street, over the bridge into Woodley Park and then down Connecticut avenue.

There was this girl on my mind and as I got into Van Ness I was hoping to see her walking along the sidewalk like I would at times, maybe heading to work. I’d already told Alona about her, Anna was Russian too. She was young and smart, worked for the IMF, and was blessed with an exquisite beauty. I remember when I first saw her, it was in Giants grocery store, when after I’d done all my shopping I walked along the isles looking for her. I’d asked her if I could walk with her and found she lived in the building right next to mine. I wanted to believe that it was some kind of a sign. So close but so far, I knew the feeling. There were times when I’d see her walking blocks up in the heat of the summer and I’d sprint to catch up to her, in hopes of just saying hello. Oh no, here he comes again, she must have thought as I caught up with her, wiping the sweat from my forehead and upper lip. She was always very cautious, but would still talk to me. And I suppose a man like myself had every bell and whistle and red flag going off in her head. As the months went on I’d run into her on several occasions, and felt like I’d already fallen in love with her pretty much. She was that pretty. There was an evening when heading back to my apartment one late afternoon when I passed a schoolyard playground. I saw her there and went over to talk to her, and that’s when I found out why she’d been so careful about me. She was looking out for someone besides herself. The glamorous life that I’d previously imagined her having, dinner with diplomats, champagne corporate parties, did indeed evaporate, opening up numerous more profound dimensions. She pointed her daughter out to me. She was up on the deck of a slide. She’d stopped what she was doing and was looking over at us. She was blessed with the same natural beauty that her mother possessed. We spoke and I watched as she bolted off occasionally to run after Barbara, tying to keep the active little girl contained, as she went this way and that with the energy of a firecracker. At one point, she was teetering dangerously at the top of the slide, where she’d dragged her scooter up and was going to attempt to ride it down the slide. It would have been an impossible feat. Anna and I ran over to catch her before the little girl plummeted to what would have been numerous scrapes and bruises. At another moment, when Barbara had abandoned her scooter further away on the blacktop, Anna went over and retrieved it, riding it back. Those two were a joy for me to spend time with that evening. Barbara stood just at the tips of my shoes, looking up at me, her face full of sweat, her hair slicked back. I did everything I could to keep from crying, over real life, real beauty, a mother and her daughter. And as the sun was going down, my own life began to settle on me. Come on, leave him alone honey, Anna said to her after she didn’t want to leave me, as they prepared to walk across the side street to their building. All the joys that I've missed in my life, while chasing plastic butterflies. I smoothed my hand over her hair. She stared up at me and smiled, the sweetest little smile, and asked if I could come home with them. I laughed about it, as did Anna. I would have in a second. Little Barbara even picked flowers for me. She held in the palm of her hand these tiny flowers and these tiny micro strawberries that she’d picked from among the blades of grass. When getting back up to the apartment I put them in a book to keep them as a memento and as a reminder of what true beauty really is. I pressed it closed, then I pressed my face into the pillow so my moans couldn’t be heard. I wept for the life that I couldn’t have, that I maybe would never have, while I fell off to sleep.

Alona thought that my love for Anna was ridiculous, that it was a convenient situation, one that I could just step into, to all of a sudden have two Russian dolls. Her second child could always be mine. Alona laughed at me. It was only the second time in my life that I had the feeling of wanting to propose with no questions asked, without knowing any more about the girl other than what I saw or felt, so quickly upon meeting. She told me to invite Anna to dinner so she could meet her and tell me what she thought. Maybe Anna would be impressed that I already had a love for Russia.

I think most writers probably one time or another have had a romantic notion about the process of writing. There’s nothing glamorous about it. The fakes, usually make an effort to look like Hemingway or to look like a writer. My obsession was never with the aesthetic, but with the location, places where I could disappear and write. The apartment on Connecticut avenue wasn’t such a place, and sometimes the why is mystifying. So the Library of Congress had become a nice routine. Not the typical place anyone goes to write novels, but it worked for me. The other place that I loved, that I’d get to once in a while was a bit of a journey away.    

