#go to google or any search engine or whatever. search it up. like. alright??? where do i go from there. theres so many websites

[alildritten]

Anybody else struggle with not knowing how to research things? It’s like, if I’m looking for something for school or something, oh yeah, sure, that’s easy. Done already. Nothing to worry about. Then it gets to something I’m interested in personally, and its always on such a broad topic of thing, and I’d have to know what specifically I’m searching for. But I don’t know what I want to search for specifically because I’m just getting started on that topic! Where do I look? Where am I looking? I certainly don’t know.

I’ve found the rabbit hole, but I don’t know how to leap in headfirst. I don’t even know how to stick my head in and take a peek. I know what I can see at the surface level, but what about all the underground tunnels? Each and every little branch?

[qqueenofhades]

Did Ivan and Fedyor ever have, like, one of those big first fights where there is this uncertainty of "are we over now?" ? I mean, they would be alright in the end, but between Fedyor's overthinking and Ivan probably not having a lot of experience with relationships, there would be room for them worrying for a time after it.

Sequel to this and prequel to this. Set, as usual, in Phantom!Verse.

Moscow, 2013

June 30, 2013, is not a good day. In fact, it might be the worst of all the days of Fedyor Kaminsky’s life to date, and it is made absolutely no better by the fact that he’s long known it was coming – he just hoped, however vainly, that it wouldn’t. Three weeks ago, on June eleventh, the Duma unanimously passed the law formally entitled “For the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating For a Denial of Traditional Family Values,” with only one abstention and no dissenting votes, and President Putin is going to ceremoniously sign it into law today. It’s more pithily known as the “anti-gay law,” and it basically prohibits anything related to acknowledging that homosexuals exist in Russia. Fedyor has been anxiously following its progress with his activist friends in their group chats, all of them praying for some last-minute miracle to swoop in and knock it off course. Now that’s not going to happen. He has no idea what is going to happen, but to say the least, it won’t be good. He’s taken some body blows before, but this one sucks.

Fedyor vacillates wildly between wanting to watch the signing ceremony just to scream obscenities at it, and wanting to hide under the covers with the pillows over his head and cry. He texts frenetically with his friend Lyosha, who lost his position at Perm State University a few months ago for daring to do research about LGBTQ people, and is already planning to head into exile abroad. Does he have to do that too? Fedyor has lived in Russia his entire life, even if he has traveled internationally and has lots of foreign friends. He could stay. He could try to fight this thing somehow. He could do more. He should do more.

But how?

When Ivan gets home from work at six o’clock that night, that’s where he finds Fedyor: sitting on the living room floor under a quilt and neurotically eating chocolate biscuits, texting and crying. He drops his backpack and rushes over. “Fedya? Fedya! What’s wrong?”

“He signed it,” Fedyor says flatly. No more elaboration is necessary. “So now we’re fucked.”

Ivan looks troubled. He rocks back on his heels next to Fedyor and searches for the words. Then he says, clearly trying to be helpful, “Maybe not. Nobody has to know about us. If we just keep on like before, go about our daily lives, it will be all right. We are not important people. Why would they bother with us?”

“What?” Fedyor wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and lurches upright, shedding the quilt and a shower of cookie crumbs. “What are you talking about? Just – deny ourselves and go back in the closet and pretend we’re not here, that those assholes won? Go out, but make sure I never hold your hand walking down the street or dare to pretend that we are together? I don’t want to be afraid every second we’re out in public, Vanya! I don’t want to be wondering if maybe they’ll look at my emails or cook up some other reason to come after us! Lyosha already got fired before this even officially passed, and – ”

“Lyosha was a radical beforehand,” Ivan says dismissively. “It wasn’t because of this, I’m sure. So what? He’ll get a fancy position somewhere else. The West will love to take in the gay Russian, persecuted by the barbaric Putin regime, to show off how humane and enlightened they think they are. He will be fine.”

Fedyor looks at him as if he has two heads. “That’s how you’re reacting to this?”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” Ivan shrugs. “We have to make the best. What else are we going to do? Leave Russia?”

“Maybe we have to. What other choice do we have?”

“Stay?” Now it’s Ivan’s turn to sound like he’s talking nonsense. “Russia is our home!”

“Look, Vanya. I know you and I think differently about things, and we’ve gotten used to that. But I can’t – I physically cannot – stay in a place where I am criminalized for existing, for loving you, for being afraid that something will happen to us. We have to go.”

“No.” Ivan’s voice is colder than Fedyor has ever heard it. He sounds like a stranger. “No, we don’t. That’s crazy talk. Where would we go? America?”

“At least America doesn’t have this law!”

“America has no law that is helpful for us!” Ivan shouts. “And I’m not going there. The end! You make that choice, Fedya. Exile, or me?”

There’s a horrible silence in the wake of that pronouncement, as they stare at each other and Ivan instantly looks like he wants to bite it back, but it’s too late. Fedyor turns on his heel and marches away in frozen silence, refusing to utter a single word to Ivan for the rest of the night, even as Ivan tries to apologize and coax him into speaking again. Finally, taking the hint, he takes his things and silently goes to sleep on the couch, and Fedyor lies in their bed, staring at the ceiling and tossing and turning. Ivan didn’t mean that, right? Or maybe he did? Flee Russia, start a new life somewhere across the sea, but leave his boyfriend behind? Until recently, he thought Ivan Sakharov was the love of his life. Maybe he isn’t. Or even more terrifyingly, he is, and Fedyor will have to give him up anyway.

The rest of the week is just as bad. Ivan leaves early for work and keeps to himself when he gets home, while Fedyor starts Googling the U.S. asylum-claim process and reaching out to North American-based friends who can help with logistics. He spends hours on the computer, takes reams of notes, and doesn’t feel any better. Is he planning this for them or for him? He needs to answer that question like, now, and yet the prospect fills him with sickening dread. He cries himself to sleep with the bedroom door shut, and hears awkward shuffling in the corridor outside, like Ivan is listening and desperately wants to come in, but doesn’t think Fedyor wants him there. That’s even worse.

Finally, on Saturday night, Fedyor decides that they can’t go on like this. He drags himself out of his cave of blankets and cooks a nice supper, while Ivan goes for his usual afternoon workout at the gym, and when he comes back, he blinks. “Fedya? What’s this about?”

“We need…” Fedyor’s throat is a desert. “We need to talk about us.”

Those six little words are usually the kiss of death in any relationship, and he has no idea what’s about to happen next, but Ivan’s face wrenches in half like a torn piece of paper. He opens his mouth, shuts it, shakes his head furiously, and comes to a sudden and unassailable decision. With that, still in his gym clothes, he drops his bag and goes to one knee on the creaky wooden floor of their kitchen, in this humble sixth-floor Moscow flat that is the first place Fedyor ever knew pure and perfect happiness. “Okay,” he says. “How is this for a start. Fedyor Mikhailovich Kaminsky, will you marry me?”

Fedyor stares at him, utterly blankly, seized with the horrible fear that Ivan is making fun of him. “Have you – are you – are you serious?”

“Yes.” Ivan reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box. “I wanted to do this in a different way, but maybe this is better. Fedya, I don’t – I can’t – I don’t want to live without you. I’ll even move to America if you want to. I’m no good without you. I can’t. Please.”

Fedyor continues to stare at him. Then finally he moves closer, as Ivan holds out the ring with a look of utter, silent entreaty, his heart wrung out and raw in his eyes. “Are you – ” Fedyor’s voice is a whisper. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Ivan says again, strong and steady. “More than I have ever been about anything.”

Fedyor starts to answer, and simply can’t. He starts to shake from head to toe, and Ivan scoots forward, still on his knees, and wraps both arms around Fedyor’s waist, burying his face in Fedyor’s stomach. Fedyor clutches hold of him and sinks down, the two of them barely making a sound. Finally, he whispers, “You hate America.”

“I don’t,” Ivan says. “Not really. But either way, I love you, Fedya. And I’m choosing that.”

Fedyor grips Ivan’s face in his hands and kisses him thoroughly, then remembers that he still technically hasn’t accepted his proposal, and he should do that. He holds out his right hand so Ivan can slip on the plain band, with the promise to buy him a nicer one once they get to wherever they’re going. He’ll help with arrangements, he promises. Whatever Fedyor needs him to do.

They board an Aeroflot flight, Moscow Sheremetyevo–New York JFK, on the evening of August 3, 2013, with all their worldly belongings either in the cargo hold or waiting to be shipped over by Fedyor’s parents. They hold hands in the terminal, unobtrusively, and when they get on the plane. And even as the jet engines roar into takeoff and the lights of his homeland fall away into the clouds for what might be the last time in who knows how long, Fedyor Kaminsky can’t help but feeling, once again, ready to start anew.

[ramblinganthropologist]

What’s in a name

Summary: So, when is it the right time to call your boyfriend by his first name? Garrus finds out the hard way when that moment is. At least it helps.

---

Google Search: When should you call your b-

“No...”

Google Search: When is the right time to use-

“No...”

Google Search: When is it appropriate to use your commanding officer's first name?

Garrus groaned and resisted the urge to smack his faceplates to the desk in front of him. He should have been doing anything other than making the search engine think he was being insubordinate. After all, there were Reapers all over the place and he...

He glanced over to the other tab. An email had been sitting there for the last ten minutes. It was from Shepard, checking up on him after some... activities.  The tone was polite, casual, but something about it sent shivers up the turian's spine as he read through it again.

Garrus,

Just checking in – you're not having any allergic reactions, are you? I read there a rare possibility in human-turian interactions.

…

Sorry, that was a little clinical. I guess I didn't know how to say that. Hope you're doing ok down in the battery. They've been keeping me busy all over the place, so I'll try to stop by later to chat. Thanks for  the... well, thanks.

Someone's calling for me, talk to you later.

Alistair

“He used his name in the email... that should make it ok, right?” His mandibles twitched in confusion as Garrus pushed away from the table. This was clearly outside his range of expertise. Big guns, sniping things, and apparently having sex with Spectres – those were the things he was good at. Interpersonal relationships, not so much.

Culture told him to never use the man's name. After all, Shepard was his commanding officer. Then again, culture also told him not to stick his anatomy in a commanding officer either. The two were kind of in conflict with each other to say the least. It wasn't a great feeling as he left the battery on the pretense of going to give Tali a report she had asked for earlier. At least on the way he could think.

The Normandy was buzzing with activity. Right then, they were in deep space. It was the safest place for them to be as they planned their next move. It was going to get messy on Rannoch, to say the least. Of course with all the geth it was probably already a nightmare, so what would a few more craters do to the resale value?

As Garrus hopped in the waiting elevator, he ignored the sight of the memorial plaque. There was a new names there, people he knew. Mordin's name shouldn't have been there probably – he wasn't Alliance after all – but Shepard had stuck it up there himself. It was hard to argue with the man when he had that look in his eyes.

He had that look a lot. Haunted, maybe. The thought of it made the turian frown as he waited for the doors to open again. He was probably being a bad... whatever he was... by not helping more with that. But how could he help?

“Maybe I should google that instead...”

The doors slid open to show him that engineering was just as busy as the rest of the Normandy. Tali had her back to him, bent over the console and typing away. She didn't even notice as he stepped up to place the file at her side. It was only when their sleeves brushed that she jumped up.

“Garrus! I didn't see you there.” She was tense – it was a miracle her suit didn't rip from it. Guess admirals were made of some stretchy stuff. Honestly, he had to hand it to her. She was handling it well on short notice.

He nodded, stepping back. “Sorry, didn't want to interrupt you. Brought you the files you needed.”

“Thank you...” she was giving him that look. “You could have just emailed them.”

He looke back towards the door, mandibles twitching. “I needed the walk.”

Off to the side, two techs snickered. Rumors had clearly started to go around concerning himself and the ship's commanding officer. He didn't even want to know what they were hearing, so he shot them a blank look. The flinch was worth it as they turned back to their consoles as if the whole thing had never happened.

Petty, maybe. Worth it, absolutely.

“If you're looking for Shepard, he was here not too long ago. If he's not in his quarters, check around. He's probably following up on a problem we saw before deck. I would have done it myself when I finished, but he said he was free.” Tali was already back to her work, typing away at her console. She left him, mandibles twitching, standing there like the biggest idiot in engineering.

Well, he probably was the biggest idiot in engineering.

Garrus shook his head as he left the battery, eyeing the elevator. Shepard, like everyone in engineering, was damn good at his job. No doubt he would've had the work done long before the turian ever got down there. It was foolish to go looking when he had more important things to do...

…

That of course explained why he turned his talons to the steps that would lead him under the engineering floor. Because it was perfectly logical to go look for the genius tech he was currently having sex with where he probably wasn't. But hey, who had ever said attraction between species was a logical thing?

Underneath, it was dark. Once, Jack had stayed there six months prior. She was gone now, off helping biotic kids in a move he hadn't seen coming but applauded none the less. There was only boxes there now, left by the crew charged with retrofitting the Normandy for Alliance requirements. Maybe if they survived, they could turn the space into something else.

And if they died, that was technically space confetti. Maybe it would hit a Reaper on the way to the next solar system.

“Shepard, are you down here?”

His voice echoed across the space where it wasn't stopped by boxes. It wasn't loud enough, however, to cover up the sound. Garrus wasn't sure what it was as he crept closer. To him, it sounded like breathing, but it was way too fast and shallow.

Turns out, Shepard was down there after all.

The commanding officer was hidden behind some boxes, doubled over and hugging his knees and shaking. A datapad was beside him, broadcasting details of another attack on a nearby solar system. Even from where he was standing, the death toll was high and getting higher.

“Shepard, is it your sugar?”

Shepard didn't answer, and his omni-tool's built in CGM wasn't blaring a warning for the man attached to it to eat something. He just kept shaking and clutching his knees tighter, tears streaming down his pale face.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Garrus remembered seeing a poster in the medbay about how to spot a panic attack in humans. If he was right, the man in front of him was showing a good number of the signs.

So he knelt down, though he still gave him space. Shepard didn't react, but he got the feeling the Spectre was aware he was there. His leg shifted to allow him a little more room, though that might have been a reflex. He was shaking pretty badly.

Shit... what to do... what to say even? A thousand things rushed through Garrus' mind, and then it went blank. But one remained as the reboot finished, and he nodded as he looked around the small space. Maybe...

“Alistair, is there medicine you take for this?”

There was a nod, barely, to match the bottle that had rolled away probably at the start of the attack. It still had pills in it, but far too few for the time of the month. Garrus felt his stomach drop as he reached across to grab it. Luckily, the lid wasn't one of those that needed human fingers to open. It was child proof, not turian proof.

Luckily, the label only mentioned one. He shook it out and nudged the man's knee. Alistair's shaking hand accepted the pill, and then swallowed it. Where he got the water, Garrus had no idea. It didn't really matter then.

“Alright so... I'm not sure how humans breathe.” That was on the poster. “So I'm going to count slowly and you try to match me. Sound good?”

It was the longest ten count Garrus had ever been through – the numbers stretched to eternity. But he kept it slow, watching the human in front of him. His breathing was struggling to match, but he was winning.

Just like a Spectre.

“Alright... ten.” His breathing was slower. “You just keep breathing, Alistair. I'm right here if you need me.”

Something about the name helped him focus, so Garrus wasn't going to shoot himself in the foot there. Instead he just sat there, listening to breathing that was starting to slow down. The man still looked way too tense, but he was breathing. That was important.

A few more minutes – maybe 10, but who was counting -  passed before Alistair let go of his knees and wiped the tears from his face. He nodded slowly to the turian but made no mood to stand. Instead, he held out a hand in the direction of the pill bottle. This Garrus was more than happy to hand over.

“Need another?”

“Can't. Don't want to lose it, though.” He was speaking now, good. The pill bottle disappeared into his jacket pocket, where all things went in the end. Those pockets must contain a gravity well for how much he kept in there. It was kind of impressive.

Ok, Garrus was just trying to focus on anything with that one... it was kind of awkward.

“Uh... how are you-”

Alistair didn't let him finish. “Not great.”

He looked down at his knees. “Guess the report got to me. Been kind of on edge.”  

“I think anyone would freak out with numbers like that. It's rough out there.” Garrus looked around to see where Tali's repair might be. “I can fix that if you can't get up right now.”

A nod sent the turian to his feet, omni-tool scanning what needed to be fixed. One eye stayed on the human, though. His breathing was still a little fast, but it was acceptable in Garrus' mind. Maybe one of these days he'd look up what was normal.

Figuring out another species' vital signs...that didn't mean anything, right?

“Thanks.”

Garrus nodded as his talons worked. “It's kind of in a hard place to reach for a human. Your wrists-”

“No... for you know. Talking me down.” Alistair was standing now as he gathered his things. “I guess I needed to hear my own name for once.”

Well... that settled it then. Garrus nodded to himself as he continued to work. If the Spectre needed to hear his name sometime, he would provide it as much as needed. Damn the rules on that. They were made to be broken anyway.

Just like this damn wire... really, what the hell had the retrofit team been doing down there?

[i-dont-like-it-cos-im-thedoctor]

we are fucking up the earth

alrighty so we already know that we are fucking up earth and if you don't, well now you do. if you don't believe in climate change and global warming and say it isn't real, you're a fucking idiot. anyway for those that do know we are fucking up earth and want to help, here is a bunch of shit you can do.

websites:

https://www.ecosia.org/ 

ecosia is a search engine, search whatever the fuck you want it works like google, but with every ten searches or something, they plant a tree where it is need, so start using this to search up shit

http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1425 

free rice is a vocabulary website, it gives you a word, you pick one of four answers that it the meaning of the word. You got one right? Fantastic! you just donated 10 grains of rice to help end world hunger!

here's some other website that you should check out, I'm just not very good at explaining things but you should definitely look at them

http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1425

https://plasticoceans.org/ 

https://plasticoceans.org/ 

https://www.beforetheflood.com/

go, look at them, read them and get a little more educated on problems and how they are helping and how you can help

you can also watch documentaries to get woke, you should watch 

Before the Flood and Plastic Ocean, these are both are on Netflix, so watch them to see how the problems are affecting things and ways you can help.

Zero waste:

one way you can help that makes an everyday difference is to try to have zero waste, or as little waste as possible.

these are websites who sell things that you can buy things from to swap out single use items and/or can be reused, idk, I'm bad at wording things but look at the websites and maybe you’ll understand a bit better.

https://www.lush.com/ 

you’ve heard of lush, if you haven’t, well here it is, they sell makeup, cosmetics and bathroom shit, but zero waste, like bar shampoo and conditioner, even bar deodorant. their makeup containers can be taken back, cleaned and reused. and they are against animal testing and their products are home made

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qkQmzdoFNw Gabbie Hannah did a video where she didn't use any trash for 24 hours and talks about lush products, honestly watch the whole video its fucking great I love it.

https://earthhero.com/

https://www.ecolateralshop.com.au/ 

https://zerowastestore.com.au/ - I think this one is based in Australia but I'm leaving it here anyway, still go look at it cos it could have global shipping

alright bitches here's your shopping list so you can stop using trash,  ( and seriously, stop using plastic straws, bottle and bags, its 2019, you’ve see the video of the turtle with the plastic straw stuck in its nose)

 reusable straw, reusable water bottle, reusable bags, bar shampoo/ conditioners, bar deodorants, bar soaps, reusable coffee mugs, reusable trash bags, biodegradable tooth brushes, food wraps, tooth tabs and cora microfiber laundry ball.

now at those last two, you may have thought “ what the fuck are those” well here's some pics and an explanation 

tooth tabs, you can get ‘em from lush, instead of getting tubes of tooth paste you get these, put one in you mouth, chew it and brush ya teeth. 

mircro fiber laundry ball. basically when you wash ya clothes, mircro plastics come off them and are washed into water ways, this amazing little fucker catches those plastics before they can escape. 

some other shit you can do

compost

pick up trash when you see it

support originations that are helping

educate people

reblog this so other people can be woke and can help cos we only got like 12 years to do something otherwise we’re fucked

feel free to add more shit that we can do to help

[formerlyrunephoenix6769]

Fields of Gold.  (Bumbleby fic)

She was loath to leave behind a good job with a reputable newspaper that she had worked hard for, but things with her ex-boyfriend had gone too far, so she had packed her most cherished belongings into her car, she had hugged her housemate goodbye, n tearfully parted, not telling Sienna where she was moving too so as not to put either of them in danger. Plus she had no idea where she was going. Absconding in the middle of the night, she had driven to a dealership,which coming to think of it had seemed at bit sketchy, swapped her car, bought a new sim card  and deactivated all her social media accounts.

She couldn’t remember how far she had driven, Route 66 meandering across America, she was sure she passed a number of state lines, she had stopped off at diners in the small nondescript towns.. 

None of them taking her fancy.

It was in Oklahoma, 10 or so miles outside of somewhere called Clearwater that the engine gave out. Spewing up steam n making a bit of a gurgling sound as she willed the car to keep going, inch by laborious inch the noise became too loud to ignore giving one last pathetic squeal before the lights on the dash flickered and died and Blake thunked her forehead against her steering wheel in defeat. 

It was only when she was rummaging through her purse she remembered that she had forgotten to purchase data, so there was no googling mapping where she was or figure out if there was any local tow companies.

Maybe if she got lucky she would be near one of the orange emergency phones that were dotted along the highways of America in case of this exact emergency.

With a deep sigh, she collected her purse and got out of the car to be instantly hit by a bank of oppressive heat and the glare of the midday sun. Shielding her eyes, she scanned the horizon and was meet with nothing but two fields either side of the highway, tall grain, rippling as far as the eye could see spread out like a vast yellow ocean.

The highway stretched like a snake, basking in the rays, heat shimmered off the surface and in the far distance a twinkle, more than likely a mirage.

She wasn't dressed for this vastly different weather, clad in heavy black jeans, a black tank top and leather jacket.

Reaching back through the car door, she retrieved her sunglasses from her visor and peeled out of the jacket, tossing it haphazardly on the back seat. She began rummaging through the trash she had accumulated over course of her journey in the already sweltering car, sifting through candy wrappers, crisp packets and sandwich covers, stretching out, she blindly searched under the passenger seat, and let out a squeak of triumph when her fingers coiled round the familiar feeling plastic of a water bottle but her victory short lived as when she retrieved it, there was barely a drop left.  The  ground beneath her feet began to vibrate. like the very asphalt itself was coming alive and a deep rumble began reverberate the car. Blake crawled backwards, trying to get out of driver’s side door only to hit the back of her head on the roof.

“ Fuck! ... God damnit!”  She cursed, outloud to no one in particular

In a fit of temper and mounting frustration, she threw the bottle back into the depths of the car as the rumbling noise almost became deafening. 

Turning to investigate the hellish sound, the journalist saw in the distance a huge green tractor approaching at a speed that surprised her. She had always been under the impression that tractors where slow and lumbering. This was anything but, it was large, much larger than she ever anticipated and it was fast approaching. Maybe whoever was driving was local? Maybe they would know a tow company or maybe they were a country bumpkin serial killer and all they would find of blake was her busted car?

She could be easily buried in a field  and turn into one of those cold case shows her mother liked to watch. It's not like anyone knew where she was.. OR, She could stand on the side of the road, roast to death and  die of thirst. They were her options! looking up at the cloudless cerulean skie, she spotted a bird hovering over the field... .  I'll die here and my bones will get picked clean by vultures, what a fitting end! In university, she hadn't been voted most likely to die in a freak accident and she had  no intentions of putting herself in the running.. Death by country bumpkin serial killer it is then! Wiping her already damp hands on her jeans, she stepped out giving the universal  symbol of hookers everywhere and "Im available to be mass murdered." , stuck her arm n thumb out and shielded her sunglasses from staring in the direction of the sun. The tractor ate up the asphalt,  leaving a plume of what looked like off coloured clouds from its side attached exhaust pipes. The machine looked monstrous, as it drew closer, Blake could make out the height n width of the tyres, at least another foot towering over her decent 5ft 7 in ,and she tried not to imagine being squished underneath them instinctively causing her to take a step back from the road.  The wind screen was tinted making it near impossible to make out the driver.

The noise of the machinery clunked and clonked, almost as if making a mockery of Blake's car's plight, its cabin rocking and bouncing with its suspension,even on the supposedly flat surface of the road and did not seem to be slowing down any time soon.

In desperation, Blake flipped her long silky dark hair over her shoulder and flashed what she hoped was a megawatt inviting smile. With a deafening roar the tractor sped past, with a rush of wind, leaving Blake in a cloud of dust, dirt and nasty exhaust fumes that stuck in the back of the throat, causing her to cough and splutter. With watering eyes, she was about to flip the jackass the bird when she noticed the tractor beginning to slow down before  coming to a halt up ahead on the side of the road.

Nobody alighted from the cabin and Blake remained cautiously beside her car, the driver’s door open, in case she needed to hastily duck back in and lock the doors. Not that it would offer much protection from a LeatherFace kind of creature hell bent on ripping her limb from limb. 

After what seemed like an agonisingly long moment, the door to the cabin opened and someone hung out.  From this distance, Blake could just about make out a brown cowboy hat, the sun glinting off a pair of glasses and a mass of unruly blond locks. A voice called out that invoked images of apple pie,  iced peach tea on the wrap around porch, nights spent plinking a guitar round a campfire on the plains, and lazy summer evenings watching the fireflies  dump into each other.  "Is everythin alright there, darlin?" Ignoring the slight electric shock down her spine,  and the 'darlin' part of the question, two very conflicting feelings, which right now was not the most opportune moment to act upon. Blake took a step forward, n away from the car. Holding up her hands so the other woman could she see wasn't armed.  "My car..." She called out,  "It conked out.. and my phone.." She gestured, " has no data...  was wondering if you might know a tow company I could call." The blond paused, almost as if she was weighing the options as Blake stood there  sweating her tits off in the midday sun in the middle of the road in buttsville county in whatever the fucking state she was in. Finally, coming to a decision, the woman climbed down from the cabin. As she approached, Blake began to wish she hadn't.  As the Cowgirl, as Blake was beginning to think of her, came closer she could see the glasses were aviators. The blonde moved in confident strides, a roll to her hips n shoulders. worn brown cowboy boots, skin tight blue jeans held up with a chunky buckled belt. a yellow n brown flannel undone, but knotted just on the tummy, accentuating the woman's flat stomach and the rather impressive assets currently been held back by a straining bright white tank top. 

The only words that the journalist could bring to mind was ‘breathtakingly beautiful.’  As she came to a halt just in front of Blake, the journalist could make out a slight honeysuckle brown texture to the skin of her collar bones and her strong looking forearms, no doubt gained from long hours spent outside.  Blake licked her lips, finding her mouth suddenly dry. The blond woman's teeth were bright white and her lips were moving. Her ears finally getting the attention of her brain, Blake realised the blond woman had been talking as she had been staring. She sputtered,  "I'm sorry... I didn't quite catch that." With her fingers in the loop of her belt and a relaxed cock to her hips, the blond regarded her, making Blake suddenly conscious of the fact she had been practically living in her car for the past few weeks and the last time she had showered properly was at a truck stop. She attempted to draw her fingers through her hair. The blond removed her glasses and asked,  "How long you been out here? Did you get a touch of the sun fever?"

At first Blake bristled until she caught the hint of a smirk playing on the blonde's lips. She's damn well knows and she’s she's teasing me about it, the journalist thought. It was both parts hot and infuriating, but she couldn't help it when a laugh bubbled from her stomach and erupted from her chest, causing the blonde to break into a huge grin, with a devilish glint in her eye. Blake stuck out her hand in introduction. "Blake!  From New York."  The blonde took her hand shaking it with a firm grip. Her palm was surprisingly cool in heat of the day. This close blake could make out a smattering of sun dapples across the bridge of the blondes nose and apples of her cheeks and in the light her eyes looked almost lilac. As she shook her hand, she replied in that easy going almost teasing way,

 " I was gonna say, you dont look like you're from round these parts.". "Its that obvious?". “ Yup..... 1)  No one wears black out here, not on a day like today. 2) You're waving down strangers on the side of the road and 3) i know every one round here and I mean everyone  and you, I  don't recognise.... So you're either new to town or passing through.!” She paused,  "Also...... Imma gonna need my hand back if you want me to have a look under the hood"  And that's when Blake, the supposedly sophisticated big city slicker,  realised she had been grinning like a buffoon, her sweaty palm still pumping the cowgirl's hand. She let go, giving an embarrassed cough, mumbling,  "Of course.. of course." Once again the cowgirl regarded her with a look Blake couldn't fathom, as the flustered woman tried to regain some composure. Her cheeks were burning that had nothing to do with being under the sun's intense glare. In an attempt to hide her blush, Blake gestured with a incline of the head,  "I’ll just go pop the hood..... shall I ?"  "That would be ideal. "  Blake ducked back into the car and almost yelped when her hand touched the metal of the door, it was scorching to the touch. Sucking on her fingers, she slid into the driver's seat trying to ignore the pair of ever so slightly mocking lilac eyes watching her intently. 

Reaching underneath the steering wheel, she fumbled about. With it being a new car she wasn't entirely sure where anything was. Atleast she could duck her head n find some respite. Fingers clasped solid metal and she yanked hard to hear something click  and the bonnet of the car popped open. The blond flashed her a thumbs up before lifting the bonnet and disappearing from view. Blake hastily checked her reflection in the rear view mirror and quickly brushed her fingers through her hair before alighting from the car and returning to the front to come across the cowgirl bent over inspecting the engine, giving Blake a view of a very firm and pert backside, the skin tight jeans leaving nothing to the imagination. The white vest top had ridden up slightly showing off a muscular lower back and the ever so  slight hint of a red thong poking out of the lip of the jeans. Blake swallowed, biting back the urge to fan herself, just as the cowgirl straightened up. She removed her cowboy hat, taking a brief moment to look around before popping it on Blake's head and returning to what she was doing.  Blake parked her backside ever so slightly on the bumper and watched as the blond began checking the oil and water gauge. "I didnt catch your name."  "Cause i never gave it to you." Echoed from the depths of the engine straightening up the cowgirl gave Blake another annoying smirk,   "I'm Yang..... From down the road."  The two women held each other's gaze, before Blake once again broke out in laughter. As Yang removed a hair tie from her wrist and tried to bundle her unruly thick hair into a ponytail, Blake was certain she caught hints of gold glittering as it caught the sun light. "Would you have some water?" Yang asked. Blake shook her head,  "I'm sorry."  Yang gave a playful roll of her eyes.  "Now i definitely know you ain't from round here." Bracing herself on edge of the bonnet with her hands, Yang added. "Theres some in the tractor."  "You want me to go to the tractor?" Blake replied in slight disbelief, "Are you not afraid that I might just abscond with it?"  "Do you know how to drive it?"  "No." Blake admitted.  "Then I think i'll take my chances." There came another pause, ".... It's under the seat." Blake seemed to stutter at the trust she was being given as Yang's eyes raked her up and down watching in interest. Pushing herself off the car, the journalist set off in the direction of the tractor. Arriving at the monstrous vehicle, it took her two attempts to climb up the awkwardly shaped steps. She almost fell off when she yanked the door only to find that it swung from left to right rather than a car door, right to left. She hung precariously for a few moments as her trainers slipped on the steps and she was able to nimbly correct herself.  The cabin was surprisingly cool, tidy and smelt of freshly cut grass with a hint of lavender. With minimal effort she found the bottle of water retrieving it before ungracefully stumbling back down the steps, though she tried to be extra aware of her foot placement and closing the door with a slam. Head long, she rushed back only to find Yang casually sitting on the bumper of the car bonnet, flicking through her phone. At her approach, the blonde looked up and Blake spotted a dash of dark oil on her cheek.  Handing  over the bottle of water, she watched in fascination the way the column of Yang's neck bobbed as she swallowed the clear liquid. How it met the collar bones opening out to an expanse of honey coloured skin that looked soft to the touch, leading down to her cleavage that rose and fell ever so slightly. 

 For the second time in 10 minutes Blake was reminded just how dry her mouth  really was.  Another sickle of a smirk was her greeting alerting the brunette to the fact that she had been caught staring again.  Offering out the bottle, Yang innocently asked,  "Thirsty?"  A second, seemed to last an eon, as the implication hung there, crackling like an electron, and Blake caught the wicked flash of mischief.  Two could play at this game.   Blake reached out for the bottle, allowing her finger to graze Yang's as she took it. With a smirk of her own, she held Yang's gaze, as she replied with a sultry,  "Parched!"  She continued to hold the other woman's gaze as she drank and she was delighted to see a bit of colour blossom across the cowgirl's cheeks and a bite of her bottom lip.  Finished, she screwed the cap back on the bottle, slowly and deliberately drawing her thumb across her bottom lip to catch the slight moisture left there Without a word, Yang pushed herself off the lip of the car, closed the bonnet with a bang. She stepped up close to Blake, the other woman registered how the purple of her eyes was barely a thin ring, bordering huge black pupils that almost reflected her back.  She leaned closer,  her eyes darting all over Blake's chest hungrily before coming back to her face. Leaning closer still, she breathed against the brunette's ear,  "Bring only the essentials and come with me.” Blake barely had time to drink in the intoxicating smell of the cowgirl so close, before Yang deftly plucked the cowboy hat from Blake's head, popping it on her own, giving her a down right salacious wink and setting off back to the tractor.  Unable to move, Blake stood there in a stupor as her brain short circuited and a shock went straight from her stomach to her core, it was only when she heard Yang  shout from up the road,   "Unless you got better things to do."  that she was finally able to move It was almost like a jump start . She flailed and tripped over herself, yanking on the door, scrabbling around the backseat, tearing open bags in an attempt to find a change of clothes, underwear,a towel  and stuff them in a small backpack. She rammed in her toiletries bag, grabbed her laptop  and her purse. Closing the door with a slam as the sounds of the tractor's engine roared to life, she had  to retrace her steps so she could lock the door. 

She rushed almost head long across the bleached tarmac in the sweltering heat on a road in the middle of buttsville, wherever the fuck she was, about to willingly and very eagerly jump into a stranger's vehicle, leaving  behind no trace as to being there and as she scrambled to up the awkward steps and a strong yet cool hand reached to take her belongings, coupled with a warm megawatt smile, Blake realised, that she couldnt find it in herself to care. Her stuff safe stashed, she hovered a little awkwardly, as there was only one seat and tractors were not designed for two, until Yang patted her firm muscular thigh.  "Come mere, darlin, you ever ridden a cowgirl's knee before?"  Blake shook her head, trying not to laugh, instead she cheekily leaned forward, breathing against yang's ear,  "But i'm a tryer, i'll try anything once."  Before swiftly snatching Yang's hat from her head and placing it on her own once more. This time is was Yang's turn to laugh. "You're a feisty one, that's for sure." Blake grinned, wickedly,  "You have no idea"  "But I'd sure like to find out, Darlin."  Hands reached, helping turn Blake around  and pulling the slightly smaller woman on her lap on her lap, sitting her side saddle so Yang could see the road and reach the wheel. Blake lay one arm round Yang's shoulders and back, the other holding onto the stability handle to brace herself. "You comfy, darlin?"  And for the first time in over a year, Blake truly was. As Yang pressed the throttle, the tractor lurched forward, causing Blake to let out a surprised yelp and a giggle and Yang to guffaw.  As they thundered down the road, the cabin shaking and bouncing, which from Blake's vantage point gave her a very jiggly eyeful, she yelled out.  "High ho Silver.. Awaaaaaay!"  Much to Yang's amusement and a shake of her head. Never in her life had Blake ever imagined she would find a fresh start in the cabin of a tractor that smelt of freshly cut grass and lavender, wearing a cowboy hat from a girl from in the middle of the road in Buttsville, wherever the fuck she was. 

[brick-boat-blog]

There’s Only So Much Time Ch.2

Summary: It’s not knowing too much that’s the problem.

It’s what you do about it.

Word Count: 31.1k

FF.net: Here

AO3: Here

Ch.1: Here

A/N: Me: You know, we should really make that second chapter already it's been awhile. Also Me: Okay but what if we made it twice as long as the first. Also Me: And sat on it for a year and a half. Me:

Anyway, I'm done. Take it. TAKE IT, I SAY.

Jirou stared wide-eyed.

Gran Torino glared back.

Silence hung in the air between them.

.

Seconds ticked by.

Jirou grimaced.

Her breath got caught in her throat.

.

Well.

This was it.

She was here.

She found who she was looking for.

And now they were alone.

In a building.

And the only way out was blocked.

There really was no turning back now, was there.

She looked to the side. Then behind her. Partly because she wanted to get a better look at her surroundings. Mostly because she'd probably crack if she tried to keep eye contact any longer.

The room looked more like an apartment than any kind of hero office. There wasn't a reception desk or anything that would normally be used to greet clients. The closest thing to it were a pair of blue couches with a coffee table in between them to her right – maybe the table for two behind it as well. To the right of them was a small kitchenette with a fireplace next to it. And all the way in the back stood a shelf stuffed with books, with various papers and newspaper clippings spanning from a single corkboard next to it.

It wasn't a fancy establishment (actually, to say it was run-down would really be an understatement), but it also wasn't a place she'd expect a pro hero to work – or even live in. If anything, it seemed like the kind of place she'd expect to find a college student tight on cash. Or even a small fry villain who wanted their own secret hideout. Not a professional hero.

Though décor aside, there was a worrying amount of cracks and dents in, well, everything. The floor, walls, and even the ceiling had what looked to be impact damage. Was there some kind of fight in here recently? Gran Torino didn't look like he had any injuries. Maybe he just got the building that way. But whatever it was, Jirou guessed they weren't too bad, since he'd never bothered to patch them up.

Speaking of which – Gran Torino tapped his foot impatiently.

“Go on.”

Ergh.

She fiddled with one of her lobes, letting it stretch down to her waist. She rubbed her neck with the other hand. She could feel her face stretch into a nervous grin.

“Man, where do I even start?”

There were the conversations she wasn't supposed to listen in on. There were the meetings everyone knew about, but no one knew what they were about. There were things like how Midoriya's body wasn't acclimated to his quirk and couldn't draw out its full potential. There were other like how All Might was still in on an investigation despite being retired.

What was important?

What wasn't important?

How was she supposed to know?

Were there things even he didn't know?

There was a lot of information to go over.

There were a lot of questions to ask.

But what was it he really wanted to know?

...

Gran Torino sighed.

He began to close the gap between them.

Jirou flinched.

Her hands were in front of her before she realized it.

But instead of attacking, interrogating, or even yelling at her, Gran Torino gestured to the couches. His voice softened, but remained stern.

“Go sit down. Make yourself comfortable.”

He made his way to the microwave. She followed orders and took a seat on the couch facing the door, setting her bag down by her feet. An open manila folder sat open on the coffee table between them, papers stacked neatly on top of one another in two piles inside it. She peered down.

The paper on top had a picture of a guy not too much older than her with white hair. He was wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt. A detached hand covered his face, and more hands were latched onto various parts of his body. The picture itself was a little blurry – like it was taken in the field; not a mugshot or anything. The name next to the picture identified the man as 'Tomura Shigaraki'.

...

Huh.

She'd never actually seen him before, but that wasn't what she expected based on everyone's descriptions. The hand was an obvious thing Tsuyu and the rest all recounted easily, but Jirou had expected him to look more, well, villain-like. Not that he didn't look weird at all (see: hands). It's just that more often than not villains were generally, well, big and buff and super scary-looking. This guy looked like he'd have trouble just being a mook.

That aside, the fact that there were so many pages in the stacks themselves said there was a fair amount of information on the case. Too bad she couldn't just pick of the folder and leaf through it. Though one thing she did notice on that top page was another name under the first-

A plate of taiyaki was unceremoniously dropped on top of the very paper she was just looking at.

She flinched.

Gran Torino sat a glass of water next to the folder, then took a seat across from her with a cup of his own. He motioned to the plate.

“Take one.”

So she did.

One bite. Then another. Not bad at all, but it did make her realize how hungry she really was. She hadn't had microwave taiyaki since she was a kid. And this was the last place she expected to have it again. It took more than a bit of self-restraint to stop herself from wolfing it down all in one go and chugging the water with it.

Gran Torino didn't say anything as she ate, and waited until she finished to ask:

“Feel better?”

She nodded.

“Yeah.”

Gran Torino folded his arms. His voice was calm and even with underlying focus. He hadn't let his guard down entirely, but at least it looked like he didn't think she was some kind of villain.

“Alright, start from the beginning.”

So she did.

She told him how she overheard some of the conversations between All Might and Recovery Girl earlier on in the year. How she thought that it was just a disease All Might had. How the mentions of old injuries made that option seem less and less likely.

She told him how she told one of her friends that she thought All Might was sick. How the class came together and gave him a card. How she was called into the principal's office and had a talk with him because of it. How he didn't tell her anything else. How certain areas of the school were now soundproofed.

She told him how Recovery Girl called Midoriya All Might's successor. How Midoriya's childhood friend had called him quirkless at the beginning of the school year. How she came to the conclusion that Midoriya got All Might's quirk, but didn't have any evidence to back it up until much later (and even then, it was nothing physical).

And she told him that now there wasn't any explanation she could think of but that. And that she knew there was way more to this than even what she overheard. And that she wanted to know more – because this was huge, and she had a feeling things weren't quite over yet when it came to the Villain Alliance.

Gran Torino stayed quiet through the whole thing, but kept his eyes fixed on her. He gave the occasional nod and kept up a poker face. But things like the heartbeat, breathing, and small gulps were enough to show he hadn't become a statue (even if he didn't like what he was hearing). At least her explanation didn't activate any fight-or-flight instincts.

And when she finished, she stopped talking. Silence hung in the air for a few moments. Until Gran Torino cut through it with another question.

“And how exactly did that bring you here?”

There was an perplexed edge to his voice. Jirou couldn't blame him. She'd be weirded out too if some stranger showed up on her doorstep talking about things no one besides a select few should even be aware of.

“Your name was mentioned once when All Might-sensei and Detective Tsukauchi were talking. I also heard your conversation with Midoriya about the internships.”

He frowned.

“Eavesdropping's real rude, kid.”

“I know. I just-” She didn't mention the promise, and she wasn't going to try and justify what she was doing. It probably wouldn't make any difference in however he reacted. “I did research of my own too.”

“That doesn't explain how you found my address. I don't have a website or a public number. It keeps the riffraff away.” Yeah. Things would've been way easier if he did. And she wouldn't have had to waste countless hours on google and other search engines instead of doing something more productive with her time.

“There was this little hero forum I found – I can give you the link if you want.” Though she'd have to check her bookmarks for the name again; it wasn't Lurkers or even one of its offshoots. “But all it had was a map someone drew in Paint. I didn't expect to actually find you here.”

