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kittae · 6 years ago

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Game Over

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x reader

Side characters: Min Yoongi

Summary: A drabble series where Taehyung is a successful artistic erotica actor but has to expand his areas of expertise in the rapidly evolving world of adult film. Lost and inexperienced in everything that doesn’t involve classy settings, flattering lighting and romantic scripts, he basically has to start from scratch to make it in the online porn community. As a highly demanded A-lister in that community, you take him under your wings (or better yet, between your legs).

Genre: Smut, fluff, a bit of comedy here and there. Maybe some angst, who knows.

words: 2187

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“Shit, shit, shit, fuck! Fuck, shit!” Taehyung curses, quickly tying his robe back on when he hears a series of three rapid knocks on the door. It’s obviously not out of modesty, seeing as everyone in the building has seen their fair share of bare dicks, if not taken close-ups of them.

“Taehyung, are you ready? You’re up in five.” Yoongi cracks the door open slightly before cautiously peeping his head through. His brows furrow when he sees the actor awkwardly shuffle around in his dressing room when this is usually the moment he goes over his lines. Not that there are that many this time, but still. “You okay in there?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. No worries.” The younger responds with a tight-lipped smile. Again, rather unusual for his doing.

“You’re good to go right?” His manager asks again, the worried frown on his face deepening.

Taehyung knows Yoongi isn’t asking him whether he’s practiced his lines or remembers the script. He’s talking about the state of his erection.

“I-I...I might need like, maybe a couple more minutes,” Taehyung murmurs, avoiding Yoongi’s eyes and his ears turning red in embarrassment, “I have a situation.”

Yoongi immediately picks up on the vibe and enters the dressing room, “Hey, that’s okay. It’s normal to feel stressed when you’re going to do something you’re completely unfamiliar with. Remember your first shoot?”

Taehyung groans upon the memory, “Hyung, you’re not helping!”

“Sorry, sorry… Should I call a fluffer? I got Jey on standby-”

“No! No, there’s no time, I’ll just… Just give me a minute.”

“Nonsense!” Yoongi waves away Tae’s protest as he’s already dialing the number.

“Jey? Hey, it’s Yoongi, are you free right now? We got a last minute, uh, situation– Oh! I-I see haha, talktoyoulaterbye!” Yoongi quickly hangs up, his cheeks weirdly flaring up with a deep pink.

“Jey’s… Busy at the moment.” He murmurs, stuffing the phone back in his pocket.

“What, you caught her on the job?” Taehyung grins, arms crossed and brows lifted.

“She answered the phone with a dick in her mouth so you tell me.”

Tae shakes his head, chuckling, “Love how you’ve been a porn star’s manager for three years and still get flustered at that kind of stuff.”

“Shut up and fix your problem already, you get ten more minutes.” Yoongi shoots back and Taehyung catches his flushed cheeks spreading to the tips of his ears before he shuts the door behind him.

“Ah, my manager is so cute,” He murmurs to himself before plopping down on the couch, sighing and grabbing his phone to put on some female solo work and get himself started. “Let’s get to work.”

You’re still in makeup when you hear a few gentle knocks on your door.

“Come in,” You allow the dark-haired man to enter your dressing room, amused to see a cute blush on his cheeks doing so. You suppose he’ll always be the shy boy you knew in high school.

“Taehyung will be a bit late… he’s nervous and you know what that can result in.” He announces, non-verbally greeting the staff fussing over your hair and makeup.

You nod in understanding, “I hope he’s okay… Maybe we should’ve met up over coffee or dinner or something first? To get the introductions out of the way at least…”

Yoongi shrugs, “I know, it was too last minute… He would’ve backed out if I gave him time to think about it first.”

“You’re mean, Min Yoongi,” You playfully scrunch your nose at him, making him laugh.

“Anyway, thank you so much for doing this. I owe you bigtime.”

You wave away his gratitude, “It’s nothing, you know that. It’ll be fun!”

Yoongi sucks in air through his teeth at that, crossing his arms as he thinks it over, “I wouldn’t be too quick to say that…”

Another knock on the door and the director’s assistant pushes the door open, clutching a clipboard to his chest and listening to instructions from the director through his ear piece.

“Mister Kim just got on set. We’ll start rolling in ten.” He lets you know before bowing and leaving again.

Yoongi’s brows shoot up in surprise. Guess the kid knows how to be a professional after all. Not that he ever really doubted him, but this was quicker than he’d expected.

“Showtime!” You clap your hands and stand up from your chair, loosely tying your silk robe as you make your way out of the room.

You’re feeling a bit giddy, seeing as it’s been a while since you got to shoot a clip with a new actor. You’ve just finished up your bondage series with one of your favorite co-actors; Jung Hoseok. Your body had been sore for weeks but hard work paid off and the results were amazing. Not to mention Hoseok was a real gentleman and a great friend to hang out with after he almost literally fucked your brains out. You can’t help but smile at the memory.

Getting on set as well, you greet some of the cameramen and women and hug the director. As you’ve worked on many projects together in the past, you’re quite friendly with each other. When you turn around, you lay eyes on your co-star for the first time. He stands casually, a friendly smile on his lips as he greets you first, introducing himself as Kim Taehyung.

Kim Taehyung. He’s drop-dead gorgeous.

Your mouth falls slightly agape and it takes you a second or two to remember you’re supposed to formally introduce yourself as well. It’s not like you aren’t used to seeing hot bodies and pretty faces in this industry, but he seems to just radiate ethereal beauty. And so effortlessly, too. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.

“H-hi, I’m ____,” You take his outstretched hand and shake it gently. “Are you ready for today?”

“Of course,” He smiles, pretty and moisturized lips stretching into a box shape, “I look forward to working with you.”

You know this is his first time doing anything in this genre, since Yoongi told you. It’s almost impossible to believe he was having a hard time earlier because of nerves when you see him now, oozing confidence and carrying himself with a sense of established professionalism.

Professional unlike you, this encounter stupidly having your heart race. What are you, an inexperienced newbie? A little schoolgirl seeing a boy for the first time? You need to get it together. You’ve shot hundreds of clips like this, you could do this with your eyes closed, for God’s sake.

“Me too, let’s do our best!” You flash him a smile in return as you both move to the first set; a living room with a couch and a big TV, a playstation on the floor and controllers laying next to it.

“Alright, quick recap: Taehyung, you’ve gone over to your best friend’s house only to find he’s not home so you’re hanging out with his sister instead. ____, you’ll play video games for a few seconds before you ‘lose’, okay, and you can really channel your inner sore loser for this one. Be a bit of a brat. You hate losing and you need Taehyung to let you win. You know the rest.” The director’s voice is the only sound in the quiet room.

You both nod, sitting down on the couch and each grabbing a controller. You’re dressed in a simple white T-shirt and blue pyjama shorts. Taehyung’s shirtless, just wearing some loose, black basketball shorts.

“Aaand...ACTION!” The director’s assistant hits the slate and the cameras start rolling.

You start off by getting really into the game, concentrated looks on both of your faces. Taehyung has his bottom lips between his teeth as he smiles, getting close to winning it without really having to do much. Instead of looking at a black screen and pretending to play, you actually put the game on so the reactions come off more genuine.

“I’m gonna get you!” Taehyung chirps excitedly, long fingers effortlessly hitting combos and beating your ass at this game. You’re turning a bit frustrated without even having to act. He’s definitely played this before.

You struggle to keep your ground, losing more and more momentum as Taehyung rapidly gains the upper hand until he gives you the final blow, ‘GAME OVER’ appearing on your player’s side of the screen. Taehyung roars in victory, jumping up from the couch and starting to do a silly dance. This is where you come in.

“That’s not fair!” You put your best pout on, stubbornly crossing your arms over your chest and emphasizing the swell of your breasts in doing so. “You cheated, again! All you do is cheat when we play together!”

Taehyung pretends to think about it as he crouches down to your height, playfully petting your head, “I think you just can’t stand to lose three times in a row, hmm? A bit of a sore loser are we?”

“I’m not! It’s not losing if you cheat your way into winning!” You bite, standing up to gain some height back and swatting at his hand. “Why can’t you just be fair and let me win? I deserved to win this time!”

“You did, huh?” Taehyung slouches back in the couch, long legs casually spread and showcasing the obvious bulge in his shorts.

“Yes, I did! I deserved it!”

“I don’t think you did…” He cocks his head to the side, eyeing you from head to toe and positively undressing you with his eyes. His bottom lip is back between his teeth, this time in a mischievous smirk.

“Excuse me?!” You gasp, very indignantly like the bratty princess your character is.

“I don’t think you deserve to win...yet. I think you need to work for it a little more.” He licks his lips while he takes your hands in his, pulling you between his legs as he stays seated. “I’ll decide what you deserve.”

He pulls you down by your hands until you’re sitting on your knees, between his. “And what is that?” You ask, a cheeky tone lacing your words as you look up at him defiantly.

“My cock stuffed down your pretty little throat so you can’t talk back to me like a spoiled brat,” his words sound harsh while his fingers are tender as they brush stray hairs out of your face. “Although I’m not sure if a bratty bitch like you even deserves to choke on my dick.”

His voice strains upon speaking the insults and you could make out sweat forming at the sides of his face. It’s not uncommon, what with the bright spotlights giving off lots of heat, but something tells you it’s not because it’s hot on set. He looks extremely uncomfortable.

You give his knee a soft squeeze, silently encouraging him. You want to tell him it’s okay, though you can’t be vocal about it right now.

“Please, Taehyung. I want it… Can’t you give it to me because you made me lose the game?” You bat your pretty lashes, hands rubbing his thighs and subtly climbing their way up to his crotch. You really, really do want his cock, though. You’ve watched one of his movies last night to get acquainted with his style and body and you know perfectly well what he’s packing inside those shorts. You’re dying to feel the weight of it on your tongue. Your mouth waters just thinking about it, but you have to follow the script first.

He chuckles darkly, exactly as scripted, taking your chin between his thumb and index finger before lifting it slightly. “There you go again, demanding things. What makes you think a dirty girl like you can just ask me for things?”

“CUT!” The director calls, the cameras instantly stop rolling. “It’s ‘dirty slut’, Taehyung, not ‘dirty girl’. Let’s take it from the beginning of the sentence, okay? You’re doing great, by the way.”

Taehyung nods, a serious look on his face as he gets back into character. You don’t miss the way his chest has started heaving more quickly.

“3,2,1...ACTION!”

Taehyung clears his throat before repeating the sentence, “What makes you think a dirty...a dirty s-slut like you can- can just...Uh...”

“CUT!” Director Lee’s clear voice sounds from behind the cameras, “Taehyung, do you need a minute?”

Taehyung shakes his head, but doesn’t speak. He looks positively horrified, ears red in embarrassment and hands shaking. He tries to keep a cool façade but you can tell he’s really bothered by this.

“Actually, can we take five?” You call out to the director, “I forgot to drink water and my throat is getting dry…”

The director gestures vaguely with the script papers, non-verbally allowing the crew to take a break.

You turn back to Taehyung, “Hey, are you okay?”

He smiles for a moment, though it just makes his face look more sad and bothered. ‘I’m fine, thanks...Uh, excuse me for a minute?”

You nod and let him go off set, straight towards his manager.

This is going exactly as you’d predicted.

Heliotrope masterlist

#bts smut #bts scenarios #taehyung smut #bts fanfic #btssmutclub #kwritersworld #bts fanfiction #taehyung fanfic #v fanfic #bts v #kim taehyung fanfic #taehyung scenarios #kim taehyung #v

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artisticestheticreads · 5 years ago

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ROXANNE: Chapter Two

A/N: Y’all won. Y’all got another series out of me. Happy? Anyways, here in the second chapter of ROXANNE. In this chapter, Erik gets to see Roxanne in action and they get to know each other a little better.

TO CATCH UP, PRESS THIS.

For Character Face Claims, PRESS HERE.

WARNING: Street racing, weaponry, drinking, smoking and gambling with cursing. Also, I used Google Translate so dialogue may not be accurate and the English translation is in bolded.

SONG RECOMMENDATION: The Box by Roddy Ricch

WORD COUNT: 4660

“RayRay, where my Nikes at, cuh”, Roxxx hollered down her hall of the one story home as Nipsey Hussle’s Question #1 played loudly. She wore her natural red hair in a high puff with curls tucked behind her ear. RayRay was in his room smoking a blunt and playing Call of Duty on PS4. The air was filled with the smoke making it gush under the door. Roxxx knocked on her little god brother’s door loudly. “RayRay, you seen my Nikes around here?”

