#in pubs and alleys and ruined buildings

[wistfulcynic]

I live in the UK and we keep our cats indoors. We live in a small town though right next to a largish car park. However we used to have a huge, almost totally enclosed back garden area and we still kept the cats indoors. 

My husband (British, I am American) feels very strongly about the ecological aspect. Cats kill birds and small mammals and they also eat plants. There are many common garden plants that are toxic to cats, namely lilies, which cause organ failure within minutes. When he was growing up, my husband’s family cats went outdoors so this is an opinion he wasn’t raised with. Also, I get the impression that the vet disapproves of it but they don’t try to argue with us. 

Overall I choose to prioritise my cats’ safety and health over whatever benefit they might derive from ‘roaming’. Honestly I don’t believe that roaming behaviour is necessarily essential to feline fulfilment, it’s just the instinctive behaviour of a hunter predator. My cats have never shown any desire to go outdoors, they don’t try to run when we open the door. And while we do have to watch their food so they don’t put on weight and make an effort to keep them stimulated, to me this is no different to what we do for ourselves (watching our diets, getting exercise) and is well worth it for the peace of mind of knowing that my cats are safe, healthy, and well-cared-for, and also not out hunting songbirds or eating slugs. 

(Kind of an aside but we also have very large, very aggressive seagulls who come into our back garden and they can and will carry off a small cat and kill it). 

Indoor cats have a much longer life expectancy, their fur is softer, they’re safe from predators and their prey is safe from them, they won’t get poisoned or attacked by dogs or hit by cars or kidnapped by people who enjoy being cruel to animals. I agree with you that the prevailing practice in the UK is to let cats go out but I strongly disagree that this is simply a matter of opinion and a case of different strokes for different folks. The UK in this instance is actively harming cats with this attitude and the sooner people change their way of thinking the better. 

ideologically i disagree with outside cats but i cannot deny the allure of being able to just meet a little guy anytime anywhere

[seancekitsch]

Can’t Stand Me Now; a modern Aegon x Stark! reader fic

PROLOGUE: Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth

Y/N Stark and Aegon Targaryen. Aegon Targaryen and Y/N Stark. Inseparable since both eldest children met at Kings Landing University, until they weren’t. One night of drunken passion ruins it all.

Five years later, Aegon is coming off a broken engagement to Larissa Lannister and sends a risky Instagram DM to none other than Y/n Stark.

series masterlist here

warnings for the series: smut, smoking, drinking, friends to strangers to lovers, angst, fluff, more to come as needed

It’s finally dark by the time you step out of the underground, a chill accompanying the loss of light. Your old Jeffrey Campbell kitten heels clack along the cobblestones, bare ankles wobbly as you pull your faux leopard coat tighter over your body. Fall is finally settling in after a long hot summer at your boutique without air conditioning, a needed respite. No longer will you be handing out fans to customers or keeping a cooler of ice water behind your register. If you were back home, you’d already be in your parka, too cold to even open a window for a smoke or stand around outside for a pint after work. It never gets quite that cold here, and you have to thank your frozen old gods for that. People bustle around you, nightlife of a Friday already in full swing. You can already see the pub below your flat has a crowd of people spilling out of it into the streets. 

Neon lights the way, your choice of a flat in the Fleabottom area of Kings Landing a deliberate one; for no one wants to live where it’s loud, if they can help it. That means a spacious flat for less funds, more money to put into your boutique and barre classes in a posh neighborhood and expensive liquor to stock your cabinets. You however, thrive in chaos like moth to a flame, a flat above a pub is not an issue, as your last flat had been above a sex shop, the flat above that at Kings Landing University was above a club. Everything in Kings Landing was louder than Winterfell, and for that, you were thankful to blend into its shadows. Here, you were just another face on the train, another chic bitch taking an outfit of the day photo in the alley next to her building. 

It wasn’t always that way, no. When you went to KLU, you were damn near a socialite. Eldest daughter of the richest family in the north, best friends with the eldest son of the richest family in the south. Your whereabouts and your antics had been the subject of more than a few gossip pages and twitter threads, invasive pictures dissecting what you wore posted with price tags and zoomed in inserts of parts of your body you rather strangers not examine. 

But one day that all ended, you gradually disappeared from all of them happily. No longer were you exciting now that you were trying to become a business woman, feeds of your storefront so much less enticing than pictures of you scantily clad in vintage designer dresses and slung across a Targaryen lap.

Luckily, now if someone recognizes you, it’s because you’re the woman from above the pub, you’re the woman with the clothing store with bold prints in every color but green. You wave to a regular you see nursing a pint near one of the stand up tables against the pub, he’s always here after work… for at least five additional hours. Hopefully his wife knows he’s here instead of doing anything less innocent. 

You speed up as you pass more and more storefronts- a weird little skip walk in anticipation to your door, welcome and needed after a successful but busy day. The blue door shines like a beacon, nestled between a venue and a pub. Your key fits easily into the lock, and then the other lock, and the door gives way with only a slight push of your shoulder. How many times have you tried to leave the house and people had been smashed up against it, kissing or worse? You can’t recall, but you attribute it to the annoying stick of your door whether that’s fair or not. 

Slamming the door shut behind you, you trudge up the stairs, shrugging your jacket off and pulling your phone from the inside pocket before throwing it onto the coat rack outside your second door. Your other key works like butter in this one, and no shoving is required. You slam this door as well, and head straight to your window where a vintage brass ash tray and a cigarette lay ready for you. You open the window, a welcome draft accompanied by the din of the crowds. A vibration on your phone distracts you from lighting the cigarette between your fingers.

You figure its Sara, your younger half-sister. She seems to be your only friend these days. A recent graduate of KLU, but still taking daddy’s money, she lives across the city. Every weekend you go out drinking or dancing, twice a week you go to barre class, thrice a week she picks up a shift at your shop. You won’t be surprised if she’s telling you she’s heading over to go out, or inviting you out to one of the more expensive dance clubs in her neighborhood. You’ll go, if that is what she’s asking. Even if you’re almost thirty, that doesn’t mean you’re a homebody yet. You actually like one of the clubs she frequents, so you’ll hope she actually suggests you come to her’s. 

Only it’s not her name on the notification. It’s a message request to your personal, private instagram. You don’t get many of those, and curiosity gets the better of you. You immediately unlock your phone to swipe on the message. 

Message Request:

@ eggtarg: yo. u still single ??

Five Years, Two Months, Ten Days ago

A kiss on your lips, a harsh slap on his cheek, another kiss now this time initiated by you. That’s how this started. Another drunken night now a new drunken tryst.

Aegon’s fist wraps around your hair, yanking your head back harshly as his other hand digs into your hip, a vice-like grip. He slams into you, thrusts harsh and hard. Your fingers curl into his flannel bedsheets, lips hanging open as you moan wantonly for him. 

“Fuck, darling you don’t know how bad I’ve wanted this,” Aegon slurs, his lips finding your shoulder blade as he drapes himself over you, not at all slowing or stopping his pace within you. 

“You’re so amazing,” he moans, praise hot and heavy in his breath against your ear. 

“I never took you for a talker,” you joke with him, but the moan in your voice gives you away. 

He pulls out, only to turn you over and immediately go back to fucking you, reinserting himself gently before immediately snapping his hips into you. Your hands find his hair, nails on his scalp as you bring him down in a kiss, not the first and certainly not the last of the night. He babbles against your skin, kissing you and cutting off his own words, his hands all over you. His hands were always all over you, but this time it was different. 

“I love you,” he whispers, and you feel a hot tear fall and drip down the side of your throat. 

“I love you, you whisper back, hooking your legs around his waist. 

You both finish with tears in your eyes and smiles on your lips. 

He falls asleep combing his fingers through your hair, not unlike a normal sleepover between the two of you, but this time he’s mumbling nonsense about how he’s gonna plan the best date for the next day and how he’s never going to let you go. Aegon makes big promises. He says he’s stop drinking if you asked, says he’d buy a space for the boutique you want to open, says you and he could adopt Sunfyre a younger sibling, says he cannot wait to bring you back to his family estate as his woman and not just a friend. He mentions his mother’s ring.

You fall asleep feeling like there’s a plan for the rest of your life.

When you woke up, he wasn’t there. When you called him, it went to voicemail. When you texted, they stayed on read. 

He became a stranger after that. 

Message Request:

@ eggtarg: yo. u still single ??

Your finger moves, maybe on its own accord, and clicks the message. You can see his profile clearer now. Clicking on it, you notice something immediately. Larissa Lannister, his supposed fiancee, is no where to be found on his feed. Seemingly endless pictures of his cat Sunfyre, pictures of his siblings on family retreats, a Mother’s day post for Alicent, blurry party pictures with a few of his guys from college. It’s as if Larissa Lannister never existed. 

You immediately thumb the little back arrow in the corner when you see a picture of yourself, laughing wrapped in his arms.

But it seems the damage is already done. 

Message:

@ eggtarg: yo. u still single ??

@ eggtarg: ive missed u so much . i cn see uve read darling

Fuck this. Fuck this so incredibly much. You swipe off of the app, immediately calling Sara and putting it on speakerphone before finally lighting the cigarette. 

Sara, always prompt and attached to her phone, picks up after the first ring. 

“You done work?” she chirps on the other side, music in the background telling you she’s already doing make up for the night. Perfect.

“Yeah, listen, do you wanna go all out tonight?” you ask, already knowing the answer. Sara never turns you down. 

[vixencrawley]

A Price To Pay |•Dark!Ominis Gaunt x Stripper!Mc

Chapter 1: On My Feet

Summary: 5 years after graduating from Hogwarts, Ominis Gaunt has shocked the ministry by taking over the Gaunt household, inheriting every single power that the famous family has from his brother, changing in ways Mc doesn't realize; Mc's prestigious family has gone into ruin after her father's arrest and her little sister developing a serious illness. Mc was desperate to get cash to get her sister back into a hospital, she thought maybe she could "borrow" some money from her dearest friend Ominis. Mc will soon find out that the new and improved Gaunt will take back what's supposed to be his no matter what it takes.

Genre: Dark Romance, Angst, Smutty

Word Count: 2,546k

Author's Note: This is my first time writing fanfiction so please be kind and send helpful critisim, i must warn the readers that this is a dark romance ff so please do not read if you are uncomfortable with it. and no smut yet thats for the next chapter hehehe.

BE. GONE. MINORS.

Warning: 18+, Kidnapping, Robbery, Dying, Stockholm Syndrome, Rough Sex, Master kink, explicit sexual content, aged-up characters, love triangle? Eye gouging, explicit dancing 

Footsteps collide with the muddy waters scattered around the dark street. I pant heavily as I try to run as fast as a scared fox, sharp edges of a gold plated porcelain plate dug through my skin yet I ignored the pain.

Sounds of my dark clock harmonized with the stomps of countless horses "Capture her!" yelled by a guard drawing their wands towards the running figure .

My skin shivered from the cold unforgivable air. I knew I shouldn't have stolen from the gaunts but this is the only way I could save her, Ominis will understand..right? Turning my heel to a secluded alleyway a wall began to slowly appear from the ground. I quickly grabbed onto a pile of boxes, threw them in the ground creating a quick makeshift ramp.

Without hesitation I ran towards the crowded pub across the street. I hid behind a few pedestrians and slipped through the backdoor. I dropped the sack of stolen items I was holding and quickly grabbed the bag hidden behind a few garbage bins, moving the stolen items in it. 

Shuffling around my pockets to pull out two veils of polyjuice potion. I saw a harmless sleeping homeless person and dosed the polyjuice potion onto them. Having them transform as a version of me, with a heavy heart I regrettably leave the homeless person posing as me to distract the guards who were following me. 

I calmly walked towards an alley while I drank the remaining polyjuice potion. Turning into a fine gentleman, my hair turning gray, facial hair starts to grow above my lip. I took off my cloak revealing a more high class three piece suit, no one suspects a man. 

Walking down the streets with the confidence of an innocent man as I hear guards capturing the 'suspect' on the abandoned alleyway. I look back ensuring myself that they would let the man go as soon they figured out they were actually innocent. 'they would be fine, I need to do this for Alice' 

__________________________________

Knockturn Alley became my home. No matter how dangerous it may be it was a place that unseemly turned into something familiar. I used to remember coming here with another of my old friends, Sebastian Sallow, he would always claim to protect me from the wandering eyes of passersby. Oh how much I missed the sense of safety, quickly walking to an almost rundown apartment building. 

Unlocking the door and opening it to see my younger sister, Alice making tea. Her body is weak from this muggle illness called cancer, her hair falling like a leaf in the autumn season. 

Small single bedroom with a few kitchen items on the west side of the room. It was lifeless, something I'm sure Alice isn't used to but was our home, it was the only thing i could afford with a hectic schedule.

I dropped my bag, quickly rushing towards her side "Alice, I told you not to strain your body didn't I?" I calmly said as I led her back to the one bed on the apartment floor. "I know sister.. I just thought I could make you some breakfast today" Alice coughed as she laid down on the bed. 

"You shouldn't worry about those things Alice" pulling the blankets over her fragile shivering body "If I'm not worried about such things who would sister?" She commented, causing me to smile from the corners of my mouth. 

"I can handle myself Alice, I'm your great big sister after all" I stretched my arm out flexing it, showing my little sister how strong her big sister is. She giggled at my gesture but her smile quickly faded. "Are you working late again?" 

It was hard enough to support the both of us after our father was convicted through the crimes of treason. Taking all of my family's wealth as compensation from all the lives he scammed away, I know leaving Alice alone in the rundown apartment wasn't the best idea but it was the only one I could afford…for now.’Getting her back to St. Mungos is my first priority’

Getting up from the floor I walk towards the kitchen, if you can call it that. I picked up the bag I threw on the ground and moved it to the dirty counter. 

"Unfortunately, yes.. but don't worry after my shift we'll be able to have enough for you to be back in St. Mungos for a couple of months and after you get better I'll take you to the carnival" I announced as I finished making breakfast from the unfinished food Alice created earlier.

I hear my sister squeal in excitement. She would always tell me she wanted to go to that carnival around the corner of Knockturn Alley. With the remaining cash that should be left after I give it to Eugene. 

As soon as I finished making breakfast I got two plates and set a portion for me and Alice. Intentionally making Alice's portion much bigger than mine, placing Alice's plate in front of her. She immediately started eating her breakfast.

"Did you get a promotion in your waitress job,sister?" Alice asked full of curiosity, I took a deep breath. It's hard to lie to my sister. I know she wouldn't approve of me being an exotic dancer or even a thief but it's the only way I could pay for her expensive care at St. Mungus not to mention the countless potions. 

"Yeah so you have nothing to worry about" I smiled towards her hoping she wouldn't push more questions. "Oh Merlin! I forgot to tell you something sister" she weakly grabbed a letter that was hidden inside the bedside drawer. 

"An owl came by earlier and left this letter, it was addressed to you" she handed me the letter, it was pristine it looked like it was written with the fanciest paper anyone could afford. I turned the envelope and a certain word got my attention. 

'Gaunt' "It's from the Gaunts, I think it's from Ominis, your best friend, sister!" Alice said excitedly but all I could feel was horror, maybe it was a mistake I made sure he wouldn't recognize me! 

"I missed Ominis sister! Do you remember when he would always give me sweets when his family used to visit us in London!" My sister reminisced about Ominis. I didn't want to tell her how much the gaunt family turned their back on us when father was imprisoned for treason. 

"Yeah I missed Ominis too.." I whispered as I got up to hide the envelope in the closet. 

Ominis Gaunt was my best friend, someone who I could play violin as he played piano, someone who I could sneak out of the bedroom to grab snacks in the kitchen, someone who would tutor me in charms class, or someone who would comfort you after Sebastian ran away.

“Ominis! Guess what I just found in the garden?” I said with a child-like smile hiding a small item behind my back. I knew ominous couldn't see but i still wanted it to be a surprise “Could it perhaps be another grimes fairy tale book?” Ominis proclaimed with a small smirk forming in the corner of his mouth, his head never leaving the book he held. “Nope! Guess again!” I shook my head, swaying my body weight back and forth as I looked down at my yellow gown.

Slowly looking up at young Ominis who wore a green plaid vest with a white beige linen shirt paired with a black trousers. He looked rather dashing in outerwear. He dropped the braille book on top of the table in front of his chair. Ominis took a deep breath and creased his chin “Ah ha! Could it be a pastry?” He declared with a proud smile.

“Nope! Do you want me to tell you?” I giggled at Ominis who hadn't guessed the item I was holding behind my back. He smiled defeatingly and looked at my general direction “ Okay fine please tell me what it is”. “Hold out your hand” I said as I reached for his tiny hands, he willingly reached for mine as well; gently opening his palms I placed a very delicate daisy onto it “It's a daisy! I found it in the backside of the garden!”

Gently guiding his fingers to ‘see’ the flower “Sadly there was only one i couldn't find a field of them! I heard from our muggle servant that in the  muggle world there is a field of daisies that exists in the countryside!”  Sitting next to his legs I placed my head on his lap.I so badly wanted to see a field of daisies..Do you think Hogwarts has a field of daisies?” I questioned him hoping he would answer yes “I don't think hogwarts has a field of daisies,little dove”

I pouted my bottom lip, knowing deep down I wouldn't be able to see a field of daisies ``urgh”. Ominis gently patted my head “Don't worry i promise you’ll see a field of daisies, i'll make sure you’ll see a plentiful” that statement alone still made me sad i was able to see a field of daisies what about Ominis? Disheartened, I gazed upon Ominis; he looked really handsome with his foggy blue eyes. “I don't want to see a field of daisies anymore”

“How so?” He asked with curiosity “Well if i can see a field of daisies then you wouldn't! I wanna experience that with you ominis!” He caressed my cheeks,feeling his warmth calmed  me in a way I couldn't describe. “ Its okay, i know without my sight im not able to experience things with you but as long as i am with you i am perfectly fine with it” 

I would be lying if i haven't said that ominis’s words often leave me blushing red. He let go of my cheeks and grabbed his want in his pockets and did a unfamiliar spell “Presavation Acentio!” He announced as he flicked and whipped his wand  casting an invisible cast around the single daisy. I stared at it in awe. “What spell did you just use?And where did you learn that Omi?” He giggled at my curiosity “Just some books i had been reading in preparation for my first year in hogwarts”

Sadly, I remembered that ominis would have to leave to attend Hogwarts in a few months; I wouldn't be able to play with him. “It's a preservation spell you can keep the daisy for decades” He placed it on the palm of my hands. I shook my head and got up to his level “No! You should keep it! You're leaving for Hogwarts and you don't have anything to remember me by!” I inserted the daisy in his dress pocket in his vest “When you go to Hogwarts I want you to remember me every time you see a daisy”.

Ominis chuckled at my gestures and grabbed my hand, he kissed the back of my hand “I couldn't possibly forget someone like you my little dove, but if you wished i will remember you as i smell a hint of daisy or even grazed upon one” I smiled proudly knowing ominis would remember be by a beautiful flower. 

__________________________________

After making sure my sister was well fed I quietly left and locked the apartment ensuring she wouldn't be able to wake up from me leaving so quickly. 

It was time for my shift at the pub, countless people flooded the place. It's surrounded by nobles who are dealing illegal crimes at the sideline, and obviously numerous drunkies who drink their lives' problems away. ‘How ignorant’. 

I sighed and entered the staffroom, changing into a laced corset with matching lace stockings. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder sending cold shivers down my spine. "Mc! There you are"  a enthusiastic tone said by the one and only Eugene O'Brien. 

"Well hello to you too Eugene" I said in a condescending tone towards him. "Don't be like that Mc, I'm the one helping you after all" he prompted his arm around my shoulder. 

Flinching from the sudden action I kept a straight face even if I was disgusted at his gesture, I know deep down he is not helping me with good intentions. But he is the only one who can get me jobs like a exotic dancer and even a thief at such short notice. 

I took a deep breath and avoided eye contact as he went on about a whore he banged. I clutched my chest trying to suppress my shaky hands. 

His laugh faded as he noticed my demeanor, he harshly grabbed my chin to face him "Don't give me that attitude Crawley! Remember the hand that feeds you" 

I looked up at him trying to look at his other features like his brown locks or that  scar across his lips. I know if I ever looked at him eye to eye he would sense my fear of him. He was right, Alice and I are only alive because he gave me a chance at numerous jobs. 

I nodded at his statement, my fingers trembled" I'm sorry Eugene.. I'm just on edge today..please forgive me.." I begged hoping he would let my unprofessional attitude go, legs felt weak as I tried to intimidate him back. 

He rashly let go of my chin, tossing me down on the ground. I stayed on the ground not wanting to look up at his tall figure. "You should be grateful I started a small conversation with a whore like you." He bent down and grabbed my hair, forcing me to look at him. 

"Where's the items I told you to steal?" I shakily pointed at the bag I came in a while ago, it is filled with the items I was instructed to grab. He let go my hair and snatched the bag "I'll get your share later slut"

I pant heavily frightened by his cruel actions towards me, I looked away trying to focus on the mold on the lockers instead of trying to suppress my panic at the situation. 

A knock was heard through the door and Eugene walked towards. I looked at the door's direction still avoiding eye contact, another staff member came and whispered something to Eugene and quickly left after. 

I reluctantly got up from the floor, even if my limbs slowly turned into jelly. Snapping his fingers, it rang in my ears and swiftly looked at Eugene's direction, I lowered my head not wanting to give him more reasons to get furious. 

"Mc! Get ready your regular Mr. Snake requested you" the mention of Mr. Snake somehow calmed my nerves, out of every regulars that had requested for me he had happened to be my favorite. 

He was a gentleman yet still carried a demanding aura. He would always request me and would often extend his time until my shift ends. "I understand I'll get ready"

"He's in the green room" Eugene commented as he left and headed towards his office, while looking through the bag. I swallowed the lump on my throat not realizing I was holding my breath. I opened my locker again and swiftly reapplied my makeup

tags: @littletealight @slootmagix @jakesully-sbabygirl @lizonzon @slytherinmodqueen @khamanix @belladorea @mehnotenoughtime @choccy-milky @cuffmeinblack @greedyforgarreth

[roomchailimited]

Edinburgh’s Enchantment: A Journey Through Scotland’s Historic Capital

Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, is a city where history weaves seamlessly into modern life. Its medieval Old Town and elegant Georgian New Town combine to create an atmosphere that’s both enchanting and culturally rich. Whether it’s your first time in the city or a return visit, a day in Edinburgh offers endless discoveries—from its storied castle to charming hidden alleys, to a thriving cultural scene. Here’s how to make the most of a day in this captivating city.

Begin Your Journey: Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile

No visit to Edinburgh is complete without starting at the iconic Edinburgh Castle. Perched atop Castle Rock, this fortress has stood watch over the city for centuries and offers sweeping views of Edinburgh’s skyline. As you explore the castle’s ancient walls, don’t miss the Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny, both symbols of Scotland’s royal heritage. The historic Great Hall, with its medieval architecture, gives insight into Scotland’s turbulent past, while St. Margaret’s Chapel, the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh, adds a serene touch to the fortress.

From the castle, make your way down the Royal Mile, a historic stretch that connects the castle to Holyrood Palace. As you stroll, you’ll pass centuries-old buildings, narrow closes (alleys), and lively street performers. The Royal Mile is also home to an array of museums, shops, and cafés—perfect for exploring local Scottish crafts, whiskey, and tartan.

Discover Hidden Gems: Exploring Old Town’s Closes and Courtyards

Edinburgh’s Old Town is famous for its hidden alleys and underground vaults, where history comes alive in unexpected ways. Wander through Victoria Street, one of Edinburgh’s most photogenic streets with its colorful, curved row of buildings housing quirky shops and cafés. It’s said to have inspired Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter books, adding a touch of magic to your walk.

Dive deeper into Edinburgh’s past by visiting Mary King’s Close, a series of underground streets and spaces beneath the Royal Mile that have been preserved since the 17th century. A guided tour here offers a fascinating (and eerie) glimpse into how people lived, worked, and survived during plague-ridden times. The stories of Edinburgh’s hidden past are as compelling as the city’s visible landmarks.

A Taste of Edinburgh: Traditional Scottish Lunch

When it’s time to refuel, Edinburgh’s culinary scene has plenty to offer. Pop into a local pub or restaurant and indulge in traditional Scottish fare like haggis, neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes), or a bowl of Cullen skink, a rich and creamy smoked haddock soup. Pair your meal with a dram of Scottish whisky or a pint of locally brewed beer to complete the experience.

For those who prefer a lighter lunch, head to The Elephant House, a café that boasts connections to J.K. Rowling, who famously wrote parts of the Harry Potter series there. Or, find a charming café in Grassmarket, a historic marketplace known for its vibrant atmosphere and great views of the castle.

Afternoon Adventure: Holyrood Palace and Arthur’s Seat

After lunch, head down the Royal Mile to the magnificent Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. This beautiful palace is steeped in history, from the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, to modern royal visits. Wander through the grand State Apartments, and don’t miss the hauntingly atmospheric Holyrood Abbey, now a picturesque ruin.

For those seeking a bit of nature and adventure, the next stop is Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano and part of Holyrood Park. A moderate hike up this peak rewards you with breathtaking panoramic views of the entire city and the surrounding countryside. The trail takes you past ancient hill forts, providing a connection to Scotland’s prehistoric past. Even if you opt for a gentler walk through the park, Arthur’s Seat remains one of the best places to experience Edinburgh’s natural beauty.

Exploring New Town: Georgian Grandeur and Modern Vibes

From the historic Old Town, cross over to New Town, Edinburgh’s 18th-century district known for its stunning Georgian architecture. The grand avenues, symmetrical streets, and garden squares create a distinct contrast to the medieval atmosphere of Old Town.

Take a stroll down Princes Street, Edinburgh’s main shopping thoroughfare, where you’ll find high street brands alongside traditional Scottish stores. Along the way, stop at the Scott Monument, dedicated to the famous Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott. Climb the spiral staircase for a close-up view of the ornate Gothic structure and another great vantage point of the city.

For art lovers, the Scottish National Gallery is a must-visit. Located on Princes Street, this gallery houses a world-class collection of fine art, including works by Rembrandt, Turner, Vermeer, and renowned Scottish artists. It’s a perfect spot to indulge in some culture and take a break from the busy city streets.

Evening Charm: Calton Hill and Dinner in Leith

As the day winds down, make your way to Calton Hill for one last spectacular view of Edinburgh. Calton Hill is home to several iconic monuments, including the National Monument, often called “Scotland’s Disgrace” due to its unfinished state. The Dugald Stewart Monument is another highlight, and the view from the top is one of the most photographed in the city. Watching the sunset over Edinburgh from Calton Hill is a magical way to end your day of exploration.

For dinner, consider heading to Leith, Edinburgh’s historic port area that has transformed into a trendy dining destination. Leith offers a variety of dining experiences, from Michelin-starred restaurants like The Kitchin to cozy seafood spots along the waterfront. Enjoy fresh, locally sourced ingredients and a creative take on traditional Scottish cuisine.

Travel Tips for Edinburgh

Getting Around: Edinburgh is a walkable city, especially in the Old Town and New Town. However, the local buses and trams are efficient if you want to cover more ground.

Weather: Be prepared for unpredictable weather, even in summer. It’s a good idea to carry a raincoat or umbrella.

Comfortable Shoes: The city’s cobblestone streets and steep hills, especially up to Edinburgh Castle and Arthur’s Seat, require comfortable footwear.

Edinburgh Festivals: If you’re visiting in August, you’ll encounter the world-famous Edinburgh Festival Fringe, transforming the city with thousands of live performances and street events.

Travel Agency Options

If you prefer a more structured tour or want to ensure you see Edinburgh’s highlights without the hassle of planning, consider booking through a travel agency. Roomchai Limited offers custom-designed tours that cater to your specific interests, blending historical exploration with unique local experiences. Other agencies like Edinburgh Day Tours and Highland Explorers provide guided walking tours, day trips, and themed experiences that give deeper insights into the city’s culture and history.

Conclusion: A City that Captures the Heart

Edinburgh is a city that enchants at every turn, with its seamless blend of old and new, nature and urban life, tradition and modernity. Whether you’re marveling at the medieval grandeur of Edinburgh Castle, exploring the winding streets of Old Town, or enjoying the city’s vibrant culinary scene, this Scottish capital leaves a lasting impression. One day in Edinburgh offers a tantalizing glimpse into its rich history, artistic culture, and captivating charm—enough to make you want to return for more.

[justtluffythings]

HOME: Book 1 - CHAPTER THREE

MASTERLIST

Veronica woke up earlier than she ever had. Today was the day: she was finally going to Hogwarts. She had been waiting for this day for the last month, and it couldn’t have come any faster. At 7 AM sharp, Hagrid had picked her up from outside her house, and they were now standing on Charing Cross Road in front of a pub and inn called “The Leaky Cauldron.” 

Veronica looked up at the pub with her eyebrows furrowed. She had walked along this street everyday on her way to school, and she was certain that it had not been there before. Veronica was an observer; she loved to explore the world around her. She had taken time to memorize every street and every shop she passed. This pub had been a broken-down old shop front.

“Hagrid? Is this pub new?”

“No, it’s been here since the 1500’s.”

“But… that’s impossible. I walk along this street everyday, and I’ve never seen it.”

“Well, that’s because you were born to two Squibs who have no knowledge of magic and believe they are muggles. They raised you as if you were a muggle too.”

Veronica looked up at the giant man next to her with curiosity in her eyes. “Squibs? Muggles? I've never heard those words before. What do they mean?”

“Muggles are non-magic folk… just regular people born to a family of non-wizards. Squibs on the other hand, like your parents, are people that were born to at least one magical parent, but they themselves have no magical ability. Most Squibs have knowledge of magic and the wizarding world, but according to Dumbledore, your parents were devastated when they didn’t exhibit any magical abilities. So much so that they were going around trying to expose our world to the muggles, which is strictly forbidden. They hoped this would force Dumbledore to let them into Hogwarts, but instead, the Minister for Magic had no choice but to wipe their memories of anything related to magic and the wizarding world. This broke your grandparents’ hearts, but they knew it was for the best, so they stopped using magic in front of their kids and kept them away from the wizarding world. The Leaky Cauldron, just like Hogwarts, is hidden from muggles. They can’t see it. So your parents wouldn’t have been able to see it, and even though you were technically a witch at the time, you didn’t know that you were. That’s why you also couldn’t see it.” 