It was almost surreal how things managed to turn out this way. Here she was sitting on a stranger's couch an hour away from anyone she actually knew chatting about things with more weight than anything a high schooler should be in on. Said stranger being one of the few people in the whole world in the know about the greatest secret of Japan's (former) #1 hero. And Jirou had somehow managed to find vague directions to his home, managed to follow those vague directions without getting lost, and managed to find the right person on top of it. And she was lucky enough not to get immediately booted out and reported to the authorities. Instead she was let in, and fed taiyaki of all things.

Maybe she should spring for a lottery ticket on the way home.

Gran Torino snorted, but his face stayed solemn.

“And you know you can't tell anyone else about any of this.”

“Yes.”

“But you want to know more.”

“I do.”

“And that's why your here.”

“It is.”

Gran Torino paused for a moment, pondering, then asked:

“So whaddaya wanna know?”

Jirou blinked.

“Just like that?”

“Don't get me wrong, Kid. I'm not gonna answer your questions outta the goodness of my heart.” The fingers on one hand rapped on his upper arm. “You already know enough to be dangerous. Might as well sate your curiosity before you do something stupid.”

Well that made her feel a whole lot better.

A small bit of apprehension ticked at the back of her mind, but she pushed it down. This was her only chance to get some answers. She had to make it count.

“Well... I'd like some clarification on a few things first, if that's okay.”

“Alright. Shoot.”

“Well... I guess to start...” She clenched her fists at her knees. Her gaze drifted to her left. “So Midoriya got his quirk from All Might-sensei, right?”

She knew the answer to that, but it was as good a lead-in as any.

“He did.”

“Did All Might-sensei get that quirk from someone else?”

“Yep.”

So it was a line of succession thing. But if she had to guess where he got it from...

“Was it you?”

“Good lord no.” She could see him stifle a laugh at that. Hey, it wasn't like she had anyone else to guess.

“Then who?”

“A close friend of mine.” It was his turn to look away. “You wouldn't know her.”

Okay, but a name would've been nice.

“Well she was a hero, right? Did she do most of her work underground?”

All Might had been a hero longer than Jirou'd been alive; and from what she could gather, that power was slowly leeched from the former user after they transferred their quirk. That coupled with the fact that she'd never heard anyone so much as mention this mystery predecessor said she was retired at the very least.

Though the lingering ache in his voice said the reality was likely not so good.

“She was a hero, yeah; but you're not gonna find much more info for her than you would me.”

“So pretty much nothing.” That probably sounded almost callous knowing that this predecessor was probably, well, not alive. But it would also be presumptuous of her to jump straight to sympathy for 'Gran Torino's loss'.

“Yep.” Thankfully, Gran Torino didn't seem to think anything of it.

It was weird, though: Why would he make a point not to mention neither her hero nor real name? Jirou knew better that to press that one particular issue when there was so much more to ask. That meant she would have to look up female heroes with quirks eerily similar to All Might's if she wanted any info. And it would all be decades old at the very least.

“Is there any way we could get in touch with her or even any of the other people that had that quirk?”

This woman had never been mentioned before in any of the conversations she'd listened in on, but that didn't mean she was gone entirely. After all, Gran Torino was old – it was rare-enough (relatively) when heroes continued working past their prime; but continuing until they were old and grey was nearly unheard of. And anyone that had the quirk before her would be straight-up ancient. For all Jirou knew, one or a few of All Might's predecessors could be living it up all retired somewhere despite the signs that made the answer as obvious as a megaphone blaring in her ear.

But Gran Torino sighed.

His looked down at his cup.

Ah.

“Sorry, kid. All the others died in battle.” A grimace flickered across his face. “All Might's the exception, not the rule.”

And All Might was retired. Which meant he wasn't going to be doing anymore hero work. Which meant no more battles. And no more saving anyone. And everyone else who had that quirk probably never lived to an old age.

And coupled with everything she knew from before...

“So does that mean...” She gulped, but continued on.

“Is All Might dying?”

She knew the answer to that – no one lived forever, after all. She wasn't sure why she even bothered to ask. No one had said it outright. Maybe in a way, she just wanted someone else to confirm it so she could brace for the inevitable.

Gran Torino quirked an eyebrow.

“...I take it that means he still hasn't told the kid yet.”

So that was a yes.

He hadn't stated it directly, but Jirou wasn't sure how else that statement could be interpreted. She ignored the hollow pit that began to form in her chest.

“Well... I can't listen in on their conversations-” anymore “-but I don't think he has. Or at least, nothing about Midoriya says that he knows.”

Gran Torino grimaced at that.

“So what gave you the idea then?”

“Well... Recovery Girl said he'd be lucky to make it to Midoriya's graduation.” Though All Might himself had beaten worse odds before. “I don't know what it is, exactly; but it has to do with his old injuries, right? I mean- transferring his quirk isn't gonna be what kills him, right?”

“It's not likely.” Though his tone said that was a straight 'no'.

“If the transfer's not what's doing it, what is it? Shouldn't his retirement be enough to stop his condition from worsening if it was just his hero work?” All Might wasn't beating up baddies anymore. The most exercise he got now was the walking he did around campus. If anything, that meant he should make it to their graduation with a few years to spare.

“It ain't that simple, Kid.” The dread that came along with it said that was a real understatement.

“How come?”

A simple-enough question.

“...Let's change the subject.”

Or not.

“Okay...” As suspicious as it was for him to avoid saying that, Jirou wasn't going to argue just yet. “What about the quirk itself? I've never heard of a quirk able to be passed down to other people.”

A pause.

“I'll probably regret telling you this, but...” Gran Torino grabbed a taiyaki off the plate and continued. Jirou leaned in slightly closer and listened quietly.

“His quirk: It's called One for All.”

“Its user aren't exactly known for their permanence.”

“The kid's number nine in a line of users. Think about how long quirks have been around and do the math.”

Jirou gulped.

“What happened to them...?” She knew they died fighting, but they way he was describing it made it seem like more than just a coincidence.

“You know that villain All Might fought? That one in the Kamino ward?”

“Yeah?”

“That guy? His quirk is its counterpart: It's called All for One. The whole purpose of passing down One for All is taking 'im down eventually.” He took another swig from his mug and continued.

“I'm sure you can figure how they kicked it.”

“But All Might did that.” She saw the fight on TV. He won. That villain was carted off in an iron maiden. Everyone saw it live.

“And with any luck, all the kid'll have to deal with is the 'Symbol of Peace' mantle when he graduates.”

What?

“'With any luck?' That villain's in a maximum-security prison! He's in Tartarus!”

She hadn't meant to raise her voice like that, but that guy even took out Endeavor like he was nothing. How was anyone supposed to beat him now that All Might himself was out of commission?!

But Gran Torino didn't even flinch.

“We're talking about a quirk that can steal other quirks and compound them. You really think they're gonna be able to keep him there forever?”

What?

“All for One can steal quirks...?”

“M'hm.”

“Is... that what happened to Ragdoll?” She heard the news. Ragdoll couldn't use her quirk anymore. And if it was stolen, it probably wasn't coming back on its own.

“It is.”

“Then is there any way to make him give it back?”

“All for One can bestow quirks too, but good luck ever getting him to do it willingly.”

Jirou knew full well that real life quirks weren't balanced like they would be in a movie or videogame, but this was just ridiculous. Some people had super hearing. Jirou had super hearing and stretchy ears and the ability to channel her heartbeat to blow things up. But here's a guy who could take quirks, use them (if the Kamino footage was any indication), and give them to other people. How was anyone supposed to take that down?

“Who's he given quirks to then?”

“The first user of One for All, for starters. It's why the quirk exists in the first place.”

“What? How'd that even work?”

“One for All was created when All for One forced a strength quirk onto his younger brother, who unbeknownst to him had a quirk that could pass itself and nothing else. The two somehow combined and now here we are.”

“Wait what? Seriously, what?”

“Yep.” Not helpful.

Ugh. Okay fine. So All for One's the big bad and his brother was One for All (for lack of a better name). Apparently quirks can combine now. All for One's so old he was around back when there was no way to test if someone had a quirk or not. Which meant he had some kind of immortality quirk as well.

Great. Just. Great.

Though that did make her wonder.

“Then how'd he figure out he could pass it on?”

“Let's just stick to the stuff that's relevant for now. I'm telling you how the first user got it in the first place so you'd have context on just why we're doing this, but there's nothing else I could tell you about the other early ones in general that would help you now.”

And that was the truth. Even if she managed to get that specific bit of info, it would probably be extraneous at best. And like he said, all the other users but All Might and Midoriya were dead. At this point it mattered more the fact that the quirk could transfer at all than how the first user figured out how to do it.

“Okay... But if All for One did that, couldn't he just steal the quirk back?”

“It's funny you ask that. One for All's the one quirk he can't steal – he'd have done just that otherwise. Lucky for us, it can only be given willingly.”

Lucky indeed, since basic logic dictated that One for All was one of the only quirks that could take him down. And she wasn't sure if there were any others.

It was a little weird, though. You'd think transferring a quirk would make you unable to use it at all. But both Midoriya and All Might used that super strength during those first few months.

“So Midoriya got that quirk, but All Might was still doing hero work through the school year. Does that mean it's a gradual process?”

“Nope. The way the quirk works is that the power each user gets stacked from user to user; but once you transfer it, you're left with a finite amount and that's it.”

“So that incident with All for One...”

Gran Torino grimaced.

“Yep. Kamino took out what was left.”

Which didn't make her feel any better.

Now that All Might didn't have One for All, the source of the power that made him the strongest hero in all of Japan, he probably wouldn't be able to take on any other villains that strong even if he was perfectly healthy. Top that off with all his injuries and it's no wonder his retirement was permanent.

So then if All for One was going to break out...

That meant it would fall on All Might's successor to take him down again.

But All Might's injury was old. Midoriya clearly hadn't had the quirk for that long. Which made her wonder.

“So then... why Midoriya?”

“Huh?”

“I mean- All for One's been around for what, a century? More? What made All Might choose Midoriya of all people to be his successor?”

Midoriya was doing really well for someone with a quirk he didn't grow up with, even if his body wasn't used to it. But his inherent quirklessness was already a strike against him. Sure, there were a few quirkless heroes here and there, but they were really rare and none of them had ever made it to the upper echelons of the hero rankings. And most of them relied on gadgets. And he, well, didn't.

Wouldn't it make more sense to give it to someone who already had a quirk? Someone like Todoroki, for example, would go from being the class juggernaut to straight-up terrifying.

It wasn't like Jirou thought Midoriya was undeserving or anything. He was one of the quickest in class to throw himself headfirst into danger, consequences be damned. He was one of the best strategists out of all of them. He was great at adapting in team exercises and coordinating everyone's quirks. He was making steady progress at controlling his own quirk. He was one of the most motivated and hardest working kids in a department of 40 kids per year that regularly had almost 11,000 applications during the entrance exams.

It's just that he didn't have the obvious build or charisma one would expect from the Symbol of Peace's successor. And apparently he'd only gotten into U.A. because he rescued Uraraka from the no-point robot during the exam and shattered most of his limbs in the process. He was, to put it bluntly, a total dweeb at the beginning of the school year. It didn't make sense that All Might would choose someone like that with the threat of annihilation looming over his head.

Gran Torino sighed. He knew what she meant.

“Well, we thought All for One died six years ago – same time All Might got his injury. It wasn't until a couple months ago we realized that wasn't the case.”

“And by then, the quirk had already been transferred...” Jirou said to herself, soft but still audible.

“Yep.”

That made sense.

Wait- she wasn't trying to sound like she didn't want him to have that quirk or anything. Or trying to argue that it was a bad idea. Man, that's not what she was going for.

“Oh- I didn't mean anything by that, by the way.” She shook her hands in front of her chest, then moved one to the back of her head. “It's just- well-”

Gran Torino just sighed and waved a hand dismissively.

“Nah, I understand. Kids your age almost all have quirks and you're at U.A. to boot. Makes sense to wonder why he's the chosen one.” There was a little bite to that sentence, but nothing scathing. In fact, it brought a small smile to his lips instead.

Anyway, whether Midoriya was originally quirkless or not didn't matter anymore now that he had One for All. Sure, he didn't have anything to augment it, but that wouldn't be much of a problem once he was strong-enough to punch through buildings and propel himself forward faster than even some people with speed quirks.

But how was All Might going to fight if the villains attacked again if he didn't have it anymore??

“Actually, speaking of quirks...” She brought both hands back to her lap. “I know All Might-sensei's never told the media what his quirk really is, but is his other one at least something he can use?”

Maybe he had a really powerful healing factor? Maybe he had something completely useless like bendy fingers or nose extension? Whatever it was, she hoped it was something he could at least utilize to some degree.

“Seriously, kid?” What? It's not like she had any idea of what it actually was.

“I mean- I've only ever seen his super strength. And that's what One for All is, right?” She scratched her head. “And it's not like the other one got overwritten, right?”

“Doesn't matter. He's not going back on the front lines.”

Both sentences had hidden subtext, but Jirou wasn't sure how to parse it. Of course he wasn't going back on the front lines. He technically wasn't a hero anymore, after all. But certainly did matter what his quirk was. How else was he going to fight if he had to? Gadgets? Martial arts? A gun?

“Well I mean- I know he's retired, but what is he supposed to do if we do get attacked again?”

She gulped.

Her hands balled into fists.

More words fell out her mouth before she could even think to stop.

“What are we supposed to do?”

Gran Torino stared at the table for a moment.

Then sighed.

“Guess you think I've got all the answers, huh kid.”

“I mean... You've told me more than anyone else has. And you seem to know everything that's going on.” And are actually willing to answer questions about it. “So that means there's gotta be some kinda plan, right?”

“Like you said: All Might's retired, so he's focusing on teaching. But otherwise the plan is to just round up everyone affiliated with the Villain Alliance before they can do any real damage – including going after you kids again.”

“And what about Midoriya?”

Gran Torino blinked.

“What about 'im?”

“Well... Midoriya's the center of all this, isn't he? What's his role specifically?” Obviously he wasn't going to be hunting down league members on by himself or anything like that, but he could potentially get in on the lighter end of the action right now.

“He's All Might's successor. That's his role.” Nothing else? “But the idea is to get all this nonsense settled before he has to deal with it himself. Can't do much with just a provisional license anyway.”

“Yeah.” And being confined to U.A. meant he wasn't going to be able to sneak out and do hero stuff on his own regardless. “I'm pretty sure he's interning with Sir Nighteye, though. Are they targeting the league?”

“Sir Nighteye and All Might haven't coordinated anything in years.” The annoyance in his tone said that there was a reason for that. “Even so, I doubt he's gonna let the kid get in too much trouble on his own.”

“So right now he's just focusing on getting stronger.” Simple enough. That's what everyone else at school was doing too. And seeing as how they were in the country's top hero school, there wasn't going to be any question on how much that education would benefit them all.

“Yep.”

“Makes sense.”

Gran Torino paused to grab another taiyaki.

Then took a bite.

Then suggested:

“And you're figuring that since he's a good friend of yours, you'll help him out with that.”

…

Huh.

'Friend.'

Gran Torino had said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and his logic made sense, but...

“Well... He's not, to be honest.” She did consider Midoriya a friend, yeah; but only in the same way she considered everyone else in Class A her friend. It wasn't like they went out of their way to talk or get to know each other. They were friendly acquaintances at most.

“You're going this far to help him.”

Anyone would if they knew what she did.

“I'd have already told him I knew if we were. Everything I know about this is from hearing it secondhand.”

It wasn't that she avoided him or anything. It was more that their friend groups didn't really overlap. Jirou mostly hung out with the other girls, and Uraraka was the only girl Midoriya talked with on a regular basis. Midoriya mostly spent time with Iida and Todoroki; Jirou never had a reason to getting buddy-buddy with either of them.

She continued, gently waving her hands in front of her.

“Don't get me wrong – he's a really good guy! We've just never had any reason to get close.”

Gran Torino's eyes furrowed.

“...Then just what are you planning on doing with this information, kid?”

Indeed, what.

She came for answers. She was getting those answers. But in hindsight, she hadn't actually put much thought into what would happen after getting those answers. Part of it was because she didn't know what she didn't know. Another was because she never expected to get this far in the first place. So...

“Well... I don't know, to be honest.”

Gran Torino just snorted at that.

“You tracked me down, found out where I live, rode a train for god-knows-how-long, and you don't know.”

Well when he put it that way...

“I mean, I want to help him.” She grimaced. “I just don't know how.”

“So what're you expecting to do? Follow him around and protect 'im without 'im knowing it like some kinda guardian angel?”

Hah. That would be a sight to see.

“I know he can take care of himself.” And she knew she would be the one getting saved if there was another attack at this point. “It's just... I know this is something big. If there's anything I can do to help, I want to do it. And I know more than pretty much anyone else at school.”

More than Midoriya himself, at this point.

“Users of One for All usually have a close friend they can trust to keep their secret. I was Nana's. Toshi- All Might has that cop friend of his. Who's the kid got, if not you?”

Good question.

She thought back over the school year. There wasn't anyone who actively disliked Midoriya (anymore, at least), but of the people he hung out with the most...

Uraraka was his closest female friend, and was apparently the first person in their class (Bakugou aside) that he'd met in the beginning of the school year. She wore her heart on her sleeve, even if she was trying to change that; but Jirou had never seen anything that said she knew more than she was letting on.

Iida was the class president and next in line to take on the Ingenium name. He was earnest to a fault and there was no way he would refuse Midoriya if asked for assistance. Plus trusting a secret with someone with that kind of lineage would have its benefits. But there was no way he wouldn't have mentioned it at least once behind closed doors.

Todoroki was the kid of the now-#1-hero. Jirou didn't exactly know the context of what Midoriya yelled at him during the sports festival; but whatever it was, it got through to him and he chilled out after (for the most part; he still had some latent anger issues he really needed to work on). And now the two of them were best friends. And yet he never said anything suspicious either.

Those three looked to be the kids he was closest to, and Jirou knew they were all good people; but not one of them had ever given any hints of knowing anything more than the others. Which was nothing. Apparently Todoroki thought Midoriya was All Might's kid at one point, but that was the closest thing any one of them had and it was still way off the mark.

But if they weren't in on it, who else could...

...

Memories of the night following the license exam crept back into her mind.

The fight that occurred while seemingly no one else was awake.

How it was All Might himself who put a stop to it.

How it took the two of them a strangely long time to come back to the dorms after.

How the strain on their relationship was almost gone now, even if it didn't look it at a glance.

…

That was probably the answer.

“Well... there's Katsuki Bakugou. I think.”

Gran Torino cocked an eyebrow.

“That spiky ball a' TNT?”

Yes that spiky ball of TNT.

“Yeah. I'm not a 100% sure on it, but if there's anyone else our age that knows about Midoriya's quirk, it's probably him.”

She continued. “But besides maybe him, I don't think anyone knows but me. He's got some close friends, but it doesn't sound like he's told them yet.”

“So you think you're gonna do it in their stead?”

Could she?

She shrugged.

“I guess so.”

Gran Torino locked eyes with her.

She froze.

He spoke.

“You don't sound too sure.”

She really wasn't.

Jirou wasn't useless, but there was no chance that Midoriya would choose her over any one of his actual friends to carry his secret on if he had any say in the matter.

And given the gravity of the situation, it made sense he hadn't told any of them yet. He didn't like it when people worried about him, after all.

But Jirou knew his secret, and there wasn't anything he could do to change that.

She wasn't the strongest.

Or the fastest.

Or the smartest.

She just had a quirk that let her hear things she shouldn't and enough of a brain to put two and two together.

But if he really didn't have anyone else...

She gulped.

Then nodded.

“I will.”

Gran Torino reached over to grab the last taiyaki off the plate.

“You're gonna get a lot more than you bargained for, kid.” He took a bite. “I can tell you that.”

Gee. Thanks. Not like she wasn't already getting more than she bargained for.

“So what can I do in the meantime?”

“Get stronger and give 'im support when he needs it.”

“Nothing specific?”

“Not unless yer' planning on being his sidekick or his secretary.”

“Yeah no.” She had her own plans for the future and they didn't revolve around Midoriya, as much as she was worrying now. There wasn't even any guarantee that things were gonna get worse from here on out. She wasn't to put everything on hold for something that wasn't even certain.

“Just make sure you two actually have a talk sooner than later. The middle of a fight's not the place to be droppin' a bombshell like that.”

That... was something she had to do, wasn't it. Midoriya wasn't exactly a mind reader. He wasn't going to know she knew unless she told him directly. And unless she did... well... how else was he gonna know?

She swallowed, then looked Gran Torino in the eye and said in the most determined tone of voice she could muster:

“Got it.”

But she broke eye contact as soon as she finished that sentence.

Gran Torino looked like he was considering something. He brought a curled finger to his chin. It was a few moments before he spoke again.

“...Tell me, kid. What's the range of that quirk of yours?”

Huh. That came out of nowhere.

“If you mean the surveillance part: it depends on where I am and the noise around me; but if I'm in a building, I can usually hear everything going on inside.”

Gran Torino nodded, then reached into his pocket.

“Alright, gimme your phone.”

...

“Huh?”

“And put your number in mine.” He tossed the smartphone onto her lap and finished the last bite of the taiyaki in his other hand. “You're still a brat now, but that power could be useful later.”

There was an implicit 'for this investigation' at the end. She chose not to have him confirm that.

Instead she unlocked her phone and handed it to him with a small “okay.”, then went to fill in her contact info on his.

It was quick. Just her name and number. No selfie pic or anything extra.

She hit finish. Her contact was open. She instinctively hit the back button.

There were only a few names on the list. She saw Midoriya's and Detective Tsukauchi's among them, but didn't recognize any of the others. Shouldn't All Might's number be there too? Well- he probably wouldn't be labeled 'All Might' if they'd known each other that long. What was his real name again?

Though one name did catch her eye. It was located right above her own.

'Nana Shimura'.

Huh. Where had she heard that name befo-

Oh.

Gran Torino had mentioned a Nana before.

And the context her name was used in said she was All Might's predecessor.

There was only one Nana on that list.

It couldn't be her, could it?

That Nana was dead. And likely had been for a very long time.

And Nana was a pretty common name, right?

It was probably someone else.

Except...

Something else clicked.

The surname.

Jirou's eyes were on the now-empty taiyaki plate before she realized it.

...

She grimaced and reopened her own contact page. Best to pretend she didn't see anything. She wasn't even trying to snoop this time.

Thankfully Gran Torino's eyes were focused on her phone.

He looked up a moment later. They locked eyes.

“Y'done?”

There was really no reason for that to startle her. But it did.

“Um- yeah.”

“Alright. Give it here.”

They traded their phones back (without any tossing this time). Jirou looked at the name on the contact page.

Jii Torino.

That wasn't his real name, was it? It wasn't often that heroes used their own names as their aliases, though there were kanji here as opposed to the normal katakana (if pages upon pages of google search results with that name were any indication). Though the fact that the Jii used the kanji for 'old man' was a good indication that the spelling for his name was different, if nothing else.

Gran Torino seemed to read her mind.

“It's not my real name, but you should be able to remember it's me.”

She probably should've done the same thing.

“Oh, I put my real name in yours. Should I change it? I can-”

“Forget it. I'll do it later.”

“Okay...”

So that was that. She was curious about that contact and the potential connections that came with it, but obviously she couldn't just bring it up directly.

Hopefully the next weird segue wouldn't give him that much of a clue.

Jirou gulped.

“So, if I can ask...”

“Yeah?”

“Just... who is Tomura Shigaraki?” Her eyes flicked to the plate again.

Gran Torino frowned. It didn't get past him.

“Those documents're classified.”

Truth, but also a deflection.

“All Might and Detective Tsukauchi were talking about him.”

“And?”

“And it doesn't make sense that All Might would be asking about just him if he were being kept up on everyone else All for One was associated with.” The league wasn't huge, but there was a number of members. Those members were equally deadly in their own right, but they didn't seem to be a bunch of zealots blindly spreading the word of their leader. In that case, nabbing Shigaraki wouldn't lead to much if they didn't get all the others with him.

“...You're real observant, kid. I'll give you that. But he's a criminal – one who's hurt a lot of people.”

“He doesn't look that much older than us.”

An observation more than any kind of argument. She knew what he was capable of. He was the one who led the charge on the attacks against U.A.. He didn't see anything wrong with trying to kill literal teenagers if he meant getting to All Might. Aizawa took weeks to recover after USJ even with Recovery Girl helping with the treatment. Anyone who knew that would be an idiot to underestimate him.

“He isn't. But that doesn't make him any less dangerous.” Gran Torino laced his fingers together. “It looks like All for One's propping him up to be his successor, which means Shigaraki is going to try and rebuild his empire. The sooner he's behind bars, the better.”

He said it as if it were certain, but his tone said otherwise. His words were calm and controlled, but Jirou could hear the tiny ounce of strain that came with them. The strain of regret – that kind that things didn't have to be this way. He didn't want a criminal running loose in the streets if he could help it, obviously.

But even with a few words alone, Jirou could tell he had far too much emotional stock in a man that shouldn't be half as hard to deal with as his predecessor was.

Which all but outright stated they had some sort of connection.

So then...

“It's really weird, though.” Jirou brought a curled finger to her chin, and focused her eyes down on the table. “All for One's gotta be ancient. Why would he choose a guy so young to succeed him? What makes Shigaraki so special?”

A bit on the nose, but they were perfectly valid questions on their own right. A guy over a century old would have all the time in the world to find and groom the perfect successor. And nothing about Jirou's (admittedly limited) knowledge of Shigaraki suggested he was a particularly rare breed of genius or a prodigy. Someone in the business that long wouldn't choose a random kid to do it, so there had to be some reason.

But the answer she'd get would tell her what she really wanted to know.

“...No idea. There's no real background info on him.”

Yep.

Two lies in one go.

Gran Torino knew something about Shigaraki's backstory. And the small twist inside him said it was something big.

And yet he wasn't willing to share it, even though he shared pretty much everything else freely.

If Shigaraki had a normal rage, greed, or wrong-side-of-the-tracks backstory, it wouldn't make sense to hide it. Lots of villains were like that. It didn't make any difference in whether they were gonna be arrested or not. At most it would get them mandatory therapy and maybe a lighter sentence. Though Shigaraki would be lucky if ever saw the light of day again given what he'd done.

Which made it all-the-weirder that Gran Torino had misgivings about arresting him.

Maybe Gran Torino knew him.

Maybe he knew someone related to him.

That case file on the table was for Tomura Shigaraki, after all.

But Tomura Shigaraki was just an alias.

He had a real name.

'Tenko Shimura'.

And there was a Shimura in Gran Torino's contact list. The kanji were the same. Shimura wasn't exactly a common surname. That alone gave the possibility of some kind of connection.

Nana was the name of the previous One for All user.

Shimura was the only Nana in a contact list with barely any numbers.

If they were the same person, then that Shimura was a close friend of Gran Torino's.

And it would also mean that that Shimura was dead.

It could be a coincidence – Jirou didn't have any actual hard evidence one way or another; but something in her gut told her it wasn't that simple.

If Shigaraki was her son or related to her in some other way, it would only make sense for Gran Torino to feel the way he did. A lot of people looked out for their friends' kids when something happened to said friends. Obviously it would hurt to see them fall as far as he did. Even more so when their parents were such good people.

But if that was the case, then why would Shigaraki choose to become a villain? He was related to a hero. And said hero was such a good person that she was granted what had to be one of the strongest quirks in the world. She wasn't some asshole in it for the glory who couldn't care less about saving people. She was one who was, well, the complete opposite of that (considering she'd gotten One for All and everything). If anything, he should want to emulate that kind of altruism.

And even putting that aside, how come no one was able to stop him before it got to this point? People rarely became villains for no reason. Shouldn't the people around him have seen the warning signs? Did no one try and help him? Were his problems ones that even could be helped? Though it was obviously too late for that now – what, with Shigaraki being a murderous psychopath leading what was probably one of the most dangerous villain organizations in all of Japan.

Even though she wasn't there to witness All Might's fight during the USJ incident, she knew he didn't just let Shigaraki leave. And no one ever mentioned that kind of connection either even though that would be the most obvious thing to bring up if anyone was talking about him. Shigaraki's real name was right there in the police file. Sure, Shimura was dead, but wouldn't they have already made the connection anyway if there was one? Wouldn't someone have at least tried to use that to get a hold of him?

One thing the hero program always tried to hit home was that there were a lot of villains with sympathetic backstories; but just because they had their own reasons didn't mean that excused their actions. Stealing in order to help feed your family was still stealing. Murder in order to avenge a loved one was still murder. A criminal committing a crime needed to be arrested, and the judgment dealt to them needed to be through the legal system. And that included people you were related to or friends with.

But theory rarely translated perfectly into reality. Jirou wasn't sure what she'd do if she were in Gran Torino's shoes, to be honest. Ideally, she would put those feelings aside and do her job to catch the villain, regardless of how they were related to people she knew. But she also knew that she'd be a lot more willing to give someone a second chance if she knew them beforehand, and knew they were a good person despite, y'know, being a criminal.

Gran Torino was a seasoned and experienced hero (if almost completely unknown). He wouldn't make the same mistakes a rookie would – including letting someone he knew get away if he had the opportunity to catch them. Because being related to a loved one didn't lessen the impact of his crimes, or change the fact that he tried to murder people (including kids). Even if some small part of him made him think it was still possible to make Shigaraki see the light.

The regret in his voice made that clear enough.

...

“Kid, you keep starin' at that plate. Just tell me if you want me to make some more.”

That jolted Jirou back into reality.

She regained her focus. Right. Still in the middle of a stranger's apartment. Still in the middle of a conversation. Not the time to be overthinking things. Play it cool.

“Oh um- No, I'm fine.”

Jirou would be lying if she said she didn't want to know the whole story. But like Gran Torino said, that information was classified. He probably gave her that tidbit because it was related to All for One. And Jirou had a feeling that it also doubled as a way to remind himself that his friend's relative wasn't Tenko Shimura anymore.

So instead...

“Does he know about Midoriya? Shigaraki, I mean.” The attacks on U.A. were on their class in general rather than concentrated on him, which indicated that he probably didn't. But it couldn't hurt to make sure.

It was Gran Torino's turn to have an uncomfortably long pause.

“I don't think Shigaraki knows, no.” He grimaced. “But All for One does.”

Shit.

“So... how long has he known?”

“He made the guess during the Kamino incident. But it was long after Shigaraki was out of the area. And he was arrested right after. So Shigaraki shouldn't have any idea yet.” Yet. He sent her a pointed look. Everyone had managed to keep it a secret for this long. If it got out now it probably would be because of her.

She couldn't blame him for thinking that.

“Does Midoriya know he knows?”

“Only if All Might told him, so probably not.” She knew Gran Torino didn't mean to sound scathing, but ouch.

“So if All for One is in prison and he's the only one who's figured it out, that means Midoriya's safe for now, right?”

“It should. Though that depends on whether or not he keeps sticking his nose where it doesn't belong.”

Which probably meant 'no' since sitting on the sidelines doing nothing was not how Midoriya rolled.

So then...

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

She knew he said to support Midoriya when he needed it. And that was something she could do (and would if she needed to). But her role wasn't automatically gonna be that of the trusted friend Midoriya willingly shared his secret with. And unlike Detective Tsukauchi and Gran Torino, she didn't have any way of otherwise helping on her own time. If Gran Torino had an idea, she'd be all for it.

Gran Torino shifted slightly.

“Part of why I'm telling you all this is in case All For One does get out before you graduate. The second that happens Midoriya's gonna have a bigger target on his back than he does now.”

He continued. “You want a job? If All Might hasn't told him that by then, you'll have to. I don't care how fast the kid learns. There's no way he'll be able to survive a concentrated villain onslaught unprepared if he's still in high school.”

Concern. Frustration. Tied hands. Exasperation. The thin layer of harshness in his voice would be audible to someone at even a normal level of hearing, even if the nuances weren't clear.

And Jirou agreed with its implication.

“Alright I will, but-” There was probably a reason he hadn't done it himself, but- “Shouldn't we let him know now then? So he can prepare just in case?”

“I may have given him his field training, but All Might's his mentor. So it's his call what to tell the kid and when, even if I don't agree with it.”

He continued, crossing his arms. “Not to mention it wouldn't do him any good right now unless All for One decides to break out of prison tomorrow. You know the kid. He's finally started to not break his arms at every turn. Last thing he needs is to think he has to again for a scenario that's not even likely to happen.”

“So... what doesn't Midoriya know, then?” All for One knowing he was the successor was the obvious answer, but she probably shouldn't start blurting out things Midoriya didn't know right after explaining that his secret was safe with her.

“It'd make more sense to ask what he does know.” Which was not much, apparently. “But I don't see him much for obvious reasons, so I dunno how much All Might's told him. Just have 'im tell you what he knows when you tell him you know about One for All and go off that.”

Simple-enough.

“Alright.”

He looked unconvinced.

“Look, I can't stop you if you really want to, but use your best judgment. You can't take it back once the cat's out of the bag.”

He didn't need to say that. Jirou knew more than most just what the consequences of telling people the wrong things at the wrong time were.

“I'll keep it on the down low for now, don't worry. I just gotta tell him I know about his quirk and the line of succession thing, but I'll hold off on everything else until the prison break unless he tells me about it first.”

It was weird thinking of it as an inevitability. Because again: Tartarus. But she wasn't going to dismiss the possibility. At best, All for One would die in prison. At worst, he was just biding his time waiting for the right moment to go on another rampage. And Jirou knew which scenario would be best to prepare for.

“Good.” Gran Torino sounded a bit relieved, and a touch disappointed; but didn't let it change the stern look on his face.

Another pause between them.

So they'd gone over the quirk itself.

The line of succession.

Supporting the successor.

Midoriya, the successor.

Shigaraki, the villain successor.

All for One, the reason behind this whole mess in the first place.

All Might-

…

She never did get an answer, did she.

…

Well, seeing as how pretty much everything else did, and seeing as how she didn't really have anything else to ask...

She grimaced.

“Um... Would it be alright if I asked one more question?”

Gran Torino's eyes narrowed.

“Something tells me I'm not gonna like it, but shoot.”

Based on how he dodged giving details before, probably not.

It had an obvious answer too.

And the only reason she wasn't going with that obvious answer was the few bits that didn't make sense.

And sure, she knew she was nowhere near qualified to actually do it herself seeing as she was only 16 and nowhere near as strong as a pro hero. And she wasn't a doctor. And really, she didn't have any skill set that she could use otherwise.

But how would she know for sure without asking?

She clenched her fists at her knees.

And pushed back the ache beginning to form in her face.

And swallowed.

“Is... there any way we can save All Might-sensei?”

...

A pause.

“From what?”

Playing dumb. Hoping she'd drop it.

She wasn't going to.

“From whatever's going to kill him.”

All Might was dying. Anyone would guess natural causes. But it wasn't going to be that alone. It couldn't be.

“No one's gonna live forever, kid – not even the Symbol of Peace. The sooner you accept that, the better.”

Deflecting. Stating the obvious. Implying inevitability without giving a reason. Avoiding saying that exact reason.

But he didn't end the conversation right then and there.

And she would keep going until he did.

“I know, but-” It would be easier if it was just his health, but- “You said it wasn't going to be because of his injuries.”

“I said it wasn't that simple.”

And those kinds of roundabout answers weren't going to convince her.

“The only health issues All Might-sensei has are related to his injuries. Recovery Girl would have mentioned them otherwise.”

“...What's your point?”

That something was off. That there was something missing. That natural causes were out of the question, but nothing else she was aware of could be that much of a ticking timebomb.

Which meant it had to be something else.

The question was what.

“My point is that if it were, you'd have said so.” She caught herself before she began to yell, forcing here voice back to a more even tone. “But you didn't. Why?”

A pause.

Gran Torino laced his fingers together.

Then set his elbows on his knees.

Then hunched over.

And rested his chin on his hands.

His eyes fixed on the table.

“Tell me, kid: Do you believe you can change the future?”

...

Her eyebrows furrowed.

Wasn't something that people – usually heroes – said was that the 'the future is in your hands'? It sounded mindlessly optimistic more often than not, but there was a kernel of truth to it – especially for heroes: It was their duty to save as many people as possible during crises. People needed all the help they could get when in danger. One more person stepping be could be the difference between life and death. Wasn't that just common sense?

So then why did that question sound rhetorical?

Her gut said to take the hint and drop it.

Her gut was what got her here in the first place.

Her gut would have to deal with it.

She gave the most obvious response she could think of:

“Well, can't we?”

Even as a question on it's own, that was the answer, right?

But Gran Torino took a deep breath.

Then exhaled. A small, airy noise hissed out of his shoes.

“Even if it's been preordained?”

Why would it be?

Why was he already making it sound like a lost cause?

“Where are you going with this?”

He didn't look up.

“Sir Nighteye's quirk let 'im see how it's gonna happen, and he's never been wrong.”

If Sir Nighteye could see the future...

And if Sir Nighteye was never wrong...

...

Gran Torino continued:

“If you what's going to happen, and that nothing you do can change it, do you really want to live with that knowledge?”

…

No.

She didn't.

Old age was one thing. She could deal with All Might dying because of that. Heck, she could even deal with him succumbing to years upon years of compounded injuries that never fully healed. It would hurt, but those were peaceful, natural causes. Anyone could take solace in that kind of inevitability. Eventually.

But this...

She'd already confirmed it wasn't going to be because of his health. Gran Torino would've said it by now if it were. Jirou wasn't a medic and as far as she knew, All Might would've already been healed by now if there were some quirk user capable of doing that. It wouldn't make sense to treat that kind of situation so gravely. It would be depressing, but not any cause for alarm. It was... well... just life.

There was also the possibility of an accident. Or some kind of natural disaster. Things that were seemingly random, but could really happen to anyone. It... really didn't fit to think of All Might as a random casualty in that kind of incident. And again, it wouldn't make sense for Gran Torino to keep indirectly asking her if she was really okay with knowing what was going to happen if that were the case.

There was an ache in Gran Torino's voice when he asked that question. That alone should've been enough to make her take the hint and change the subject to something less bleak. But all it did was give her the urge to come up with every worst-case scenario she could. Because if it wasn't going to be random and it wasn't going to be due to natural causes, it was going to be planned. Which was bad.

Very very bad.

And clearly something way beyond the level anyone but the strongest heroes.

Which Jirou clearly wasn't one of.

…

There probably wasn't anything she could do.

She was in high school.

She wasn't even near the top of her class.

Of course it would make sense that there wouldn't be.

But if there was...

And she chose not to...

...

She swallowed.

Her mouth was dry.

She picked her mug up off the table and took a sip of what was left.

It wasn't a good idea. She knew it wasn't a good idea.

But...

“If I don't know, I can't even try.”

A pause.

Another sigh.

Gran Torino looked at her with tired eyes.

Another few seconds passed.

He grimaced.

And said:

“Okay, kid. But don't say I didn't warn you.”

She nodded, and leaned forward.

He nodded in turn, and continued.

“The easiest way to put it is that a villain's going to kill All Might sometime this year or next.”

Ah.

Death by villain.

That... made sense. All Might didn't have his quirk anymore, so he wouldn't be able to fight at the level he used to. His body had to be strong-enough to use that power in the first place, but he wasn't the force of nature able to move kilometers in mere seconds or punch hard-enough to change the weather anymore. It stood to reason that he wouldn't be able to take everyone he used to. Which meant he wasn't essentially invincible anymore. Which meant there were fights he could lose now.

But he was retired, which meant he wasn't going to be hunting down villains like he used to. And he lived on campus with all the other teachers. And he never seemed to leave on his own (though it wasn't like she could follow him that far with sound alone). So the hardest part for any villain would probably be getting to him in the first place. All Might had a number of enemies, but almost all of them were in prison now. And any that weren't shouldn't be strong-enough to breech U.A.'s security (which included a number of active pro heroes).

But even then, who would be strong-enough to-

...

God dammit.

There was only one villain she could think of off the top of her head that would be able to do that. And that villain wasn't going to be in prison forever.

“It's going to be All for One, isn't it.”

Gran Torino shook his head. Thank god.

“All I can tell you is that it won't be All for One, because otherwise we'd have known he was still alive in the first place.”

Which was... good...?

All for One could only be defeated by All Might back at Kamino, but he was the only villain like that, right? That meant whatever villain it was could at least be defeated by other heroes. Which would hopefully make it mostly a matter of just finding that villain in time.

“Is there anything else? Like place? Time of day? Description of the villain?” Really, wouldn't it be enough just to get a location and make sure All Might NEVER EVER goes there until like three years from now? Or maybe keep an eye on all villains that fit the physical description? Or make sure he has an escort during those weather conditions? Heck, why not use the national quirk database to narrow down potential suspects if they had an idea on how it was gonna happen?

“S'far as I know, Sir was never able to pinpoint anything but the timeframe. And even when he's had that kinda info in the past, he still never managed to change the outcome of what he saw.”

“But he saw something, right?”

Something? Anything? That's how Sir Nighteye knew, right? Jirou didn't know exactly how that quirk worked, but wasn't there something he could go off of? Couldn't he 'trace' All Might's steps back to a point where he was in a recognizable area? See who he was around? See what they talked about?

Gran Torino shifted uncomfortably, but continued to look straight ahead.

“I didn't go pressin' for the gritty details.”

What the hell?

“But why not?” Jirou's hands slammed the table. She didn't bother trying to reign in her volume. “You've known for years, haven't you? Isn't there something you could've done by now?”

Gran Torino didn't even flinch. Jirou went on.

“All Might is going to die. We only have until next year at most. Why isn't anyone doing anything to change that?!-”

“You think we haven't tried?”

Her mouth snapped shut.

She didn't know how to respond to that. Her body went rigid. Not even from some kind of quirk. Just the ice in that one sentence.

She screwed up. Gran Torino clearly hadn't been sure whether or not to tell her, but he did anyway. And the first thing she did was snap at him for it like some kind of idiot. Which was probably the dumbest thing she could've done outside of outright attacking him.

So what was she supposed to do now?

Apologize?

Beg for forgiveness?

Run?

...

Gran Torino took a deep breath.

Then continued, voice back to it's normal tone.

“Look, I wanna stop it as much as you do. But if we can't, it makes more sense to mitigate the fallout instead.” His eyes flickered to the paper stack. “Crime's already been goin' up since All Might retired. What do you think's gonna happen when word gets out a villain got him?”

Which was... a logical way to look at it.