“Which ones?”

“Negro, the one with the baby blue drip on the check sign. You already know what day it is, bro.”

“Nah, I ain’t see em. Sorry, sis”, he said in a nonchalant tone. Roxxx smacked her lips as she folded her arms. “Muthfucka, yo hood rat ass bitch better not have them or I’m rippin’ her fucking spine out that loose ass pussy of hers. And I know it’s loose because whenever y’all fuck, all I can hear is air and shit.” RayRay rolled his eyes still looking at the game and said “check the backdoor.” Roxxx placed her hands on her hips and said “why would they be there?” All of a sudden, a 6’2 sixteen year old with a goatee opened the door with a white shirt and basketball shorts on stood there. His hair was short and tapered around with bleached tips. “Because you asked me to wash them for you along with ya other sneakers, remember”, he said before pointing to the back door. There were her sneakers she had been looking for all day and more. Roxxx looked up at her brother as he smiled and said “don’t make me smack you.” She pulled him by his shirt to kiss his forehead and push it back. “Thanks, cuh. I’m about to head out to handle some business but I want you to look out for my package. I got some more sneakers and paint coming in. You know what to do when it hits the porch.”

Roxxx gave RayRay dap and went back to her room to finish getting ready. She fluffed out hair before putting half up with curls by in front of her brows. She filled in her brows with her Fenty brow pencil and glossed her lips from the same line of cosmetics. She placed on her baby blue halter top with matching biker shorts and fanny pack, pushing it to the back. She stood in the full length mirror admiring the fit and her curves. She grabbed her money, gloss, and license in her fanny pack before putting her Swiss army knife in her tube sock. Roxxx stepped into her sneakers and her small leather bag before knocking on Ray’s door and leaving.

Roxxx hopped in her Angel and fixed her hoop earrings. She drove through the Baldwin Hill streets and made her way to the local hang out for her street team, the Jungles. Every Sunday was the time to meet and talk about where to meet for and after the races. Also it was how she got her pay without any one trying to take her out in the process. She pulled up into the parking lot and noticed all the flashy cars, smiling to herself. She was the only woman in the group which meant she had to prove her title of the triple threat; Sexy, Smart and Speed racer. She was also one of the youngest at twenty six years old which meant people would try to get in her but she was too smart for that.

One man with onyx skin looked her way. He had gold caps on his teeth, with all black on and fade haircut. “There she is. What it do, little sis”, he said with his arms out to the side and smile on his face. She hugged and they did their own handshake/salute. “What up, Chi? What’s the move for today?” They walked back to the group and she gave the others dap. “Nothing, really. But it’s time for y’all pay day. First up, Roxxx. You did well, girl. Proud of you as always. Minus my cut, you got a cool 450 thou.” He handed her stack of money and she placed the rolls in her bag. Chiron looked over at Deeno and said “aight, bruh. You and I already talked so you know how I feel about you placing 3rd, so you only get $45,000.” He handed the brown skin man the money, watching him stuff it in his duffle bag. After he gave everyone their cut, Roxxx began to speak. “Aight, y’all. Go ahead and handle y’all business and make ya way to my place.” Chiron added “and bring whatever y’all need. We gonna be there for a while.”

“Yeah, I gotta make sure y’all muthafuckas don’t embarrass me”, she said laughing.

It was a basic Thursday afternoon when Erik was at the gym. He was working on his chest and triceps while wearing only black sweats and an old pair of off white Chuck Taylors. His scattered keloids always drew attention but he didn’t care; he was simply just say “keep staring and you’ll become one.” He stared at his reflection watching all the veins push up under his chestnut skin, muscles flexing.

He began to do a few sets of sit ups to further chisel his abs as he gained the attention of a few women but he made them no mind. As he stood, to drink his water he couldn’t help but think of Roxanne. That woman was like no other. She lived life to the fullest, independent with an intriguing taste in cars. He wiped the sweat from his lip, just thinking about her made him get hotter every second; he had to focus so he can finish his last set.

He stepped away from the machine with Bluetooth headphones in about to change the song but his fingertips had another idea. His thumb hovered over the car text from Roxxx. They had met last Saturday night but something was stopping him from texting her. He looked to the text again and leaned against the machine.

Across town, Roxxx was there on the porch of her one story home with surrounded by the other racers. They all sat around her as she had Deeno in between her thighs, braiding his hair in neat cornrows. She had a blunt hanging from her lips before passing it around.

“Alright, y’all. As we all know, tomorrow night is like any other. So, we got a bunch muthafuckas who sneak dissin and I ain’t with that shit at all so it’s time to put their money where they mouth is”, said Chiron in a serious tone. He looked around as licked his gold caps and continued. “Y’all already know the line up. Deeno, Big Tim, Justin and of course Roxxx”. Roxxx nodded her as she continued braiding.

“So, Chi. Where the meet up at? Is it still at the bridge in Inglewood?” Chiron nodded his head while smoking his blunt and said “these old cliche ass muthafuckas. Think this is Grand Theft Auto or something.” The group laughed as Roxxx shook her head. Before she knew it, her phone vibrated against her thigh. She looked down to see the text and rolled her eyes with a smile. She finished up the last braid on Deeno’s head.

Back at the gym, Erik was busy doing his chest press when the sound of his ringer went off. He placed the 300 lb bar back and sat up, picking up his phone to respond. Deeno tilted his head towards his teammate and rolled his eyes as she giggled at the screen. Erik stared at the text with a smirk and found himself typing.

Roxanne placed her phone back down on the porch as she finished up Deeno’s last twist. She pushed at his shoulders for him to get up and Chi replaced his spot. As he sat, he stated how her phone was being blown up. She began cutting his hair, clippers and bent down in front where the member can see her thick bottom; Chiron noticed and gave them all a dirty look. “Don’t trip. It’s a dude that I met while racing.” The men all stopped and Justin asked “yo ass talkin’ to the competition”.

“Nigga, no. The fuck I look like trying to get wit them weak ass niggas. What y’all think I am? Some street car ass hoe”, she looked to them as she lined up the back of his head. They all said their nos except for Deeno...of course. “I mean I wouldn’t be surprised. Probably why you always winning.” Justin looked to Chiron and Roxxx shaking his head. Roxanne cracked her hand as she turned the clippers off to hand them to Chiron. “What did you just say”, she asked slowly walking to him and she stood in front of him.

“Man, don’t be like that Roxxx. I’m playin’ with yo cry baby ass.”

“Nah, it sounds like you got a problem because ya ass don’t know the difference between the gas pedal and brake.”

Justin snickered but seized when he noticed Deeno looking at him. Deeno looked at her up and down and said “you lucky you a female because if you wasn’t-.” All of a sudden, Roxxx pulled out the glock she had hidden from the back of her waist band, holding it under chin while pulling his head back; they were eye to eye. “What ya gonna do, D, hmm? Beat me up like a nigga? We all know ya punk ass can’t fight for shit, cuh. You see the difference between you and I are, is that you all bark and no bite while I can talk the talk, walk the walk, and still kick a nigga’s ass or two. I can back up my shit talking and you can’t. How come I’m the only bitch in the group but got bigger balls than you?”

Chiron nodded his head while drinking his Henny, watching and smiling. Roxxx made her way back to Chi with the gun still in her hand but stopped when he heard “yo ass wouldn’t shoot me no way.” Roxxx held the gun pointed to his, pulled the trigger making him flinch but he then realized, when he heard the click, the safety was on. Tim shook his head, chuckling and said “ol’ scary ass. You know Roxxx wouldn’t hurt her fam. She too sweet on us. She rather shoot niggas who fuck with us.” Roxxx gave her big brother, Tim, dap and went back to cutting Chi’s hair when she decided to check her messages.

______________________________________________________________

SATURDAY NIGHT

Erik pulled up in his camouflage joggers, jean jacket, white tee and white All Stars when he noticed all the edgy yet expensive automobiles parked around; they even made his Jaguar look like a busted 2002 Nissan Altima. He also noticed the sea of people that stood around smoking, drinking and placing bets with huge wads of money. He looked around to see if he can spot Roxxx but she was nowhere in sight; he stood with the crowd as they all heard the siren on a megaphone go off.

There stood an albino woman who had a big, black fro, dark brows with slits in both and freckles. She wore a yellow jumpsuit with black combat boots and a matching leather jacket. “Good evening, everyone! And welcome to the best muthafucka night ever made. IT’S-“

“BET NIGHT”, the crowd, beside Erik, screamed before barking like dogs then seizing when she held her hand up. “Now, before we get started just know the rules. There is no rules except for no crashing into each other.”

Everyone cheered and she began to announce the racers. A few racers later, Mickey said “aight, this young lady come from the Jungle. Coming straight out of Inglewood, give it up for Roxxx a.k.a Lion Babe.” Roxxx drove her Lambo slowly as the guys followed behind on foot. She stepped out of her car standing and looking at the huge crowd; it looked as if she had on golden cat eye contacts. Her hair was blown out with braids on one side of her head going into the puff. She wore a white halter top, blue and black plaid shirt around her waist and black biker shorts. She also had on her white Air Force ones with the check sign dripping blue.

Erik clapped for her slowly as she flashed her golden fangs to the crowd once she used her pinkies to hold her bottom lip down. They chanted her name as the competitors all huddled up for the course plan. Chi looked over at Erik who watched and rose his brow once he noticed she was being watched. Chi leaned into Roxxx’s ear and said “we being watched, Roxxx.” She looked up at him to see his head tilted towards Erik.

Roxxx nodded at Erik and leaned onto Chi’s solid chest and whispered. “Don’t trip. He cool. That’s the same dude from night’s ago that I raced. Seems chill.” Chi nodded once as the huddled separated. Roxxx made her way over with hands in her pockets, standing in front of Erik. “I see ya found the spot.” She looked him up and down with a grin saying “ya look good.”

“You do too”, Erik grinned back until he saw the group of men approaching them. All dark skin, tall and intimidating but to Erik; Roxanne liked that. She cleared her throat and said “Erik, these are my bros. Chiron, Tim, Deeno, and Justin. We all known each other for a while. They knew D’Angelo before he got murdered.” They all made a cross while closing their eyes and looked back at him. Erik nodded to them and said “nice to meet y’all, man. D and I went to school together. He was cool people.” They all nodded until Chi said “alright, Roxxx. The cameras are all set up and we got ya on mic so we can see ya feeling.”

Tim passed around the Henny bottle and Roxanne took an extremely long sip of it before passing it to Deeno; Erik was impressed. Roxanne did her salute to the group and made her way to the car, getting in and buckling up. The drivers began to take their places as Mickey took hers, holding the long yellow flag in the air. Everyone revved up their engines as they waited. Roxanne looked over at her group who nodded at her then she looked over to the cross dangling from the review mirror and finally at the pictures on her dash board.

One had a smaller girl, about four in a fluffy dress and a pair of afro puffs her hair color. But that wasn’t the only person in the picture; there were two others. An older man held her left hand, with dark skin and a wide smile. His hair was in ginger toned dreads and the same cross was on his chain. The other child’s hand was held in the hand of a curvaceous woman. She was a plus size beauty with a huge fro that covered her forehead and she also wore a white smile; Roxanne smiled remembering them and kissed her fingers to place over their faces. She looked to the the other side and saw the huge faces she and a younger man wore. They were at the community pool after playing in the water all day; they were at least eighteen and a half in that picture. “This is for you, D’Angelo. Let’s get first place in this one, baby boy.” Her face harden as she watched the flag move in slow motion while she said her prayer.

“Your love and faithfulness,

along with Your goodness and mercy,

surround me daily,

so I will not fear whatever might come against me.

My trust is in You, God,

and I give thanks to You for Your love and protection. In Jesus' name,

Amen. Grant, O Lord,

thy protection and in protection, strength.”

The flag flowed and the race was off. Mickey watched as they were off and ran to the guys, crouching beside Chiron. “She looking good tonight”, she said and Chi agreed Erik watched Roxanne’s camera to see how she was doing, she was passing all of them up. “Roxxx, how you doing”, Tim asked and she responded. “Good so far. This muthafucka from the latin gang is on my ass though, bruh. Look like he tryna crash into me”, she sound a tad frustrated but couldn’t let it show. Justin shook his head and said “yeah, one of them niggas tried to get me during the bike race. They grimy as hell, man, but you got this shit, Roxxx.”

