#i put a smiley but really this is quite the sore subject

[bookwyrminspiration]

i'm pretty sure there's a lot more different kinds of people though so i kind of wonder what it would have been like to grow up like that instead of in america, where culture is kind of separated and there's so much "theirs and ours" vibe going on instead of it being shared in the way it was in cambodia

Every day I wonder what it would've been like to not grow up in America. I'm not quite sure how to put this, but there's this like...conflict? Living and growing up in America when having non-American heritage?

Because despite wondering what it would've been like otherwise, I did grow up here and have very much been influenced and socialized by this place. But you're also always hearing about Americanization and the negative impact on other countries--including the country I'm tied to. So it's like. I am part of the perpetrator but also it's my people and heritage who are part of the victims. Which, gotta say, really conflicting place to be in and try and sort out.

There's this one poem by Gloria Anzaldúa that says: "in the Borderlands / you the battleground / where the enemies are kin to each other" and I have never stopped thinking about it because she nailed it on the head so perfectly. At least for part of my experience, which you reminded me of here.

But back to your point. There are so many different variations in backgrounds and experienced within each group, it's hard not to think about what if you'd been a different version. What if I'd been born in Mexico and taken to the US like my dad, instead of born here. What if I'd learned the language as a baby and then lost it, instead of never having it at all. What if I wasn't from the most well-know hispanic/latin country people are always reminding you not to default to? What if my dad hadn't lost the language and he'd been able to teach me? What if what if what if. Really quite the torturous though exercise, but I can't help it sometimes.

Anyway, I think I've gotten kinda distracted from your original point, but you inspired some thoughts. That's kinda how convos like these go, you always end up somewhere else just following the thread and thinking

[jenonctcity]

The Girl Tutor

[3:31pm]

Park Jisung - Fluff

Non-Idol!Au

“You made these cupcakes for me?”

 Maths had always been your strong point. It was something you just seemed to excel at naturally and had managed to grasp almost every aspect of it that was thrown at you in school. Not that you liked the subject all that much, and it was far from being your favourite, but you had figured there was no harm in being good at it, so you’d learned to love your strange talent. So, when your maths teacher approached you one day and asked you to start tutoring one of your fellow classmates who was struggling with some of the work, you’d agreed to lend some of your knowledge. You’d sat in the empty classroom after school waiting for your tutee, staring longingly out of the window at the bright sunshine, kind of wishing you’d said no just this once so you could go enjoy the sun with your friends. Your fingers fidgeting with your textbook as you saw a group of students run past the window, seemingly chasing each other and attempting to have a water fight with their water bottles.

“I’m so sorry I’m late! My friend Chenle loves to talk and I couldn’t get away from him and woah…you’re a girl.” Park Jisung came running into the room, spouting his excuse for his tardiness and stopping dead in his tracks when he laid his eyes on you. You turned your attention from the window over to him in the doorway and smiled. “I mean obviously you’re a girl, why wouldn’t you be. You’re…you!” He laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head before turning to glance at the door, almost debating whether or not just to run out of the door in his embarrassment. “I just mean I assumed you’d be not a girl… you know…a boy!” He let out another nervous laugh as he slowly made his way through the desks towards you, his face slowly turning red and his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Is that a problem…?” You asked shyly, looking anywhere but at him, your nervousness reflecting his own at being in his presence. Park Jisung was somewhat of a legend at your school, captain of the dance team and one of the most popular boys at school. You weren’t proud enough to admit you had a slight crush on him. However, you had no idea he could be this nervous. He’s always been presented in a cool and confident light, so this took you slightly by surprise.

“No! no of course not!” His eyebrows shot up his forehead in his haste to reassure you that there is no problem. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Anyway, I’m Jisung.” He let out a small smile before bowing. Putting his books down beside yours on the desk and sliding into his seat.

You let out a soft giggle, smiling back as you bow your head to him. “I’m (Y/N). Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” He struggled to meet your gaze as he spoke. “So where should we start?”

-

Two months had passed since your first tutoring session with Jisung, you’d love to say that he’s come a long way with his maths in that time, but it clearly wasn’t his forte. He had gotten better at solving some of the problems, but there’s always room for improvement. You’d meet up once a week on a Wednesday afternoon after you’d finished school, staying for an hour before he walked you home. Luckily your house was on the way to his and you’d found out you only live 10 minutes away from each other. In the time you’d spent with Jisung your crush had gone from a little one, to one that had completely raided your heart and made it harder to function around him. He was still quite shy around you, often finding that the more he talked to you the more he embarrassed himself from blurting out anything in hopes to make conversation with you. In typical Jisung fashion, he was late again. It didn’t bother you much as it was almost a weekly occurrence due to his best friend Chenle being what some would call a chatterbox. Plus, he had never been more than 5 minutes late so its nothing you could be mad at. You wondered what it was Chenle was talking about this time to keep Jisung with him, more often than not, Jisung would tell you stories of his adventures with his Chinese friend that he embarks on at the weekends. You always found it entertaining and would sometimes joke that the two of them only share one braincell.