Even though All Might was retired, he was still known as the former Symbol of Peace. A number of people still thought he would come back some day to continue his hero work. None of them knew he no longer had the quirk that made him so strong. None of them knew what Jirou did now. All Might losing to some villain – potentially in an incident as destructive as Kamino – would take most people by surprise, to put it lightly.

Jirou didn't even want to think about what would happen after.

“But... Is there really no way around it?”

She'd never put too much thought into how much of her own fate she controlled, but she'd always assumed it was something she could if she knew what was supposed to happen. And as far as she was concerned, knowing things ahead of time could cause some kind of butterfly effect and change the outcome even if she tried to make everything turn out exactly as predicted.

But if Sir Nighteye's quirk really was never wrong, then that meant there was nothing anyone could do.

…

Was it really that hopeless?

“If you change the future, or the kid does, or even All Might does, it'll be something no one else has ever managed to do before.”

She looked down at the table. He continued.

“I won't say it's impossible, but be realistic.” His fingers clenched closer together. His gloves made a small noise as they rubbed against one another. “If you can pull it off, great. But don't expect whatever plan you come up with to work out just because you put in the effort. It'll only hurt that much more if you do.”

Then what was she supposed to do?

Of course it wouldn't be as easy as coming up with a plan, doing some training, and hoping for the best. She was a kid. And on top of that, she didn't have any resources or potential leads beyond Lurkers and whatever other publicly available sites she came across. There really wasn't anything she could do that, say, Gran Torino or any other hero couldn't (aside from super hearing, which wasn't going to be of much use at the moment since there was only so much she could listen in on at U.A). And she couldn't leave campus without having a reason (and 'I wanna go home for the weekend' would only work so many times, if even once more).

She obviously couldn't follow All Might 24/7 like some kind of bodyguard. She obviously couldn't recruit heroes, teachers, or classmates to become some kind of 'All Might defense force'. That was a simple-enough idea that Gran Torino or All Might had probably considered it. And then ditched it because of all the ways it couldn't possibly work.

There wasn't anything she could think to do.

But she couldn't just let him die.

Just... Ugh...

“Kid, you feelin' alright?”

No. She really wasn't.

How could she be?

None of this was okay.

All Might was going to die if he didn't get some kind of miracle.

Sir Nighteye predicting such all but made that a set-in-stone fact.

Gran Torino, one of the closest people to this, didn't think there was any chance of stopping it.

If they couldn't do anything about it, why would she be any different?

But she couldn't freak out.

That wouldn't solve anything.

.

Deep breath.

.

Reel it in.

.

Calm down.

.

Freaking out wasn't going to solve anything.

.

She went a more reasonable volume, and rubbed the back of her head apologetically.

“Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry for getting carried away.”

She didn't know what anyone else had been doing about Sir Nighteye's prophecy. She didn't know how many people knew at all. Even with all this new information, she knew it was only the tip of the iceberg.

It wasn't fair to snap at Gran Torino. He gave her a quick rundown on pretty much everything she needed to know; and even though he obviously hadn't planned on telling her the worst parts, he went through with it anyway instead of kicking her out or making up insultingly blatant lies. And that was a good thing, right? For all Jirou knew, he was the only person that was willing to do that. What idiot would throw that kind of goodwill back in someone's face?

So what should she do, then? Change the subject and ask about something else?

She hadn't even been there an hour, but she'd already learned so much her head was spinning.

All for One was going to break out of Tartarus.

Midoriya had to defeat All for One.

And that was bad enough without adding the fact that All Might only had a year and a half left to live at most. And that even the pro heroes seemed to have given up on changing it.

Jirou was not a pro hero. Jirou was not a master strategist. Jirou was not a prodigy in any way, shape, or form and she definitely didn't have accesses to the kinds of resources that could guarantee she'd accomplish something everyone apparently no one else had ever managed to before. She was as close to a normal high school student someone in U.A.'s hero course could be.

That aside, she had to to think:

Was there anything she still needed to ask?

Was there anything she still needed to know?

This trip had been nothing but revelation after revelation. She had her questions go down rabbit holes she neither expected nor wanted to know about. There was so much information swimming in her head that she wasn't sure she'd even be able to remember all the the important stuff. And Gran Torino had already made it clear that he only expected her to support Midoriya when the time came. So there wasn't any point in trying to come up with a plan right now. And god forbid she start trying to make small talk.

So... the next course of action was fairly obvious:

“Well... Actually... I think that's just about everything I wanted to ask. So I think I should be going now. Thank you for answering my questions. I really appreciate it.”

She didn't have to leave just yet. There was plenty of time left before she had to meet her friend. And a little niggling at the back of her mind said she hadn't gotten everything she could yet.

But a bigger part said she needed to leave. Now.

This was a safe place. She was with a pro hero. There weren't any villains around. There wasn't any danger and she didn't feel like she was in any danger.

But discomfort lurched through her chest.

And staying wasn't going to make it go away.

...Yeah, that would be the best thing to do for now.

Gran Torino nodded.

“Yer' welcome.” He hopped off his couch. “And by the way, you should tell All Might what you know when you get the chance too.”

Yeah. She needed to tell Midoriya. After that, All Might would be the next logical person to explain herself to. Hopefully he wouldn't be mad that she not only broke her promise, but also rode a train into a whole nother prefecture in order to get the answers she knew he wouldn't give himself.

Though it'd probably be best to hold off on certain parts until they were needed.

Man, she really wondered how she was going to explain that, though. Whether to All Might or Midoriya. Honestly, if someone from the future gave her a blow-by-blow account of everything that just happened within the last hour, she wouldn't believe them. Well- they could always call Gran Torino to clarify, but it wouldn't make the situation any less weird.

Though she could conveniently forget to mention Gran Torino for now. It wasn't like they needed to know about her blatantly breaking school rules just a few weeks after everyone moved into the dorms so they wouldn't get into situations that could turn deadly if they weren't careful.

“Okay. I will.

Oh and before she could forget:

“Oh yeah- um... Could you not tell anyone about me coming here or what we talked about?” She twiddled her lobes together. “No one knows I'm in Yamanashi.”

Gran Torino had a laugh at that. A good portion of the heavy atmosphere permeating the room dropped instantly.

“Seriously, kid? You either got guts or no brain.” He reached over and picked up the taiyaki plate. “You're lucky I didn't turn out to be some sorta whackjob.”

And he was right about that. Jirou had spent the whole trip covering her tracks to get there, and she didn't see any surveillance cameras when she came down the street leading to this building.

If she'd been wrong and wound up at a villain's house, she would've been screwed.

Gran Torino continued.

“That being said, I'm not gonna go around tellin' people how some high schooler just came to my door askin' about things she shouldn't know even exist.” He unceremoniously tossed the plate in the sink. It made a clattering sound as it hit the other tableware inside. “But I'm not gonna lie if they come askin' about you.”

Fair enough.

“I understand. Thanks again.” Jirou nodded and pushed herself up off the couch then grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Anyway, I'll be heading out now. It was nice meeting you, Gran Torino.”

“Alright. See you 'round.”

Jirou headed to the front entrance. Gran Torino moved to where she had just been sitting. He began to spread the papers inside that manila envelope across the table.

So that was the end of their conversation. Gran Torino had work to do. Jirou had an appointment to keep. There was no reason to stay any longer. Only thing to do now was go.

But right as she grabbed the door handle...

“And kid?”

She froze, and turned back just-enough to see Gran Torino in her peripheral vision.

“Yeah?”

He didn't make any effort to look at her, despite being the one to say more. He just grimaced.

“Don't let it get to you, okay?” His voice was softer. Gentler. “We've got time before things go South. Enjoy the peace while it lasts.”

She gulped, but kept her voice even as possible.

“Alright. I will.”

A few moments went by. Gran Torino didn't say anything else. Jirou pulled the door open, then stepped out and shut it behind her.

…

...

Phew.

Walking out that door and past those blockades was almost like stepping into another world. One with a clear sky, blinding sunlight, and nothing related to supervillains that could potentially murder everyone she knew and cared about.

A few people walked along the sidewalk. Their footsteps reverberated between the buildings. A car rolled by. The driver had on some sugary pop song that recently made it into the Oricon Singles Chart. No one seemed to notice the high school girl coming out of the sketchy building. No heavy atmosphere permeated the surrounding air. Everything was completely normal. Nothing out of the ordinary except maybe her if anyone was paying attention.

Without skipping a beat, she took to the sidewalk. She grabbed her phone and typed in a new address – one for the Kofu Showa Aeon Mall. It was gonna be a bit of a hike to get to the bus stop, but she had time to kill and it would do her some good to clear her head. And she'd probably make it to the bus in time. If not, the next one would arrive in half an hour. No biggie either way. Everything was gonna be fine.

After all, it wasn't like some crazed mass murderer was going to break out of prison and start slaughtering next week.

And it wasn't like Shigaraki and the Villain Alliance were gonna try and attack U.A. again for the umpteenth time tomorrow.

And it wasn't like All Might and Midoriya were going to be vulnerable and alone with no support of their own today.

And it wasn't like All Might was going to face his apparently inevitable demise within the next few hours.

And it wasn't like there was anything Jirou could do to prepare the future right this second anyway.

…

Huh.

…

Her lungs felt heavy.

…

She took a deep breath.

…

Pressure formed above her throat.

...

Her vision blurred.

…

An itch prickled in her eyes.

...

She blinked and rubbed it out.

...

Then looked down at her hands.

...

Sunlight bounced off the wetness left behind.

.

The two of them agreed to meet at the Mister Donut at the mall's west sakura entrance.

The signage made it easy enough to find from the east hotaru entrance. But even without it, the mall's layout wasn't very hard to navigate. Beyond a quick trip to the bathroom to make sure she still looked alright, she didn't make any pit stops on the way to her destination.

It only took a few minutes to get there, grab a coffee and donut, and find a seat that gave her a clear view of either shop entrance. And the only thing she had to do in the meantime was mess around on her phone. But she made a point to not look up anything related to the conversation she had not too long ago. The last thing she needed was to get wrapped up in researching crimes and conspiracy theories when she was supposed to be having fun.

She tapped a jack to to the table.

Her parents didn't have any GPS tracking on her phone, but she guessed if anyone was gonna track her down, that would be how. She'd considered leaving it back in her dorm for a time to make herself as untraceable as she could possibly get, but smacked that idea down quick. Putting aside the fact that she'd have to then buy maps for all the areas she'd be going to, she wouldn't be able to call anyone for help if she did get into trouble. And the last thing anyone needed was for her to go missing, U.A. student or not.

Maybe she should invest in a faraday bag. Then no one could track her with her phone since no signal could get in or out. And she could still get to it if she really needed to. But those things had to be ordered online. All packages to U.A. were screened; so whether it got shipped there or to here parents' house, she'd get questioned on why she would ever need one of those things. Nothing in her hero costume would warrant one, so she couldn't ask for one from the support department (and it wasn't like she could just swipe costume stuff for daily use as she pleased). Maybe Yaoyorozu could make one; but if she told anyone else about it, it would raise way more questions than she was comfortable with.

Not to mention she wouldn't be able to get any texts while her phone was inside, which could make people think she was in some kind of danger if they tried to contact her at the wrong time. Which would be even worse than just letting the government track her like they did everyone else or whatever.

Why was she even thinking about this? She probably wasn't going to go off campus alone again anytime before the holidays.

Sigh.

She opened the online floor guides for the Kofu Showa and Hamamatsu Shitoro Aeon Malls in two separate tabs. She was at the former, and the latter was the closest one to where she lived. Might as well compare them to keep her story straight. And see if there was anything interesting she hadn't gone to in awhile.

In the end, she was just using her friend as an alibi; but not even trying to hide it would be a real dick move. As far as anyone else knew she was just Kyouka Jirou: Regular high schooler out hanging with an absolutely ordinary friend on a completely uneventful Sunday afternoon. Nothing weird about her. Nothing weird about her plans. Absolutely no suspicious activity going on at all no sirree.

...

She hadn't expected to be fed taiyaki of all things. And now she had the crumbly remnants of a donut and a cup of coffee that was probably half sugar at this point. Probably should've considered that before getting what she normally did. She liked sweets as much as the next guy, but even this was a bit much. Plaque-y fuzz was already forming on her teeth. Blech.

She looked down at her phone. Ten more minutes until the time they were set to meet. So ten minutes until her friend would arrive. So ten minutes until she couldn't keep stewing even if she wanted to.

“Kyoukaaaaa!”

Or not.

Well, there she was. Coming right at her. No mistaking those rabbit ears and long white hair anywhere, though the hair clips were new. Jirou slapped on a beaming smile to greet her, and shoved her phone back in her bag.

“Hey Usa!”

Usa Yokugami. Quirk: Ear wings. She could expand and flap her ears to fly short distances. She was Jirou's classmate for their second and third year of middle school. Now she was going to Kofu Daiichi High School. She and Jirou were part of a fairly large friend group that made up a good portion of the girls in their year. And while they weren't particularly close themselves, pretty much everyone in it was on a first name basis with one another. So it wasn't that weird that they'd hang out together.

But dang. High school hit her with the puberty stick, that's for sure. And the blouse+skirt combo contrasted with Jirou's top and shorts. Not like it mattered, but it did make her feel a little underdressed.

Though Usa didn't seem to notice. Instead she began to fret.

“Oh my gosh! I thought I was gonna be the first one here. You weren't waiting too long, were you?”

Jirou chuckled and waved it off.

“Nah. I just got here a couple minutes ago, myself.”

Which was a lie, obviously, but Usa didn't have to know that. Though that was assuming she didn't immediately realize that as soon as she saw the coffee.

And it seemed she didn't, thankfully.

“So how come you came all the way out here, anyway? Is U.A. doing something here?” Usa scanned the area around them, probably looking for anyone else from her class.

Ha. If only.

“Nah, it's just me.” And she made damn well sure of that. “I just had to get off campus, y'know? And I figured 'hey, why not come here?'”

“Oh right. You guys gotta live at school now, huh. Sounds rough.” Usa nodded with understanding. No matter how much you liked your teachers and classmates, being cooped up with them 24/7 could get tiring. And thankfully she didn't think to press the issue; mostly she seemed happy to see an old friend for the first time since they graduated middle school.

“Yeah. But I don't have to commute anymore, so that's good.” And a 5 minute walk beat an hour commuting both ways any day of the week.

“Yeah I know that feeling. Moving here was the best thing I could've done!”

Mr. and Mrs. Yokugami were pretty overprotective, if Jirou remembered right. Not so much that Usa snapped or rebelled or anything, but enough that her newfound freedom took a load off her. Even in those first few minutes, anyone who knew her would be able to see how much more relaxed she was. Even though she was going to one of the best schools in the prefecture and entirely responsible for her own well-being now.

Jirou was gonna wait until the subject came up before even alluding to it, though. It probably wasn't a sore spot, but it wouldn't hurt to be careful.

“So how long's it take you to get to school?”

“Not even 20 minutes by bike! I don't need to take a train or a bus!” And considering how long commutes could get for some people, it's no wonder she was so happy.

“Nice! So you got your own apartment, right?” She knew the answer, but it was as good a lead-in as any.

“Yes I do! It's wonderful!” And she seemed pretty proud of herself for it. Good for her. And that wasn't sarcasm.

Usa changed the subject before Jirou could respond.

“Oh by the way- you're in the same class as Shouto Todoroki, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

Usa seemed to light up at that.

“Oo! Can you, like, get me an autograph?!”

Hoo boy.

“Maybe?” Jirou scratched her head. She didn't know how he'd react to being asked for one. He didn't seem like the type to revel in getting attention from fangirls. “Can't say I know him too well, though. Why, you need one?”

“Are you kidding? He's so cute!”

Jirou wondered how Todoroki would feel knowing he had fans already. Usa continued before she could make a remark about that.

“And his quirk is amazing! And he's got those dark brooding eyes like his dad, but they give him that adorable bad boy look and it's so hot! And cool.”

Jirou wondered how Todoroki would feel knowing he had a fans because of how much like Endeavor he was. He hadn't exactly been Captain Daddy Issues (what, with his weird choice in hero costume design and goal to use nothing but ice ever) since the sports festival, but he never had anything good to say about his father beyond the fact that he was an effective hero.

Ashido and Hagakure were the closest thing he had to fangirls in their class, though even they just remarked that he was the class pretty boy once in a while. And Jirou was well-aware that some of the kids in their class were well on their way to having fanbases of their own straight out of high school. Still, it was kinda weird to hear someone gush about a classmate in-person like this.

But regardless, Jirou chuckled at the pun; then steered the conversation in another direction without giving Usa a definite answer. Maybe she could do it if they got merch or sold pictures or something. But she wasn't sure how she would even breech the subject before they got that far.

So they talked a bit. Then Jirou grabbed her bag, got up, and downed the rest of her coffee. Then she tossed the empty cup and wrapper as they left the shop together.

The two of them spent the next few hours traversing the mall.

From Lashic to Wego to Axes Femme. From DHC to Wabi x Sabi to Minipla. The browsed the various different types of clothes and knickknacks the mall had to offer. The tried on different outfits. They checked out the new stuff they hadn't seen yet. They chatted about classes and life and the friends they'd made as freshmen at their respective schools.

Usa was doing pretty well. She'd found a solid group of friends among her class, and she'd joined the school orchestra. A few classmates were impressed that she knew someone that went to U.A., though Todoroki and Bakugou were the only two the hero geeks were keeping tabs on at the moment. Nothing too exciting ever really happened, but that was (thankfully) the norm for high schools. The juiciest gossip was that one of the seniors was dating an older guy. So nothing that bad.

Jirou was doing alright too. The hero course was pretty rough, but she got her provisional license as a first-year. She usually hung out with the other girls in her class, and had gotten closer with everyone overall since they were living together now. She was also a liiiiittle farther off-campus than she should be, so any mentioning her on social media was a no-go. Usa was a bit disappointed at that last part, but was thankfully understanding about it. It just meant that they wouldn't get to post silly selfies on Twitter or check in on Facebook.

The weekend bustle reverberated along the walls no matter where they went. Moms with their kids. Couples on dates. Groups of friends. Loners doing their own thing. There would always be a few people who radiated doom and gloom no matter where she went, but none of them were actually dangerous. No villains. No fighting. Just a peaceful day of people taking care of their business without a care in the world.

It was a nice distraction. She even bought something herself: A simple striped tanktop from Lovetoxic (since she was still committed to being cash-only in this prefecture). The Hamamatsu Shitoro Aeon Mall had that store too. And since she didn't take the receipt with her, she could rest easy on that too. Because there was nothing in that bag that would say she went anywhere outside the Shizuoka prefecture today.

Usa was having a ball. She didn't get to go out like this too often – most of the girls were focused on schoolwork and clubs right now. Which made sense since it was one of the best schools in the prefecture. So she was going a mile a minute and getting it all out of her system and loving it. It would be hard not to catch some of that giddiness.

Though the conversation would lull once in awhile. Maybe Usa'd be sifting through a clothes rack. Maybe Jirou'd be looking at tags. Whatever the reason, their responses would slow a bit as something else grabbed their attention. Which was totally normal! Can't be completely focused on one person 100% for hours on end, after all. And the conversation would naturally pick back up in a matter of minutes.

And she was thankful for that.

It kept the thoughts lurking in the back of her head down to a dull roar.

Nana Shimura was murdered over thirty years ago.

Her husband too.

Neither case was ever solved.

It was almost embarrassing how quickly Jirou dove back into her research after she and Usa parted ways. The latter had plans for dinner with her parents, so they couldn't stay together the whole day. Which was fine with Jirou, because she had to get back to her folks too; and it would make more sense to go home while they were still awake.

Usa had asked her if she wanted to walk to the station together. Jirou appreciated the offer, but told her she should be fine; Usa's bus was in the complete opposite direction anyway. And though she didn't say it, even as a U.A. student all by her lonesome, Jirou could probably handle herself seeing as how a) she highly doubted anyone would've followed her this far for this long without attacking her by now, b) even though she'd been on screen during the sports festival, she was still pretty much unknown as far as U.A. hero students went, c) she wasn't gonna be going anywhere sketchy, and d) she wasn't even wearing her uniform.

Though maybe she should've taken her up on it. Even without the danger, hanging around other people was still the most effective distraction she'd found. It didn't help that Jirou had nothing else to do while she waited for her train. She was still 'hanging out with her parents', so she wasn't going to be the first to text anyone from school. And she wasn't going to 'utilize social media' for the same reason. And it would just be rude to start bugging Usa again right after they just said goodbye. And Lurkers was moving at a snail's pace; obviously there was the usual rumors and theorizing, but the weekend itself had been pretty uneventful altogether.

Might as well start looking up random cat videos at this point.

...

The husband's obituary said he was survived by his wife and son.

But Shigaraki was way too young to be her son given the dates.

So was he her grandson? Nephew? Long-lost relative twice-removed?

Something else entirely?

Did Midoriya know?

Did anyone else know?

What was she even supposed to say? Midoriya had never met Shimura for obvious reasons. His only encounters with Shigaraki were as enemies. Jirou had no actual proof the two of them had any connection beyond surnames and putting two and two together. For all she knew, she could just be seeing things that weren't even there.

…

She closed the app as her train rolled in. There weren't too many people on it, thankfully, so she was able to quickly grab a window seat.

...

Hanging out with Usa made her feel a lot better, but companionship only worked as a distraction when the person in question was actually there. Which meant she'd have to make a conscious effort to lighten her thoughts on her own. Her parents would notice if something was wrong. Jirou was able to read people really well, but her folks made that ability look like child's play. Her mom was the one who could do it with her quirk (which is where Jirou got it from). Her dad just had one of the most scarily accurate gut instincts she'd ever seen. They'd probably notice something was off regardless of what she did, but she could at least minimize it enough that they wouldn't worry too much.

She put on one of her more upbeat playlists. She tapped a finger to her thigh on beat. She stuffed her head full of happy thoughts: like finally having her provisional license, getting a good grade on her last English test, and getting to check out that Aeon Mall with a friend she hadn't seen in forever.

She was all caught up with her homework, so she was free to relax as she pleased. It wasn't going to be too late when she got home, so she and her parents could hang out and have a jam session. Or maybe they could fill her in on what new plans they'd made for their next album. Or they could even just pop in a movie and relax with snacks without saying much of anything!

There was still a few hours left in the day. Her worries could go piss off in the meantime. This conspiracy wasn't going anywhere. All Might wasn't going anywhere. Midoriya was fine. Everything was fine. There was pretty much no chance the Villain Alliance would make another attack before the end of the year. Maybe not even until they all graduated!

So why waste time thinking about it when she could be happy?

She cleared out her head and slapped a big goofy smile on her face. The buildings and trees passing by sure were interesting weren't they. Almost as interesting as all those different things she and Usa browsed in all those different shops! And all those things they talked about too! They were great! This day was great!

…

…

…

Who was she kidding.

It wasn't too late when the train reached her hometown station.

She got off the train in no particular hurry. The machine ate her ticket as she passed through the gate. The Lovetoxic bag with her new shirt dangled from her fingers. The bag with all her other stuff hung from the opposite shoulder.

Her house was within walking distance. It wasn't too late for another detour, so she stopped for an espresso macchiato at the Starbucks a few blocks away. Then chugged it for some extra energy. Then tossed the evidence at the store itself. Then mentally kicked herself for pretty much dooming her sleep schedule for that night.

She was drained, but no one needed to know that. Her parents wouldn't mind (and they'd see right through her anyway), but she didn't want to give them any reason to worry too much. Her emotions leveled out a while ago, but she still wasn't in the mindset of someone who just spent the whole day relaxing without a care in the world. Best to make it look like she was just tired from walking and chattering away all day with her friends.

The Donki a few blocks down from her house had some supplies she needed to get, so she swung by on the way. Not that she couldn't get them later, but it made sense to get it over with while the idea was fresh in her mind. And while she was still alone. And while she had a window of plausible deniability where there was no chance of anyone asking why she needed what she did.

The sun had just about set when she got home. Some of the lights were on already. It felt like she'd just come home from school on a normal day. She let her body run on autopilot like it used to every day. Punched in the key code for the gate outside. Hear it click open. Close it behind her. See if the front door is unlocked. Go straight inside instead of fishing for her keys since it was.

She kicked off her shoes in the entryway, then looked around for a pair of slippers before remembering that was a home habit she picked up in the dorms. Socks were fine. She stepped onto the wooden floor. It creaked softly under her feet.

She glanced at her phone. It was half past 19:00.

It wouldn't be too long before Mom-

“Honey! Kyouka's home!”

Jirou was all but tackled by her parents in a matter of seconds.

They had a knack for getting her just hard-enough to make her feel it without knocking her over, and those first few months at U.A. hadn't made her any more immune. Jirou returned the favor. Obviously they didn't do it very often when she still lived at home, but now was enough of an event to warrant it, she guessed.

They pulled back after a few moments. Dad was the first to say something after they exchanged their normal greetings:

“All right, Kyouka. Show us that license!”

Straight and to the point. And Jirou was only too happy to oblige. She grabbed her wallet out of her bag and hung it open.

“Right here!”

“Atta girl!”

She and Dad high-fived. Mom made a comment on how fast their little girl was growing up. Dad sprung off that how it felt like only yesterday that she was a little kid with a yellow hat and randoseru afraid of walking together with the other elementary schoolers for the first time. Jirou let out an exaggerated groan, and reminded Dad that he cried twice as much as she did that day. They had some back-and-forth banter, but it was all playful teasing. Really, they were all just happy to see each other again.

The three of them moved to the living room. Mom asked if there was anything she wanted for dinner. Jirou was fine with whatever. They settled on pizza, and talked about what had been going on while she was away as they waited for the delivery guy. The new semester was pretty rough so far, but she was still getting along great with everyone. Mom and Dad were still composing and making music. They were making steady progress on their latest album. Dad lamented about them being empty nesters already. Jirou made a joke about him getting old. They all had a laugh at that.

Mom flipped on the news. Jirou took the chance to check her phone. Thankfully no one had texted her to ask why she never showed up to at Yaoyorozu's study party, which meant either Iida or Mineta (or Kaminari) had told them. Nor had anyone texted here about being in Yamanashi (not that she expected it). No one had texted her at all, which at least meant nothing had happened on campus while she was gone.

So she should take the chance and just relax.

A couple hours and a jam session later it was time to hit the hay. It was kinda weird how quiet taking a bath was now. She almost expected one of the other girls to start chatting next to her. Instead it was just her, herself, and a rubber ducky Dad had gotten as a souvenir overseas. Ah well. At least she had the tub all to herself.

All her stuff had been moved to U.A., which made her room look pretty barren. There was still a few instruments left, a nightstand, some posters, and her old bed was where it always was, but that was about it. Which was fine, really. She doubted that she'd be coming back again any time soon. Though there was enough stuff left behind that she'd be covered for holiday visits and the like.

Her bag was by her bed, and her phone was charging inside it. The sky was dark. The moon was shining. The house was quiet. Jirou threw on an old pair of pajamas she didn't bother to bring with her to school.

And though she should probably try and sleep (caffeine or not), she couldn't go to bed just yet.

Instead she pulled a thin notebook out of the Lovetoxic bag she'd slipped it in. The donki she stopped at before had a few, and she figured it'd be her best option. She didn't have anything on her to write in at the time besides her phone, and her phone was probably the worst store anything she couldn't have anyone find out.

If she had an embarrassing secret or something and someone looked at her phone, it'd suck for sure; but it wouldn't be the end of the world. This would be. Even if it would look more like a twelve-year-old's shitty fanfic than actual facts, she couldn't risk someone that could actually put two and two together being able to read it – even if that chance was one in a million.

But though she liked to think she was decently smart in her own right, there was no way she could keep all this information in her head alone forever. Even Yaoyorozu would have a tough time with it on a long-term basis. Jirou had no idea what would be happening and when. And she didn't know when or if she'd ever be an active part of this conspiracy. But if she didn't want to be completely blindsided, she'd have to record every last detail she could.

She fished a pencil out of her bag and opened up the notebook. She laid face-down on her bed and set the notebook in front of her.

The first page would probably have to have some kind of 'abandon hope all ye who enter'-type message. The other side too. So she flipped to the next page, and began tapping out lines of dots and dashes.

People who know about Midoriya's quirk:

-Midoriya

-All Might

-Recovery Girl

-Principal

-Detective Tsukauchi

-Gran Torino

-Sir Nighteye

-All for One

-Bakugou(?)

-Togata-senpai(?)

-Midoriya's Parents(?)

-Other police(?)

-Shigaraki(?)

She surrounded those words with other lines, and connected some of the dots with faint pencil marks – light-enough that she herself could still clearly see the message underneath. The result was a psychedelic-looking zombie marching to the right with some bullshit forest of fish and triangles behind it. Not the best thing she'd ever drawn by any means, but it definitely did the job of making the information look like nothing more than a doodle by an artsy teen.

And that was probably the best way to hide information in plain sight: No one in their right mind would go through a teenage girl's sketchbook expecting to find those kinds of secrets. And even if they did, they probably couldn't read Morse and wouldn't even see it unless they were specifically looking for it.

Her parents weren't the type to look through her stuff (and wouldn't be able to see it even if they were since she lived in the dorms now). And Kaminari wouldn't be able to get to it since since she wasn't planning on taking it out of her dorm (which the boys wouldn't have access to unless she specifically let them in); and she wasn't planning on telling him about it in the first place. And the three of them were the only ones who could possibly find out.

Anyone else? Not a chance. Even if someone somehow came across it, they'd probably just think it was her 'secret sketchbook' or something. Which Jirou would happily play along with. Because now was definitely not the time to make people start panicking.

She wrote the date under the picture in normal numbers, then turned to the next page and kept going.

Midoriya's quirk is called One for All. Strength quirk. Passed from person to person. The goal is to eventually defeat All for One.

All Might can't use One for All anymore. Used what was left in Kamino. Other quirk unknown, but probably useless. Predicted to die sometime between now and the end of next year. Predicted by Sir Nighteye. Sir Nighteye has never been wrong. Will be a villain that does it. No information on that villain yet. Only that it won't be All for One. Need more information to stop it.

And she didn't even know if she had a chance of stopping it.

It was weird thinking like that. Moving on.

It was time to write about people in particular.

Nana Shimura: Probably All Might's predecessor. If so, previously wielded One for All. Was murdered over 30 years ago. Husband was murdered not long before. Had a son. Status of son unknown.

Sir Nighteye: All Might's former sidekick. Quirk lets him see the future. Has never been wrong. Contact him after telling Midoriya and All Might what I know. Get more information.

Gran Torino: Midoriya's field training teacher and Shimura's friend. Knows everything related to One for All. Told me All Might would die. Did not tell me about the potential connection between Shigaraki and Shimura. Address: 400-XXXX Yamanashi-ken, Darlo-ku, Dagobah-chou 8 Choume, 9-6. Phone number 055-XXX-5249

Tomura Shigaraki: Bad guy. All for One's Successor. Likely leading the Villain Alliance now. Potential relative of Nana Shimura. Relationship unknown. Real name: Tenko Shimura

She wrote down the kanji in Shimura and Shigaraki's names in different areas of the page, then drew a few lines to connect so she knew which went with which. When she was done, she went back to tap out one more line.

All for One: Immortal. The guy All Might beat in Kamino. Knows Midoriya is the successor. Will likely escape Tartarus after All Might dies. Midoriya has to defeat him when that happens.

And she'd have to do what she could to help him when that happened.

They'd all have to help him when that happened.

She just hoped they wouldn't still be freshmen at that point.

…

She drew over the text again before she could get distracted by her own thoughts again. The picture this time was a bazaar. The kanji were on the signs of various stalls. The dots and dashes were on everything else. It was a little harder to make out the words, but she'd manage. And she could always redraw it if she really had to.

She wrote the date at the bottom of that page too. Knowing when she recorded the info could be useful if she wanted to reference it.

Actually...

She tapped out another few sentences at the bottom of that page, hidden within the cobblestones:

Midoriya doesn't know I know at all yet. Only Gran Torino does. I have to tell him and All Might I know as soon as possible. But I can't tell him All for One knows he's the successor just yet or anything else he doesn't already know. It's All Might's job to do that.

After she told Midoriya, she'd need to keep a tally on who else would know she knew. Obviously there was no one in class but Midoriya (and possibly Bakugou) who knew about One for All and the whole successor thing, but there was a chance that some school staff were in on it now too (besides Recovery Girl and the Principal, of course).

She closed the notebook, slipped it inside the shirt she bought, and stuffed both in her bag.

Then let her face fall onto her pillow with a 'fwump'.

And groaned.

aaaaaaaa

...

Maybe if she had an actual deadline she could make a real plan.

Was there any way to gauge how strong All Might still was? Even without his strength quirk, it stood to reason that he could still probably take out most everyone at U.A. with a couple hits. He didn't break his arms like Midoriya, so that meant his body had to be strong-enough to handle the One for All at it's full power, right? But how long would that last now that he was retired? How much more would his old injuries eat away at him? What would he have a tough time facing now? What would he have a tough time facing in a  year  ? How strong would a villain have to be to actually  kill  him?

Would he be alone? Would there be heroes too weak to stop it? Would it happen too quickly for anyone to react?

The only thing she could really guess is that this villain wouldn't be as strong as All for One. And as far as she knew, there weren't any others as strong as Endeavor. Which meant that villain could be defeated with the right set of heroes.

Jirou knew she herself wouldn't be anywhere near as strong as All Might next year unless his health really took a turn for the worst, but there were ways to cut corners when trying to get stronger.

Focusing on nothing what you're good at would improve those specific areas way faster.

Jirou was good with her jacks and shockwaves.

She could really do some damage in the future if her potential was anything like Present Mic's.

But becoming an expert at those so quickly would mean she'd suck at everything else. She'd just be a glass cannon.

Which would be worse than just going at a normal pace if she couldn't help All Might and All for One broke out some time after she graduated. Because she'd still be useless at CQC and would only be able to take a couple hits before going down.

And she didn't want anyone else dying just because they had to save her.

...

There was a knock on the door.

“Kyouka?”

The voice was unmistakably her mom's.

Huh. Usually she'd be downstairs practicing or jotting down ideas or something about now.

“Yeah?”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure. You're fine.” She didn't have anything out in the open. She sat up and swung her legs off the bed.

The door creaked open. Mom stepped inside. She smiled softly.

“Hi, Honey.”

Jirou did the same.

“Hey Mom.” She tilted her head a little. “What's up?”

“Got everything squared away?”

“Yep.”

Mom looked her over for a second.

“Is everything alright at school?”

Dammit, Mom.

There was enough sound insulation in the bedrooms that they couldn't hear each other through the walls without the other side making a real effort. Her parents made sure of that. Which meant there was no way that Mom was able to hear what she did in her notebook. Which meant that the concern in her voice must have been caused by something Jirou did earlier.

She thought she stayed perfectly in-character for the past few hours. She even managed to keep her mind off the conspiracy (for the most part). Like sure, she was tired; but she hadn't stewed at all. She swatted those thoughts away every time they bubbled up. Whether by talking or thinking up guitar riffs or focusing just a little too hard on the TV when something interesting popped up.

She should've known Mom would hear the subconscious cues regardless.

But she waved her hand and nodded.

“Oh yeah, everything's fine.”

“You don't sound fine.”

Oh come on.

It wasn't that she didn't trust her parents – Jirou could trust them more with a secret than anyone. But it wouldn't be fair to tell them where else she went today. How she went to a stranger's house in secret and lied to everyone about it. How she was in an entirely different prefecture from where she said she'd be. How she learned things about the Symbol of Peace that only a select few were supposed to know.

Putting aside the fact that she would have to unload everything on them all at once for them to have even an clue of what she was talking about, there was nothing they could do about it either. Okay so the guy All Might beat in Kamino's breaking out. Okay so he's so strong he swatted away Endeavor like he was nothing. Okay, so All Might himself isn't even going to live long-enough to see that happen. Gee, how could that possibly make things go to shit and ruin the livelyhoods of people they cared about?

Mom and Dad already had a suitcase each with the bare essentials for when they needed to travel in a hurry. It was never anything so sudden they had to have it ahead of time, but the prep always made things easier. And if Jirou kept her mouth shut and played her cards right, they never would need them for real. Because loved ones were always a potential target when you pissed off the wrong people. And said wrong people were ones she hopefully would never have to face.

She took a deep breath, and unclenched her fist. How long had it been like that, anyway?

“It's just... A friend of mine is going through some rough times right now. I wish I could help them.”

Keep it truthful. Keep it vague. Mom didn't use her quirk for combat, but when it came to reading emotions she blew Jirou out of the water. And Jirou knew she herself would be giving off bad vibes as it was. She'd have to be careful if she was gonna make sure Mom wouldn't be hinted the actual gravity of the situation. Good thing she was a teenager with hormones she could blame all the weirdness on.

“Have you tried talking with them about it?”

Hah. She wished.

“Not yet.” But she remembered what Gran Torino said. Sooner was better than later. She should just get it over with.

“Would you like to talk about it?” Mom asked. 'With me' sat at the end of her tongue.

“Nah. It's not something I should even know.” And it definitely wasn't something she should be talking about with anyone not already in the loop. “And it's nothing I can do anything about at the moment, anyway.”

She already knew that her mom would be able to tell something was wrong. She was just glad her mom was hand-off-enough that she wasn't gonna try and meddle. There was no immediate danger, after all. All Might was still on the U.A. campus. And even teachers often used the buddy system now when they left. The Villain Alliance weren't dumb-enough to attack the school directly (yet).

“I understand.” Though there was still concern in her voice. But nothing about it or anything else suggested she heard what Jirou just tapped out, or that she had sensed just how bad things were. “But you can tell me if you feel overwhelmed. I'll always be here.”

“I know.” And she appreciated it. “Thanks, Mom.”

“You're welcome. Good night, sweetie.”

“Good night, Mom.”

Mom shut the door. Jirou was left alone.

She sighed.

She should go to sleep.

She had school tomorrow.

But she was still in the tail end of her caffeine buzz.

So it would be a while before she'd be able to nod off.

But what was there to even do in the meantime?

Mom and Dad were going to bed too. And even with the sound damping, Mom would be able to hear her if she went downstairs.

She looked at her bag. Then grabbed her phone out of it.

No new messages. That was fine. Everyone else was getting ready to snooze too. Probably.

She suppressed the urge to go back to hunting for information. As far as she knew, she had found everything related to this that was publicly available. Maybe if she could think of something she would, but for now it was just a matter of just... waiting. Because it wasn't like there was some villain registry high school students could access on a whim at god-knows-when in the morning when they had nothing better to do.

...

There was watching Youtube videos, but doing that this late would probably keep her up the rest of the night.

So music it was.

She plugged in her jacks and scrolled through her music choices, eventually deciding on Sejd's first album. Hopefully that would be long enough.

One deep breath. Then two.

Clear mind.

No thoughts.

Just sleep.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

It had only been a few weeks since she'd moved into the dorms, but it was weird how unfamiliar her room at home had become.

She woke up expecting the ambient sounds of 19 other kids her age. Instead she got nothing but the faintest traces of two adults. Even though Mom and Dad slept in the room next to her, she could never hear them. Thankfully they took the extra soundproofing precaution when it came to the bedrooms when they first bought the house.

Roll out of bed. Get up. Get dressed. Throw pajamas in the hamper. Go downstairs. Get breakfast. Her morning routine hadn't really changed since she got to U.A.. The only major difference was that she had her own hamper at school. And that she had some extra time to sleep in. And no train commute. Really, beyond having to do her own chores now, she was living the high school dream.

Dad was already up, like usual. He grinned and raised his mug with a “Mornin', sunshine.” as she entered the kitchen. Then went back to reading the news on his tablet. Mom was more of a night owl (which Jirou took after), so she usually slept in a bit.

Jirou grabbed a bowl and a pair of chopsticks and spooned some rice out of the cooker, then cracked an egg over it. Dad grabbed her a cup of coffee as she stirred her breakfast up. They both took their coffee the same, which hadn't changed since she moved into the dorms. The commute was why she started drinking it in the first place. Now it was just a force of habit.

She mentioned that she'd be leaving a little early so she could stop by the dorm before class, but otherwise didn't say much. Dad didn't try and start any conversation either, though he did glance at her once in awhile. They both talked up a storm last night. Nothing wrong with just enjoying the morning peace in silence. That tranquility was one of the few things she couldn't get during daily U.A. life. She'd be lying if she said she didn't miss it.

Mom came down to see her off just as she was about to leave. Jirou got a big hug from both her and Dad, and then headed out the door waving goodbye.

She normally would've taken the train after the one she boarded at the station, but she had to get back to her dorm and change into her uniform. She wore the shirt she bought yesterday with a pair of capris and carried the notebook in her bag.

She got a few curious glances – probably because of how she as a teenager was dressed on a school day, but no one asked any questions. No one seemed to recognize her either; and even if they did, the whole 'U.A. is a boarding school now' thing meant that the students that went there wouldn't (in theory) ever commute there unless it was a special occasion. Well, that and the fact she wasn't on her normal train too. The regulars she always rode in the same car with might have noticed if she was.

It felt a little lonely making the trek back. Nowadays she always went together to and from class with at least a few other kids. Contrast that with the relative silence of a rush hour train: No one to chat with, nothing to listen to outside her phone – and she had to stay in it for almost an hour. And there was nothing else to do but go straight to the school after she reached the station unless she wanted to get a snack. Thank god for unlimited data plans.

There wasn't any fanfare as she got back to campus and went through the front gate. The sensors inside it read her ID and that was that. Maybe if she did this a few weeks ago, she would've run into one of the last straggling reporters itching for the scoop on U.A.'s new boarding system; but it seemed they finally gave up after barely anyone entered or left anymore.

A few kids were already outside; some taking walks, some jogging, and some just getting a breath of fresh air. Jirou passed them as she made a beeline for the Class 1-A dorm building. She gave a small nod to a few she recognized, but no one else paid her any mind.

She took a quick sweep as she walked into her class building. Some of the guys usually got up early to exercise before class, so a few people missing made sense. She said hi to everyone on the first floor. Ashido told her she really missed out on Yaoyorozu's study session. Jirou said she'd go next time. Iida welcomed her back and asked how she was doing. She said she was feeling pretty good. Hagakure asked if she'd finished “that thing with her parents” (looks like Kaminari or Mineta spilled the beans – thanks, guys). Jirou said it was all taken care of.

Buuuut as much as she'd like to stay for awhile and keep chatting, she had to get in her uniform. Some of the others were wearing theirs. She'd already eaten, so she might as well get hers too. So she headed up the elevator and into her dorm. The first order of business was to get her notebook somewhere safe. It was a bit awkwardly bent when she removed it from her bag, but it was easy enough to straighten out. And it wasn't like it was going to affect the contents inside.