The camera on her face showed her smile with the fangs and it made Erik smirk a tad. Roxanne began maneuvering in moves that the other guys couldn’t catch on to. All she could hear was her God Mother’s voice saying, “keep it clean, baby girl, but make them fall.” She did just that as she turned a sharp turn on the course. Mickey hollered and said “so far, The Latin kings are last with Money Talks at fourth, Elm Street in Third and The Jungle in second and Crenshaw in first.” The crowd roared in cheer with a mixture of curses from people they were slowly losing their money.

Roxanne kept her hands still when she heard the announcement as she kept her eyes on the winner so far. He was a few cars away but that wouldn’t stop Roxxx from getting to him. “Mickey, you gonna be saying The Jungle in first in a sec, love.” She began moving in between cars at ease and, right when the light turned red, she drove through traffic, losing the others. She was about to pat herself on the back when she heard the police driving behind the winning car. “Shit, you gotta get outta there before 12 call they niggas in”, Chi said. She had to make a move and make it fast.

That’s when Erik saw an alley coming into view. “Roxanne, take the alley. They won’t find ya in there and it’s on course. Take that and you would remain in the lead”, he said as he pointed at the screen. She took his advice and began driving back on to the course, in a different route. Chi looked to Erik and nodded before he went back to the screen. “Erik, how did you know that would work,” she asked and he said “trust me, I have had my share of hiding from the pigs”; that made her laugh. Before she knew she was back on course and ahead of the other drivers; they all soon pulled back in to the meet up at the Bridge and they crowd went off. Mickey grabbed her megaphone and said “THE WINNER IS ROXXX”; the crowd cheered but the Latin Kings were upset. “Man, fuck this! She cheated!” Mickey rolled her eyes and said “ok, how did she cheat?”

“The nigga with the dreads told her where to go.”

The Jungle group looked to the other and said “man, fuck outta here. Every muthafucka in dis bitch help one another for one and two, you better be careful with that word”, Tim said wrapping his arm around Roxanne’s shoulders. One of the girlfriends from the rival team said “no, eso no es justo. Esa perra hizo trampa y todos lo sabemos. Probablemente esté chupando todas estas pollas negras y le dejaron ganar el culo. (No, that ain't fair. That bitch cheated and we all know it. She probably sucking all these niggas’ dicks and they let her ass win.)” Chiron looked to Roxanne who cracked her neck slowly walking to the group as the others watched. Roxanne stood in front of the girl with her knife in hand, slowly waving it as she said “en primer lugar, mi nombre es Roxxx. No perra En segundo lugar, no hice trampa porque ese callejón estaba en el camino y tercero, si escucho a alguno de ustedes decir nigga nuevamente, cortaré una herida tan profunda en su garganta, cualquier hombre que ponga su polla en su boca tendrá La mejor experiencia de garganta profunda que hayan tenido en su vida (First off, my name is Roxxx. Not bitch. Second, I did not cheat because that alley was on the course and third, if I hear any of y'all say nigga again, I will cut a gash so deep in your throat, any man who puts his dick in ya mouth will have the ultimate deep throat fuck experience they ever had in their life)”. Roxanne used her blade to cut a huge chunk of the girl’s hair with just the blade itself and that made the girl cry.

The crowd chuckled as the losing team left and everyone congratulated all the competitors; that was the ending. Roxanne looked to Erik as Chi talked to the other men. “What you doing now”, he asked and she shrugged. “We usually go out to our hang out spot and eat. You can come if you want. That’s if ya don’t have a dick appointment waiting for you.” Erik chuckled with his hands in pockets and said “nah, beautiful. I’m free tonight.” She rolled her eyes, smirking before they all met up at the diner.

At the diner the guys all sat at one booth while Roxanne and Erik shared another. She sat across from him with her contacts out, back to their original oak wood color. Her eyes were on the menu but Erik’s were on her. Noticing how her plump, glossed lips looked in the dim light. He couldn’t help but to stare. Even if he tried to keep them away, they always fell back to her. “Do you always like staring”, Roxanne said still looking at her menu. Erik’s eyes went for his and back to her face to see that she was looking at him. “Nah, you had something on your face.” She laughed once saying “I had something on my face?”

“Yeah, it’s gone now.” She rolled her eyes with a smirk as she folded her hands on the table and said “must have been real interesting because you were surely staring for a while, Erik.” Erik placed his menu down, still looking at her and said “it still is interesting.” Roxxx licked the inside of her cheek to hide the blush she gave. “Such a charmer, I see. I bet ya make females panties drop, huh?” She closed her menu and placed it to the side. Erik rested his arms on the booth and leaned back. “Not saying. Just know that no one claiming and neither am I.” She placed her leg on the booth and leaned her back onto the wall. Erik bit his lip as she looked at her and asked “why you single, hm? No niggas wanna be with someone as beautiful as you?”

“Because I don’t need a nigga”, she side eyed him and went back to her phone. Erik chuckled nervously, saying “I didn’t make you mad, did I?”; she shook her head. “Nah, I get that question a lot. But I just ain’t looking at the moment.” He nodded as the waitress came to their table with fries as their appetizers and took their order. “Can I get pastrami burger, well done with grilled onion and a lemonade with onion ring on the side, please”, Roxanne ordered after handing her the menu. “Sure, doll. And what can I get for you handsome”, the waitress asked Erik; Roxanne smiled while biting her bottom lip and shaking her head slowly.

Erik told her “I wanna get the breakfast special, steak medium rare, with wheat toast, scrambled cheese eggs, grits on the side and hash browns as well” before handing her the menu to her with a wink and smiled to the side. Once they lady walked away with heat rushing to her unknown place, Roxanne held a hand to her ear. “Do you hear that”, she motioned her hand going down and said “panties dropping.” Erik threw his napkin at her as she laughed.

Their food came out minutes later and he asked “so, where ya from? When you talk, I hear a slight accent in there.” She looked up at as she cut her burger in half and looked back at her plate. “You are very curious person.” He ate a piece of his steak and said “nah, just very observant.” She bit into her burger when she felt the other guys watching them as they ate. She sipped her drink and said “Jamaican. But I was born out here.” Erik can tell something was wrong when she looked around and saw that her leg was shaking a little. “Roxanne, you good”, Chi asked once he stood by the booth; she nodded and he said “Aight, I’m finna go finish this blunt with Tim outside.” Deeno and Justin watched from across the way and Roxanne felt all eyes on her as she ate. She cleared her throat before asking “so, Erik... why ya nickname Killmonger?”

Erik looked up at her and saw that she was looking at him as she ate. “Well, that was my code name in the army. One of the boys at the platoon gave me the name. It was a joke a first because I would be getting all types of goo goo eyes from the ladies anywhere we went but then it became more.”

“What you mean?”

Erik looked at the guys then at her and finally said “I killed a lot of people. Innocent or not, they were gone. You see every mark on me”, he asked and she leaned back, nodding. “Well, they are basically a mark for each person I murdered.” Her eyes looked over his arms and part of his chest that showed. Erik watched as her fingers got closer to his hand. “Can I touch them”, she asked with curious eyes; he nodded and her fingers danced up his arm slowly. She utter out loud “they’re really...”

“Weird?” She looked up at him and shook her head. He saw the warmth in her eyes, like a star trying to get through. She looked down at her hand, caressing the skin and said “soft and amazing.” He could only smile at her as she leaned back and looked to the guys. “Eat before y’all food get cold.” Deeno kissed his teeth and said “you can’t tell us what do.” As she ate, she pulled out her blade and placed it on the table close to the edge; the other men began eating as Erik chuckled.

After the night meal, her group was all gone, leaving the pair alone. “So, what ya doing tomorrow? You trynna hang again”, he asked and she folded her arms. “I see someone is feeling me”, Roxanne said. He rolled his eyes and said “ha ha, funny.” She giggled and said “well, to answer ya question. I’ll be busy making moves and what not. But we can hang sometime next week. If ya up for it.”

“I got you. I’ll text you.” She nodded, held her hand out for him to shake and he accepted it. They shook hands but then all of a sudden, she kissed his cheek. “Good night, Erik. Stay black”, she said making him laugh. “I wouldn’t want to be anything else but black.” She let the door down and watched as he got into his car. Roxanne began to drive off when she got a call, and smiled. She placed her airpod in and said “I see someone missed me already. Of course, I miss you. You know that. Yeah, I’ll be home in a few. Aight, baby. Love you too. Bye.”

*𝕋𝔸𝔾𝔾𝔼𝔻 𝕃𝕆𝕍𝔼𝕊*

@muse-of-mbaku @im5ftbutmythroat66 @chaneajoyyy @melanin-samii @theunsweetenedtruth @doux-ciel @unicornluvin8765 @vikkidc @wakandantings @thadelightfulone @mzamethystp @simbiann @tropicalsun10 @babydoll756 @notoriouslynay @vminax @quinsly @pinkdemolition @quietstorm-73 @chaoticcashfancroissant @bugngiz @chocolatedippedinhoney @yafavcocoa @lostgalaxies @mbakuwife @youreadthatright @babygotl01292003 @acceptyourselfloveyourself @madamslayyy @yoyolovesbucky @theogbadbitch @wakanda-inspired @bitchacho25 @toniilaney @wakandascrystal @girlsneedlovingfanfics @raysunshine78 @melodyofmbaku @hearteyes-for-killmonger @silenceisplatinum @thickemadame @shookmcgookqueen @heykillmongerluhme @fonville-designs @cutewylie @allhailqueennel @10bsatatime @nickidub718 @lildashofmelanin @allhailqueennel @amirra88 @hakunalive4eva @thickemadame @ghostfacekill-monger @cherrystainedlipsbaby @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @fd-writes

#ROXANNE SERIES #Erik Stevens #Erik Killmonger #erik stevens x reader #Erik Kilmonger #Erik killmonger x Reader #Erik Stevens x oc #bp fanfic #bp fandom #bp masterlist #artisticestheticreads

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dessiekarma · 6 years ago

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My Harem is Entirely Bad Boy Types (Kirisaki Daiichi x Reader) Pt. 1

Chapter 1: I’m Finally an Anime Protagonist!

“Please (Y/N)! I promise I’ll pick him up from your house after practice and keep him for tonight…for the whole weekend!” Hara said, practically on his knees.

(Y/N) turned her head away stubbornly and held the bundle in her arms tighter. She made no move to get up from the bleachers.

“You said that last time and never showed! He’s our responsibility and you need to do your share of the work!”

“I will I promise, just not right now!”

“Hanamiya is going to be here any minute. If you don’t get her out of here he’s going to be upset. You know he’s been a bitch ever since we lost to Seirin.” Furuhashi said glancing at the time on his phone.

“He’s always been a bitch! And he’s gonna take it out on me.” Turning to (Y/N) the young man pressed his hands together pleadingly. “Look you can bring him to my house and I’ll take him or better yet wait for me outside and just pass him off to me when I’m out of practice. From there I’ll deal with him.”

“DEAL with? You mean take care of! And why, so you can sneak out a different way and leave me waiting with a baby outside the gym? I don’t think so!”

“If I let you stay my captain is gonna be so pissed off and I am not running suicides because of you!”

“Your captain can kiss my ass!”

“Ahh you can’t say things like that! Look you’re a new transfer so I get it, you don’t know Hanamiya but I’m warning you you’re gonna leave here in tears.”

“And you are too if you don’t help me with this kid!”

“Oh my god stop yelling.” Seto drawled sitting up from one of the back bleachers. “Why don’t you just take the damn thing and go home for today? Then you don’t have to worry about the captain meeting your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend! Besides he’ll be pissed if I bail on practice!”

“But is that worse than the possibility of your girlfriend telling him to fuck off?”

“I think Seto has a point.” Yamazaki said bouncing the ball against the gym wall. “Tell Caps you got sick or something.”

“I guess. Will that satisfy you? I have to miss my practice to help.” Hara asked frowning at the girl who only huffed in annoyance.

“Oh you have such a sad story to tell. I’m sacrificing too here! Do you know how much he cries!? I’ve missed countless episodes of new anime!”

“You’re comparing sports to anime? I have to practice to get better, you can just watch the same episode the next day!”

“Ummm and risk spoilers?”

“You’re such a spoiled brat! I don-”

“Why haven’t you guys started?” A deep voice rang through the gym. Everyone turned their heads to see their captain stroll in tossing his bag onto the floor.

It wasn’t long until olive eyes spotted the unfamiliar face in the room. (E/C) eyes met his unblinking and a small stare off began. Hanamiya rose a brow at this poor lost soul that wondered into his gym.