“Hogwarts is hidden too? What if muggles come across it? Do they walk right through it without realizing?”

Hagrid was surprised. He expected Veronica to react in some way to the story about her parents, but it didn’t seem to phase her at all. She moved past it as if she wasn’t surprised by their behavior at all. Hagrid decided to do the same. “Hogwarts, when looked upon by muggles, is bewitched to resemble a smoldering old ruin with a sign on the entrance saying ‘DANGER, DO NOT ENTER, UNSAFE.’ It has been quite successful at keeping them out, I must say. Now come on, we’ll be late.”

Together, they entered the pub, and Veronica could not believe her eyes. All around her, wizards and witches were using magic to complete regular daily tasks. From a broom sweeping the floor to a spoon stirring a cup of coffee, there was magic all around her. And she couldn’t contain her excitement.

Veronica hadn’t realized she had stopped in the middle of the room until someone bumped her shoulder as they passed. Apologizing to the frustrated wizard, she quickly caught up with Hagrid as they made their way through a back door to the back of the building where they came across a brick wall blocking their way. Hagrid pulled out a pink umbrella and tapped one of the bricks in the wall. Suddenly, the whole wall began to cave into itself, as if being sucked into a black hole. Then, just as quickly, a large archway had formed, and Veronica could see a long street with shops on both sides.

As they both entered through the archway, Hagrid turned to Veronica. “Listen carefully, Veronica. Next year, you’ll be making the trip to Diagon Alley alone, so you’ll need to remember this. In order to pass through the wall, you need to tap on the brick that is three up and two across from the trash can. Got that? Three up and two across.”

“Three up and two across, got it.”

“Good. And another thing, if you ever find yourself stranded or need to get somewhere quickly in the middle of the night, you can summon the Knight Bus by raising your wand arm in the air. It will take you where you need to go.”

“To enter Diagon Alley, I need to tap the brick that is three up and two across from the trash can, and to summon the Knight Bus, I raise my wand arm. Got it. Don’t worry, I have a good memory.”

“Good. Now that that is taken care of, I’d like to officially welcome you to Diagon Alley. This is where you will be buying all your school supplies, but first you need money. So our first stop is Gringotts bank.” As they entered Gringotts, Hagrid pulled out a key from his pocket and handed it to Veronica. “This is the key to your grandparents’ vault. It’s yours now; keep it safe.”

Veronica nodded without saying another word. All around the room, there were small little creatures that she had never seen before. The words had left her lips before she could stop them.

“What are they, Hagrid?”

“Goblins.” Hagrid whispered. As they reached the end of the long hall, they approached the goblin in charge. “Ms. Singer would like to enter her vault.”

“The Singer’s and Royal’s, between whom the vault was shared, are dead. If this is their granddaughter, Veronica Singer, to whom they have left their riches, then she must present the key.”

Veronica stared at the goblin with her mouth agape. The way he spoke about her grandparents’ death in such a nonchalant way upset her, but she didn’t want to make a scene. She needed the money to buy her school supplies; she couldn’t afford to get kicked out. Instead, she held her tongue and handed the goblin the key Hagrid had just given her.

After examining the key, the goblin seemed satisfied. “Follow me.”

[ijustwant2write]

Different Worlds-Fred Weasley x Muggle! Reader

(GIF credit to @avocadosalad2​)

Masterlist

Prompts List

Requested by anonymous: 'Could you do a Fred Weasley after the war imagine (where he doesn’t die) and he falls in love with a muggle'

Summary: (Y/N) may be a muggle, but she was introduced to the hidden magical world once she realised her best friend was a witch. Years later, after they have both graduated, she finds herself drawn towards the magic, as well as a particular person.

Characters: Fred Weasley x Reader, George Weasley x Reader (platonic)

Meanings: (Y/N)=Your name

Warnings: Lots and lots of fluff

(A/N: Beatrice is a made up character)

                                        *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As I stirred the milk into the mug of tea, I continued listening to Beatrice babble on about the rude man on the train, who had insisted that she was sat in his seat, when she had clearly reserved it. I smiled, picking up the mugs and heading back into the living room, handing one to her. She blew on it, testing how hot it was before taking a tiny sip.

“But anyway, enough about twats in London.” Bea waved her hand.“I’ve got some exciting news!”

“Yeah? What is it?” I put down my own mug, ready to squeal and jump about with her.

“You know that shop I had my eye on?”

“The one in um...oh what’s it called? Diagonal street?”

She laughed.“Diagon Alley.”

“Ah, right.”

“Anyway, I went for another viewing the other week, and I got a letter through this morning to say that it is now mine!”

I grabbed her hands, squeezing them.“That’s fantastic! Oh my god, you’ve been wanting your own shop since we were kids!”

“I know! I’ve already had new flooring put down, it’s just been painted too. Now all that’s left is to organise how I want the furniture and to put stock out on display.”

Bea had always loved her fashion when she was younger. She would always complain about how basic her uniform was (even pointing out how boring muggle uniform was as well), and always added different accessories or made her own clothes. This hobby carried on, she became a great seamstress (the magic probably helped), knowing that this was something she wanted to do. Now she was opening a clothes shop that would also sell things like accessories, notebooks, pens etc. 

“I’m so happy for you.” I hugged her.

“You know, I am going to need help moving in...”

“Wait, you want me to come with you?”

Bea nodded.

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“No, don’t be silly! You’re with me, and you’re only visiting. Plus you’ve known about all of this since we were twelve. I haven’t used the Obliviate spell on you, and I’m still not in trouble.”

“Sorry, you haven’t what?”

“Don’t worry about it. So, you want to accompany me to little old Diagon Alley?”

A couple of days later, Beatrice visited me again, leading me out of my little flat and onto the tube. We practically had to go to the other side of London, making me feel bad when she visited me all those times. When we finally got off, and after walking for another ten minutes, we stood in front of an abandoned building stuck between a record and book shop. Glancing at Bea, who was staring at the uninviting building, I wondered what I had got myself into.

“Uh, Bea, we’re not going in there are we?” I asked as she dragged me towards it.

“Just trust me.”

She pushed open the door, which made a worrying creaking noise, and I was scared that if we shut it too hard, the whole place would collapse. However, instead of a dusty room with broken floor boards and bending beams, we seemed to be in a pub. There were a few people already in here, sat at various tables with their drinks. A worker walked past, waving their hand which made some scattered chairs tuck underneath the table. My eyes widened as I watched, realising that I had stepped into a different world. Beatrice laughing at me brought me back into reality as she held onto my hand again. 

“Alright Tom?” She called out to the bartender.

“Ah, here once again Beatrice? Oh, this the muggle you were on about?” he replied as he leaned against the bar.

“Yep, this is she. I’m taking her to the shop, which I now own!”

“Ah, congratulations! Head on back then.”

They said their goodbyes and I was being steered away again, this time outside. There was a wall blocking us, and to anyone else it would be a dead end, but I knew something was about to happen. Bea revealed her wand, tapping it around a part of the wall where bricks were missing. Stepping back, my eyes widened as the bricks started moving, separating to reveal a busy street. 

“Oh, this is just too precious. Wish I had captured the moment.” Bea said.

I must have stuck out like a sore thumb; I couldn’t shut my mouth, checking out everything around me, eyebrows furrowing as my mind tried to comprehend how this was possible. Men and women passed me in long robes, some sporting the stereotypical witches hats. There were broomsticks, animals such as owls and cats, things floating by me. My brain was well and truly frazzled. 

As we came to Bea’s new shop, I was still in awe, my eyes landing on a bright orange shop, with an animatronic of a man who was putting on a top hat. I could see lots of younger children in there. Explosions of light appeared, objects were flying around, I could hear the laughter across the street.   

“Kind of hard to miss right?” Bea giggled as she unlocked the shop. 

“Yeah. Looks amazing in there.”

“That’s Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. I went to school with the guys who own it. Onto more important matters, after you.”

I walked into the shop, grinning as I looked around. It wasn't huge, but it had a vintage look to it; the floor was a dark wood, and the walls were painted a lighter cream colour to contrast it. Currently it was empty, in one corner were mannequins, display tables and railings to hang the clothes on.

"I've got everything mapped out, I just need to move bits around." Bea said.

"It's going to look great when it's finished. I bet you're so excited to open."

"Are you OK by the way? I just realised how much this must all be."

"I love it here! I'm surrounded by magic, what more could I want?"

We spent the next few hours moving the furniture around, trying out new things to see what worked, where it would be best to display the stock. People passed by the window in large groups, but now there were less, the sun was going down, and shop owners were starting to close up. We followed suit, putting everything back in the corner before leaving the shop.

"Hello neighbour." a man called out across the street.

We turned around, seeing a tall man in a suit outside of the shop I noticed upon arrival.

"Oh, I forgot I would be seeing you every day." Bea groaned, obviously joking.

"You don't have to lie to me, we're one of the reasons you bought the place."

Bea began walking towards him, I followed behind."Fred, this is (Y/N). She's a friend of mine."

"Nice to meet you." he smiled.

"You too." I replied, wishing I didn't sound so quiet.

"Already got your staff sorted then?"

"(Y/N)'s an old friend of mine. I had to show her the shop. And Diagon Alley."

Fred caught on, realising that I wasn't a witch."Oh, right. Welcome to the other side."

"Thanks. It's been amazing so far."

“Well, it couldn’t have been that good, I didn’t see you in our shop today.”

“He’s so humble, isn’t he?” Bea rolled her eyes.“Well, that’s just another reason for her to come tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“I look forward to seeing you then.” Fred casually winked before saying goodbye to us both, realising his name was being called from the shop. 

“OK, what just happened?” I gasped, feeling extremely flushed.

“Those Weasley boys are natural flirts. But that was very interesting.”

“There’s more of them?!”

Bea just shook her head, looping her arms through mine as she lead me away from the shop, telling (not asking) me to return with her again tomorrow. I didn’t hesitate to say yes. 

With Bea unaware, I had immediately gone to choose an outfit for the next day as soon as I made it home. I just wanted to look a little more presentable, it definitely wasn’t because I wanted to present myself well in front of anyone. Once I had decided on a casual outfit, though something that still showed I had put some effort in, I settled down for the night, lying on the sofa with my dinner. Even with the TV on in the background, I couldn’t concentrate on the programme. It felt strange to be back in my world, not surrounded by magic. I was half expecting objects in my flat to start moving by themselves. 

Bea had told me about her being a witch when she received her letter to Hogwarts. I wasn’t supposed to know, especially at a young age, but Beatrice had been so scared to lose our friendship. Her parents were muggles, so where the magic came from was a mystery. I missed her extremely, hating that Hogwarts was a boarding school. But once Bea was old enough to use magic outside of school, she graced me with all the spells she learnt, it was so enchanting to watch. Bea had returned to the muggle world for a few years once she finished her education, but now that her dream of owning a shop was coming true, she wouldn’t be living near me anymore; that’s what was really weighed on my mind.

Bea and I returned to her shop the next morning. I didn’t mention anything of my thoughts from the night before, not wanting to ruin the day. Seeing the other shop owners setting up for the day set a different atmosphere, some who were outside greeted us along the way. Bea got out her keys, but hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“Nothing. I just think we should pay my fellow businessmen a visit.” she said, a wide smile on her face.

“No, cause you’ll just embarrass me!” I whined.

“No I won’t. Honestly, you need to see their shop, it’s bizarre.”

I knew she had a scheme planned, but part of me wanted to go along with it. As we approached, I glanced at my reflection in the window, tucking away any strands of hair that had fallen out of my up-do. Before we could knock on the door, Fred appeared, swinging it wide open.

“Ah, our most loyal customers are here.” He grinned letting us in.

“Good morning George.” Bea waltzed in.

Oh, this was his twin. 

“Fred has told me all about you, (Y/N), right?” George extended his hand.

I shook it as I nodded.“Yes, Sorry, I forgot you there were two of you for a moment.”

“Double trouble is what they are.” Bea mumbled.

“Welcome to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes!” he exclaimed, presenting grandly with his arm. 

Cautiously walking around, I ducked out of the way as a Frisbee flew past me, smiling at what looked like mini fireworks before scrunching my nose up at a box labelled ‘Puking Pastels’. I explored everywhere, going upstairs to search further. The amount of jokes and prank items they had seemed endless. Looking over the railing, I saw Bea chatting away to George. It made me wonder where Fred was, but that question was soon answered.

“Do you come here often?” Fred slid up to me, leaning beside me on the railing.

I chuckled.“Funnily enough, this is my first time here. And did you really just use that line on me?”

“Works every time.” he winked, causing me to look away as I blushed. 

“This shop is amazing Fred.” I sighed in content.“Are those really Love Potions down there?”

“Ah, caught your eye?”

“I mean, how could it not? Doesn’t everyone want a love potion to make their lives so much easier?”

“It’s not permanent. Besides, falling in love is the fun part.”

I didn’t question if he had been in love. It was too soon to be asking things such as that. 

Fred continued.“Can’t believe Bea waited so long to bring you here. She talks about you all the time.”

“She does?”

“Yep. I probably know more about you than you think.”

My eyes widened jokingly.“I don’t know if that’s good or not.”

“It’s very good, trust me.”

“I don’t think I would ever want to leave now. Couldn’t stop smiling when I was home.”

Fred opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by Bea calling up to us.“Come on you two, it’s my turn now.”

Not knowing what she meant, we headed downstairs, realising that Bea wanted to show the twins her shop. Making our way across the road, Fred and I walked behind the others as they continued talking, even as Bea unlocked the shop. 

“I mean, you’ve still got quite a bit of work to do Bea.” George joked as they walked around the empty space.

“I know that. But that’s why I have (Y/N) here to help me.” She smiled at me.

“It’s a good space. You got everything planned?” Fred asked.

“Yeah, we moved the furniture around a few times yesterday, so I’ve got options. And of course I had my wonderful assistant to help.”

“She didn’t even buy me a drink after.” I said.

“I can pay you.”

“What? Don’t be silly.”

“No, I’m serious. Because I need to know if I have to put you on the payroll.”

“Bea, what are you saying?”

She grinned but I could see she was nervous.“How would you like to work here with me?”

My mouth dropped wide open, eyes bulging out of my head. I was shocked, speechless even. Out of the corner of my eye I saw George nudge his brother, smirking at him as Fred looked annoyed.

“Oh, this is making me anxious.” Bea whispered, gripping her hands together despite her happy expression.

“You really want me to work here? But where would I live?”

“With me obviously!”

“Is that allowed?”

“Yes, I checked. Oh (Y/N) please, you always say you’re not happy with your job and that you want to live somewhere nicer.”

“I’ve never said that.”

“OK, but I can tell you’re not entirely happy.”

I took a deep breath as I smiled.“Bea, I would love to work here.” She squealed, running towards me and throwing out her arms, embracing me tightly. I squeezed her back, feeling very emotional. Bea wanted me here. She trusted me to live in this world of hers, she wanted to share her dream with me.

“Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.” George said as Bea and I ended the hug.

“Looks like.” I wiped my eyes, hoping I didn’t look like a sap for crying.

“Right,” Bea put her hands on her hips,“well, we best get on with the day. Catch you boys later?” 

They nodded, already making their way out. Bea smiled at me one last time, disappearing into the backroom. As I looked around the space, I noticed Fred still by the door, hesitating to walk out.

“You alright there Fred?” I asked, approaching him.

“Yeah...um,” he closed the door, coming inside again,“so,now that you’re living here, once you’re settled that is....do you fancy going out sometime?”

I was taken back, flustered which caused me to stutter.“Uh, y-yeah, I-I would love to!”

He nodded, pleased with the answer.“Good, it’s a date then.”

I awkwardly waved as he left, watching him enter his own shop. He turned around, seeing me still looking, sending yet another wink my way. He already knew how to embarrass me. Feeling my heart flutter, I slowly turned around, only to see Bea standing there.

“Oh, I am so good at playing Cupid.”

[earaercircular]

In Valencia, tradition and modernity merge

Valencia’s L’Escorxador del Cabanyal people’s archive and cultural institute was originally a slaughterhouse

David prefers to be out and about at dawn, after the last night owls have left the pubs and bars in the old town. When the coaches have not yet spit out holidaymakers in front of the mighty, medieval city gate Torres de Serranos and before the café owners open their parasols on the Plaza de la Virgen.

The square where the Romans founded Valencia around 2000 years ago and where a fountain decorated with figures bubbles up today.

At dawn, David de Limón has the Barrio del Carmen, the oldest quarter of the Mediterranean metropolis, to himself. But David is not drawn to the stately buildings, not to the cathedral, in which great architectural history - Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque - is shown in a small space. Not to the museums full of Roman ruins or modern art.

A quarter in transition

David is drawn into the network of countless alleys and winding streets that characterize the district. The labyrinth of streets in the old town is the neighbourhood of the 40-year-old, who has made a name for himself as a street artist. His works adorn walls and projections, old facades and sometimes the fronts of cafés or shops - if he has been commissioned to do so.

Most of his motifs show a masked person dressed in black, often adorned with a red heart, occasionally holding a spray can: a street artist who, like David, can be seen here and there in the old town.

Barrio del Carmen has changed a lot since David was a child. "Our parents used to forbid us to walk on certain streets," he says. Many houses, you can still feel that today, were left to decay and were considered dangerous drug trading centres. But a lot has happened.

City dwellers and newcomers have rediscovered the maze of streets for themselves, whose alleys and squares have been largely closed to cars and invite you to stroll and explore. And street art, which has always been a part of the neighbourhood, has been increasingly appreciated and tolerated in recent years. It now belongs to the Barrio del Carmen just like the countless small tapas bars, shops and galleries.

Big and small changes

"Valencia has always had its ups and downs," explains architect Boris Strzelczyk. Like David de Limón, he lives in the Barrio del Carmen. There were phases in which the city grew rapidly. Just like in the 15th century, when production and trade in silk and other goods brought money into the city coffers and buildings like the Gothic Silk Exchange were built. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Or at the beginning of the 20th century, when the cultivation of oranges brought wealth to Valencia again and magnificent buildings in Modernism, a form of Art Nouveau, were built in and around the old town. Among them, for example, the North Station decorated with mosaics.

Today, according to the architect Strzelczyk, it is above all the many projects that appear inconspicuous at first glance that make Spain's third-largest city, with almost 800,000 inhabitants, more attractive: countless cycle paths that have been created or expanded in recent years, revived residents' markets and repaired parks .

Capital for design - and that's not all

The administration is also focusing on digital services, accessibility and reducing car traffic. The goal: the city is to become completely CO2-neutral in tourism by 2025 and by 2030.

Initiatives that have helped a jury of the European Commission to elect Valencia the capital of intelligent tourism[1]. And because craftsmanship and Mediterranean design are very important in the city, it can boast another award: it is the World Design Capital 2022 (WDC)[2]. "Most people think of concrete objects when they think of design," says WDC program director Corinna Heilmann. "You can also design a lifestyle."

In fact, just looking out of the plane window as you approach the city is enough to see what Valencia has to offer besides alleyways full of street art and ancient history.

There is the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea and the beaches that stretch along it like golden stripes. Or the Jardín del Turia, the longest park in Spain, which meanders nine kilometres through the city like a green belt. And the "City of Arts and Sciences", an ensemble of seemingly organic buildings by star architect and son of the city Santiago Calatrava, which rise like huge sculptures in the south-east of the park.

Of course, the sun is also decisive for the Mediterranean feeling in the city. It shines here around 300 days a year.

Between past and present

"The overall package is right in Valencia," says Corinna Heilmann. The flair, the culture of enjoyment, the long tradition of craftsmanship and design.

Raquel Vidal and Pedro Paz from Canoa Lab[3] agree. The two ceramic artists have housed their studio in a former car wash in the lively Barrio Ruzafa. Once the summer residence of the Moors, it is now a popular nightlife and shopping district.

"Ceramic design has a long history in Valencia," says Raquel, while her fingers deftly shape the wet clay. "Ceramics have been fired in this region since the Neolithic Age, and later tiles and floor tiles were shipped from here all over the world."

Their works are reminiscent of vessels from the Romans and Arabs. With this, Raquel and Pedro want to build a bridge between the past and the present, putting old forms in a new, contemporary context.

The ceramic designers find inspiration in the city: in the historical museums, in buildings decorated with tiles and ceramic jewellery, in the colours and shapes that Valencia supplies them with.

Create something new out of the old

A thought shared by fashion designer Alba García. With her label Cache Croche[4], she continues the city's silk tradition. She creates new clothes from old fabrics in a patchwork-like manner. García takes up traditional patterns and motifs in her collection and recycles waste products: she cleans plastic waste washed up from the Mediterranean Sea, melts it down and uses it to make jewellery.

"Slow fashion is important to me," says García. "And circular economy. I want to bring back to life what others throw away, while at the same time connecting to Valencian traditions and history."

The works of Ana Milena Hernández and Christophe Penasse's award-winning interior design and product studio Masquespacio[5], which has long been known far beyond Spain's borders, also show how design and history can go hand in hand in a city.

For example in the design of La Sastrería[6], a restaurant in the maritime Barrio Cabanyal. "We strolled through the district for days, looked at what we found here, what makes this place special," says Hernández. "And we did that."

The result: wooden chairs with vertical struts, which are intended to be reminiscent of the fishermen's boats. White-bluish colours that evoke the encounter between the beach and the ocean, and glossy glazed tiles that adorn the walls and counter.

A potpourri of shapes and colours

Like the old town, the district of Cabanyal, which borders the wide beach of Malvarrosa near the seaport, has been developing for a few years. "For 17 years, the residents have protested against the radical re-planning of their district," explains architect Boris Strzelczyk.

The former city government had planned to cut a monumental avenue across the district, which would have led to the demolition of hundreds of buildings, some of which are listed. Houses that the residents of the former fishing village decorated with tiles and other decorative elements at the beginning of the 20th century, based on the noble Modernism buildings in the city centre. A colourful potpourri of shapes and colours in which no two houses are alike.

Since this plan was scrapped after a change of government, the district has flourished. Here, too, it is design, craftsmanship and architecture that bring hidden gems back to life.

Traditional and modern

An example of this is the district's new city archive and cultural institute,[7] which will deliberately not be given a modern location, but will move into a former slaughterhouse that was renovated and carefully expanded under Strzelczyk's leadership.

"During the renovation we discovered graffiti, murals, hand-painted wall tiles and the cement tiles typical of Valencia, which we integrated," explains the architect. They were either left in place and highlighted, or used elsewhere in the building. A concept of sustainability shared by many architects, craftsmen and designers. And who makes the Mediterranean metropolis what it is.

A city that builds on its traditions and at the same time looks ahead with a good sense of modern ideas.

Source

dpa-infocom, In Valencia verschmelzen Tradition und Moderne, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 3-6-2022, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/dpa/dpa-dpa.urn-newsml-dpa-com-20090101-220603-99-538678           

[1] Valencia, Spain has been named European Capital of Smart Tourism 2022. The city's candidacy has been chosen by a jury of the European Commission, specializing in accessibility, sustainability, digitization, cultural heritage and creativity. https://www.travelagentcentral.com/europe/valencia-spain-named-european-capital-smart-tourism-2022#:~:text=Valencia%2C%20Spain%20Named%20European%20Capital%20of%20Smart%20Tourism%202022,-By%20Matt%20Turner&text=Valencia%2C%20Spain%20has%20been%20named,digitization%2C%20cultural%20heritage%20and%20creativity.

[2] Valencia is the eighth city to be designated World Design Capital® 2022 (WDC 2022). Situated on the south-east coast of Spain, this culturally vibrant city is a major port located on the Mediterranean with a long-standing legacy of design. https://wdo.org/programmes/wdc/wdc-valencia-2022/#:~:text=Valencia%20is%20the%20eighth%20city,long%2Dstanding%20legacy%20of%20design.

[3] https://www.canoalab.com/

[4] https://www.cachecroche.com/

[5] https://masquespacio.com/

[6] https://lasastreriavalencia.com/

[7] https://criticalista.com/2021/06/02/urbicide-rebellion-slaughterhouse-renovation/

[miss-kittys-magical-library]

The Ides of March

(A Darren Treacy x Jeanie Turner Mini-Series)

Chapter 1 - Come On Eileen

Word Count: 1125

Warnings: pure smut, language, alcohol use, canon divergent completely, **no spoilers**

A/N: On Saint Patrick's Day, Darren and Jeanie start receiving ominous, cryptic text messages claiming to be from the future. Play the game; save Darren. Jeanie's rules are simple enough: If Dazz can catch her out in Dublin, he can have her any way and anywhere he wants. So how did a night of wild sex and whiskey lead to murder?

Prolouge 

“We’ll play a game,” Jeanie had texted Darren.

“I know how this ends. I like both of my feet, and I've already lost a lung.”

“Funny! Come and find me out in Dublin. If you catch me, you can fuck me.”

“Like I won't be fucking ye already? Just enjoy the night, meet me at the pub. 3am”

Jeanie read Darren's last message. The card burned in her purse. Keep him away from Nidge, whatever you do.

“You can fuck me in public. Wherever. However.”

A few minutes later as Jeanie passed a joint to Ewan, her phone buzzed between her tits. “Up the arse?”

“Dazz”

“Red.” Then. “Thought I’d give it a go. Can I have a hint?”

(Talk everyone into the Temple club. Get Darren there, maybe with Tommy & Siobhan. I'll take care of the rest.)

“It's 3 Stories. Looks like a church. I'll be inside. Catch me if you can.”

Out in the narrow alley between The Temple and the adjacent alley, Jeanie scrolled through her phone for a number. She stepped outside with Ewan to get some air, four shots and a whiskey with Coke deep. Her finger found what she wanted.

“Hey! It's Jeanie. Chuck your old man, and come dancing with us! Or bring him, and let he and Dazz stare at their mobiles waiting for your uncle to call.”

“You mean the weasel? ;) Darren already left for The Temple. Ewan told him where. Tommy and I will meet you there in a bit.”

Jeanie's heart started to pound. Whatever it was these messages wanted, or wherever they were from, the game would work. If she had to use her pussy to keep Darren Treacy alive, it wouldn't be very hard. He was easily enticed by it.

Now Jeanie was lost in her own mobile. She heard a muffled greeting from Ewan’s deep Scottish brogue. Her back was towards him, but Darren (smelling of tequila himself) strong armed her and lifted her off the ground. Jeanie screamed in shock then delight before he set her down.

Jeanie made gestures towards Ewan to head back into the club. It took a few minutes, despite Darren's immediate desire to bite and kiss Jeanie, for the Scotsman to realize he was no longer wanted. He winked at Jeanie and made his way back inside.

“I t’ought t’is game would be harder.” Darren's hands roamed over Jeanie’s fishnet tights.

“You got Ewan to tell you where in the club we were, didn't you?” She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and closed her eyes. She got lost in his mouth on her neck. Her free hand urged him up her skirt.

Darren became a little more energetic. He tore at the fabric so Jeanie's tights were destroyed. His heavy breathing gave way to just the bare minimum of surprise when he realized she wasn't wearing panties under the fishnets.

“Naughty, bitch,” he growled in her ear as his fingers started to delve inside Jeanie. They pumped aggressively, his middle finger on her clit in swift circles.

Jeanie moaned, the whiskey coursed through her nerves. She didn't care that the streets of Dublin were crowded. That she was in a dirty, impossibly narrow alleyway with an Irish gang member. That she was sent divorce papers. That she was 29 today. Had she told anyone that she was 29 today? The American expat school teacher living in Scotland and Ireland getting finger fucked by a hitman on St. Paddy’s Day was almost 30.

“You left out dirty, Dazzler.”

Jeanie's hips moved on their own as she encouraged Darren to go deeper. Her nails sunk into the skin on his wrist, and they moved together. From one angle it just looked like a couple dirty dancing to the loud electric beat that poured out from the side entrance door. From the other, revellers would see a man with his hand completely lost inside a woman's skirt as her mouth hung open in ecstasy.

“Can't I ever look at ye when we fuck? I want t’see your face, darling.” His fingers went faster as he began to grind his erection into Jeanie's ass at the same time.

“No,” Jeanie had to fight around her moaning, “If we look at each other during this, it's not gonna be just fucking anymore.”

“I caught ye, and I was told I could fuck ye anyway and anywhere. Can't bend your own rules because you're afraid t’fall in love.” His hand no longer inside her.

Jeanie groaned. Why did he use logic?! It's not the falling in love, it's those eyes. Like all of Ireland was in them. They were impossible to describe because “hazel” wasn't enough.

“Finnnneeee,” she gave in. There was laughter in her voice. “Now please, fuck me before my chick boner dies!” She faced Darren but started to unbutton the dress shirt under her corset. “Wait wait. I don't want this to get ruined.”

“Where ye gonna put it?” Darren undid his belt and jeans. His hand gripped his cock, and he started to wank it.

“Fuck.. Ok I'll throw it away?” Jeanie tossed it.

“Good old Scots-Irish impulse,” Darren backed her into the wall. He lifted Jeanie's leg to plant her boot on the other building maybe three feet away.

The brick was cold against Jeanie's back as Darren plowed into her. She took a chance and lifted her other leg so that she was bent between the walls. Her hands clawed at the back of Darren's neck. His hands pushed and pulled her ass back on forth so their bodies crashed together. They fucked at breakneck speed.

Jeanie didn't look. Her eyes clenched shut as she relaxed and let Darren have his way. She could feel the ragged stone create a burn on her now bare shoulders as he slammed a few more times. His vice grip jerked her into his pelvis one last time as he came. His body shook with it.

Jeanie unfolded herself slowly. The adrenaline and alcohol did her head in. She fished her clutch out of the back of her skirt while Darren fixed his pants. He marveled at the hidden bag but only with a raise of his eyebrows. He didn't even notice, but licked his lips as she swiped a tissue inside herself and tucked it in his pocket.

“Parting gift,” she winked and blew a kiss. Then his phone buzzed.

Tommy and Siobhan came around the corner, and the younger one screamed in delight and broke in a run. As she drunkenly threw herself into Darren's arms, Jeanie slipped away unnoticed. He was busy trying to push Siobhan off into Tommy.

“Round 2, Dazzler. Catch me if you can. Next time make me cum too, selfish bastard.”