She threw it in a record sleeve: No One Can Ever Know by The Twilight Sad. A bit on the nose, but at least there was enough of a connection so she wouldn't forget where it was. Too bad she was the only one who would find any humor in it.

A phone could be hacked or stolen easily, but she doubted anyone would go after her vinyls. It wasn't likely that anyone else on campus had anything that could even play them. And most of them weren't anything valuable that a potential thief would think they could pawn off for a good chunk of change. It was another layer of security, and probably the best she could do short of hiding it under the floorboards.

The sleeve went back on the shelf. She took off her casual clothes and threw on her uniform, then headed back down the elevator and left for the main building together with everyone else. She chatted with the other girls. It was like she'd never left in the first place. Time ticked by until it was time to go to class. Then everyone still in the dorm building headed out.

It was just another day.

The scuffs Bakugou and Todoroki had from their training were the first things anyone mentioned.

Ashido led the charge with commenting on Bakugou's appearance. Kaminari piped in that Todoroki wasn't any better. And yep, that provisional training really roughed him up too, didn't it. Jirou could safely say she didn't envy either of them there. Kinda weird seeing scrapes and bruises this early in the morning. People would usually take a quick trip to Recovery Girl and get it taken care of ASAP instead of letting them heal naturally.

Iida didn't know where Uraraka and Tsuyu were, but it looked like they at least told Yaoyorozu. The two of them hadn't been in the dorm building when Jirou got back. But no one else was worried, so she didn't think too much of it herself. Probably meant their excused absence was them doing an internship too.

Huh. Kirishima was a no-show too. He was one of the guys who would sometimes jog in the morning, so him not being in the dorm wasn't actually that weird either. Though the fact that Iida didn't mention him probably meant that Kirishima told him ahead of time.

Which was fine! He wasn't the one Jirou was worried about, anyway. Because... Well...

Midoriya looked like hell, to put it lightly.

He wasn't injured or anything, but Jirou knew full well that wasn't the only type of pain that existed. He was hunched over his desk, staring down. But there wasn't anything there for him to focus on. His heart rate was elevated. His breathing was slightly heavier. The palpable anxiety emanating from him eclipsed anything else in the room as far as Jirou was concerned.

And it was more than a little tempting to go over and ask just what the hell happened.

A few of the other kids seemed to notice this, though maybe not the complete inner turmoil part. Mineta and Ashido in particular peppered him with questions about his internship as cheerily as she'd ever seen them. Though they decided it would probably be best to leave him alone after they realized he was giving the same apathetic groan of a response each time. They probably thought internships really were that exhausting. Jirou knew better, but she wasn't going to correct them.

After all, it's not like there was anything she could do for him either.

All she could do was work on herself.

Which meant getting stronger.

That was her goal for now.

She was one of the weakest in class when she got to U.A.. The only people she did better than in the initial evaluation were Hagakure, Mineta, and Midoriya, the latter of which had long since made it to the upper ranks of the class in terms of power. Sure, that was because said test was biased in favor of those who could use their quirks to augment their physical strength, but that wasn't an excuse when others like Ojiro and Ashido managed to score well even while barely able to use theirs.

Was she jealous? A little. But it didn't matter how she compared to her classmates as much as it did actual villains. If nothing else, she wanted to be confident she could take those thugs she, Yaoyorozu, and Kaminari faced back at USJ on her own. They were the type she'd probably have to face if she encountered any during her next bout of field training. And she had to be at least as strong as them before she could even think of taking on villains with any level of notoriety.

U.A. had a gym – multiple gyms, actually. During free training she usually just went with cardio on one of the treadmills and chatted with whoever was next to her. Or she chilled on her phone while do the bare minimum of work on one of the weight machines no one ever used. Lazy, but it was an easy time-waster and she didn't exactly have excess stores of energy like some of her classmates.

But she couldn't afford to waste time like that anymore.

She was weak. She knew she was weak. Hatsume's gadgets and the other tech built into her costume helped with that, but earthquakes and shock waves alone wouldn't be much help if whoever she was fighting could get in close-enough for hand-to-hand combat. Her jacks couldn't do much beyond pierce, stretch, and channel her heartbeat; and Togata-senpai showed her just how easy it would be to use them against her if her opponent was way stronger than her. And she needed to cover as many of her bases as she could before villains attacked U.A. again (if they attacked again; best not to jinx it).

But man, where to even start?

She wasn't Midoriya. She didn't have a teacher she could go to for special one-on-one training. If she were to choose someone, it would probably be Present Mic just because of the similarity in their quirks. But she wouldn't even know what ask beyond how to better train her sound output. And said sound output was probably fine for what it was – she needed to increase her other physical capabilities in order to make the best use of it.

Her lobes were an obvious choice to work on. She didn't know how much weight she could carry, or how much force it would take to tear them (since she rarely bothered with more than small weights). They were thin and nowhere near as strong as Tsuyu's tongue, but said tongue was probably the best idea of what her lobes could do should they reach their max potential. Whipping her jacks without any sound behind it was an alright attack against little things like drones, but it wasn't anything she could reasonably use against actual villains one-on-one yet.

But other than that, she wasn't sure what to even do for actual attacks. Maybe learn some martial arts? She'd have to ask someone if she decided to go that route. She knew there was a judo club, though it was populated almost entirely by Gen Ed kids – not that there was anything wrong with being one; but she knew that most, of not all, of them wanted to get in the hero course eventually. And trying to join them would probably make things more than a tad awkward.

Then again, her feelings were nothing compared to the ever-looming threat of whatever Midoriya was going to face in the future. All for One was going to break out of prison. He knew Midoriya had One for All. And there was no way that Midoriya would be strong-enough to take him by the end of the year. She wasn't even sure he'd be able to use all of One for All's power by the time they graduated.

But if there was any way she could even give him even slightly better odds, she had to do it.

Because, well, there was an actual chance she could help him.

The more she thought about that conversation with Gran Torino, the more insane a task she realized helping All Might would be. There was only about a year and a half left tops. Jirou was not going to be at the level of an experienced pro hero in a year and a half. She had no leads on who this villain could potentially be. She had no leads on where it could happen. In all likelihood, she wasn't even gonna be anywhere near All Might when he'd have that encounter. And she obviously couldn't try and avoid that by puppy-guarding him 24/7. And even if she did: If Sir Nighteye really wasn't ever wrong, what if that was what would get All Might killed?

Sure, she'd still keep her ears open. And sure, she'd keep researching if she found any new leads. But with nothing else to truly go off, everything she did would just be another shot in the dark.

There weren't any downsides to getting stronger, so obviously that was the way to go right now since she didn't exactly have a plan to work with. And she couldn't just make one of her own. She wasn't a strategist. Information gathering? Obviously her thing. But actually using that information? She'd only just started working on that when she came to U.A.. And even then, she'd been coasting and letting other people do the thinking for her during team exercises.

If it were up to Jirou, the first thing to do would be to tell people who had an actual chance of stopping it. Endeavor, Hawks, the other staff at U.A. not already in the know – making some kind of large-scale announcement would obviously cause mass panic, but letting a select few heavy-hitters know about Sir Nighteye's prediction would increase the odds would be able to figure out who or what was supposed to take All Might out. Then they could do something to actually stop it.

But All Might hadn't told anyone outside his circle for a reason. Jirou didn't know what that reason was, but a man who'd been doing heroics longer than she'd been alive would probably be a better judge of when and whom to tell extra-sensitive information like that to. So glaring logistical issues of a high schooler trying to lead experienced professionals into potentially mortal combat aside, that meant no telling Aizawa-sensei to be ready for Japan's greatest supervillain to break out of Tartarus. And no asking Destegoro about any possibility to get a hero bodyguard specifically for one person. And no telling any other heroes that it would probably be a good idea to be on extra-high alert wherever All Might was for the next year and a half.

Which didn't exactly leave her with many options.

Gran Torino, Sir Nighteye, and every other adult in the know seemed to think All Might getting killed was inevitable. And Jirou doubted she'd be able to come up with a plan any of them would be willing to follow. If Midoriya knew too (or found out soon; hopefully), he'd obviously want to stop it too, which made it two kids versus a foresight quirk that had never once been wrong ever. If Bakugou was in the know too, that would make three of them.

Three kids.

In high school.

With nothing but provisional hero licenses.

Had to come up with a plan to stop a villain from killing Japan's former number one hero.

Because otherwise, a villain was going to kill Japan's former number one hero.

And just... she wasn't any kind of math whiz and there weren't even numbers to calculate, but god dammit those odds were terrible.

Other heroes didn't know what was going to happen, so just relying on them and hoping for the best wasn't going to work. Changing the future required knowing about it in the first place. That meant the only people who could do that were people in the know.

She wasn't even an optimist, but what choice did they have?-

Dee dee-dee dee deeeee...

Jirou's phone alarm sounded snapped her back into reality.

She'd set it to 18:15. 19:00 was the latest clubs could stay, so heading out a little earlier would let her avoid running into anyone else for the most part. And the people she would see wouldn't be anyone she knew; and she doubted they would stop her to ask any questions. Maybe she'd run into a teacher, but it wasn't against the rules for U.A. students to use the gyms of their own volition after class. It's just that most didn't bother since only the hero kids needed exercise and they got more than enough of that during class.

She stopped the treadmill and hopped off. Then took a big swig of water and a few deep breaths to clear her head. Her legs already felt like jelly even after just an extra two hours of on-and-off running. Her clothes were damp from all the sweat. She didn't even wanna think about how it would feel as she did it with other exercises. Especially the ones that dealt with upper body strength. Looks like here noodle arms were gonna come back to bite her.

There were a few bots that worked for the basics in combat. Some for hand-to-hand. Others for various weapons. And they were made of much stronger stuff than the robots in the entrance exam or sports fest 5k, so she doubted she'd be able to destroy them even if she wanted to. Maybe she's take one on on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday would probably be open too. Though all three in a row might be a little much.

She stopped in the locker room for a quick shower and blow dry. She wasn't sure when the janitors or whoever washed their non-hero gym uniforms, but she'd know if hers still smelled funky tomorrow.

And speaking of tomorrow: she wasn't sure what she was gonna do about that. Tuesday's last class was P.E., which meant leaving the locker room to go back to the dorm together with other girls. She felt bad enough that this arrangement meant she would always make a beeline for the gym instead of walking back with Yaoyorozu like she had been (though she was glad Yaoyorozu was nice enough to accept “hey Yaomomo I got something to take care of go on without me” as a reason without questioning it). But the girls always made the journey from gym to dorm as a collective. And they always waited if someone needed to take a few extra minutes. Ashido and Hagakure would probably grill her if she tried to ditch it with some lame excuse.

It wasn't like Jirou wanted to do this whole training thing alone or anything. Exercising by herself sucked. But she wasn't going to be the one to ask anyone to stay with her. If she managed to stick to the plan, she'd be staying after school every day for hours. And on top of that, she wasn't one of the kids who usually went off to do their own thing. Normally she just went home and hung out with the others. Now she was staying late by herself alone.

It shouldn't be too alarming as long as she stayed normal otherwise, right? Shouldn't be too hard to just socialize like she had been with the time she had left. And if anyone asked, she was going to try for an internship next year and she wanted to prepare in advance. Because man, the intern crew had guts to do that as freshmen.

...Which was pretty flimsy reasoning, all things considered. But it's not like they had any reason to doubt her. If someone pressed, though, she could always say she saw a hero-vs-villain showdown and it made her realize how much catching up she had to do. She'd have to look for any incidents that happened in her hometown and choose from them then. And she'd have to come up with an excuse for why she was there to witness it in the first place. And one for why she wasn't in any of the photographs or videos. Even though she reeeeally doubted they'd treat the conversation like a cross examination, she knew better than to leave any of her bases uncovered.

Man, fake alibis were hard work.

But the only alternatives were being cagey about information (bad idea) or telling them the truth (even worse idea). She was from Shizuoka. She'd spent most of the day in Yamanashi. Talking about Gran Torino was off-limits for obvious reasons. Hanging out with Usa would seem like a safe subject at first glance, but Jirou would have no way of limiting the details of their meeting should the stars align and Usa somehow find herself talking to someone from Class A.

Actually, she should probably make sure Usa wouldn't tell anyone that they met at all. Not that Jirou didn't like hanging out with her – but information had it's own way of making its way down the weirdest grape vines. Strangers didn't recognize her when she wasn't in her school uniform (and even when she was, they only saw her as some random kid from U.A.), but all it would take was one person saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to blow her cover story into tiny smithereens.

Not that she should even have to plan for the possibility of someone looking through her texts and asking about a random friend from middle school.

Or any of her classmates meeting a girl living in another prefecture who wasn't even going to be a hero.

Or anyone pressing her that hard to begin with.

…

Anyway, people would probably think Jirou doing something like 'super secret solo training' would be weird and maybe even funny, but it shouldn't raise any red flags on its own. Writing down everything in her notebook helped her shove those thoughts to the back of her mind, so she probably wasn't acting any different than normal (and she'd been paying a lot of attention to what she was doing and why). So if anyone saw or found out, they'd probably just think of it as her trying to do some self-improvement.

Heck, maybe they'd be inspired to work out more after school too. And in a perfect world, everyone else in her class would follow her lead too (minus the feeling of impending doom, of course). They were all getting stronger at a steady rate, but doing even more couldn't hurt, right? Especially when their class of freshmen had somehow encountered actual villains. Twice.

Obviously Jirou alone wouldn't be much help against the Villain Alliance right how. She was just one person, and she wasn't particularly talented (compared to everyone else in the hero program, at least). But any amount of assistance was better than no assistance. Nineteen kids together were going to be able to do more than just one alone. So if anything, she should be trying to get everyone else to push past their limits – even more than what Aizawa-sensei normally made them do.

Which, well, she obviously couldn't force anyone to do. She wasn't a teacher. She didn't have any authority over the others. And she didn't have any way to try and 'scare them into action' besides telling them what Gran Torino told her or making up some other tinfoil conspiracy. Which was a stupid idea and no one anyone in their right mind would ever seriously consider. And asking anyone out of the blue to come train with her for hours after school every day would just set off warning bells. Which meant all she had was herself and her own self-discipline. If she was lucky, maybe it would motivate someone else. But that was the most she could hope for.

So for now? Plus ultra. That's all she could do.

Because... well...

...

She was really going in circles, wasn't she.

She should stop doing that.

But she knew she wasn't the worst in class when it came to overthinking things.

That distinction belonged to Midoriya.

She'd hoped Midoriya's apathy and exhaustion on Monday were gonna be temporary, but the days after made it clear that wasn't the case.

He just got worse. Anxiety festered inside him. He clearly wasn't getting enough sleep. He often didn't finish his food. The teachers had to call his name multiple times for him to even register that it was his turn to read. He almost drowned during hero training once.

Aizawa-sensei was even ready to stop his internship if it got any worse.

Though Jirou had a sneaking suspicion that that was the worst possible thing he could do. Midoriya's exhaustion was almost entirely emotional. And a lot of it comprised of what seemed to be guilt. If this mental strain was caused by something he saw, removing him from his internship was going increase it exponentially.

Though leaving him to his own devices wouldn't be much better.

Jirou needed to tell him what she knew.

He needed to know she knew about his quirk.

And he needed to know she was willing to do whatever she needed to to help him.

But now wasn't the right time.

To even breech that subject, she had to get him alone. Then she had to tell him what she knew.

And she knew better than to confront him over something he clearly didn't want anyone to know about while he was in this state. Despite what she'd observed, he was actually doing a pretty good job functioning (distractions aside); but that didn't mean it was a good time to unload on him. He felt guilty about something now. He'd feel even guiltier that he wasn't even able to protect All Might's secret. And it would open up the possibility that other people knew too. Which would just make him paranoid on top of all that.

Sigh.

Midoriya wasn't the only one who had problems. There were a fair number of kids in Class A with baggage their own baggage:

Aoyama went out of his way to avoid people despite unequivocally being the loneliest member of Class A. Part of it had something to do with his belt – he was the only kid in class that needed support gear to help guide his quirk. And because of it, he seemed to think he was nowhere near on par with everyone else in class.

Uraraka had a metric fuckton of latent anxiety and was hell bent on pretending that nothing but happy emotions exist. Something had been a little off about her ever since the midterms, which Ashido seemed to think was a crush; but honestly, it sounded more like a bad feeling than any springtime of youth nonsense. It reminded Jirou of her dad's gut instincts in a way, though she had no idea what it was for. And Jirou had a feeling Uraraka didn't know either.

Bakugou was wired almost constantly and did whatever he could to make sure any feelings he considered 'weak' were covered by anger, grouchiness, yelling, and more anger – even if he had cooled down a bit. His heartbeat always spiked whenever they had lessons that involved getting captured or restrained. His nightmares were so common that Jirou literally filtered his reactions out entirely when she slept now. Though if nothing else, at least that fight he and Midoriya had after the license exam set his mind a little more at ease.

Iida was always afraid that one of them would go missing. A stern expression would always flash across his face whenever the tally came up short. He even counted the kids in Class B when they were in the same area. The forced retirement of his brother still weighed heavily on him. And while everyone who went to U.A. knew that hero work was dangerous, Iida was one of the few who truly grasped what was at stake. He was lucky his studious nature and 'class prez instincts' distracted him enough from going down a mental rabbit hole of his own.

Tokoyami was- Jesus Christ where to even begin.

Even the more relaxed and easygoing classmates had their own concerns: Shouji often appeared to be a blank slate, but he laser focused on any unfamiliar noises. Tsuyu seemed unflappable, but she kept a worried eye on kids that were sick or injured. Mineta was, well, Mineta; but he always got antsy whenever they left campus now.

If someone named a classmate of hers, Jirou could tell them what nervous behaviour that student gained since the beginning of the school year. Every. Single. One.

They were all affected by it, even if they didn't realize it. Even if they didn't acknowledge it. Even if they didn't put two and two together.

Point being: Almost everyone came into U.A. bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. And part their education was supposed to ease them into learning the grim realities almost all heroes would have to face at some point in their careers. But Class A was thrown into it directly. Twice. With death was a real possibility in both cases. In places that were supposed to be safe. Only an idiot would think they would be completely unaffected.

But what could Jirou do about it? What could she do for any of them?

Nothing, that's what.

People with problems did what they could to hide them. And the only reason she knew what she knew was because of what she heard behind closed doors. She could only listen to their problems, not fix them. And even if she offered to help, the chances that it would do any good were next to zero. Telling them just what she knew would make them close themselves off even more, which would make things even worse. And Jirou wouldn't be able to live with herself if she was the reason someone got expelled, or killed.

She'd long-since learned that it was best just to leave other people alone. Everyone had their own coping mechanisms and they seemed to be working well-enough. She might tell a teacher if she was completely absolutely 100% sure that they were going to hurt themselves or do something that would otherwise get themselves killed, but anything less than that wasn't worth the classwide paranoia that would inevitably follow.

Jirou might've at least asked Midoriya how he was feeling if they were closer. But she had enough tact to at least hold off on it until he didn't have so much on his plate. Obviously something happened that day, but whatever it was he wasn't venting to anyone else – for better or worse. If he wanted to confide in someone, he'd do it himself. Or maybe one of his closer friends would press him. Or maybe nothing would happen and he'd just decompress overtime once he wasn't so overloaded.

She even wrote it down in her notebook on a new page, drawing a new picture overtop as well:

I still haven't told Midoriya what I know yet. The internship's hitting him hard. Better not make things worse. I'll tell him when he's feeling better.

Yeah, the internship was the reason he was like this. It wasn't like it was gonna last forever.

There wasn't anything in the news about him or Sir Nighteye's office, so Jirou had no way of knowing what happened unless Midoriya started mumbling about it under his breath. And it also meant the incident probably wasn't over yet. Hopefully he'd get closure before the internship itself ended.

She could wait until then.

He was training under All Might's former sidekick, after all.

He'd be okay.

Thankfully, as predicted, no one seemed too concerned those first few days when Jirou came through the front door a couple hours after pretty much everyone else.

They had homework. The kids on dinner duty did their thing. Some of the slackers had the TV on. It was just about time to eat, so everyone was on the ground floor. About half of her classmates were sitting in the dining area. Most of the others were lazing on the couches. Some were looking at their phones. Some were talking. A few of them were even getting some of their homework done ahead of time. Jirou pulled her jack away from the door, and was careful not to make too much noise as she grabbed the handle and gently pulled it open.

Yep. No cuts in conversation. No comments about the door. Nothing about her. Just a few glances from people who then went right back to whatever they were doing. Good.

Class A tended to go back to the dorms together in batches, but it was pretty common for a kid or two to fly solo on any given day. Tokoyami sometimes went up to the roof (though more recently, Aoyama often went up with him). Shouji and Kouda too sometimes. Sometimes someone would forget their bag, homework, jacket, or whatever else and rush back to the main building to grab it before the locks automatically activated. Sometimes they'd want to go ahead or hang back or go for a jog do whatever else.

Point being: someone (her) coming back this late wasn't going to set off any warning bells. Heck, Kirishima and Ojiro got back after her yesterday. As long as everyone was in the building by dinner, no one would question it.

Speaking of which: Food time (soon). She took a look at what spots were still open.

There were a few of them that tried to always sit at the same table, but most of them just sat wherever while tending to gravitate toward their respective friend groups. Midoriya usually hung around Iida, Uraraka, and/or Todoroki. Kaminari usually sat with Sero or Mineta. Jirou herself tended to sit near Yaoyorozu, and that's whose table she grabbed a seat at.

Which was all well and good. Yaoyorozu, Tokoyami, and Shouji were chatting about something or other. Jirou injected herself into the conversation when she found an opportunity. Time passed. Dinner was ready. Everyone got their food. Jirou got a second helping. She didn't have much of an appetite, but eating more should give her more energy, right?

It was nice just chilling like this. She chatted between bites of her food. No one was talking about anything heavy – just class, homework, heroes, and some stuff trending on twitter. The atmosphere was peaceful and relaxed. It didn't seem like anyone was stewing or anxious – enough that it really stuck out as abnormal, anyway.

Though all good things must come to an end, she supposed.

The class usually had a quick 5-minute meeting on Sunday to distribute who got what chores. They were generally assigned in pairs. Anyone who wanted to do something in particular got to choose first. Anyone not present got assigned chores at random (and usually got scheduled for an extra shift or two – thanks guys); Bakugou and Todoroki were going to be stuck doing that until they got their licenses, and Jirou was gonna be in the same boat this week. The people left who didn't care either picked from what was left, or got assigned at random themselves.

So tonight, Jirou had dish duty with Kaminari.

Which wasn't a bad thing. Kaminari did his chores just like the rest of them. And given their recent trend of not having one-on-one conversations with each other at all, the two of them would probably finish pretty fast with nothing to distract them.

Jirou got a head start after most of the class had thrown their dishes in the sink. She turned on the tap and started rinsing of the plates that still had a lot of stuff on them. Kaminari was chatting with Kirishima, but he'd probably get up and join her when the last of them finished eating. A few more minutes passed and he did just that. Jirou scooched over to the other half of the sink. Kaminari grabbed a sponge and squirted some dishwashing liquid on it. Jirou grabbed a towel.

Kaminari scrubbed. Jirou did the final rinse and dry. Neither of them said anything to each other. Instead Kaminari bantered back and forth with his normal crew. Jirou stuck a jack in her phone, and used the other one to start up one of her playlists; she'd done it enough times that she didn't need to look at the screen unless she had something she wanted to listen to in particular.

Kaminari's conversation soon died out. Jirou focused on finishing the chore. They worked without saying anything. Which was fine. They both knew how to do dishes. They both knew what the other preferred doing. It wasn't hard to fall into a steady rhythm.

Then she noticed a glance in her peripheral vision.

Then a second.

Kaminari exhaled through his nose.

He clearly wanted to say something.

It wasn't the first time he'd been like that. Probably wasn't going to be the last either. And while Jirou didn't consider herself to be a mind reader, she had a few ideas of things he could want to discuss – most of which Jirou would have to be an idiot to go along with.

It wasn't like she was going out of her way to ignore him. And it wasn't like she refused to respond whenever he did say something (because, y'know, going mute during a team exercise or regular group conversation was just dumb). Really, she wanted to talk to him again. Because he was a good guy and they did get along really well before this whole silent period. They always walked to the station together after school, bantered with about everything under the sun, and talked in class using Morse code. Not that she couldn't do that with a lot of her other classmates (well- besides the Morse code), but Kaminari wasn't replaceable. No one in Class A was.

But if this was how things were gonna work out, this was how things were gonna work out. If Kaminari didn't want to let it go, Jirou wasn't going to try and make him. Because that would only encourage him. And they didn't need to fight again. All it would do is stress them both out and not resolve anything because Jirou wasn't going to be the one spilling secrets this heavy.

So silence it was.

“Jirou.”

…

Huh.

So he actually said something. It was the first time he'd directly addressed her alone in days – weeks if she didn't count team exercises or conversations involving at least one other person.

Might as well respond.

“Kaminari.”

He began tapping on a bowl with a fingernail. The sound reverberated out of the water.

You're back late.

She lowered her own voice to a level only he'd be able to hear.

“Yeah.”

Again.

Jirou's eyebrows furrowed.

“I guess.”

You really missed out on the study party before. Even I managed to learn a few things.

Great. Good for him. Except there was a reason he was tapping it out instead of shouting it from the rooftops.

“I'll manage.”

Yaomomo was really bummed you didn't show up.

That was days ago. Yaoyorozu didn't hold a grudge. She was one of the most understanding kids in their class. Jirou already apologized for not telling her she'd made plans ahead of time. Neither of them had mentioned it since then. It really wasn't a big deal.

Though the bigger question was: why he was only telling her this now?

“What's this about?”

Todoroki and Bakugou had those remedial lessons.

Kirishima, Uraraka, Midoriya, Tokoyami, and Tsuyu-chan all went and got internships.

Oh for the love of-

“Do you seriously think I'm doing either of those.”

Kaminari snorted.

You went off campus. Alone.

“Yeah. To see my parents.”

Not just that.

“Yes just that.”

Did something happen?

Was it really that obvious?

“No. Everything was normal.”

Is everything alright at home?

...Okay, that came out of left field.

“Well yeah. Why wouldn't it be?”

You haven't come home with anyone else after school since you got back.

“I did on Tuesday.”

You know what I mean.

Sigh. She should've known Kaminari would suspect something so soon.

”Look, I'm just getting some extra exercise.”

Your parents aren't threatening to take you out, are they?

“No.”

Then why?

“Why aren't you?”

Kaminari paused for a moment. His eyebrows furrowed. He glanced at her. Then went back to scrubbing the forks bunched in his hand.

It's not like we have any big tests soon.

She didn't respond to that. For the first few seconds it was because she was trying to decide which excuse would be the most believable to him. The next few after was deciding that anything she said then would sound suspicious.

Kaminari handed her a plate, then another, then a glass. She dried and placed them in the rack in turn.

Kaminari broke the silence by tapping on another bowl.

Is it about All Might?

God dammit.

“Not everything is about All Might.”

She couldn't blame him for thinking that, though. Everything they'd gone through that year was because the villains were after All Might. They wanted to kill him. They wanted to kill the people he had any connection to. And since he couldn't fight anymore, crime rates were spiking and everything was going to hell in a handbasket. It would make sense to be worried about him. Lots of people were.

But really, it was all about Midoriya now. Midoriya, the successor. Midoriya, the user of One for All. Midoriya, the carrier of a legacy spanning over a century. Midoriya, the freshman interning under All Might's former sidekick. Midoriya, the hero intern who already had something eating away at him. Midoriya, the U.A. student who would have a bigger target on his back than everyone else if the wrong people found out.

But most importantly: Midoriya, the one who had to defeat All for One once and for all.

It wasn't like All Might was chopped liver or anything. It's just that... well... she'd rather not go down that line of thinking until she was alone. She hadn't come up with any new ideas. All the overthinking involved did was stress her out, and no one needed that kind of negativity right now.

And regardless, Jirou knew she was nowhere near the top of the list of 'people who need someone to talk to now.'

“All Might's fine. If you want to worry about anyone, worry about the intern crew.”

Really just Midoriya; but drawing attention to just him would be stupid.

What's wrong with them?

“Nothing I know about.” Lies. “But they got a whole extra workload. They don't look it, but they're really tired. I think it's wearing on them. Heck, add in Bakugou and Todoroki. It's gonna be awhile before they get any days off.”

Kaminari shot her a flat look.

You're exercising for hours after class every day now because a few of our guys are tired.

Jirou snorted.

“I'm doing it because I wanna do what they're doing.” Not really. She liked having free time and lazing about. It's just that working towards a nebulous something let her feel like she wasn't just dead weight spinning her wheels overthinking the same thing for weeks on end. And it made for a pretty good cover story. Because Kaminari knew better than anyone else in their class that Jirou wouldn't just start doing extra training on her own out of nowhere. “But I know I'm not ready for it yet if even they're having trouble with it.”

Losing a few hours every day was fine. Losing a few days every week was not. She knew full well she didn't have the endurance or the drive to actually work out in the field while still going to school, even if it would be more useful as experience than just fighting robots. Panic was a good motivator, but she'd be lucky if what she was doing now didn't burn her out in a month or so. Better to play it safe now than have a meltdown later.

So you got rejected from getting an internship, is what you're saying.

She'd have facepalmed at that had her hands not been full of cutlery, but boy was it tempting. Lucky her for having an iota of self-restraint.

“My parents aren't heroes, dude.”

I never said they were.

Jirou grimaced.

“Look, I didn't go looking for an internship.” She shoved a plate onto the rack. “I just wanted to go home and spend some time with my folks, okay?”

And yet now you don't get home until hours after everyone else.

“Going home has nothing to do with why I'm doing more training now.” It really didn't. Her mom knew something was up, but she didn't say anything that factored into this. Why was Kaminari so fixated on her home life, anyway? “If I want a chance at getting an internship next year, I need to stop slacking off. That's all there is to it.”

A pause.

A stare.

Kaminari's mouth pressed into a thin line.

“You know what? Fine. Keep being all weird and secretive. See if I care,” Kaminari grumbled under his breath. Jirou wasn't aware that the mere act of handing over a cup could be so passive-aggressive.

A minute passed in silence.

Then two.

Yep.

He was pissed.

And Jirou'd be lying if she said she wasn't irritated too. Because not only was Kaminari trying to get more information out of her when she clearly told him no before: he was doing it while she was trying to appear totally normal and not paranoid about the inevitable breakout from one of the most secure prisons in the world and death of one of the greatest heroes the world has ever known. And clearly she was failing on some level seeing as how they were talking about this now.

Seriously, why couldn't he just let it go?

…

He was the one to start the conversation, though. And it wasn't even about All Might at first. And he also had enough sense not drag in anyone else. And had enough sense to talk to her 'alone', while not leaving a paper trail or giving anyone else a reason to be suspicious. A quick glance back confirmed no one was looking at the two of them; and no one had approached Jirou or acted weird around her at all in the past few days either, which meant he hadn't told them anything or even brought it up.

And... well... she appreciated that. Kaminari was a good guy – he really was. And his quirk would be really useful if they ever had to fight a villain (especially now that he could actually direct his electricity). But that was the same case for literally everyone else in their class. The only thing that really set him apart in this case was that he had something resembling an idea of what was going on. And even then it was just from the tidbits that Jirou had let slip. And Jirou obviously wasn't going to give him anything else to latch onto if she could help it.

All Might had managed to keep his secrets secret because he only told people that had to know. He, the man who was probably the most well-known face in all of Japan, somehow never had a single leak of information. Even his age was unknown. The only reason Jirou herself managed to fall into the thick of it was because no one had ever thought to take her quirk into consideration and prepare accordingly. And Kaminari was somewhat aware of it too, even if he lacked anything he could use to put two and two together and come to the same conclusions she did.

She knew he had only the best intentions, but he wasn't a part of this.

And if Midoriya wanted either of them to know, he would've told them by now. And considering they almost accidentally exposed All Might's secret all those months ago, Jirou wouldn't blame him if they were at the bottom of his 'most trustworthy people to tell secrets in case of an emergency' list. And it was bad enough that Jirou did all that other stuff behind his back.

But that didn't mean the two of them couldn't talk about things completely unrelated to it. They were still friends, right? There were plenty of things they could talk about.

“Hey, you know the Spark Sisters, right?” Her voice went back to its normal volume. No sense in staying quiet when she was just trying to make small talk. Regular small talk about heroes. Nothing weird about it.

“Hn.”

Well uh... Points for acknowledgment?

“You see that zap whip Akaring's got now? It's pretty cool. Maybe you could ask Hatsume to fix you up something like that. You wanted a sword, right?” Or was it a spear he wanted? Some kind of weapon, at least. That'd be pretty neat.

“Yeah. I guess.” Kaminari didn't even bother trying to hide the annoyance in his voice.

Okay fine. Be that way. So much for starting a different kind of conversation and talking like normal human beings.

Jirou wasn't going to push it if he really didn't want to (because even with only a few responses, she could already tell he wasn't going to say much else), but it'd be nice if they could quit it with the silent treatment. Though she doubted that would happen without some kind of miracle. Because nothing else was gonna fix what was making him cranky in the first place. And Jirou wasn't going to try and start conversations if he was going to be like that whenever they were alone (well- in a way; most of the class was still on the ground floor, after all).

Maybe when Midoriya didn't have so much on his plate and she told him what she knew, she'd ask if Kaminari could join in too. But she wasn't going to say anything until she got the okay. In the end, it was Midoriya's call what was okay to talk about and that was that. Not Jirou's. Midoriya's.

Speaking of which, she honed in on Midoriya. He was in a conversation with Iida and some of the others. The news was running a story about a hero stopping a villain on the loose. Said hero was apparently one of Ingenium's former sidekicks, and Iida had spoken to him a few times in person. Midoriya chattered about how his method of apprehending the villain with a spiderweb made of vines was a creative use of his quirk. Mineta mentioned that Sero could probably do that with some practice, and Ashido built off that observation with a Spidertape joke. Talking with friends helped calm the swirling vat of anxiety inside Midoriya; and it helped everyone else too.

Everyone had their own unique set of worries. In Class A there were obvious things like grades, tests, and practical exercises they weren't suited for – things that any kid in their shoes would feel the same about. Then there was the underlying fact that they'd been attacked by villains twice and knew that it could possibly happen a third, which she was sure lingered in the backs of everyone's minds to some degree, even if they weren't aware of it themselves. Then there were things like insecurities and past trauma she could clearly see the aftereffects of, but couldn't do anything about.

Those last ones were the worst by a landslide. And she'd long-since learned that they were the types of problems you don't try and help with.

Not because she didn't want to – things would be way easier if she could be some magic fairy godmother able to fix people's problems with a swish of her earlobes. But that wasn't how reality worked and people generally didn't want their worst fears and memories casually brought up as a conversation topic; and they'd only tell their closest friends or therapist if they had any choice in the matter.

If she tried to coax out those feelings to address them, it would only lead that person shutting themselves off even more. No one liked being hurt. No one liked the effects it had on everything else they did. And if it was so obvious that even someone they could barely call an acquaintance (read: her) could see what they were going through, they'd feel even worse because that meant they really weren't coping as well as they thought.

She really had to wonder what happened to Midoriya that first day of his internship. He left the dorms excited. He came back exhausted. And whatever experience he went through had been eating away at him ever since. But he wasn't allowed to talk about when went on in during his internship – no one was. Maybe it was tougher that he'd expected. Maybe he had to fight a villain that really took a toll on him. Maybe he just got reamed out for not being at All Might's level yet.

Maybe Sir Nighteye told him just what was going to happen to All Might.

But guilt was guilt. It wasn't like she could make any real educated guesses without context.

...

Regardless, the stars had aligned and decided 'no Jirou, you're not telling him you know he's All Might's successor and that you know everything. You waited too long and now you missed your chance. Way to go, dumbass.' She couldn't waltz over and ask questions, and she couldn't try and exchange info to make sure they were on the same page. The most she could do is sit back and wait for him to be in just the right emotional state that they could hash things out and be done with it. And who knew when that would be.

Midoriya wasn't the type to flip out by any means, but the last thing he needed was the stress of knowing that someone had managed to learn his secret on top of everything else he was going through. And Jirou didn't even wanna think about what would happen if she let something slip that even he didn't know about. Even with everyone around cooling him down now, his anxiety would come back with a vengeance after a few minutes alone if he wasn't careful. And she needed to catch him while he was alone. In person.

Even in a best-case scenario, texting something ominous like 'we need to talk' would leave a paper trail. She didn't think anyone would start rummaging through her phone, but the last thing she needed was someone catching a glimpse of her message history. Or Midoriya asking one of the others about it himself. Ashido might think she had a crush, which Jirou would either have to play along with or come up with a different explanation (and the last thing she needed was to have a whole nother set of lies to keep track of). Iida would question them and ask if everything was alright, which could get him roped in this too. Kaminari would take it as evidence that there was really something else going on, and in a worst-case scenario would either bug Midoriya for answers or go straight to All Might.

Hell, she could probably come up with something for everyone.

And, well, any of those happening would be worse than doing nothing at all.

So that was it. Midoriya had a lot on his mind. Jirou would have to wait until he felt better to bring up everything else. Really, the best thing she could do now was keep her mouth shut and pretend everything was just fine until the timing was right.

She just hoped it wouldn't keep getting worse.

And thankfully it didn't.

Midoriya stormed off straight to the staff room after classes one day. If Jirou had to hazard a guess, it'd be that he was probably looking for All Might. The only other teacher he could possibly have any business with was Aizawa-sensei, but Aizawa-sensei hadn't told Midoriya to see him later or anything similar, despite what he's said before.

But All Might wasn't in the main building anymore, and she couldn't track him outside once he got far-enough away. The fact that Midoriya then raced out of building all but confirmed that suspicion. But Jirou couldn't track him anymore either without leaving as well and following him like some sort of stalker. Not that following him in meatspace would be any worse that what she'd been doing.

Why would he need to talk to All Might, anyway? Something to do with his internship? One for All? Sir Nighteye? More training? A smack from the combat bot she was facing would bring her back to reality whenever her thoughts got too focused on it. Which served her right since that's what she should've been focusing on.

She wondered what Midoriya was doing about his own limitations. All Might couldn't just punch his way to victory every single time (even if it seemed like it). What what he going to do long-range opponents? Just go so fast that they couldn't get away? She knew he got some new gloves and leg thingies, but those seemed to be just another stopgap to keep him from breaking his bones. Which was a small victory in itself, honestly.

Right now, Jirou herself was focusing on hand-to-hand combat (and weapons-based too), keeping her jacks in a makeshift bun behind her neck. Like pretty much everyone else in the hero program, her quirk was the cornerstone of her fighting style. And like a lot of them, she was screwed when she couldn't use it. So a fair amount of the extra combat training she was doing (with robots, obviously) was to help with her ability to fight close-range. It wasn't that she expected to have to fight Aizawa-sensei anytime soon. More that if she was up against someone sound wasn't effective against, she needed more than just shockwaves and fleshwhips to hold her own. And the multitude of hair ties she used to hold her lobes together helped curb the urge to whip them about at every opportunity. So she had to rely on her fists, legs, and whatever weaponry she could find.

In the end, she decided the glass cannon build wasn't right for her. Gran Torino did say they had time, so it made more sense to work on her strength and endurance after hours than quirk, quirk, and more quirk. Then she'd utilize those gains in class and be stronger for it. That was the plan, at least.

She just hoped Gran Torino was right. There wasn't anything on the news or whatever phone calls she overheard that said otherwise, but she was aware it was a real possibility and that she needed to get as strong as she could as fast as she could.. And she hoped whatever extra power she got from this would be enough to make a difference when shit really hit the fan.

Because if it didn't...

Well...

She pushed those thoughts to the back-burner.

The first thing Jirou noted when she got back to the dorms that night was the weight that had lifted off Midoriya's chest.

It was easy to guess that he'd talked to All Might, or at least someone. People rarely random epiphanies that suddenly fixed their mental state – not that things were totally fine now. But he was at least feeling a little better now. His near shell-shocked expression was gone, at least; even when he wasn't a part of any conversations. He joked around a bit too. Acting more like a normal teenager. On a surface level, he had totally gotten over his funk.

But inside him was a much more subtle dread.

It permeated his actions the next day. He practically radiated determination. He wasn't spacing out in class anymore. He was functioning as well as he ever had. Not that Midoriya was a slouch, but his attacks and movements during their training days had an edge to them now. There was more power behind them. More speed. Not as much precision, but more attempts at trying new things to see what would work.

Almost like he was desperate to...

...

So should she just chance it?

On one hand, he was already feeling a lot better.

On the other, that dread inside him wasn't something she wanted to mess with; especially since there wasn't any real indication of what it was about.

It wasn't about any of their classmates. He wasn't treating any of them differently, or focusing on anyone in particular. He still had his friends he talked with the most. He still had friendly acquaintances he had no problem sharing conversations with. Once in a while someone would ask how he was feeling, but other than that, it didn't seem like anything had changed within his interactions. Well- nothing that gave her any weird vibes, at least.

It could be All Might. She was almost completely certain he was the one Midoriya talked to, though it wasn't like she was gonna ask him to clarify. Midoriya had calmed down, obviously; but All Might seemed to be the one that was invigorated, if she were to be honest. All she could really say there was that Midoriya didn't seem to be in a rush to prepare for any kind of deadline. It wasn't something she could rule out entirely, though.

Last was the internship: most plausible answer, in her opinion. Midoriya'd been wound up ever since he came back to school that first Monday. Maybe it was something Sir Nighteye told him. Maybe it was something he encountered. No one doing an internship could talk about anything not already public knowledge, so she had nothing to actually go off of. All she knew was that he was really worried before, said worry wasn't filling every fiber of his being anymore, and that he was still worried regardless.

He was feeling better, but there were still too many uncertainties for her to feel comfortable just waltzing over there and dumping everything she knew on him. On top of that, his internship was still draining the absolute hell out of him, emotionally or not. Putting more on his plate when it wasn't anywhere near necessary at the moment could send him right back where he was. Maybe.

She needed to tell him eventually. And she would. Really.

But now wasn't the time.

After he was done with his internship, schoolwork would be the only thing taking his attention.

He might still be anxious, but they would have enough time to work things out.

She could tell him she knew about his quirk and the fact that he was All Might's successor.

And that she didn't tell anyone else.

And that she would keep his secret too.

He just needed to finish his internship and they'd be good to go.