It was called Le Refuge, a little French bread and breakfast way up, removed from the world. I’d board the Chinatown bus from D.C. to New York, then get on the six train, then on another bus from Pelham station, the headlights of the bus illuminating the small rusty bridge that crossed over a short span of water onto City Island. The bread and breakfast had the smell of an old place with a lot of history. I climbed up the wooden stairs inside the house, wondering if I should find the girl that stayed in the room downstairs and took care of the place, but I just found one of the rooms with the door slightly open. I opened the door and turned on the lights and there was no one there. It was nice that it overlooked the water. The bathroom was separate from the rooms, the kind of place that made me feel like I was living in the Tropic of Cancer, in better times of course. I walked to the end of the hall with the boards creaking under my feet and I sat in the bathtub. I ran the bath so hot it was nearly burning my feet. But I needed it that way, if the tub was going to stay hot for any length of time, and I just wanted to set my head back for a little while. I swirled the water around with my hands. It felt sinful every time I even had a thought about not being able to go and stay in France, or the literary career that had failed to materialize. The high expectations, diluted. I’d refused that path anyway, after she’d described the process of giving up the rights to my work, like signing my life away, and their being able to do whatever they wanted with my material after, even in bad taste.

I went to my room and stood before the mirror on the large black lacquer wardrobe. I was suffering emotionally at the time myself. Alona was a bad influence, it’s like two alcoholics together, twin flames, the room already heavy with the smell of Grand Marnier while looking out over the river through the tapestry of curtains. I looked over at my small grey apple laptop that was plugged in with blinking cursor ready to go, that grey brick that I'd already grown to love and hate so much. Like a tool, already worn down, used at trying to get to the middle of the meaning of life, of love, of death. A tool in the search for happiness, contentedness, peace. Another title, Paris Guilt, and the way I start every new novel, with the essence, in a stream of consciousness.

Breasts, mouth, skin, hair, eyes, ass, vagina, sweat, tears, disinfected from the inside out, pure, the smell of vodka

Fumes from the womb, the taste of the skin like the perfect taste of the skin

The spirit washing over, disconnecting from the body, then trying to disconnect from that

So difficult to keep the energy from becoming a mutual hell when in her presence

Suffering, a selfish indifferent erection, not wanting to penetrate a woman suffering so much, but wanting to cum into her so badly

The electricity of suffering, of still being desirable, in descent

Animals fallen from civilization, due to a tragedy, a real tragedy

A cut rose in vodka, life or death? Watching carefully for the wilting of the petals or some new vibrant color

From what point of view, from what perspective

Dropping an entire experience into water, crystalline, or a dream

Alona didn’t want to live anymore. She’d already tried it. I felt like it was just a matter of time. I went to the cemetery with her. She didn’t get out of the car. We just sat there. What does it matter. What does everything mean? Everything means everything. I’d never seen anyone dying that way while still fairly young from emotional pain. It was excruciating to even watch. Her mother and Vasily were also suffering over Ivan’s death, but her mother sounded as if she was staying strong in order to keep her daughter alive. Ivan was so pivotal in their lives. Expectations befallen. He was kind of what held them together. Their future was placed on him.

A German girl who’d known Ivan, who’d been his girlfriend, contacted Alona, and was also trying to help Alona survive. She was living in New York at the time and came down to stay in D.C. with Jake and I. She was an artist, we got along and began seeing each other. I’ve always detested when people get together over the death of someone else, and I always had that taste in my mouth when seeing her. Someone dies and it brings people together, it just seems so disingenuous of nature to work that way. The excuse of people to reach out to one another. Like life born from death, fresh flowers on the grave. But she was great for Alona. Alona needed a girl like that to spend some time with, who could possibly help her more with the healing process. Perhaps a woman knows more intrinsically what to say to another woman, I couldn’t reach her. I went and stayed with her for a few days up in Washington Heights. I was becoming more entertained with the idea of moving to New York at the time. We talked Alona into coming up for a visit during those days. She agreed, found a hotel, and her even feeling like taking that excursion gave us hope that she could someone how pull out of it. There was some miscommunication about where to meet her. I remember we took the train down and couldn’t find her and had to take the train all the way back up to Washington Heights to play the message she’d left on the answering machine. We left again, this time with clear instructions to meet her at the Russian Tea Room. She was waiting for us outside, she’d had her fill there and we ended up going to Greenwich Village. We walked a lot and she seemed better than I’d seen her since Ivan had passed away. She looked like she was finding some happiness recalling past moments there in New York. We finally ended up at a pastry shop having coffee somewhere along Houston. I saw her laugh and I actually thought that it had passed, the moment at least gave the impression that she was fine. Was it possible, like some new scene and that’s it, it’s over, she’s okay and off to the next stretch of life. It’s amazing how deceptive a moment, a new setting can be. She even looked happy, a woman who still had a girlish side to her, like when I met her. Alona was no longer Ivan’s mother to me. She was Alona, this woman that I knew and loved. In my opinion she should have stayed in New York. The energy there was so much better for her. But there was the house there in Virginia with her mother and Vasily that she had to return to.