Tag: @robertsheehanownsmyass @firstpersonnarrator @bisexualnathanyoung @badsext @elliethesuperfruitlover @joz-stankovich @super-unpredictable98 @slutforrobbiebro @frogs--are--bitches @nightmonsters @rob-private

[furymint]

wc: 5,517 | sequel to this & this | Response to Industrial Revolutions RP | tw: war themes, extended discussion of trauma & death, brief murder/death

The last command he gave was “stand easy.”

In Ala Ghiri’s clearing, Nolanel missed, in a way, the mutinae of drill and the march. He preferred the ease of rhythm and motion, one after another, without the trap of conversation or thought. It was not quite numbness, he told himself, which made him believe so less.

Contradiction ached in him. Though senselessness was a type of duty, it swallowed some forbidden part of him that relished being human. To win meant to walk through the bodies in the vale, not to bury them. Except for revenge, the dead needed naught he could give. Others would inter and mourn but he must continue, terror be damned, himself be ruined. He must forget someone loved him.

Instead, exhausted and hesitant, he shook responsibility from his mind. He longed to know something more than the bloodied dirt of Gyr Abania, and he longed to trust, if not in nothing, then that as he shut his eyes the flash of gunpowder or the groan of a dying soldier would not wake him. He had done enough for now: he dragged his company to this damn hamlet, lost three to disease and another to the wilds, and the remainder of the poor wretches no longer had the strength to complain.

They would be fed with clay roofs above them. And soon, the privacy of darkness. What more was needed of him?

The old, familiar reason responded “all,” but when he heard his name he no longer cared.

Elliot, by gods, by what sick, welcome joke did he come here, this trampled country, scorched waste and war.

Nolanel stiffened and scowled and did not look. Nothing could keep him from love better than himself. His lungs coiled and that damn ringing in his ears returned. Elliot’s voice had cracked over the last syllable–how long had he been in this rotten, faraway fight, and what did it do to him, innocent?

But his name was not Nolanel here. His jaw tightened as he reordered himself and returned the steel to his mind. Rows and columns of wearied soldiers swayed afore his eyesight. He must count. The lumbering weight of kits and packs and weaponry, soles worn and caked in grime, faces like masks or mirrors. Who was missing–or what? Beyond them, where the bone-white curbs fronted the first stretch of buildings, walking wounded trickled from door to door to find surgeons.

He’d had enough. They all did. He could not pretend his indifference defended him from anything. Not while they stood aware of their next peace.

“Fall out!” He capitulated to pity and heartache: “Dismissed.”

He paused, considering what judgements awaited him in time, and did not move until all that was left in the clearing were the imprints of boots.

Nolanel lifted his head to find any ignominy worth it. Lifelong barriers fell from him. He smiled to Elliot. For the hundredth time this sun he said that name for no one’s hearing.

Sheltered behind a low fence, Elliot stood aside a table of a public house patio, an old column shading him from the twilight glare. The blue medic’s jacket boxed his shoulders, and he seemed to have given up styling his hair under his beret: his bangs had been cut back, aging his face if exhaustion hadn’t. He fussed back and forth a moment, trapped, until he swung over the fence and skid on the dry silt with a sudden laugh.

A gunshot cracked.

Nolanel raced to grab him and fled for the pub’s door.

Atop the walls of the town, a squabble flung a body into the clearing. It hit the dust with a halting snap of bone.

Soldiers and locals rioted inside for exits or answers, and Nolanel threw a drunk woman aside to clear the path to the counter. Shoving Elliot behind the bar, he hissed, “Keep from the windows,” and glared a threat to the startled waitress.

People stomped, red-faced and terrified, and shouted through the red alleys. Additional shots echoed from the northern wall, and a Maelstrom fireteam streaked from behind the whirring aetheryte.

Elliot stumbled to his feet, hands slipping on the grease-slicked floor, and snatched Nolanel by the arm.

Outside, an Adder pounded on a window pane. Their mouth moved to repeat the unheard word “dead,” but the hysterics inside neither understood nor wanted to. The Adder sliced their hand across their throat. Understanding rippled through the pub–but calm did not. 

Hatred erupted. Tables rattled under fists. Tipped chairs struck the floor. People roared curses to the Empire, those rotten, miserable whoresons who knew naught but doctrine. It took all the continent–plus those rowdy islanders–to hold this fort, and still a black-souled whatever-the-fuck camped their walls and murdered their sentries. Probably knifed the injured in their beds, too.

Nolanel shouldered back to the door, hauling Elliot with him. He met the unfamiliar road with a gawked shamble.

Elliot knew the paths. He slipped aside and curved into a slim alley, following it to a dead end of brick and weeds. A single door and window faced outward. Without the commotion, he realized how heavy his breath came, and his hands folded over his chest with an apology. “We’re due rain soon,” he began. “I’ve been looking forward to it–that, at least, should put a pause on the fighting.”

Nolanel thought of the crater holes in the reclaimed Fringes, filled with bodies of dead and dying Imperials; how the bastards, shot free of arms and half-buried in the muck, screamed and writhed for freedom as the water rose around them. Reapers, arranged in the distance, did not stop their intermittent fire no matter the sky’s whims.

He offered a quiet, “Hopefully,” and stood apart.

Elliot slid his foot along a crack in the paved brick, looking down. “It is been a long time coming here.”

“Yes.”

“Took a lot, too.”

“Mm.”

“What was the last letter you received from me?” Elliot stepped forward.

“Velodyna. Have you…?”

“No, I haven’t written since.” He offered his hand loosely.

Nolanel immediately took it.

“When someone comes in with their leg torn off, we read the medical slip or ask or infer how. Seeing it happen is different.”

Nolanel stiffened cold, understanding what Elliot told him, and feeling that he’d never understood him so well as when his voice snapped like it did, and when his hands dug into his arms like vices.

“We were at Imperatoris–”

“Fuck.” Nolanel yanked his arms free to hook them around Elliot, clinching him to his chest.

“–I know, I know what it’s like for me. I patch people up, I tell them they won’t die, and I fill them with morphine–if I can, if there’s any–so they don’t feel their heart stop. I know where I stand when I keep one man from bleeding out and another from ripping the bandages over the hole where his eye was. There was rubble and bullets flying, not yet in bodies, and I know what a scream sounds like when there’s a blade stuck in your rib.”

Elliot pressed closer, slowly leaning all his weight forward until Nolanel buckled and crashed into a wall for support.

“And he didn’t sound like that. The broken column pinned him to the ground, and we lifted it from him. Arcian was there. I pulled him out and it was like ripping fabric–the snap and tension–his body split and he groaned and died as I stood there. I stood and watched because I hurt him, and I wondered if he knew. Why did he call for help? Did he know what he was, or what he wanted? I don’t even know if he said aught. I could blame him if he did. I–I–And now too–Someone just now died and I’m thinking of myself.”

He shifted, uncurling his fingers from the braiding of Nolanel’s uniform. “I don’t want to be like this.”

Nolanel’s mind frayed. The weight of his kit faded to numbness, and the sickening pound of his heart deafened reason. He mouthed Elliot’s words back to him, forcing comprehension even as each of his senses shackled themselves in hurried, ugly evasion.

He was sick. Whatever fragments of the world he called his own snapped apart–to beckon them back frightened him more than their distance. The shape of those words were more familiar to him than his own body. To be aught other than this, to know and feel differently, only not to be himself in this moment where powerlessness slowed his pulse. What he hated was old in him, and in Elliot it was old too–but the poor damn kid never knew it till now.

Whispering an apology that could never suffice, Nolanel clawed at his scalp and pulled from the wall. Order returned to him from the pain. “No one does. And you don’t–There’s no need to berate yourself for that.”

Elliot sobbed in frustration and let go. “Every sun, I do worse to our men to keep them alive than the enemy did in wounding them. I take the knife to them, and the saw, and I keep them alive when they beg me not to. The only consistency they have is chaos–and it’s in them, like a part of them.”

Nolanel grabbed him, insisting under his breath, “That’s the point. None of us are ourselves. When people are dying and–or they’re terrified, the truth of what they’re made of doesn’t show. Desperation does, and it’s only that. Don’t expect better from yourself of that. You’re not an angel. You’re no saint. Neither am I. We’re just men, and we’re fools about it, just like everyone else.”

A whine ripped from Elliot’s throat even as he stilled under Nolanel’s renewed touch. “I wish I hated this place more than I do. It’s too much. It’s taken too much. But damn my heart, I want to help!" 

"And you are! But you can’t wreck yourself to do it. Please. I’ve learned by now, by Halone, I’d rather be selfish than a statue. The only fate of saints is death. Survival doesn’t happen by accident–not usually. You have to want it. I want that, and I want what’s good for our country and the people in it. I want you in my life. But I know I mayn’t have it all at once, so I just–I do my best and keep in mind what’s important.”

Elliot only cried, nodded his head that he’d heard, and rubbed his face free of tears–his hat, knocked by his shaking hands, fell to the floor. “Heavens’ sake,” he whimpered.

For a moment, Nolanel mistook the steady pound of the guns for the tick of a clock. He lowered his voice and tone to murmur against Elliot’s hair, “I want to hear it all but we’re in a bad place for it. This alley–these homes–they’re abandoned, are they?”

Elliot paused, waiting to remember how to speak from his mind instead of his heart. With an uneasy sigh, he knelt for his hat and said, “Yes, there’s not many civilians left here, in freedom, on this side of the gate.”

“Then come. When did you last eat?” Nolanel turned his gaze away for the first time to peer through the window.

“Noon. And yourself?”

The glass reflected his face; he hated the scratches and sunburn on his cheeks. “Depends what you consider food.”

“Ser!”

“I’m kidding. Sympathizers met with us along the way. Gave us roasted flatbread. Some I’ve got still–and the last of the cake your father sent.”

Elliot observed him, looking for truth in his reply, or mayhaps reminding himself that love was Nolanel’s desperate smile. It took something cruel and dead in him to break from that comfort to enter the house.

Nolanel did not realize what he wanted so badly from the little dwelling until he stood on its threshold. The door opened into a squat kitchen. Barren cabinets crouched agape around a thick wooden table. One wall bore a macramé tarp to cover an obvious water stain. A threadbare rug skid under his hesitant step; he tripped into the nearest hall to spy a room with a single bed, a dresser missing a drawer, and a dead plant laid on the stone floor.

It should not have been like this. Experience submit to hope. He wanted–not for the people who once called this place a home–something apart from war. Elliot deserved at least that. 

The walls should hold art; clothes should be waiting for ironing in neat stacks; jars of dried fruit surely belonged on the table for easy breakfast.

The strangers who abandoned this home–he suddenly hated them for their despair. How dare they ransack their own home and leave it for filth like him? Why couldn’t they have left it like they must have thousands of times on the way to work–a home, furnished, filled with their songs and stories–to return to?

Fucking ridiculous. He knew better.

Grim, Nolanel strode passed to investigate the room for squatters. Appeased by its desolation, he returned to the kitchen and slammed his kit on the table. He yanked a cloth-bound package from its depth and dropped it afore a chair. “Cake,” he announced. With an impatient apathy to manners, he shoved his belongings to the floor and crashed into the seat facing the door.

Elliot edged towards the empty seat, sat with a frown, and unwrapped the brick of pound cake. He forgot one discomfort for another. “I’m going to regret asking this, but–haven’t you a fork?”

Nolanel leaned his head back and gave a smile that was half pity and half resignation to the ceiling. “All scrapped for shiny new guns.”

“Disgusting.” He plucked a cranberry from the cake and squeezed it. “War breeds innovation yet destroys more than lives and comfort; society is murdered alike.”

“Rest easy. There are wooden forks in the world,” Nolanel said. Hanging out of his chair, he rifled through his bag again.

Elliot said “thank you” afore he saw what Nolanel had grabbed–a piece of flatbread, burnt on one side.

“I thought you were–”

“I know.”

“You don’t have one.”

“No. They’re too good as firewood.”

Rubbing his face, Elliot complained, “I can’t recall which of us said it first so long ago, but I hope it was myself so I may have the satisfaction of saying it twice: you live on your knees, ser.”

Staring deliberately, he shrugged. “I might. Day’s not over yet.”

“You’re worse than Wyda.”

Nolanel flicked his hand towards the door. “Go kiss Wyda then.”

Elliot turned in his seat to find something to throw.

“You want a weapon, you’ll get one in my kit. They gave us egg-bombs.” Nolanel kicked his bag towards Elliot, but it smacked into the table leg and spilled a tin mug instead.

In the silence, the grumble of tin on stone had a quality of the extraordinary. There had not been silence before.

The crash and shriek of war never halted; squeaking, overburdened carts borne by heaving chocobos broke into the plaza every bell. Hammers cracked through the locks on bug-ravaged crates. Terrified by their thoughts, people talked incessantly about nothing. They beat music onto tables and floors, groaned, traded, bickered over cards and bragged their imagined victories.

For the world to have gone quiet meant the world had ended. Nolanel and Elliot paused to live the terror of peace for a moment.

When the thunder of a shell broke in the north, they breathed relief for absurdity.

“I hate this place,” Nolanel sighed, ripping the flatbread in half. “Impossible to tell how much of it is in my head.”

“After a time, I believe we begin to forget the guns. Same as a chronometer,” Elliot suggested, scooping up the mug and rubbing his thumb along its rim.

“No. I don’t think so.” He spoke without combativeness, as if judging the next morn’s weather, and stuffed bread in his mouth.

That dispassion bled into Elliot, who stared at the scratched base of the mug without interest. “Any drink in that bag of yours?” he muttered.

“Sealed pouch on the side nearest you.”

Elliot chittered the first line of a drinking song as he yanked the flask free and unscrewed the top. “Oh, dear,” he wheezed, a lightness somewhere between glee and self-destruction in his smile. “Is it half poison?”

Nolanel snorted. “We’ll find out together.” Standing partway, he took the flask after Elliot poured a shot, grimacing from the stench of it.

With an abiding look, they made a small toast. In the same unity, they choked and coughed their torture.

“Bad. Bad,” Elliot sniveled, curling his legs into the seat with him.

Groaning, Nolanel sealed the vodka and threw it atop his bag.

Guns filled the lull this time.  

Sick of it all, Nolanel growled and rapped his knuckles into the heavy table. His ears rang and he had a distant suspicion they were bleeding. “How are the others? You said Arcian was there?”

Poking at the cake, Elliot ignored him.

“It’s good you weren’t alone.”

Elliot pulled a chunk free and chewed it deliberately.

“Your friends are here. Your Bellworks. You got them too–not just me. Where are they? Name them out.”

At that, Elliot whispered the name ‘Brave’ and covered his face.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

Something was deeply wrong with the world. It must be the world, or Nolanel, and Nolanel. A rasping terror eroded the best of him as he sat apart from Elliot–some type of eternity in a yalm. His thoughts met him halfway between his voice and a stranger’s. Even the sun, long set behind the foreign horizon, seemed to heat his back like in the old verdant lowlands. Desperation at Elliot’s returned tears broke him and he continued to talk:

“I’m sorry. I don’t know if this will be comforting for you. There are very few 'firsts’ in war. What shocks you has long ceased to shock me, and what frightens me has been known by people beside me for years–and furthermore by the dead we have replaced. There aren’t very many new ways to die.

"I think, though, that joy is invented every day. Sorrow is the same. Mayhap what is consistent has greater power–I don’t know–but I prefer to believe what is unique is more important. There will never be another person in this world who feels as I do when I see you. My happiness is mine own–even if most the world shares mine agonies. And you, in sharing that man’s death, did not share what is extraordinary about him. We will all die. Others have died like him. It’s not important, even if it’s heavy. You can’t wreck yourself over it.

”'Tis over now. You will never be there again. There are new things to do. They won’t all be good, but–they’ll be gone too. It comes and it goes but there’s a center to it naught can move. For me, that’s you. And you’ll go out and do your best and you’ll come back to me, and we’ll know there’s something else in this life but horror. I don’t think its name is love. It’s something more unique than that.

“I more than likely am wrong. But it comforts me against the helplessness. That doesn’t go away but it can stop hurting so much. Something so terrible–to be normal–it shouldn’t comfort to be normal. Death really doesn’t matter, but your voice does–to me. I’m sorry. I just wanted the details of what happened, not to–I don’t know what to do yet.”

Nolanel cringed, lowered his head into his hands, and cursed with the haste of terror. Disgust crept up his spine and sealed his throat. He hated himself and what he said, what he sounded like. He was mad and the world was not to blame–people were, many of them nameless. More of them were dead.

As he rubbed his eyes, the sound of the cursed Gyr Abanian skies faded in and out. He did not hear the clip of the moving chair.

Elliot was sorrow and patience. His fingertips skid against the table as he neared, deliberately tapping to indicate his place.

“I’m scared too,” he murmured.

Again, Nolanel emerged from himself as if only through pain could he do so. He grimaced. “You’re upset.”

“No, just scared. I don’t want you to upset yourself. And I dislike the details because there aren’t many of them.”

“Forgive me.”

“I do.”

“I’m terrible at playing priest’s ear.”

“I know.”

“Whatever I can’t say right, you know I’m for you.”

“Of course.”

Nolanel pursed his lips, echoed, “Of course,” and raised his head.

Tiredness, like a poison, showed in the strain of Elliot’s face. His eyes puffed as if with bruises, and the playful curve of his lips had gone flat. The lithe curl of his fingers seemed more in anxiety than anticipation. He spoke with resignation instead of hope: “There’s no need to keep me at arm’s length when I could be in your arms instead.”

Before he knew what he said, Nolanel whispered, “I wish it weren’t this way.”

He did not understand himself until Elliot removed that stupid bloody beret from his crown.

He did not like Elliot here. If it meant hoarding him at home, in Ishgard with the harried priests and wrist-wringing merchants, rivals for company and prayers for comfort–Nolanel would have it so not to see his love’s nerves pin in the same way as his. It was nerves, after all, more than the war. Dreadful body. The spirit would overcome what the body feared.

Contradiction ached in him.

He couldn’t call it selflessness that he felt this way. A strange pride clamored within that he enjoyed his isolation. The wars were unique from any fragment of life outside of them. Nolanel was unique. He liked that. War was his–indelible, rotten, and intransmutable.

It did not belong to Elliot. The hurt he’d forgotten would wrench Elliot’s face when he recounted violent tales of the vigils. When he explained a scar he was a martyr, not some average fool. The stupidity and glory of it all was fresh to Elliot, who still preferred pleasant memories to defining experiences. He still thought death had a purpose.

Did he still? Even now that he’d seen the brave man die the same way as the wretch? When he stood there on the patio, obstructed by columns, stirred dust flying between the rows of march-worn soldiers, did he think he shared something of the soldiers’ exhaustion?

Well didn’t he? It was in the consistencies they’d both ignored, wasn’t it? War mattered: they were in it, they thought it and felt it and wore it. When Elliot set his beret atop Nolanel’s head, he hummed something unheard. Nolanel was looking at that color red–right at the pulse, darting around Elliot’s collar and jutting from his cuffs. Burgundy, like slow-seeping blood, the pride of the north, most blessed house, Durendaire. It was the same in Whitebrim. Elliot had never belonged in Whitebrim.

Nolanel stumbled to his feet, curses pressing against the walls of his mouth. It was the same fight here with himself. Elliot, avowedly apart from this insanity of steel and gore, belonged to it as much as Nolanel did. Even as he begged ignorance, it had its claws in Elliot’s back from the moment he called himself Ishgardian. He’d pretended immunity, packed his bags, marched straight to the battlefield, and returned to his ballrooms with the same lie to himself: that he didn’t know what war was.

And Nolanel had believed it. His eyes screwed. He threw the beret to the table and grabbed Elliot’s wrist to tug him towards the door.

“Wait–Stop–” Elliot set his heels into a groove in the tile. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know. I can’t breathe here. I need to see the sky.”

“What is it on your mind?”

“Let me think through it first. I’ve done more rambling than I ought this sun. If you must be here, I don’t want you to feel unwell.”

“I’m not going anywhere. And you’re right–I’m sick of being miserable. All I want is for you to kiss me.”

“Kissing you isn’t gonna make what you’re feeling go away.”

Elliot grabbed him in return, shook him by the arms, and wailed.

The picture of solemnity, Nolanel whined back.

“"Look,” Elliot said, working his fists to Nolanel’s collar. “Let’s compromise. Right now, you forget or accept the blood in the back of my heart. No more war talk. And I’ll do the same for your ignoring me when I called your name.”

Nolanel wrapped his hands around Elliot’s. “I hate your self-awareness–or whatever it is–sometimes.”

“Call it conviction, or hypocrisy, or bullshit–I don’t care–as long as you smile when you do it.”

Against all discipline and spite in him, Nolanel smiled and lowered his shoulders. He squeezed Elliot’s hands before releasing him, and, looking away, laughed poorly to himself. It would not be possible to forget–like love, such things were made to endure into death. 

“Deal,” he said, backing towards the door. “Walk with me then.”

As deliberate as a waltz, Elliot matched each step, each breath, pressing closer in perfect unity. His triumphant grin widened as he skimmed his grip on Nolanel over his neck, ears, hair. 

Voice as soft as his lips, he murmured “thank you” and kissed him.

Nolanel could have forsaken heaven for that kiss. For a moment things seemed as they used to be. He was himself, unembellished by scorn, alive with memory. When Elliot brushed beside him to leave, lingering fingertips roved the bend of his waist. Nolanel bumped him with a shoulder and stamped back to the sandy brick outside.

Moonlight had no dominion. Above, the giant crystal bursting from the mountainside glew in defiance of night. Windows flickered orange lamplight behind their smoky panes. Ala Ghiri lived with the same intensity of day–unseen legions jabbered on, water dripped a beat into a half-full pail, insects droned among the hills.

It overcame Nolanel how lucky he was. He respected the hulking blue crystal, persistent nature and its refusal to die even as smoke settled on the horizon for days, blades lodged themselves into trunk and person, metal and poisons sunk into its rivers. And vengeance never came to it as it did him, doomed to die from the same torments. Mayhap that was mercy.

But it didn’t make sense. It was not respect but jealousy. It was not luck he felt but gratitude–and no small amount of entitlement. He was alive, full of nonsense and brutal, inexpressible aches, and safe for now with Elliot striding beside him. None of it made sense.

Like sudden music, Elliot’s voice broke him from his wretched contemplation.

“'Tis always more than a little strange,” he said, “To look up and see the same array of stars–yet know they are roamed by some other god.”

They escaped from the alleys to the main thoroughfare, where dry wind stirred the sand dyed blue by crystal light. Nolanel deliberately kept from hastening his step. He did not look at Ala Ghiri’s wall. Unseen clouds moved through the sky, swallowing stars.

“But She’s still near. I’ve never felt without Her.”

“So long as Her name is spoken, She walks with us,” Elliot agreed, taking Nolanel loosely by the arm.

Strangers drifted by like ghosts. No presence lived in their occasional glance. Soldiers, nurses, merchants, fools. 

The pathway broke away into the sunken plaza, the ledge chipped from impatient heels and stubborn vines. Nolanel jumped the yalm with enduring ease: Elliot smirked down at him, pet his head, said nothing his mood did not convey. He set his hand on Nolanel’s shoulder, his thumb stroking warm circles.

“Oh, I know it,” he said, landing each stride between the lines of brick. “My name is closer to your lips than Hers.”

It was obscene truth–and Nolanel felt a guilty pride when he looked to the man who spoke it, taunting heaven with a smile.

“But I’m the same.” Elliot broke his little march to stomp on a brittle leaf. “It feels so much like piety to say your name when you’re not there. It doesn’t belong in the same breath anymore as 'amen.’ Every sun I missed you and I was too afraid to pray that I’d find you within reach. Answered prayers too often arrive as punishments. I prefer to suffer in mine own way.”

And still the word “alone” wrung in Nolanel’s mind as the thing Elliot did not quite say. Contradiction stung like a burn. A flare split the sky in the east but he was too sedated by memory to care. 

He walked, he missed the march, he missed the harsh strike of other hard soles on the earth around him, the whistle of song that drove off death, the beloved dead that followed at his back and shrieked silent envy toward the strength in his body. He was here, the cold breath of night in his lungs, not laughing in the lamp smoke and clap of worn hands, where blades lay against the walls with the glint of firelight in their silver. He’d abandoned what brought him here–the warm mornings on the dirt of the parade ground, the shuffling of hurried men straining to hear the familiar words of the lecturing monk, the raw pulse of something holy in him when triumph came in the sparking husk of a reaper without its pilot–and he knew he loved it too.

If this wasn’t ritual it was stronger than it. What man did in pursuit of miracles never inspired him as when the gods deigned to talk through what the damned called circumstance. In this stupid, bloody conflict he’d been given Elliot beside him, and that was worth every curse he’d spent in a foreign pit, shrunk under barbed wire as the bullet in his arm turned to flame.

As if the world whispered a song only Elliot could hear, he swayed his body and drifted his free hand through the air with the slow descent of snow. The natural blue light outlined the rim of his fine throat, and a different light flashed in his eyes like purpose. There was grace in him, and joy and complete awkwardness, and whatever unbound thrill made birds sing at morning light. The same pearl burned in indefinite color from his ear and Nolanel thought it was more beautiful than anything because it was connected to him.

That was the answer, then. Distraction after distraction, Nolanel had missed him–only that–and it served no name to pretend less. He despised what confusions it took him to understand himself, but he no longer had the patience for anger. He missed Elliot. They had not been themselves–not today, not for a time–except in transient moments, and Nolanel no longer cared to be apart from war or anything. Damn the distractions, the eyes and the fears. He’d be himself because that was who Elliot loved.

The sand hushed and scratched under his skidding feet, the wind seemed to tug at his soul, his eyes went blind with surrender. He caught Elliot and embraced him, nestling his forehead against his chest, arranging his hands against the slope of his back. Fabric bunched around the press of his arms as he edged his touch higher, taking possession of him by ilms, recognizing Elliot’s body beyond memory.

“Dear gods,” Nolanel whispered. “I love you.”

Protectively, Elliot curled over him. He cradled Nolanel’s head and teased fingers through his hair. “Say it louder.”

“You–”

Nolanel’s laugh echoed Elliot’s as he lifted him, spinning him from the ledge and lowering him in the hold of his arms. An imagined tranquility stole over him. Lightning dived above, Elliot gasped, and Nolanel kissed, and kissed, and kissed him. 

Whatever happened he would have this truth. The world kept on its insensate cruelty, and Nolanel thought only of how deeply he missed and loved this man. His pulse sang rapture; his strength crumbled at the sigh against his neck.

He disobeyed the appeal of his heart to be closer and flinched away when the first raindrop struck him. Elliot shrieked his astonishment under the boom of thunder but the witless sky had already burst.

All of Ala Ghiri fell into the haze of rain, extinguished and blurry lights, cold steam and abandoned streets. Vainly, Nolanel replaced his collar; Elliot tugged it back down and took his hand and ran.

As if the alleys had thinned, they tripped over each other and bumped into wall after corner, screaming fake annoyance. Nolanel dizzied from the water drumming on head and back, and he wished he could dance. Laughter broke from him as he cleared his eyes, clinging to Elliot with one hand, every pain gone from him as if by flight. There was life in him, searing like the oldest sunlight, as he sprinted, lost with Elliot though the gathering puddles that burst under his step, the rivulets that tumbled from windowsills, the loud, powerful darkness and promised storm.

x

> sequel (wc:1,125, NSFW)

[shitfics]

Up in the Air; onjongtae; nc-17

Taemin’s friendship with Jinki has been strained for months. When Jinki ditches their evening plans once again without explanation, Taemin follows him to see what Jinki had abandoned him for. He finds Jinki in the arms of a charming air pirate named Jonghyun—and after a few rounds of drinks, finds their relationship even more intriguing than it had first appeared.

AO3 LINK

I started this a few months back when I started replaying Skies of Arcadia. Consider it part of my ‘revisiting the setting of old unrated JRPGs with the Digital Devil Saga inspired fic. ^^ This has always been one of my favorite RPG settings. Though it can be a bit cheesy, it’s wholesome and fun.

I want to apologize/prewarn that this may be pretty low-quality, but hopefully isn’t confusing or riddled with too many errors. I didn’t really have anyone to beta it so I did the proofreading myself, even though I’m terrible at that. Whether or not hammocks can actually be used the way they are in this fic, I have no idea, but I prioritized horniness over physics here.

There is a bit of a hanging ending because I have a semi-complete plot for this verse, though I don’t know if I’ll revisit it since I’m busy with original things. So the open/kinda sad ending here is definitely not the ‘real’ one. Since this is a oneshot, I’ve gone ahead and put the full fic below the cut.

Taemin ran a thumb along the cork of the wine bottle in his lap.

Jinki should’ve shown up by now. This afternoon, Taemin had been late for his daily briefing from the Valuan Armada because he’d slipped away to remind Jinki of their plans. There was no chance Jinki could have forgotten, and it wasn’t as if their plans required any preparations. They were going to meet for drinks and cards after dinner. That was all Taemin had asked for.

And yet, despite all Taemin’s reminders, the plan had fallen through. Taemin set the bottle down on the table hard enough to rattle the still-empty glasses. When was the last time they’d gotten to spend time alone? Months ago?

With every day his mother got older, the court circled closer to him, desperate for some sort of connection before the Empress died and  his ass was permanently cemented on the throne. Nobles that had ignored him for years, thinking their efforts at winning favor were better spent on his mother, now acted like his best friend. Taemin pretended not to notice and dismissed them as smoothly as he could. He didn’t want sycophants. If he was ever going to take advice, he wanted it to be from someone that had always been there for him.

Only he didn’t have someone like that anymore. That was becoming more and more apparent.

Tonight wasn’t the first time Jinki had snubbed him. For the past year, Jinki had withdrawn. They no longer shared tables at parties, no longer met in the Armada training yards to hone their swordplay or marksmanship, no longer sent each other suffering looks when an admiral decided to ruin an evening with inflated tales of the latest land they had conquered or air pirate they had apprehended.

Well. Taemin still sent Jinki looks—they just weren’t returned.

Taemin had tried to broach the distance between them. Surely, something had gone wrong to make their friendship to change so drastically. But every time he asked, Jinki would give him that damned glowing smile and insist things were the same—he was just tired, or busy, or distracted. Taemin would feel stupid for worrying and drop it, then feel stupid again once the evening was done and he returned to the royal wing with a knot in his chest.