It would only be a few more weeks at most.

Then there wouldn't be anything else standing in her way.

She'd do it then.

He'd be okay then.

A/N: [sad trombone]I was looking for vinyl albums Jirou could hide her notebook in and now I'm into post rock send help.

[internetstorytime]

When someone unexpectedly disappears online it can leave a lot of questions in the wake; what happened? Where’d they go? Will they be back? Luckily a paper trail isn’t as easy to pick up as it is to place down.

Long ago there was a person called “Meow” that was established in multiple social circles and numerous friendships. One day though they up and vanished.  Nearly half a decade after their disappearance a group of past friends set out to discover what happened, where’d Meow go? Through multiple clues, look ups, and dot connecting the end result would lead to an unexpected but conclusive ending. So buckle up and get ready to chase a phantom with many faces.

Let’s go through some oddities and characteristics before we hop on the trail.

Meow’s Characteristics:

-was a fan of the Dark Souls series

-stayed up extremely late very often

-claimed to have residence in Ohio

-claimed to be mute and never spoke

-claimed to be female

-very into role playing

After the disappearance Meow’s a peculiar thing started to occur, some of Meow’s accounts started to delete. But not all accounts are deletable, like STEAM accounts. When Meow disappeared a new person claimed to have been the original owner that was lending it to Meow. They said Meow was doing other things now in life, that she was great and considering college again, and so on. That’s a nice ending to this all, perhaps Meow just was tired of the internet for whatever reason, left all her friends behind and is now socializing and partaking in greater activities. Aaaaaaand then the “original” owner removes all friends, privatizes profile and changes URL’s.

All’s well that ends well…

So let’s get started.

Friend#1              - Friend of Meow

Friend #2             - Friend of Meow

Friend #3             - Friend of Meow

Meow                   - A Ghost Themself

True Meow        - ???

It started when Friend#1 and Friend #2 were discussing past times, past groups, past people… Meow? You remember that person? What do you think happened to them? And so curiosity was sparked.

Friend#2 remembers that when you gift someone on steam a gift a receipt of sorts is sent to the person being gifted. This receipt happens to include the email address of the person who sent the gift. Niiiice. It’s a start. The email address itself is a little odd, it is seemingly a random name with no numbers.

Googling the email gets nothing, well, almost nothing. Turns out the email address is 1 letter off from being a street name in Ohio, the state Meow had claimed to live. Alright, so why would you make an email after a street let alone use it to create a steam account?

Since googling the email wasn’t getting anywhere Friend#1 was about to give up on the search but a day later recalled that reverse email search engines exist.

Bazinga, a match.

 There was an issue though. The site wouldn’t offer any more information than it had in the picture; a blurred photo and some odd censored name… Thanks too lazy programming though, we could go further. The blur filter over the image was only weakly applied. Right-clicking the image and opening it in another tab alone brought up the image without the blur filter. Google reverse image searching that picture also happened to result in a limited pool of unique hits, great. 3 out of 4 of the hits were from 4chan and the other was from a YouTube page, excellent.

Boy do things start getting wonky here.

The Youtube page had the exact same profile picture that the reverse email search had found so seemingly, this was the person except… the entire Youtube page was the polar opposite personality you’d expect Meow to have. Where Meow was known to be out spoken and kind, this profile was full of vulgarity and racism and bad memes, a huge contrast. To further add to the mystery, they had a Robloxs account linked to their profile.

 What the fuck was going on, is this even the right person? How old are they? I had to make sure this reverse email search was accurate. I searched myself, I was found. I searched a friend, they were found. I searched another friend, they were found. Alright, three is enough. This search engine *seems* to work, unfortunately.

 Looking past the /pol/ “humor” the Youtube profile’s “About” section had some further information. Supposedly they were from Greece and had a link to their Google+ account. And here’s where some connections start to be made. The Google+ account shows they’re not just into role playing themselves, it’s a huge past time to them! They’re a part of 5 role playing groups, from Five Nights at Freddy’s to Undertale to Half-Life, they’re all over. They’re even an admin of one of the role playing groups! They also happen to be into Dark Souls, so much so they’ve uploaded their own videos on it. What a coincidence.  

 Scrolling down the Google+ account, past the cringy roleplaying, past the racism, past the 12 year old humor and past the fucking Roblox we get a hit. A steam library screenshot and what lovely information we get.

Cue Friend#3!

Friend#3 enters the fray when I tell them of the search and how far I am. And they get down to business and get results fast. Friend#3 realizes the screenshot shows they use the Euro, it also shows their steam account’s username *which happens to be unique and very searchable* in the top right.

To try and cut a very, very long story short, this steam account username was the key that helped find nearly everything pertaining to this person;

-Facebook

-Soundcloud

-Flickr

-TripAdvisor

-Newgrounds

-Minecraft account

-Multiple rp forum accounts

-A Greek city public forum records

 After we sifted through all of this we felt pretty confident this person was in fact “Meow”. Lets just label them “True Meow” for simplicity. True Meow likes to role play, maybe a little too much as he has at least 5 accounts all dedicated to different characters, he also tends to delete past accounts and history as we found out. Was it mentioned they’re a “he”? Well True Meow is a “he”. We never found pictures of specifically him but his sound cloud has very low view count songs of a male character with avatars he’s used on other sites. Presumably it’s him singing. He’s went to large extents to conceal his voice on his role playing accounts (unlike his Greek accounts), as in one of his Google+ posts he mentions he talks funny or sounds off. But this is likely just a ruse to hide his Greek accent and allow him to stay immersed as his, often female, characters. Even videos titled “Reading of xxx….” He specifically deleted as they probably contained his voice while keeping up non-voice related videos. We should also throw in he claims to be 26 two years ago but who really knows. 

This Greek, role play loving, Dark Souls playing character seems to be the True Meow. But wait, there’s a cherry on top.

Googling Meow’s original alias long enough you’ll stumble onto an IRC log for UNIX support. Guess who is posting in the IRC asking for help? Someone under the alias “Meow”. They also happened to link a German language photo. (In case you’re worried that the photo is German and True Meow is Greek, True Meow’s TripAdvisor showed one logged trip, to Germany.) Why is this the cherry on top though? Because we had no hard similar links between Meow and True Meow, it was all relying on the reverse email search and common hobbies between the two. Thanks to Friend#3 though we found our True Meow posting a UNIX bug report on the same site but this time under his exact Greek name, True Meow.

“Coincidence? I think not!”

 Now we had a connection that both Meow and True Meow were caught related to other than the email. With that I think we found what happened to Meow and ultimately one of the oddest cat fishing experiences.

Did we get the wrong person?

There was some things that favored Meow’s outrageous vanishing story, even with all this evidence:

1.       Meow gave all of us a handful of free games over time while we gave nothing. Talk about a poor cat fisher if the goal was to get expensive things in return.

2.       Keeping up appearances wasn’t cheap. Not mentioning the other games, Meow gave us all a Starbound key before the game released. That’s about $50 alone just to keep up kind appearances.

3.       A point Friend#2 likes to argue, the contrast is simply too great. The belligerent, racist, unfunny True Meow is so unlike Meow that it’s unbelievable, even if it was a catfish that went on for months.

Was this just a dude that wanted to, for whatever reason, role play as a female was willing to lose money to do it? Or is this the wrong person? Won’t ever truly know for sure but I’m going with the strong evidence and multiple coincidences that Meow has indeed been found and the disappearance solved.

[jiminwreckedme]

Chaos: The Beginning of the End

Member - Jeon Jungkook

Genre - Thriller? Mystery? 23K of bullshit-that-makes-no-sense-right-now-but-will-make-sense-after-part-2? I don’t really know tbh. You read and tell me :)

Word count - 23K

Warnings - mentions of death, murder, implied smut.

Summary - One has brains but no heart. One has a heart but no brains. And what happens when both their worlds collide?

It’s chaos.

[A/N] - So this 23K beast was sitting in my google docs for a really really long time now. Since its a 2 part fan fic (Next and last part is Chaos: The End of the Beginning) I initially planned on writing both parts before posting it. But I also realised that its been reaaallly long since I’ve managed to post any content at all so here’s this for now. Let me know your theories and ideas while I sit and work on trying to update all my series :)

It’s a closed space. A closet maybe? You can’t tell.

There’s something visible through the tiny gaps of the slanted wooden slabs. And it’s moving. Fast, tensed and hurried. That means it’s not something.

It’s someone.

There are people in the house. And they aren’t people you know for sure because you are scared. You can feel the sweat running down your neck as your hair plasters to your skin with the ickiness. It’s chilly even though you can tell it’s late in the morning and you are shivering in both cold and fear.

And then suddenly there is the sound of a gunshot and everything goes black.

You sit up startled by the strange dream even though it’s not something you haven’t seen before. Taking a good look at your surroundings you breath normally again, undaunted. It’s just something that occasionally, pointlessly visits your dreams. It doesn’t scare or worry you anymore because you have now learned to shake it off. Perhaps it’s a movie or a drama scene that imprinted in your head as a child. Nothing to worry about.  

What you had to worry about was the dull throbbing pain in your head and the scream of your every cell which is asking for just one thing.

“Coffee!” You call out to your maid falling back into the soft comforters, rolling around on the bed lazily. A short lady still in her apron comes rushing in looking apologetic.

“The kitchen hasn’t sent it out yet Y/n dear. I….I don’t know what’s wrong.” She’s scared because she knows how moody you get without it.

“Urgh” You drag yourself out of bed, ruffling your bed hair. “Alrighttttt send it when it’s ready. I’m going to shower.”

Taking heavy steps to the bathroom you strip out of your night clothes and stand under the shower hoping at least the cold waters will wake you up. The ice cold liquid hits your face and trickles down your body but it’s causing no effect. You need a strong coffee before you step into the office no matter what. A CEO cannot possibly go to office looking like she’s hungover when really all she had been doing was crying her eyes out all night watching Me before You with her best friend Cho.

Throwing on a Armani jumpsuit, you pull your hair into a high ponytail and put on some minimal makeup without paying much attention. Grabbing your bag and glasses you make your way down to the living room where Cho is storming around talking on the phone annoyed.

“Well see to it that it’s fixed quickly…..Yeah I have some important work….Please hurry up.”

“Morning.” You grab a triangular piece of sandwich from the nearby dining table and greet her as you stuff it into your mouth. She smiles at you and then turns serious again.

“Yes. And make it quick please….yeah thank you.” She cuts the call and throws the phone on the couch.

“Morning. Had a good night’s sleep?”

“Yup. Slept like a log.” You munch on the sandwich. “What was that call all about?”

“I was watching the news and then exactly when they were giving some crucial information” She stops and looks at you dramatically. “The screen blanked out! Apparently the power’s gone.”

“ Ah” You gulp down a glass of juice hurriedly. “No wonder there’s no coffee.”

“Yes and no news.” Cho sits on the couch angrily. You can only laugh at her childishness.

“Oh god What was so important?”

“Apparently there was a murder at downtown yesterday. The victim was killed not with a knife or gun….but with electricity. The killer murdered him by giving shocks with high voltage electricity. I mean seriously? Now people aren’t even wasting money on buying weapons anymore. The act of murder has become so inexpensive.” She huffs as you roll your eyes. “The police don’t know who it is apparently. No clues, no fingerprint, no sign of struggle. Just a man tied to a chair with wires around him. Its so brutal but so smart -”

“Alright alright.” You cut through her words not wanting to listen anymore. “You know I don’t like this kind of violent news. While you use your Sherlock brain and figure this out, I’m gonna rush to work yeah? When it’s time for you to leave, ask the driver to drop you okay. Don’t go alone!” You blow her a kiss as you hurriedly walk towards your garage where your BMW is waiting for you.

“Only if you agree to have the next movie night in my house!” She screams after you, making you laugh. You know like always the sleepover will eventually end up in your house.

Getting into your car you turn on the engine and blast some loud music with the windows down to feel some air on your face. Monday mornings were already on the top of your hate list and today moreover, you didn’t even shake off your sleep completely. And above everything you were late. The day already had such a bad start.

Cutting through the traffic you drive into a nearby street spotting a coffee shop right around the corner much to your relief. Parking your car at the side of the street you cross it, pushing open the doors and sigh realizing it’s completely packed. Seeing the dozens of people occupy all the seats you turn around defeated to search for another location when the waitress comes to you and points out an empty seat all the way in the corner opposite a young man. You hurriedly thank her and rush to sit down across him, relieved.  

But just as you are about to order for a much required cup he looks up from the newspaper he’s reading and meets your eye momentarily.

“I suggest you ask for water as well ”

“What?” You look at him surprised. He’s dressed smartly in a grey tuxedo as he stirs his iced coffee with the straw, eyes still fixed on whatever he’s so intently reading. He has glasses on and his hair is part neatly, he reminds you so much of your father.

“You’ll need it.” He shrugs. You raise your eyebrows at him confused and subtly ignore the stranger’s words as you look around for a waiter to place your order. One of them walks up to you and places a hot cup of coffee.

“A double shot cappuccino for you Ma'am”

“But..” You look at her confused. “I didn’t order yet.”

“I did.” The man speaks again as he sends her away with the gestures of his hand, resuming his reading.

“You?” He has finally gotten your attention. “And how do you know I’d want a double shot cappuccino?”

“Any girl who misses her first cup of coffee would want her second cup strong.”

“And how do you know I missed my first cup of coffee?”

“Anyone who misses their bed coffee would be tapping the table that impatiently.”

It’s only then you notice your finger moving out of habit on the wooden surface of the table rhythmically. The man across you is smiling at his paper all knowingly without even so much as a look at you and its annoying you. He’s trying to make a conversation, it’s so obvious. People like him weren’t new to you, a young, rich, beautiful heiress. Everyone wants to be associated with you in some way.

“Are you trying to make conversation with a girl you happen to meet by chance?”

“Who said we are meeting by chance? You happen to be sitting here and having coffee with me because I wanted you to. Because I’ve planned it.”

“Excuse me?” You frown at him not understanding as you take a sip, relishing the hot liquid flowing down your throat. “What does that mean?”

He finally looks up from his paper, rolls it and plays with it, hitting his other palm rhythmically. Odd. Your father has the same habit.  

“Tell me, Where are you supposed to be right now?”

“At work.”

“But you are here having a coffee, why?”

“Because I missed my bed coffee.”

“And why did you miss it?”

“Because the coffee machine wasn’t working.”

“And why was it not working?”

“Because there was no power in the house.”

“Exactly.” he draws a sip from his drink smiling. “I cut it.”

You choke on your coffee at his words, coughing into your hand as he draws a bottle of water from his bag and hands it to you.  “I told you to ask for water.”

“You cut the electricity connection to my house?”

“Yes and because there was no power in the house and you didn’t get coffee, you would have taken a longer shower and started 15 minutes late. That means when you reached the junction near your house it was perhaps exactly time for school and all cars would have been halted to allow the students to cross the road. Because you needed a coffee badly and didn’t have the patience to wait, so you must have turned right into the Bakers street, the alternative route to your office. Unfortunately, you would have reached a dead end because the road is getting repaired. So then you turned right again into commonwealth avenue, which is this street. And you stopped your car right at this coffee shop because it’s obviously the first one you have seen the whole way here and you need coffee cause you missed it in the morning and you missed it because of….” he points at himself casually.  

“Because it’s just a coincidence.” You narrow your eyes at him. He couldn’t be this smart. How did he mange to think of all of this? “You seem to be taking credit for a coincidence.”

“A coincidence huh?” He raises an eyebrow amused. “Okay tell me. When there are so many tables in the coffee shop why did you come and sit here, right across me?”

“Because it was the only one empty?”

“Oh really?” He taps the table with his rolled newspaper twice and suddenly everyone around you gets up and abandons their seat leaving every space empty and just the two of you sitting across each other with 2 cups of coffee.

You laugh for some reason. It’s incredibly smart. He obviously hired people to occupy every seat so you would have no choice but to sit next to him. It’s too smart. Too well planned. But why?

“And why are you doing this?”

“To meet you of course and because I don’t have a time to wait for nature, science, fate, whatever you call it, to make us meet.”

You blink multiple times, head full of questions.

“Okay, let me explain.” He looks around searching for something and suddenly points at a butterfly that’s sitting on a plant a little further from you. “You see that butterfly? Do you know the moment it gets up from there it can cause a cyclone somewhere in America?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s true. You see when a butterfly moves its wings, a low pressure is created in the air around it. And when this low pressure is created, an air movement is initiated. With the addition of many such low pressures and air movements, the effect grows and grows and grows and suddenly there’s a cyclone somewhere far away.”

“and your point is what exactly?”

“Everything around us is a strange science. One unrelated moment can influence another unrelated moment somewhere far away in the most strange way possible.”

“Like the fact that there was no electricity in my house led to me having coffee here with you.” You slowly realize what he’s trying to say.  

“Exactly, you’re getting there. Everything that’s happening around us is a result of some moment usually initiated by our natural surroundings. People meeting, people parting, people dying. Everything. Most people call it fate but really, it’s all determined by some unknown, unplanned, weird moment in nature.”

“Then why is our meeting not planned by nature or whatever? I mean you purposely cut the current in my house. That’s not exactly unknown or unplanned. It’s weird though, I’ll give you that.”

He smiles. “I’m coming to that. It’s because unfortunately, I don’t have much time. I can’t wait for events to unfold themselves in a particular way for us to meet. So instead, I induce things to happen the way I want them to and hence you will be meeting me whenever I want, where ever I want, as per what I plan.”

You lean back and look at him keenly. You’re actually impressed. Very impressed. His intelligence, his wit, the way he thinks, everything impresses you. But you want to see more.

“I’m still not convinced. Let’s do this.” You lean in with you hands crossed on the table and lick your lips determined. “You try to meet me tomorrow. And I’ll try not to. Let’s see how you manage to have a coffee with me Mr…?.”

“Jungkook.” He smiles as he adjusts his glasses. “Jeon Jungkook.”

“Alright then. I hope we don’t meet tomorrow, Mr. Jeon Jungkook.”

“And I hope we do, Ms.Y/n L/n” is all he says smugly as you grab your bag and walk out of the shop smiling to yourself.

The next morning you are up surprisingly well before your alarm rings. Maybe because you didn’t sleep properly in the first place thinking of ways to avoid Jungkook the following morning. After a quick shower and quicker getting dressed session, you make your way down to the living room to see a fresh cup of coffee waiting for you. Hmm coffee is ready? You switch on the television and see the same news of that murder flashing and quickly switch it off. The television is also working? That means the power didn’t get cut today. How was he planning to meet you then?

“Y/n, Cho is on the line.” Your short, sweet maid hands you the phone.

“Yes what’s up?” You secure the phone between your ear and shoulder as you sip your coffee.

“Y/nnn I’m so dead! I have a meeting with the company president first thing in the morning and my stupid car isn’t starting. Please drop me will you? Please~”

“But I need to leave for-”

“Your office starts at 9, mine is at 8! Please~.” She drags annoying your eardrums. “Come on Y/n. I’m begging you! I know you can’t see me but I’m literally on my knees.”

“Urgh fine. 10 minutes, I’m coming.” You roll your eyes leaving your coffee on the table and grab your keys instead to go pick up your miserable friend.

15 minutes after driving at the highest speed possible, you pull up at the driveway in front of her house and she quickly gets in, crushing you into a brief hug.

“Thank you, you are a life savior! I owe you one for this later..”

As Cho flips through her files, reviewing her presentation seriously, you open your sunroof and drive down the calm and quiet roads. Strange. There are no signs of him. Did he give up already? He did seem intent on meeting you though. Not to mention extremely confident as well. Something isn’t quite right.

“Y/n! You need to turn right here.” You slam the brakes, nearly missing the turning as your best friend shuts her files and crosses her arms. “Okay young woman, spill. Where is your mind?”

“Jeon Jungkook.” You mutter as you rotate the steering wheel.

“Who, that creep you told me about? The one in the cafe yesterday?”

“He’s not a creep Cho.” You roll your eyes.

“Of course he is! What kind of a person arranges for a meeting with a stranger that way? It’s obvious that there are things he knows about you and not to mention, things he definitely wants. Why else and how else can he plan all this?”

“I’m not an idiot. I know there is something he is after. Something big, that’s for sure. He might need money or a favor in business or…I don’t know. What could he be after?”

“I suggest you stay away from him Y/n. He seems shady.”

“But that’s the thing! He isn’t coming after me. He’s somehow dragging me to him with his so called ‘plans’. He’s too intelligent. If he wants to meet me, I know he will do it somehow. I’m sure he has something planned for today as we-.”

“Oh no Y/n look!” Cho points at a cute, perhaps stranded dog with a leash on the road, just as you turn into the driveway of her office. She hurriedly gets down the moment you stop the car and takes the pup into her arms lovingly.

“I think it’s lost….Oh there’s a name tag! It has some address written…” She squints at the metal chain and quickly places the pup in the seat next to you.

“What the-”

“Please take it to its owner Y/n, the poor thing is definitely lost.”

“Cho! I have to get to work. I’m getting late.”

“The boss is never late you idiot. Please please! Next movie night at your house if you take him.”

“Cho-”

“Please~.”

You huff gripping the steering wheel. “Urgh the things I have to do for a best friend.”

“Thanks babes, bye!” She waves as she runs towards the building balancing the files in her hands and you sit staring at the brown dog next to you which is obediently looking around at its new environment. You memorize the address on his tag and pat his head resignedly. “Alright…. Bruno? Let’s get you home.”

Finding the way after a few wrong turns and with the help of your GPS, you enter a small alley lined with homes and stop your car at the edge of the one way street. You mentally thank the heavens that the address is near your office so you might manage to be not too late. Taking the pup in your arms you walk down the road looking for its house number when suddenly it wriggles free from your grip and begins running.

“Hey!” You begin miserably going after it in your 5 inch heels and stop when you see it runs towards a familiar looking seated man at an outdoor coffee shop. You sigh as the pup begins to lick Jungkook fondly and the man clad in a suit today as well, greets you smirking.  

“You look like you missed your coffee today as well Ms. Y/n. Care to join me for one?”

You purse your lips disapprovingly but sit down opposite him regardless.  

“Is the dog yours?”

“Taehyung. It’s my friend Taehyung’s. But he’s quite familiar with me too.” Bruno wags his tail from in between Jungkook’s feet. “Something strong for you again?”

“An espresso please.”

“I must be playing with your head a lot if you need something that strong.” he chuckles but orders nevertheless. He’s in a suit again. Blue this time. The same glasses, the same parting of the hair, today’s newspaper lying on the table.

“How did you do it this time?” You blow the steam of your coffee as the waiter serves you, then him. “There was no power cut in the house.”

“This time it wasn’t cut in your house.” he draws a sip. “It was in your friends.”

You know better than to drink when he’s answering and this time almost choke on nothing. “What?”

“Why did you not have coffee today?”

“Because my friend called me to pick her up”

“And why did she call you to pick her up?”

“Because her car wasn’t starting.”

“And why wasn’t her car starting?” he smirks expecting you to know the answer already.

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously. “Because you messed with it.”

“Mhmm. And so she called you, who was definitely up and ready early today to avoid me as per yesterday’s deal, and so you agreed to drop her. Then you both saw a stranded dog right as she entered her office. Your friend was getting late but she also loves dogs. So you had to take the dog back to its owner on her insistence. And that’s how you are sitting here and having a coffee with me again.”

You let out a short laugh. “To think I was actually beginning to get impressed, that’s pathetic Jeon Jungkook. Do you know how many things could have gone wrong? What if my friend didn’t call me and called for a cab? What if in her hurry she didn’t spot the dog?”

“That was possible. One can plan things to happen in a certain way but cannot control another’s brain. Another thoughts, emotions. But the fact that your friend didn’t call a cab and did spot the dog shows that maybe you are right. Maybe somewhere there is a little coincidence or fate in us meeting. But ultimately it was her decision and her choice that led to you and I having a coffee here. One unrelated moment causes another unrelated moment right?”

His words as usual confound you. Jungkook leans back and receives the bill as you observe him. He seems to have a purpose and no purpose at all behind doing this. There was no saying what his next move is, what his next thought is. He is absolutely unpredictable. And he is different, unlike most men you had seen. His intentions are still not clear but it’s not something small he wants from you. The fact that he had gone far enough to find out not just about you but even about your best friend meant he had some really serious purpose behind all this.

You speak as your waitress leaves you alone. “You don’t need glasses.”

“Sorry?”

The thing about being around sharp people is that it makes you think like them. His eyes when he reads are wider than usual. The glasses are not a necessity for him.

“You don’t require glasses to read.”

“Ah yes. I don’t require it to read. I require it to look intelligent.”

“Look intelligent?”

“Surveys show that generally people with glasses are considered smarter. And gone are the days when women are impressed by sense of humor, good looks, money blah blah blah. Now a days women want a witty person. So I figured this would be the best way to impress you.”

“You want to impress me?” You let out a sharp incredulous laugh. He nods and gestures at his outfit.

“Can you give any other reason for why a man as young and modern as me would roam around in such a terribly old-fashioned, extremely suffocating set of clothes?”

“I don’t know? Don’t you wear it to go to work?”

“Electra complex.” he drains the last few drops of his drink. “Most girls subconsciously look for qualities their father possesses in men around them. It’s a psychological fact. I’m sure in our meetings at some point you would thought ah he reminds me of my father.”

And you did. He even knows about your father. What he wears, his small habits, he knows them. You can even see him displaying the same sort of intelligence. He’s done his research well. It isn’t too hard to find out about your father though, that’s there. After all he’s a multimillionaire and very famous in the society. But Jungkook has gone to such lengths just to impress you?

“Let’s talk seriously Jungkook. You are intelligent. Extremely intelligent. I don’t know if you have a job or not and how you are managing to spend so much time on this. But the fact that you have invested so much time, brain and planning on me, shows that impressing me is not your only goal. You could have simply come to one of the clubs I regularly visit if that was your intention. Of course I would have forgotten all about you as soon as I get hungover. But you meet me over coffee. A time when my senses are the sharpest. That means you want me to clearly remember you, maybe even think about you later. So tell me, why are you after me?”

“Simple.” he smiles. “Because you have money.”

You sigh at him irritably. Yes of course. Most people approach you when they need favors or if they are working on some sort of product or software and they need your help to launch by selling it to your company. It’s only now that you realize how little you had been approached to be actually been hit on in the outside world because most people who talked you, only did so for business purposes.

“So you are one of those.”

Jungkook laughs. “Y/n, look at you. You are a billionaires daughter. You are the CEO of a company. Even the watch you wear costs in 4 digits. The money behind you has already made you suspicious of the fact that I’m here for something big and serious and you don’t believe I’m genuinely trying to impress you. When you anyway won’t believe the reason I will tell you then it’s better I tell you a reason you will believe right?”

You lean back getting confused as usual with him again.

“You are beautiful Y/n. And so capable. It’s admirable how you run the company so well and the heights your father’s business has reached with you as CEO. You are talented and you are smart. But as long as you have the money factor behind you it’s going to be hard to make you believe that I genuinely am trying to know more about you because I am impressed with you. There is only so much I can know about somebody with my intelligence. And I’m sincerely trying to figure out who you really are by meeting you like this. Nothing more and nothing less.”

You don’t know why but for some reason you feel like he’s telling the truth. Maybe because you are so interested in him or maybe because there is hope that there might finally be someone out there who is interested in you? But whatever it is, you do choose to believe him.

“Make me meet you over another coffee and then I’ll believe you.”

“If I do meet you over another coffee, then hang out with me for a bit tomorrow evening. Maybe watch a play? There’s a new drama troop in town.”

“That is if you meet me.”

Jungkook smirks “If you are still testing me, that means you are already impressed by me.”

“What? No~” You deny, not meeting his eye.

“Yeah, why else will you look for another opportunity to meet me?”

“I could be looking for some entertainment?”

“No that’s not it.” he shakes his head definitely “I think we should get your estrogen levels checked. When girls generally think emotionally the estrogen levels in their body increase. Then we will know how you are actually feeling.”

You laugh. “Honestly is everything science for you? Have you never heard Jungkook, there are things science can’t explain.”

Jungkook lets out a short sarcastic laugh before looking far away at something you couldn’t see. “I don’t want to know such things. I think they are irrelevant.”

You sigh at his childlike defiance and stand up, fishing your car keys out of your pocket. “Try falling in love. Then it will be relevant.”

And with that you turn around and walk away, leaving him all by himself once more without hearing one last thing he had to whisper looking wistful.

“I already have.”

When you enter the office everything is tense. There are people scurrying around, men in black suits stationed at places, phones are ringing continually.

“What’s going on?” You inquire with an employee who bows quickly before answering. “Ms. L/n. your…..your father is here.”

You smack your head looking at the watch, panicking that you are late. Jeon Jungkook. It was all because of that asshole. You rush to your cabin to see your father sitting on the couches talking to your assistant.

“Hey dad.” You say meekly, making an embarrassed face as you slowly step into your room.

“Y/n.” He smiles sweetly, but with a hint of sternness. “You seem to be late.”

“I’m so sorry…uh….Cho had something she needed help with….”

“That’s alright. Come sit.” He pats to the empty space next to him and you happily sit next to him. “All good with you?”

“Yeah all’s fine. But is something wrong? You are here? in my branch?”

“Why? Can’t a father miss his daughter?” Your father’s brother speaks from behind you, looking up from his phone. Your father pouts adorably.

“Aw.” You pull his cheeks. “Of course he can! And I really love it when he does. But the security and the hustle outside? I’m sure you don’t need all that to simply see me. What’s wrong?”

“Did you not hear what happened yesterday?”

You shake your head slowly panicking at your uncle’s words. You weren’t someone like that. If something happened in your office there was no way you didn’t know it. But yesterday you were distracted, you have to admit. If something went wrong because of that, you swore to kill Jeon Jungkook.

“Do you know Mr. Wook?”

“Our office east branch in charge?” You had met him quite a few times. You were west branch in charge and were in good terms with him for business sake even though there were countless number of times you felt he was a bit shady. Your father’s trust in him was the only reason you kept quiet. “Yeah what about him?”

“He was murdered yesterday morning.”

“What?” You stand up shocked. “How? Wh-”

“Did you hear the news about a man who was killed using electricity?” You nod remembering Cho talk about it and mentally make a note to thank her for making you at least a little aware of the things around you. “He was the victim.”

You blink a couple of times not knowing what else to do. Your father takes out his glasses and wipes them tiredly. You place your hand on his arm softly. “That’s so horrible. But why? Do you know who is behind it?”

“I suspect it’s my enemies.” Your father sighs putting his glasses back on. “Our company has gotten really big Y/n and so it’s natural we make new rivals with growing step. That’s why I’m here. I’m worried about you.” He pats your head softly. “Your uncle says we should increase the security around you for precaution but I seem to think differently. What about you?.”

You look around at the black suited bodyguards. “Dad, are you positive that it is business rivals?”

“That’s what my sources say, but they could be wrong.”

“I don’t think you should increase security for me. Or even yourself. If we do, then we are alerting our enemies that we are anticipating them and so they will become more cautious about their attacks now. If we show that we don’t suspect them, then they will have their guard down a little and it might be a bit easy for us to trace who it is.”

Your father chuckles looking at your uncle. “Well well that’s exactly what I was thinking. Like father like daughter huh?” You smile as he gives you a five. “But still, be careful alright? I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I’ll be fine Dad, chill.” You give him a quick hug and stand up crossing your arms. “And now if you don’t mind, CEO Y/n has to report to work.”

“Yes absolutely. I shall take the boss’s leave then?” Your father stands up as the bodyguards speak through their earpieces, getting ready for his departure.

“Permission granted.” You smile and wave as your father collects his belongings and leaves with his team. Your uncle quickly rushes to you and pulls you into a brief hug, throwing an arm around your shoulder and leaves along with the older man. “Take care kiddo.”

Feeling fuzzy after meeting your family after so long you sit behind your desk and think for a while about what your father said.

Enemies.

You quickly dial a number on the phone on your desk and give out orders. “Send Hoseok to my room. Tell him it’s urgent”

As you sit cracking your knuckles lost in thought, Hoseok enters and unlike most days he isn’t giving out vibes of sunshine. You realize how serious this death has been for everyone.

“Hoseok I need a favor.”

“Sure, whats up?”

“I’m going to trust you with this alright? Don’t tell this to anyone.”

“What is it?” He looks at you suspiciously.

“I don’t think this murder is a rivals job.” You remember Cho’s words. It’s so brutal.

“It’s too painful a death. Like this wasn’t done by someone with a business purpose. If it was then they could have shot him, or hit him with a car. But they’ve killed him in a very painful way. An agonizing way. Like someone wanted to hurt him first, then kill him. That means its done by someone with…..” You search for the right word. “Someone with vengeance perhaps.”

Hoseok nods. “I get what why you are saying that. But it’s possible they did so to not leave any clues that could trace back to them.”

“That’s possible yes. I just told you my gut feeling since I was speculating over it. I always didn’t like that man. There is just something off about him. Just for my sake, use your sources and find out if Mr. Wook had any personal issues with anyone. Do a background check on him and let me know what you find out.”

Hoseok nods seriously and begins to leave when you stop him again, thinking of taking advantage of the situation. “And also do a background check on Jeon Jungkook.”

“Jeon Jungkook?”

“Find out about his family, where he’s from, what he studied, where he studied, everything. From A to Z.”

“And who is he?” Hoseok narrows his eyes at you.

“Just someone who I need to know fully about to engage in a battle of wits.” You smile at the thought of beating Jungkook in his own game. “ Keep both of these tasks confidential alright? Don’t tell a soul”

“Shall do.” Hoseok shoots you a thumbs up and leaves as you turn to your computer to resume your office duties putting everything aside.

The next morning, as usual, you wake up late again.

But after the general daily routine, when you come down, there is no coffee on the table.

“Coffee?” You call out to the maid who hurries to inform you. “Ms. Y/n the machine is getting upgraded.”

“Upgraded? Why all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday evening some service boys came to talk about upgrading the machine and installing new features. It’s been apparently installing all night.”

“What kind of features can one possibly install in a coffee machine?” You scrunch your nose in thought but the confusion goes as soon as it comes. “Ah he thinks he can play the same game twice.” You mummer before making up your mind. “That’s alright. I’ll have it outside.”

You throw your car keys on the couch and walk out of the house, straight past the garage, towards the nearest bus stop. Taking the bus to the metro station and then a train to the station nearest to your office, you hail a cab and ask the driver to take you to a nice coffee shop nearby. “Not the first one. Take me to the second shop you spot please.”

Getting down from the cab at a shop you pay him and walk in to find an empty coffee table, smiling victoriously. Hah, maybe Jeon Jungkook wasn’t so intelligent after all.

But just as you sit down, a hand extends from over your shoulder placing a cup of coffee on the table and you sigh.

Jungkook draws a sip from his own drink and smiles cockily as he sits down across you.

“How did you do it this time?” It’s too much. Even after every precaution you took? You run your eyes over him. He’s wearing a white suit today and perhaps the best word to describe him would be sinful. It seems to suit him better than everything you’ve seen him in so far and its making it a little hard for you to think about anything.

“Simple.” He places his drink on the table and crosses his arms on it. “I followed you.”

You blink for a bit and then feel your shoulders shake as you laugh at the unexpected answer. “You followed me?”

“I do really want to see that play with you today no matter what.” He shrugs

Your phone rings as you are about to reply and looking apologetic you pick it up when he gestures you to go ahead.

“Yes Hoseok.”

“I’ve done my homework. Want to listen?”

“Briefly.”

“Jeon Jungkook - born in Busan, brought up in Busan, went to quite an ordinary government school, failed math but did average in the other subjects, didn’t attend any university, has a small, one bedroom flat at the edge of the city, literally, hardly anyone lives there, he did odd jobs around like a working as a mechanic, behind the counters of restaurants, minor roles in a couple of dramas, things like that for a living”

“Family?”

“No record of any family. Brought up in an orphanage.”

“Anything else I need to know?”

“I’m not sure this is important but listen. The few people in his neighborhood said he just simply disappeared over a year ago with no clue as to where he left. According to the travel office there are records of him arriving to Seoul only a month back. I’m unable to trace where he was during the time in between.”

“In your opinion is that something to worry about?” You look at Jungkook who is looking up something on his phone.

“I don’t know. He’s basically harmless. Has no contacts. Didn’t have much relations, friends or enemies back at Busan. Damn quiet kid. He must have left his town in search of a job at the most, in my opinion.”

“Alright, anything else?”

“As far as Mr. Wook is concerned, something is fishy, you’re right. But I think it’s better you come to office and see for yourself.”

“Shall do.” You cut the call revising everything Hoseok said. No university despite so much intelligence? But then again he was an orphan. He probably was financially weak. And he disappeared just like that for a year? Strange.

“I have to get to work. Don’t you have to too?” You subtly try to get to know more about him.  

“Nope. I don’t have a job yet. But I shall, hopefully soon.”

“You don’t have a job? Then how in the world did you manage to afford all these suits? It must’ve cost a fortune.”

Jungkook sighs, blinking too much. “Okay I guess it’s finally time to be embarrassed. I borrowed them from my friend Taehyung. I crashed in at his place when I came here about…a month ago? He’s been tolerating me for quite some time, the poor guy.”  He laughs fondly.  

“Where were you before that? Before you came to Seoul I mean.”

“Traveling. I practically went all over Korea looking for a place to settle down and get a decent job. I tried that for a few months but it never really worked out. Then I got really hungry and really desperate and was ultimately jailed for six months for robbery. After I was released I wandered around a couple of cities for a bit like the usual nomad I was, doing odd jobs for gathering money for traveling expenses and I finally landed up in Seoul.”

He was jailed? And he’s being honest about it?

It’s not everyday you see someone openly admitting their crimes, that too to a woman the were attempting to impress. But he did. He told you everything seriously and everything he says seems to fit what Hoseok informed you. It all does make sense.

Your phone rings again, flashing Hoseok’s name and Jungkook looks at the screen and then you.

“I guess you really need to be at work now. I know you didn’t come by car. Would you like me to drop you?” He points at his motorcycle outside and you shudder, not very enthusiastic about the idea.

“No that’s alright.” You scribble your number on a notepaper and push it towards him. “Text me the time I have to be ready. I’ll see you in the evening. I do owe you some of my time” and the two of you smile at each other as you leave him to himself for what you thought was one last time.

It is early afternoon when Jungkook is standing in the line of the grocery store with a half full cart as he goes through the shopping list Taehyung scribbled for him.

“Eggs….Bread…..Ham…” He mumbles checking them off the list one by one when his watch gives a soft beep indicating the beginning of the next hour. He’s getting late. He had messaged you to be ready by 5 for the play but he himself was still here in a pair of sweatpants and a lame shirt hidden by a jacket, yet to take a bath and hence smelling like dairy. You like the smell of dairy.

He smiles to himself as the thought of you crosses his mind. Y/n….

He’s doing it. He is finally getting closer to you. All the hard work is showing its fruit with every passing moment but day by day, minute by minute, the more he sees you, the more his heart hurts.

“Afternoon.” The lady at the counter smiles warmly when he walks forward with his purchase. As she makes the bill scanning each item one by one, Jungkook reaches out for his wallet but his phone rings at the same time, flashing your name. Frowning at the odd time of the call he picks it up.

“Hello?”

“Jungkook!” There’s relief in your voice.

That meant before this, there was fear.

“Y/n, what’s wrong?”

“Look I cannot speak for long.” You are whispering. But why? “I need help. I’m at the french restaurant behind my office. Meet me as soon as you-”

And it cuts.

Jungkook can feel his heart stop as he lowers the phone. What had happened? Why did you have to be so scared? The thought of you alone and afraid terrifies him.

There is only one thing he can do after imaging you like that. Without a single thought or a second glance, dropping everything in his hands, he simply turns and runs through the crowd, ignoring the incredulous cashier and the mad customers behind him as he pushes though.

Nothing was more important that you.

3 hours.

That’s how long it’s been since your last call. 3 hours and there is no sight of you. You are not at the restaurant, neither are you in your office, nor are you at home. Your phone isn’t reachable and somehow can’t be located by any tracking apps either. Jungkook had spent the last 3 hours running around the city like a mad man looking for you. He had checked everywhere. Every coffee shop you went to together, the theater where you are supposed to go with him tonight . But you aren’t anywhere. And no one knows about your whereabouts either. Not your colleagues, not your maid, neither does your best friend Cho.

“Where are you Y/n?” Jungkook desperately walks down the now darkening streets near the city’s main junction looking around. “Just give me one clue and I’ll find you.”

As all the cars halt and the red man turns green, Jungkook begins to walk down the road feeling his phone vibrate in his hand. He quickly fumbles with it with mixed feelings of relief and curiosity and takes a look at the screen but it’s not your name. Its unknown. Resignedly Jungkook picks it up looking around, not paying much attention to the call.

“Hello.”

“Jungkook?”

He freezes at the middle of the road. It’s your voice.

Are you okay? Where are you? Whose phone is this? What’s wrong with your phone? Why were you not at the restaurant? He wants to ask you so many questions but only one thing leaves him like a barely audible whisper. “Y/n…”

“Jungkook, I’m outside your house. My phone is out of battery so I borrowed your neighbor’s phone. I’m so sorry I wasn’t at the restaurant. Please just come home I’ll tell you everything…… Jungkook are you there?”

Yes I am. I always am.  

The only thing his body allows him to do is cut the call as he sinks to his knees, ignoring the honking cars and screaming drivers waiting to cross the road. You’re fine. You’re alright. And you’re home.

Picking himself up he runs once more down the street to finally find the one woman who matters to him more than anything.

You sit at the porch of Jungkook’s house, praying that you are at the right place. If you remembered well, this is the address that was written on Bruno’s name tag when you came to drop him yesterday. The door is locked and no one seems to be at home so make yourself comfortable on the steps as you sit with your arms circling your knees rocking back and forth slowly, waiting for Jungkook.

It’s starting to get cold now. Even though you are wearing a semi formal blazer over your halter top it’s doing little to protect you from the low temperature because your pencil skirt cannot hide the skin below your knees. The sandwich the neighbor was kind enough to provide you with along with her phone is the one thing keeping you sane after running around and hiding the whole day.

You munch on the bread slowly, preserving it, as the sky grows darker and darker around you. The only sounds that fill the evening are the ones of the birds returning home, calling it a day, and of moving water. There seems to be a pool at the back of the house. You turn and look at the place you are at, over your shoulder. It’s a decent one. A one story house with a small lawn in the front and a little shed enough for a bike or two. Even the locality is a pleasant one, perhaps because it’s a little far from the city. You wonder if it can be a place for you to hide the next few days. Would Jungkook understand your situation and let you stay? You were still practically strangers and letting you seek shelter here would mean going out of the way especially because the house didn’t even belong to him. You just hoped things could fall into place somehow. But for that, he needs to be here first.  