“Hey, sorry I’m late.” His voice brought you out of your thoughts, holding his backpack on one of his shoulders as he shuffled into the room taking his usual spot beside you.

“No worries, let me guess, you’re gonna blame poor Chenle on your lateness?” A small giggle left your lips at your own little joke. He gave you a look of surprise and huffed a laugh, rolling his eyes before smiling and placing his backpack on the floor.

“You’re a funny one (Y/N)…and no actually, he wasn’t in today, apparently he’s got a sore throat and no voice from screaming at the TV last night when we were playing xbox.” He chuckled, shrugging before unzipping his bag and pulling out a tupperware box and placing it on the desk in front of you. “I actually had to go back to my locker to get these, they’re for you.” His cheeks started to tinge pink, suddenly trying to avoid eye contact with you. You let out a tiny gasp in surprise as you pulled off the lid and saw 8 cupcakes sat inside. Half with chocolate icing on top, and the other half with white icing. But all of them had little smiley faces drawn on in a red coloured icing.

“You made these cupcakes for me?” You couldn’t help the big grin that broke out onto your face as you looked down at the cute cupcakes. He looked at you and nodded shyly, a smile sitting perfectly on his beautiful face. “Thank you! I love them, do you want one?” You offered, holding the box out to him. He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

“I actually already ate two after I made them just to make sure they actually tasted okay.” He sighed a gentle laugh and bit his bottom lip. “They’re just a small something to say thank you for all the time and effort you’ve put into helping me with my maths. I really appreciate it.” You smiled wider, reaching into the box and taking out a white iced one, peeling off the cupcake wrapper and biting into it. “You have a bit of…erm…” He hesitated before moving his hand forward and gently wiping off a crumb from your lip with his thumb. Your heart felt like it was about to jump out of the classroom window, pausing your chewing before gulping it down.

“Thanks…these are really good by the way; I didn’t know you could bake.” You were sure your cheeks were probably the same colour as your bright red textbook sat untouched in front of you.

He let out a sigh before laughing and rolling his eyes in defeat. “Okay so maybe my mum helped me, but only a little bit I swear! She just doesn’t trust me to use the oven on my own.”

“I knew it!”

“Hey, be quiet and eat your cupcakes before I take them back!”

“You can’t take a present back!”

“Yes I can!” After you’d finished your friendly squabbling, you’d gotten to actually doing some studying with him. The unasked question of whether you wanted to go on a date with him this weekend left trapped behind his lips. It was hard enough for him to give his crush cupcakes. Baby steps.

Masterlist

[spongeguyandlelouchvibridankia]

V-DAY Gift for @pikablob (OWL HOUSE)

@pikablob hope everyone likes this!

“Luz Noceda, I am the all knowing pan of nap! To succeed in your quest, you must answer one question: What would Eda prefer… Pancakes, or waffles?! MWAHAHAHA!” 

It was 9 o’clock in the morning at The Owl House, but you wouldn’t know it with how sleepy the whole place was: Hooty had not said a single thing the entire morning (a true rarity), still snoring peacefully, King was still sleeping on Luz’s sleeping bag, tail lightly flowing in the wind. 

And then there was Eda; the strongest witch in the Boiling Iles was not much of a morning person, to say the least, and she was snoring loudly, collapsed over her bed as if she had worked hard all night. Well, she hadn’t, but she was exhausted for a different reason: The curse. 

See, Eda was cursed as a child with the not so fun predicament of turning into an owl monster at night, if she did not take a certain elixir every day. This predicament didn’t always hurt, but boy did it drain her energy. And so, she was spread across the bed, clearly in pain. 

And that was why Luz Noceda, precocious witch apprentice and all around good girl, was planning to surprise her mentor with a breakfast in bed. 

There was just one teeny weeny problem: Luz had never actually made breakfast before for anyone. She HAD cooked sometimes with her mother, but her distracted nature was such that she barely remembered how to make any of the breakfasts she made. 

But was something as small and unimportant as having zero knowledge of said subject going to stop Luz? Hardly! 