“Who the hell are you?”

“You look…” (Y/N) began, still staring.

“Please don’t.” Hara whispered knowing this wasn’t going to end well.

The black-haired male had to stifle a blush from how intently the girl was staring at him. Thankfully a scowl covered that just fine.

“Here, hold my baby.” The young woman said shoving the blanket at Yamazaki. Reaching out her phone she quickly typed something in before holding up an image of some anime character,

“You look just like Kiyoshi Fujino from Prison School! Only meaner! Seriously you have the lock of hair between your eyes and everything!” The girl finally blurted out with an overly enthusiastic smile.

Hanamiya didn’t know what to say. Something was clearly wrong with her, to talk to him so comfortably. With a click of the tongue he marched up to her, placed his hand on her head and turned her back towards his team.

“Okay who’s is this and what the hell is it doing in my gym?” Hanamiya said with his finger poking directly into her cheek.

Everyone stayed quiet, though Yamazaki attempted to pass what he was holding to Seto who shoved it right back. A small game of hot potato quickly ensued before piercing cries filled the gym. If the fires of hell weren’t in Hanamiya’s eyes before they were sure burning now.

“Whose baby is that? What the hell is going on in here? I was only five minutes late!”

Somehow the screaming baby ended up in Hara’s hands as he tried to rock it back and forth to stop the crying.

“If I don’t get an answer everyone is doing suicides until midnight.”

And just like that everyone, including the unknown girl, broke out in explanation at once. Some were making hand gestures while others added sound effects and mimics to drive their points home. However not a single point was reaching Hanamiya’s ears in the jumble of voices.

“Oh my god its like having a gym full of children. One at a TIME!” This silenced everyone.

Furuhashi being the most level headed and with the calmest voice decided it be best if he explained lest the whole team suffer. He cleared his throat before beginning.

“The baby is Hara’s and that girl’s. He brought her here and the rest of us have nothing to do with it.”

“What!” Hara shouted only causing the baby to scream again at the loud sound.

The captain tried taking that information in and it was surprisingly more difficult than he imagined. Looking down at the girl whose head was still in the palm of his hand he looked back at Hara and then back again. Sizing her up he directed his next words to her.

“You let HIM do you? Pfft have some self-respect.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Hara exclaimed not expecting this interaction to go down this way.

“Ahh no! It’s not like that.” (Y/N) began explaining, however Hanamiya already released her and was walking over to Hara.

Hooking a finger into the fold of the blanket he pulled it down so he could see the baby’s face. The moment it was revealed he didn’t know whether to laugh or just be more confused.

“What the hell? This is a doll!” Hanamiya said with an amused tone. “I knew you couldn’t pull her.” With that he flicked the doll on the cheek only for it to begin screeching again.

“Hey! This thing records mishandling actions!”

“Don’t call him a thing!”

“Okay enough with the misleading conversations, Hara what the hell is happening?”

“Well (Y/N) is in my health committee and we got paired up. The supervising teacher saw it in some American movie and now we’re stuck with this dumb assignment for the semester. It tracks everything and needs to be fed, burped, changed its honestly like a real baby and its ruining my life!”

“Ruining your life? Why don’t you tell your captain why I’m here?!”

“She says I n-”

“I’ll tell you why I’m here! We’ve had this baby for an entire week and he hasn’t been helping me at all!”

“That’s not true!”

“Yes, it is! The only time you lift a finger is when the teacher is around! But other than that you leave him with me the rest of the day and night. You never ask if we can watch him together or if I need a break and offer to take him. No, you just assume that I’ll pull your weight with this project.”

“Well you are a girl. Isn’t this more natural for you? I mean that’s like your Main purpose in life.”

“You sexist piece of shit!”

“Listen! As much as I don’t care, why the hell do you think sticking around here is going to help him take responsibility.” Hanamiya asked looking a little creeped out at the life like doll.

“Because I know you can’t change some people through kindness…but you can make their lives the eighth circle of hell until you get what you want.” (Y/N) replied with a pout directed at the clearly unhappy Hara.

Hanamiya was dead silent before nodding.

“Alright she can stay.”

“Excuse me!?”

“Come on Hara how can you possibly abandon the mother of your child?” Hanamiya said snatching the baby away from him and cradling it. “Have some sympathy for a single mother!”

“We literally break people’s legs!”

“But not young girls’ hearts!” Hanamiya mocked, sticking his tongue out at the male.

“Whatever happened to ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’?”

“Well I would never leave a girl alone to care for my baby. My mama didn’t raise a deadbeat. A fucking psycho asshole, maybe, but no deadbeat.”

“This is bullshit! You just want to watch me suffer!”

“Yes! And as much as I want to torture Hara I don’t want this to backfire on myself. So keep that thing from crying, don’t be loud yourself, I don’t babysit, and lastly…”

Hanamiya looked back at the bleachers to see (Y/N)’s bag sitting there. Anime keychains dangled from every zipper along with patches of favourite characters sewn into the fabric. “You’re an otaku?”

(Y/N) nodded.

“Don’t ship any of us or your ass is out of here. Understood?”

“Perfectly!”

Hanamiya handed the baby to her before holding his hands out for Yamazaki to throw him the ball. Catching it quickly he motioned for his team to get on the court. Dribbling the ball slowly he turned to (Y/N) once more.

“By the way did you give it a name?” The male said nodding to the baby.

“Makoto. But I just call him Mako.”

“Swimming anime, right?”

“Why do you know that?” Yamazaki called out but was ignored by his captain.

“I didn’t name him, Hara did.”

“Oh…really?”

“Yeah I said I wanted to give him a cute name and he chose that.”

“uhhh…”

“Is something wrong?”

“That’s…uh… my name.”

The team heard the exchange and were stifling laughter while Hara looked like he literally wanted to dissolve into the floor.

“…We aren’t off to a great start with that no shipping rule.”

~~~~~~~

“How come he never cries with you?!” Hara whisper yelled at his napping teammate. Seto patted the mechanical child laying on his chest and shrugged.

“Its always asleep when I have it. If you want it to cry I can try to make a basket with him?”

“Yes!” Yamazaki said perking up from his spot on the bleachers.

“NO! That witch will string me up to the basketball net if you tried.” Hara mumbled.

“Witch? You should be lucky you got someone tolerant enough to put up with your shit!” (Y/N) says sneaking up behind Hara and poking her fingers into his sides. “I should have gotten a hot and sweet guy to be partnered with, but I’m stuck with you.”

The boy jumped but regained himself fast enough to deliver a smack to the girl’s forehead.

“I’ll have you know girls think I’m extremely handsome.”

“Your mama doesn’t count.” Hanamiya said while tying his shoes.

“No but yours does.” Hara quipped not missing the finger Hanamiya threw him. Turning back to (Y/N) he saw her giggling before a thought seemed to pop in her head.

“You know, I joke but I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen your entire face. What do you guys think?”

The other five players looked at each other in bewilderment.

“I can’t say I’ve seen more than this. Any of you?” Furuhashi asked to which he was met with silence.

“Hey pin your bangs back.” Hanamiya said sitting up straighter and leaning closer.

“No way! Let’s just drop it.”

“It’s just your eyes, what are you hiding?” Furuhashi asked curiously.

“Do you have a lazy eye?” Seto asked seriously.

“No!”

“Heterochromia?” Furuhashi asked after thinking for a bit.

“Come on guys…”

“Leave him alone, maybe he has super thick eyebrows or something.” Yamazaki said cooly as if he didn’t care about the matter at all.

“What’s wrong with thick eyebrows?” Hanamiya glared back slowly.

“Nothing!”

“NO its nothing like that.”

“So what’s the reason? Are you a cyclops?” Hanamiya asked taking the baby from Seto out of boredom and bouncing it in his lap.

“Leave me alooone!”

“Oof, do you have scars?” (Y/N) asked with an otaku twinkle in her eyes and a sultry dip in her voice.

“What the fuck? Are you into that? Anyway who cares?” Hara mumbled with his arms crossed.

“Please! We have a child together and I’ve never even seen your face.” (Y/N) said tugging on his arm.

“Fine, I’ll show you my eyes and you show me your tits. We do have a child together after all.” Hara said with a nasty smirk on his face that faltered when he saw the girl place a hand to her lips in contemplation.

“Is she seriously thinking about it!?” Yamazaki exclaimed on behalf of the whole team.

“I wanna see too.” Furuhashi remarked taking a step closer.

“His eyes or her chest?” Seto asked suddenly a little more awake.

“Yes.”

“Nah I’ll save the flashing for a bigger, better exchange.” (Y/N) said shrugging and taking a seat.

“So that possibility is still on the table?” Hanamiya asked half joking and half legitimately curious.

“Surprisingly you managed to bring a girl of interest into this gym, unlike the last one Yamazaki brought in.” Furuhashi remarked to Hara.

“Hey, I never asked her to come to my practices.” The accused male spoke out with a pout.

As if suddenly remembering something Hara perks up and turns to the girl.

“By the way I’ve been meaning to ask why do you keep coming to all of our practices? I thought the whole point was you wanting a break? You’ve been here every day this we-”

“Did you read that Attack on Titan chapter?” Hanamiya asked suddenly sitting one row above the pair.

“Of course!” (Y/N) said suddenly putting all her attention on him. It would seem that the two had managed to find a common interest. Hanamiya wasn’t a superfan like her but he appreciated the story.

“That was a pretty brutal way to go. I thi-”

“Ahh spoilers!” Yamazaki said clasping his hands over his ears.

“Read the manga!” Both Hanamiya and (Y/N) shouted out exasperatedly.

“Oh by the way I brought more sports drinks for you guys.” (Y/N) said digging through her bag producing small bottles along with some snacks. “Furu you said you preferred pears to protein bars right? Seto, I found these coffee flavored protein bars. Hanamiya you didn’t tell me what you like, so choose anything! A pack of gum for Hara and Zaki you’re usually hungry so I brought you a few snacks to choose from.”

“Ahh you’re the best! I knew Hanamiya made a good choice asking you to stick around.” Yamazaki said reaching for a drink only to stop and cringe at his rambling.

“You asked (Y/N) to stay?” Hara asked with surprise. “I didn’t think you’d ever actually go and recruit us a manager.”

“He didn’t ask me to be your manager. More like told me that for being a nuisance the least I could do was help out a bit. I just bring you guys food and run a few errands.”

“Yeah I mean if she’s already here cause of Mako why not make her more useful?” The captain said with a shrug.

“It would give me something to do while I’m here an-” (Y/N) stopped as her phone chirped in her pocket. She quickly pulled it out and held a finger up as if to say give her a moment. “Hey lov- Oh I’m just here at practice…umm sure.”

Placing a hand over the receiver she whispered to the team.

“I’ll be right back.”

The guys watched her walk out hearing her conversation fade away.

“Hey, what can you tell me about (Y/N)?” Yamazaki asked quickly as if it was on the tip of his tongue for a while.

“What do you mean?” Hara asked skeptically.

“I mean you don’t mind if I go for her? This whole baby momma thing is just an assignment, right?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Furuhashi spoke up.

“What? Why not?”

“If she’s going to be around for a while dating her may make things awkward.”

“How!?”

“Well one nobody wants to see you two making out in here.” Seto stated lazily.

“And if it doesn’t work out it will cause a bunch of tension. Don’t you think so Hanamiya?” Furuhashi said looking to his captain for approval.

Hanamiya lifted his hands in a questioning manner.

“I don’t really care who you do or date. If things get awkward you can both jus-”

“Umm hey Hara I’ll take Mako back home with me, something came up.” (Y/N) said having jogged back into the gym. Her face appeared a bit flushed as she held her arms out for the baby.

“You aren’t staying today?” Yamazaki asked placing a hand on her shoulder.

“No I really need to go.”

“Well is it an emergency? I don’t like people skipping out on practice.” Hanamiya said shooting her a challenging look. Surprisingly she simply shook her head.

“I’m sorry but missing one day won’t hurt, right?”

“Hey, if its an emergency I can call my driver to take you home.” Seto offered.

“No, I already called my own and he’s coming to get me. Thanks guys!” (Y/N) finally gathered all of her things along with Mako and headed for the exit.

“Practice starts at the same time tomorrow!” Hanamiya called out to her only her to continue walking as if she hadn’t heard him.

“What was up with that?” Yamazaki asked with concern laced in his voice.

“Time of the month maybe?” Hara asked with a shrug.

“Are you sure it wasn’t serious she left right after that phone call.” Yamazaki pressed on.

“It’s probably nothing let’s practice.” Hara said standing up and taking a ball out onto the court.

When nobody moved for a second Hara sighed in frustration.

“If it was anything serious she wouldn’t have come back in to get Mako. There was probably some anime update or a sale on merch a friend told her about. She’ll be back tomorrow I guarantee you.”