Its like the heavens have heard your plea because just then a figure merging in the shadows enters through the gate, slamming it open, running and panting. You get up the moment you see him as he stops and stands with his hands on his knees, chest heaving, shirt sticking to him with all the sweat. Both your bodies mimic the same signs of relief at the sight of each other. Jungkook walks up to you quickly and grabs you by the wrist literally pulling you in a hug as his arms hold you tight. You wrap your arms around him and melt against him as your tired body finds comfort in his embrace.

“Are you alright?” His head is still buried in the crook of your neck and you nod holding him tighter. “Now I am.”

When Jungkook lets you go and holds you by the shoulders at an arm’s distance away from him, the sun has already disappeared under the horizon. “I was so worried! You weren’t at the restaurant and there were police everywhere-”

“Wait what? Police?” You panic at the mention.

“Yeah police. Your office is a ruckus, your house looks like someone broke in. There were police interviewing people and I thought you were kidnapped or something I-” He quickly hugs you again and you feel his lips press gently against your temple.“Thank god you are fine.”

You giggle not really meaning to because it’s a little funny. Given the kind of situation you had been in since the morning, he was the one who was supposed to give you a sense of comfort but here you were rubbing his back gently, calming him. “I’m fine Jungkook it’s okay. Just a little hungry and in need of a bath because I’m a little too sweaty running in the sun the whole day. How are you possibly this close to me?”

“Trust me, I’ve seen worse.” Jungkook pulls back relieved, now smiling a little. “Come in. I’m sure there’s something around for the both us. I starving as well.”

He reaches for his pockets as you wave the half eaten sandwich his neighbor had given you. “The lady next door pitied me and gave me this before she left. I feel bad now cause I think this was her dinner. She seemed to be going for work, maybe the night shift.”

“So has Taehyung.” Jungkook hangs his mouth open and looks at you with a face that indicates sudden realization. “And I went to the grocery store and didn’t come back.”

“What?” You frown. “What are you saying?”

“So I didn’t take it from him. Oh shit!”

“Take what Jungkook?”

“The house keys…” He says slowly as you smack your forehead.  

“You don’t have your house keys Jungkook! What kind of person doesn’t have their house keys?”

“Technically it’s not my house-”

“You live in it, goddammit.”

Jungkook looks embarrassed.

“Okay fine, Never mind. But don’t you do things like hide the keys under the doormat or a plant or something?”

The change in Jungkook’s expression confuses you. He looks startled. “Why would you think I’d do something like that?”

You blink twice. “Because I watch movies? What’s there to be so so shocked about?”

“Because I thought…. “ He shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Never mind.”

“Right. You are shocked because I would think someone as intelligent as you would hide their keys somewhere like that but apparently you’re not smart enough to carry them.” You cross your arms, glaring at him.

“Y/n I get that you are disappointed but-”

“Oh no I’m not just disappointed. I’m cold and I’m dirty and I’m hungry and I’ve been running around the whole day thinking you were one person I can trust myself to be okay with, but clearly I was wrong.”

“You’re throwing tantrums like a typical, rich, spoilt kid Y/n. Stop it.”

“Maybe because I am one, genius.” You sneer.

Jungkook lets out a short sarcastic laugh before walking straight past you and disappearing behind the walls of the house. You look at him with pure surprise for walking out on you in the middle of a conversation and follow him to give him an earful but stop at the sight before you.

It’s a small backyard illuminated by dull luminescence of a pool barely the big enough to be called one but also not too small to be enjoyable. The blue waters are gently moving because of the wind, hitting the walls making the lapping sound that you heard earlier. It’s a very pleasant sight, instantly calming your nerves, making you smile. It would be nice to dangle your legs in the water on such a peaceful evening to push away all that has been bothering you.

“Taehyung leaves the backdoor open accidentally a lot of times. I’m sure he did today as well” Jungkook stands by the wooden door and reaches out for the handle, pushing it down. It doesn’t open. He looks at you before pushing it again and again just to be sure, but the stubborn thing doesn’t budge.

“Quit it Jungkook. It’s not going to open.”

“I guess it’s our luck that he was careful today.” Jungkook walks towards you sheepishly.

“And that you decided to be such an idiot.”

Jungkook lowers his eyes. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight Y/n. After your call I just…. I’ve been…I should have….”

His embarrassment makes you feel ashamed of your words. Sure you were looking for some comfort but not once did you think of the tension you were putting him through. Though it warms your heart when you realize he thinks so much about you, that he cares so much. You reach up and lean in to plant a soft peck on his cheek. “I shouldn’t have over reacted. I’m so sorry. I’ve been such a nuisance the whole of today…”

He pushes your hair and tucks it behind your ear. “What happened Y/n?”

You sigh tiredly and hold his hand which lingers near your face as you walk him towards the pool. Kicking off your heels you sit at the edge dipping your feet in the waters. They are cool not cold, lapping up against your mid shins. Jungkook lets go your hand and rolls up his pant up before sitting down next to you, dangling his feet in the water. He reaches out for the sandwich in your other hand, opens the wrapper a little more and hands it you, ushering you to eat. “Now speak.”

You take a deep breath and a bite and look at him, wondering where to start from. Even though it’s dimly lit you are able to notice what he’s wearing. A black jacket over a black t-shirt and a black pair of sweatpants. It’s so in contrast to all that you have seen him in all these days yet this seems more familiar to you than those formal suits. Maybe because it looks so natural on him or so much more like him. Why it would seem something ‘like him’ when you didn’t know anything much about him, puzzles you. Yet you can’t help but get the feeling.

“We were supposed to be watching a drama right now.” You remember, feeling bad. Jungkook nods and then tilts his head. “I think I’ve had my fair share of drama today.”

You smile. ‘I was looking forward to it. Specially because I was half expecting you to turn up in a suit with a bouquet of flowers and a limousine.”

Jungkook snorts shaking his head. “I’m sorry seeing me in a suit the last few days gave you such an impression. I don’t do flowers and poetry and romance Y/n. I expected you would have understood by now, that I’m more of a realistic and practical person.”

You recollect the image of him relieved when he saw you and the sensation of his lips against your temple. What he says and how he was don’t seem to match.

“Is this how you usually are?”

“More or less yeah.”

“So the suits were just for the ‘Electra complex’?”

He laughs looking at you and pushes your elbow up, prompting you to take a bite from the sandwich.

“Yeah, the Electra complex.”

“You think it worked?” You tease him taking a bite. “All those newspapers and the glasses and the suits?”

“If they didn’t, you wouldn’t have agreed to go on a date with me.”

You blush and thank god that it’s too dark for him to see the redness on your skin, even with the light of the water reflecting on your face. “I don’t remember talking about a date.”

“In my opinion when a guy and a girl are interested in each other and mutually consent to go out together with no purpose that’s significant to their daily, personal or professional lives, it’s called a date.”

You laugh because it sounds like such a textbook definition, but don’t agree or deny it. Jungkook smiles looking at you before turning his attention on the waters.

“I’d like it if you wear white to our next meeting.” You purposely stress on the word to tease him. “I feel like is a color that would suit you more.”

It strange because the expression on Jungkook’s face falls. It’s like you said something he didn’t want to hear.

“Let’s just say my habit of wearing white had to be changed because of someone.”

“Someone you loved?”

The bitter-sweetness in his voice is so evident of the fact, it makes you wonder why you even had to ask something so obvious. Jungkook doesn’t reply. He pushes your arm once more to remind you to eat your sandwich.  

“Why are you avoiding telling me what happened Y/n?” You freeze half way through the bite you are taking. “You seem to want to ask and talk about everything but that and while I don’t mind giving answers, I think you owe me some first.”

You sigh realizing that you tried to be smart with him but Jungkook is way smarter. He has seen right through it. You slowly chew on your bite. “I don’t think it’s right to involve you Jungkook. I don’t want to do that.”

“I’m afraid you’re wrong Y/n.” Jungkook’s face is expressionless. “I am already involved.”

The surety and confidence in his voice make you raise your eyebrows and look at him questioningly.

“You involved me the moment you called me to your restaurant. Moreover you are in my house now. How am I supposed to help you if you won’t tell me how I can?”

“Let me stay here for a couple of days.” You gather the courage to ask him that. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you why and I’m not expecting you to say yes, but if you can even consider it, it will be a huge favor on me.”

Jungkook takes your hand in his, tracing circles at the back of your hand. “You can stay as long as you want. I’ll talk to Taehyung. But I’m sure he won’t mind.”

You look at him blankly. You don’t know what to show. Gratitude for being so considerate about you? Confusion for being so considerate about you, someone he barely interacted with? Or fear for being so considerate about you, someone he seems to know so much about for someone he has barely interacted with.

“Why?” Jungkook looks at your blank face as you question him. “Why do you care so much?”

He takes a breath before answering. “Because I like you.”

He’s searching for something deep in your eyes.

“And because I’m hoping that all this concern for you, will make you in turn concerned about me and give me the last piece of the sandwich.”

He makes a pleading face as you look at your hand to see a small piece of bread remaining, the mayonnaise oozing out a little from the lettuce. “I’m starving.”

You stare at Jungkook letting out a short exasperated breath. “Do you know what a possibly romantic moment you have ruined? There were so many other things you could have said Jeon Jungkook.”

Jungkook grins “Sorry love, but I told you. I don’t do romance.”

“Sorry love, but I didn’t tell you. I don’t share my sandwich.”

You mock his voice plopping the last of the sandwich into you mouth, chewing furiously hard and fast as Jungkook makes a disappointed face. As you swallow the last remains of it, the feeling gives a satisfaction but the butterflies in your stomach somehow are not calming down as his words ring in your head. Sorry love.

You turn to face Jungkook who is looking at you smugly and lean back a little doubting his intentions. “What?”

He lets go your hand and runs his thumb across the edge of your lips, swiping some of the mayonnaise that happened to staining the edges and licks his finger clean.

“Tasty.” he raises an eyebrow playfully and resumes looking at the water.

It turns you on more than you care to admit. Maybe because the dimness is perfect, or the two of you are alone and in such a close proximity or maybe because the night is still young, holding a hundred different possibilities, you choose to run your eyes all over him, taking in all the details you avoiding looking at.

Jungkook turns to you and you quickly look away, staring at the water, leaning in to run your fingers through it. “It would be nice to get into the water. I’ve been dying to feel a little clean.”

“Get in then.” Jungkook shrugs. “The water is constantly regulated so you can practically take a bath in it if you have soap. Taehyung does it sometimes when he’s really bored.”

“Do you think he’ll mind if I splash in for a bit?”

“Nope. Feel free.”

You get up, but pause, still not comfortable with the idea of randomly swimming in someone else’s property and shake Jungkook’s shoulders who looks up at you as you ask him.

“Do you want to join me?”

You wonder why the sparkle in his eyes darken to amber, as he stands up. “You want me to?”

“Why not?” You shrug. If Jungkook was also in the waters with you, then technically, it wouldn’t exactly look like you were trespassing.

“As you wish.” He reaches up and unzips his jacket.

You almost squeak, What are you doing? but it is perfectly obvious what he is doing. You asked him to join you and it isn’t like you could just wade in with your clothes on. You just didn’t think this far ahead.

He drops the jacket and grabs the material behind his neck, pulling his T-shirt off over his head and you just stare. Stare at the honey-colored skin with occasional tattoos, a fading scar at the making his way from the lines of his abs, down into his pants, his dancer like slender body, the chiseled abs- He pulls free of the shirt and shakes out his dark hair and looks at you, hands on his belt, giving his familiar crooked smile.

“Keeping your clothes on? I could promise not to look, but I’d be lying.”

You strip out of your blazer and throw it at him. He catches it and drops it onto the pile of his clothes, grinning.

“Pervert, though your honesty earns you some points.”

“I’m twenty-three. we’re all perverts,” He steps out of his pants. He is wearing black boxer shorts, and to your mixed relief and slight regret, he keeps them on as he lowers himself into into the water which is just high enough to hide his lower torso. You pull your top off and then your skirt as Jungkook looks up at you.

His eyes travel down from your face to your body, your plain cotton panties and bra. You wish you’d worn something prettier. Your bra is pale blue cotton, the totally boring kind you could buy at the supermarket, though Jungkook is looking at it like it is something remarkable and amazing.

He flushes suddenly, and averts his eyes, backing away and then ducks under the water to resurface again, looking less flustered but a lot wetter, his hair dark black and streaming rivulets. “It feels good.”

You take a breath and dive forward, the water closing over your head. It is easy to float; the moment you let yourself, you bob to the surface, shaking water from your hair. A spray of water droplets makes you look up. Jungkook is running his hands through his hair shaking it. You look at him, more like stare,  with a sudden sinking in your stomach, if the heavens would ever be kind enough to let you see a day when you could call him yours.

“I‘m getting scared at the way you are looking at me.” He jokes, playing with himself in the water. “What kind of intentions are you harboring exactly?”

You pause.

Somehow you don’t think for a minute before replying.

“I think someone wants to kill me.”

Jungkook is looking at you as shocked as you are feeling.

You don’t know why you told him that. Especially after denying to do so many times. Maybe because he just radiates a sense of trustworthiness or maybe because you feel like you can connect to him in a different way. But you really trust him and its evident because you open up and spill your fears.

“What do you mean?” Jungkook moves closer to you in the water until the two of you are side by side, backs against the wall of the pool.

“When I went out for lunch today I overheard someone in the men’s washroom agreeing over the phone I think? because I could only hear one person speak. He was say something like making me confess everything and in the worst case scenario, he will do away with me.”

Jungkook looks like he’s thinking hard. The intelligence in him must have realized something you didn’t.

“I called Hoseok and he said someone broke into his room when he was out for lunch and he was clearing the mess. When I told him what I heard he asked me to go somewhere no one can think of finding me and that he will keep me updated about everything.”

“Who is Hoseok?” There is a tightness in Jungkook’s voice.

“Someone I trust if you are suspecting him.”

“Who is he Y/n?” He repeats, voice still the same.

“He is in charge of the artificial intelligence department in my office.”

“You talked to him today morning in the coffee shop over the phone didn’t you?”

“Yes.” You look at Jungkook curiously. “So?”

“Did you meet him before you went for lunch?”

“Yeah I did.”

“What for?”

You hesitate. Jungkook glances at you understandingly.

“I’m trying to help Y/n.”

“There was a murder downtown in an abandoned building two days ago. The victim was a colleague of mine, my office east branch in charge. I had asked Hoseok to do a background check on him so I went to check what he gathered.”

“Why did you need a background check done on him?”

“Because I suspect that the murder is not a rival’s job like my father insists. I think it’s done for personal reasons.”

“You are not a detective Y/n. Your job is not to find out who killed him.”

“But I don’t like seeing my father tensed Jungkook.” Jungkook looks away far into the water, mind working fast again. “And I think I am right. That man was involved in some illegal tradings for a long time now. There is evidence which shows he had been selling our business secrets and material to some other company. I’m scared to tell my father about it now because he trusted that man so much. It would break his heart to know what a cheat he was.”

Jungkook is silent.

“What are you thinking?” You want to know what he has made out of everything.

“So you are telling me that after coffee with me, you went to your office. Worked with Hoseok on this. And when you were both out for lunch, Hoseok’s room was broken in to and there was a plan to attack you” He takes a deep thoughtful breath. “Why do you think this person broke into Hoseok’s room?”

“You think it’s the same person?”

“Of course it is. It’s too much of a coincidence Y/n. And trust me. “You haven’t seen him this serious before. “Coincidences do not just happen. What could someone possibly want from Hoseok?”

“He is the Artificial Intelligence in charge. He does have a lot of valuable information.”

“Information which is clearly common to the both of you because both of you were targeted….. I don’t think this person wants to kill you Y/n. When I went to your house and your office, there were things scattered everywhere like someone was looking through them for something. If their intention was to kill you or hurt you, they wouldn’t have left behind such traces because you will get alert. And going by the conversation you heard, it seems like killing you was the last option, perhaps if you didn’t cooperate.”

You nod as he continues because what he is saying does make sense.

“So I’m guessing the common point here is, information. That too the information you have gathered about Mr. Wook. I think someone didn’t want you or anybody else to find out about it and was hence trying to retrieve any information you have stored or shared about him.”

“That makes sense Jungkook but how would someone know if I was trying to access any information about Mr. Wook? I mean no one but Hoseok and I knew about it and we were careful because he is one of the highly confidential employees. ”

“Don’t you think that’s odd? There is so much evidence about a highly confidential employee’s illegal activities in your company’s systems?”

“Do you think someone employed him knowing about it?” You try to think like Jungkook.

“Could be. That’s possible. He might just be a pawn” Jungkook muses suspiciously. “Can anyone get any sort of mail or signal when you try to access the information of such employees?”

You shake your head. “Only the members of the board get a detailed report of whatever happens in the company’s network. If Hoseok or I didn’t tell anyone, the only possible people who can know are the board members. That too if they check it, which they don’t most of the time because they have better things to do.”

“But the fact that someone tried to break in shows that someone did monitor the network and that this someone doesn’t want you or anyone else to find out about Mr. Wook. And whoever this is is definitely a board member because according to what you are saying only they can see such activity.”

“And this person may also be Mr.Wook’s accomplice or the one who brought him into the company in the first place.” You cover your mouth in realization. “There is a bigger player who is a cheat and he is among the Board members. Jungkook, my father?! I need to tell him everything. He needs to know there are traitors in the company!” You panic worrying about him when Jungkook holds your hand firmly.

“The people who you are dealing with are probably very dangerous Y/n. If they can storm into your office and break in in broad daylight, they can also trace calls you make to your father because they know he is the first person you will call to tell everything. Your hideout will be revealed in an instant.”

“What do I do now Jungkook?” You feel like you are going to slip into an abyss. “I’m suddenly too afraid of everything.”

“Just try to stay away from anything and everything dangerous for a few days. I will take you back to your father once everything settles a little.”

“But I’ve put you in danger too haven’t I?” You panic moving a little away from him. “What if I am discovered here? They need me alive for information but you?….” You shake your head at the thought of what might happen to him, tears somehow brimming in your eyes, overwhelmed by everything. “I don’t like the idea of people getting hurt because of me Jungkook. I can’t stay here.”

You begin to raise yourself in the water to leave but Jungkook stands in front of you, trapping you between him, his arms on either side of you and the wall behind.

“Do you expect me to let you go when I know you will get hurt out there?”

The sudden close proximity, the pitch darkness only allowing you to see little of each other, the silence of the night, they all leave you speechless.

“Stay Y/n.” He moves a little closer. “I don’t think I can bear losing you again.”

You don’t know what that means. Maybe being tensed about you the last few hours has really affected him, but it feels as though the mere thought of being away from you pains him.

He holds your hips and pulls you towards him through the water. It is just deep enough that his feet touches the ground, but yours didn’t quite as you clench your hands on his shoulders to keep yourself upright and he draws your legs around his waist. You stare down at him, heat coiling in your stomach, and he rises up to kiss you just as you lean in, your lips crashing together with a force that sends a shock of pleasure-pain through you. His hands slide up your skin; you tangle you fingers in the wet curls at the nape of his neck. He parts your lips, strokes inside with his tongue. You are both shuddering and gasping, your breath mingling with his.

He reaches behind you with one hand to steady the two of you against the wall of the pool, but it was slick with water and he half-slips; you break away from kissing him as he finds his footing, his left arm still wrapped tightly against you, pressing your body to his. His pupils are too wide and his heart hammering against yours.

“That was,” he gasps, and presses his face to the juncture of your neck and shoulder and breathes as if he is breathing you in; he is shaking a little, although his grip on you is steady and firm. “That was—unexpected.”

“It was,” you murmur, touching his hair gently, as he presses a kiss to your throat, and he tips his head back to look up at you. For a moment he just looks at you in astonishment, his lips parted slightly; You feel your cheeks flush. He is looking at you like you were the first star that had ever come out in the sky, a miracle painted across the face of the world that he could barely believe in. “I want—” he says, and the breaks off, groaning. “I need to kiss you gain.”

Instead of nodding, you lean down to press your lips to his. It is a hard, hot, driving kiss, a nip at your lower lip and the clash of tongues and teeth, both of you pressing as hard as you could to get close, closer. His arms wrap you completely, and suddenly he is lifting you up on the wall behind you with his hands under your knees and pushes you back as he raises himself up placing both hands on either sides of you, water pouring off him in streams.

You slide yourself back feeling the pile of clothes behind you as he hovers before you, situated on his knees. You want to stop the world and take all the time to look at him, but you cannot because you want him so much. Lying back you pull him down on top of you, kissing him fiercely until he groans and whispers, “Y/n, I can’t—you have to tell me—I can’t think—”

He draws back leaving just enough distance between the two of your faces to see each other. He is flushed, his eyes black with desire, his hair, beginning to curl as it dried, hanging into his eyes. You tug lightly at the strands wound between your fingers. “It’s okay,” you whisper back. “It’s okay. I want to.” you kiss him, slow and hard. “I want to, if you do.”

“If I want to?” There is a wild edge to his soft laugh. “Can’t you tell?” And then he is kissing you again, sucking your lower lip into his mouth, kissing your throat and mouthing your collarbone as you run your hands all over him as if you are drawing him, your hands mapping his body. As if, like a painting, he is coming to life under your hands.

When his hands slide underneath your bra, you gasp at the sensation, then nod at him when he freezes, his eyes questioning. Go on. He stops at each moment, stops before removing each piece of clothing from either of you, asking you with eyes and words if he should keep going, and each time you nod and say, Yes, go on, yes. And when finally there is nothing between you but skin, you hands still, thinking that there is no way to ever be closer to another person than this, that to take another step would be like cracking open your chest and exposing your heart.

You feel Jungkook’s muscles flex as his weight shifts and suddenly everything seems very real; you feel a sudden flash of nerves: This is really happening. You still and he notices. Raising himself with his elbows on either side of you, keeping his weight off your body, all of him is tense and shaking. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m not on a pill….”

Jungkook reaches for the wallet in his pant that is in the discarded pile behind you and you hear the crackle of foil. Anticipating, you meet his irises which are luminescent rims of gold and you see them soften as he begins to pull back, his fingers slightly grazing your skin, the sensation making you shiver.

“We don’t have to Y/n. If you want to take it slow-”

“No,” you whisper, and pull him down again. “Kiss me,” you plead, and he does, hot languorous slow kisses that speed up as his heartbeat did, as the movement of your bodies quicken against each other. Each kiss is different, each rising higher and higher like a spark as a fire grew: quick soft kisses, long slow worshipful kisses, playful light kisses, adoring kisses. You abandon yourself to the kisses, the language of them, the wordless speech that passes between the two of you. His hands are shaking, but they are quick and skilled on your body, light touches maddening you until you push and pull at him, urging him on with the mute appeal of fingers and lips and hands.

And even at the final moment, when you do flinch, you press him to go on, wrapping yourself around him, not letting him go. You keep your eyes wide open as he shudders apart, his face against your neck, saying your name over and over, and when finally you close your eyes, the stars are aligned and shining in a strange way, telling you something you will later wish that you had understood that night.

When you wake up the following morning you are in a bed neatly tucked under comforters, dressed in a black shirt and your panties. There is a sore feeling between your legs but you smile remembering how your hands and lips traced each other last night and the desperate moans and groans that were drawn against each other skin. But the smile falters as soon as the realization dawns and you pull the sheets closer to you with mixed feelings about last night. You just slept with Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook. A man you met only three days ago. You only met Jungkook three days ago, and things had escalated to this already. Which was completely fine if yesterday’s act was purely physical and lust driven. But it wasn’t.

There was something more. You could feel that there was something more between the two of you. Considering again that it had only been three days it was definitely not love, it was too soon to fall for someone. But the way he was with you, the way he handled your body, he seemed like he was really familiar with it, knowing exactly where to touch you to drive you mad. Or he just was really eager and experienced with women in general which did not come across as a shock to you considering the way last night happened. Whatever it was, as far as you could remember it was one of your best nights.

Jungkook walks into the room, shirtless, with a coffee in his hand as he places it next to you on the bed-side table, smiling.

“Morning.” He tilts your chin up with a hand under it and leans down to place a brief kiss. You suddenly wish he was wearing a shirt so you could grab him by the material under the sheets with you.

“How am I inside?” You assume it’s his room because it looks like a typical guys landing. Football merchandise everywhere, cables and video games controllers lying around, socks and shirts all over the place.

“I carried you in. Taehyung came home at about 5 today morning. I had to hear an earful from him about forgetting the keys especially when I was bringing a girl home.” He chuckles.

“Ohh my god.” You flush. “He didn’t see me…?”

“I had you dressed before he came home don’t worry.” He kicks aside a pair of shoes, pulling a bean bag from the corner of the room to the edge of the bed and sits down.

“Why didn’t you dress me in my clothes?” You drink the coffee instantly liking it’s taste.

“Because I like seeing you in these.” he cocks his head, running his eyes over your figure. “ It makes me feel like you belong to me.”

You raise your eyebrow. “Do I?”

“If you want to.” He shrugs like whether you say yes or no it won’t matter to him but his eyes are telling otherwise. He wants you.

You slowly nod your head and decide to play with him for a bit. “I’ll consider the offer.”

He grins but he’s more relaxed now.

“Where are my clothes?” You push the sheets off as you finish your coffee and Jungkook gets up and walks to the cupboard, taking a set of clothes out.

“These are Taehyung’s ex girlfriends. She left them here. I forgot you didn’t have an extra set and threw yours for washing.” He looks adorably apologetic biting his lip. “I’ll get you new ones later today.”

You shake your head exasperatedly and ask him to get out so you can bathe and change.

“What, it’s nothing I haven’t seen?” He smirks as you turn red.

“Get out Jungkook, it’s too bright here.” you mumble, still a little shy.

He turns around, silently obeying but you cannot ignore the flash of a hurtful memory in his eyes. You had brought back an unwanted souvenir of something again.

When you get out of the shower, and dress in the clothes Jungkook gave you, you feel strange. It’s a crop top and jeans. As far as you remember you have never worn or even owned something like this. It had always been formals or semi formals. Yet it feels so strangely comfortable to be wearing something so foreign to you. You pull your hair up into a bun casually and take one last look at yourself before leaving.

You can hear laughter of two boys in the kitchen, one you were familiar with and one you weren’t. You walk in slowly past sleeping Bruno to see Jungkook sitting on the kitchen platform as a tall, blonde haired man was busy making what looked like eggs, on the stove next to him. Jungkook slides off the surface when he sees you and kisses you deep, pulling you closer. As he pulls back, you see his friend watch the two of you a little more than keenly and turn his back to face you, laughing softly. Jungkook whispers in your ear, leaning in. “So he knows you have me under consideration and that he is not allowed to get any ideas.”

You laugh silently as you sit down at the small table across them.

“Y/n right?” The blonde turns to you, smiling warmly. “Jungkook’s told me a lot about you. I’m Taehyung.”

‘‘Hi.” You smile at him. the man in front of you is a bit taller than Jungkook, much leaner and extremely good looking. Like an impish faerie of some kind. Jungkook narrows his eyes at your shameless observation at which you shrug.

“I’m making breakfast, would you like some?”

“Yeah I’m kind of starving. But I can make it myself, you need not take the trouble.”

Taehyung looks at Jungkook then you with a raised eyebrow. “You can cook?”

You blush and press your lips tightly together shaking your head. Of course not. You remember hardly entering the kitchen of your house more than twice. You’ve never had the need to cook or even the feeling of being hungry. Everything here is so new to you.  

Jungkook and Taehyung chuckle. “I thought so. But that’s okay. I enjoy making it. How would you like your eggs?” Taehyung turns to face the stove again.

“Thoroughly whipped.” Jungkook smirks as you widen your eyes at him.

“Is that experience speaking?” Taehyung’s voice is amused.

“Maybe. I may have-”

“Scrambled!” You cut through him staring at Jungkook pointedly. “I’d like them scrambled.”

“As you wish.” But he’s laughing and both men bump their fists against each other.

You take a deep breath ignoring them. “Taehyung, I was meaning to ask you if Jungkook told you about me needing a place to stay.”

Taehyung turns to you and nods. “He did, don’t worry. You can stay for as long as you want. A feminine presence is what this house is missing anyways.”

“I don’t want to be a burden of any sort. I mean I wish I can help around the house and stuff but I really don’t know how to…..”

“I figured.” Taehyung smiles. “I’m not expecting you to be a Snow White for us dwarfs here. Just be careful while you are here, that’s enough. As long as you don’t put yourself and us in danger, I don’t see what the problem could possibly be.” He places two toasts and a scrambled egg before you.

“Exactly. I don’t know if I can promise ‘no danger’. You don’t know how the situation is. It screams danger.”

“But you can avoid that danger.” Taehyung crosses his arms. “Don’t try to contact anyone. Don’t get out of the house often. Don’t use your phone. I have an old phone for you to use in which I shall install a new SIM. But I will expect you to use it as less as possible. Mr.Wook and his men maybe be more dangerous than we estimate them to be.” You narrowed your eyes at his words. Mr. Wook?

“Just a second, I’ll be back.” You nod as he leaves and eat hungrily, talking to Jungkook between your bites.

“What does Taehyung work as?”

“An engineer. Electrical engineer to be exact. His office is in the same locality as yours.”

You grow silent. Is this a coincidence?

Taehyung returns with a couple of things in his hand - a phone and a pair of keys.

“Here this is for you. Jungkook and my numbers are saved in it in case you want to contact us. And this is a spare key to the house.”

“Thanks.” You take it into your hands feeling the cool metal. “It’s not a good idea to call home and tell them I’m alright is it?”

Taehyung nods his head. “Jungkook and I were talking about it. Since neither you nor we know about the people who attacked you, we might be underestimating them or even overestimating them. But to be as cautious as possible we can assume that they are tracking the calls you make to the people you contact most often like your father, his brother, Cho, all of them. Let’s give it two days time. Jungkook and I will keep a lookout for anything suspicious. If we find that it’s all clear you may do as you wish.”

You agree as Taehyung turns his back to you, pushing up his sleeves to do the dishes. Then suddenly he rolls them back down. “Isn’t it your turn to wash Jungkook?”

“No~” Jungkook is stuffing cereal in his mouth to avoid his friend’s eye. Taehyung tackles him over and both boys begin to bicker, tickling each other as you laugh, amused at their childishness forgetting all that you had to be worried about.

Living with these boys was maybe going to be much more fun that you had thought.

Living with the boys was absolutely not fun.

It had been only two days and you were bored to the core already. They were hardly at home, especially Taehyung. But that was understandable considering he had a job but Jungkook? You didn’t know what an unemployed man did for so many hours outside the house. When he was home though he spent every minute with you. You would sit together with him for hours talking or playing some video game or just tangled in the sheets. In hardly two days you had gotten so used to his presence that you felt a strange kind of emptiness when he was not around.

Today, the third day of your staying here, you got up at nearly 11 in the morning. After finishing your daily activities you had breakfast, watched a tv show, swam around in the pool, played with Bruno, even cleaned the house for the first time in your life because you were so bored and the time was only 3. It’s funny. Time runs fast when you don’t want it to and doesn’t move when you need it to.

The front lock makes a creaking noise and you sit up immediately, raising your defenses. Jungkook opens the door with Taehyung behind him and they have dozens of bags in their hands. You relax at the sight of them and walk up to help them with their haul.

“Looks like you guys shopped.”

“Mhmm.” Jungkook plants a kiss on your cheek as Taehyung looks away. “And I got you some clothes as well. Something more of your style.’“

“Really?” he laughs as your eyes light up in excitement and you quickly rummage through the boxes.

“That’s for tonight.” Taehyung points out a neat looking expensive package. “It’s a surprise.”

You look at Jungkook who smiles, urging you to open it and see a pretty red knee length dress waiting for you under the covers.

“Wow.” You whisper feeling the exquisite material beneath your fingers. “Why so suddenly?”

“We figured you were getting bored at home so we thought we shall take you out tonight.”

“That’s….that’s nice.” You swallow nothing.

Saturday night would be a good night to go out. But given the current situation you were in you didn’t know if you would enjoy yourself especially when your family had no idea about your condition and whereabouts. When your father had no idea of the situation he was possibly in. Nevertheless you force a smile. It is sweet of the boys to think about you.   

“I know what you are thinking. And I know you are worried. That’s why I am taking you out. Not to party or for a fancy dinner like all men want to take their dates” Jungkook smiles titling his head. “I’m taking you out to meet Cho.”

“What?” You could feel yourself getting light with happiness.

“I met her after her working hours today. Told her you were fine and that we would meet her tonight.”

“For real?” You still can’t believe it.

Jungkook laughs nodding and you throw yourself at him, hugging him tight. “Thank you thank you thank you! I thought it would be days before I see her.”

Taehyung is pulling out his own clothes from the boxes. “Kookie is more worried about you than you give him credit for.” You smile at the man who has his arms around you and kiss him softly.

“Where are we going tonight?” You look at both men. “It can’t be a public place for sure, I’d be an easy target.”

“Exactly. That’s why we ruled out the club, restaurant and mall. We were thinking maybe a movie? The place would be dark so you are less likely to be seen, there isn’t opportunity for commotion as such.”

“Yeah.” You agree to Jungkook’s words. ““Movie seems fine.”

“It’s my only night free to enjoy too so come on now, don’t bore me with those stupid meaningless action films.” Taehyung crosses his arms looking displeased.

“Do you have a better idea?” Jungkook frowns.

“Drama?” Taehyung suggests immediately. “We can watch a play. The new one in town I heard, is pretty good.”

“The one you suggested earlier this week?” You turn to Jungkook questioning him.

“Yeah I’ve heard it’s good too. You wanna go? I don’t mind.”

“Me neither.” You shrug. Meeting Cho is the priority here. You didn’t care when and how and where that happened. If you could pass on the message to your father through her it then a load would be lifted from your chest.

“Then it’s decided. The play it is.” Taehyung stands up and takes his things to his room. As you and Jungkook retreat to his room you can’t help but notice that Taehyung is little too excited about this.

3 hours later 2 of you are dressed perfectly well for the occasion and waiting outside one of the city’s biggest theaters amidst the light snowfall. You are wrapped with a huge comfortable overcoat and by Jungkook’s protective arms as you stand burying your face in the crook of his neck. It helps you not only feel warm but to hide as well. You, after all, should be seen as less as possible. Yet from time to time you raise your head to rest your chin on his shoulder and fascinatedly look over it at the well dressed crowd pouring in and out of the grand entrance.

“Are you too warm?” Jungkook whispers in your ear and nodding you pull him even closer. “Yeah, but I like it.”

You can feel him smile against your hair as he tightens his grip around you slowly swaying together to the rhythm of the street music.

“What’s the play about?” You look at the poster that’s hanging high up on the outer wall of the theater. It has two intertwined figures in the snow much like how you and Jungkook were standing.

“Something about revenge for love.” Jungkook’s voice was uncertain. “Though I’m not sure. We shall find out in a while I guess.”

You agree. Jungkook is playing with the strands of your hair twirling it between his fingers, growing bored. Of course he is bored, the two of you had been waiting for far too long. You train your eyes to focus on the street. “Cho should be here by now. Taehyung called to inform that he reached her house over half an hour ago.”

“They are probably on the way. They should be here any moment.”

“How again are they going to recognize each other?”

“They met today in the afternoon when I went to see her.”

“How did you recognize her by the way?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” Jungkook is smiling. Of course he knew her. He knows everything.

“Right. Dumb question. But how did she recognize you?”

“She didn’t. She thought I was there to kidnap her or something. Took a while to get her to believe me.

”You laugh imagining the kind of scene Cho must’ve created. Even though the last few days with Jungkook had been nice and you enjoyed them, you really did miss her. The fact that Jungkook was sweet enough to reach out to her for you makes you appreciate him more and more than you think you can.

You feel a vibration against your thigh and Jungkook pulls you back a little to take the phone from his pocket. “Hello…..Alright…..Yeah got it. We’re coming.”

You look at him curiously as he answers. “They are here but at another entrance. We shall meet them inside.”

He zips your coat all the way up till its half covering your face and takes your hand, leading you in, diving into the crowd. 10 minutes of pushing through the crowd and desperate searching later, you feel a tap on the shoulder and a female figure crush you tightly in her embrace.

“Y/n! I’ve been so worried! Where have you been?! I went to the police station at least five times in the last two days, your dad is worried sick, your uncle is going mad looking for you, he nearly tore down my whole house thinking I was hiding you or something! What happened? Are you okay? Did Jungkook try any funny business with you?-”

“Hey!”

“-I’ll punch him in the balls if he has-”

“Cho Cho Cho relax!” You signal your friend to calm down. “I’m fine. Everything is fine. And I owe it all to these two men here alright? Jungkook has helped me a lot.” Jungkook looks at your best friend pointedly. “And I’ll tell you everything that happened don’t worry.”

“Ladies, we should move in first, we are obstructing the crowd.” Taehyung gestures with his hand, ushering you to move in.

The four of you shuffle in the crowd to find your seats and take them. The lights dim as you begin explaining everything to Cho. The first thing you think of is that watching this play was such a horrible idea. Your objective of meeting Cho today was to talk to her and that was hardly possible in a place everyone is required to keep quiet. You signal her to wait till the play was over and decide to concentrate on the drama instead.

The play isn’t that boring, the choice is pretty good. It’s got everything. Romance, tragedy, comedy and even a little bit of horror. You quickly grip Jungkook’s hand when the stage was filled with people dressed in black jackets and white masks, looming over the characters. They were symbolic of retribution or something Jungkook whispered but you were only thinking about the way he took your hand and held it for the rest of the play after that moment.

When the story ends you are simply sitting clutching your heart. The worst kind of tragedies are the ones that happen for no damn reason. This was one of them. Jungkook hands you a kerchief but you don’t find any tears in your eyes. It was like you had been through pain much worse than that you had seen.

“How about you go to the washroom?” Taehyung suggests as soon as you begin walking out along with the crowd. “You’ll be less seen and less vulnerable that way and you’ll also get time to talk.”

You and Cho nod as she leads you away down the stairs, five floors down to the washroom on the first floor and locks the door behind you. Leaning against the sink you take a deep breath and begin narrating everything. Everything you saw, everything you heard, What Jungkook told you, what you thought about it.

“You are telling me you trusted that Jungkook over me?” Cho looks exasperated. “Why didn’t you come to me Y/n?”

“Because practically the whole world knows what good friends we are. I have only ever hang out with you Cho. Don’t you get it? What if these people found me? You would have been in danger as well!”

“Ha! I’m glad you were willing to out Jungkook in danger instead of me then.”

You sigh. “Why do you hate him so much? He’s not bad-”

“I don’t know Y/n. I just don’t get the right vibes from him.”

“I don’t get the right vibes from Taehyung.” You mutter under your breath.

“What? But he’s so sweet!” Your best friend looks so dreamy eyed it makes you want to puke.

“I first doubted him when he mentioned Mr. Wooks name. I’m still wondering as to how he knows? I never mentioned it even once. Moreover he’s an electrical engineer. Mr. Wook’s accident happened due to electricity remember? He works near my office as well. So close to me. He stays in a house that is too big for the salary of an engineer. He feeds a unemployed man moreover. He definitely is getting money from elsewhere. And the way he looks at me and Jungkook….It just doesn’t feel right.”

“When you are in situations like this everything seems suspicious Y/n, you’re thinking about it too much. You happen to forget that this very man let you stay in his house, didn’t attack you while you were with him and helped me talk to you today-”

“Actually Jungkook did that-”

“Taehyung doesn’t not seem to be shady at all Y/n. If anyone should be suspected it’s Jungkook. I don’t believe a man as intelligent as you claim he is would ever get caught and arrested for something as simple as robbing food. He’s-”

“But he did! Hoseok checked it for me. His name is in the prison records.”

“Exactly why I’m getting even more annoyed. He removes every doubt and suspicion on him so easily and so perfectly. It seems too well planned.”

“Don’t you think you are overthinking this? Jungkook has helped me time and again Cho. And I trust him. And I like him too. In fact….” You remember the last few days in his house and how you felt with him around.

“Don’t tell me you are in love with him.” Cho’s voice is threatening.

“Can someone possibly fall in love in a week? I really don’t know. But what I feel with him is different. Very different. It’s like a ‘meant-to-be’ kind of feeling.”

“Can you even hear yourself? You are Y/n, daughter of a billionaire, CEO of a company, heir to uncountable estates, you have men lining up for you and you are losing your mind over him?”

“Matters of the heart are unpredictable I guess.” You shrug as Cho literally throws her hands in the air.

“Un-fucking-believable.” You roll your eyes at her. “You will regret this one day Y/n. I can feel you will-”

A scream.

A loud scream rings through the walls and the two of you straighten, eyes snapping wide. Gathering your things hurriedly, you quickly open the door and see the crowd running here and there in panic. What had happened? Jungkook, where was he? Without thinking twice you make your way through the crowd looking for him as Cho pushes through behind you begging you to wait. You don’t listen to her. You are just running.

When you reach the center of the hall, in front of you there is a silently muttering crowd circling a something. Cho catches up to you and looks equally curious. You push through, apologizing but not hesitating as you make your way to the front to see what was going on. But when your eyes fall on the sight before you, there’s a hundred different things going on in your body. Your breathing hitches. You feel nausea rising at the back of your throat. Your knees feel weak. You head is spinning and your hands are shaking a little.

A body. Someone’s body lying a pool of dark crimson. The person is dressed in a suit that looks eerily familiar. You can’t see the face but it seems to be a young man. For some reason your first thought is Jungkook. Your attackers, they didn’t do this to Jungkook did they?

Leaving the house was a mistake. You shouldn’t have come out. You should never have agreed to.

Someone in the crowd moves forward to turn over the person and reveal his face. You don’t want to see. The foreboding feeling making the hair on your skin stand is warning you not to see.

The sound of sirens fills the silent air and then you can hear footstep as the police force gathers around the place. An officer ushers the crowd to stay away and move back while another one approaches the man who seems to be dead by now and turns him over.

The ground slips from beneath your feet as you fall to your knees in shock. Your hands have found their place over your mouth which as a chilling, soundless scream leaves you when recognize the face dripping with blood. A person you last expected to see.

Your uncle.

And in his hand is a small fluttering paper which reads a number.

2.