He gave Jinki another quarter hour. The rapid-fire thwacks as Taemin shuffled his cards drowned out the unrelenting ticks of the grandfather clock, but his eyes never left it.

The quarter hour passed. Five more minutes, he told himself. Then one last shuffle, as if that were a unit of time.

His hands shook—with rage, hurt, or shame, he didn’t know—and when the two stacks of cards interlocked and bent, he misjudged their placement. The edges caught, sending the deck flying out the two neat stacks and across the table.

Taemin swore and stood, leaving the cards scattered.

The door of the lounge slammed behind him. He stomped towards the wing of the palace where Jinki spent most of his nights. Though his family had a mansion a short walk away in Upper City, they kept a suite at the palace, too. His mother and father were heavy enough drinkers that a closer place to crash after parties was prudent.

Taemin rapped a gloved hand against the door. The head servant of their palace staff answered, eyes widening when he recognized Taemin. The poor man wasn’t at fault for Jinki’s failure to appear, so Taemin tried to manage a smile.

“Good evening,” Taemin said. “I’m looking for Jinki. He was supposed to meet me in the Silver Moon lounge for drinks. Is he in there? Is it possible he’s gone to the wrong room for our meeting?”

“I’m sorry, your highness. I wasn’t aware he had a meeting with you. He’s left for the night.”

Taemin froze. “Left?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“And he didn’t tell you what for?”

The man shook his head. “I’m sure it must have been urgent, if he abandoned your appointment without speaking to you first.”

“I’m sure it was.” Taemin crossed his arms and scowled. If Jinki didn’t want to be friends with him any longer, the least he could do was say it. “Thanks for letting me know, at least.”

“Of course, your highness. I apologize again for his absence.”

The servant gave a hasty bow and shut the door with a too-loud click, no doubt eager to escape a pissed-off prince.

Taemin stared at the lacquered oak, then snapped out of his daze and paced the hall as he tried to decide what to do with another night alone. He stopped at one of the palace’s dozen balconies that looked over the grounds and squinted through the fog. Under the yellow moon and its constant storms, even wealth and magic weren’t enough to create the sort of lush and well-tended gardens royalty possessed in books. Instead, their status was displayed through fountains, statues, intricate marble pathways, and electric lamps to make up for the lack of natural color.

Though the rainfall was no more than a drizzle—a rarity—only a few figures strolled the grounds. Taemin propped an elbow against the window ledge and watched. The lights cast everything in a faint, murky yellow, but he could make out the black piping of a familiar coat at a distance.

His jaw flexed in anger. He’d recognize that stupid out of fashion garment anywhere.

Dashing down the stairs, he ran towards an exit that would put him closest to where he’d spotted Jinki.

He needed to see what was so damn important to make Jinki skip out on him.

The way out sent him past one of the palace’s dozen laundry rooms. He grabbed a plain outfit and rain cloak as he passed through, figuring a change of clothes would help him escape notice if he had to tail Jinki further out of the palace grounds.

Jinki’s pace was leisurely, and Taemin’s rush allowed him to catch up with Jinki just as he reached one of the lesser-used and lazily-guarded gates between the palace and the Upper City.

They both passed through without questions. When they reached a crowded strip of brightly-lit theatres, shops, and pubs, Taemin almost lost interest in his pursuit—what could be found in one opulent drinking place that wasn’t found in the palace?—but he continued to follow until Jinki ducked into an alleyway.

The alley was empty when Taemin rounded the corner. He swore, convinced that he’d lost Jinki, then spotted an open manhole cover. He approached the entrance slowly, nose wrinkling at the stink that emitted from inside. After waiting a minute to give Jinki a better lead, he climbed down the ladder.

Grabbing clothes turned out to be a brilliant idea. Taemin changed out of his dinner clothes as he walked along the dark tunnel, heart racing. Judging by its direction and slope, the tunnel led to the Lower City. The new clothes wouldn’t allow him to blend in perfectly, but at least they weren’t silk, and the cloak would cover most of it. He’d only have to worry about his boots.

Finally, he reached an end and another open manhole. Taemin climbed up, worried if he waited too long he’d lose Jinki in the unfamiliar streets above. When he emerged into another alley, all he had to do was step out onto the street to find Jinki again.

Taemin closed the distance between them. The constant rumble of thunder drowned out his heaviest footsteps, and even if Jinki turned, only half of the street lamps worked. The few that did flickered, switching the appearance of those passing beneath them from pallid to jaundiced on a whim. Only the periodic flash of lightning might give away his face, but Jinki never looked back.

They wound their way through the dirty streets of Lower City, until finally, Jinki approached one of the battered buildings that lined the stone-and-cement paths.

A pub.

Taemin let him enter alone. Why would Jinki come here? And why would he refuse to tell anyone about it? If he simply wanted to avoid Taemin or the other nobility and drink alone, it’d make sense, but the visit was hardly illicit. Plenty of nobles enjoyed visiting the Lower City for their less-than-legal affairs or an unrestrained night on the town. If Jinki enjoyed slumming it, Taemin couldn’t imagine why he’d keep it so secret.

One of the pub’s walls was half open, separated from an outside porch by a single counter. A tin veranda protected the crowd and tables that spilled outside from the steady rain. Most of the drinkers appeared to be workers, judging by the soot and ash that covered their arms and breeches. There were others—a few low-ranking soldiers and off-duty servants as well—but one table stood out amongst the rest.

The men and women seated there wore mismatched clothes, some in dresses, vests, scarves, and shirts. All were armed, visibly or otherwise. And each outfit had one thing in common: a touch of blue.

Blue Rogues. Pirates.

Taemin shifted his attention to the entry and exit of the pub and waited. If Jinki stayed inside, Taemin would have to go in to observe him and risk being noticed. Outside, he might have a chance.

After what felt like hours, Jinki reappeared under the veranda with an overflowing mug in hand. He moved through the crowd with ease and a clear destination: the table of Blue Rogues.

Taemin’s eyes widened. Surely, Jinki was meeting with someone Taemin didn’t see—someone  behind the pirates and out of view, or some friend that had somehow gotten roped into their lively game of cards—but when Jinki arrived, the entire table of Blue Rogues cheered.

Jinki returned the greetings with half-hugs and laughter as he made his way around the table. Taemin watched, lips parted in shock, when Jinki finally stopped—and climbed into the lap of the eyepatched man at the head of it.

Heat raced to Taemin’s face. Oh, moons.

The man stole a kiss, then steered Jinki around by his hips to face the table and pressed a drink into his hand. The chatter and card games at the table resumed, though a few gazes lingered on the pair.

To Jinki, the whole event was plainly routine. He sipped from his mug, unbothered as the man— pirate— beneath him ran a hand along his ribs.

Taemin weighed his next action. This certainly wasn’t what he expected to find after following Jinki. But if he went back to the palace, what was he going to do? Sleep like normal, as if Jinki hadn’t ditched him and snuck out that very night to fuck a Blue Rogue?

He’d never cared before who Jinki slept with. It wasn’t his business. But Jinki had made  this  particular man his business by abandoning their plans for this.

Taemin tightened his cloak around himself and marched into the pub.

Immediately, he felt out of place. No primly uniformed server came to greet him at the door and escort him to an exclusive table sectioned off from the others with velvet curtains. The ordering system here was cut-throat. Shouts for drinks and meals rose over the din, with the returned yell from staff shielded from the overflowing drinks and food scraps by only a dirtied apron.

Content to be ignored, Taemin wove through the crowded pub until he reached the door to the patio. He hovered at the threshold, hesitant—this might be his last chance to go unnoticed—and jumped when a man shoved past him.

“Watch it, kid,” the man grumbled. “You’re blocking the whole fucking door.”

Taemin righted himself just before he fell. His heart pounded. He was completely out of his element. But he wasn’t turning back now. Jinki would never expect him to appear here, and maybe that would be the shock the man needed to realize what an ass he’d been for the past few months.

He kept his chin high as he approached the Blue Rogues. If there was one thing he knew about that sort of pirate, it was that they respected confidence. He stopped beside Jinki and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Good evening, Jinki.”

Instantly, he regretted his choice of greeting. Half the table turned to him, some with snickers, some with only a raised brow or puckered lips in mockery of his Upper City accent.

He flushed, but refused to step back. Jinki took his time turning—the pirate under him had been lifting another drink to his lips, and he couldn’t move without spilling the ale all down his front. When Jinki finally managed to look at him, his eyes went wide, but any words remained stuck in his throat.

The eyepatched man took in Jinki’s shock and scanned Taemin, gaze lingering on Taemin’s unworn and well-made boots, before tightening a protective arm around Jinki’s waist. “A friend of yours?”

“Yes,” Jinki said, clipped. “What are you doing here?”

“I think I should be asking what  you’re  doing here. Or who.”

The pirate snorted. He set his drink aside and leaned around Jinki to extend a hand. “I’m Jonghyun. Captain. Good to meet you.”

“Jonghyun,” Taemin repeated, shocked out of his attention on Jinki. He shook Jonghyun’s hand out of instinct before thinking to refuse. “The son of Eunkyung The Legend?”

“That’s my mom.” Jonghyun gave a mocking salute. “I see you’re up to date on bounties.”

“Yes. Valua sets most of those bounties, and it’s exciting gossip for the nobility.”

“Which you’re one of, I assume—like Jinki. You have a name?”

“Taemin,” he said, and left it at that. Even if he didn’t want to hide who he was, titles felt inappropriate here.

“Taemin,” Jonghyun repeated. “As in...”

“As in  the prince,”  Jinki finished for him.

“Oh.” Jonghyun inspected Taemin for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to be bothered, before finally shrugging. “Do I still have to pay for your drinks, if you’re joining us as a guest?”

“I think there’s bigger things to worry about,” Jinki muttered, glancing back. He leaned towards Taemin, but Jonghyun’s arm snaked around his waist to stop him from leaving earshot. After a small sigh, Jinki continued anyway, voice low and pleading. “Please don’t tell anyone of this. I don’t care about my reputation, but I don’t want the armada or anyone else finding out that Jonghyun comes here. He could get hurt.”

“I won’t.” Taemin’s eyes kept flicking to where Jonghyun’s hand rested on Jinki’s thigh, keeping him balanced. “I’m not a snitch.”

Jinki’s lips remained a thin line. Jonghyun patted his leg in reassurance.

“I could handle myself even if he did tell the armada, Jinki. I’ve been doing this my whole life. Hell, half the ships we rob  are  Valuan armada airships. That’s how Blue Rogues work.”

“I know, but...”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Taemin emphasized. “I only wanted to see what you’re doing that’s so important. We had plans tonight. Or did you forget?”

Jinki flushed. “Jonghyun doesn’t get to visit often, so when I heard he was in town...”

“You ditched him?” Jonghyun interjected. “I’m flattered you wanted to see me so badly, but that’s awfully rude of you.”

Jinki buried his face in his hands. “Years of etiquette lessons, and I’m getting lectured on manners by a pirate...”

“You could have at least told me something came up, so I didn’t have to hear some vague excuse from your servant,” Taemin said.

“I was worried you’d see through any lie I came up with.”

“Well, that backfired,” Jonghyun added.

“Clearly,” Taemin said, arms crossed. “I know everything now.”

“I’m sorry,” Jinki said. “I won’t do it again.”

Taemin bit his lip. He  was  hurt that Jinki had abandoned him. But he was intrigued enough by the reason to ignore the sting. It’d be foolish to come out all this way and not see what sort of romance Jinki had with a pirate.

“It’s fine,” Taemin sighed. “Though you’re definitely going to owe me something after this. Maybe a proper fencing match. Or a dinner from your family’s chef.”

Jinki smiled. “I think I can do that.”

Jonghyun’s hand soothed over Jinki’s knee. “Glad you two were able to kiss and make up.” When Jinki frowned and turned back, Jonghyun tucked Jinki against his neck to muffle his protest. “Since you’re already here, your highness, do you want to join us tonight? I’m not sure what sort of plans you had with Jinki.”

“We were going to play cards. And drink, probably.”

“Conveniently, we can do both of those here,” Jonghyun said. “Take a seat.” He swiped an abandoned deck from a few of his crew that had decided an arm wrestling match was more enticing, then passed it to Jinki.

“Mind shuffling this for us, handsome?”

Jinki sent Taemin an apologetic look before cutting the deck in half. The flutter of cards as he shuffled kept Taemin’s attention, though he felt Jonghyun’s gaze on him. When he finally found the nerve to meet Jonghyun’s eye, the pirate gave him a toothy smile.

“Are we playing for anything? I imagine you have quite deep pockets.”

Taemin licked his lips. He usually made friendly bets with Jinki when they played, so he had brought a small coin purse—and he’d already expected it to be empty by the end of the night. Jinki trounced everyone at court in cards.

“I have some money on me, though it’s probably not as much as you’re hoping for.” Taemin watched Jonghyun warily when Jinki started to hand cards back to Jonghyun, but made no move to leave his lap. “If you can see Jinki’s cards, I’m not sure it’ll be a fair game. You two could gang up on me.”

“Not if he keeps them on his right side.” Jonghyun tapped his eye patch. “This is real. Can’t see shit through it. Or without it, really. Lost it in a ship battle a few years ago with one of your armada vessels.” He held up his drink. “Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you.”

Jinki pursed his lips. “Maybe he just wants me out of your lap, Jonghyun. People are never this flagrant about their relationships at the palace.”

“Too bad. I only get to see you twice a month at  most.  If he’s not going to complain about you being in my lap, you’re staying.”

Jinki rolled his eyes, but there was a smile on his lips that stuck as he finished dealing their cards.

“I don’t mind it,” Taemin said, which was true. He’d never seen this side of Jinki before. Maybe it was strange to observe his old friend so closely, but he was fascinated.

He pulled his first hand of cards up to his nose and fought back a scowl. Already, he was off to a bad start.

Their first pot of coins went to Jonghyun. Then the next. After Taemin took a few losses to Jonghyun without complaint, the tension in Jinki’s shoulders eased—probably convinced that Taemin wasn’t about to run and turn Jonghyun over to the armada. As they drank, they talked, and Jinki and Jonghuyn relaxed back into the behavior Taemin assumed was their usual in the dingy pub.  

And Taemin watched.

Jonghyun would nose aside the longer hair against the back of Jinki’s neck, exposing his nape for a kiss that made his mouth twitch with a noiseless gasp. Jonghyun’s left hand switched between lifting a tankard to his lips, running along Jinki’s side, and roaming over his stomach. His right stayed on Jinki’s thigh, low towards the knee, but sometimes it moved up. Only then would Jinki push Jonghyun’s hand away—but it was always with a grin and a quiet glance that promised a later.

The thought made Taemin’s blood burn. Jonghyun couldn’t be that posssive. Jinki slept with people at the palace. But all of those affairs happened out of Taemin’s view—he only heard rumors or short mentions—so his image of Jinki had stayed the same through the years, even as Taemin absently noted his attractiveness. They were friends.

Now, though—he wondered at their dynamic, at what Jinki might be like. What was it like when they stole a moment alone? Was it like now, both of Jonghyun’s hands on him, gripping and guiding? Or was that just how the pirate captain acted in public to stake his claim, while in bed he’d lie back and let someone else order him around?

Taemin swallowed back every image with a mouthful of ale. Occasionally, Jonghyun would send what felt like a knowing glance from his single eye, and heat would race through him.

The dozenth time their gazes caught—while Jonghyun’s hand slipped inside Jinki’s pocket—was enough to push Taemin over the edge.

He licked his lips and leaned towards them. He needed to be close if he wanted to be heard over the din that had grown with each glass served.

“I have a question,” he said.

Jinki leaned in to hear him better. Jonghyun shifted Jinki aside until he was only inches behind him. Taemin’s attention flicked between their faces. This close, he could lean forward and kiss either of them if he wanted to.

Taemin inhaled sharply, suddenly needing air. “Do you both sleep around? You’re not exclusive to each other?”

Jinki’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You know the answer to that.”

Jonghyun’s smile widened and grew crooked. “Why, are you interested?”

“Yes,” Taemin said. There was no point in hiding it, and he was tipsy enough to be direct.

Jinki’s eyes widened. “Taemin—“

“I’ve been watching you two grab at each other for hours now,” Taemin interrupted. “Is that not supposed to stoke something in me?”

Jinki froze. Jonghyun’s hand rubbed up his side, along his ribs, before he kissed Jinki’s neck.

“If you’re jealous or uninterested, I’ll stop this now,” Jonghyun whispered to Jinki. If Taemin wasn’t staring to read his lips, he wouldn’t have caught a word. “You always come first.”

“You know I don’t get jealous.”

Jonghyun leaned back to look at him. “Then why are you pouting? Is it different, because he’s a friend?”

“It’s different because he’s the  prince ,” Jinki hissed.

Jonghyun grinned. “Is that supposed to make it less exciting?”

“I’m cutting you off,” Jinki said, sliding Jonghyun’s mug away from him. “You’re drunk.”

“As you always do, when I have my best ideas.”

Jinki sent Jonghyun a final, reproaching look before returning his attention to Taemin. “You’ve never said anything about wanting to sleep together.”

“It’s not like you’ve ever made a display of yourself at the palace,” Taemin said. “I never gave it much thought. We’ve been friends all our lives, and we only see each other at parties and ceremonies anymore.”

“I didn’t realize how much that bothered you.”

“Of course it bothered me. I  missed  you. You’re the only damn person I trust in the palace.”

Jinki’s brow furrowed, though a flush crawled across his cheeks, and his lips remained pursed. In the silence, Jonghyun’s attention bounced between them before he reached out and tugged Taemin towards them by his shirt.

“Why don’t we do something to make up for lost time? I’ll be happy to help you two bond,” Jonghyun offered.

“I don’t want things to get complicated,” Jinki said.

“It’s not complicated,” Taemin protested. “You’re my friend. Anything else, well...” he shrugged. He didn’t care what they did—cards or drinking or simply talking. But it was hard for fucking not to be the first thing on his mind when Jonghyun and Jinki were doing everything but that right in front of him. “I don’t need to spend time with you like that, but I’d enjoy it. And I’m guessing you two planned to spend your night fucking, anyway.”

Jinki licked his lips. He watched intently as Jonghyun balled more of Taemin’s shirt into his hand, forcing him closer, until Jonghyun leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth. Though Taemin should have seen it coming, he nearly jolted back at the contact. He’d never been kissed in front of anyone, let alone someone’s lover. His eyes flew up to Jinki, uncertain of what he’d find, then widened. There was no jealousy in his stare. Only heat.

Jonghyun tilted his head back towards Jinki. “I can see your gears turning. You’re thinking about it.”

“Maybe,” Jinki murmured.

“You need more images? Or some ideas?”

“No.” Jinki took the half-empty mug he’d stolen from Jonghyun and downed in a single, long swallow. “I’ve thought about it before, honestly.”

Taemin inhaled. “Me joining you with Jonghyun?”

“Just you. The thinking was...a while ago. Years.”

“Then you should’ve fucked him earlier, because I always love your stories,” Jonghyun said. He patted the side of Jinki’s thigh. “You want to get going? Because  I’d  like to get going.”

“Where to?” Taemin asked. The pub looked like it had rooms upstairs, but he didn’t know how either of them felt about using them.                    

“My ship’s best. You’ll get to see it, too. It’s gorgeous,” Jonghyun gloated. He snuck in a squeeze to Jinki’s ass when they stood. “Just got a new cannon.”

Taemin pulled his cloak back on and followed them towards the airship docks. By the time they reached the metal walkways that stuck out over the clouds, they were nearly on the opposite side of Valua from the palace. He’d never been this deep into the Lower City.

Most of the docked airships were decommissioned from the armada, made of steel in typical Valuan style. A few other styles, more likely belonging to traders than pirates, were interspersed throughout, but the ship Jonghyun pointed out—a large, wooden ship with three towering masts that stood proudly against the black clouds—was striking enough that Taemin couldn’t help but gape.

Despite its height, the ship was narrow, slimmer even than the smallest armada ships. They climbed up the gangplank and onto the deck. Jonghyun came up last and leapt onto the deck with his arms spread wide.

“Stylish, yeah? And faster than any hunk of metal.”

Jinki rolled his eyes as Taemin examined the ship. Any ptools for fighting or boarding ships were hidden in the crates or below deck, but rolled up against the main mast was a blue flag, barely concealed. Taemin had to wonder how  that  ever got past the massive gate and patrols that protected the Valua‘s airspace, but Jonghyun seemed capable of charming his way out of anything, and his mother specialized in robbing people right under their noses.

“It’s gorgeous,” Taemin said.

“The inside is a bit less glamorous, but you better not point that out to my face,” Jonghyun teased. He turned towards a set of stairs that appeared to lead down into the cabin and gestured for Taemin to follow. “Come on. I’ll show you to my space.”

The room Jonghyun led them to was long and wide. A dozen hammocks hung from the ceiling, likely enough for the whole crew, and the one at the back that Jonghyun showed him looked no different than any other.

Taemin blinked at it, caught off guard by its plainness. “I thought you were the captain. Don’t you have a room?”

“I am, and I do. But I prefer to sleep in a hammock sometimes. The bed folds away, and that makes room for more loot.”

Jinki raised a brow. “Uh-huh. And you refuse to have sex in the same place twice in a row.”

Jonghyun grinned. “That too. Used my bed a few days ago, so it’s time to fuck somewhere else.”

Jinki hummed, as if recalling the experience himself, and stepped closer to Jonghyun. As soon as he was within reach, Jonghyun grabbed a fistful of Jinki’s hair, tugging him down to an easier height to kiss.

Taemin froze, fists clenching in the fabric of his cloak when he caught a glimpse of Jinki’s tongue. Watching was new enough that he didn’t know what to do with himself. Jinki’s eyes fluttered open as he glanced back at Taemin. A wave of heat rolled through him when their gazes locked, then again when Jinki’s attention returned to Jonghyun, as if it was perfectly normal for them to have a witness to their kiss.  

For all Taemin knew, it could be.

The side of Jonghyun’s grin was just visible as he shifted his mouth to Jinki’s neck and nipped along the vein. With a soft swear, Jinki clutched at Jonghyun’s back, but shoved him away when Jonghyun began to unfasten his shirt.

“You aren’t getting me out of my clothes before we give Taemin some attention.”

Jonghyun tsked, but let his fingers fall from Jinki’s buttons. Taemin swallowed under the weight of their stares    . Jinki held out a hand, inviting him to where they stood, but Jonghyun closed the distance between them and kissed him—the same way he’d kissed Jinki, hands buried in his hair—before Taemin could take a single step.

He shivered and gripped back. His thumbs caught in the straps of Jonghyun’s eye patch, earning a laugh that gave him an opportunity to slip his tongue past Jonghyun’s lips. Jonghyun hummed, pleasantly surprised, and relaxed to let Taemin lead.

Taemin was too eager not to take advantage of the chance. He leaned in and kissed Jonghyun harder until he had no choice but to bend back and hold onto Taemin’s shirt for balance. The instant he eased off to breathe, Jonghuyn reached for his belt. The open air of the cabin brought goosebumps to his thighs when Jonghyun shoved down his breeches. Taemin helped him the rest of the way and stepped out of them, refusing to break the kiss a second time until Jonghyun smirked and turned his cheek.

“You think I wouldn’t be surprised by Valuan nobles being decent lovers after Jinki, and yet...”

Taemin scowled. “Why would you assume that makes me bad in bed?”

“Most of you don’t  do  much. But I suppose that leaves you plenty of time to get good at this.”

“If you thought I would be bad, why invite me?”

“Jinki likes you. You’re pretty.” Jonghyun shrugged. “And that sort of thing can always be taught.”

“I think the only thing I haven’t done is fuck two people at once,” Taemin said. When Jinki gave a skeptical snort beside them, Taemin sent a glare.

“I doubt you’re  that  worldly, your highness,” Jonghyun said. He squared his shoulders and worked Taemin’s shirt open button-by-button, as if mimicking a personal butler. “You’ve only slept with other Valuans, no? Technically your subjects?”

Taemin bit his lip. “Well...”

“I’m not judging.” Jonghyun shoved his shirt open. “Just doubt they’re willing to get too dirty with you. Rank can come with too much respect. When I was on my mother’s ship, it took ages for me to convince the crew I wasn’t too fragile to be bent over a barrel.”

Taemin’s ears burned. But the words rang true.

Every person he’d slept with had come onto him slowly, with flowery praise or teasing to test the waters, then treated him like he was breakable between the sheets once they were finally there. No matter how hard he gripped at their back in return or egged them on. They concentrated too much on pleasing him. And then after everything was done, there was the pillow talk which inevitably turned into requests for favors.

Once he realized that was how it always ended, Taemin had stopped letting anyone in his bed.

He could already tell Jonghyun would be different. Jinki would, too.

Taemin licked his lips and looked between them. “Well, what’re you planning to do to me?”

Jonghyun grinned and shoved him into the hammock. Taemin swung back. He tried to adjust to keep from barreling feet-first into Jonghyun as his weight returned him forward, but Jinki caught the fabric at the end of his arc and held him still.

Jonghyun’s fingers wrapped slowly over Jinki’s knuckles. He whispered something against Jinki’s cheek that made his eyes cloud with lust.

Their attention shifted down to where Taemin was suspended beneath them. Like this, there was no simple way for them to kiss him. Reaching his mouth or his hips with more than a hand or a cock would require kneeling, hunching over, or some other sort of contortion they had no reason to bother with.

Taemin had an idea of what they wanted.

He licked his lips and let his head hang back. The hammock swung slightly, then slowed into a smaller arc when Jinki grasped the rope tighter. Upside down like this, Taemin imagined he looked ridiculous, but there was no amusement in Jinki’s exhale—only anticipation.

Hands ran up his thighs. He lifted his head to see whose they were—Jonghyun’s—then followed with his eyes as Jinki circled around to the opposite side of the hammock, leaving only Jonghyun between his legs.

When he raised his head, he saw Jonghyun reach into his shirt and pulled free a small vial of oil. He pulled out the cork with his teeth and spat it away, then grinned down at Taemin as he coated his fingers.

“I have another if we need more. I always bring a few when we dock somewhere. You never know what might happen.”

Jonghyun’s hand returned to him, this time going straight for the innermost crease of his thighs. As Jonghyun circled towards his rim, he threw an arm over his mouth to muffle a moan. There was the simple pleasure of it, and the realization: the oil Jonghyun was using had been meant for Jinki that night, or vice versa. And now it was being used on  him .

“You can make noise, you know,” Jonghyun teased and pressed in. “That’s half the fun.”

Jinki drew Taemin’s arm away, fingers trailing along the vein of his wrist before shifting to card through his hair. Taemin leaned into the contact and reached up, pressing a palm around the outline of Jinki’s cock in his breeches just as Jonghyun added another finger. His motions were clumsy and distracted, but Jinki didn’t seem to mind—he cupped his hand over Taemin’s to guide it, before finally settling on holding it in place and thrusting against Taemin’s palm.

“You seem ready enough,” Jonghyun said. He spread his fingers, as if to prove how open Taemin was, and drew out a gasp. “Do you need more time?”

‘No,” Taemin’s eyes fluttered shut as Jonghyun brought his fingers back together and curved them. A patch of precome had leaked through Jinki’s breeches and dampened the heel of Taemin’s hand, adding to his desperation. “Please, I want this.”

Jonghyun grinned and gave him an encouraging smack to the thighs that sounded twice as loud as it stung. Taemin bit his lip, pulse pounding in his ears.

“Stay open for me.” Jonghyun slicked himself up, then hitched Taemin’s thighs up around his hips. When he shifted forward, his cock pushed between Taemin’s cheeks, missing his hole but lighting his nerves with anticipation. Jonghyun’s tongue stuck out from the corner of his mouth as he concentrated, realigning them until Taemin felt pressure against his rim.

“There we go,” Jonghyun murmured and pushed forward, slow and unyielding.

Taemin’s nails scratched at the canvas of the hammock. Already, the stretch felt too good. He rocked forward, trying to bring Jonghyun deeper, but the motion hardly moved him at all—Jonghyun had bracketed his hips to keep him steady, and Jinki’s hold on the hammock’s rope was too firm. All Taemin could think of was how exposed he was and how little he could move.

By the time Jonghyun pulled back, Taemin was panting, overheated despite the lack of a body pressed against him. Without any ability to aid the motion, he felt the force of each thrust that much harder.

His cock throbbed, desperate for something,  anything,  but he held off from touching himself, too caught up in the idea of seeing how Jonghuyn and Jinki might use him to want to satisfy himself. Jinki maneuvered his own laces open with a single hand and kept the other on the knot of the hammock, steadying it as Jonghyun’s pace quickened.

Taemin turned his head and reached for the base of Jinki’s cock. At the awkward angle, the underside ran along his cheek, then bumped against his chin, leaving wetness behind until Jinki steered it directly into his mouth.

Jonghyun’s movements turned lazy, a tease that made Taemin whine even as he closed his lips around the head of Jinki’s cock and glanced back. Jonghyun’s complete attention was on them—on the stretch it took for Taemin’s mouth to fit around Jinki’s girth—distracting him more from his task.

“You sure you two can handle all this happening at once?” Jinki muttered, stroking himself to take over the motion Taemin hadn’t yet managed. “If it’s too much, we can take turns.”

Jonghyun huffed. “I’m not going to apologize for taking my time and enjoying the show.”

With an apologetic hum, Taemin tugged on Jinki’s hips to beckon him deeper. Their eyes met only briefly before Jinki ran a thumb along the edge of Taemin’s tipped-back jaw and tilted his head back further, creating an easy path for his cock to slide over Taemin’s tongue into the start of his throat.

Taemin blinked hard, eyes wet as he fought back a gag, but curled his fingers in the loosened waist of Jinki’s breeches and took him further the next time Jinki fucked into his mouth. Suspended between them as he was, it was easier to let Jinki drive the pace than try and guide it himself.

Encouraged, Jinki shifted one hand into his hair and kept another on his chin, holding Taemin steady through every thrust to better complete his own. Jonghyun’s fingernails dug into Taemin’s thighs as he lost rhythm, alternating between slow and fast before finally halting.