There was this snowstorm that shut the city down for days, everything was closed in silence. I walked along the snowdrifts and the only place that was open was this Chinese restaurant across the street from Politics and Prose. They were staying there and serving anyone who might have made their way through the blizzard. I was the only one at the moment, sitting down to have my usual. I was thinking how much more enjoyable it would have been with Anna and Barbara there. They’re what I was dwelling on at the time. I’d always laughed when thinking about Barbara and her having that name. I’d always thought it was so purely a woman’s name. She’d have to grow into her name, though meanwhile it was so cute. If this was a novel, I would have made love to her and helped her raise her little girl. But this is the preface for a novel. I started seeing a girl who lived with her parents in Chevy Chase, and they had a first edition copy of Perfume on the bookshelf that I wanted. We took her father’s luxury car out one afternoon losing traction in the winter thaw. 

I don’t know what the cherry blossoms meant to Alona that springtime. The love of literature and the playfulness of words and the desire to paint a picture no longer existed. She was left with this denuded necessary language. The child in her, no longer there to run to those clichés. I wanted Alona back, the woman I’d first met, not these conversations that took our lives. Cherry blossoms. There’s nothing magical about this world.

 -Alan Augustine

Every pass I make on this preface sucks me deeper into the emotional circumstances of those years. Emotion leads to memory. I could go on, but I won’t, if only because I’m getting close to wanting to stay there with her.

[doodlewash]

My name is Marsia Bramucci and I have so many ideas for this post. My only problem will be to put them all in an understandable order. So let’s start with the basics. I am Italian, both parents Italian, born in Rome in 1980 (I am not even 40 yet), where I lived for 15 years. Then I moved with my mother and brother in Greece, finished high school in the Italian school of Athens and then became, by mistake, a graphic & web designer, instead of a professional artist.

Well you see, my painting journey was not so easy. A long, hard and constant fight with my family, with my insecurities, and with just life that made it impossible to let me take this road sooner. It even sent me to the wrong university. I am not complaining. I am a professional graphic designer and love my work very much; I am also able to make my own inserts for my planner. Because, I also love planners very very much!! And most important of all I am a very positive person. And I want to say it now before you keep reading because the following may make you see me differently.

Now, a few words about my art journey. I surely proved that I was an artistic soul from the time I was very little. But, I had my “art call” somewhere around the age of 14. I suddenly drew something that was so perfect. I still remember that. As I worked with shapes, the picture was becoming so alive. I felt, myself, so alive like I suddenly just jumped out of my child world and now I could understand feelings deeply.

It was amazing (if I had a smartphone then, I would have a photo of it right now, unfortunately we didn’t back then). But that “call” lasted less than 30 minutes. In fact, my beautiful drawing ended up in a thousand pieces on the floor just in front of my feet. This was followed by a great scolding, all mine, where the meaning was that I wasn’t good at drawing, I never would be, and that the actual drawing came out good just by accident.

Of course, I had to move on but I needed art in my life. I was already playing piano (I almost completed my piano studies) but, to say the truth, I was good but it wasn’t me. It made me anxious and I had the same feeling when playing guitar, violin, singing, making candles, metal jewelry, haircutting, crazy gardening stuff, photography, singing, manicure, sewing, macramé. The never ending list! (by the way except for the piano, everything else I researched and learned it by myself).

I was just searching for my own ART to express myself. I was good in all art forms above but I needed to find that feeling, relaxing and peaceful, and I couldn’t find it because I had totally deleted the drawing part.