You move Jungkook’s hand which is wrapped around you slowly so as to not wake him up. He lets out a breath against the nape of your neck and shifts a little but he’s still sleeping. Swinging your legs off the bed you get up and walk to the window, feeling the moonlight caress your skin. The wind for others probably feels cool and pleasant. For you it is chilly. The night is silent. Deadly silent. And the silence that was once comforting is now terrifying. It scares you more than anything.

“Y/n?” You turn to see Jungkook rubbing his eyes groggily, waking up. Despite yourself and what happened in the last one week you smile. “I’m here.”

You lean against the cold metal of the window behind you, looking at him. Jungkook pushes the covers off himself and gets out of the bed, walking towards you. He’s shirtless like always, hair messed up, eyes still not fully opened, the dark circles around them evident. Suddenly a feeling of guilt washes over you. He had been losing so much sleep because of you the past few days. Either because you are always screaming due to haunted memories or he cannot feel your warmth next to him. The first few days when he got up you could see panic in his eyes, as though the idea of losing you was unbearable. But now he knows you are around here somewhere. It’s enough for him if you are around. And it’s enough for you if he’s around. Somehow, no matter which situation you find yourself in, Jungkook is always around.

You watch as your uncle’s body is concealed completely under a white cloth and lead away by the medical officers who confirmed he was dead. You hadn’t moved the whole time. Not when the police came, not when the body was examined, not when the forensic investigators arrived. Never. Not once did you move. Breathing was a compulsion. An act that was required to stay alive. If being alive was not necessary to catch the person behind all this, you doubt you would have even taken a breath.

“I’m looking for eyewitnesses.” The officer’s voice rings in the closed walls of the theater. “This act has happened in such a packed public place, are you telling me no one saw anything?” You can hear the desperation in his voice. If a man who was not even close to being related to your uncle was feeling this way, how would you be feeling? “If anyone saw something, even a small suspicious thing please come forward. We shall-”

The crowd gasps and breaks into a sudden frenzy of whispers.

It is only then you allow yourself to move. You raise your eyes which had been frozen watching a single tile in the center of the room and look up to see far away in the crowd a hand raised. A witness.

“Who is that?’ The officer demands, gesturing with his hand for the person to come forward. “Everyone move, make way!”

And as the crowd parts, you see the owner of the raised hand and this time you definitely forgot to breath.

It’s Jungkook.  

Jungkook stands next to you looking of the window, taking a deep breath. “You are going to catch a cold if you stand here.”

“The only thing I’m looking forward to catch right now is the one because of whom my life is this messed up.”

The bitterness in your voice causes him to stiffen. Or maybe the fact that this days every time you open your mouth you only had this to talk about made him react like that.

“Sorry.” You mutter.

Jungkook shakes his head taking your face in both his hands. “I get how you are feeling love. I know….But everyone is trying their best. Your father, the police. Everyone is trying. We’ll find this person whoever it is. You meanwhile need to sleep Y/n. This insomnia is going to ruin your health”

He raises you head a little, his soft eyes comforting you. “Do you want me to put you to sleep?”

Its such a sweet proposition, it melts your heart. You turn your head slightly to kiss the palm that’s resting on your cheek. “Thank you for always being there.”

Jungkook wraps you in his embrace, his arms around your shoulders tracing the soft lines of your shoulder blades, and yours are around his waist, your fingers fiddling with the material of his pant.

“Always.” He says, like he does every single time.

And you smile at the whisper like you do every single time.

You are standing by the grave dressed in black.

People around you are colored in the same darkness, standing under the umbrellas in the tears of the sky. Water is dripping excruciatingly slowly from the edge of the cloth above you, people are leaving flowers, saying a few words and walking away. As morning turns to afternoon to evening and the sky darkens, everyone comes and everyone leaves. Everyone except Jungkook who was holding the umbrella under which you were, standing behind you with your hand in his. He hasn’t said a word till now because he knows there is nothing you can listen to comfort your soul. He knows its too shattered to be healed. Nevertheless he stands and its enough. Him just being there is enough.

You hear the sound of a car pull up. Then the sound of mud being squashed by shoes. Then the noise of water hitting another umbrella.  

“The officer.” Jungkook whispers.

You nod and turn to see the blue uniformed man with an umbrella in one hand and a rolled paper in the other, standing at a little distance away from you. The two of you walk up to him and then all three of you together make way to the sheltered area a few feet away.

“The sketch is here.” The officer holds out the paper in his hand for you. “We haven’t started the investigation on it yet as we need to complete some formalities. We shall soon run identity checks and about gather information him.”

You nod again, taking the scroll into your hands. The scroll that contains the face of the man who had killed your uncle. The man whom you should despise so much right now. You didn’t know if you could bear to look at his face.

“I understand your whole family feels threatened Y/n. So I thought you and your father would want to take a look at it first. Consider this a favor beyond my legal limitations.” You nod as usual.

He turns to Jungkook who closes the umbrella, shaking the excess water  “Mr. Jeon, please take a look at it one last time and assure us that this is the killer. This is the man you saw pushing the victim off the fifth floor that night?”

Jungkook looks at you and you can see his throat move as he swallows nothing. He is tensed. For you, for how things will be now, for what you seeing this mans face finally means. He takes the scroll from your hand and rolls it open slowly.

You’ve never seen the man.

He has sharp features - His bone structure was symmetrical, cheek bones high and prominent. Nose sculpted perfectly. Hair tossed to the side as though by the wind. - A sickeningly beautiful face. But most importantly he had soft eyes. Eyes so soft it seems so unbelievable that he would kill someone. While you should have felt insane rage looking at the face of the man who killed your uncle, you don’t. Rather it’s an empty feeling. A very empty feeling.

“It’s him.” Jungkook confirms. “I’m positive.”

“Alright. Thank you Mr. Jeon. Your cooperation is deeply appreciated by the police department.” They exchange bows as you continue to stare at the portrait. Who is this man? And why was he after your family? Why had he killed your uncle? Why does he want to kill your father?

“Y/n, you may take it to your father.” The officer grabs your attention. “I would have personally given it to him but I think as the investigation officer, it’s better I don’t be seen around him. Its legally safer that way.”

You don’t want to. At a situation like this you were perhaps the only child in the world who didn’t want to see her parent. Rather couldn’t bear to see him.

Your father didn’t come even once to see your uncle. The brother he loved so much. The news articles and media said it was because he was fearing for his own life. That he might be attacked next. But your father isn’t a coward. He would never hide out of fear, especially if it meant not seeing your uncle one last time. That meant there was only reason he never came.

Because of you. Because you were always around.  Because like you, he too blamed you for what happened. Because if you had told him about the attack on you earlier, if you had told him about Mr. Wook, your uncle would have never been No.2.

“You don’t seem to want to go.” Jungkook speaks as soon as the officer leaves. He knows you well.

“I think I’ve hurt him more than my uncles death has.”Jungkook is silent. He understands. “Can you go give it? I don’t think I can face him Jungkook. Just hand it over to him in his office will you? That way you can meet him too and he’ll also know you are the witness.”

You are waiting for an answer but Jungkook is taking too long. You expected him to immediately agree. Considering how he has been the past few days you expected him to help you like always.

But he shakes his head.

“I would have gone if your fear isn’t the one sending me there.” He places his hands on your shoulders softly. “You will have to face him some time or the other Y/n. The more you delay it the more distance you are creating and the harder it is going to be for you to later cover. There is nothing to blame yourself for Y/n. I’m sure he doesn’t either.”

“He hasn’t spoken to me even once. Not a single word Jungkook. He didn’t even look at me.”

“Grief often doesn’t allow people to be in their right minds. Just go Y/n. You’re his daughter. And now he only has you.”

He’s right. You should go. You should see your father. For his sake at least if not for yours.  You look at Jungkook and the assurance written all over his face.

It’s a common misconception that those who do not face any sorrows in their life are very lucky. Wrong. It’s a misconception for a reason. Because being in pain is unavoidable. At some point in their life, everyone goes through something that shatters them, something that brutally destroys the inner them, something that kills them on the inside. No one is lucky enough to not be hurt.

Lucky people are those who have someone to stand by them throughout the struggle, someone to guide them. Someone to lean on, someone who willingly becomes their pillar of support. You got more than what you asked from Jungkook.

“Thank you.” Wrapping your arms around his neck, you feel every cell of your body expressing its gratitude to him for not letting you break. “Thank you for always being there.”

“Always.”

And you smile.

Jungkook tucks you under the sheets, lying down next to you. The two of you face each but with the moonlight falling on your face, you cannot see his. It’s merging in the shadows, the beauty of it lost somewhere in the darkness.

“What are you thinking?”

So many things. So many things that you don’t have an answer to his question. So many things that were making less and less sense as each day went by. So many things you should tell Jungkook but you were hiding. Because the plot was getting thicker with every passing minute. Things were not adding up, nothing was making sense. Especially the news that you got to know when you sat for your interrogation. When you mentioned that you saw a paper in your uncle’s hand with the number 2.

It was only then that you found out that Mr. Wook was No.1.

That he had a strikingly similar paper stuffed in his hand when he was found dead. Square, white and a strong smell of lavender.

But what you fail to understand is how the two deaths are connected. What did your uncle and Mr. Wook have in common? They hardly ever interacted. It was purely business between them. And what did these deaths have to do with the attack on you and Hoseok? These were definitely related, Jungkook was right. It could not be a coincidence. And your father? What role did he play in all of this? What you found out that day when you went to his office, how did that fit into this puzzle?

“Hoseok!” You hurry towards him before he enters your fathers cabin.

“Y/n?” He seems relieved, giving you a quick hug. “Are you alright? I’m so sorry about everything that’s….” He trails away. There’s too much going on now to say anything.

“I’m fine. It’s alright. I….I need a favor.”

‘Sure. Anything.”

You hand him the scroll in your hand. “This is the sketch made on the basis of the witness description of the killer. I need you to give this to my father.”

“Are you not coming in?”

You shake your head. You had planned to. You really did want to see your father. But somehow you lost all the confidence and determination you walked in here with. You didn’t think you could do it.

“Don’t tell him I’m here. Just say the officer gave it or something…”

“But why? You’re…you aren’t feeling guilty are you? Don’t blame yourself Y/n There was no way you could foresee this.”

“I know. Everyone has been telling me that. But I’m not ready. Not yet. Just help me this once Hoseok.”

He pats your head like the concerned support he has always been. “Take care.” and leaves with the scroll.

You turn to leave but your feet aren’t taking a step forward. You were so close to your father but leaving without so much as a look at him. You didn’t know how he was and where he ate on time or not, whether he took his medicines. You didn’t know anything. But you ought to know. Whether he would detest you for it or not, you had to know.

Taking a deep a breath you make up your mind. Slightly opening the door of the cabin you peak in to see Hoseok walking up to the man who is beyond exhausted. He looks so tired. Like he hadn’t slept days together. Sitting slouched in the couch he is cleaning his glasses and you wonder if there is a man more pitiable than him in the world considering all he was forced to go through. This was all your fault.

The moment Hoseok reaches him and hands the scroll telling him something you cannot hear, your father sits up straight in an instant, eyes turning redder. Immediately taking the scroll he fumbles with it in his urgency and rolls it open at an arms distance from him. You expect him to look mad. To feel all the anger somehow you failed to feel.

But he stands up in shock, shaking his head vehemently.

There is no fury. There is fear.

“It cannot be him. It cannot be. It cannot be.” He mutters walking around. Your father recognized him. That meant it was an enemy’s attack, not personal vengeance like you assumed it to be. So it did make sense that both Mr. Wook and your uncle were killed. It was because of business. But you were wrong. You only know that when your father’s scream of frustration jolts you to your senses.

“It cannot be him do you hear me! This man! He’s dead! He died 2 years ago!”

Your father slams his hand on the table, standing behind it. “And I killed him with my own hands!”

You feel your eyes widen.

“I killed Kim Namjoon with my own hands!”

You take a step backward despite your body growing numb. Just now you thought everything is making sense. But now it isn’t anymore. What was going on? What was going on?

You don’t know anymore. You simply run.

"I’m thinking about calling Cho.” You answer Jungkook, not so truthfully. “She’s been leaving me messages about coming over and staying with her. I ought to get back to her.”

“Do you want to leave?” There is disappointment in his voice but he’s trying not to show it.

“No.” You scoot closer to him, burying your face at the crook of his neck. “I don’t want to leave.”

“Hmm.” He strokes your hair softly, trying to lull you to sleep. It’s not working. But you pretend that it is as you shut your eyes. Not even a minute passes before Jungkook is fast asleep.

Like always, you are awake the whole night.

Morning coffee is an addiction you didn’t how you developed. Your body needs it to function, to think, to work. That’s why you stopped drinking it. To avoid and all thoughts that made their way into your head.

“Hoseok.” Jungkook hands you a phone as you drink the orange juice he was nice enough to make in the morning. The expression on his face is neutral. Like he’s not too pleased with a call. Jungkook has never been too pleased with Hoseok. If the situation was different you would have found it cute. Now you just take the phone and Jungkook leaves you alone.

“Hello?”

“Y/n. I have something to tell you.”

“Hmm.”

“Your father has called for a special officer from Busan. The man is going to be taking over the case now because he’s apparently your father’s old friend and he trusts him a lot. He has requested to meet you and talk.”

“When? and Where?”

“At the church on the hill. At 12. He’s currently interrogating Cho at her house. It seems she called you to let you know but you didn’t pick up.” You didn’t pick up anyone’s calls the past few days. You didn’t find much energy to talk. Or the interest. But your father was sending this man. And you were willing to do anything to cooperate.

“Send me a picture of him so I can recognize him. Let him know I’ll be on time.”

“I myself don’t know how he looks. He’ll be with Cho so don’t worry.”

“Thanks Hoseok.”

“Take care Y/n.” Then the line cuts. He doesn’t say more. No one says more these days. Because no amount is enough.

“I need to go to the church on the hill in the afternoon.” You walk into Jungkook’s bedroom and see him rummaging through a pile of clothes strewn everywhere on the floor. “What in the world are you doing?”

“I’m picking an outfit for my interview. Why a church?” He picks up a plain blue shirt and scans it. You walk in the mess and pick a white shirt. He shakes his head and stows it back in the cupboard.

“Simply. Cause I want some peace.” You don’t know why you are lying. Maybe because you want to protect him. Because things are getting out of hand. Because as usual, nothing makes sense.

“I’ll drop you when I leave. Don’t go alone.”

“I hope you get the job.” You sit down at the edge of the bed. “Your brain deserves it.”

He lets out a short laugh. “I hope I do too. Staying dependent on Taehyung for long is not an option for me anymore.”

“And you have me as a burden to look after moreover. I….I should just go back home Jungkook.”

Jungkook sits on his knees before you trying to look at your face which you didn’t raise. “Hey. I don’t think you are a burden Y/n. I don’t want you to go back home either. I’m trying for a job and when I get it, one day I’ll have a home of my own. The only place I’d love to see you go to if you get out of here is there.”

You smile because his eyes show that his proposition is so genuine. But you don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to reply to that. Given the current situation and the emotional turmoil you are going through, you cannot express how you feel about it. Jungkook understands it and gets up.

“Get ready soon. I’ll be waiting in the porch.”

He walks out leaving you alone in a sea of shirts. You fall back into the bed, your hair fanning around you, your heart beating erratically. Whether it was because of Jungkook or it was a warning of the next confusing thing you were going to discover today, you didn’t know.

It was time to find out.

You wave to Jungkook who drops you outside by the steps of the church in his motorcycle. He is wearing a suit again, black this time, ready for his interview. He kisses you to be careful but for some reason you feel like lingering around his lips for a minute. He pulls back, raising the accelerator as you wish him luck and send him away. He grows smaller and smaller and then disappears down the road.

You turn and walk up the stairs, legs still shaking a little from the motorcycle ride. You hate motorcycles. Absolutely detest them. Never once in your life did you remember getting on on one. But somehow today you willingly sat on it and came all the way here too. You didn’t flinch even a bit the whole time, didn’t feel uncomfortable, didn’t feel anything. Because you felt nothing these days.

Your phone lets out a notification tone and you see a message from the police officer who was previously in charge of the case. A video. To be more accurate the security cctv footage of the theater.

You watch it once. And then again and again and again. You don’t see the face of the man named Namjoon at all.

The phone rings, flashing the officers name.

“Hello?”

“Y/n have you seen the video yet?”

“Yeah but I can’t see my uncle or the killer…. ”

“There are many blind spots on the fifth floor Y/n. The act of pushing your uncle down was unfortunately not captured by any camera. It happened, very well planned, in a blind spot, leaving no evidence. But the other cameras show the people who were on the fifth floor when the incident happened and who used the exits as well. Everyone’s face is visible and we didn’t spot the man in the drawing. Our guess hence is that the killer is the one in the black jacket and white mask. The only person whose face could not be seen. We tried tracing him in the video but…..”

“But?”

“There are hundreds of people wearing the same thing Y/n. The exact same thing. Same jacket and mask combination. When we inquired they said it was because a drama that was being hosted there was selling this costume as its promotional merchandise. It seems to be the attire of some of their important characters. There is no way to say which of the people dressed alike is the killer. There is no way to track him.”

You grow silent. The officer seems to be missing something. Something very crucial. Another something that didn’t add up. But you didn’t.

“He’s quite smart Y/n. Definitely a good trick played to mess with the cctv footage. If we go around tracing the video of each person dressed like that, it could be months before we find the culprit. We can-”

You cut the call without replying to watch the video again. You can see the white masked man leaving the fifth floor, through the stairs but hundreds of people in the same attire are leaving through the exits on the other floor. There is no saying as to which floor he got off at and where he went from there. The officer was right. Even if they tracked each person in that attire, it would take too long. Maybe long enough for a No. 3 to happen.  

But the officer didn’t seem to realize something. Something that you first only suspected but as you watched the footage again and again, now it is confirmed.

If the killer was wearing a mask, how in the world did Jungkook see his face?

Jungkook drives his bike down the hill slowly, thinking hard and fast. Why did you want to come here so suddenly? Something told him it was more than just to ‘feel peace’. You had been a little strange the past few days. Jungkook assumed it was because of everything that was going on and so your behavior was understandable. But today he wasn’t getting the same feeling. Something was about to go terribly wrong today.

Jungkook had hardly finished thinking that when he was forced to slam the brakes at the sight before him.

The police officer. That very police officer from Busan. He was standing right there by a parked car, smoking a cigarette like after all he had done he still had the right to enjoy his life. Jungkook could feel the fury rise in him. The mad desire. The desire to kill him.

The officer drops his cigarette on the ground and crushed it with the heel of his foot, turning to face Jungkook who had by now reached a couple of feet in front of him. The officer looks annoyed, raising his head, running his eyes from down to up at the person blocking his way but when he saw Jungkook’s face he panicked.

“You!” He pointed a shaking finger at Jungkook. Of course he recognized him. He was the only one who recognized him. “You here? you…..”

A look of realization dawns on his face as he takes a step back. “You are the one. I knew you were the one helping that girl. I knew it! I even told them but they didn’t listen.” He runs his shaking hands through his hair frustratedly, eyes darting here and there nervously. “And they are dying one by one. And now you’ll kill me too isn’t it?” His other hand moved behind him grabbing the gun stashed in the back pocket thinking Jungkook wasn’t watching. But Jungkook was watching. He was watching everything.

Even before the man had a chance to fully draw out the gun, Jungkook moved as quick as lightening, turning the tables over in a blink of an eye. He and the officer were standing exactly where they were.

But the gun was in Jungkook’s hand, and the aim was at it’s owner.

“It’s high time you paid for your sins don’t you think officer?”

“Who are you? What have I even done to you? Why are you doing this young man? Let me live.” He pleads. He pleads very pitifully. Jungkook almost wants to let him go. “I beg you! I beg you…..”

“Think of all the people who begged you this way officer. What did you do to them?” Jungkook adjusts the gun in his grip.

“I was wrong! I did make mistakes  I’ll…I’lll..”

“Don’t say it. You’ll never repent. You’ll never regret your mistakes. You’ll never change. There is only one thing I have to say to you officer.”

Jungkook takes a step forward, eyes constantly on the sinner before him.

“Goodbye.” He aims the gun to his chest placing his finger on the trigger. “Goodbye number 3.”

And he shoots, the bullet striking exactly at the center of the uniformed man’s chest. Satisfaction. Jungkook can feel the satisfaction and the sense of victory run through him as a crimson flower blooms in the enemy’s shirt and the police officer at last succumbs before him. But the feeling is gone as soon as it comes because a petrified figure is revealed to be standing behind him.

Cho.

Jungkook lowers his gun as she points her shaking finger at him, eyes blown wide, sweat dripping down her neck.  

“You.” Jungkook takes a step towards her but she begins to walk back. “You’re a murderer! You killed a police officer Jungkook! “ She covers her mouth her breath hitching. “He…he was here to help Y/n! You killed him? Why? You…….” A look of realization dawns on her face. “You killed her uncle and Mr. Wook as well didn’t you? You are the one behind all this aren’t you? I knew it. I knew it! I was telling Y/n you had some big purpose behind doing all this. But I had no idea…..Oh my god…..Do you want to kill her as well? She trusted you Jungkook! Do you want to kill her as well-”

“Cho you need to listen to me-”

“I need to find Y/n. I need to tell her she’s in danger. And I swear to god nothing is going to stop me from telling her everything. I’m going to expose you today Jeon Jungkook, even if it means putting my life at risk.”

“Cho please stop. Just listen-”

“There’s nothing left to listen! I….I…..Get out of my way Jungkook. Get out!”

Jungkook runs his hands in his hair for messing up. For leaving a witness. A price will have to be paid for this.

“Fine.” Cho stopped her tracks looking bewildered. “Fine. I’ll let you go. Go tell Y/n I’m a murderer.”

He takes a step forward. “Go tell that to the very woman who asked me to kill these men.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Cho looks at him ridiculously. “Why would Y/n ask you to kill her own family? That’s insane, she loves them to the end of the world. I know her Jungkook. She would never. So stop lying and move.”

“Really?” Jungkook laughs and its maniacal.

Insane.

Desperate.

Sad.

“Do you really know her?”

Another step.

“Because if you did then the first thing you’d know is her name is not Y/n L/n.”

Another step.

“Her name is Jeon Y/n.”

One last step.

“And she’s my wife.”

[sweetnestor]

12 Days | Chapter 7.2

Two guys that lowkey hate each other are forced to walk in each other’s shoes in order to learn a lesson.

***in collaboration with @themarkiplierexperience

lmao soz its not actually x reader we’re just desperate for attention haaaa

previous

bonus: the videos that “tom recorded/edited”: x x

Waking up to texts from the guy you switched lives with was like waking up to texts from a needy girlfriend. Except instead of affectionate “good morning”s, you get things like, “Oh god. Try not to ruin my channel thx 😅” and other things like, “Don’t worry about Sean. He’s a good guy and he’s helped Bella through a lot. They’re friends and nothing more.”  Oh wait, that’s what Tom needed to know. It was vital information about this life. Well, Sean was already gone, so maybe it wasn’t as important to know now, but still.

There were two more. One made his heart ache. “You have the most beautiful dog and I love her.” Tom missed his little Tess more than anything. He was supposed to be one cuddling with her.

The next one read: “Also this time zone difference is insane, I’m never gonna sleep.”

Tom decided to leave him on read, since he had nothing new to report. Then, he thought about what he had to do today, and a bout of nerves formed in his stomach. Today, he had to successfully record a video as Ethan Nestor. Why was this more stressful than being on a movie set? Why did this make him want to shit his pants more than giving a speech at an awards show, or going to a movie premiere?

There was literally no one else in the room, and Tom was anxious about how he would sound and act. How far could binge watching a bunch of videos late at night get him? Would Ethan’s fans figure out what was really going on? Tom’s own fans were frighteningly incredible at playing detective, he could only guess what Ethan’s would be like. He hadn’t even checked how people reacted to the video that was posted today.

After looking through the files on the computer, Tom stumbled across a game titled “Dream Daddy.” What the fuck kind of games was this guy into? He looked into it a little more, and then discovered what exactly this game was and who made it. Wasn’t really helpful, but what choice did he have?

He also had to Google search how to record the computer screen, cursing Sonji under his breath as he did so. Why did she specifically choose Tom and Ethan to switch? Why couldn’t it have been two nobodies with boring office jobs?

A spark of curiosity hit him. Tom typed “swapping lives” in the search engine, only to receive links to a fiction book with that very title. Next, he tried “soul swapping,” and that was when the Internet connection decided to dramatically slow down.

“Sonji,” Tom whispered as he narrowed his eyes. Whatever, he had more important things to do anyway.

Once he turned on the camera and lights, Tom began right away. He opened the game, and was pleasantly surprised at the dreamlike, whimsical music that started playing. He did a little dance to the music, completely bullshitting what he was doing. It works, right?

He got the god awful intro out of the way. “What is up my cranky crew? It’s Ethan from CrankGameplays and today we are here in Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator!”

The game was actually really fun. Good story, good dialogue.Tom made sure to comment on all of it as he played. He almost made himself as a dad before remembering that he was pretending to be somebody else. This daddy had to have blue hair and glasses. Yes, he had discovered how blind Ethan was after driving in his car a couple of times.

Anyway, recording was the easy part. He just had to act extra dorky and say “oh boy!” every now and again. He also made up a story about having a “horse phase.” Editing was where things got tricky. Firstly, the facecam footage was corrupted, and took ages to get it all back. Then, it was out of sync with the gameplay, which was even more confusing because the last video didn’t have this problem. Cutting out footage was harder than it should have been. It was a nightmare, and Tom grew more and more irritated as he went through it. Lastly, timing the ridiculously long outro music with Ethan’s equally god awful outro phrase (“So thank you guys so much for watching! Hope you enjoyed it, if you did make sure to slap that like button right in the face and I will see you guys in the next video! Love you all, stay cranky, bye!”) was a fucking challenge. Tom just didn’t get it. Wasn’t this supposed to be easy?

Somehow, he got the video done by the noon. Even after that, he had to make a thumbnail on Photoshop after noticing all the ones on the other videos. So Tom had to learn how to use another program as well. He needed a nap after getting through all of it.

Just as he started to come down from the stress, his phone started to blow up. Tom snatched the device from the desk and unlocked it, hoping to hear from Ethan. Instead, it was three different texts from Bella, Mark, and Amy.

Bella: “Good video today!! Are you coming over?”

Mark: “Oh so you decided to keep your channel going. Feel up to coming back to work yet? No rush.”

Amy: “We still on for tomorrow?”

That last message would have been very concerning, had Tom not remembered that Amy was Mark’s girlfriend. The only person he responded to was Bella. After that, he got ready to go.

~

There are plenty of things you don’t really think about when you switch lives with another person. Well, you think of the main things like, general personality, the person’s friends and significant others, their job. You don’t really think about things like how this person responds and reacts to their fans. You don’t think about their attention span, the way they fidget, or which leg they put into their jeans first. You don’t think about how they act with their friends versus how they act with their significant other. You really don’t think about what kind of gift he would get for his girlfriend on their six month anniversary.

Tom was bloody lucky that Bella hadn’t heard him enter her apartment that afternoon. He overheard her making a video in her bedroom, where he heard the words “get ready with me,” “date night,” and “anniversary.” Panicked, Tom bolted out of the building, hopped back in the car, and drove off to the closest mall. Part of him wanted to call Ethan and yell at him for not telling him about this, he had the chance to when his phone dinged four times on the ride to the mall. Tom was just trying hard to think up a decent gift on his own. They couldn't help each other, correct?

Eventually, he found something. It wasn’t much, but he could only hope that she wouldn’t mind. Tom had already fucked up with her once, he couldn’t do it again. Apparently, not only was a Pop Funko Spider-Man keychain a decent gift, it was sentimental and perfect for Bella. She nearly teared up when Tom brought it to her later on.

This anxiety thing she had must have been really serious. Bella told him all about how she hadn’t been to the cinema in years because of her panic attacks, and that Homecoming was the first movie she had seen from start to finish without any anxious interruptions. She was very proud of that, and she was happy that she experienced it with Ethan.

If only Ethan were here to see this moment… Actually, he could.

Bella fell asleep later in the afternoon. She was squashed between Tom and the back of the sofa, sleeping somewhat soundly on his chest, or practically on top of him. The physical affection was nice, but Tom wished it was someone else. Thankfully, he had his phone in his hand, so he was able to open the new messages he got literally behind his girlfriend’s back.

He had five new messages, four were the ones from Ethan earlier today, and the last one was from someone called Parker.

“Signed a billion posters, pls work on your signature it’s so much longer than it has to be dude.” Oh please, at least Tom signs his actual name as opposed to Ethan, who apparently signs things with his YouTube name.

“You’ve got a great family dude. Really, they’re all great.” Tom missed his family too. His missed his mother's pancakes.

“On my way to Montreal now for Chaos Walking pre shooting stuff i don’t really know.” That's going to be an adventure.

“I swear if I have to work out I’ll die alright gn?”

Tom rolled his eyes and sent something back. “Thought I completely fucked up your relationship, but it’s all good now!” As a follow up, he added: “Now I’ll be spending my six month anniversary with the missus! Night mate x”

He attached a photo of his current position, giving a smug expression to the camera. Ethan will get a kick out of that, that’s for sure.

“Who ya texting?” asked the sleepy girl lying on him, who could hear the ticking of the keyboard.

Tom was busy reading the next message, it was a little confusing. First of all, who the hell is Parker? Second of all, what the hell did Tom have to do with him tomorrow? And why did it involve Amy? What was with all these “don’t forget tomorrow”s? Why couldn’t anyone be straight up anymore?

I’m looking at you, Sonji, Tom thought just as his phone dinged, indicating that an email had arrived.

From: psychiclady420@fuckyou.net

I told you you gotta learn a lesson now leave me alone you asswipe!!

Tom, wide eyed, silently locked his phone and put it down for the rest of the day.

______

tag list: @marie-is-in-the-dark @beardedsteveslut @ohsnapitzmoony [idk why it wont let me tag you asdhlk]

______

next

[bussanbaby]

don’t judge a book by its cover

happy birthday to @magnusragnor​! my dear elle, you’re an amazing friend, the sweetest, kindest, smartest and most incredible person ever and you’ve made my life so much better. i love you a lot and i hope life treats you as kindly as you treat other people. i wish you a lot of happiness, health and success in whatever you want to achieve <3 hope you enjoy this little gift :*

“Do you think they’re in a gang?”

The question comes as a surprise in the vague quietness of the library, pulling Magnus out of his little reverie. He puts down the book he was about to scan, turning on his heel to find Ragnor staring out of the open window, the edge of his tea cup resting against his chin and eyes focused on something, or rather someone, outside. With a sigh, Magnus leaves his place behind the counter to join him at the windowsill and before he even leans his elbows against it, he knows exactly who Ragnor is talking about.

The small campus courtyard is filled with sleepy students and trees covered in a multum of red and orange shades, but beyond the colorful crowd, just on the edge of the parking lot neighboring the cobbled square, there’s a spot of darkness. Two guys and a girl are talking, stood around their motorcycles - the machines are sleek, elegant and expensive-looking, while the trio themselves are clad in all-black outfits; what really goes with the gang aesthetic are the matching leather jackets with a symbol on the back that Magnus doesn’t recognize, since it doesn’t seem like anything present-day or even from this millennium.

Magnus watches the girl smile brightly at something said between them as the cold breeze plays with her long hair. He shrugs. “Maybe they just have an effortless style, unlike you.”

At that, Ragnor gives an overdramatic gasp, his hand positioned over his chest. “You’re hurting my heart, dear friend.”

“If only you had one.” Magnus quips back, wrinkling his nose at Ragnor, who makes an ugly face in return, eyes rolling at their antics. They share a quiet laugh and sip their respective teas, cardboard cups embellished with the university cafe’s logo.

A beat passes and Magnus pulls the sleeves of his burgundy sweater over his hands, eyes trained on the mysterious strangers. The academic year only started a week ago and it’s been six days since Magnus first noticed them, just after he picked up this side job at the library.

The trio are currently the hottest gossip, because no one really knows anything yet; where they’re from, what they’re studying or what’s with the jackets. Magnus doesn’t have any classes with them and he’s heard some people doubt whether they’re students at all.

“Anyway, which one of them is it you’re obsessed with, again?” Ragnor asks, mirroring Magnus’ position, bumping their shoulders together too playfully to make the question sound innocent. 

“Tall, dark, and handsome. And I am not obsessed, just curious.” Magnus’ answer is tinted with exasperation - Ragnor seems to find immense pleasure in making fun of Magnus’ interests, but in his own loving way.

Speaking of interests; the blond-haired guy and the girl are laughing at something, with the Pretty Boy giving them a deeply unimpressed stare from where he’s seated atop his motorbike.

He looks ready for a photoshoot with his mussed up hair and long legs, bathed in the autumn sun. His fingers are playing absentmindedly with a strap on one of the jacket sleeves, as he listens to the ongoing conversation, mostly a quiet observer.

Magnus swears he’s not a stalker, but he always seems to find himself in the right place and time, having seen the boy pass through the courtyard more than a couple of times - always clad in heavy combat boots, torn jeans and a splash of color in the form of a flannel shirt beneath the jacket, an air of cool detachedness around him that makes people step out of his way.

The guy shifts in his spot, stretches his arms up towards the cloudy sky, body tensing and twisting like a cat that just woke up from a nap - Magnus has a beautiful view of the guy’s leather jacket stretching over his broad back, fabric fighting against his every movement, which makes Magnus think less than innocent thoughts, a small smirk curling along his lips.

“I’d ride that.”

Ragnor groans by his side. “Please tell me you’re talking about the motorcycle.”

The rest of Magnus’ shift goes by smoothly - not many people show up during the first few weeks, since there aren’t any exams to cram furiously for, nor homework that requires more than a cursory google search; Ragnor keeps him company a little while longer, but after that Magnus is left to his thoughts.

He doesn’t have any classes today, so he lets his mind drift through the list of things he’ll have to take care of when he gets home, from laundry to finishing that TV show Cat recommended him a week ago. Sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he carries a box of newly bought books over to the right bookcase, methodically setting them in their right places.

The library in itself is silent, only one or two people slowly turning pages over in the reading area, but the muted sounds of the campus living just outside the walls serve as pleasant white noise, the hum of car engines mixing with anonymous voices holding conversations in private little worlds.

The main door opens and shuts with an echoing click, followed by somewhat loud footsteps, meandering and stuttering as if the owner was unsure where to go. Magnus thinks he should check up on the newcomer, maybe direct them to the right section, so he quickly sets the last books in place and straightens up, one of his joints making an awfully satisfying sound in the process.  

Yet before he can even round the corner, he hears a cacophony of falling books, followed by a heavy sigh. Magnus peeks his head around the row of bookshelves to find Pretty Boy down on one knee, picking up volume after volume, his eyebrows pulled together.

Magnus’ eyes flicker to the precariously stacked shelves at the very top of the bookcase - not many people can reach them comfortably, so the lazy librarian before Magnus has been keeping unsegregated books up there, tempting fate until the whole thing comes down onto someone’s head.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence or a sign from the universe. Either way, it’s Magnus’ chance to introduce himself, find out the name of the person he’s been subtly fawning over. He steps closer and crouches down, reaching for the last book left on the tiled floor. 

Pretty Boy snaps his head up and Magnus is met with the most gorgeous pair of hazel eyes, cheekbones to die for and lips that Magnus would like to get closely acquainted with. From afar he was already looking like a model, but up close, Magnus is pretty sure he’s just met an angel.

Shaking off the initial surprise, Magnus feels himself smile before he even thinks about it.

“Hope you don’t have a concussion from all that knowledge.”

To Magnus’ pleasure, it takes a moment for the boy to answer, mouth parted and eyes roaming over Magnus’ face with something akin to a mix between attraction and fascination. The feeling’s mutual, he thinks.

He smiles as well, in that slow way that makes his whole face light up, nothing left of the brooding indifference Magnus has seen before. His hand flies up to rub at a spot buried underneath curls of unruly hair that Magnus wants to run his fingers through. 

They both stand up simultaneously, holding each other’s eyes, even when Magnus puts away the book he was holding.

“I think I’ll be alright. After all,” He answers,his voice just as lovely as his grin. There is no way he’s in a gang. “I’ve only got myshelf to blame.”

Magnus feels the pun hurt deep in his chest, but laughter bubbles up and he can’t help it: he chuckles, watching that lopsided smile get even brighter, and it’s the most endearing thing Magnus has ever seen. They both end up snickering, shoulders shaking and eyes gleaming with mirth; Magnus presses his lips together in an attempt to calm himself down, but it takes a couple of deep breaths to escape the silly fit they’ve found themselves in.

“A man after my own heart.” Magnus says, offering a hand. “I’m Magnus, the librarian. I might be able to help you find what you need.”

Pretty Boy shakes his hand confidently - his palm is big and cold from the outside air, but it fits nicely in Magnus’ grasp; they both linger on the touch just a few seconds too long.

“I’m Alec.” He says, eyes flickering over to the bookshelf before he starts fidgeting with the edge of his jacket. “I was, uh, looking for the LGBT section?”

“We don’t have that specifically, but I can give you some personal recommendations,” Magnus answers, first glancing at the floor and then looking up at Alec with a coy smirk. He really wants to take this boy on a date, get to know him better, because the first impression has been almost too good to be real. “My shift ends in twenty minutes, so how about lunch?”

Alec hesitates for a split second before nodding, fighting down a smile.

“I’d love that.”

[jjpocketbook]

Do High DA Backlinks From Blog Comments Help Rankings?

If you have ever left a comment on NeilPatel.com, you’ll notice that there is no URL field.

Why?

Well, a few years ago, blog commenting exploded. I was literally getting thousands of spam comments a day from people just leaving a comment for the purpose of link building instead of providing value to the community.

Sure, there are spam plugins like Akismet, but it doesn’t catch everything.

Now, most blog comments contain the nofollow attribute in which they tell Google not to follow the link or drive any “SEO value” to that URL.

But still, people still leave blog comments for the purpose of link building.

So, over the past 7 months, I’ve been running an interesting experiment to answer the age-old question…

Do backlinks from blog comments actually help rankings?

Experiment rules

First off, for this experiment, we used “domain score,” which is similar to domain authority.

If you want to know your domain score, the backlinks report in Ubersuggest will tell you what it is.

With this experiment, I sent out an email to a part of my list looking for participants and had 794 websites apply.

From there, I set the following criteria:

English-only sites – It’s easier to rank on many of Google’s international search engines even without building links. I removed non-English speaking sites as I didn’t want to skew the results.

Low-authority sites – I removed any website with a domain score greater than 20 and any site with more than 20 backlinks. The reason being is when a site has a lot of authority, they tend to rank easily for new keywords, even if they don’t build any new links.

No subdomains – I didn’t want a WordPress.com site, a Blogspot site, or even a Tumblr site. Again, this would skew the results so I removed them.

After eliminating the sites that didn’t meet the above criteria, I was left with 314 sites.

Of those 314 sites, many dropped off because they didn’t complete the required work on their part (which was to write a blog post), so I was left with 183 sites at the end that participated.

How the experiment worked

Similar to my previous link building experiment and my on-page SEO experiment,  I had these websites write a 1,800 to 2,000-word blog post on whatever subject that was relevant to their site.

The websites had 2 weeks to publish their content and then after 30 days, I looked up their URL in Ubersuggest to see how many keywords each URL ranked for in the top 100 spots, top 50, spots, and top 10 spots.

As I have mentioned in the past, Ubersuggest has a big database of keywords. We are currently tracking 1,459,103,429 keywords.

Now, most of these keywords are barely searched but a decent amount of them get hundreds, if not thousands, of searches per month. A much smaller percentage of keywords generate hundreds of thousands or even millions of searches per month.

In other words, the majority of the keywords people are searching for are long-tail phrases.

We then spent a month building links and then waited another 3 months to see what happened to each site’s rankings.

But here’s the thing: We didn’t build the same type of links to all sites. Instead, we broke the 183 sites into 4 groups (roughly 46 sites per group).

Here were the groups:

Control – we didn’t build any links to these sites, we just wanted to see what happened to their rankings over time with no focus on link building.

Nofollow high domain score blog comment links – with this group, we built 10 links through blog comments. The links pointed to the newly written post and they were from blogs that had a domain score of 50 or higher and they all contained a nofollow attribute.

Dofollow high domain score blog comment links – with this group, we built 5 links through blog comments. The links pointed to the new post and were dofollow from blogs with a domain score of 40 or higher. (I reduced the domain score criteria for this category and the link quantity as we struggled to find a large number of high authority blogs that pass link juice in the comment section.)

Dofollow low domain score blog comment links – with this group, we built 10 links through blog comments. Each link pointed back to the article and it was from a blog that contains a domain score of at least 20 but no higher than 39. (I was able to build more links here as there are many more low domain score blogs than high domain score ones.)

Keep in mind with the link building for groups 2, 3 and 4, there was no specific anchor text agenda. Because the links were built through blog comments, it was too hard to control the anchor text as we didn’t want to be spammy.

And each comment left on the blog contained at least 75 words as we wanted to ensure that each comment provided value and the core purpose wasn’t just link building.

Alright, so let’s dive into the results.

Control group

Do you really need links to rank on Google? Well, the chart below says a lot…

As you can see over time, you will naturally grow your search rankings even if you don’t build any links.

Of course, if your content is amazing and you do on-page SEO, you’ll rank higher, but still not growing your link count doesn’t mean you will rank for anything out there… instead, you will still rank for long-tail terms that aren’t too competitive.

Nofollow high domain score blog comment links

Now the results from this group were interesting…

As you can see, the sites in this group had better results than the control group even though the links were nofollowed.

Keep in mind, though, that it could be many variables that caused this, such as the content quality may have been better.

Overall, the sites did perform better than the control group but not by a substantial amount.

Dofollow high domain score blog comment links

Google is sophisticated, they are able to know if a link is from user-generated content (such as blog comments), so I assumed even though the links where dofollow they still wouldn’t have much (if any) impact.

But, shockingly, sites in this group had the largest gains.

As you can see from the chart above, links from high authority sites, even if it is through user-generated content, help with rankings. They just have to be dofollow.

Dofollow low domain score blog comment links

With this last group, we were able to build more dofollow links because we focused on sites with lower authority.

And as you can see from the chart above, it did help with rankings more than building nofollow links but it didn’t help nearly as much as getting links from blogs with higher domain scores.

We built 10 links instead of 5, but the quantity didn’t help as much as having high domain score links. This group increased their rankings by 337% versus 828% that group 3 experienced even though they had half the links.