Having already covered her entire shirt with avocado stains, Luz looked for the thousandth time to see if her avocado toast was not gone, before resuming her attention on the rest of the menu: Combining her favorite Dominican and American breakfast choices, Luz had decided to make an Avocado toast (the toaster had made her jump so badly she had bruised her hand on the floor, but thankfully it was just a scratch!), fried eggs (how fast do those things fry? Probably not fast she assumed), fried cheese (gotta make it melt, like bloooooood, oooooohhhhhh), sausages (Luz had once learned what was inside those things, but she couldn’t help but love their taste. Besides, Eda liked eating gross things that would kill a normal person) and of course, Pancakes!

Luz had all the ingredients in separate pans, which was making it hard to focus: With one hand, she began to see the pancakes rise, making her hungry, so she took a bite out of a stick that she had randomly jammed in her hair. “Tastes like a pop culture reference.”, she thought, grinning.

With the other hand, she made sure the egg was frying. It kept making this sizzling sound she liked, so she started to dance a little to its beat, before pulling two of the strings she had attached to the other pans to see if they were cooking well: The sausages were still swimming pretty with the mini trunks she had made them, and the fried cheese was melting wonderfully, and Luz put a smiley face sticker on it. 

It was going quite well, Luz thought, as she whiffed in the food and grinned in satisfaction: She was actually getting something right for once, and for Eda no less! 

Luz closed her eyes for a moment and thought about the Owl Lady that had taken her in to give her a reason to be taken in by anyone. Luz had only really been here for about 3 weeks, yet somehow, she felt incredibly close to her teacher. Perhaps it was because Eda was cool and wise, as Luz always wanted to be; perhaps it was Eda’s sass and total self confidence in her identity, something Luz wanted but was always shut down for; and perhaps it was something so much simpler… 

Perhaps Luz just wanted a mother who loved her for her. 

Luz didn’t really want to think about any of that stuff, so she tried to shake those thoughts from her head and instead focus on the food, which was starting to smell funny. 

“Oh no!”, Luz thought, getting worried. “I’m about to send Eda’s breakfast to hell!” Luz didn’t want to send anyone to hell! That was the work of the devil! Well, him and survey takers! 

“No time for games… I have to be 100 percent on the job! Nothing can surprise me!”, Luz declared, only to be surprised by the now awake King looking down at her from the top of her head. 

“What’s cookin’, daddy-o?”, he asked, and Luz shrieked, nearly falling down on the floor. King laughed maniacally at this. “YES! YES! I AM terrifying! Quake! Quake at my power!” He then sniffed Luz all over, tickling her with his nose. “YOU MADE FOOD? PLEASE FEED ME! I’LL BE LESS SCARY, I PROMISE!” 

Luz couldn’t help but laugh as she stood up again and scratched behind the demon’s ears. “You’re a VERY adorable demon king, King, but this isn’t for you.” 

King gasped in betrayal. “TRAITOR! I thought you loved me, but I guess I have no friends!”

 Luz then kissed his forehead and he relented. “Fine, I still love you, GIMMIE FOOD!” 

Luz shook her head and giggled, as she finally resumed her work. “No, King! These are for Eda! I want to make her feel better after the rough night she had!” 

King pouted and crossed his arms. “And what makes you think I didn’t have a bad night?”

 Luz wagged her finger at him. “Let’s see: You snuggled me all night!”

 “I CAN’T HELP IT IF YOU’RE HUGGABLE!”

“Quiet, I don’t want to wake Eda up!”, Luz replied, and she feasted her eyes on her work: It seemed so close to being ready! She just had to check if the eggs were fried enough, and those black bits at the end of the egg seemed to tell a good story! 

Slowly and surely, she touched the egg while it still sizzled and… 

“HOOCHIE MAMA I’M ON FIRE!”, Luz cried in pain, as she ran around the room, looking for water for her boo boo on her pinkie! 

King, now very alert, ran to find his band aid kit. “DON’T WORRY, LUZ, I’M COMING!”

Luz was busy running around and around in circles crying in pain as the rest of the food overcooked... And the lightbulb shattered when she accidentally struck it… And Hooty said something VERY RUDE as she bumped into him… And now she was covered with bruises and scratches and a burn... And everything looked bad. 

She almost wanted to sob: Why had she not thought that touching a fried egg on the frying pan as it fried would hurt her? That didn’t make any sense! 

She sighed, looking down with shame: How would this be good enough for Eda? She had totally screwed up. 

King, who had already given her her band aid, sat down next to her and, looking a little sad himself, patted her on the back. “Don’t worry, Luz! I’m sure Eda will like it!” 

“What makes you think that? I ruined everything! She’s probably going to hate it!”, Luz cried, feeling horrible. She didn’t DESERVE Eda, and now she ruined her breakfast! She might as well be kicked out! 