~~~~~

“It’s been a week and a half. ‘She’ll be back tomorrow.’” Yamazaki mocked Hara as he chased a cherry tomato out of his salad.

“You’re just mad because you couldn’t ask her out before she ran off.” Hara said rolling his eyes though no one could tell.

“Wait is that why she left!? Do you think she heard me talking about her and it scared her off?!”

“I don’t think that’s the case. She’s been ignoring me in class too if it makes you feel any better.” The violet haired teen said sipping from a soda can.

“That’s actually worse.” Hanamiya spoke absentmindedly drumming his fingers on the table.

“Who cares? If she doesn’t want to come around then what’s the big deal? She’s making it easier on me to pass this dumbass class project and she didn’t do much for the team. Or were you planning on asking her out too?” Hara directed the question at Hanamiya.

“What?! No way I called dibs!” The tomato went shooting across the room.

“’Dibs’. What are we 11 years old?” Furuhashi deadpanned.

“No, I wasn’t going to ask her out. But when I invite someone into my gym I expect them to be there until I tell them they can leave. You have no clue what’s up with her?”

“None, maybe she just doesn’t want to be around us. It wouldn’t be the first time and I give her props for lasting so long.”

“Instead of speculating we can just ask.” Seto offered lifting his head up from the table.

“I’ve tried she won’t talk to me in class unless its about Mako.”

“Ask her now. She always hangs out in one of the choir practice rooms during lunch.”

“How do you know?” Hanamiya lifted a brow at his teammate. Seto looked up at the ceiling for a bit as if mulling over an answer.

“I don’t know she mentioned it once, I think. Look we can ask and if you don’t like what she has to say at least you have an answer.”

“Fine lets go.”

“So what? Five of us are just going to gang up on one girl?” Furuhashi asked wearily. “If she gets scared this could blow up in our faces.”

“We’re just talking. What’s she going to do call the police?”

“I’m just saying coming on too strong is going to freak her out.”

“Well then I’ll talk to her and you guys can hang out in the hall until I clear you!” Yamazaki suggested.

“That’s actually not a stupid idea but we’re sending Hara.” Hanamiya said thinking it over quickly.

“Why?!” Both boys exclaimed.

“(Y/N)’s known Hara longer she’s probably most comfortable around him. Besides he’s the only one of us who would have a reason outside of basketball to talk to her.”

“No! I’m not begging her to come back!” Hara mumbled.

“You’re not begging just questioning.” Furuhashi said packing up his lunch box. “If we’re going to catch her we need to leave now.”

Hara groaned but reluctantly followed his teammates across the campus.

“So what does she do in the practice room?” Yamazaki asked Seto trying to acquire as much info on her as he could. The tan male pulled his backpack higher up on his back and shrugged uncomfortably.

“She just screws around on the piano and sings. She’s pretty good.”

“You’ve heard her sing!? How?! We’ve only known her for a few weeks!” The questioning male pouted slightly.

“Yeah she gets to basketball practice pretty early and she’s always singing anime openings. I think she figures I’m sleeping or something.”

“Well now I have to hear her too!”

“You might get your chance.” Hanamiya mumbled motioning his head to the slightly ajar practice room.

All five males crowded the door way and peered inside. (Y/N) was sitting in front of the piano with a large pair of earphones on. She appeared to be bopping her head to the music and fiddled around with the piano trying to get a tune just right

“Okay so do I just wait for her to come out or go in and say I need to talk t-”

Suddenly the girl found the right keys and caught the boys’ attention as she played a repetitive little tune.

“That sounds kind of familiar?” Hanamiya questioned racking his brain for where he’d heard the tune. Hara scoffed and crossed his arms.

“Knowing her otaku ass, it’s probably some anime ope-”

“His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.

There’s vomit on sweater already, mom’s spaghetti.”

The guys had no reaction to their newly acquired half teammate suddenly busting out into a full-blown rap song.

“You better lose yourself in the music, the moment.

You own it, you better never let it go.

You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow.

This opportunity comes once in a lifetime!”

“She’s good and at the same time I feel like this is really wrong.” Yamazaki said with his jaw still slack.

“Thank you. And it probably feels wrong because you’re spying on me.” The girl at the piano suddenly said as she completed her verse.

Taking off her earphones she turned to the door with a clear look of frustration. It was only then that Hanamiya felt truly stupid when he realized her earphones hadn’t been plugged into anything.

“I told the guys you were a pretty good singer, I didn’t realize you were a decent rapper too.” Seto tried to compliment the girl hoping to smooth things over.

He saw her cheeks flush a deep red but her angry face didn’t soften one bit. Looking away she attempted to move around the group of boys.

“Thanks. My next class starts in like ten minutes I need to go.”

“No you don’t.” Hanamiya said grabbing her arm and yanking her back. “We didn’t come all the way down here for you to not talk to us.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“You stopped coming to practice.”

“I decided it was too hard to take Mako back and forth so it’s easier if I just keep him.”

“See I told you!” Hara said throwing his hands up in the air. “She doesn’t want to be here so let’s ju-”

“Now why do I think that’s the most bullshit excuse I’ve ever heard? Oh right because not too long ago I find you in my gym being a fucking crybaby about pulling Hara’s weight, now suddenly you’re saying its easier to do the exact opposite?” The dark-haired male hovered over (Y/N) threateningly.

“So what if I’m lying or not? I don’t want to go.”

“Also bullshit because you told me that you loved coming to practice. And see the thing is Kirisaki Daiichi basketball has one big rule; once you’re in you’re not out until you graduate or get kicked out.”

“Look guys its nothing personal I just can’t be around you.”

“No come on! Don’t pay attention to the scare tactics just be honest.” Yamazaki said stepping forward. “Are you scared? Is it eating too much time?”

(Y/N)’s eyes finally softened before she let out a disheartening sigh.

“It’s my boyfriend.”

“You have a boyfriend?” Yamazaki asked shocked and slightly disappointed.

“He says he’s just not comfortable with me being around the team so much.”

“So what you just do whatever he says?” Seto asked bewildered, (Y/N) didn’t seem like the type

to let someone walk all over her.

“No but we’ve been together for a long time and he sort of gave me an ultimatum either I stop

hanging around you guys or he would break up with me. And I know how stupid and controlling

that sounds but he honestly just cares.”

“Well what class does he have right now we can go talk him into letting you do what the hell

you want.” Furuhashi said in a clipped voice.

“He goes to my old school, Tōō. You might know him, he’s on the basketball team.”

Hanamiya was sure he misheard. A basketball player from Tōō who didn’t want (Y/N) around

him. The whole ‘I’ll break up with you’ mind game made perfect sense now.

“I guess that’s it then we might as well leave.” Hanamiya said with a shrug and began walking

away.

“What? You dragged my ass clear across the school and we’re just leaving?” Hara said looking

100% done with the entire situation.

“You heard what she had to say. I don’t want someone’s doormat associated with the team.”

“I’m nobody’s doormat.”

“Your boyfriend told you who you could and couldn’t hang around with and you jumped at the

snap of his fingers. Don’t kid yourself.”

“This is one thing. He’s never asked for something like this before. He’s a level-headed calm

cool guy. Sure maybe this is some dark jealous side to him but I can respect him enough to hear

him out.”

“Well you heard him out and what did he say? That we’re dangerous? Have we hurt you in any

way?”

“…No.”

“Then use your own fuckin brain to think for yourself. He says we’re dangerous but you

know we aren’t. Doesn’t your experience mean more than his assumption?” Hanamiya smirked

at the girl knowing she would have nothing else to say.

“If you like spending time with us just tell him that! You’re allowed to have guy friends and now

that we know you have a boyfriend, we won’t make any moves on you.” The orange haired

teammate said with a friendly smile.

“I don’t know, Zaki.”

“Come on, he isn’t actually going to break up with you. If anything, he’ll be glad you stood up

for yourself.” Hanamiya said urging her on.

(Y/N) looked around at the guys questioningly before nodding. She had bailed on them without

notice and it hadn’t been sitting right in her stomach that her boyfriend asked her to not be

friends with the team. She’d heard horror stories and knew that their personalities were

difficult. But so was Aomine’s and her boyfriend seemed to tolerate him just fine.

“You’re all right. I’m going to call him right now and tell him that I’m staying part of the

basketball team or hanging out, whatever the hell I was doing before. Excuse me for a moment.”

The girl said as she walked into a nearby room with her phone already dialed.

Hanamiya let out a chuckle followed by a content hum before walking towards the exit.

“You aren’t going to wait for her?” Hara asked skeptically.

“No, why would I?” A familiar tone echoed from the captain’s mouth.

“You’re not actually letting her back on the team, are you?” Furuhashi asked though his tone sounded as if he already knew the answer.

“Seriously? All these mind games got me fucked up here. Do we want her back or not?” Hara asked smoothing his fringe down.

“Of course not. Maybe before she pulled this weak ass shit on me, I would have considered keeping her around but now? She’s dead to me.”

“Come on, dead to you? Seriously?” Seto asked with his hand up in a questioning manner. Leaning over to Hanamiya he whispered to him, “Didn’t you want to ask her to be our manager or something? We actually really need one of those.”

“Yeah and? We’ll find another, dumb girls like her are a dime a dozen at this school.”

“You’re not really going to do that to her, are you?” Yamazaki asked with wide eyes.

“Why not? She’s flaked on us once. Turn your back on me and I turn my back on you. She will end up leaving again when her stupid boyfriend asks, so why give her that chance?”

“So, now I have no boyfriend and no team.” A cracked voice came from behind the group of boys. The tears running down her face had clearly already been there prior but there was no doubt that they were building more so now. “You’re right though. Sorry for wasting you guys’ time.”

(Y/N) wiped her eyes, walked up to a locker to retrieve her bag before powerwalking out the music building.

“I kinda feel like an asshole.” Seto said watching as the girl disappeared before something in the practice room caught his attention.

“Yeah that’s probably not a new feeling.” Hara said not sure what else to do in this situation.

“Wow this was a MAJOR dick move.” Yamazaki cringed to himself.

“I didn’t think Imayoshi would actually break up with her.” Furuhashi said a little stunned as well.

Hanamiya had an unreadable expression on his face. Almost as if he’d expected everything yet was still thrown off. The team saw him close his eyes and run a hand through his hair.

“Shiiiit.”

“To make matters worse, she left Mako in the practice room. I should probably go give him ba-”

Before Seto could finish or Hara could take the baby, Hanamiya scooped him up and started sprinting outside.

“Do you think he’s going to apologize?” Seto asked uncertainly.

“I doubt it but I won’t risk missing it on the off chance he does.” Furuhashi said taking off just as quickly.

The rest of the team followed.

Outside Hanamiya saw the wind blowing through the many cherry blossom trees this bougie ass school had planted all over the ground. Pink petals drifted down slowly but through it he could see (Y/N) sitting on a bench not too far away.

As he drew closer he slowed his steps. (Y/N) seemed to notice him but had no reaction.

“You forgot Mako.” Hanamiya said handing him to her, which she willingly took.

“Thanks.”

The wind was the only sound between the pair for a few tense seconds.

“I didn’t think your boyfriend was going to break up with you. I didn’t think you’d let him, I assumed you were just gonna do whatever he asked.”

“The funny thing is that neither did I. We’d only been dating a little while, but I thought we were perfect for each other. I didn’t think something like this would be what ended it. I mean I never get jealous. You should see the girl on Tōō’s team. She’s smart, gorgeous, killer figure and friendly but I never said a single thing because I trust him but I guess he doesn’t trust me. I mean it’s not like I’m on a team with Kise Ryouta.”

“You’re saying none of us are as good looking as Kise?” Hanamiya asked with a straight face which caused (Y/N) to actually crack a smile.

“You know what I mean. I thought he was my forever. It just wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

“Yeah well it is this way so suck it up and move on. I wanted you as manager because I you seemed stronger than this.”

“But you said-”

“I was obviously joking. I thought you had a pretty thick skin when I first met you, don’t tell me you’re secretly a wuss.”

“I’m not. It’s just, I guess after what happened with-”

“Get up and get over it. I’m sure you’ll get over your shitty highschool boyfriend.”

(Y/N) was standing in front of Hanamiya finally looking at him with dry eyes.