He pressed against Taemin with a small curse, keeping him close through every throb, before finally jerking back. Taemin whimpered as Jonghyun’s cock slipped free, then again when he heard the rustle and clink of Jonghyun tugging up his breeches and refastening his belt. He kept his legs open—he didn’t know how to close them, with such a mess of come and oil between them—and he was hopeful Jonghyun would give him something more.

Jonghyun shifted Taemin’s knees to stand beside him. Taemin watched from the corner of his eye as Jonghyun reached down and ran a single finger along the underside of Taemin’s cock. He gasped at the contact, hips jolting up as he snapped out of the daze he’d fallen into from taking both of them. All he wanted to do was give himself over until they’d had their fill of pleasure, but if Jonghyun granting him pleasure was part of that, he would take it gladly.

Jonghyun traced up his cock again, this time with two fingers. “I can’t believe you’re this hard—I don’t think we’ve even touched you here once. What if we keep you like this until you make Jinki come?”

Unable to speak with Jinki in his mouth, a moan and a full swallow around JInki’s cock was the only way to beg for his own release. Jinki cursed and tightened his fingers against Taemin’s scalp.

“He really wants to come,” Jinki said. “You’re making him work harder.”

Taemin hummed an agreement. Jonghyun took hold of his cock in response, lifting it from where it hovered hard and ignored over his stomach to stroke him smoothly. The short motion was barely anything, but it was enough to bring Taemin close. He shifted his hips, uncertain of whether to pull away before his release or simply let it happen, but Jonghyun didn’t allow either. He stopped just before Taemin’s pleasure reached its crest, producing a groan that made Jinki’s hips stutter. Jinki continued to fuck into his mouth, and again and again, Jonghyun stopped before he could come. Each time he neared his release, Jonghyun’s hand would loosen, and Taemin’s need would grow.

When Jinki finally cursed out a warning, Jonghyun’s grip on Taemin tightened and quickened. Taemin’s muscles tensed, back rising into an arch, but his mouth slackened just enough to let Jinks cock fall free. Come streaked across his lips and cheeks, then into his open mouth. Jinki stroked himself to the end, every movement loud and wet, and nudged his cockhead past Taemin’s lips to shoot the last of his release onto his tongue.

The cabin was silent, save Jinki and Taemin’s rough breathing.

He closed his eyes with a small sigh, letting his head hang upside down as the pleasant warmth of his aftermath rolled through him. When he felt the mess on his chin start to drip down his cheeks, he raised a hand and clenched his fingers in the universal gesture for something to clean with. Jinki passed him a handkerchief and helped him wipe down his face, then balled the cloth into his fist and tossed it aside.

With Jinki’s help, he sat up in the hammock. Jonghyun pulled another rag from somewhere and cleaned his stomach, grinning through the task.

“I assume this means we’re done for the night.”

Taemin nodded. He was tired, and his throat and thighs were sore to a level he was certain he’d feel in the morning.

“I was hoping Jinki wouldn’t clean you up so quickly. It would’ve been nice to take a mental image of what you look like with him on you.”

Taemin gave a breathless laugh. “I wasn’t sure how to get myself up, and I didn’t want anything to get into my eyes.”

“Fair. If you want protection, a blindfold would help next time.”

“How is it you always want to talk  more about sex right after we’re done? Haven’t you had your fill?” Jinki complained, though his expression was fond.

“If something’s fun one way, I want to do it again and find other ways of making it fun. Don’t you?”

Jinki grumbled an agreement and leaned around Taemin to kiss Jonghyun. Taemin watched them linger, then pull apart, heart tight in his chest. As brief as their kiss had been, Jinki’s eyes were warm from it, and something about the sight sobered Taemin.

Taemin wasn’t jealous. Or at least the word seemed too simple and petty to fit. He didn’t want to take Jinki’s place. He didn’t want to take Jonghyun’s place. He was happy they had each other. The ache in his chest was because he’d never had anything like they shared, and with where his life was headed, he couldn’t imagine he ever would.

He startled when Jinki dropped a blanket over him. Jinki helped fit it over his shoulders. “If you’re not going to get dressed, you should put this on. It’s colder out here on the airships.”

“Thanks.” Taemin wrapped the blanket tighter around himself. He didn’t want to get dressed yet, if only because the clothes he’d stolen would remind him of the palace.

Jonghyun looked between them with a small smile before fixing his gaze on Taemin. “You’re welcome to linger for a while. You want some more to drink?”

“Sure,” Taemin agreed. Jonghyun patted Taemin’s knee and spun on his heel, then disappeared down a set of stairs that led deeper into the airship.

Jinki and Taemin watched him go. Once his footsteps faded, Jinki crouched beside him.

“This is why I started pulling away, you know,” he whispered. “I worried what would happen if you found out about Jonghyun. You’re getting closer and closer to the throne, and I...haven’t known how to deal with that. Never letting either of you meet seemed like the best way to keep him safe.” His eyes crinkled, the old tell Taemin remembered that came with any confession that made him feel guilty. ”If it’s worth anything, I’ve missed you too.”

“It’s worth a lot,” Taemin said. He reached for Jinki’s hand and squeezed it, then looked to where Jonghyun had disappeared. “What is he to you?”

”Everything, anymore,” Jinki said without hesitation. “I’m going to leave Valua with him someday.”

Taemin’s stomach dropped. “And do what? When?”

“Pirate stuff, I suppose,” Jinki teased. “There’s so much of the sky that hasn’t been charted. He wants to discover as much as he can, once his ships outfitted for stronger currents. I want to be with him for every one.”

Taemin inhaled. “What about your family? And Valua?”

“You know how I feel about our country.”

Taemin’s stomach panted. “And you don’t think I’ll change anything when I’m in charge.”

Jinki winced. “It’s not that I think you have the wrong ideals. But I’m sure you know the problems you’ll bump up against. How much say does your mother have, compared to the armada? She gets to decide how things are run  here , but it’s not like we stay in our borders, or like they wouldn’t challenge her if she did something they were opposed to.”

“I know, but...” Taemin reached for a counterpoint, but found nothing. There was no argument to refute Jinki’s words when he’d noticed the same thing.

He hung his head. Was that why he’d been so mad at Jinki? Selfish as it was, it was easier to think of the personal problems that came with the throne—losing friendships, not knowing who to trust—than the responsibilities he’d bear just sitting on it.

“ Please tell me you’re not talking politics, Jinki,” Jonghyun whined, loud enough to be heard up the stairs. He sauntered between them and passed Jinki a handle of rum, then threw himself into the hammock beside Taemin. “I can’t imagine a poorer time for it. It was our first time with a third, too. You should be a little sentimental.”

“I was only explaining why I’m going to leave with you, since Taemin asked,” Jinki said. He took a swig, then held it out to Taemin. “It’s not as if I’m getting philosophical.”

Jonghyun quirked a brow. “I think after how I fucked him tonight, he knows why you’re leaving.”

“It’s alright, really.” Taemin managed to smile for them, but it faltered when he brought the bottle to his lips. He tipped it back, squeezing his eyes against the burn, and swallowed back as much as he could take.

His mother was alive, and Jinki was still here. As prince, he was only an ear until fate decided to shove the empire into his lap. He had time to enjoy himself before he had to worry. And damned if he wasn’t going to soak up every second of it.

When he went for a second drink, Jonghyun pried the bottle from him. “Slow down, your highness. I can’t let you stay here tonight. As nice as it’d be to beat my mother’s record for bounties, I’d rather do it the old fashion way than be accused of kidnapping the prince.”

Taemin laughed. “And you’re not worried that’ll happen when you take Jinki?”

“Not at all. We’ve had a plan for a while.”

“Oh,” Taemin said. “Well, good luck to you both.”

Jonghyun raised the bottle to him in thanks. Jinki cast his eyes down and reached to take the rum, but Jonghyun refused to hand it over until Jinki gave him a kiss. Taemin watched, stomach in knots, as the guilt that twisted Jinki’s mouth melted into an unfettered smile.

Taemin didn’t want to ask if Jinki would have left without saying anything. Judging by the distance Jinki had forced between them, he imagined that had been the plan. And judging by the warmth that seeped into Jinki’s eyes every time he looked Jonghyun’s way, nothing would come between Jinki and leaving Valua.

The knowledge made the future that much darker. But Taemin supposed he’d rather know.

[trillian-anders]

the harlot - iv

pairing: steve rogers x reader

warnings: descriptive violence, angst, fluff, smut,

word count: 2.8k

description: harlots inspired au;

one last run before shipping off steve rogers is brought to a brothel to love a woman in case of his untimely demise at war. he meets the reader, young and fresh, not yet tainted by the world they’d been born into. a torrid one night love affair that costs their mother greatly. a promise and years later they meet again, the reader resentful and distrustful. the charming, now captain rogers, seems as captivated in reader as ever. but it’s never meant to be. and you both know that.

His jaw was more defined. His brows fuller. Hair longer than you could remember it being. His eyes were almost dark in this lighting. Not their usual blue, but something more serious and hardened. His bottom lip was just as pink and full as before, you vaguely remember how it felt between your teeth. It was silent. Tea growing cold between you as the question hung in the air.

He swallowed, taking a sip of his tea. The sound of the cup hitting the saucer before he started, “I wasn’t lying to you.”

“But you omitted facts.” You cross your arms, “You withheld information.” He shakes his head,

“When was I supposed to tell you?” He reasons, “We had one night, I wasn’t too keen on explaining my family history.” No, he’d been far more concerned with making up for his shortcomings, having you writhe on this tongue before he hardened again. And you met twice more that night. Whispers of dreams that could never be shared between you, and a stupid promise that should have never been made.

“So explain.” He leans forward resting his arms on the table, eyes scanning the wood and he says,

“Where to start?” He shakes his head, eyes meeting yours from beneath his lashes, “My parents…”

They’re Sara and Joseph Rogers. Old money from being a staunchly military family. He shrugs, “Every member of my family has fought for the British Military.” But not so much lately. They were full of Barons and Marquess. “I’m to take the title of Lord soon.” He was going to sit in the House of Peers and with his familial status and his own Lordship…

“You’d control half of Britain.” You sit back against your chair, still fingering the piece of cheese, thinking.

“And my family the other half.” They were steps away from the palace. “And when my father dies…” He would be less than fifteen seats from the throne itself.

“So Pierce…” He shrugs,

“Wants to get in my good graces so that when it happens…”

“You’ll let him keep doing his villainous deeds, he would have a greater barrier of protection.” Steve nods.

Politics were a mess of titles and owned land. Who has the bigger property? Who has the more lavish surroundings? Who can spread their coin around? And if the gold fastenings on his shirt were anything to go by, the foregone wig and the cleanliness of him, he could do whatever he wants. Even have Brock murdered tonight, without anyone batting an eyelash.

“I don’t want to leave you here.” He admits honestly. His hand reaches across the table to still yours. “I said I would come back to you and I did.” Warm and calloused. It gave you a small bit of comfort.

“We were children.” You could feel it bubbling in your chest. The emotion. You weren’t going to cry. “We didn’t know what promise we were making.”

“I knew.” His hand tightened slightly on yours. “Y/N…” You pull away. “The only reason I didn’t come back for you more quickly was for my term at war… I’ve been working—”

“For what?” You tug on your teeth out of nerves, “It’s been almost ten years, Steve.” He sighs and looks at you with reverence.

“I was working… to first free the Americans.” Against his King’s army. “They deserved their freedom, and everyone knows it.” He softly grabs your hand again, “After that I joined a group…” Shaking his head, “I had to build these foundations before I came for you again.” He looked hopeful almost, wanting. His tongue comes and wets his bottom lip.

“Even if you did take me from here, what am I to be?”  A harsh laugh, “You’ll marry.” The corners of his mouth twitched but did not give into a frown. “You’ll marry and you’ll have children and a legacy… and I will just be your whore to visit and buy pretty jewels for.” You pull away from him, scooting your chair back and standing from the table, scrubbing your face with your hands, you turn from him.

“I don’t want anyone but you.” He claims. You scoff, turning to look at him. And in the shadows of his face you can see that boy now.

“Then you obviously haven’t grown as much as I thought.” You shake your head, the tears betraying you by slipping down your cheeks, “You need to marry, and you can not marry a whore.” He steps from the table, rounding it to meet you, softly grabbing your hands which still frame your face and taking them in his own.

“Y/N…” His lips meeting your right wrist and then your left. “I can do whatever I want.” You roll your eyes,

“And be ruined for it.” He takes a step closer, his chest brushing against yours and his forehead meets yours and he’s close, so close.

“Y/N…” His mouth meets yours and you’re unable to say no. You’re unable to do anything but melt against him. His arm wraps around your waist and pulls you harder against him as you part and meet again. Your hand gripping his bicep as your ass meets the hard edge of the table. He parts from you with heavy breath on your lips, those pink lips now red and flushed. “I would gladly be ruined if it meant I were to spend the rest of my life next to you.”

A gasp of a pant as his hands cradle your face, his cheeks flushed against his pale skin. You tremble under his gaze.

“There’s just one thing we need to do first.” He presses his lips to yours again, “And I need you to trust me.” His thumb brushing against your bottom lip before bringing you back to him in a slow and savory way, “I will never let anything bad happen to you again.”

“You can’t promise that.” His thumbs pressing into your cheeks as he presses his hips against yours. You can feel that hard familiar length of him. Your knees locking him in against you as you relish in that old feeling.

Maybe this was a mistake. How could you have let him get so close so quickly? You gave in at the press of his lips. The feeling it bred in your body like a drug you couldn’t help but find yourself addicted to. The memory pales against the real thing. The way it makes your skin shiver and your fingers tremble where they lay on his arms. He could tell you to do anything right now and you’d do exactly as he asked. A dangerous thing when it comes to your profession.

Those years of building up a guard and becoming objective and distanced. You couldn’t care less if Pierce wanted another whore for the night, something he did occasionally, or if he found his way to you. You didn’t care to be left alone for days on end in this big house with only books and a morning and evening stroll to take your time. But in this moment, you feel like you might die if he left you.

You might die if he were to let you go.

He meets your lips again, tongue brushing yours, a steady joining and parting. Soft and wet.

“I need you to help me bury Pierce.” His touch so warm and comforting, “Help me take him down and then,” A press of his forehead against yours, “And then I’ll take you to the country estate, just like I promised.”

“Is that all you want from me?” He shakes his head,

“I want everything that has to do with you.” His thumb soft across your cheek, “We need to secure your money first, everything you’re owed.” You whimper against him as his hips press further into yours, “And then you can help me take this bastard down.” A press of his lips to your throat, to where the neckline of your nightdress met your skin. And your heart raced as he pressed his mouth to the bruises on your skin. His hands gentle against your tender flesh as he sunk to his knees before you. “You had bewitched me the moment I saw you,” A gentle kiss to the skin of your thigh, “I would do anything for you.” His hands pressing your thighs further apart to settle his head between them. “Anything.”

He laid a plan out between your thighs, hand gripping your hips steady on his face as his tongue worked you to falling apart. Your fingers twisted in his hair as he let you benefit from the friction on your sex. Nipples hard beneath your shift, arching up against him in gasps and moans as he brought you to a trembling end. Mouth and tongue pressing sloppily against your thighs and hips.  

“When Pierce returns,” A whisper against your lips, “We will begin.”

With him gone and the house empty you grew clearer. Less foggy and drunk with his presence. But he said Brock wouldn’t be back for the rest of the night, right?

You powder makeup on in the mirror, covering up the bruises best you could. Maybe you could risk going to see your Ma.

The single opportunity presented itself and you would be a fool not to take it. And your Ma would know what to do. She’d be able to clear your head about this.

You did what you could to hide Brock’s handiwork, but your Ma was sure to spot a mark or two. The trepidation in that was drowned by the excitement to see your Pa and Peter again. Your steps quick and heart beginning to flutter as the prim and proper clean homes turned into the thick dark wood and the volume of the town louder than the sleepy homes you’d just left behind.

Drunks in the street and a loud row in a pub, passed by as you continued to your destination. The vibrant noise and the sounds of people stuffed in alleys sampling the wares on the streets.

You saw your Pa first. His hair greyer than you remember. Chatting outside with a man you didn’t recognize, just outside of the house you’d grown up in. He must have felt you coming. His eyes drifting over to you and smile splits his lips. The emotions you’d felt all day spilling over onto your cheeks as you run into his open arms.

A hug tight enough to squeeze the breath from you. It pushes out a sob. His hand on the back of your head as he held you to him and you felt like a child again. Scared of a storm. Weeping into his shoulder as he soothes the cracks of thunder that woke you from your bed.

“My sweet girl.” He pulls back to look at your face and presses a kiss to your forehead. “I’ve missed you so.” His hand firm in yours, “Come.” A tip of his head to the man he was talking to before your approach and he brought you into the house. The noise of creaking beds drowned out by the twinkle of keys at the piano you’d not touched in years. Your Ma was found in the parlor. And your eyes immediately went to the tall boy behind the piano. Peter.

Your heart lept in your chest as he ran to you, wrapping you in his arms. “Y/N, what are you doing here?” Happy and eager.

“I was left alone for a night,” You smile at him, looking over his shoulder at your Ma. “I have until morning.” You laugh, stepping back from Peter. “You weren’t lying Ma,” You grin at him, “You’ve grown quite a bit.”

“There’s so much I want to talk to you about.” He says, “I just don’t know where to start.” You brush a hand across his cheek and in his face, you could see the little boy who pulled on your skirt begging for sweets. The little boy who cuddled you in your bed after falling asleep reading. And you felt your heart full for the first time in a while.

“Let her breathe,” Your Ma held her hand out to you, “Are you hungry love?” And you realized you were starving. You’d forgotten the last time you had stew. Rich people didn’t eat the scraps from their table all blended together like this. They hadn’t the need to.

It was food of the poor. The indentured. And it gave you more comfort than you could put into words. A hunk of crusty bread on the side and you were being spoiled.

Your Ma’s finger gripped your chin and turned your face in the soft candlelight. “When will he let you go.” She sighs, “I thought you’d be living free by now.” With a 400 pound a year pension and living the way you’d like. “I’m so sorry love.” You pull from her, scraping your bread over the sides of the bowl.

“I need to ask you something, Ma.” Bread swallowed and belly full, you gaze across the table at her, much like the way you looked at Steve earlier. “Do you remember Steve?” Her shoulders visibly tense, of course she did.

“He swore to me he wouldn’t talk.” Her voice tight, “Did he say something to Sir Pierce?”

“No.” You shake your head, sipping your wine, “No, he didn’t.” A swallow, “But he’s come back… and he wants to take me with him.” Confusion clear on her face.

“Take you with him where?” Her fingers rapping on the table, nervous. “You’re under contract.” You tug on your lip,

“Yes,” Your Pa and Peter enter the room. Parlor cleaned up and,

“Shut the door.” Your Ma orders, blocking this conversation from the rest of the house. You look at your Pa and Peter, before directing your attention back to your mother.

“This can’t leave this room.” Your voice sterner than you thought it would be. “Do you understand?”

It was going to be complicated. You’d told Steve earlier, “I don’t want to be your whore.” Your lips both swollen from kissing, “I have my own money. I want my own home and my own things.” Soft and emotional, “I don’t want to belong to anyone.” A nod, a prayer on his lips and he said,

“I’ll do whatever you ask of me.”

You begin to explain, “Lord Steve Rogers,” Your Mother’s brow lifts, “He takes his title this week. He’s going to help me get out of my contract and help me keep my money after.”

“For what?” Your Ma shrugs, “What does he want in return.”

“What does he have to gain from it.” Your father adds. You lick your lips.

“He’s trying to take down Pierce.” You admit, “Get rid of his villainy over the city.” The murdered in the streets. The vile and wretched dirty dealings with him giving out loans and taking exceeded interest. Drowning families and destroying homes.

“And he wants you to help him.” Peter finishes.

“Yeah,” You give him a half smile, “I’ll be helping him.”

“Absolutely not.” A pound of her hand on the table and your Ma steps from it. “Peirce would see you hanged for betraying him and I refuse.”

“But Ma—”

“Your Ma’s right, sweetheart.” A sigh from your old Dad. “It’s a large risk to take, and no one knows if this would actually work.” It wasn’t a lie. If Pierce finds that you’re working against him you’d soon find your hands around your throat and your body tossed away like garbage. And maybe you were being foolish. Maybe this was a mistake.

“I could help.” Peter offers. “I mean… Steve.”

“No.” Firm and absolute.

“Listen to me,” You start, “Pierce would rather see me die than leave his side regardless of whether or not I help Lord Rogers or not. He’s shown that to me time and time again. Without fail.” Your voice rising in volume, “I’m not dumb enough to get swept away in this game, but it needs to be played, Ma.” If you were ever going to survive this.

“Send him here.” An order from your Pa. “Let me talk to him and we shall go from there, but your Ma and I want no word of either of you pursuing this.” His voice turning softer, “I want you back, not gone for good, do you understand me?” You nod.

“I understand.”

[symphonicscans]

Fujimi Orchestra - Wandering Violinist (Book 2, Part 1)

Author: Akizuki Koh   Illustrator: Keiko Nishi (Read Book 1 Here)

Content Warning! 18+ Yaoi/BL/Soft Noncon This volume doesn’t have rape per say, but there are references to what happened in the first volume, so just in case I’m still providing a warning. Nothing is super explicit. Also, if you want to start with this book there is plenty of recap throughout the book to catch you up on characters and situations.

And we’re onto book 2! This book also has two parts, so hopefully I’ll have the second done in the next few weeks.  If you want to read on Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSuh6ZZf--fQVn8mkSKkovlnZgIfKcD0vL1dmNRBBo2xVNMPw3EHBpNChs0vW4zq5qymXWQcZsvZmib/pub#ftnt1

Part I : Wandering Violinist

I have no apartment… no roost… not for tonight. I looked around in the hot and humid summer night; I couldn't even mumble because I was completely stunned by the situation. If I had to guess at the statistics, I’d say that the Fujimi-cho neighborhood -- where 80% of the residents live in apartments -- is like a ghost-town every year around this time. This is because there are many brave people who insist that they celebrate the ‘Bon Festival in my hometown,’ undeterred by the hustle and bustle of expensive flight tickets or the hellish rush to return home. It kills two birds with one stone: they make their dutiful family trip, and they don’t have to pay for accommodations when they get there. 

Actually, I — Yuuki Morimura — was one of those people. The reason I say ‘was’ is because I had just returned to my dear home-town after a two year absence on one such obligatory trip. I’m 23 years old and a music instructor at a public high school, as well as a violinist and concertmaster of the Fujimi Citizen’s Philharmonic, also known as the ‘Ni-chome Philharmonic’ or just ‘Fujimi.’ I seem to be considered a quiet and serious person because of the glasses I’ve worn since junior high, and often mistaken as younger than my age thanks to my slim body and feminine face (that I’m not so pleased with); I actually think I’m a pretty assertive person. I moved to Tokyo for music school, and then Fujimi-cho, which has become my second home ever since. 

Since my mother passed away, Fujimi feels even more like my second home. So as I returned from my three-day ‘homecoming’ trip and smelled the familiar scents of Fujimi, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I arrived before Fujimi’s rehearsal day, just after nine o’clock in the evening. Many of the shops in Fujimi Ginza around the small train station were already closed, each shutter with a sign on the door that said they were closed for tomorrow’s Obon holiday; well, as far as the rest of the country is concerned, tomorrow is the real Obon holiday. I took advantage of the fact that I work at a school with summer vacation to beat the rush of people returning home. This was always my trick that I used in the summer when I would go back home to the country. I would take care of my obligations before the proper Bon Festival and spend the three days when Fujimi-cho was quiet, playing the violin in my empty apartment building. It was the only thing I enjoyed in the summer, as I don’t have any other hobbies.

Now the steel frame of the building was exposed to the sky, and underneath my feet was rubble that seemed to be made from the collapsed walls, along with black trash that must have been furniture. I had entered the alley and turned the corner as usual, and saw the scene that was now in front of me; it was a total loss fire. Both my building and the one on the other side of mine were at least 80% burnt down. I scratched my head and turned to the right. The liquor store on the corner was still open.

“Excuse me, good evening!” A lady came out while using a fan. She looked me up and down and made a sympathetic face. “Ah, the Miyajima apartment building over there burned down yesterday evening, I heard about it on the NHK news,” she said.

“I didn’t hear anything about it, I was back at my parents’ house.”

“Oh, you lived there?” The woman scratched her cauliflower-like permed head with the handle of her fan, probably because she was uncomfortable dealing with a person she didn’t know. “That’s terrible. The fire spread quickly and the firefighters didn’t show up for a while because it was right in the middle of rush hour, you know.”

“Um, did anybody...die?” 

“It was a blessing that you weren’t there, the people who were left were burnt to a crisp. They were all dead by the time the firemen got there.”

“I see…”

“I heard it started from tempura oil. Yamamoto-san on the first floor was the origin of the fire. His wife always looked very careless.”

“Ah...Thank you,” the lady seemed like she wanted to keep talking, but I hadn’t recovered enough from the first round of information to keep up with more rumors. I bowed my head and left the store. The only question for now was where I could sleep tonight… I wondered if there were any hotels in this town. I remembered seeing a few love hotels, but as I walked towards the station I realized I needed to find something else: money. I didn’t have any. 

I put down my travel bag and violin under the streetlight and checked my wallet. No matter how many times I counted it, there was only 3,000 yen. Naturally I didn’t have much left, since I had given most of my money to my sister when I left my parents’ house. It was only fair since I stayed for three days at the place she was living with four children and a husband on the salary of a civil servant, while also maintaining a large country house and fields. I wanted to be considerate, and also make a small gesture since I was now a salaried employee, so I left her with enough money for a meal. But now…

“The bank won’t be closed even on Bon holidays,” I said to myself. No — tomorrow is Saturday! No, wait, I can still withdraw money, my card is in my wallet. So in the morning I can get money. I picked up my bag and case, which was now all I had to my name, and started walking. Oh yeah, my scores, my CD player, the CDs themselves, my clothes, my wardrobe, my futon, my toaster… all burned. Everything, everything…! I was hit with the sound of an oncoming car and rushed to get out of the way. As I looked at the red glow of the receding tail lights, I thought of the word ‘penniless.’ I have a violin, an ATM card, and a few clothes for the time being, so I’m not completely broke, but I’d be grateful if I could at least talk to Ishida-san, the caretaker of Fujimi, who I know I could rely on. But he’s on his usual week-long summer vacation. His whole family left for Hokkaido in the country on the same day that I left, and of course his coffee shop Mozart is also closed.

There were only two other members of the orchestra who knew where I lived: Natsuko Kawashima, a flutist, and the conductor, Tounoin. I had been in love with Kawashima for three years, even proposed to her, but we finally settled as friends in the orchestra. And Tounoin… well, I thought about going to him. He would be more than willing to let me stay, but that ‘willingness’ was the problem. He was gay, fell in love with me, and raped me — though the rape was an accident, as Tounoin had thought I was also gay and that I wanted to have sex with him. I respect Tounoin as a genius conductor, and I also think he’s a very good man, as he was willing to give up his affections towards me and not bring that kind of trouble into our relationship as musicians. 

That’s why… I don’t think I should go to his place to stay. No matter how much help he offers or how strong his willpower is, I don’t want to give him the opportunity to spoil me. He’s a human being too, and you never know when his self-control might slip… I don’t want to ruin the friendship we’ve established. I couldn’t impose on him like that, but I also couldn’t think of anywhere else that would let me stay. The list of Fujimi members and school staff had burned to ash in the fire, and there were a lot of people that I couldn’t remember their full names to look them up in the phone book.

I was flipping through the pages of the city phone book, trying to find a hotel, when I heard the sound of rain. It started raining. Then it was pouring. It seems like bad luck was following me like a bad smell. I took out ten yen from my wallet and picked up the phone.

“Hello, do you have any rooms available? Yes, for tonight. Oh, that’s great. Where are you located?” I thanked them, hung up the phone and wondered out loud, “Yeah, that’s pretty far. The cab fare alone would wipe out all my money. I wonder if they would let me stay without a deposit?”

I heard a noise and looked outside. A soaking wet businessman was waiting, so I opened the phone booth and said, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” and dashed under the eaves of a building to avoid getting wet. I hurriedly wiped the drops of water from my violin case. I decided to wait for the rain to let up and then walk to the hotel; since I only had 3,000 yen I really couldn’t spend it on the cab. But the evening downpour, which I assumed would stop if I waited it out, did not let up even after an hour. I waved my hand at the approaching lights of an empty cab and repeatedly counted the contents of my wallet in my head.

---

After going through 5 other hotels, the sixth hotel receptionist — my last ray of hope in the whole town — was a gentle, motherly woman with a pleasant appearance and tone of voice… “Oh, that’s the thing, isn’t it?”

I said quickly, “I have an ATM card, so if the bank is open tomorrow morning, I promise I can get the money! I know you have a rule that you have to pay in advance, but I won’t cause any trouble!” Needless to say, I’m not very good at this kind of negotiation. But there was nothing else I could do. I was so embarrassed that my forehead broke out in a cold sweat, but I persisted desperately. “I’m begging you. I can’t stay out in the open in this rain!” The woman, who seemed to be going through hardship of her own, looked down with a troubled expression. ‘One more push,’ I thought.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but if there’s any way…”

“Well, let me have your driver’s license.”

“Oh, that’s —“ I was sure that I had finally found a solution. “I don’t have it.”

“You don’t have a driver’s license?” It was heart-wrenching to see her face, which had finally softened somewhat, switch back into cold rejection.

“...my insurance card was burned. But..!” I pulled my ATM card out of my drenched back pocket. “I’ll leave this with you!”

The woman shook her head apologetically. “That doesn’t prove your identity, does it?”

“But if you look up my card number…”

“Can you prove it’s yours?” I was about to open my mouth to argue against her rude suspicion when the sound of rain started up again.

The easy-going face of welcome had turned into a cruel mask when she looked back at me. She said quietly, “Anyway, we don’t accept single guests.” Basically, I was interfering with their business, so get out of here.

“Ah, I see. Thank you.” Apparently this is the way the city is. I thought I could handle the love-hotel atmosphere, but I was naive. I gave the guests that had entered behind me some space so I wouldn’t have to look at them, but it seemed to be an unnecessary precaution.