“Now, let’s not overreact! It’s just a slightly burned breakfast!” 

“Your point?”, Luz asked, sniffling.

King wasn’t sure what his point was, he had only wanted to cheer Luz up. Why had he wanted to do that? He was the king of demons! “Well, duh, because I lo…”, he started, and then it hit him. 

Clearing his throat, he looked straight into her eyes. “Luz, why did you want to do this?” 

“To…”, Luz started, not wanting to state her real reason. At least, her MOST real reason. “…To cheer Eda up.” 

“Ok, now tell me: Does Eda care for you?”, King asked, as seriously as possible. 

Luz considered this: did Eda care for her? It didn’t take long to answer. “Yes. Yes she does.” 

King then smiled. “Then she’s going to love this, regardless!” 

Luz stood up slowly, digesting this… And she was soon upstairs with her tray. 

That night had been tough for Eda: She had very nearly transformed again, and after drinking her elixir she had fallen on her back, bruising it greatly. There would be no work today: She could barely get out of bed. Her hands had also been bent in a bad way, so they were sore, and she may have chipped a tooth on the bed post. 

And that was without including the nightmares. 

Of course, Eda being Eda, she wasn’t just going to share that. She had to keep up appearances and be tough as nails! So she tried her best to stand up and not notice the screaming aches in her body. Slowly, slowly, she rose up and twisted her body so it would look sort of normal. She had to look tough, she had to look right, she had to be good enough for… 

“Eda! Good morning!”, Luz greeted enthusiastically, King following close behind. “I gave a pep talk, and I didn’t use the F word once!”, King self congratulated himself. 

Eda smiled weakly and nodded her head, before noticing Luz wrestling with a tray full of plates with food. The smell was a bit odd, almost charred, and the food seemed a bit… 

“Aww, did you burn breakfast for me?”, Eda teased, but with a smile that told Luz it wasn’t malicious. Luz sheepishly smiled, and Eda laughed a little before realizing something:

“Wait… You made this for me?” 

Eda hadn’t been given breakfast since… Since… 

Luz, meanwhile, shuffled at her feet. “Well… I just wanted to treat you. Since you had a bad night and all.” 

Eda hadn’t been given anything like this since she and her sister had… Gone their separate ways. 

Eda was used to caring for herself. It was just how life was. 

…Did Luz care for her? 

Eda was so touched she almost did something drastic, like hug Luz. But instead, she sat back in the bed and said “Well, let’s see if the kid can cook!” Luz put the tray down, and smiled in anticipation as Eda started eating the food. And yes, it was burnt. And yes, Luz had forgotten to put salt. And yes, that was not maple syrup on those pancakes AT ALL. 

But it WAS good enough for Eda. 

“So… Do you love it?”, Luz asked, hopefully, hands clasped together in prayer. 

Eda took a moment to digest the fact that Luz had for some reason gone to all this trouble for her… 

And she smiled. 

“Yes… I love it.”, she said.

 And this time, she let Luz hug her.

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

Slow down! - chapter 3

Ignore what I said earlier okay this is still a good ship and @colourfulheroes challenged me to write this and I swear I haven’t given up

And also on AO3

Alix had almost forgotten about the challenge during the next week, only remembering on Friday night when Lila sent her the second chapter of the story ready for Saturday’s meeting. She had a quick read through it. Right… apparently in the fic she and Kim had made a challenge out of being nice to each other in Max’s presence and the compliments were starting to get out of hand, though they still hated each other secretly… okay, that was actually pretty realistic. Surely she’d definitely win the challenge with a fic like this!

Saturday’s meeting was much like the previous one had been. She met up with Kim in the library, was glared at by every nerd in the vicinity for being a little loud, and they read through each other’s stories in silence.

“Are you finished yet?” Alix asked once she was done, knowing she was a much quicker reader.

“No, shush.”

“Okay…”

She waited for a bit longer. For a guy who was always bragging about being fast, Kim could be pretty slow sometimes.

“Alright, I’m finished,” he said finally.

“Good. First things first, I wanna say thank you for including my correct height this time. I guess sometimes you do actually listen to things I say.”

“Well yeah, duh, I’m just trying to make the story realistic!”

“It’s still not as good as mine, though. But you know what? It’s not half bad actually.” She hoped she wouldn’t regret saying that. The truth was, she was actually quite enjoying reading through his story, as stupid as it was. She may as well let him know. His ego was so big that giving him compliments was always a dangerous game, but hey – she was a much nicer person than him, of course, so why not prove it by being polite? It might make this more tolerable.