“I won’t baby you and neither will anyone else. You need to be as strong as any of the guys. I won’t have people talking shit about anyone on my team.”

“On the team? Really?”

“Don’t get sentimental on me either. We need a manager. You’ve dealt with all the shitty paperwork for the school and logging practice hours with the least annoying side effects. Plus, we just unintentionally talked you into ending a long-term relationship, you can’t find that kind of gullible-”

“I’m not gullible!”

“Okay whatever. Point is you’re easy.” Seeing a heated look rise in her face Hanamiya backtracked just a bit. “Not what I meant. Look you’re an easy person to be around, we don’t find many people that are compatible with us on your level. But if you become inconvenient or start stressing me out there’s no reason to keep you around got it?”

“You’re an ass but yeah I do.”

“I know and good.”

(Y/N) smiled at her new captain and he stared down at her with his usual hard cold eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched softly before a gentle breeze blew several pink petals into his face.

“What fresh hell is this?” Hanamiya grumbled spitting away the petal stuck to his lip.

“Achoo! I really need to get inside. Achoo! I have the- Achoo!- worst allergies to pollen and Achoo! You know what let’s just go!” The young woman managed to get out between her sneezing fit.

Hanamiya was busy swiping the pink layers of Satan out of his face and picking them from his hair that he didn’t realize his team was standing not too far from them.

Once all of them were back inside the four teammates couldn’t help but stifle laughs at their captain and new manager.

Somehow the petals got all over Hanamiya and (Y/N)’s nose and eyes had gone bright red.

“I can’t believe you’re our new manager!” Yamazaki said excitedly to (Y/N) who finally stopped her sneezing fit.

“I know I’m really excited.”

“I’m sure you are. Being the only girl it’s gonna be like having your own reverse harem.” The orange haired male said with a large grin.

“This would be the worst harem ever. You guys are all the same archetype.” (Y/N) said with a small laugh.

“What does that mean?” Hara asked, still not as knowledgeable about anime.

“You guys are all the bad boy type. Then again a harem with all bad boys could be fun.”

“What’s she talking about?” Furuhashi whispered to Hara.

“I have no clue.” He whispered back with a shrug.

“I guess this makes me an anime protagonist!” (Y/N) said smiling.

#Knb #kirisaki daiichi #kiridai #hanamiya makoto #hanamiya #hara kazuya #hara #seto kentaro #seto #furuhashi kojiro #furuhashi #yamazaki hiroshi #yamazaki #knb x reader #kuroko no basuke #xreader #imagine #scenario

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junosartsthetic · 5 years ago

Note

(Heya, just can I get a match-up,?) I'm woman, bisexual, Russian, 18 years old. My Zodiac Sign is Sagittarius, I'm about 6.1 ft.tall(The people I know always say I can play basketball or be a model, lol, even if my figure, in my opinion, is far from model. I'm actually pear-shaped, maybe LITTLE bit chubby, so yeah), short brown hair, black eyes also sometimes I wear glasses. But more like everytime, because I don't see the difference between stray cat and a trash bag. (1/4)☠️

As my friend says, I'm a really good person, that deeply cares about everyone's feelings: she sends me a ton of uwus every day, tellin' I always kow the way how to make her feel better. Like a Big sister or mom... (Heh-heh, and she's older than me, but still)In the future I'm gonna be a professional pastry chef, so I cook like... So much, sometimes I feel like I can feed an entire army. Really, just ask me: I can make something even if the fridge seems empty. (2/4)☠️ Also, when I'm not cooking, I'm drawing: oh, just lemme make some bodyhorror, cursed characters or spooky stuff, I'm just LOVIN' it. Speaking of horror? Games, stories, arts, every possible thing: gimme something that can make me scream: I'm not that easy to scare!(Haha, I've been trolling everything that was trying to kill me in games. Or cursing them in fun way, you know).(3/4)☠️ Yeah, got the weirdest sense of humour possible: get ready to be spammed with endless distorted photos(made by ME, ofc), weird vines or dark jokes, if I really like you. And, well, fun fact. When you talk with me for like 4 days you can see "evolution". It goes from shy gal to BIG weirdo really fast. So... Yeah. That's all, folks(4/4)☠️

I match you with... Nero!

He doesn’t care about your tall height

Mainly because he’s 6’8”

It’s easier for him to kiss you when you’re almost as tall

Your eye color matches his own and when you kiss him it looks like a galaxy because all you see is black and red in his eyes and all he sees is black and white and it’s all very romantic

If you ever misplace or break your glasses he will become your seeing eye dog

He’ll just pick you up if you’re about to run into something

He loves your calming aura you have

After a long day he’ll just scoop you up and cuddle with you on the couch

If you cook for him he will repay you in whatever way you’d like

He loves your food

And if you cook for his entire squad he’ll repay you even more

Because he can’t even feed his whole squad sometimes

Your fascination with odd humor and spooky and scary things doesn’t put him off

Hell, you just found yourself a muse!

He will watch whatever horror movie you want

He enjoys the fact that you aren’t scared easily

He’s in the mafia so some of the things he has to do for it aren’t pleasant

But at the end of the day he knows you’ll love him regardless

Your humor makes him laugh

Ever seen him laugh?

Or hear him?

Man, it’s gorgeous

He’s gorgeous

And he’s all yours

Hope you enjoyed! <3

#jjba #jjba matchup #jjba matchups

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jan-uinely · 5 years ago

Text

hot takes continued

here we go. season 12 episode 12.

so. it’s time to chit chat about drag race. if u dont like my opinions sry.

this is gonna get bigger than one episode or one season. this is meta drag race.

but first i guess the episode. right. so. obviously it was a “musical” so obviously i wanted to see jan sing and obviously she did not. I do think that this challenge [not necessarily placed in this episode] would have been a great time to do a like returning queens. but i digress.

i think that it was a little muddled. like it wasn't like any of the “girl group” numbers where it’s just the verse and chorus. all of the verses were placed in different spots throughout the show. I also think it’s ironic that this whole episode is to promote this live vegas show which is obviously not happening right now. but alas.

i agree with bob in that i liked jackie’s verse the best.

i did not love gigi’s outfit in the challenge. you couldn't make out the heart as easily bc the red was all the same color. I also think the material used was too chunky- it was quilted. i would have rather had the heart be quilted, not have a corset underneath it, and have the rest of the top part not be quilted. i thought it was a good concept but i would have preferred different #choices. i also would have rather the hair been straight instead of curled.

i did not have a huge issue w crystal’s orange and green outfit. i also appreciated the callback stars and stripes hair. though maybe not together?

jaida was good as per usual. i want her to win, but we will get to that later.

also let us note the basketball wives hair that made a comeback [gigi, jackie]

runway time.

crystal and ******’s outfits did not fit the way i wanted them too, and the problems were both in the hips. when i saw them i thought the hips should be exaggerated, but instead they both looked weirdly deflated. and crystal’s torso section could have been brought in. [i did see on instagram that the person who made crystal’s look [casey caldwell who is a nyc based designer, works w a lot of neoprene/thick materials- just look up on instagram caseyyalater] actually made it for dragcon and crystal bought it right there, so it wasn’t tailored]

in the dior v dior battle, i thought gigi won. jackie’s dress was just i think a little too large [not in terms of tailoring, in terms of diameter] but it was very jackie

gigi said that her outfit was quintessential gigi, which i think it interesting bc if you look up showgirls performances, it very much is. however in terms of the character portrayed on drag race i didn’t think it was. it was very well made, etc. but it just didn’t fit the “perfectionist trope” of the show.

jaida is once again wearing a gown with a presequinned fabric, which i am not mad at. it is quintessential jaida.

critiques.

again ooh we have to nitpick bc we accidentally cast too many winners on this season blah blah blah. i was not a fan of when they said oh well we will have to look at report cards. as if they didnt intentionally load up gigi and ****** with wins at the start of the show.

and then it’s like oh well jackie and crystal have to lip sync blah blah blah. and you know that jackie is going home. bc the judges absolutely love crystal, all because of that mullet.

to quote bob “I used to be really upset at queens who won the judges with their personality” and that is still mostly true for me. i don’t think her placement is unjust or whatever, but like if ru didn’t like the mullet, she would not have been given the confidence boost to turn her trajectory around, compared to jackie and widow and jan, who did most things right but just were not rupaul’s fave, and must have had a much more difficult time mentally on the show.

and FWIW heidi falls into this category as well. race chaser i think said it - all of her success comes from ru’s ideas. and being naturally funny and charismatic and having ru like you as a person is a huge gift and huge talent, but the inability to wrangle it... that being said i think she deserves the world and will grow [and has already grown] from this experience.

and the thing is that crystal also keeps going back to the same stuff which could have been funny if the episodes were more than one apart or if she didn't do it twice in one episode but. idk.

now, who will win, who should win, hmm hmm hmm. tbh i don’t think it will be crystal. they just crowned the oddball and they like to mix it up, or at least try to. also why looking at the history of dusted or busted scores [and s/o to jan for coming in @ 4 [after the disqualification]] crystal is at a 2, and bebe won with the lowest score at a 3 [w 2nd and 3rd place at 4 and 5], and that was in season 1, which was a whole other ballgame. leaving us with jaida and gigi. i am team jaida. i think that she is much more developed as an artist and performer than gigi, and I think that she will bring us something new.

[here comes the meta part]

the title is america’s next drag superstar. and i think in the beginning of the show, they decided that that had to mean something new and exciting, something that pushed the boundaries of what drag could be [which is rly ironic coming from them but]. which has developed this culture of what is the formula to be successful on drag race. and some people were more overt about this [jan] and some people were more subtle about this [gigi and jackie].

but for some reason, the [Black] pageant queens will make it to the top and then never win. - and they’ve had overt conversations regarding pageants and pageant culture on the show before - but balls and pageants were like the building blocks of drag culture in the us [from what i understand]. so inherently that means it’s no longer “new” and exciting. but the thing is that so many of these fashion [/nyc] queens work so exclusively with these high end designers to produce these looks [i think bob said it can cost like 10K to prep all your stuff for drag race] and with that the ability to design and sew falls away.

and i think that is reflected in the challenges and how they have changed. this season there was one design challenge. and that is just so disappointing to me bc i think the design challenges really separate who has a full understanding of their persona and who does not.

and with fewer and fewer design challenges, you have more and more designer items, and the ability to create something has fallen to the wayside. personally [and i will probably make another post about this later] i want to bring back the design challenges in one of two ways. 1. have an all designers season. where drag designers work to make elaborate costumes based on a prompt and given certain materials. bc on the show designers are not credited as much [that part comes on instagram]. 2. i want to have a drag race blank slate competition. where contestants audition and are given a list of prompts but cannot bring anything except like a notebook. no prepared outfits. you can sketch designs to the prompts, but all the materials are provided. contestants still have a main challenge and a runway, but rather than 2 days, they are given a full week to execute the challenge and the outfit. this would totally change the game in my mind. like one you wouldn't have to have money or take out loans to compete, you could just come and show who you are. and two the audience could see more of what goes into this stuff. AND if drag race really wants to feed us, they could do like a wed. ep and a friday ep. to spread things out.

my favorite challenges are design challenges, and while i think the first challenge this season gave us a better introduction to who the contestants are, the design challenge is a really good thing to have at the front.

i do think that if they had not had the debate that there would have been another design challenge in the mix, but bc it was an election year.

anyways, i want jaida to win bc she’s excellent at what she does. and at this point there is something new and exciting about making all your own clothes and being polished and knowing who you are. and tbh gigi doesn’t bring anything new to the table. sure the ability to sew and design is good, but compared to aquaria and violet the designs were not as diverse or inventive. on top of that, the fact that gigi is outwardly apolitical [and doesn’t understand the connotation of “privilege” in today’s times] is just not a good look. I also think that it is interesting that gigi came in as the look queen but actually did better in the acting challenges.

idk my main takeaway is that gigi is really really good at playing other people, and with that comes a lack of self awareness. striving so hard to be perfect can come at the cost of not knowing who you are as an artist. like gigi’s brand is literally “im that bitch/bitch” which again, just isn’t what i want in a winner.

and tbh the gigi bug bit early but ended when ru gave her the win on the madonna episode. [i will say that jackie could have won snatch game but tbh i was annoyed w her for being a little dickish to the safe girls that week [though what she said was totally understandable] and also i <3 jackie cox [and chelsea piers we stan chelsea piers in this house] i think there is something so gr8 abt being a nerd and being prepared and being on brand about it. also jackie is always the one to hop on the dolls’ lives and comment their venmo. hashtag cool aunt jackie. [though that here for cox t-shirt and the promo photos make me uncomfy though i get it]]

re jackie coming back to complete the top 4... IDK it’s nice and all but they've already established that they don’t want her to win- otherwise she would not have been eliminated.

also in my mind there are only 12 places so jan actually came in 7, widow 6, heidi 5, jackie 4.

anyways these are my thoughts. as usual, raw and unedited.