“Oh, let’s take this room!” I heard the excited girl’s voice behind me as I walked out, not feeling the least bit guilty about being in a love hotel. This was the last of my hotel choices, and I had run out of ideas. I wondered if the heavens had come to regret their cruelty to me, as it was raining lightly when I went outside. But the situation wasn’t any better just because the rain was lighter.

“Police, maybe?” I had heard of something called ‘tiger boxes’ that were used to protect drunks, but I wondered if they would have anything for a lodger like me. ‘It’s all so bad!’ I thought, but that was the only option I could think of at this point. However, the police station was behind the Fujimi train station, which took me 20 minutes to get there by car, and now I had to walk back... “I’ve got 820 yen in my pocket, so I have no other choice.”

The problem was the violin, which could not get wet. I decided to put it in my travel bag, and used my summer jacket as a furoshiki for my overflowing clothes. I walked out into the rain, which was cold on my already soaking body. There was nothing else I could do.

—

“Achoo!” I sneezed, waking up. I was greeted by masculine-smelling air and unnecessary air conditioning. It seemed that I had caught a cold. I put my glasses on and looked at the round clock on the wall; it was barely 7am… I had stumbled into this police station a little after two in the morning, managed to get them to understand my situation, and they let me stay in the dormitory nap room.

“Achoo!” I guess it’s time for me to leave. After all, the air conditioning was too cold in here. I folded the blanket I had borrowed and left the dormitory room. I looked around for the middle-aged policeman that had helped me earlier, but maybe his shift had ended. I turned around and saw a policeman who looked younger than me.

“Oh, you must be Morimura-san.”

“Yes, I was staying here. Thanks to you, I was saved. This is for the person who helped me last night,” I offered him a box of sweets that my sister had given me to take home, “It’s a little wet from the rain, but inside is manju.”

“Oh no, that’s too much.”

“No, I’m really grateful.” As I was saying this, my nose started to itch again. I sneezed and bowed.

The city was already hot and humid, so I was grateful for the chills that were creeping into my body. I bought the cheapest lunch at a convenience store in the middle of the street and headed for the bank. It was 7:24am on August 13th, and in 30 minutes I would be able to say goodbye to the miserable feeling of having just 500 yen in my pocket. But I didn’t know… I didn’t know that today is the day the door of hell would be flung open.

It’s hot… the cicadas are so noisy. And… there was no money. The lack of money I thought I had was extremely shocking, there must have been some mistake. I’m sure it was just some small clerical error, like a paycheck failing to transfer. I did buy a new suit for the school year and paid for it in one lump sum with my bonus, but that should have gone through in July… but the ‘balance of 2,637 yen’ on the statement the cashier spit out was an unquestionable fact from the employee that was working that Saturday. He told me to come back on Monday for more details. The bank book, which was supposed to be a clue to solve my money question, had been reduced to ashes along with my personal seal and ID card. And the only thing that could guarantee that I am Yuuki Morimura was an ATM card, which could be stolen or picked up…

If it had been the bank where Kawashima-san worked, she probably would have taken care of it. Fujimi’s most beautiful flutist, Natsuko Kawashima, who had rejected my desperate proposal, was the type of person who would be strong in an emergency situation like this. But she’s not here, and anyway as a man I couldn’t just go to my girlfriend’s workplace and cry to her. For an hour I was at a loss for what to do, wondering what the hell I did to deserve this, envying the heavens and cursing my fate. Maybe I was stupid to have left with only my violin and a few changes of clothes. But! I had taken proper precautions against fire, and I was only gone for three days. Usually you don’t have to think about the possibility of your apartment burning down in such a short amount of time. 

The sun was shining on the benches, and shadows stretched out over the ground. I was craving grilled fish… but what was I supposed to do now, when it’s two more days until Ishida-san comes back? I was able to withdraw 2,000 yen from my credit card, but with a grand total of 2,511 yen it was barely anything. I pulled out the notepad I kept in my pocket. I knew I had only Mozart, Kawashima-san’s house, and the number of the school staff room written down. The school was closed for the Bon holiday and there was no answer on the phone. Kawashima-san was the only one who could help me. But… I said to myself, ‘Is it really worth it to go through all this?’ Of course, I wanted to just wait it out, but if I had to… if I did, I’d have to stay out in the open for two more nights. The policeman last night was kind enough to help me, but the way he acted made it clear that the police were not a hotel, and I was already feeling sick from my search for shelter in the rain. My pride as a man wouldn’t let me rely on Tounoin. 

As I soothed my dry throat with lukewarm water from the park fountain, I made up my mind. By the time I found a phone booth, I had sweated out more than I had drunk. I wondered if Kawashima-san would be at work or if she was off? In this case, I could barely spare even ten yen. In a desperate mood, I figured that she would have gone to work, so I looked up the number of her workplace in the Town Pages, which I was grateful to have even if it was in tatters.

The reply on the other end of the line was, “Kawashima-san is off today.”

I took my wallet out again… oh, ten-yen coins, you are valuable after all. I dialed her home number, and the voice that answered was that of a mother.

“I’m Morimura of the Fujimi Philharmonic. Is Natsuko-san at home?”

“Ah, the concertmaster. Thank you for always taking care of my daughter,” said the warm voice. I felt the dark clouds in my chest clear. Thank God. 

“Oh, of course. So, where is Natsuko-san?”

“This morning she went scuba diving in Izu with a friend. She’ll be back the night of the 15th.”

I couldn’t remember if I had said a proper greeting when I hung up the phone… as I exited the phone booth I felt that my last hope was gone. I’m finally going to have to live on the street. But… but… what the hell am I supposed to do? I asked myself over and over, and reluctantly arrived at the answer I already knew, the only solution. I have no choice but to go to Tounoin. Go to him… I’ll just borrow some money. As long as I have money I can do whatever I need to do; get a hotel room, ask the principal for a new ID when school resumes after Bon, go to city hall to get a certificate of seal impression, and then take it back to the bank. It’s just a debt, I will owe him a favor, but I can pay him back as much as I borrow. 

I walked, keeping my face down from the sun that was beating down on me. I was sweating profusely, yet an inexplicable chill ran down my spine. I put my hand to my forehead, which wasn’t even hot, but I felt like I was having a heat stroke. I need to borrow money to buy some cold medicine...a hotel… a cool room… I should have called Kawashima-san last night instead of trying to be proud and stick it out on my own. But it was so late at night… and either way it was too late now.

—

The Telephone Pole Mansion was silent and open as usual. On the wall opposite of the door to apartment 11 there was a row of mailboxes with numbers from 11-71 on them, and on box 71 was a handwritten name: “Kei Tounoin.” There was an elevator door next to it, and in front of the door an abandoned tricycle with the name ‘Mamiko’ written on it in permanent marker. I pushed the trike aside and pressed the button. I got off at the fifth floor — which was the end of the line — and climbed the remaining two floors, breathing hard. They say only idiots catch colds in the summer, but I felt myself getting more and more sick. But I had to act cool in front of Tounoin. He’ll probably tell me to use his place instead of a hotel, but I don’t want to accept a favor I can’t return. I had rejected him. Actually, he really wasn’t the kind of guy I could borrow money from, either… I finally managed to get to the apartment, and was anticipating getting to change clothes since the ones I had been wearing were soggy from being worn since yesterday. I put my hands in my pockets — I just remembered, I don’t have the key…

I usually have the key to his place. It was the middle of last month when Tounoin offered me his apartment, since mine didn’t allow the practicing of musical instruments and I had no other decent place to practice. At the time, we were still like a rabbit and a wolf, and I was the rabbit running away. I resisted and resisted, not wanting to be lured into the wolf’s house by some kind of trick. But then we developed a proper relationship as friends, and I decided to accept that his offer was out of kindness, not a trick. Since then, I’ve practiced here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night, and Sunday afternoon. I have a duplicate key because Tounoin’s apartment is soundproofed, and he plays music so loud that he doesn’t hear if somebody knocks. He gave me the key so I could come in on my own, but I had left the key in my apartment. On the morning I left, I put it in a bag of rice in the kitchen, along with my personal seal, bank book and other valuables… 

He had no doorbell. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. I knocked a few more times, then thought to put my ear to the door, but it seemed to be silent behind it. Just to be sure, I looked for a window, but there was not a single window on this side. I went to the edge of the aisle and looked, but no, there was no window on that side either. There was a window across from the door inside… but regardless there was no sign of anybody being in the apartment. 

“He’s finally away…” did he go to his parents’ house, or on vacation, or just out shopping? No matter what Tounoin was doing, my situation was simple: I had no other place to go, no other option. As long as I had the key, I could go in; Tounoin wouldn’t mind if I came in when he wasn’t home. It would be much easier to wait in an air-conditioned room, and I would without hesitation, but without a key… it’s metal, so there is a possibility that it didn’t burn up in the fire. But to find it, I would have to go back down the stairs and walk for twenty minutes in the hot sun. Then I’d have to dig around in that pile of rubble, and what were the chances of finding it? Even if I did find it, it might be useless, and either way I’d have to come back here… by then, Tounoin might have returned. So I decided to just wait. Fortunately there was a roof over the passage, and the elevated location allowed for good ventilation. I sat down in the aisle with my violin case beside me on the concrete, which was cool and pleasant in the shade. Looking through the bars of the railing, the city was the color of scorched gold in the midsummer sun. I’ll wait here until it cools down in the evening, and if he doesn’t come back I’ll go look for the key…. but what if the key doesn’t work? Whether it’s there or not, I’ll have to come back, but what if Tounoin doesn’t come back tonight?

Then I’ll just spend the night here outside. No one but Tounoin comes up here anyway, and it’s summer so it shouldn��t be a problem to sleep overnight… but what if he’s on vacation? I haven’t heard anything about that. He’s probably shopping or something, he’ll be back in the evening. As I stared blankly at the scenery thinking about this, I began to feel sleepy. To tell the truth, I didn’t want to move anymore. The sooner I went to look for the key the better, and the sooner I could take some medicine the better. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but I was thirsty and I knew I could get a cold drink at the convenience store downstairs. But once I was sitting like this, I didn’t feel like getting up again. I felt like I didn’t actually sleep much at the police dormitory, and yesterday was still yesterday…

I had helped Mimiko with her farm work in the morning, took my nephews to the town swimming pool, and taken a six-hour express train ride home, and then when I was feeling relieved to be home, the apartment was gone. And all that time I wasted looking for a hotel… after all that, it’s not surprising that I didn’t get a good night’s sleep. In other words, I was utterly exhausted. And to top it off, I was coming down with a cold. I laid down with my bag as a pillow, just to give my body a rest. After a short nap I would take a fever reducer… and then go find the key… I laid down, staring at the concrete ceiling of the aisle and the blue sky beyond, thinking about the pile of scores I had that were now burned. I hadn’t finished learning more than half of them, maybe I should have brought at least those with me… I couldn’t help thinking about it now. 

...I opened my eyes with a start and realized I had fallen asleep. My body ached all over, probably from lying on a concrete bed. But I didn’t feel like waking up, I was feeling very sluggish, as if I were being held in a metal box. I wanted to look at the time, but I couldn’t lift my arm to put on my watch. ‘Never mind,’ I thought, ‘This is the top floor, and the only room up here is Tounoin’s, so I can afford to take my time. I’m sure he’ll have something to say when he gets back, and there’s no need to move when it’s still so hot…’ With this thought, I was sucked back into the darkness of sleep. But it was a sleep that I shouldn’t have fallen into, like what people experience when they’re in distress on snowy mountains.

I was burning hot when I woke up again. I forced open my heavy eyelids. Through the bars of the railing, at the same height as I was lying, the orange sun was blazing, and I was basking in the west sun. I tried to get up, but my body felt like a bag of wet sand. If I stayed here, I would dry out in the sun. I managed to crawl up on all fours and move to the little remaining shade by the top of the stairs. As I let my head fall limp, I thought of something. The violin! I shouldn’t have left it in the sun like that… I crawled back to the apartment door, grabbed the violin case, and went back to the shade. The coldness of the concrete made me feel uncomfortable, like a myriad of worms were slithering under my skin. Chills kept running down my spine incessantly. I was already starting to doze off, thinking of how awful this was. The sound of cicadas chirping somewhere in the distance was becoming more and more faint. Water… water… when it gets cooler, I’ll have to go to the convenience store… barley tea, juice...water...water…. I found myself depressed. When I came to, it was pitch black. I felt cold, and when I moved my entire body was filled with aches and pains. My head also felt like it was going to crack open, and the breath on my lips was hot. I felt like I couldn’t get up, but I managed to do so because I knew I was in danger of dying out here. Going down the stairs, however, was even more dangerous. My legs were unreliable, and my hands were shaking as I clung to the railing with what little strength I had. Still, I somehow managed to reach the elevator and descended to the ground floor. 

I staggered the 30 meters or so to the corner store and went in. The brightness of the white lights hurt my eyes.

“Excuse me,” I said, leaning against the register, “Do you have any fever reducers?”

“No, we don’t,” the cashier replied, “But there’s a pharmacy a little bit down the street.” He seemed kind. 

“How far is ‘just a little bit…’” It was too far for me now. “Could I have a bottle of Pocari?” The clerk asked me which one. “No, a large one.”

“Two bottles are six hundred and eighteen yen.” 

With trembling fingers I took the change and the heavy package and left the store. I didn’t have time to go looking for the keys. I literally crawled back to Tounoin’s front door on the seventh floor, relieved to see that the violin I had left behind was still there, and then I completely ran out of steam. I would fall asleep intermittently, waking up with chattering teeth, and then fall asleep again only to wake up drenched in sweat… each sleep and awakening had a similar sense of torment and nightmares, and time passed slowly. Every time I woke up, I would first check to make sure my violin was safe, then take a sip or two of Pocari, touch the violin case again and fall back into another painful sleep. 

I felt like my beloved instrument, which was ‘only two million yen’ in the eyes of musicians, was still very precious to me even at this moment when I felt on the brink of death. When I was a student, quite a few of my friends had instruments worth 2 million, and some played on ones worth 3 or 5 million. I wondered how they managed to squeeze that out of their parents. The violin is a small but expensive instrument, with the best ones like Stradivarius costing hundreds of millions of yen. Because of their nature, being made with wood, the sound gets better with age, so the 300,000 or 400,000 yen new violins lined up in the window of a music store are only considered entry-level instruments. When I was a student, I used a brand new violin that cost 700,000 yen. My mother spent all of her savings to buy me the best one she could find in the country, and that was how much it cost to get the violin and the bow as a set. The sound is somewhat proportional to the price, so no matter how hard I tried my instrument could not match that of a 3 million yen instrument. That’s why when I got out of college and started a temporary job, the first thing I did was buy this violin. I had already given up being a professional, but I really wanted an instrument that had a better sound; it was the culmination of around four years of frustration. I sold my 700,000 yen set for 600,000 yen, keeping the bow, and then added 1.4 million yen of my own from a personal loan to purchase my current instrument. I was really happy at the time, and now with only one more payment, my beloved instrument will be mine in both name and reality. Then, I will buy a suitable bow for it… probably something around 500,000 yen… with a loan again, but I will do it to get a new bow. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to afford it. And then I wished I could play the violin just one more time before I died, if this was to be my last moments…. when I think about it, I was being as sentimental as something you’d see in a shoujo manga, and later I blush when I recall being like that. I’m proud of myself for being a violinist, and under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have ever thought of pawning my violin for money. But I’m a fool, and in some way it’s more manly to be foolish.

That was what I was thinking about when I absentmindedly changed thoughts to the man who seemed to not be coming back, no matter how long I waited. I thought I heard footsteps, but figured it was just another hallucination. But the sound was getting closer… a white object appeared on the stairs, quickly turning into a Panama hat with black eyes under the brim. As I was lying on my concrete bed, all I could see was what came into my field of vision from the other side — a man with only a head, then a neck… his eyebrows were tight, the eyes underneath long and narrow, with a well-defined nose that even from the front you could tell was high. 

“No way,” the lips murmured. Then the shoulders appeared under the man’s neck, and a hand came up and lifted the Panama hat, which he fanned his face with. The man’s dark hair was long and full, tucked in tightly from the hat; it didn’t look rude or obnoxious because the style suited him. “Morimura… san? What are you doing here…?” With a clatter of footsteps the whole body appeared, a solid 190cm tall body in an elegant linen suit. He was holding a trunk that had customs stickers in one hand. Had he been traveling abroad…?

“Hey,” I smiled, or at least I thought I did. It was Kei Tounoin, the 22 year old unknown genius conductor who had dropped out of the Music Department of the National Fine Arts University — which he was accepted straight into — because he had ‘nothing more to learn’ after one year, and then he studied abroad in Germany and Austria. His present status was as the permanent conductor of the 2-Chome Phil, or Fujimi Orchestra, an amateur ensemble of people who love music. “I’ve been… waiting for a while…” I said in a raspy, shrill voice. Before I realized it was me speaking, I was folded into the chest of the suit that had quickly appeared. 

“Morimura-san! What’s going on? What the hell are you doing in a place like this?!” 

I was going to answer, but I lost consciousness…

--

When I woke up, I was in the water. At first I just felt vaguely cool and comfortable, when I heard a chuckle in my ear. My face was wiped with a cold towel dripping with water, and I opened my eyes. 

“Oh, you noticed,” The one who said this in a very relieved voice was Tounoin, who was looking right into my face from above. I tried to sit up, as I was using his arm as a pillow, but I heard a bang and realized I was lying in a Western-style bathtub filled with water. Completely naked.

“Wha-ah…” I jumped in shock.

Tounoin said in a serious voice, “I had to hurry to lower your temperature, it was over 40ºC.” I was relieved to hear that, but then my eyelids began to feel heavy… “Wait! Just one sip before you go to sleep,” he said with a panicked voice, and his arm snatched me up in a hug while he placed something hard and cold to my lips. A cup…? “You’re dehydrated, just drink as much as you can,” he said. Adam woke up and took a bite of the apple, but when I covered my crotch with my hand I felt even more embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said and shoved a thin object into my mouth. “It’s a thermometer,” he told me.

When he saw the temperature dropped to 37º he let me lean back into the water. I noticed that the sleeves and chest of his expensive linen suit were soaked from where I was leaning against him. “I’m sorry… I feel lost… put it on…” when I mumbled with the thermometer in my mouth, Tounoin smiled.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I was scared because I was afraid he was going to kiss me. But he only leaned in to read the thermometer. The door behind him slammed open, and he murmured, “It’s about time he got here.”

“How is it? Has it gone down a bit?”

“Seven degrees in one minute. I’ll move him to the room. Oh, can you get a bath towel for me from the cabinet over there? Two or three for the bed.”

“I should have brought a nurse,” said the man, opening the cupboard as he thrust his stethoscope into his pocket. Tounoin tried to pick me up, but I said I could walk myself. Both of them got irritated at me, thinking that I was just embarrassed. But the problem was the bed that I was brought to… two months ago, I was raped in this bed… but I couldn’t very well say that to Tonouin, who had taken care of me like a mother, nor to the doctor. After all, I don’t have a place to go home to, and I can’t look for an apartment until I get better.

“I’ll give you some glucose. You can still give him water. Basically the only medicine he needs is water and rest. Let him have some porridge when he has the energy to eat. I’ll come back tomorrow to see how it goes,” said the doctor, who left quickly after finishing his diagnosis.

I had enough energy to talk, “Are you related to that doctor?”

“He’s my uncle,” was the reply. I tried to tell him that there were pajamas in my bag, but he ignored me.

Instead, he pushed the dial button on the phone he pulled out from under the bed, but I couldn’t quite hear what he was saying. “Hello, this is Kei. No, from Fujimi… please tell him it will be a little while before I can come back. No, I have a guest.” As I listened I felt his voice soften, and it occurred to me that he had a family, too. I hadn’t thought about it before…

When I woke up after a good night’s sleep I felt much better. I put on my underwear and pajamas, went to the bathroom on my own, which also made me feel better. My precious violin had been placed on the shelf above the audio components. When I told Tounoin about my unfortunate situation, he expressed his deepest sympathy and said I could stay in his place for the time being.

“I can’t annoy you any more than I already have,” I said. He had taken care of me and slept on the floor so I could use his bed.

“I see…” he said, his tone of voice sounding slightly angry. “I don’t think it’s annoying.”

“Well, I think it will still be two or three more days until I can get everything sorted out. So I’m sorry for that.”

“Yeah. But there’s no rush, you can stay here until you have the energy to play the violin. Conductor’s orders.” I laughed, and Tounoin laughed too. He’s a handsome man, but with his usual expressionless face he looks dour and misanthropic. However when he smiles, he looks very youthful and friendly.

—-

It was the third day I had occupied Tounoin’s bed. I had been thinking that tomorrow I could go out and look for an apartment, but I fell asleep… I woke up in the middle of the night because of a faint sound of music, just a murmur. 'That is… that’s Tannhäuser,' I thought, the song that filled up this room when it was at full volume on the night two months ago, when Tounoin forcibly embraced me! ‘Oh my god!’ I thought, and felt like jumping to my feet. But my body stayed still like it was bound up by rope. No, I was holding my breath like a rabbit who had heard the snort of a wolf, who was stalking him. I stifled a gasp, then fearfully opened my eyes. 

The room was dark, illuminated only by moonlight streaming in through the window, where the blinds were lowered… Tounoin was in his usual place, looking like his usual self on the other side of the room: facing the console cross-legged with his back to the bed. The sound of Tannhäuser was leaking from his headphones. The broad shoulders of his back made me wince, and inwardly I took an escape stance. Tounoin raised his arms and folded his hands behind his neck, then slowly curled his body forward. He stayed like that for quite some time. I could only see his curled back as I secretly watched him, fighting the memories that came back to me no matter how hard I tried to push them away. I don’t want to remember, but why is it that inconvenient memories are so vivid? I was attacked and raped while this song was blaring at maximum volume… the feeling of his thing going into me, the pain of it tearing my ass and the sensation of my internal organs being pushed out of my mouth when he was penetrating me. The uncountable minutes of humiliation, feeling crazy, embarrassed, terrible… I felt unbearably miserable, I really want to be able to erase this from my memory! Of course I didn’t want to do it… but I had gasped and moaned, and he was saying, “I love you”... no way! I wish I was lying, but the facts are what they are. 

I don’t know why he’s listening to that song, but before I knew it the sound stopped, and the silence made me choke up even more. The sound of my heartbeat throbbed in my ears as I pressed my head into the pillow, and I was worried Tounoin would hear it. I swallowed hard… how long was the silence going to last? Tounoin, motionless as a stone, murmured faintly, “Yuuki… Yuuki…” in a piercing whisper. Then he took off the headphones and stood up. I shut my eyes quickly. I felt a presence approach the side of the bed, and the raggedness of his breathing was stifling. I tried my best to pretend to be asleep. Tounoin seemed to be staring down at me. “If… if he’s willing…” he said quietly.

I decided what I would do and how I would do it, but I was confused. If he comes at me like he did that other time, I’m going to punch him in the face and run away, but… can I do it? ‘I will!’ I shouted at myself. Tounoin is a good man, and he saved my life, but that’s one thing and this is another! It has to be different! Tounoin was still standing there. The tension in my throat was so great that I felt my face begin to flush, thanks to the struggle to stifle screaming and the feeling of wanting to leap out of bed. 

I thought I had reached my limit when I heard his baritone voice say, “I’m sorry…” and he softly ruffled my hair. I opened my eyes when I heard the footsteps move away from me and the sound of blankets being spread out. Tounoin was lying with his back to me on a blanket on the wooden floor, instead of his bed that he had given up for me. He knew. He knew that I was awake, that I was curious about him. He knew I was afraid that he might do something, even though Tounoin had sworn never to force me and was keeping his vow. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, but I was scared to do that because it would give him hope… if I made him want to try again, when he was trying to give up like a man…. well, honestly I was afraid of Tounoin. Our friendship was built on the thin ice of his self-control, and if I take one careless step and it cracks, I will be swallowed by the flames of his passion that are still burning underneath. I knew that for sure from that afternoon in July.

 I also knew that I couldn’t allow myself to succumb to pleasure in the arms of a man; I couldn’t forgive myself after my body confessed itself unintentionally. He had hugged me with arms that were free of lust and apologized. I had said ‘I understand, but I’m not going to be in a romantic relationship with a man no matter how much he loves me.’ He accepted it when I said those words, and then we settled down into the normal friendship I had hoped for… but the way Tounoin was fighting with himself now, the bitter battle between his true feelings and the pretense he showed me tonight, that was the truth. He only put on the ‘just a friend’ act for me, a false image that twisted his true feelings. I knew I had to snap out of it with an ‘I’m sorry,’ which I was able to say by pushing down my emotions through reason, but it was much more painful than I had expected. He said that we would go find an apartment tomorrow, and that was the scream of his suppressed emotions. I knew I shouldn’t have stayed here… I like Tounoin as a person, but I can’t accept him the way he wants me to. I’m like a fish laying in front of a cat, ready to be eaten. I can’t let him do this to himself anymore.

The next day we took a cab to the real estate office. I said we could walk, but Tounoin was adamant, so we drove. We actually went to four real estate agencies, but couldn’t find anything that I liked so decided to try again another day. While we were out I also went to the school I worked at, which was two stops away by train. The vice principal was there, and he expressed his deepest sympathies for my situation and gave me a new ID card after I had requested him to reissue it over the phone. I immediately went to the city hall, got my seal registration card and went to the bank. Tounoin asked the branch manager to check my bank account in a calm and unobtrusive tone, and got the answer that I should wait for a few days. The bank book with a balance of 637 yen was quickly reissued with a single three-sentence stamp, since he showed his passport and acted as my guarantor. It seemed my body was still not up to full condition since I fell asleep in the cab on the way home, which worried Tounoin a little. 

As soon as we got back Tounoin pushed me to go to bed, and then Ishida-san came to visit suddenly. It seems that Fujimi’s caretaker was very worried about me, since I had been missing since the fire. He said, “Well, I got a call from my landlord as soon as I came back from my vacation. He asked me if I knew where you had gone, so I called your family but they replied that you left them on the 12th. I didn’t say anything about the fire, I just told your sister that I had urgent business for Fujimi. Since the police assured us that nobody died in the fire, I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily.” 

Come to think of it, Ishida-san was my guarantor for my apartment contract. “Thank you for everything,” I bowed my head from the bed. “I was going to call my sister after I found a new apartment,” I added, “But Tounoin didn’t think I should mention the mishap with the fire. It’s not really a nice thing to talk about, after all.” Ishida-san nodded in agreement. 

“It’s a good thing you have shelter right now. How is your cold?”

“I'm getting better. I’ve been troubling Tounoin-san a lot.”

“So, are you going to find an apartment?"

“It’s hard to find a cheap place where you can also practice violin.”

Ishida laughed, “I hope the landlord decides to rebuild, but he is getting old. I did hear that he will be compensated for the spread of the fire."

“That’s right, even though the landlord didn’t start the fire.”

“Well, that’s about it. So…” Ishida-san rummaged through the bag he brought with him. “There’s not much in there, but be careful when you open it,” he said, placing an envelope next to my lap.

“Oh no, no, you shouldn’t have.”

“It’s not much, just a gift. This is the kind of situation for it, after all. And you don’t need to give anything back in return; we’ve known each other for a long time, even if it doesn’t feel like it.” He smiled at me and sat up. “Are you going to stay here until you find an apartment?”

I was about to reply ‘no,’ but Tounoin said “Yes.” 

“That’s good. I’ll see you later, then. Is rehearsal still off for tomorrow?”

“No, I’ll go.”

“Oh, yes. Well, we can’t have rehearsal without Morimura-chan, and Tounoin-kun isn’t going to attend either. You don’t have to force yourself.” 

After Nico-chan left, looking busy, Tounoin and I had a disagreement about where I would stay until I found an apartment.

Tounoin said, “I’ll be staying at my parents’ place from tonight, so you can take your time finding an apartment.”

“That’s…! No, I’ll go to a hotel.”

“That would be a waste of money,” I choked up… it’s true that if the bank doesn’t figure out my situation, I’m penniless.

“But I can’t just kick you out of your own place…”

“It’s okay, I should be dutiful to my sponsors sometimes, after all.”

“Where’s your hometown?”

“Seijo.”

 Wow, a high-class residential area! “But then, won’t it take you nearly two hours to get here?”

“Well, yes.”

“I can’t bother you like that.”

“I told you, it’s not a bother.”

“But it’s definitely inconvenient.”

“It’s about time I slept on a decent futon anyway.”

“Well, let’s switch. I’ll sleep on the floor tonight.”

“You’re a sick man.”

“I’m better now!”

“Then why don’t you go for a run around the town?”

We were dancing around the subject, he knew it and I knew it. Tounoin wants to get out before his emotions get the better of him. I can’t make the man who saved my life leave his own apartment. But to hold him back would be to continue tormenting him… 'Oh, righteousness or humanity!' I thought, and then I realized that it wasn’t out of duty or courtesy that I wanted to keep him around, is it? It’s just my stubbornness, and that I don’t want to admit that I’m actually afraid of him….

“Okay,” I said. “I feel really bad for you, but if it makes you feel better…” 

Tounoin laughed with a huff, “I’m telling you that I don’t think you can sleep well with me around, so I’m removing myself.”

I was pissed off that he pointed out the truth so bluntly, “I trust you, don’t I?”

“Do you?” 

Now I was really annoyed, “So why don’t you sleep with me tonight?” I thought I’d lost it as soon as the words came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t unsay it. “If you don’t want to sleep on the floor, then sleep next to me. I don’t mind,” I told him, confident he would refuse.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” he said with a sly smile.

“Then let’s go with that.” He smiled at me as I looked up at him, feeling like I had dug my own grave.

“I’m a better sleeper than Morimura-san.”