He looked rather smug for a few seconds, but his expression quickly changed to something like annoyance. He looked away and said, “I guess your story’s okay too. And more accurate than last time, now that you’ve stopped acting like I’m completely dumb…”

Oh, true. Lila had made sure to get in that Kim did his own homework and knew at least some big words. He was still an idiot, though.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Alix said. “Just ‘cause you’re slower it doesn’t mean you’re dumb.”

“Hey! I’m not slower!”

“Oh really? Remember that time on my birthday when we had that race and I won?” She hated thinking about her birthday usually, but using it to make fun of Kim was an exception.

“No, I don’t remember actually, because it was in a different timeline. All I remember is a supervillain showing up and stopping the race before we could finish, so according to me, there is no proof that you’re faster.”

“I could easily prove it.”

“Then let’s have a rematch!!!”

Kim had no indoor voice, and several people nearby turned to glare at him with their fingers on their lips.

“Rematch,” he repeated, a little quieter. “Right now. You go get your skates, I’ll meet you at the Trocadero, and I’ll prove to you I’m faster.”

Really? He wanted a rematch? He was just going to easily lose again, obviously. Alix almost felt sorry for him.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll see you there.”

Not too long later, she arrived at the Trocadero with her skates and helmet on. Kim was already there, jogging on the spot to warm up. It was weird being here doing a challenge without Max standing between them to be the judge. Hopefully no akuma attacks would happen this time.

“Oh, you finally made it!” Kim said, pointing at her in a very over the top anime way. It looked ridiculous.

She ignored him and grabbed a random nearby kid she vaguely recognized from school. “Hey you. Be the referee judge guy in our race, okay?”

The random kid nodded, looking somewhat terrified. Jeez, why was everyone so scared of her all the time? Even when she wasn’t trying to be scary? At least that was one of Kim’s very few positive traits. He was way too much of a fool to be scared of anyone, even when that was a bad thing.

The referee kid lined them up at the starting line and then, hands shaking, began the race. It was over quickly.

“I told you I’m faster!” Alix called from the finish line, waiting for Kim to catch up. He looked livid. “And I swear to god, if you be a sore loser like you were in the timeline you don’t remember, I’ll bash your head in–”

She stopped abruptly when she realized that the referee kid was looking mortified. He backed away slowly until he was almost out of sight, then turned around and began sprinting. Seriously, why was he scared? Alix wasn’t really going to bash anyone’s head in, she just talked like that!

Kim had finally reached the finish line. He stopped to catch his breath for a few seconds, then spoke. “Yeah, well done for winning and whatever.”

What? But… wasn’t he annoyed?

“Don’t look at me like that!” he snapped. “I lost today, but I’ll just train more and be faster and beat you the next time! Don’t act so shocked that I’ve maybe stopped being a jerk recently, honestly… everyone else has been noticing my efforts, except for you apparently…”

“Oh… um… good for you then. Sorry. And it was a good race.”

He looked at her, perplexed.

“Well I’m not going to be a sore winner!” she said. “Unlike you, I never was a jerk in the first place.”

“That’s debatable.”

“No it’s not, I…” She trailed off, remembering that maybe she hadn’t always been all that nice in the past. To Kim, at least. Though he was definitely the one who started it.

“Anyway, I’ve got other stuff to be doing,” Kim said. “Thanks for the race. I’ll see you next week.” He left without waiting for a reply.

Hmm. Okay. So he wasn’t a sore loser. Or at least, he wasn’t one anymore. He definitely had been before. She had even told Lila about it. Time to change that, then.

Hey Lila, just had a race against him and turns out he’s not a sore loser anymore so uh… yeah. Put that in if it’s relevant. He’s not actually 100% a jerk. Maybe like 50%.

Lila was such a quick typer that Alix had barely even moved before she got a reply.

Aww, sounds like someone is starting to make a new friend!!! :)

What? NO!

All I said was he’s not 100% a jerk! He’s not my friend!

Lila was having none of it apparently.

Okay, sure honey… you tell yourself that… :)

Ugh. Those sickly little smiley faces were making Alix want to punch someone. She clenched her phone so tightly in her hand that she was surprised it didn’t crack the screen. Alright, so maybe Kim had been upgraded from “enemy” to “acquaintance”. But that didn’t make him a friend! Alix didn’t even really have any friends!

Huh. Maybe it would be good to have a friend, actually. But not Kim. Not now, at least. If he got nicer, then… maybe?

Without Max here for the holidays, Kim had been visiting Marinette a lot more often. It was better than hanging out with Nath, who seemed to enjoy “stealthily” insulting him (Kim always noticed), and the run to the bakery was good training for him. He really needed to get faster. He’d beat Alix someday, he really would.