Then when I was 18 years old, I met my husband and he loved my music, he loved my gardening skills, my cooking skills (hey I am good at it for real!), he also loved my haircutting style, poor man, and he loved even more a couple of sketches I made just for fun. He actually went crazy then! He bought me sketchbooks, pencils, markers, brushes, canvas (he is the cutest) and my answer was always that he was wasting money because I was not good with painting and drawing.

Then we had our beautiful daughter and some more years passed. And, at some point, I started painting with acrylics and I liked it so much (every time family or friends would came to see us we would also take a painting while leaving!). But then, I had one of those days where you just can’t paint and this brought me back and reminded me that I wasn’t good at it. The good pieces were just accidents, and I left everything back again. But drawing was always such an attraction to me. So, I started again after a couple of years with watercolors and loved them even more. But then, again, my insecurities came up and I stopped and then started again and then stopped and then started again. Just because I loved it so much.

After 5 (not continuous) years enjoying and loving watercolors so much, but with so much insecurity about my results, I decided to push myself and start posting my watercolors online. I wanted to become more consistent and not let go again. And, I received back so much love and appreciation, recognition and support! Now, I am the happiest person on this world.

After so many years, I can almost say that I can draw. Yes, I can draw and paint and I feel amazing. I got back my ART to express myself and no one is going to take it away from me ever again. So in the end, the only time I wasted was the time when I wasn’t painting.

It is crazy how minds can be marked when you are still young. I know now that the words said to me were so much nonsense, but believe me, I do still hear them in my head sometimes when I look at my paintings.

Hopefully you are still here and if you are not, then all complaints go to Charlie because he told me to speak a little bit about my Art Journey (of course I am just kidding, love you Charlie). But if you are ready, let’s move on, to my watercolors, what I use and what I love, etc.

I like to paint in journals and I usually also add a few words in my pages just to make it more personal. I really enjoy the idea of making my own life books to flip through time to time and remember things. Just like a hand painted photo album. I started with super cheap watercolor notebooks. I would actually buy paper sheets and make notebooks in the size I wanted. And my first watercolor palette was also the cheapest from the kids section of the stationery shop.

My husband hated to see me painting with them. After two days he came home with the Winsor & Newton watercolor palette with 24 Cotman half pans in it. I loved it soooo much. I used it so much and I always suggest it to anyone who’s just started with watercolor and doesn’t need yet a set of fine watercolors.

As I proceeded, between painting pauses, at some point I felt the need to try a fine watercolor set and I bought a few Sennelier tubes, a larger palette and a mop brush. And with all of these, I evolved my style so much. I could actually see so much difference in my paintings and that was so refreshing! Because, from the “I am just not good” mindset I moved to a “I may not be good, but it makes me feel so good” mindset.

And this is how I continued painting for the next couple of years. Just recently I felt the need to try some new materials. I discovered the Nevskaya Palitra White Nights Watercolors which are good quality and so intense and I love them so much. What I love the most is that their shades somehow reflect better the shades I have in my mind. Of course I also bought some more brushes… hmmmm.. I guess I should say a lot of brushes. But you know, in the end, you always use the old good ones that make you feel comfortable more than anything else. And, time to time, you also find a new gold one to add to the old favorite ones!!

I think that somehow my style is defined as “not too loose, not too detailed.” So when I have the idea in my mind of what I want to paint, I’ll usually keep the background loose but will do a detailed work on the main object of the painting. I will usually use 3 to 4 brushes per painting. One larger for the loose background, a middle one for main shapes, shadows and few details, and then a smaller one for accents and precise details. In need, I will use also a liner but that is not required most of the times. The brush size is not specific and it totally depends on the paper size I’ll use for each painting.

And I just can’t believe that I am at the end of this! I sincerely hope that you enjoyed my art and my art journey and, most importantly, that it wasn’t too confusing! I also hope that Charlie won’t freak out when he sees how long this is, when I send this to him! Happy ART everyone!

Marsia Bramucci Instagram

GUEST ARTIST: "My Art Journey" by Marsia Bramucci - #doodlewash #WorldWatercolorGroup #watercolor #watercolour My name is Marsia Bramucci and I have so many ideas for this post. My only problem will be to put them all in an understandable order.