Again, we still saw gains, just not as large as the previous group.

Conclusion

Who would have thought that building links through blog comments still helps?

Now, if you are going to use this tactic, you’ll want to focus on blogs that have dofollow comments.

If you aren’t sure how to find them, you can perform a Google search for the following:

“title=”CommentLuv Enabled”” KEYPHRASE – this will showcase blogs that have CommentLuv enabled which means they pass link juice.

“dofollow blogs” – you find a lot of blog articles listing out blogs that have dofollow links. Some of them look like this but you will have to double-check each site as many are nofollow even though bloggers claim they are dofollow.

Followlist – this is a directory of blogs that have dollow links.

When building links, focus on higher domain scores as it has a bigger impact on rankings.

In addition to that, you’ll only want to leave a comment if you can provide value. Don’t stress the anchor text, focus on the quality of your comment as you don’t want to be a spammer.

Posting spammy links will just cause your comment to be removed.

Lastly, don’t just leave a valuable comment for the sake of generating a link. Make sure it is on relevant blogs as well. And if that means the blog doesn’t have as high of a domain score that’s fine because the data above shows that even low domain score links still help (just not as much).

So, have you thought about leaving more comments on other blogs? It’s a great way to get your brand out there, generate referral traffic, and boost your rankings.

The post Do High DA Backlinks From Blog Comments Help Rankings? appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/blog-comments-links/ via https://neilpatel.com

The original post, Do High DA Backlinks From Blog Comments Help Rankings?, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/01/07/do-high-da-backlinks-from-blog-comments-help-rankings/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com

[jimmyjohnsmnm]

Do High DA Backlinks From Blog Comments Help Rankings?

If you have ever left a comment on NeilPatel.com, you’ll notice that there is no URL field.

Why?

Well, a few years ago, blog commenting exploded. I was literally getting thousands of spam comments a day from people just leaving a comment for the purpose of link building instead of providing value to the community.

Sure, there are spam plugins like Akismet, but it doesn’t catch everything.

Now, most blog comments contain the nofollow attribute in which they tell Google not to follow the link or drive any “SEO value” to that URL.

But still, people still leave blog comments for the purpose of link building.

So, over the past 7 months, I’ve been running an interesting experiment to answer the age-old question…

Do backlinks from blog comments actually help rankings?

Experiment rules

First off, for this experiment, we used “domain score,” which is similar to domain authority.

If you want to know your domain score, the backlinks report in Ubersuggest will tell you what it is.

With this experiment, I sent out an email to a part of my list looking for participants and had 794 websites apply.

From there, I set the following criteria:

English-only sites – It’s easier to rank on many of Google’s international search engines even without building links. I removed non-English speaking sites as I didn’t want to skew the results.

Low-authority sites – I removed any website with a domain score greater than 20 and any site with more than 20 backlinks. The reason being is when a site has a lot of authority, they tend to rank easily for new keywords, even if they don’t build any new links.

No subdomains – I didn’t want a WordPress.com site, a Blogspot site, or even a Tumblr site. Again, this would skew the results so I removed them.

After eliminating the sites that didn’t meet the above criteria, I was left with 314 sites.

Of those 314 sites, many dropped off because they didn’t complete the required work on their part (which was to write a blog post), so I was left with 183 sites at the end that participated.

How the experiment worked

Similar to my previous link building experiment and my on-page SEO experiment,  I had these websites write a 1,800 to 2,000-word blog post on whatever subject that was relevant to their site.

The websites had 2 weeks to publish their content and then after 30 days, I looked up their URL in Ubersuggest to see how many keywords each URL ranked for in the top 100 spots, top 50, spots, and top 10 spots.

As I have mentioned in the past, Ubersuggest has a big database of keywords. We are currently tracking 1,459,103,429 keywords.

Now, most of these keywords are barely searched but a decent amount of them get hundreds, if not thousands, of searches per month. A much smaller percentage of keywords generate hundreds of thousands or even millions of searches per month.

In other words, the majority of the keywords people are searching for are long-tail phrases.

We then spent a month building links and then waited another 3 months to see what happened to each site’s rankings.

But here’s the thing: We didn’t build the same type of links to all sites. Instead, we broke the 183 sites into 4 groups (roughly 46 sites per group).

Here were the groups:

Control – we didn’t build any links to these sites, we just wanted to see what happened to their rankings over time with no focus on link building.

Nofollow high domain score blog comment links – with this group, we built 10 links through blog comments. The links pointed to the newly written post and they were from blogs that had a domain score of 50 or higher and they all contained a nofollow attribute.

Dofollow high domain score blog comment links – with this group, we built 5 links through blog comments. The links pointed to the new post and were dofollow from blogs with a domain score of 40 or higher. (I reduced the domain score criteria for this category and the link quantity as we struggled to find a large number of high authority blogs that pass link juice in the comment section.)

Dofollow low domain score blog comment links – with this group, we built 10 links through blog comments. Each link pointed back to the article and it was from a blog that contains a domain score of at least 20 but no higher than 39. (I was able to build more links here as there are many more low domain score blogs than high domain score ones.)

Keep in mind with the link building for groups 2, 3 and 4, there was no specific anchor text agenda. Because the links were built through blog comments, it was too hard to control the anchor text as we didn’t want to be spammy.

And each comment left on the blog contained at least 75 words as we wanted to ensure that each comment provided value and the core purpose wasn’t just link building.

Alright, so let’s dive into the results.

Control group

Do you really need links to rank on Google? Well, the chart below says a lot…

As you can see over time, you will naturally grow your search rankings even if you don’t build any links.

Of course, if your content is amazing and you do on-page SEO, you’ll rank higher, but still not growing your link count doesn’t mean you will rank for anything out there… instead, you will still rank for long-tail terms that aren’t too competitive.

Nofollow high domain score blog comment links

Now the results from this group were interesting…

As you can see, the sites in this group had better results than the control group even though the links were nofollowed.

Keep in mind, though, that it could be many variables that caused this, such as the content quality may have been better.

Overall, the sites did perform better than the control group but not by a substantial amount.

Dofollow high domain score blog comment links

Google is sophisticated, they are able to know if a link is from user-generated content (such as blog comments), so I assumed even though the links where dofollow they still wouldn’t have much (if any) impact.

But, shockingly, sites in this group had the largest gains.

As you can see from the chart above, links from high authority sites, even if it is through user-generated content, help with rankings. They just have to be dofollow.

Dofollow low domain score blog comment links

With this last group, we were able to build more dofollow links because we focused on sites with lower authority.

And as you can see from the chart above, it did help with rankings more than building nofollow links but it didn’t help nearly as much as getting links from blogs with higher domain scores.

We built 10 links instead of 5, but the quantity didn’t help as much as having high domain score links. This group increased their rankings by 337% versus 828% that group 3 experienced even though they had half the links.

Again, we still saw gains, just not as large as the previous group.

Conclusion

Who would have thought that building links through blog comments still helps?

Now, if you are going to use this tactic, you’ll want to focus on blogs that have dofollow comments.

If you aren’t sure how to find them, you can perform a Google search for the following:

“title=”CommentLuv Enabled”” KEYPHRASE – this will showcase blogs that have CommentLuv enabled which means they pass link juice.

“dofollow blogs” – you find a lot of blog articles listing out blogs that have dofollow links. Some of them look like this but you will have to double-check each site as many are nofollow even though bloggers claim they are dofollow.

Followlist – this is a directory of blogs that have dollow links.

When building links, focus on higher domain scores as it has a bigger impact on rankings.

In addition to that, you’ll only want to leave a comment if you can provide value. Don’t stress the anchor text, focus on the quality of your comment as you don’t want to be a spammer.

Posting spammy links will just cause your comment to be removed.

Lastly, don’t just leave a valuable comment for the sake of generating a link. Make sure it is on relevant blogs as well. And if that means the blog doesn’t have as high of a domain score that’s fine because the data above shows that even low domain score links still help (just not as much).

So, have you thought about leaving more comments on other blogs? It’s a great way to get your brand out there, generate referral traffic, and boost your rankings.

The post Do High DA Backlinks From Blog Comments Help Rankings? appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://ift.tt/2QygQHP via https://neilpatel.com The post, Do High DA Backlinks From Blog Comments Help Rankings?, has been shared from https://ift.tt/2QSbZAd via https://ift.tt/2r0Go64

[marketingcomcaio]

Do High DA Backlinks From Blog Comments Help Rankings?

If you have ever left a comment on NeilPatel.com, you’ll notice that there is no URL field.

Why?

Well, a few years ago, blog commenting exploded. I was literally getting thousands of spam comments a day from people just leaving a comment for the purpose of link building instead of providing value to the community.

Sure, there are spam plugins like Akismet, but it doesn’t catch everything.

Now, most blog comments contain the nofollow attribute in which they tell Google not to follow the link or drive any “SEO value” to that URL.

But still, people still leave blog comments for the purpose of link building.

So, over the past 7 months, I’ve been running an interesting experiment to answer the age-old question…

Do backlinks from blog comments actually help rankings?

Experiment rules

First off, for this experiment, we used “domain score,” which is similar to domain authority.

If you want to know your domain score, the backlinks report in Ubersuggest will tell you what it is.

With this experiment, I sent out an email to a part of my list looking for participants and had 794 websites apply.

From there, I set the following criteria:

English-only sites – It’s easier to rank on many of Google’s international search engines even without building links. I removed non-English speaking sites as I didn’t want to skew the results.

Low-authority sites – I removed any website with a domain score greater than 20 and any site with more than 20 backlinks. The reason being is when a site has a lot of authority, they tend to rank easily for new keywords, even if they don’t build any new links.

No subdomains – I didn’t want a WordPress.com site, a Blogspot site, or even a Tumblr site. Again, this would skew the results so I removed them.

After eliminating the sites that didn’t meet the above criteria, I was left with 314 sites.

Of those 314 sites, many dropped off because they didn’t complete the required work on their part (which was to write a blog post), so I was left with 183 sites at the end that participated.

How the experiment worked

Similar to my previous link building experiment and my on-page SEO experiment,  I had these websites write a 1,800 to 2,000-word blog post on whatever subject that was relevant to their site.

The websites had 2 weeks to publish their content and then after 30 days, I looked up their URL in Ubersuggest to see how many keywords each URL ranked for in the top 100 spots, top 50, spots, and top 10 spots.

As I have mentioned in the past, Ubersuggest has a big database of keywords. We are currently tracking 1,459,103,429 keywords.

Now, most of these keywords are barely searched but a decent amount of them get hundreds, if not thousands, of searches per month. A much smaller percentage of keywords generate hundreds of thousands or even millions of searches per month.

In other words, the majority of the keywords people are searching for are long-tail phrases.

We then spent a month building links and then waited another 3 months to see what happened to each site’s rankings.

But here’s the thing: We didn’t build the same type of links to all sites. Instead, we broke the 183 sites into 4 groups (roughly 46 sites per group).

Here were the groups:

Control – we didn’t build any links to these sites, we just wanted to see what happened to their rankings over time with no focus on link building.

Nofollow high domain score blog comment links – with this group, we built 10 links through blog comments. The links pointed to the newly written post and they were from blogs that had a domain score of 50 or higher and they all contained a nofollow attribute.

Dofollow high domain score blog comment links – with this group, we built 5 links through blog comments. The links pointed to the new post and were dofollow from blogs with a domain score of 40 or higher. (I reduced the domain score criteria for this category and the link quantity as we struggled to find a large number of high authority blogs that pass link juice in the comment section.)

Dofollow low domain score blog comment links – with this group, we built 10 links through blog comments. Each link pointed back to the article and it was from a blog that contains a domain score of at least 20 but no higher than 39. (I was able to build more links here as there are many more low domain score blogs than high domain score ones.)

Keep in mind with the link building for groups 2, 3 and 4, there was no specific anchor text agenda. Because the links were built through blog comments, it was too hard to control the anchor text as we didn’t want to be spammy.

And each comment left on the blog contained at least 75 words as we wanted to ensure that each comment provided value and the core purpose wasn’t just link building.

Alright, so let’s dive into the results.

Control group

Do you really need links to rank on Google? Well, the chart below says a lot…

As you can see over time, you will naturally grow your search rankings even if you don’t build any links.

Of course, if your content is amazing and you do on-page SEO, you’ll rank higher, but still not growing your link count doesn’t mean you will rank for anything out there… instead, you will still rank for long-tail terms that aren’t too competitive.

Nofollow high domain score blog comment links

Now the results from this group were interesting…

As you can see, the sites in this group had better results than the control group even though the links were nofollowed.

Keep in mind, though, that it could be many variables that caused this, such as the content quality may have been better.

Overall, the sites did perform better than the control group but not by a substantial amount.

Dofollow high domain score blog comment links

Google is sophisticated, they are able to know if a link is from user-generated content (such as blog comments), so I assumed even though the links where dofollow they still wouldn’t have much (if any) impact.

But, shockingly, sites in this group had the largest gains.

As you can see from the chart above, links from high authority sites, even if it is through user-generated content, help with rankings. They just have to be dofollow.

Dofollow low domain score blog comment links

With this last group, we were able to build more dofollow links because we focused on sites with lower authority.

And as you can see from the chart above, it did help with rankings more than building nofollow links but it didn’t help nearly as much as getting links from blogs with higher domain scores.

We built 10 links instead of 5, but the quantity didn’t help as much as having high domain score links. This group increased their rankings by 337% versus 828% that group 3 experienced even though they had half the links.

Again, we still saw gains, just not as large as the previous group.

Conclusion

Who would have thought that building links through blog comments still helps?

Now, if you are going to use this tactic, you’ll want to focus on blogs that have dofollow comments.

If you aren’t sure how to find them, you can perform a Google search for the following:

“title=”CommentLuv Enabled”” KEYPHRASE – this will showcase blogs that have CommentLuv enabled which means they pass link juice.

“dofollow blogs” – you find a lot of blog articles listing out blogs that have dofollow links. Some of them look like this but you will have to double-check each site as many are nofollow even though bloggers claim they are dofollow.

Followlist – this is a directory of blogs that have dollow links.

When building links, focus on higher domain scores as it has a bigger impact on rankings.

In addition to that, you’ll only want to leave a comment if you can provide value. Don’t stress the anchor text, focus on the quality of your comment as you don’t want to be a spammer.

Posting spammy links will just cause your comment to be removed.

Lastly, don’t just leave a valuable comment for the sake of generating a link. Make sure it is on relevant blogs as well. And if that means the blog doesn’t have as high of a domain score that’s fine because the data above shows that even low domain score links still help (just not as much).

So, have you thought about leaving more comments on other blogs? It’s a great way to get your brand out there, generate referral traffic, and boost your rankings.

The post Do High DA Backlinks From Blog Comments Help Rankings? appeared first on Neil Patel.

Do High DA Backlinks From Blog Comments Help Rankings? Publicado primeiro em https://neilpatel.com

[fromtheground39-blog]

10 Years of Gaming PCs - 2009 - 2014 (Part 1)

let's open with the most important thing to take away from this video simply switching on incognito mode or private browsing - is not enough to keep your data safe online. Also, just because you aren't doing anything illegal doesn't mean that no one is after your personal information and that there's no benefit to staying private thing is guys these days pretty much everyone and their dog is out to get your browsing data and that's not tinfoil hat Paranoid delusional stuff. The main reason is that companies and other organizations like political parties, want your eyeballs glued to their message and the data that they get from your behavior online helps by giving them an advantage when they serve up those juicy ads everywhere that you frequent. The good news is that staying private online is actually less difficult than you might think and pretty much anyone can do it. So, let's go through some easy strategies, starting with one of our favorites using a VPN like private Internet access. For those of you new to VPN or virtual private networks, they take in your data encrypt. It then send it through their network of servers before forwarding it to the destination country of choice. When the VPN sends your data out into the world towards the intended destination, it decrypt the data and makes it look like the data originated from that exit point rather than your computer, so whether you're torrenting or looking up content that might generate embarrassing ads in your Browser the next time someone sits down at your computer. We consider a VPN an essential part of staying safe online with that said, while a VPN does secure your data in some ways making it so, your ISP can't tell what you're doing and allowing you to circumvent. Most firewall blocks when your information leaves the VPN network, it's all still there and can be used to track you. So a VPN is just one of the tools in our belt. Now, let's talk about the onion router or tor, as some of you know, it we've actually covered tor before, but summary version goes a little something like this. The Onion Router isn't a physical router like you'd, think of plugging in in your home. Rather, it's an internet networking protocol, that's integrated into the Tor web browser and it's designed to anonymize the data relayed across it. So it keeps your online activity anonymous by encasing your traffic in multiple layers of encryption, then sending it through a number of nodes that peel back those layers one at a time. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for snoops to see your webmail search, history and other online activity now tor is also imperfect and leaves us vulnerable until our traffic reaches its network. That'S why we're using our PI a VPN to mask that initial jump now thing is using a VPN, can actually lead to issues if you are specifically being hunted by some government agency, because your traffic will have a predictable exit point. But for most people, whose goal is to thwart more casual surveillance and advertisers, this vulnerability isn't that important, now incognito mode which, by the way, isn't useless, plus a VPN and tor, is pretty good and probably enough for most people. But since we're going for the ultimate private set up, we're going to take things a step further with our secret weapon, the hey there, it is super secure, password. The linux-based tails is the operating system equivalent of your weird uncle after too many drinks. It'S designed to forget everything it ever heard or saw. The entire OS is built around the Tor protocol and runs all Internet traffic through the Tor network, not just your browser traffic. One of the other key benefits of tails is that the OS essentially runs off of your computer's RAM. So once you turn off the system poof any data that was lingering on it is gone and there's nothing to your identity to the last browsing session. Another advantage of this solution is that you can take it with you and launch it on nearly any computer with a USB port. So then, now we are ready to browse the web anonymously. Almost the first thing, you'll, probably notice about the tor browser, is how similar it looks to firefox and that's not by accident. It'S because it is Firefox just set up to use the Tor protocol and that's nice, because it makes configuring all these little tweaks pretty familiar and straightforward. So in no particular order, regardless of our browser choice, we want to make sure that JavaScript can't run. We want to install the privacy badger extension to stop trackers and provide ad blocking, and we want to set our default search engine to DuckDuckGo, for what I hope would be fairly obvious reasons. So then, now we are fully ready to both browse the web and stick it to the man. At the same time, let's do a few tests here to see what that looks like so. We'Ve got two machines for our side-by-side test: a completely vanilla one running Windows and using Google, and then our tails Linux, one with the https://www.debate.org/routerhost/ tor browser. Now. Something to note is that we're not actually using a VPN on either of these machines, because here we're trying to get a representation of the worst case scenario, and here P ia actually doesn't recommend using their VPN from within tails. Although they do have a free proxy included with your account, which they do say, could be a good idea depending on what it is you're trying to achieve. So, let's go ahead and search for Expedia. Ok, first hit is expedia.com this one Expedia dot CA. So immediately. Our location has been anonymized and also Expedia blocked us from even accessing their site. That'S cute did we know that was gonna happen. Expedia blocks tour. Let'S try a different provider. We can't tell if you're a human, I'm human Xperia t3. It'S like pretty sure. I'M a bot hey, taking it sweet time, three freakin CAPTCHAs, no we're good all right. Let'S find a friggin flight here, New York departing tomorrow. Okay, let's do a quick search matter. Ch now we haven't actually been researching flights and hotels, so there may not be much benefit in terms of pricing to anonymizing any of this, but there's only one way to find out all right, so we're looking at 699 dollars, Canadian round trip and 347 pounds. Let'S do a quick conversion. There 556, I just saved a hundred and forty five dollars. This is the same damn flight and it's over a hundred dollars. Cheaper includes taxes and fees, including taxes and fees, yep, yep, yep, apples to apples. You have ear to ear. First Expedia hates Canadians now, let's click to read more do another fun little test. Let'S go to what is my IP comm, that is, in fact our IP and over here my public IP is some nonsense. I'Ve never seen or heard of before, and I'm apparently based in Bessel bsch, where the devil is that Switzerland. Now, let's do another fun little test, let's go on a popular shopping website like say newegg.com. Now, let's shop for let's say video cards, maybe a rock phantom Radeon, seven, what's a site with really really obnoxious ads. What'S that one that, based in Australia, that's like super obnoxious, tweaked out tweaked out thanks, Luke, alright, and let's have a look at what kind of ads are lurking for us on the page ho ho? What do we have here, Vancouver to London Vancouver to New Delhi? Vancouver to Lima and Vancouver to San Salvador shockingly, they didn't manage to come up with any graphics cards ads which was sort of what I was going for here. But I think we've made our point as for this. Well, it looks like they're not getting any ad revenue from us, which, of course, we feel pretty badly about as an ad-supported enterprise ourselves. But at the very least, we are not being tracked across the internet, which is the only reason that we enabled the ad blocking on this particular one. In the first place, you can of course, anonymize your browsing significantly without blocking ads altogether, just saying so for fun. We'Re gonna disable, both privacy, badger and you block origin and reload this page. So there's our ads, but as you can see, they are completely irrelevant. So we've got some scarlet audio interfaces in whatever language. This is an ad for the stream deck excel. That'S an English at least an ad for Corsairs hydroxy Rees liquid cooling. So there you go so that was a pretty compelling demonstration of the benefits of private browsing, but it has some clear disadvantages as well. Now this machine on the right is actually faster than the one on the left, but you guys might have noticed that browsing from within tales using the tor browser was slow as hell. That'S because the more hops you go through the more latency you're, adding to the connection, also some of the creature comforts that we've gotten used to on the modern web. Things like shopping carts that remember all the things that you added to them or websites that remember that you logged into them, so you don't have to enter your password every time that stuff ain't gonna work over here also something to bear in mind guys is That no matter what you do, it is going to be imperfect. This was fairly basic guide and privacy. Browsing is a rabbit, hole and a half. Furthermore, even on a properly set up machine, while you're browsing and searching and almost all of your internet usage might be basically invisible. Nothing is bulletproof because the weakest point in the entire chain exists between the keyboard and the chair. You and I are human and we are nothing if not creatures have had it, and if someone is trying to find you, your habits are likely to end up being the thing that gives you away with. All of that said, though, for the vast majority of use cases following either of the methods that we laid out here, should obscure your data footprint enough to make it nearly useless for advertisers and other parties. Speaking of advertisers. This video is brought to you by PI, a private intern. Private Internet access supports a variety of VPN protocols and types of encryption and authentication allowing you to dial in the level of privacy that you need. They'Ve got apps for Windows, Mac, OS Android, Linux and Google. Chrome and you can connect up to five devices at once, using a single account. Their apps include DNS leak, protection and ipv6 leak protection, as well as their internet kill switch feature which blocks all traffic if the VPN becomes disconnected unexpectedly so check it out today. At LM GGG, /, p ia, we're gonna have that links down below. So thanks for watching guys, if this video sucked, you know what to do, but if it was awesome hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the video description link below also down there is our merch store. It has a cool shirts like this one join our community forum. It looks like that or like that, if you're in the tor browser well

[efosa123]

How To Make Money Online In 2019 For FREE! ($100+ Per Day) today I'm going to show you how to make money online not just a little bit of money but we're talking over 100 dollars per day and the best part is you don't need any money to get started and you don't need a credit card so if you want to learn the secret sauce stay tuned what is up my name is Chris welcome to another video if this is your first time here and you want to take control of your life with an online business this is the channel for you be sure to hit that subscribe button take the bell icon next to it so you don't miss anything okay so I'm gonna share with you a simple way to make money online okay so to get those creative juices flowing I want you to to picture this with me think about your favorite store or maybe your favorite restaurant okay it doesn't matter what it is I'll give you a second to think about it got it good alright so now take that store and tell me how much money would that store make if nobody ever showed up just think about it how much money with your favorite restaurant your favorite store ever made if nobody ever came walking through the doors it's not a trick question but yeah the answer is zero without people there's no money to be made so no people no money okay does that make sense alright are you with me so far if you're with me so far be sure to let me know down in the comments say hey Chris I got it because if you understand that concept you can make money online if you can understand the concept that with no people there's no money then you can also understand the opposite if there are people there is money to be made where there are people there is money so in order to make money online we need people okay please disregard my stick figure people I'm not the greatest sure but I hope you get the point so these people equals money okay people equals money so we need to go where the people are now the people are on the biggest search engines social media places on the internet so we're talking about Facebook Twitter Instagram and probably my biggest favorite one Google so Google is by far the biggest search engine in the world and that's where the people are in fact think about your own personal experience when you need a statistic or when you need to answer a quick question or whatever it is you don't always you know you don't Yahoo it you know you don't Bing it you know if you make it but that makes sense you are going to Google it it's become its own term and it's because so many people use it all the time so since so many people are on Google all we need to do is find a way to convert that into money number to show you exactly how you can do that so to do that you need to be able to give people something that they want or something that they need alright so for example people have problems what are your problems just think about one it doesn't matter what it is one of the biggest problems that people have online today is they want to lose weight how can I lose weight okay what do I have to do - what exercise program do I need what food do I need to eat what diet do I need to be on all that kind of stuff right that's what people's problem is they want to lose weight so what they do is they go looking for a solution to their problem and the solution to their problem can be an exercise program maybe one of these big fitness guys who will show you exactly step-by-step what you need to do to lose weight that is what the solution is but those guys they charge for that information they want some type of money for the time and effort that they have spent to build their body is they spent to build their programs and all of that so that's what the solution is so the solution again cost money to buy and the people who have these problems will spend money to get the solution okay so here is the bridge right here this is where he want how do we connect people's problems to their solutions if we can make this connection we can make money okay so then the question is how do we insert ourselves into the middle this is where you want to be because what will end up happening is that if you can provide these people problems this solution the solution is gonna pay you money for referring these people it's just like a restaurant if you love a restaurant and you tell a friend of yours to go to this restaurant and get this certain type of pizza and now the restaurant pays you for sending them to the restaurant you see that's what it is you have a problem you provide the solution and then you get paid the commissions so does that make sense so far if it doesn't again let me know down in the comments and I try to clear it up as much as I possibly can so this is the concept the concept is people and then you provide the solution okay and that's exactly what you're going to end up doing with what's called a niche site or a website you're going to build a website and this website is going to talk about basically anything that you're interested in you know we were using the example of losing weight so let's just say you lost a ton of weight using you know Bob's workout plan or whatever you want to call it so you're gonna create a website talking about your experience with Bob's workout plan saying how much weight you lost how much fun it was maybe even how tough it was that's what your website is going to be about is your experience with a particular program then in your articles that you write onto your website you're going to simply say I use Bob's workout plan to lose that weight and this is key information here because what a lot of people do not know is that basically anybody who owns a website can go to the people who create Bob's workout plan you can go to Bob himself and say hey Bob I used your product and I liked it and I would like to tell other people about it and I would tell my people about it if you give me a commission and the Commission can be anywhere from 5% to you know maybe even more than 50% of however much the program costs now here's the cool part of it all remember how we need the people so we have the store the store is set up we have a resource here we have a solution to a problem now we need to get the people who have the problem so how do we get these people to our website and that's again where we talk about Google ok so remember you would use Google anytime you had a problem a question a concern you ask Google right and Google is going to give you the best result possible because it is in Google's best interest that you find what you're looking for so that you'll use Google again ok does that make sense so far all right I hope so be sure to let me know down in the comments if it doesn't because we're gonna make sure that we get this right so maybe a common question could be how to lose weight ok very common question that people go to Google to get the answer for now what you can do with your website is you can write an article you can write good rich content onto the website that answers the question how to lose weight when you answer that question people who search on Google will find your website they can read your article about how much success you had with Bob's workout plan you know how much way to loss what the workout plans were like and because of your personal experience with BOMs workout plan the people who find you from Google are going to end up buying Bob's workout plan and that is where the money is made because when these people buy just like we said earlier you as the website owner are going to get the Commission's and this is big information because last time we checked Google has over 40,000 searches per second think about that 40,000 searches per second is how many searches are occurring on Google at any given time and you have any idea how many people are asking the question how to lose weight I don't know what the exact number is on it but I can guarantee you it's a lot of people because a lot of people are wanting to lose weight so if you're able to get your page onto Google for people who are asking this question they get to your website they buy it Bob's workout plan you get the Commission but one thing I want you guys to understand is that it isn't difficult to do it does take time it does take effort it does take work on your part it's not going to be easy but if you want step-by-step instructions on how to do this it's actually very simple go check out Benji's dan comm that's been geez dad dot-com I'll be sure to put a link down in the description you'll probably see one right about here also Benji's dad comm there I have a free guide that's going to show you step-by-step that whole process that we just went over and it's easy to do and anyone can do it and it works in any interest as well it doesn't have to be about weight if you're a fan of coffee or if you're a fan of Cal aesthetics or yoga or whatever you're interested in it can be anything you know music whatever you can create a website about it answer people's questions provide the solution and get paid the commissions so go check it out over at Benji's dad dot-com for your free guide sign up for the email list and I'll show you exactly how you can build your own website and start making commissions as soon as possible so if anything that we just went over you know didn't make any sense or whatever be sure to let me know down in the comments I spent an unhealthy amount of time in those comments sections because I want to make sure as many people can get this as possible so especially what a channel is still relatively small take advantage of my help I am going to be there to help you every step of the way if you found some value in this video please smash that like button also please share this video with at least one person who you think would be able to benefit from it so if you want to take control of your life with an online business be sure to hit that subscribe button I should pop-up about right here check out the latest video on the channel which should be about right there and I will catch you all later if this is your first time here you want to take control it is so far out in front it is as if they are Usain Bolt 16 more words

[ficdirectory]

Blink (An AU Fosters family fic) Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

 Steps have a rhythm all their own.  Eighth notes that crunch.  A syncopated staccato.  

Breaths puff, every other step.  Quarter notes too slow when he needs to just move.  

 His mind is racing, runs of sixteenth notes.  No coda.  No rests.  

 The sound he had left behind was all dissonance and clashing at a deafening crescendo.

 The distance between Grandpa’s and Pearl’s seems ridiculously long.  But he finally makes it, skidding to a stop outside Pearl’s cabin door and pounding on it as loud as he can.  Eighth notes in rapid succession.

 Jesus has got to be here.

 In seconds Pearl answers, armed with a can of mace and an expression that dares him to mess with her.  Instinctively, Brandon raises his hands.  This second shock jolts all the music from his body - from his brain.  How can Pearl think he’d hurt her?  But Brandon doesn’t have time to be offended.  He needs to get his breath.  Needs to say something.  Anything.

 “Jesus, you gotta come.  It’s Frankie.”

 It takes a couple seconds (that drag like the longest years Brandon had ever known - when Jesus himself was missing) for him to get what Brandon’s saying.  Jesus’s face changes as the words register.  He gets pale, but his eyes grow dark.  Intense.  His hands are clenched.

 It’s all he says.  All he needs to say for Jesus to be on his feet and out the door, leaving whatever else he brought behind.  Just like Brandon, Jesus hasn’t even stopped for his coat.  Brandon’s pretty sure Pearl’s right on their heels, because he can hear Gracie’s tags clinking together somewhere behind him.

 “What happened?” Jesus gasps, before the door even opens, but Brandon can’t explain.  He just opens the door.  Inside, he can still hear Frankie crying.

 But Brandon remembers the silence - the break before applause - preceded by a gasp.

 It was the only sound - the smallest of noises - that meant the ground was being pulled from underneath you.

 --

 Pearl stands back, and watches, adrenaline making her shake.  Nothing could prepare her adequately for the aggressive pounding on her door.  To find a teenage boy there - it hadn’t mattered that it was Brandon - when she wasn’t expecting anyone.  This assault on her senses has left Pearl unhinged.  Outwardly, though, she can’t show it.  She must keep it together.  If she’s going to be here now, she needs to be a help, not a hindrance.

 She sees Stef and Lena sitting with Frankie between them at the base of the huge wooden staircase.  She looks pale, dressed in cute black leggings and a pink tutu with a matching top.  Her hair is loose.  There’s a scratch on the back of one of her hands.  Jesus is there in seconds, and scoops her up.  She holds on tight.  She’s in tears, shaking, but has no other obvious injuries.  

 “Is she okay?” Pearl asks, as Callie walks over to stand with her.

 “She fell.  I don’t know if it was down all the stairs or just some.  Mom checked her out and she seems okay, just scared.”

 Pearl shakes her head.  Hides her own shaking hands under crossed arms.  Then, she bends down and unclips Gracie’s leash, pointing out Frankie.  “That’s Frankie.  Go see Frankie, girl.”  The truth is, she could use Gracie herself, but Frankie is scared, and she loves Gracie.  Pearl will have plenty of time with her once they leave.  Pearl tries to breathe as Gracie follows her command.

 Gracie walks over to where Frankie is, still at the base of the stairs but on Jesus’s lap.  Frankie wraps her arms around Gracie’s neck and buries her face in her fur.

 “Okay, guys,” Jesus calls softly.  “I got her.”

 Pearl watches, impressed, as the family takes him at his word, and leaves Frankie with them, and without an audience.

 “Gracie came to check on you.  Isn’t that cool?” Jesus asks gently.

 “Yes,” Frankie says, her voice shaking, still holding onto Gracie for dear life.

 --

 Frankie can’t stop crying.  Can’t stop shaking.  Her whole self got scared from falling.  She hurts a little on her back and her hand.  But the being scared part is the worst.  But Gracie came just for her.  That’s because Gracie’s the best.  

 When Frankie fell, even Moms got scared.  Everybody yelled at her.  They said: “Why didn’t you…” “What were you…”  It makes Frankie feel like she did a bad thing.  When she really just wanted to watch Tangled and she didn’t want the movie to start without her.  And so she got too close to the stairs before sitting to slide on her butt.  And then her body could only do forward not back, not sit, not stop. Her brain said, this is easy peasy.  So she didn’t say backup ‘cause she could do it herself this one time and not have to wait.

 Only that didn’t work out so good.

 She hangs onto Gracie tight.  Her heart is still beating like a big drum.  It’s still hard to calm down, even though she has Gracie and her best buddy, Jesus.

 “It was a long way….” she cries to Gracie.

 Gracie doesn’t say “Why didn’t you…” to hurt Frankie’s feelings.  She lets Frankie hold onto her.  That’s all.

 For a long time, Frankie holds Gracie and Jesus holds Frankie.  And they stay just like that.  Frankie can hear Rapunzel singing and doesn’t want to.  It makes her mad and sad.  Because if Rapunzel just waited or been patient Frankie wouldn’t have done the giant stairs so fast.  Backup taked too long, ‘specially when Jesus wasn’t there.  She wasn’t too good at waiting yet.

 It was all her fault she fell.

 --

 Jesus holds onto Frankie kinda tight.  She’s literally trembling.  This really freaked her out.  She keeps talking to Gracie super quiet, but he catches a string of things she says because she’s so upset she’s not watching her volume as much:

 “I’m such a dummy.  I can’t walk down stairs.  I fall all the time.  Nobody else needs backup to mean they get carried.”

 “You are not a dummy.  I don’t wanna hear you say that about yourself, okay?” Jesus reprimands lightly.

 “I was talking to Gracie, not to you,” Frankie pouts.

 Well, damn.  Jesus waits, trying not to listen in on all the stuff she’s telling the dog.  He meets Pearl’s eyes and sees she’s holding onto herself.  Watching them.  She looks worried.  But Jesus’s priority has got to be Frankie right now.  She’s not talking to Gracie anymore, so Jesus tries to talk to her some more:

 “Did you know I fell down stairs, too?” he asks quietly.

 “Nah-uh…” Frankie pouts sadly.  “You don’t got CP.  So you don’t fall.  Not on stairs.”

 “I did fall.  Everybody falls sometimes, even people without CP.  I fell down the whole flight of stairs at home.”

 “Why?” Frankie asks.  “Did you do all the wrong stuff too?”

 “Nope.  I didn’t do any wrong stuff.  Just like you didn’t do any wrong stuff.  I just lost my balance, that’s all.”

 “I just lost my balance,” Frankie whispers to Gracie.  

 Gracie licks her cheek.

 --

 Pearl is grateful for the distraction of the term she hears Frankie use.  It’s an unfamiliar abbreviation.  She’s heard of CT and MRI and all kinds of other abbreviations for medical equipment but CP isn’t one Pearl’s familiar with.

 She takes out her phone, glad that her hands have stopped shaking enough for her to use Google.  She types cp and trouble walking and falling into the search engine and clicks on the first result.  Phrases jump out at her:

 ...injury to motor areas of the brain…

 ...most common disability among children in the US…

 ...minor limp or uncoordinated walk…

 If Cerebral Palsy was the most common motor disability for kids to have in the country, why had Pearl never heard of it?  There was a list of other difficulties children with CP could experience and Pearl couldn’t help but wonder if Frankie would experience any of these, too.

 She thinks about her assumption that Frankie’s walk was mocking someone else, just nights ago.  How Jesus never shared his sister’s diagnosis, even though he obviously knew it.  She wonders if he’s ashamed of it.  If she is.  Or if it’s like herself and Jesus and their trauma.  Does Jesus view it as private information?  

 That would make sense, though Pearl has never thought about kids with disabilities in terms of their rights to privacy.  She turns off her phone, and as Brandon moves closer to check on Frankie, Pearl moves away.  Starts pacing in a back hall, away from everyone.  She doesn’t need to draw attention.  Doesn’t need everyone focused on her.  Especially when they should be focused on Frankie.

 “Are you alright?” Stef asks, scaring Pearl into next week.  

 She clutches a hand to her chest.  Tries to get her breath.  “Yeah.  I’m fine,” she reassures.  But that act alone has revealed Pearl’s tremor.  

 Stef studies her closely.  “Would you like to sit down in the kitchen?”

 “I’m okay,” Pearl attempts, but her voice is shaking now, too.  Tears are in her eyes.  God, this is so embarrassing.  “I’m okay.  It’s not you,” she hurries to reassure.  “It’s just a reflex.”

 She does not elaborate.  Does not offer that Brandon coming over and pounding on her door like a madman fit to murder them had directly caused this reflex.  That she’s feeling major amounts of stress and needs Gracie back to get a handle on things.

 Stef watches for only another few seconds before she goes through to the base of the stairs.  Pearl lingers, so she can see them, but not be seen.

 “Frankie, Gracie needs to go back to Pearl now.  She’s glad you’re okay, though,” Stef says, prying Frankie off of Gracie.  

 “I still need her though…” Frankie whines pitifully.  “I’m not all the way calmed down yet.”

 “Yes, but you have Jesus, and me, and Mama, and all the rest of the family to help you do that.  Pearl just has Gracie.”

 “Okay,” Frankie agrees finally, though Gracie is already at Pearl’s side.

 “Come with me,” Stef urges and walks Pearl down the hall where she opens a door.  “If you and Gracie need some space, you’re welcome to hang out in here.”

 Pearl expels a breath.  “Thank you,” she manages.  “I won’t be long.”

 “Take as long as you need.  No rush,” Stef encourages quietly.  “No one will bother you here.”

 --

 Frankie has decided that Jesus’s arms is where she wants to be until further notice.  Every time he tries to convince her that she could sit on the couch, or with Moms, or anybody else that isn’t him, she hangs on tighter.  So he stops trying to put her down.

 She obviously needs the security, even though he has no idea how Frankie’s decided Jesus is a safe person.  He scares himself sometimes.  Scares her sometimes.  But not right now apparently.  So, they walk around together, and it kinda reminds him of when she was a baby and how he used to carry her around everywhere then.

 He’s just making circles around the cabin, basically, stopping so Frankie can say hi to Mariana, or Callie, or Moms.  But Jesus has noticed that he hasn’t seen Pearl around.  He feels like he’d definitely know if she left, but maybe not.

 “Is Pearl still here?” he asks, on their third pass through the kitchen.

 “Yes.  Mom’s letting her hang out in our room for a while,” Mama explains.

 “Oh.  Okay, cool,” Jesus says, even though it gives him a weird feeling.  

 There’s no way he can go to Moms’ room to even check in and see how she is.  First because he’s got Frankie and second because it’s a bedroom, third because it’s an adult bedroom, and fourth because there’s actually an adult in it right now.

 “I wanna see Gracie again,” Frankie insists.

 “I know.  Gracie’s a good dog, isn’t she?”

 “Yeah,” Frankie nods.

 “What would you tell Gracie if you could?” he checks.

 Frankie buries her face in Jesus’s shoulder.  “Stop saying those words…” she whimpers.

 “Okay.  I’m sorry,” Jesus apologizes.

 “I wanna talk to Gracie not to you guys.  She doesn’t say I’m bad…”

 Jesus can just make out the words muffled against his shirt.  “Hey.  Who said my buddy was bad?”

 “Nobody,” Frankie denies, but she can’t look him in the eye.

 “Seriously.  I wanna know.  I wanna talk to them about this.”

 “I am bad at walking.”

 Jesus lets out a breath.  “Who says?”

 “Me and all them who yelled…” Frankie admits.

 “Can you whisper to me?” he asks.  “Just tell me?”

 “Everybody,” she obliges, speaking softly into his ear.  “When I fell, they all yelled and not their words but their loudness said it and their faces: You’re so bad Frankie.  You didn’t do the greatest choices and why didn’t you and what were you?”

 Jesus tries to breathe.  Tries not to let his anger show just now.  ‘Cause Frankie will definitely misread that and think he’s mad at her, too.  But how fair is it that Moms make the call that she sleeps upstairs and then it’s on her when she falls?  She could just as easily be cool down here all the time.  Sleep in the room downstairs.  Go up once in awhile.  Not regularly like she has to as long as she sleeps up there.

 “Listen to me,” he whispers back, hoping the temptation of a secret told will be great enough that Frankie won’t shut him out.  “You aren’t bad.  Not one bit.  You’re not bad at walking.  You walk all the time.  Lots of places.”

 “And fall…” Frankie sighs.

 “Yeah?  And what do you do after that?” Jesus wonders, still whispering.

 She’s confused.  Just looks at him.

 “You get up, right?  You don’t stay on the ground, do you?”

 Frankie shakes her head, her curls bouncing, too.

 “Getting up is the part that matters, buddy.  And you always get up.  You let people help you when you need it, too.  Like I’m carrying you right now.  But soon, I bet your legs are gonna be so bored from this, you’re gonna be ready to walk again, aren’t you?”

 “Not stairs,” she insists.

 “No, I agree.  Not these stairs.  But where it’s safe.  On the floors inside.  You think you might wanna let your legs not be so bored anymore?”

 “Maybe…” Frankie admits, but she’s still holding on tight to him.  So he carries her out to the kitchen and sits down across from Moms.

 “Listen.  We’ve gotta talk.”