—

… Tounoin’s daily routine is that of somebody who is young and doesn’t have a regular job (I think, I never asked him about it), but is very precise. He wakes up at seven in the morning and has bread and coffee for breakfast. Then, he runs the washing machine and cleans the room with a rented mop. When he's done, he takes out a book or two from the cabinet full of scores, spreads them on his knees and studies them. He wasn’t playing recordings this time, but apparently just reading the music in his head; I had heard that only geniuses of Seiji Ozawa’s level could do that sort of thing without the assistance of an instrument. Usually you play piano or something at least. Conductors use the score, a book of music that contains all the parts of the orchestra (brass, woodwinds, strings, percussion), and each page has all the staves needed for the instrumental parts. The conductor’s job is to understand the flow of each part and how it interacts with the harmony in the complex combination as a whole. To be blunt, it was a task that my mind could never handle, but Tounoin apparently can construct it completely in his head. I knew he was a true genius. But of course, he didn’t seem to be doing it effortlessly either. He was doing it in his usual manner, with the score on his knees, but the level of tension and concentration was completely different from when he was reading with the recordings. He doesn’t talk to anyone, but I feel like I need to refrain from even breathing…

He does this from around eight o’clock, sometimes until the afternoon, without taking a break, and then would take a nap. After sleeping like a dead man for an hour, he would put on recordings in addition to reading the scores. Then he had dinner delivered from a restaurant (today while waiting for the food, he remembered the laundry and went to put it in the dryer), and after he finishes eating, goes back to playing recordings and score study.  He finishes up around twelve o’clock, takes a nightly bath, and goes to bed. He doesn’t have any sort of nightcap or alcohol; he was a man who lived a life completely immersed in music. 

I looked at the clock every five minutes, waiting for midnight to come. Well, maybe waiting wasn’t quite the right word, it was more like being in a state of trepidation. It was a little past midnight when Tounoin took off his headphones and turned the components off. He turned around to see if I was asleep (of course I pretended to be), turned off the light and walked past my side of the bed to the back door. Incidentally, this apartment is very well designed, except for the fact that the room isn’t square in shape. The first thing you see when you walk in is the audio equipment with five speakers that look like they cost a million yen. When you remove your shoes, you can see a large window at the other end of the room, and when you step inside the flooring is cork. The bed is at the far end of the room, and next to the double-sized bed there is a row of doors on the wall. The three closest to the entrance are cabinets full of musical scores. The fourth one leads to a cabin in the back, which houses a bathroom with a Western-style toilet, a storage area with laundry facilities, and a dining/kitchen area, all crammed into one functional space. 

After finishing his nightly studies, Tounoin went into the captain’s room for his usual bath, but he didn’t come out for a long time, while I waited and waited pretending to be asleep. He usually doesn’t take long baths, but it was over thirty minutes at least. Tired of nervously waiting, I actually dozed off instead of pretending, waking up when I felt the bed sink. Tounoin had laid down in the empty spot by the wall. He fidgeted a bit behind me with his back to me, but he soon quieted down. Then came the sign of someone who was satisfied with the comfort of sleeping. I couldn’t help but listen attentively to the sound of Tounoin’s breathing less than a meter away. If it didn’t switch to the sound of deeper sleep, I wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully myself… but it wasn’t long before I started to hear his breathing slow and fall into a regular pattern. For now I was relieved, and was ready to fall asleep too. But… my mind was still racing and I couldn’t quiet it. It wasn’t that I wasn’t tired, but I hadn’t been out of the apartment in days, and even if my body is tired my mind is so sharp that it refuses to sleep. And then the more impatient I am to sleep, the more I hear Tounoin’s sleeping breath, the smell of his shampoo, and other things poking at my consciousness that brought back memories from that night and afternoon. This man who suddenly revealed himself as a passionate person, who attacked me and stole me away, when I had only known him as an impudent and calm conductor… this man who plucked my pride and twisted my flesh into a type of affair I’d never known… this man with wide shoulders, a broad chest and strong arms, that held me captive and dominated me, stopping me from challenging him with his strength…

For a moment, I remembered the feeling of something thick and hot ramming into my ass. I twitched, and at the same time I realized that my penis was on the verge of rising. Why is my body in such a state of rebellion against my will? How was it that a  single, forced experience made me a homosexual who wants a man? But… but… smelling Tounoin’s scent… his presence… is what causes this change in my body. He already understood, I convinced him that I can’t be his lover, and he has not laid a finger on me as promised. I...I...I… stiffened at the sound of a sigh behind me.

“What’s wrong? Can’t sleep?” The sleepy voice had a faint hint of a teasing smile. The bed creaked as he turned over, and then Tounoin fell asleep with a swoosh. 

‘Damn it!’ I thought. I was supposed to be worried that he would break the chains of his reason! Yes, I was. He really wanted to have sex with me, but out of concern that he couldn’t keep his vows he was going to stay at his parents’ house. Because I hinted at that, his vain counterattack was this accusation that I didn’t trust him. The rest was just saying words for words’ sake, but… okay, I’ll buy it. I’ll buy it. I’m determined to see how much more of this you can take, until you give up! But if you lose it and come after me, I’ll laugh my ass off and ask what happened to your vows! Yeah, that’s right, I’m going to laugh about it. Once my mind was made up, all I had to do was sleep. Oh yeah, I’ll laugh it up. He’s going to get a real good night’s sleep…

I woke up twice in the night. Why is that? ‘I’m a better sleeper than you…’ get out of here with that kind of joke!

—

I woke up in a daze. It was cool and chilly, and I nuzzled my nose into the warmth in front of my face. I heard, “Good morning.”

“Mmm…” I replied softly. Huh? 

The warmth was the chest of Tounoin’s pajamas, and I had slept hugging him! I tried to sit up, but he pulled my head back and said, “Now do you understand? I have confidence in my ability to reason,” reminding me of what I had thought before I fell asleep. I steeled myself to prepare for an escape. 

“Yes, but you’re not a good sleeper, are you?”

 Tounoin laughed, “I’ll be as careful as possible.” Now I’m sure you’ll be sleeping with me as long as I’m here. Don’t start barking now that your tail is out, wolf… I’m perfectly fine with it. But the AC is so low in this room that it feels good to be together… I’m in trouble… I fell asleep again and was woken up for lunch, and I felt embarrassed. 

In the afternoon the two of us went out to look for an apartment again, but we didn’t find anything that day either. I withdrew my requirement for being able to practice the violin. I was satisfied with my modest request to be able to afford the rent, and making sure it was in Fujimi-cho, not too far from the station. But I couldn’t even find one that would satisfy those modest wishes. Most of the apartments in Fujimi-cho are bedroom-focused, and the emphasis on family units seemed to be a bottleneck. I didn’t mind living in an apartment with one or more baths, but the rent was accordingly expensive…

 I had a Fujimi rehearsal in the evening, but I was tired from visiting real estate agencies. But I had promised Ishida-san that I would attend, so I started preparing in the evening. I realized that if I don’t play for a day, I can’t move my fingers the following day. Aside from the right hand that uses the bow, the left hand has to play on the strings almost of its own accord. To make up for a week’s absence of practicing, I spent three hours before heading to the Civic Center. But… fuck! This is just Allegro! Why can’t I move my fingers better than this?

“Morimura-san.”

Oh, I’m depressed, I missed it again. And it’s in such an easy position…

“Morimura-san!” He shouted in my ear. I looked up to see Tounoin looking down calmly. 

“Go ahead, I’ll be on my way shortly.”

“Are your clothes OK? If you want to change…”

“No, thank you. It’s fine, it’s fine.” I only had two sets of clothes in my travel bag, and the ones I was wearing at the moment were procured by Tounoin because he thought it would be inconvenient to keep wearing the same clothes. He has good taste.

“So, we should leave soon. We can stop at Fujimi on the way home for dinner.”

“Yeah,” I nodded and thought to myself, is he acting like my guardian? Yeah… he is.

—

Fujimi’s summer vacation lasted ten days, and I returned on the second rehearsal after the vacation. I was escorted (or so it appeared) by Tounoin. We stepped into the main conference room of the Civic Center and got down to business as usual. I took out the folding chairs from the storage area and arranged them, took out the folding table and arranged it, then the tuner and checked the batteries… Tounoin helped me quietly, and when he was done he disappeared to somewhere else. 

The first person to arrive was Ishida-san with his double bass, “Well, you’ve come out after all.” Apparently he had come to set up the venue in my stead. Everybody else seemed to come very quickly as well, and when they came up to talk to me they all knew about the fire in my apartment. I shouldn’t have felt annoyed that they were worried about me, but I also felt embarrassed, so I just said, “Thank you” and “It’s okay.” Kawashima-san also came to give her condolences.

“I was worried when I heard from my mother that you called me. Where on earth did you go…?” as she said this, the beautiful flutist looked at me with a puzzled expression. She knows about my relationship with Tounoin, except she stopped short of saying anything out loud.

I took the initiative, “Yes, actually, I’m staying at Tounoin-san’s right now,” Ishida-san knew about it, anyway. I added firmly, “In a clean and respectable way, as a housemate.”

Kawashima ran her white fingers through her pretty hair, “So are you still following the trend?”

“Of course not! I’m not gay!” 

Kawashima-san cut me off, chuckling, “I’m sorry, I have to admit I have a little grudge against you, so I felt like teasing.” It was a one-way love triangle between me, Kawashima-san and Tounoin. I was in love with Kawashima-san, she fell in love with Tounoin at first sight, and Tounoin fell in love with me… then I was dumped by Kawashima-san, she was rejected by Tounoin, and of course I have no intention of becoming a lover to a man. But it was a joking manner of resentment. After all, she’s the one that keeps trying to get me and Tounoin together. She seems to think homosexual couples are ‘trendy,’ but you know… a man and a man bedding together is just an awful sight. 

That evening we were supposed to be finishing up Finlandia, which we’ve been working on since last month… I took a break, and hadn’t touched my violin for a week. I looked at Igarashi-kun, the student cellist, and thought, ‘Well… let's see.’ I clapped my hands to get his attention. “Since everybody seems to be ready, can we try playing the part together? Strings, let’s do all the strings together and all the winds together. Timpani, please join the winds. Kaizuka-san, please take the lead of the wind section.” 

The principal oboe raised her hand to gather the other winds, and I joined the string group, taking advantage of the rattling and rearranging. “Ichiyama-san,” I called the second violin leader. “I’m sorry, but I need you to be the leader today.”

“But Concertmaster, why are you stepping down?”

“I haven’t played for a week, so my fingers are completely rusty. I want to get back in shape before Tounoin-san gets here. Sorry to be so selfish.” Ichiyama, who was an accounting manager of a construction company in the next town, nodded seriously. 

“I heard you were sick in bed with a cold. How are you feeling now?”

“Better, thanks.”

Igarashi-kun smiled at me as I joined the circle. He was especially happy, but everyone was already tired of practicing the monotonous long notes. The winds began to play and Ichiyama-san frowned. “I can’t hear very well,” he said. For the next forty minutes, until eight o’clock, we concentrated on uniting the string section.

“Stop, stop! We have to listen to each other more. If the string parts are not played like a single instrument, it will be more disjointed when we put it together with the winds. Then, let’s take it from bar 32.” The group with the timpani added to the woodwinds and brass seemed to be working hard to create the right harmony, playing and stopping. Playing and stopping. I had been able to instruct them on the right way to practice.

“Sorry,” said Nico-Chan, scratching his head. Ishida-san, who held the title of ‘Fujimi Citizen’s Symphony Orchestra Caretaker,’ had been sentenced by his wife to have his instrument taken away when he almost destroyed his main business, Mozart coffee shop, because he was so devoted to Fujimi. As a relief measure for the situation when we lost our bass player, we won her pardon so he could return to playing after almost ten years of being benched. He couldn’t help that he couldn’t produce a solid sound, but Ichiyama-san had been a friend of Ishida-san’s since the formation of Fujimi, and therefore had a relationship that allowed them to complain freely. Ishida-san apologized and tried his best to meet the order of playing ‘crisply’ in a serious manner. This was one of the things I liked about Fujimi, how in the family-like atmosphere warnings and advice were exchanged very naturally. We were all getting better together while having fun.

“Morimura-chan,” Ichiyama-san’s voice made me turn around. “You’ve got a lot of tension in your shoulders.”

“Oh, yes,” I lowered my violin and did some exercise with my shoulders. I’m getting really stiff.

“So, let’s start at measure forty-eight,” It’s really wonderful to have such colleagues, I thought. Oh, I’m in tune… yes, it’s going well. Eventually, at exactly the right time, Tounoin walked through the door after his five-minute observation and climbed up on the podium. I wondered where he had gone off to; I had thought he was going to be there for the earlier part of the rehearsal since he came over with me. Then I realized something: could it be that he did it for me? I didn’t mind at all, but it's true that I didn’t want it to be obvious that we had come to rehearsal together. 

—

I was packing up to leave after Tounoin’s usual, ‘We’re done’ when Igarashi-kun came up to me, looking like he wanted to talk. 

“So I heard that you were laid up for a while,” Igarashi is a current student in the cello department of the local music university, who started school the same year I graduated. He’s a cute guy who looks up to me for some reason. He’s talented, motivated, and cheerful, and also tends to be the ‘mood-maker’ in Fujimi.

“I caught a cold when I got stuck without a place to stay,” I replied, “But I’m all better now. Why?” I opened the floor for him.

“Actually…” he scratched his head, “The thing is… I’ve been ordered by the orchestra director to transcribe some music. It’s for a program in next month’s school festival, and it’s due tomorrow. I gathered my friends and we worked hard, but we still have a third of the score left to do.”

“Haha… what’s the piece?”

“A symphony composed by Kitagawa, a senior student in the composition department. It’s long and complicated.”

“Then you shouldn’t have come to rehearsal tonight.”

“If I didn’t take a break from it, I’d be dead by now. I’ve been up all night for two days and still haven’t finished.”

“So are you trying to get another cat’s paw?” Igarashi rubbed the back of his head as I talked.

“Sempai, please. I’ll get you midnight snacks and breakfast!” 

Transcribing music is literally copying music, but not the easy way with the photocopier. What Igarashi and his friends were doing was creating parts from the conductor’s score, the music that represents the entire piece. However, for each player in the orchestra the score is inconvenient, since all the notes of the instruments are written in the music, and each page only consists of four to six measures per page, requiring frequent page turns. So for the performers, a part must be made from the score, a transcription of the part from the general score, and it must be done for each instrument; for first violin the first violin part, oboe for the oboe, percussion for percussion. Of course, for major works by popular composers such as Mozart, Beethoven and Toshiro Mutsu, the publishers give you both the score and parts if you buy them (or if there are copyright restrictions, you can rent them for a fee) — or copy them if you can get away with it. However, the ones that Igarashi and his colleagues are working on are by a student composer, with only the original score to work with…

In other words, the only option was to take the score and write out the parts, which I had done many times. The ‘Freude Orchestra’ was formed as a music college club, and had a tradition of playing newly composed pieces by fellow students mixed in with regular concert programming. In Fujimi, whenever I needed to make my own arrangements for missing parts, I was the one to do the transcribing (Nico could do the arranging as well, but as a busy coffee shop owner he usually didn’t have time to do it). So I know firsthand the difficulty Igarashi and the others are facing. 

“Okay, I’ll help you out,” I answered. “Where have you been working on it?”

Igarashi looked relieved, “In my apartment, we only have the string parts left to do.”

“Is it a good piece?”

“It’s not bad. Mayuzumi said it was a great work, but…”

“Hahaha!” I realized that the only people left in the practice room were me, Igarashi and Tounoin, and everything but the chair I was sitting on had been put away. I told the tall conductor, “I’m going to go with Igarashi-kun to help him with some transcribing right now, so please go home first.” He stared at me for a moment and nodded. He quickly left the room. “I’m staying with him for right now, since I haven’t been able to find a reasonable apartment,” I explained.

“Oh…” Igarashi nodded. After that, I felt like he was secretly biting back a laugh, but that was probably my paranoia. “Well, you really saved my life. I was wondering what I would do if Morimura-san refused me.” 

I finally escaped, didn’t I? But while listening to Igarashi’s smiling voice, I was thinking of how Tounoin’s back looked somewhat depressed as he walked away. It’s not a bad feeling to have somebody worry about you, but he’s being overly protective. I’m a full-grown man, I can take care of myself. I don’t need a guardian anymore.

—-

Igarashi’s apartment was on the third floor of a newer reinforced concrete building, just a few blocks from my old place that had burned down. The room, which was about six tatami mats with a kitchen, was fairly clean, and two exhausted-looking coworkers were waiting for Igarashi to return with his helper.  The windows were open and the air was a bit stuffy, but there was no fan running. A pile of staff paper scattered about the room was the reason why they couldn’t have any inadvertent breeze.

“This is Kikuchi on clarinet and Oyama on piano.” Kikuchi was a small man with pouty lips that looked like the type of person who would play clarinet. Both of them were dressed in running shirts and pants, and their eyes were red, their faces full of stubble and fatigue.

“I’m Morimura. How many more pages do you have to do?” The symphony, titled Yuguna, is a large work with a performance time of fifty minutes, filled with waves of sixteenth notes mixed with thirty-second notes in modulation after modulation, a characteristic of modern music. I could tell from a glance of the score that it was a difficult piece. However, I could see a glimpse of talent in the unique melodic quality of the phrases, which was probably why it was chosen as the piece for the Freude Orchestra’s regular concert. But...I put my face close to the handwritten copy. Is that a C? Or is it a D?...D apparently… it’s hard to tell.

“It’s hard enough to read, isn’t it?”

“I think you should probably re-write the whole score while you’re at it,” I said, and the atmosphere quieted down. I realized that I had lost my mind. Damn it, these people…

“Well, I guess Kitagawa-kun will conduct, so I’ll just leave it at that.”

 I tried to recover my position, but then one of them said, “Yoshida is the senior in the conducting department, he’s going to conduct it…”

“So…”

“I’ll take care of the conductor’s score.” Igarashi’s face lit up as I said it with a sacrificial look of resignation.

“I’ll do the second violin,” Kikuchi said, “Who’s gonna take cello?”

“I don’t mind doing the cello part,” Oyama said, staring at the copy of the score, “Just the cello.”

“How much time do we have?”

 I flipped through the part, trying to assess how long I thought it would take, when Igarashi said in a small voice, “I promised to have it done by nine o’clock…”

“... in the morning, right?”

“Hahaha, well…”

“So we’ve only got ten hours! What are you waiting for? Staff paper! Pens!” There was no point in transcribing music if you can’t make it accurate and legible. And most of the time, you have to race against the clock.

I started with the first violin part, one of the two that I had been assigned. There is only one conductor’s score, but there are eighteen violins in a full orchestra. Priority was given to the many. I wrote in the note heads as fast as I could, going back and adding the stems after I had written a few measures' worth. Then I wrote the accidentals as needed — oops, it’s in B-flat from here. Damn it, I don’t want anybody to get keystroke from… for moving chords around so much. It’s a six-bar break, not five. Oh, is it natural or sharp? No, it’s natural. Hey, is that an E or an F or… uh… 

“Igarashi-kun,” I called out to him from halfway across the table, where he was focused on his own work.

Without looking up, Igarashi placed something in front of me. It was dice.

“Is this..?”

“If it’s an even number, it’s E.”

“So you want me to roll the dice to decide which pitch it is? That’s random…” I mumbled, and began to examine the chords to try and draw a conclusion from their spelling.

“Iga, give me the dice,” said Kikuchi, who was behind me using a beer container as a desk. Igarashi tossed him the dice.

“I need them too,” said Oyama, who was also using a makeshift desk next to me.

“What, you’re all doing it that way? You’re lousy transcribers, aren’t you?”

Kikuchi muttered to me as he rolled the dice for Oyama, “I’m sure Morimura-san will figure out why soon enough.”

I knew that if I had to guess and interpret every chord, I would never make the deadline in time. Damn it, if it’s difficult, it’s probably a great piece. I don’t get this music at all! I started working on it about ten o’clock, and it was past midnight when I finished the violin part with the measure numbers written in. I skipped checking the music at this point and started transcribing the whole score. If there were any mistakes, they could find them in rehearsal and if not, then it’ll be what it is. After all, I had to finish this thick book of sheet music by eight o’clock at the latest… But let’s be real, this is impossible! It’s physically not possible to do in seven hours what it would take three people like Igarashi and his team two days and nights to do. But we had to get whatever we could done. As I wrote the names of the parts on the second sheet of the score, I called out to Igarashi, “The piano parts are done. I can’t finish the score by nine o’clock, but I’ll do as much as possible.”

“You’ve finished the violin part already?”

“Really? Wow, that’s fast!” Igarashi picked up the completed part. “I can’t believe this is handwritten! Morimura-san, you could make a living as a transcriber!”

“What? Which one? Wow, that’s great.”

“That’s true, the first violinists are lucky.”

“Ah…” I didn’t have time to be happy even if they praised me. Okay, brass is done. Next is…. but it’s so hot, even with the windows open, because there’s no breeze coming in. The rest of them were wearing only their underwear; they had told me to take mine off too, and I would feel better. So I took my shirt off, though I wasn’t wearing underwear so I was only naked on top, but it’s only guys here anyway. 

I was writing out the harp section on page 43 when I heard, “Oh, it’s finally done!” Oyama exhaled a deep breath and suddenly fell back onto the tatami floor. “It’s already four o’clock and I’m starving,” he said and rummaged through the bag from the convenience store that was left there.

“There’s a ramen if you want it,” replied Igarashi, still moving his pen.

“If you make it for me, I’ll eat it.”

“What about you, Morimura-san?” He asked me. I was about to answer ‘no’ when I remembered that I had skipped dinner, and I was almost at the limit of my energy with my stiff shoulders.

“I’ll eat. I missed dinner.”

“So you want me to make two?”

“No, just one.” I quickly sipped the cup of ramen while reading the rest of the score, and returned to my writing. As I started the fiftieth page, Kikuchi announced that he was done with his work. As soon as he finished his ramen, he flopped down beside Oyama, who had fallen asleep, and he did the same.

“So depressed that they’re done already,” muttered Igarashi. Oyama was snoring, Kikuchi had a peaceful sleeping breath, and the sound of Igarashi and my pens running on the paper… the smell of ramen and the sweat of tired young people… I noticed a cool breeze coming through the window, and when I raised my eyes it was light outside. I breathed in the brief freshness that comes between the tropical night and a hot day. Now only a hundred pages to go.

When Igarashi packed his and the other’s finished bunches of parts into paper bags and left the apartment, I was still wrestling with a job that would take another six hours. The sun was on the way up. The hot room was somehow even hotter; sweat dripped from my hair as I bent over the staff paper, so I wrapped a towel around my head. It trickled down my bare chest and armpits, even on the back of my hand. Sweat gushes out in beads no matter how much I wipe it off, making the pen slip in my hand. I took a short break when I had just started the 100th page. In order to reduce the remaining 50 pages as much as possible, I did one more page in the three minutes I was waiting for the cup o’noodles to be ready, but it took me longer than I thought it would, and the ramen turned into udon. 

As I slurped down the bloated noodles, I thought about how I was too good-natured. I felt like an idiot for staying up all night on a job that has nothing to do with me or Fujimi… speaking of which, I wonder if Tounoin was worried about me. But at this hour, it would be an imposition to make a phone call, and I don’t even know his phone number in the first place… well, it should be ok, I already mentioned that I was doing the transcription, and he should know that it’s a time-consuming job. I finished the soup, drank two glasses of Aquarius to rehydrate myself, and took up the pen to resume work. Ahh, my hands hurt, my eyes are tired… but if I rested now, I wouldn’t be able to finish the job. Give me strength… I wrote the last symbol on the last page, and the long, long job was done. Eighteen hours of work! My fingers were so stiff they creaked when I tried to put the pen down. I took off my glasses, which felt like they were burrowing into my nostrils, and placed them on top of the finished score. I was tired~

Igarashi and his friends had not returned yet. Come to think of it, he said he had rehearsal in the evening. It’s hard for the underclassmen when they’re overworked by their seniors… I was going to just leave my score behind and go back to Tounoin’s place, but when I laid down to stretch my back — which was stiff as a board — I didn’t want to get up again. I decided to sleep while looking after the house until Igarashi returned. Feeling my tired body falling asleep, I patted myself on the back for a job well done. 

—

I smelled food and drink. The sound of voices, sometimes loud and sometimes guttural. It sounded like I was in the middle of a drinking party. I turned over in my sleep, thinking it was too noisy.

“Oh, Morimura-san, are you awake?” I heard Igarashi’s voice say, and felt him come over to look at me. I pretended to still be asleep. They were probably celebrating being done with the transcription, but right now I wanted to sleep more than drink.

“Morimura-san, we have Oden. Hey, Morimura-san.” I didn’t want it, just let me sleep.

“No, he won’t wake up,” I heard Igarashi say to his friends.

“Ah, well he’s a great person. Did you see the score? He rewrote it down to the last page. I admire him,” Kikuchi replied.

“He’s a very serious person, he never makes mistakes on the violin. He practices like a pro, I bet.”

“And he’s cute, too…” Oyama’s voice said, “I didn’t notice it until I saw him sleeping just now. So amazing.” His speech was slurred, so clearly he was drunk.

“Hey, Oyama, don’t be weird,” Igarashi said with a laugh.

“What do you mean ‘weird’? Beethoven and Karajan had male lovers. Genius lives in homosexuality,” after making this startling counterargument, he seemed to stand up.

“Hey Oyama, sit down,” Igarashi said.

“Hehe, just look at him,” he said, and inwardly I frowned as I felt liquored breath on my face. “The more I look at him, the more attractive he is… so cute. Haha, he has such a beautiful chest… and smooth skin… and perky nipples.”

“Hey if Morimura-san wakes up he’s going to kick your ass!” Kikuchi yelled. Oh, I’ll kick his ass alright.

“Beethoven, Karajan… why are you making up that kind of bullshit?”

“Someday you’re gonna get killed, saying that kind of stuff.”

“It’s not bullshit, and I’m a genius. When I see a guy like this I get so horny… he’s so sexy...” The reason I didn’t take action until the person speaking slammed into me was because I was just too tired to bother moving.

“Whoa!” It wasn’t me who screamed, but Igarashi and Kikuchi. My mouth was blocked by the boozy lips stuck to my face. As I struggled, Oyama gasped and said, “You look so sexy, ahh…” as he groped my chest and stomach.

“You idiot! Stop it! Stop it!”

“Oyama, goddamn it, stop!” The two of them were yelling and trying to pull Oyama off of me. 

I twisted Oyama’s ear, which he grabbed with his struggling hand, then I slapped him as hard as I could in the face.“You perverted son of a bitch!” I shouted and glared at him. 

Oyama looked at me soberly, “This… you! You hit me! I’ll fuck you up!!”

“Oyama! That’s enough!”

“I’m sorry Morimura-san, so sorry!”

“Dammit, let me have a shot at him!” Oyama yelled, and still tried to grab at me while being pinned down by Igarashi and Kikuchi. I almost punched him, but I thought twice about it when I noticed a poster of some chamber music group on the wall behind Oyama. That’s right, I’m a violinist, and my hands are my most important tool. I looked around and saw a bottle of wine. I grabbed it in my other hand and swung it over Oyama’s head; he thought I was going to crack his skull, and Igarashi held up his hands in surprise. But what I threw at his head was… alcohol. After I emptied the contents of the bottle on Oyama’s head, I threw the bottle down.

“There, I’ve cooled you down a bit, asshole!” I spat at him between my clenched teeth. I glanced at the three rigid men and put on the clothes I had taken off. Damn it, if I had known I’d get mixed up in something like this, I wouldn’t have agreed to do anything. I stepped into my sneakers and opened the door.

“Oh, Morimura-san, please wait!” Igarashi dashed after me, but I ignored him. “Sorry, I’m so sorry! I’m really sorry this happened after you helped me so much. I’m sorry!” Igarashi was crying. “When he gets drunk he turns into a monster, but he usually doesn’t do that sort of thing! I’ve never seen him do anything like that before.”

“So are you saying it’s my fault?” Igarashi fell silent for a moment when I sprayed him with the cold anger that was inside me. I looked at him sideways. Igarashi followed me and wept with a crumpled face. I sighed and stopped. “...I know it’s not your fault. I can’t tell you not to worry about it, though.”

“I’m sorry…!” Igarashi squeaked out and sobbed. “Oh I… I can’t go to Fujimi anymore.”

“...are you saying you’re going to make the cello section vacant?”

“No, because I…”

It came out of nowhere. The blood that had been frozen in the pit of my stomach shot up to my head and I yelled as loud as I could, “Don’t be stupid! Don’t you dare waste that shit score I just transcribed for you! And now I’m repaid by getting teased by a drunk and being told that our only cello is quitting? Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Igarashi’s eyes darted as he looked up at me, mumbling, “I’m sorry...I’m sorry…”

“It’s all right, as long as you understand,” I said, and walked away. I thought how the tone of voice I used was like Tounoin’s. Come to think of it, Tounoin… is he worried? It was already night again, and I had left my watch in Igarashi’s apartment, but it was too late to go back. I hurried through the humid night, passing by the convenience store near the apartment. Remembering that I was hungry, I turned around. No, wait, I don’t have any money.  But I went ahead and took a peek at the clock at the cash register before I turned the corner again; just before one o’clock… ‘I wonder if Tounoin is asleep,’ I thought, and then I realized: I don’t have my keys. I still haven’t made another spare since I lost the last one, and the last time I left the apartment I was with Tounoin, so I didn’t realize that I would need it. I’m in trouble… guess I’ll have to camp outside of the door again…

I knocked several times, but there was no answer and the door didn’t open. I twisted the knob, hoping that it would work — the door was unlocked. It was dark in the cool, air-conditioned room, and Tounoin seemed to have fallen asleep. Feeling like a curfew-breaking teenager, I stealthily took off my shoes and entered the room, trying to dampen the sound of my footsteps. Tounoin was in the bed, asleep. I slipped my violin case on the shelf and walked quietly to open the door of the cabin without making any noise. I took a quick shower (the hot water needs some time to come out, but I didn’t want to wake up Tounoin), changed into my pajamas, and crept into the kitchen to get at least a piece of bread. I found a sandwich from the convenience store sitting on the table, a box of cup soup, a cup and a pot of hot water. As I took a bite, my heart was filled with a sincere feeling. ‘You’re a good guy, Tounoin…’ as my rumbling stomach settled down, I was ready to forget about what stupid Oyama had done to me, that damn drunk. I turned off the lights in the cabin and snuck back into the main room. I slipped into the space Tounoin had left open for me, and breathed a sigh of relief.

I heard a half-asleep voice say, “Oh… you’re back…”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Did you finish the transcription?”

“It was an all-nighter, eighteen hours of work.”