#i guess what i'm saying is that i would love to produce drag race #but i hate la so i guess that's off the table #drag race #hot takes #rpdr s12 #this is very long #so be prepared #i would like to think that it is high quality content #but we shall see #if u want more hot takes my ask box is always open #as u know i have no life #i just rotate between instagram twitter and tumblr #drag race season 12 episode 12 #im a ramblin gal #so enjoy my thoughts on this fine satur day

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nicotineandbikes · 7 years ago

Text

Hot Summer Nights (Teen!Sam Drake)

Pairing: Teenage Sam Drake X OC Alex Carter [character name can be interchanged with any other]

Fandom: Uncharted

Date: 1994

Jeesh, my first post. This should be fun

•

"But I still love to wash in your old bathwater, love to think that you couldn't love another..." Alex sang along quietly to the song that played on the radio, lightening the mood around the small studio apartment. She squinted at the playing cards laid out before her. The fan settled atop the table she sat in front of cooled her skin, even with the terrible summer heat surrounding her. The windows had all been opened, but that didn't seem to help at all. From the bathroom, the sound of the shower slowly trickling to a stop, followed by what sounded like a crash floated out into the living room and she rolled her eyes. Not a moment later, Sam came tumbling out into the hall, with spikey, wet hair, wearing nothing but a pair of black basketball shorts.

"I... uh... totally didn't break anything."

"Is that so?" she smiled, shaking her head and sitting back, looking up at him. "So what, did you slip again?"

"It's not my fault! The shower still leaks!" he defended himself, sitting down on the couch while rubbing his side. "We've got to get that fixed."

"We'll add it to the list."

He nodded and watched her play some type of game against herself with curiosity. "Jeesh... sure is a hot one tonight, huh?" he commented, already feeling the heat settle on his skin.

"You can say that again. This damn building needs to get air conditioning." She fanned herself with her hand. "I can't wait until we're out of this place."

"You said that two years ago at the orphanage," he grinned, folding his hands behind his head and reclining.

"What can I say, I like to keep moving," she shrugged. "We're we going to try to do dinner tonight or...?"

"We don't have anything?"

"See for yourself," she gestured to the tiny kitchen that made up the other half of the living room.

Sam sighed and got up, going over to the refrigerator and opening it to find three half empty bottles of Gatorade, a carton of milk which could very well be expired, a jar of sweet pickles, and two individually wrapped slices of cheese. "Do we have bread?" he asked her.

"Check the cabinet."

He did, finding a package of sliced wheat bread that was only a few days passed the expiration date. There were a few cans of things too. "Alright... what about grilled cheese and pickles?" he suggested, already getting out the bread and cheese and jar of pickles.

"Sounds delicious," she chuckled and joined him in the kitchen, tossing a match onto a burner and putting a pan over it.

"So... um... remember that job I told you about?" he asked, throwing a piece of bread onto the pan, followed by a slice of cheese, and more bread. He only got to her Alex's nod out of the corner of his eye. "Well... some things about it have been... changed."

"Changed?" she repeated. "In what way exactly?" Sam was quiet for a moment, scratching the back of his head nervously as he took out a blue energy drink from the refrigerator. "Sam?"

"The time. How long I'll be... gone," he said and took a sip. "I told you three months... it's more like eight now... And that's at the very most. You know those guys, they always ask for more time than they need. I'll be back before you know it. And I'm not leaving until the end of fall, so there's half a year for it to change again-" he rambled on until Alex cut him off.

"Sam, just stop," she shook he head. "When did all of this happen?"

"Uh... Friday Daniel came in with the papers." Alex's eyes turned sad and she looked down. "But, Alex, the pay is three times what I normally make in that time. This could be so good for us, we could get a better place, get Nate out of that orphanage..."

"Why didn't you ask me first?"

"I... look, I didn't sign anything yet, it's not final. I just... this is an opportunity I'm not gonna get again."

"And how exactly do you think your brother is going to react to this? Buttering him up with gifts is not going to make it better this time, Sam."

"I know... I know," Sam sighed, running a hand through his hair with a pained expression. "That's why I need you to stay and watch after him for me."

She stared at him for a moment, then forced a laugh passed her lips. "Oh, sure," she shook her head and turned back to the stove, carefully picking the sandwich up with her fingers and flipping it over.

"I'm not kidding," Sam told her seriously, leaning against the counter beside the cooker so that they faced each other. "It's out of town, not exactly in the best neighborhood."

"And this is a great neighborhood?" she scoffed. "You sure do make a lot of promise you can't keep, huh?" she muttered under her breath. "You can't just leave me here. We're in this together."

"I can keep this one. Alex, I swear I'll come back for you. I will," he said with all the sincerity her could muster. "You're right, we're in this together, and we're gonna get out of it together too. You, me, and Nathan. One more year and we are out of here, all of us."

Alex looked to the ground, turning her back to him and finishing cooking the sandwich. There was a napkin from a local fast food place on the counter which she put it on and handed it to him. It was clear that the conversation was over, so he took it and opened the sliding door to the balcony. There was an old potted plant that was beyond dead, and two plastic lawn chairs, one of which he took for himself, and he sat in silence, taking small bites of the meal. The sound of the city sounded like music to him, but not the good kind. The kind that made him realize that he had messed up again. The kind that made him want to sit down and cry all of his bottled up emotions out.

Alex lost her appetite. She threw the rest of the food back where it had come from, collected her cards and shoved them back into the box, and shut off the radio. All laughter, all the little jokes and smiles, they had been washed away in one swift second. Even that hot summer night, everything went dark and cold.

She looked around the cluttered apartment. The single twin bed shoved into a corner, old mixed coloured sheets and quilts strewn about it, with creaky springs that dug into their backs. The boxes filled with broken trinkets from the flea market. They had intended on fixing all those up and selling them. The couch was old too, still had that ugly blue green floral patterned fabric. The kitchen was empty, the wallpaper yellowed and counters scratched up, the stovetop rusted in some places. Their threadbare clothes were even tossed around carelessly. The whole place constantly reminded her of how much she had lost.

Alex once had a family. An amazing father, a devilish twin, a decent house, a school, a life. And then that all changed. Of course, she woudln't have met Sam if it all hadn't happened, and Sam was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her, even through it all. Even through their fights, through his cocky smirks, through her sarcastic jokes, they were still best friends. They'd still stick together no matter what.

Alex had already settled into the bed when Sam thought it safe to let himself back inside. She faced the wall, the fan now moved to the bedside table and blowing on the back of her neck. Quietly as he could, Sam locked both doors securely and entered the bathroom, turning on the sink and splashing the freezing cold water onto his face. He glanced up at his reflection in the mirror, at the water droplets sticking to his eyelashes and falling down his face. You've got to stop messing up like this Sammy boy. He turned all of the lights off before carefully slipping into bed beside Alex. He kicked the covers off of himself and laid on his back, facing the ceiling with one hand beneath his head and the other resting on her stomach as it rose and fell with each breath. It was still hot, but every inch of him felt cold.

"Sam?" Alex's voice whispered. It was muffled when it reached his ears since she wasn't facing him.

It startled him at first, but Sam quickly composed himself and gulped. "Yeah?"

"Are we okay?"

He chuckled. "I was about to ask you that."

Alex sighed and rolled over onto her other side so that she faced him. "Just promise me... when the time rolls around... that you'll be careful. I need you to not die, okay? I just... I really need that."

He turned his head so that he met her eyes. "Of course I will. I always am," he nodded. "And I really need you alive too. That's why I need you here where you're at least somewhat safe."

"I respect that."

"Thank you."

"And Sam?"

"Yes dear?"

"You know I only do this because I love you, right?"

"I love you too."

#sam drake #teen sam drake #uncharted #fanfic

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purplesurveys · 5 years ago

Text

897

Gonna take some liberties with bold surveys and elaborate on the ones I feel like talking about, regardless if it’s true or false; and I’ll leave blank the ones I don’t feel like touching on. You're nineteen and a vegetarian. I am three years older and eat meat almost everyday. You've been a vegetarian for over a year. You don't like John Lennon. It’s not that I don’t like him; I just don’t have an opinion on him. Of course what happened to him is very unfortunate. You are studying Mandarin Chinese. No thanks. You have blue eyes and white hair. Wrong. Dark brown and black, respectively.

People often mistaken you for sixteen or under. A few people would but I get mistaken for 17 or 18 most often. Either way everyone’s always shocked when they find out how old I actually am.

You enjoy reading and mathematics. I like reading. Mathematics not so much. You wish your family was healthier mentally. There are definitely underlying issues in there that most of them do not recognize or bother to do something about, which I find tragic because it just means that it gets passed on to future generations. Your favorite flavour of tea is mint. I mean it’s not that it’s not my favorite. I don’t like tea, period. I do enjoy other mint-flavored stuff though, like chocolate.

You listen to foreign music. Yes. I listen to American music. You watch the anime Naruto Shippuden. Other than Pokemon, I’ve never enjoyed anime. You prefer routine to your day. Yep. I like spontaneity to an extent, but when it comes down to it I find the most comfort in routine. I liked my everyday routine of getting up for school, driving, attending my classes, hanging out at Skywalk, and driving home, as monotonous as it would sound for others. It’s just more comfortable for me when things are predictable. You've never attended a concert. I’m not a big concert-goer but I’ve attended my share. I usually only go for the big acts because they’re the ones most likely to visit the country only once every few years. That being said, I’ve seen Paramore (twice), One Direction, and Coldplay. And it’s not a concert, but I also went to a WWE house show once. You're Chinese. As far as I know, no. But the history of Chinese people in our country is very extensive and I wouldn’t be surprised if I turned out to have like at least 0.6% Chinese ancestry. Your favorite sport is basketball. I tried getting into it at one point because basketball got really popular when I was in high school, but I’ve never understood the rules and as such I only watch games that my university’s team play in. Your favorite basketball team is the Lakers. When I was like, five. My dad bought an NBA game for the PS2 and the Lakers were the strongest team on that game, so solely based on that they became my favorite for a while. You basically want to marry Kobe Bryant. :( I had never felt this way, but it’s sad to come across this question now. You have a Samsung S4. Nope. I’ve never owned a Samsung phone. You hate English quite a lot. My grades in English were always good, but I just didn’t like what the class would take up. I never enjoyed analyzing literary works and cracking hidden meanings and symbolism and interpreting what characters do and say – so even though I’m able to do so, it doesn’t mean I enjoy the subject. You like playing card games. Whenever someone whips out a deck of cards at a party, 9 out of 10 times I’d stand up and move to another crowd. You think people who play League of Legends is stupid. I’m vaguely familiar with that but one thing I won’t do is shame people for what they like to do or play. You are often jealous of anything trying to take something away from you. I wouldn’t say it’s often. The feeling just pops out every now and then, and I wouldn’t describe myself as being jealous all the time. Your parents are scientists. (We are turning out to be nothing alike, my dude.) No, they are both in the hotel and restaurant industry. I secretly feel really bad because their industry is the one being hit the most during this pandemic. I’d love to tell them my concerns just so I can get it out of my system, but we’ve always been secretive with one another. You are really good at physics. I hated physics in high school, but my physics prof in college was very smart, a lot of fun, and made physics easier for me. Ended up getting a 1.00 in his class. You prefer noodles over rice. I love noodles, but no :( I never feel full from noodles and always need rice for me to feel like a meal is complete. You want to own a BMW when you're older. It would be a nice bonus, but I don’t really plan on being picky or too flashy with my cars. You were in choir in high school. I cannot sing. You like spicy food. LOVE them. I don’t have as high of a tolerance as say Koreans or Indians, but I still do like pouring chili oil or hot sauce on my dishes whenever it’s appropriate. You're short compared to your friends. I’m not dramatically short but I am the shortest out of everyone in each of my friend groups. You really like Hello Kitty and try to own a lot of it. Never liked it. I personally never saw the hype or found it adorable, but I do find it cute and fascinating when I encounter people who collect Sanrio things :) Your father is slowly dying. No, he’s in tip top shape fortunately. He plays basketball everyday and will go bike around the neighborhood sometimes. Your mother is studying in a university. She went to college in a university, but she’s not currently taking up a postgrad degree if that’s what you mean. You have a crush on someone who is younger than you. I mean, I guess. Even if she’s only a month and a half younger. You like to eat apples a lot. No fruits for me. I like certain apple-flavored things though, like juice. You've had braces and they were recently taken out. I did have braces but they were taken out around six years ago. You recently decided to have bangs for your hair. Yep and like only seven people got to see it when it was in its best form because the stupid lockdown happened righttt after. I feel like my time with bangs is definitely up but I’m not getting rid of them until I feel that enough people have seen them lmao. You eat rice at least every other day. Yeah but that’s pushing it. I have it everyday. I need it with every meal unless I was having pasta or something. You live in a huge house. It’s not huge; it’s simple and cozy, large enough for five people. You have multiple strangers living in your house with you. Nope, I live with my family. You got a large amount of Halloween candy last year. I haven’t gone trick or treating in a whiiiiile, but I did have lots of alcohol at my last Halloween hahaha. You are really good at badminton. I’m not really good, but I can hold a racket and return the shuttlecock decently. I haven’t played since the 4th grade but I think I’d be better at it now given my experience with table tennis. You like to watch Asian reality shows. I looooove the Korean reality show Return of Superman. I watch at least one segment everyday even though I’ve seen most of them at least once. You have no siblings. I have two. You hate your name. I used to, because kids tend to be bullies. I kinda love it now. You are very aggressive. I’m more passive-aggressive but I do have my aggressive moments, usually when I’ve absolutely had enough. You overeat a lot and feel very guilty afterwards. I never feel guilty about it. Food makes me happy haha. You are used to being left out. Years and years of being an outcast in school has desensitized me to it. You hate missing the person you care for. I hate it in the sense that I always wish it were easier to be together, not because I’m not supposed to miss her. You are a slow learner. Only when it comes to kinesthetic or more hands-on learning, like how to do origami or crocheting. I can’t think of any one moment that I was able to catch up whenever those kinds of activities were being taught. You don't like your teeth. I hate my front teeth and I hate that I lost my retainers. I’ve said on many occasions that one of the first things I’ll spend on with my salary is to have braces reapplied on my teeth. You have dyed your hair orange before. I haven’t. Your friends think you have a great taste in music. Not really; my friends don’t look at me and think music recommendations. But it’s fine, I never claimed to have cool music taste anyway haha. You would chose food over love anyday. Probably, lol. You often swear too much. Either when I’m by myself or with a crowd that’s comfortable with swearing. You have an older sister. No, I’m the eldest sister. Your mother owns a beautiful car. My parents own beautiful cars. You are only nice to people you trust. I’m nice to everyone, just nicer to those I trust. You like mood rings. You obsess over Candy Crush. I get phases, honestly. Right now I’ve stopped playing. You have an iPad or iPad Mini. We have an iPad but it’s like the 1st- or 2nd-gen model so it’s sorely outdated. I haven’t used it since 2016. You prefer your hair in a ponytail more. Both because of the weather and because I get more compliments when my hair’s tied up in a ponytail