On the way back one day that week, he took a shortcut through the park to see that… oh, She was there. Looking smaller than usual, since she was standing in front of a giant tree. He looked up at the tree to see that there was what looked like a cat wearing a cap.

Well, whatever. Paris was a weird city that was constantly being attacked by akuma villains. He had seen weirder things.

“Oh – Kim! Can you help me out with something?”

Drat, she had actually noticed him. Now he’d have to talk to her, and she might just be mean to him again, though last time at least she had been sort of alright…

“What do you want?” he asked, trying not to sound too grumpy.

“It’s kind of a stupid story but I found a stray cat and I was messing about, and I put my cap on it, and now it ran up the tree and I can’t get it down. I tried climbing it but I’m… you know… too small. So can you go get my cap back? It’s got money in it, I really need it.”

Kim was about to say that storing money in a cap and then putting it on a stray cat was a ridiculously stupid idea, until he remembered that he had done things like that plenty of times in the past, and surely she would bring that up if he made fun of her for this. And anyway, wasn’t her family rich? Surely a lost cap and a bit of money wasn’t a big deal for her? Whatever.

He settled for saying, “I’ll do it if you give me half the money in the cap.”

“Fine.”

Kim quickly ascended the tree, grabbed the cap, and then jumped back down. Being tall was always such a good thing. He couldn’t imagine how awful it must be to constantly not be able to reach things, never able to see in crowds, being mistaken for a child all the time. It was kind of funny to mock, though.

“Here’s your cap,” he said, handing it to Alix. “Now gimme money.”

“Thanks.” She handed him a few euros.

“That’s less than I thought, but okay.”

Changing the subject entirely, she said, “So, how’s your story going?”

What was this? Small talk? (He tried not to laugh at his own thoughts. Small talk, indeed…) She never usually spoke to him for longer than necessary, did she? Why was she still talking to him?

“Yeah, it’s good,” he said, shrugging. “Uh, how’s yours?”

“Pretty good. Hey – what ice cream flavour do you like? Not ‘cause I’m gonna buy you any! I just need to know for the next chapter.”

Oh, of course. She was trying to make her story more accurate. That was why she was still talking to him. “Chocolate, duh.”

“Oh cool, same here!”

She high fived him. Why had she done that???

“Why are you being nice to me?” he said without thinking. Her expression soured immediately.

“Um, ‘cause I already told you I’m not a jerk? Like seriously, what kind of question is that? I can be nice to people if I want, I’m not just a mean aloof loner all the time! I’m not Timebreaker! I’m just trying to make things civil between us so, y’know, it’ll be easier? Or would you prefer me hating you again?”

“No, of course not!” he said quickly. “It’s… it’s a good thing… I’ll, uh, try to be civil too I guess…”

She smiled again. How did her moods change so fast? Yelling one second, happy again another.

“Good,” she said.

“Um, I’m gonna go now… gotta meet up with someone…”

“Cool, see you later!”

He left quickly, rather weirded out. Experiencing Alix being civil or nice was just so unusual for him. Well, at least he knew now that she had it in her? He’d better tell Nath.

Knowing perfectly well that Nath hated phone calls, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and rang him up anyway. It would serve that stupid emo art nerd right.

“Kim, I told you not to call me,” he drawled, sounding oh so pretentious, as always.

“I need to give you some more accuracy details,” Kim said. “I was talking to Alix just now and she’s not actually mean all the time. She can be nice sometimes. Occasionally.”

Nath laughed. “So Max’s plan is working after all! You’re actually getting along with her!”

He was right, but Kim didn’t want to admit it to him. Stupid smug geek. “That’s just a testament to how clever and awesome Max is, obviously! His plans always work. He’s the coolest friend ever, I’m so proud of him.”

“Wow Kim, I didn’t realize you knew the word “testament”. I suppose I’ll have to increase your vocabulary list in the fic again.”

Was that really what he had to say?! Kim just hung up without another word.

The rest of the week passed without him thinking too much about everything. It was only when he was leaving from Marinette’s bakery to go to the library for the next meetup that things occurred.

“I bet you must be missing Max a lot!” Marinette was saying, sweet as always.

“Yeah, I definitely am!” Kim replied. “But I’m keeping myself busy, don’t worry. In fact I’ve gotta go right now because I’m meeting up with a friend.”

“Oh, nice! Have fun!”

“I’ll try!”

It was only when he was out of the bakery door and halfway down the street that he realized what he had just done.

He had called Alix his friend.

He hadn’t even thought about it! Did she count as a friend? Surely not. They just weren’t enemies anymore, that was all. Friendship needed more than that. But then why had he just called her a friend if he hadn’t subconsciously been thinking about it?