“...are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just want to go to sleep.”

“Good night.”

“Good night,” I said, and I fell asleep right away… around what seemed to be dawn I woke up because it was cold, but it was too much effort to get up and turn off the air conditioner, so I chose to huddle closer to the warmth that was near me. It was so warm… Tounoin seemed to notice and hugged my shoulder, but I was already drifting back to sleep so I didn’t know, and didn’t care. I’m not sure if it’s because I trusted that I would be safe with Tounoin, or because I believed he was different from Oyama and that narcissistic, violent homosexual Yasaka. 

—

The next day was super, as if all the bad luck I had been having was turned upside-down. It was literally my lucky day. First of all, the manager of the bank came to visit me with a gift. He told me that due to a computer processing error, my salary — which should have been deposited into my account — had been transferred to another customer’s account. The manager bowed his grasshopper-like bald head and said, “Please keep this matter to yourself.” He left me a noshi envelope with a greeting card and a brush writing on it. Inside was two months of my salary. I showed it to Tounoin.

“This is how much they gave.” 

He sniffed in frustration, “I’m not sure if that is adequate compensation for their part in causing these difficulties.”

“Well, yes, but it’s all over now…”

“If that’s what you want, then it’s not my place to tell you otherwise.”

“But I feel bad, you know… crashing in front of your apartment and all…”

“I was happy to do it,” Tounoin said, turning away from me with a sigh. I remembered that I needed to find a new apartment as soon as possible; I felt bad staying here forever. 

The second lucky break came at a real estate agency in a neighboring town, where I went separately from Tounoin.

“There’s a one-bedroom and bath for 40,000 yen, a three-year old condo on the 6th floor.”

“In Fujimi-cho?” I was about to jump for it without question, but the old owner’s eyes flashed behind his glasses.

“To be honest, it’s been hard to keep occupied. Since this past April, three people have already left within a month of each other.”

“No way… did somebody just move out again?” The realtor shook his head in disbelief. 

“The person in the apartment above play music loudly at all hours of the night and day. But you can’t complain about it, because it’s occupied by the landlord’s son, so you know…”

What? Could that be…? “Is it a tall apartment building down the corner from a convenience store…?”

“Oh, do you know it? It belongs to the bank president, so the facilities are top-notch, but just that one room on the 6th floor has been vacant since June. The floor is the only part that isn’t soundproof, and nobody could stand the ‘noise’ coming from the ceiling. So the rent has been discounted by 80,000 yen.”

“How big is it?” The realtor gave me a look like I shouldn’t ask, but told me that it was a Japanese-style eight-tatami-mat room with a four-and-a-half-tatami dining and kitchen. It also had AC and heating. “I’ll take it,” I said. “40,000 for a one bedroom with bath, AC and background music is too good to be true, I’d even put up with a ghost or two.”

“Well, if you say so…” the agent pulled out a contract with a face that said ‘Don’t come crying to me later.’ The name on the rental contract was ‘Inmitsu Tounoin.’ I thought of an old gentleman with gray hair, but if he was Tounoin’s father he couldn’t be that old. Rent can be paid via bank transfer; so, he’s the son of a banker, I knew he wasn’t a commoner. I’ve got three months’ deposit and money for the key, plus rent for this month and next month thanks to the ‘condolences’ money from the bank —but that’s a small price to pay for luck. “Ah, also I’d like you to get a guarantor.” The agent pointed to a blank space on the contract, “Here’s where your name and address are, please put your seal here.”

“Is it okay if I bring it back in a couple of days?”

“Yes, that’s fine. Here’s the address. Oh, right, you know where it is, don’t you? Now, the key.”

I took the key and asked, “Which bank president is the landlord?”

“Fujimi Bank, sir?” He looked at me like he couldn’t possibly not know the president of a long-established bank in this area. 

“Oh… and that’s located in…”

“It’s in Seijo. But I’m the property manager. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask me.” It seems that I wouldn’t have a chance to cross paths with Tounoin’s father; I was a little curious what kind of person he is. On my way home, I stopped by Ishida-san’s Mozart. 

“Oh, in Tounoin’s building?” He smiled and said, “Well, I’m glad you found a nice place.” He smiled and said, “Since you found an apartment…” he pulled out a cardboard box from under the counter. It was full of sheets, towels, tea bowls, cups, pots and pans… “Kawashima-san is indeed a solid office worker. She made a ‘list of items needed to reconstruct a house’ rather than just gathering donation money, asked people to give their unused items from their houses, and it turned out to be enough for a whole house. That was the idea.”

“She’s going to make a great wife, I’m sure.” She knew that I’d mind if it was money, so she collected practical items. The fish that gets away is always big… “Um, so, could I get some coffee vouchers?”

“You don’t have to give anything back in return.”

“Yes, but I want to give something to Tounoin-san.”

“Oh, I see. So you want some coffee coupons?”

“It’s practical, isn’t it? Please, I’ll take three books of ten vouchers.” Ishida-san smiled a little apologetically; I’m sure that he knows I’m buying them as a way to repay him for the money he gave me when he visited.

“By the way, I’d like to talk to you about something,” Ishida-san stepped up to the counter, changing from owner of Mozart to that of Fujimi caretaker, “For our next piece, why don’t we do Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto?”

“A violin concerto?” 

Ishida-san looked around quickly and whispered with conspiratorial enthusiasm, “I got the hall reserved at the Civic Center. There was a cancellation for Sunday, November 27th.”

“So… would it be a regular concert?”

“Not anymore, it would be a proper concert.”

“Oh, are you sure we have enough time to prepare?” Ishida-san nodded smugly as I was leaning over the counter.

“I was thinking that we should do it this year, now that we have Tounoin-san with us. I really wanted to do it after New Year’s, but I heard that the hall would be under renovation from January to May. I happened across that cancellation, so I jumped at the chance even though I was a bit busy.”

“Yes, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

“So I thought I’d like to include the Mendelssohn.”

“That sounds great! But… what about the soloist?”

“There’s already one,” Ishida-san pointed at me.

“Me…? I’ll be the soloist?”

“Icchan agrees.” Come on…

“But we’ve never done a piece with a solo before…”

“So that’s why we should do it. It’s good for us to do one once and awhile.”

“But then what about the first violins…”

“We have Goto-chan, Miyake-chan, Kijima-san, Nitta-san, Yoshiko Suzuki-san, Hirota-san… why don’t you ask Haruyama-san to join from the seconds?”

“Then the second violins would be Ichiyama-san, Higashi-san, Hirai-san…”

“Seven people would be enough, right?”

“Yes, in terms of just numbers…” but when it came to balance of competence...

The door chime rang and a group of housewives walked in, and Ishida-san turned to welcome them and prepare some glasses of water. “Well, you should think about it, and discuss it with Tounoin-kun.”

“Yes, I’ve always wanted to do a concerto, but…”

“All the strings were saying that they wanted Morimura-chan to do a solo.”

“Hah...haha.”

—-

On my way home my feet were skipping lightly. ‘We can have a concert, we can have a concert. For the first time in two years, Fujimi can have a concert!’ I ran around the corner, bounded up the stairs and opened the door with my freshly made spare key. The sound of the Brandenburg Concerto hit me, but I was deaf to it today.

“Tounoin! Tounoin! I slid down on my knees in front of him, where he was sitting cross-legged in his usual spot. “We’re having a concert! November 27th!”

Tounoin made a gesture of ‘I can’t hear you, please wait’ and went to stop the music. As soon as the sound stopped, I repeated myself, “A concert has been scheduled! Sunday, November 27th, Shimin Kaikan Hall! Ishida-san was able to get a date because of a cancellation, and asked me if I wanted to play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto!”

Tounoin looked at me from in front of the console, and I realized that I was very excited in contrast to his calm demeanor. My face flushed. “No, but do you know, it’s been two years since we had a concert.”

“November?” Said Tounoin in a cold voice.

“I know it’s soon, so it’s going to be hard, but it’s at the end of the month… so it’s about three months away, right?

Tounoin’s complexion softened, “It depends on how we do it. I don’t mind.”

“Really? Great…! So…” he glanced at the envelope in my hand.

“Oh, did you get something?”

“I was kind of lucky today, I found an apartment as well.” I pulled the contract out of the envelope, and when I was about to show it to him, I noticed the look in his eyes was somewhat complicated. At once I felt something flutter in my stomach; it was the first time I felt that. “It wasn’t a bad idea to crash here, but it was an emergency situation for both of us. Anyway, the place I got is cheap, well-equipped, and convenient. I’ve already signed the contract.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Tounoin with a deep sigh. If I remained here, it would only cause more suffering… the word ‘Love’ is very similar to the word ‘Strange’...

“Well, actually, I do need a guarantor,” I opened the contract and placed it in front of him. “Would you mind?”

“Yeah, well that’s already...” he said as he picked up the contract with a hand that was trying not to show his reluctance… I froze. I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea or not, his normally cool, long eyes were round.

“Not bad, huh?” I asked. Tounoin secretly panicked and turned his head, pretending to read the contract. 

“...It’s okay, I guess. How much is it?”

“40,000. But it’s only a minute’s walk to the civic center. I think it’s great. Now, why don’t you say something?”

With his head down, Tounoin patted various pockets. Then, “I’ll go get a pen,” he said.

“I’ll also need your seal,” I said, starting to stand up.

“Please stay here,” Tounoin said, “...I’m afraid I’m going to have to hug you.” Then he ran off into the cabin. I laughed, I couldn’t believe that the man who sells himself on his pride and arrogance lost his nerve like that. Just because I happened to get an apartment in the same building as his, that’s all. Then I felt a stinging pain in my heart at the thought. I got up and went into the cabin, but when I saw Tounoin’s back at the kitchen table, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have the right to ask him if he wanted to continue being a snake charmer for the rest of our lives, and it’s hypocritical for me to consider his feelings when I made the decision that I wanted to be his friend and nothing more… I pulled another envelope out of my pocket and approached his back.

I was spoiled by his kindness, but that together with when he agreed to give up on pursuing me, for the time being made us even. “And also this. I don’t know if I can thank you enough, but I mean, I feel…” I put the envelope over his shoulder on the table. 

He opened it as delicately as if it were a sparrow’s tapestry and froze again, but this time he got over it in an instant. “Thank you, I’ll treat you to Mozart’s coffee for the time being.” He turned around and had put on his poker face… ha, he’s not good at accepting this.

“Yeah, I’m sure we’ll be over there to talk about everything until the performance.” Here as well.

“‘I’ll never go out with you for coffee or dinner,’' He said with a smile, reminding me of what I had told him. After all, this was the game between us. I want to make sure that we are friends, and Tounoin wants to develop into lovers. But I won’t be the one to lose.

—-

I woke up in the middle of the night after being kicked twice. The next morning, while Tounoin was making coffee and I was cooking bacon and eggs, I mentioned it to him.

“Well, you stole the blanket twice and gave me an uppercut,” he replied.

“I think even a double bed is too small for two men.”

When I glared at him, he said, “Well, it’s big enough if you’re embracing each other,” and laughed… that was the first time I ever heard Tounoin laugh out loud. The kitchen here is nice and bright. For the one in my apartment, it remains to be seen.

[logi1974]

Kolmanskop’s name derives from a driver, Johnny Coleman who once was lost and overnighted next to this place. The name means “Coleman’s Hill” in Afrikaans (German: Kolmannskuppe).  Abandoned ghost town ruins are scattered in the Namib Desert 10 km east of the coastal town of Lüderitz. Diamonds were discovered here in 1908 by Zacharias Lewala, a Lüderitz - Keetmanshoop railway employee. Kolmanskop grew out of the diamond boom. The region was administered by Germany at the beginning of the century and the town reflected this in its character. It was said of the Germans that only after they had finished building the pub and the skittle alley, their favorite form of relaxation, did they start looking for suitable plots to build their houses. Fresh water was bought in by rail from 120 km away and pumped into storage tanks. World War I interrupted mining operations. The town’s demise was accelerated by the discovery in 1928 of the richest diamond-bearing deposits ever known on the beach terraces 270 km south of Kolmanskop, near the Orange River mouth. Many of the town’s inhabitants joined the rush to the south, leaving their homes behind. Kolmanskop retained some importance as a supply depot for other mining operations, including those on the Orange River. The last families finally deserted the town in 1956.   

----------------------------------------------------------

Kolmanskops Name leitet sich von einem Fahrer ab, Johnny Coleman, der sich verirrte und hier übernachtete. Der Name bedeutet auf Deutsch: Kolmannskuppe. Die Ruinen der verlassenen Geisterstadt sind in der Namib-Wüste, 10 km östlich der Küstenstadt Lüderitz, verstreut. Diamanten wurden hier 1908 von Zacharias Lewala, einem Eisenbahnmitarbeiter von Lüderitz - Keetmanshoop, entdeckt. Kolmannskuppe entstand aus dem Diamantenboom. Die Region wurde zu Beginn des Jahrhunderts von Deutschland verwaltet und die Stadt spiegelte dies in ihrem Charakter wider. Von den Deutschen hieß es, dass sie erst nach dem Bau der Bar und der Kegelbahn, ihrer bevorzugten Form der Entspannung, nach geeigneten Grundstücken für den Bau ihrer Häuser suchten. Frischwasser wurde aus 120 km Entfernung per Bahn eingekauft und in Lagertanks gepumpt. Der Erste Weltkrieg unterbrach den Abbau. Der Niedergang der Stadt wurde durch die Entdeckung der reichen diamanthaltigen Stätten im Jahr 1928 auf den Strandterrassen 270 km südlich von Kolmanskuppe, nahe der Mündung des Orangenflusses, beschleunigt. Viele Einwohner der Stadt schlossen sich dem Ansturm nach Süden an und ließen ihre Häuser zurück. Kolmannskuppe behielt eine gewisse Bedeutung als Versorgungsdepot für andere Bergbaubetriebe, einschließlich der am Orange River. Die letzten Familien verließen die Stadt 1956. 

[teamdoubleoh]

What fits in Men’s Pockets

Or five times Q had exactly what they needed  

Q-branch always has in stock what an agent may need - Q is not so different.

wordcount: 3477

Q branch had been all but deserted when James returned from Bangkok that night, leaving him and Q alone at Q’s desk. Bond had just returned lost some equipment and Q had made him sign some document, confirming the loss. Apparently that lost gun had been one gun too many.  

"Do you have a pen?" He asked, looking the desk over. There was Q's laptop, the desk lamp, the mug of earl grey that had been cooling for ages now and the papers themselves, but nothing else. Without looking up Q pulled a single pencil from his pocket. "There you go."

"Dear Quartermaster, you astound me! Who would have thought you even knew what a pen is. One could think you had gone full digital by now."

"Please Bond, leave the banter for times when I'm haven't been working for two days straight. Everyone knows that you don't have to fix what isn't broken. Pencils are an essential, I will admit."  

"What are you doing here anyways. Everyone else is at home with their families."

"...I  wonder why. Usually we have a skeleton crew over night...."

"Q. It’s Christmas."

"Huh. Merry Christmas Bond."

“Merry Christmas. You know what could be your gift to me?”

“You’re not getting the Aston.”

"Thats not what I meant. I have a first name, you could use it sometime. If you stop calling my Bond, I'll take you out for dinner."

“Was that supposed to be a compelling argument?”

***

Bond Eve and Q were on a mission.

It sounded like the start of a terrible joke, but was really just a rather annoying affair.

Bond was supposed to seduce someone who knew something, and he had, spectacular so. Now the woman was head over heels for him.

"I told her I wanted to break up but she woudn't listen!"

"Honestly, I was wondering why that as never happened before."

"Not helping Moneypenny."

"Just act like you’re cheating on her. That should do a great deal." murmured Q from behind his laptop. He was working on something and only here in the first place because they had needed a tech expert at the location. Eve was only here to his protection.

"Great input Q, how do I convince a woman I have know for two days that I'm cheating on her? We aren't even in a relationship!"

"... You know you could just kiss Eve in front of her of her or wear a shirt with a lipsticks stain. That should work beautifully."  

"Well, I'm not kissing you." Eve stated, voice laced with disgust.

"What, too old for you?" Bond lifted an eyebrow.

"Too male." retorted Eve.

"You know what Moneypenny? That explains so much--."

"You should be trying to find a lipstick right now 007."

"Oh right yes. Eve, may I borrow your spare lipstick? I seem to have lost mine."

"Why would I carry spare lipsticks around James."

"I don't know. Why shouldn't you."

Q looked up from his laptop. "What seems to be the problem?"

"James thinks all women carry around lipsticks all the time."

"Well. Dont you?" Q asked adjusting his glasses with his spare hand.

"Of course not. Assuming that I do that is mysogynistic Q."

"Why would that be mysogenistic? Don't people carry around stuff like that all the time? You know lipsticks, breath mints, that sort of thing?"

Eve rolled her eyes. "Do you happen to have a breath mint for me then?"

Q hesitated. "...No."

"There you go."

"But I do have a peppermint gum. And a lipstick, if you still need it." He fumbled around his parka and pulled out a small black and gold container. A lipstick, Eve realised. James eyed him with interest.

"Now I want to know why you have a lipstick. Because thats a good one. Mac isn't exactly cheap and that colour isn't for everyone."

Q sighed and handed the Lipstick to him. "Bond, please refrain from commenting my appearance. I know I look young for my age, you've told me before."

"Only when you stop calling me Bond. I have a first name you know."

"I know. I read your file, remember?"

Eve sighed and pinched thuebridge of her nose. “Fellas, if you'd be so kind. We need to ruin James’ shirt before his girlfriend finds him."

***

Q was pissed. His brother had come back from the dead.

Bond hadn't even know the Quartermaster had family, let alone a brother who knew how to fake his death and had to use his knowledge.

Yet here they were, at 2am I a dingy back alley in inner London.

The street sign read Bakerstreet and the brass lettering on the front for of the building they were about to break into informed pedestrians that this was number 221B.

Bond wasn't ignorant. They had been in Q branch, when a notification had popped up on one of the monitors. Q had grabbed his parka and James’ arm and off they were. On they way the Quartermaster had explained.

His brother had come back from the dead, had neglected to inform Q of his continued existence - something he apparently should have done ages ago - and now Bond was standing next to a furiously calm Quartermaster in the back alley of a house Q apparently knew well enough. There was only one way this night could develop.

The Quartermaster was currently looking up at the darkened windows of the first floor, obviously trying to decide between two, as his eyes flickered back and forth between them. "Alright. Bond, give me a hand will you?" he gestured up at the fire escape that was tugged away to the left side, ladder secured at the corner of the small iron balcony.

"If I'm helping ou break into your dead brothers flat you should at least start calling me James first."

"James, a hand please."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You need to lift me up so I can reach the ladder." Q pushed his glasses up his nose. If he was lucky the darkness would hide his blush. "Before you say anything, I am aware you could jump high enough to reach the ladder. Sadly that would be extremely noisy, so if you'd be so kind--"

James folded his hands together and Q put his left foot in them. "On the count of three I'm going to push myself up and you're going to throw me as hard as you can. I'll let the ladder down from above."

James nodded in confirmation. If breaking and entering was what it took to get Q to stop calling him Bond he would take it. He started to count. "One... two... three." he hoisted Q up, effectively pushing Q to the height of the balcony, where he grabbed onto the steel bars of the railing.

Q pulled himself up and climbed over it, making almost no noise. Slowly he walked to the far end of the fire escape and carefully let the latter down, until it was within James’ reach.

Thirty seconds later everything was back in place again, with the slight difference that Q and James were now standing in front of a small, milk glass window with a white painted wooden Frame. There was no lock.

Q eyes the frame for a second.

"How exactly did you plan to get in? I would lend you my lock picks but if there is no lock that doesn't exactly help." asked James, voice low.

"Don’t be silly James. I have my own lockpicks."

"Why didn't we go in trough the front door then."

"That’s tasteless. Everyone knows doors are or people with no imagination." He bent down and untied his shoelaces, slipped his shoes off and then handed them to Bond. "Hold this."

"Q what-"

Q shushed him and proceeded to pull a small crowbar from one of his parkas’ many pockets.

"Why-- " James sighed. "Nevermind."

Q smiled sweetly and patted him on the shoulder. "Now, that’s the right attitude."

Within two minutes of careful and almost-silent meddling the old frame gave in and Q and James were standing in a small bathroom.

The tiles were white, the walls olive green and there were two toothbrushes sitting in a glass on the sink next to a small container containing some kind of hair product. Next to ancient looking bathtub that doubled as a shower there was a bootle of shower gel and shampoo. It was sparse.

Q stepped towards the door, which was only halfway shut.

James followed him, careful to make no noise, as he was still wearing his shoes. They made their way to the kitchen and living room.

Q took his shoes back and sat them down near what appeared to be the front door of the small flat. Then he gestured towards the couch. James took the hint and sat down while Q made his way to another door, which was shut completely. He knocked.

James rolled his eyes and slumped into the couch. After a few seconds there was the dry rustle of fresh sheets being pushed back, then steps. The door opened and a tall man appeared in the doorway.

Standing there, in the doorframe of a bedroom at 2 am, they looked eerily similar. Q held out his hand and the other shook it.

"Sherlock."

"Q. What a joy to see you well. What is your SIS agent doing on my couch?"

***

Everyone was ecstatic. They had just completed an important mission and It was Friday night. Where else could they have ended up but a pub.

The entirety of Q-branch as well as the double-ohs, Eve and Tanner had cramped into the closest establishment, celebrating the success of the day.

Q and Eve had taken over an entire table at the very back of the pub. After half an hour Tanner had sat down too and a few minutes later even Bond had joined their small circle.

Q and Eve were arguing about someone while Bill and James were trying to understand what was going on.

"Q wants to introduce me to someone, even though he knows I'm not interested in dating right now."

Bond frowned. "Didn't you say just yesterday you were forever in love with the scary one, what’s her name --"

Q sighed. " Morgana Pendragon, Duchess of Sussex, drama queen extraordinaire. Yes. But hear me out --"

"I don’t want to date."

"Unless its the duchess, yes. But please give her a chance? I'll give you her number and you guys can text, I bet you'd love her."

"Q, unless you have Morgana Pendragon’s phone number hidden away in that ridiculous parka of yours, I won't text anyone tonight, alright?"

"...uhm." Q looked uncomfortable.

Eve stared at him. "You’re kidding."

Bill raised his eyebrows gaze flickering between the two. "Wait, what’s going on."

"Q. Please tell me you didn't hack the Buckingham palace’s wifi and stole the phone number of the King’s daughter." Eve asked, suddenly very tense. Bond couldn't tell wether it was from nervousness or excitement.

Q didn't say anything.

Bill tapped his shoulder. "Q, you didn't do that right?"

"I didn't. Why would I do that?"

Eve shrugged, a bit disappointed. "I know you've done worse things for less."

"No I mean, why would I hack the wifi."

James laughed. "Moneypenny, how much exactly has he had to drink? Because I don’t think we should be explaining tech to the quartermaster of MI6."

Eve eyed Q suspiciously. "Not that much. Q are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine. But why would I hack the palace’s wifi?"

Bill rolled his eyes. "According to Eve that’s how you would get Morgana Pendragon’s number." "

I don't need to hack the wifi for that! Has all this time working with me taught you nothing? --- I have Morgana's number on my mobile. She gave it to me ages ago.”

The others stared at him in disbelief.

“Why are you looking at me like that! I have lots of numbers -- Bill, first person that comes to mind, who is it.”

Tanner, looking not at all convinced, if a little intrigued, thought for a second before blurting out. “The Prime minister.”

Q rolled his eyes. Then he pulled his mobile out of his pocket and began scrolling trough the contacts. After a few seconds he turned his phone around to show it to the others. The display showed the name ‘A. Holmes’ and below it a Londoner number.

Eve sucked in a shaky breath. Bill and James turned towards her, clearly confused. Just because the name matched didn’t mean that it was actually the number of the Prime minister of England. She exhaled slowly. “Thats his number. It’s in M’s contact list.”

“Told you so.” Q huffed.

Bond seemed exited. “What about normal people! Do you know a John Hamish Watson? He saved my life in Afghanistan, few years back.”

Q scrolled trough his contacts until he found the right one, then showed it to James. “To be honest, I didn’t know his name was Hamish.”

“You know him Personally?”

”Why else would I have his number? He’s married to my brother.”

Eve took a large gulp of her drink. Bill just muttered something about a small world before emptying his beer.

James was smiling like a child on Christmas. “What else do you carry around! Do you have a knife? A screwdriver? Ohhh -- a flamethrower! Please tell me you carry around a flamethrower.”

Q looked pained but pulled out a metal cylinder. “We developed it some time ago. Can reach up to 500°C, depending on handling the reach is approximately 4 to 6 meter. Happy?”

James nodded vigorously stood, walked around the table and lifted a fumbling Q up from his chair.

“Wha--”

James smirked, carrying Q towards the door. Everyone who wasn’t entirely drunk by now stared at them in confusion. “We’re going to test out that flamethrower. Now.”

“But why do you have to carry me!”

“Because you’re the adult supervision, and because I want to.”

***

Q was in the field. He didn't like it one bit.

Contrary to what every double-oh seemed to believe he was trained as an agent, which at the time had been a simple issue of security. He was important and powerful. He had to be able to defend himself.

Now he was sneaking behind Bond trough the special security sector of the  biggest gene-manipulation company on the planet. Unofficially. Officially it was the third biggest seed producer on the market.

Q was slowly getting tired of the whole sneaking thing. Due to a week of planning, mostly filled with programming and some hacking he was now able to remote control the cameras in the building via his phone.

He had originally wanted to bring his laptop but together with the special equipment but there had been no space left in his bag what so ever.

He pressed a sequence of keys on his phone screen and the cameras in the next hallway over went dark. He gave Bond the signal for go and they went in, enabling the cameras behind them as they went.

Q searched the signs on the doors for the right one. If his calculations were correct it would be in the optimal position, laying almost at the centre of the building right below the high risk laboratories. Finally he spotted the right door and pointed, so Bond knew where they were heading. Q walked up to the door - non descriptive, generic, off-white - and opened to it and stepped inside.

The automated lights went on.

Bond, who was directly behind him stared. "Q are you sure --"

They were in the loos.

"Yes I'm sure. now help me." Q had sat down his messenger bag and was fumbling with the zipper of his black, MI6 issued tactical gear.

"My, my Quartermaster, how am I supposed to say no to that?"

Q flushed. "Not with my clothes 007, with the sink! We're going to steal it!"

"First of alI, am so coming back to that first thing later. Secondly: What?"

"The sink on the far left. Deinstall it."

"I don't have any plumbing gear, Q. I have a Walther and a com. And the com is pretty worthless when you're not on the other side."

Q’s complexion grew even darker at the flattery. "I have plumbing gear." He had finally managed to take of his jacket. He laid it out on the floor and opened a zipper at the top inner lining.

Inside there were two wrenches - apparently exactly the two sizes they needed - as well some other gear couldn't have named to save his life. They were all neatly held in place by rubber bands. Q only grabbed the jacket by the sleeves and dragged it to the very end of the room.

Q got to work, James assisting where he could, and within seven minutes the sink was laying on the floor. "What now? I'm assuming were not just here to steal this beautiful sink."

"Well we can't just leave it, can we?"

“We can't just take it either. They’ll notice it’s gone by tomorrow morning. Which is in three hours."

Q rolled his eyes and scoffed. He picked up his bag and opened the latch. There was sink inside. It looked exactly like the one they had just deinstalled. “It’s explosive.” Q said matter-of-factly, as though that would explain anything.

James nodded offhandedly. “You know what? I’m not even surprised.”

“Good. We have 2.75 hours left before the first shift arrives, so if you’d be so kind?”

“Of course.” James sighed.

***

James was sitting in Q branch. This was not unusual. He often hung around during off time to spend time with the minions, or so he claimed.

In reality he just shadowed Q.

It was an average Thursday night in one of the top secret services on the planet and James was tired.

Not hallucinatory tired though. He was pretty sure the blue police box had actually just appeared out of thin air.

He shrugged. This as Q branch. Q had everything under control.

"Q. A blue box just appeared out of nowhere. Should I be worried or get the kettle going?"

Q, who had just stowed away some paperwork in his desks drawers, appeared in the doorway. "Neither. He’s just here to pick something up."

"Of course love."

Q blushed and walked up the box instead. He knocked twice and waited. James stood and walked over.

"Q, love, please tell me there isn't someone inside the box."

Q rolled his eyes. "Only if you stop calling me love"

"Only if you agree to go get dinner with me."

The door opened. An old man with a shock of white hair stepped out. Behind him was a girl who appeared to be in her early twenties.

"Doctor please tell me we're not-"

"We're not."

"Then where-"

"MI6."

Her eyes went wide but she only uttered a quiet ‘Alright’ and closed the blue door behind her.

The white haired man who had just appeared out of a box which had appeared out of thin air extended his hand towards Q.

Q took it. "Nice to see you again." He said conversationally. "Bond. Meet the Doctor. Doctor, meet Bond."

The doctor nodded at James.

James nodded at the doctor.

The doctor scoffed. "I thought you Englisch were supposed to be polite." His accent was thick and clearly Scottish.

James smiled thinly. It was his I-am-amused-but-i-don’t-show-it smile. "I'm Scottish." He let some of his accent shine through.

Q turned to the girl. She wore a leather jacket and jeans and her coily hair was braided down the back of her head. "I'm Bill. I’m just tagging along."

James put his head to one side. "Nice to meet you Bill. I'm Bond. James Bond."

Q Rolled his eyes.

"And this--" James continued, "--is the lovely Q. He won't go on a date with me, although he clearly want to, so I call him love until he agrees." Bill nodded and turned to the doctor. "Why are we here again?"

"Do I need an excuse to visit some friend and-" he looked Bond over, "-friends of friends?"

"Yes. We were in the middle of something, remember? The puddle? My trapped girlfriend?"

The Doctor rubbed the palms of his hands together. "Ah yesss. Q if you could?”

Q handed him a small pen-like device. Except it wasn't a pen.

"Thanks. You'll get it back in one minute. Well one minute for you. We'll be off!" He turned around and strutted back into the box.

Bill followed him.

The doors closed and the box disappeared.

"Love, that was the single most weirdest thing that has ever happened to me and I'm a literal spy."

Q sighed. "I'll explain over dinner."