When he entered the library he saw her smiling and waving him over. Okay, that was so different to how she had been the two previous weeks, where she had just rolled her eyes and looked somewhere else. Was this a friendship thing?

“There you are!” she said as he came to sit down beside her. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much… What about you? Have you seen that cat again recently?”

“No, but I hope it doesn’t steal any more hats!”

She was still smiling at him. And she had just greeted him fairly nicely, and was talking to him without insulting him at all, and…

Oh boy, they really were friends, weren’t they?

He tried not to look too confused. It was just so weird seeing her be nice to him, smiling genuinely, being friendly. He’d barely even seen her act like that towards other people, let alone himself. It was strange.

But… good. It was good. Better than being enemies, anyway. This way he didn’t have to think up insults that didn’t sound lame all the time, or have to deal with her making fun of him. Maybe it was better if she was more of a friendly rival than an enemy rival.

“Anyway, here you go, read through at your own pace,” she said, putting her laptop in front of him. Oh – he’d almost forgotten that was why they were here. He gave her his own story, then began to read.

For once she didn’t tell him to hurry up or interrupt him. She just waited in silence for him to finish reading. That was definitely a nice change. This friend thing was turning out to be very good indeed.

“It’s really good,” he admitted once he was done. “I guess it’s true, your hair colour is pretty cool. And thanks for mentioning I’m not a sore loser anymore.”

“Hey, no problem. For the record, this chapter of your story is absolutely hilarious, especially the fake karaoke date. Thank you for putting those ace puns in, that was awesome!”

Kim grinned. Nath wasn’t actually the one who had come up with the ace jokes, that was Kim himself. For some reason they were easy to think of. And relatable. Weirdly relatable…

“Anyway,” she said, “I’d love to hang out more but I’ve got a stupid event at the museum to attend. I’ll see you soon, right?”

She was leaving already? And she’d said she wanted to hang out more… why was that really sweet? He was so unaccustomed to hearing her be sweet. He hadn’t even thought she could. How had he not known this whole time that she was actually not that bad after all when she wasn’t arguing with him? Why hadn’t he made friends with her earlier? This was just so much better – that someone who used to hate him actually liked him now.

A very hidden, idiotic part of his brain was yelling at him “STOP FRATERNIZING WITH THE ENEMY!” But he ignored it. Alix wasn’t his enemy anymore.

“Cool,” he said to her. “See you later, buddy!”

She waved and left. Kim looked around to see that for once, none of the nerds nearby were glaring. Either they were getting used to him, or maybe… just maybe… he wasn’t being so annoying anymore?

[twxntrash]

Rewrite of This

The beginning of each school year was always the same package of dullness for students, regardless of the year or school. Same bland lockers, same annoying teachers acting superior and better because they’re older, same old faces to the same annoying and awful people, same group of friends all dragging their feet because summer has come to an end.

For seniors, it was the final year before they’d go off to college, if they were lucky or motivated enough, and that alone was dreadful enough because it meant they’d study not just for their regular classes, but for their SAT’s, ACT’s, they’d be under a mountain of paperwork called applications for scholarships and collages, and their emails completely full of junk and spam under the guise of grants and award money.

It was Hell. Students may be on a buzz for the first few days, feel like everything is new because the three months they were gone, but by the time they were done with the first full month, they’d be bitter and angry and ready to quit. They’d grow to hate their teachers, their lockers, their classmates.

It was only five minutes in and Lapis already hated everything. Her locker. Her class schedule. Her teachers, even though she hadn’t met them directly yet. She just wanted to be out and back at the beach, swimming and lifeguarding. Not in this brick prison called school.

At least now Jaspers weekly parties had a reason for celebration again; free from school for a few days.

Lapis tiredly tugged on the strap of her vibrant blue backpack, her head held high, her expression that of someone dead inside and she glared at anyone who dared cross her path. It was morning, she was ready to fight someone. She was not a morning person and she’d grown too used to sleeping in until noon only to abruptly wake up at seven.

Three o’clock couldn’t come any sooner.

The final year of high school just meant one more year of prison and morning classes before she could finally blow this town and do something she actually liked. She didn’t really care about getting into a college or not, her grades weren’t all that great anyways so she doubted any would accept her. Lapis was already certain she could make a living as a swim instructor during the summer days and selling her paintings and giving art lessons during the winter days. She didn’t need a college degree for that. She doubted she even needed a high school degree.

Art was her passion, so was swimming. Lapis had decided when she first started swimming that it was what she was born to do. When she picked up her first paintbrush, she fell in love.

She supposed that made her first class of the day a bit more bearable. It was an advanced art class, though she would use the word ‘advanced’ loosely. Still, it was art, which meant she could paint and draw as much as she wanted and the teacher wouldn’t scold her. Well, not as much as the others would. She heard Vidalia was a pretty chill teacher and sometimes even let the class do whatever art project they wanted so she could sleep.

Slipping into the classroom, there was only a couple minutes to spare before the bell would ring so she considered herself cutting it close. She would have wanted to be there a little sooner since it was the one class she was looking forward too, but, she had been held up just a little by running into another student in the hall. Probably some freshmen from the way she looked, it was kind of cute how the blonde had been so frazzled trying to figure out where certain rooms were. Lapis had to admit she was pretty cute. She hadn’t even gotten to ask the girl her name, but, she’d have to keep an eye out for the pretty blonde later in the halls.

Closing the wooden, paint stained door behind her, Lapis scanned the room. It wasn’t hard to find Jasper near the back, the woman was well over six feet tall and packed with nothing but muscle, she stood out like a sore thumb in any crowd and had an attitude to match her appearance.

Lapis shoved her way to the table and dropped her backpack unceremoniously onto the ground by her chair. “Hey, surprised you’re here,” she greeted.

Jasper shrugged as she leaned back in her chair, “Needed a fine arts credit, figured if I got art then at least I could use you to give me a crutch for this class,” Jasper was not an arts person. She was a sports person, and though she was phenomenal in History and English, any other subject she took she barely survived.

“So, when’s Vidalia getting here?” Lapis asked glancing up at the clock. Eight fifteen. Teacher should have been there by now since school officially started.

Her best friend looked at her as though she’d sprouted another head, “Seriously, Laz? You’re the art person and you don’t know?” she asked and Lapis turned with a raised brow, “Vidalia quit at the end of the year, she and her husband and kid moved.”

“What? But Sour Cream’s still here?”

“He’s apparently rooming with Buck and staying here, didn’t want to do long-distance dating with his two SO’s. Vidalia gave the okay to it.”

Lapis hummed as she thought it over. Well, at least that meant Onion wouldn’t be breaking into Funland stuff and giving Mr. Smiley a headache anymore and the Cool Kids wouldn’t be separated. “Any idea who the new teacher is?” Lapis asked. Jasper tended to know anything and everything that went on in this school. Probably because the principal, Scarlett was her aunt. At least, that was Lapis’ theory on it.

Again, the large woman just shrugged, “Heard it was some newbie, fresh out of college teacher,” she said.

“God, they’re going to get eaten alive.”

As Lapis and Jasper chatted, the door was pushed open and a short woman with fluffy blonde hair stumbled in. She had an overstuffed brown messenger bag completely covered in pins and buttons and her entire attire was a mess, like she’d rushed all the way here. She didn’t look that much older than Lapis, in fact, she kind of looked like she was younger given her height and babyface. She had a green blouse and faded jeans, and, well she was kind of cute.

She was a face that was hard to forget. It was the very same girl that Lapis had ran into earlier in the halls. She found a grin making its way to her face as she straightened up. For a moment she wished Jasper wasn’t at her table so she could hail the cutie over to sit next to her. Maybe she’d be able to get beside her later on. But, being classmates with this girl certainly made things easier, she could get near the girl under so many class-related reasons now. This could be good. Hopefully this girl was gay.

Her grin faltered for a moment as she continued watching the girl. Instead of coming to one of the tables for students, she made her way to the front of the room and dropped her bag on the teachers desk and turned to scrawl her name onto the board with a green marker. Without saying anything she wrote Ms. Peridot Olivine. It was scratchy, messy and a little hard to read, but that just gave it personality.

Turning back to the class, she wore a smile far too big and eager for a teacher just starting the day. She clapped her hands together and her grin grew a little, “Hello everyone, nice to meet you. I’m your art teacher for this semester, the great and lovable Peridot Olivine!” she introduced herself with a little laugh, “Don’t think you’re going to get a free A just because this is art. I grade on the effort you put into your work and how you behave in class, along with a paper you’ll have to write as well. Well, multiple papers.”

The class groaned at hearing that, but the smile never left her face. It was genuine, like she really was happy to be here and teaching this class to a bunch of high schoolers.

So, she wasn’t a first year, she was actually older than Lapis. Probably early twenties if Jasper was right. Lapis was, to be frank, quite surprised by that, but… she had to admit that it made it more interesting. The girl, Peridot, was still rather cute. She wasn’t too terribly older than Lapis, not to forget that Lapis was already eighteen anyways.

Lapis felt her grin grow and the interest she had in this adorable blonde grow as well. This was going to be a good year.