You have very noticable dimples. I get compliments on those, too. My left dimple is more noticeable though; I have to smile bigger if I want my right one to show up. You always use a cute voice with people. Only with my girlfriend, and I don’t use it often. You have a blue bicycle. Part of it is blue, yes.

#survey #surveys #bold survey #that i made much longer for myself lol

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bookwormcheerleader · 8 years ago

Text

i was tagged by @trevorfindsthestrals (LOOK i finally got internet access on my laptop again!! Sorry it took so long) 1. Coffee or tea? tea, i had my first cup of coffee on like thursday last week 2. Black and white or color? black or soft, but not pastel, colours 3. Drawings or paintings? idk, whatever is more moving in that moment i guess 4. Dresses or skirts? dresses because i never know how to match with a skirt 5. Books or movies? how DARE you make me choose, i think books, but i wanna make movies (potentially havent really explored that yet) so it seems like the wrong answer 6. Pepsi or Coke? i dont drink fizzy drinks 7. Chinese or Italian? definitely italian on an everyday basis but i LOVE chinese too 8. Early bird or night owl? its almost midnight and i havent started my reading for tomorrow, that counts as an answer right? 9. Chocolate or vanilla? chocolate, unless its a milkshake 10. Introvert or extrovert? introvert, i don’t really like people 11. Hugs or kisses? ive never been kissed so hugs 12. Hunting or fishing? aesthetics of hunting but uh with fishing you can not put a hook on the line and just kinda sit there and chill without looking like the animal lover that your family judges you for being 13. Winter or summer? yes. idk im probably more of a summer person, but i also really like the implications of winter in that everything has to die in order to be reborn, plus i can’t really breathe in the heat, but i also have poor circulation in my extremities so the cold sucks ass 14. Spring or fall? spring, i like the crisp air of fall dont get me wrong, but the rebirth and the petrichor after a spring rain with a crisp breeze that doesnt chill you is just so relaxing 15. Rural or urban? i grew up in the woods so rural but i need to at least be kinda close to a hospital to avoid panicking 16. PC or Mac? pc 17. Tan or pale? is this preference, cuz i dont have one of those, but i am so white that i was the same color as my cheer uniform in high school 18. Cake or pie? cake, i dont like pie crust 19. Ice cream or yogurt? frozen yogurt tbh, it jsut tastes fresher and less heavy 20. Ketchup or mustard? my brother likes to mock me for how much i loved ketchup when i was like 7 as if it was yesterday 21. Sweet pickles or dill pickles? i dont like pickles 22. Comedy or mystery? can we do a hybrid where its like theyre fighting crime but have no ability to act serious, cuz im basically writing a comic book like that with @spectralflutterbeast 23. Boots or sandals? i live in a colder wetter climate so usually boots, but i love sandals 24. Silver or gold? i like white gold typically because its often a mix, it has the matching ability of silver with the warmth in color of gold 25. Pop or Rock? i grew up on steve miller and journey from my mom and simon & garfunkel from my dad 26. Dancing or singing? all i can think of is my shitty karoke the other night, so uh dancing, at least i don’t suck more at that when im drunk 27. Checkers or chess? checkers is easier and i could probably actually win, but chess is more likely to hold my attention 28. Board games or video games? we used to do family board game nights (im currently holding the winnign streak for clue because any games played without everyone dont count) (my extended family is also obsessed with card games, its how we bond, we talk shit and play cards) 29. Wine or beer? wine if i have to have one of these, i dont like fizzy stuff ever so no beer but wine dries out my mouth 30. Freckles or dimples? i have freckles, and i love it when people have dimples 31. Honey mustard or BBQ sauce? i guess bbq 32. Body weight exercises or lifting weights? idk what body weight exercises includes but i have always liked lifting weights, its something im fairly good at 33. Baseball or basketball? BASEBALL IS THE BEST I LOVE IT, i miss playing it so much but its been too long for me to feel comfortable joining an intramural team 34. Crossword puzzles or sudokus? sudoku...i think 35. Facial hair or clean shaven? preference right, um stubble.... im not big on full beards (probs cuz my dad has always had one, seriously pics from when he was 20 we are the exact same but he has a beard, he says he hasnt shaved his upper lip since he was 16) clean shaven is nice too tho 36. Crushed ice or cubed ice? i prefer no ice, but if i have to i like that ice you get in hospital cafeterias 37. Skiing or snowboarding? never been 38. Smile or game face? smirking, its the happy medium 39. Bracelet or necklace? i feel naked without any piece of my jewelry (watch on right wrist, a bracelet on my left, a necklace for me to fidget with, both sets of earrings) 40. Fruit or vegetables? fruit 41. Sausage or bacon? bacon 42. Scrambled or fried? scrambled unless its on toast 43. Dark chocolate or white chocolate? dark chocolate 44. Tattoos or piercings? i have two sets of piercings and i just got my first tattoo last month 45. Antique or brand new? antique unless its something i would feel like i couldnt be comfortable using, i always wind up with a very eclectic mix 46. Dress up or dress down? dress down, never really have a reason to dress up 47. Cowboys or aliens? cowboys, space gives me anxiiety 48. Cats or dogs? dogs 49. Pancakes or waffles? depends on who is making the pancakes 50. Bond or Bourne? uhhhh what 51. Sci-Fi or fantasy? fantasy 52. Numbers or letters? letters 53. Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings? lotr tbh 54. Fair or theme park? fair, i grew up in puyallup (look it up, i can even sing the old theme song) 55. Money or fame? money, i want to buy my parents and aunt nice things 56. Washing dishes or doing laundry? laundry (no icky wet food pieces!) {this is what @trevorfindsthestrals had i just could not have said it any better myself} 57. Snakes or sharks? ummm snakes? cuz theyre smaller and i can run from them if theyre dangerous 58. Orange juice or apple juice? orange 59. Sunrise or sunset? sunsets seem more satisfactory to me 60. Slacker or over-achiever?.....i dont’ know how to answer this question 61. Pen or pencil? pencil, unless im worried about it smudging, then i bought some erasable pens for that 62. Peanut butter or jelly? peanut butter is more filling but i make jam every year so theres that 63. Grammys or Oscars? oscars 64. Detailed or abstract? why cant we do both, like a painting that is overall abstract but the closer you get the more you see the things that make it what it is, ya know, like life 65. Multiple choice questions or essay questions? idk multiple choice questions are harder to get wrong for not having enough info about a particular topic, but im good at and enjoy bsing things 66. Adventurous or cautious? i wish i was more adventurous but insecurities 67. Saver or spender? yes 68. Glasses or contacts? i dont wear either 69. Laptop or desktop? laptop 70. Classic or modern? what medium 71. Personal chef or personal fitness trainer? i would like a personal trainer until i get back in the habit of it and then i would jsut need a gym buddy 72. Internet or cell phone? cell since you cna get internet on your phone 73. Call or text? social anxiety so texting 74. Curly hair or straight? mine is beach wavy 75. Shower in the morning or shower in the evening? ive been showering in the morning because i like what it does to my hair 76. Spicy or mild? spicy please 77. Marvel or DC? wonder woman was my first favorite character, like about the time that bugs life came out because i obviously had two and the other was Flick 78. Paying a mortgage or paying rent? rent, i like assurance but i dont like permanence 79. Sky dive or bungee jump? never been but uh im not that trusting so i probably am jsut gonna go with a no 80. Oreos or Chips Ahoy? chewy chips ahoy 81. Jello or pudding? jello 82. Truth or dare? im a chicken so truth 83. Roller coaster or Ferris wheel? roller coaster, ferris wheels are all of the fear with none of the fun 84. Leather or denim? I NEED BOTH I CANT CHOOSE 85. Stripes or solids? stripes and fat people lol no, solids for me 86. Bagels or muffins? bagels probably 87. Whole wheat or white? whole wheat 88. Beads or pearls? pearls, my mother was a jeweler for 13 years, i cant not 89. Hardwood or carpet? hard wood in a hall, tile or linoleum in the kitchen and bathroom and then carpet everywhere else 90. Bright colors or neutral tones? uhhhh for what, cuz it really depends 91. Be older than you are or younger than you are? i want to be like 34, not rn obviously, im enjoying being 20 and stupid, but i feel like 34 is a good age, of course thats abotu how old my bros were when i idolized them so that might be reflective of that 92. Raisins or nuts? raisins, partially because every time my dad sees nuts he says nuts for the nutty and it has become a conditioned response for me now 93. Picnic or nice restaurant? picnic 94. Black leather or brown leather? brown 95. Long hair or short hair? mines somewhere in the middle 96. “Ready, aim, fire” or “Ready, fire, aim”? wtf does the second even mean 97. Fiction or non-fiction? fiction 98. Smoking or non-smoking? i have asthma 99. Think before you talk or talk before you think? i wish i could think before i talk more than i actually do 100. Asking questions or answering questions? i like to listen to people imma tag: @kiavachiisanoob @warriorsatthedisco @colecast1 and anyone lookinng for an excuse to do one of these

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whenwillthearkreturnfromwar · 8 years ago

Note

do all of them

this took me so long

1. Who was the last person you held hands with?

dio

2. Are you outgoing or shy?

more outgoing? but not at first

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing?

dio

4. Are you easy to get along with?

so i’ve been told

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you?

oh def lol

6. What kind of people are you attracted to?

girls

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now?

“relationship” lol yes

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?

my soulmate bryant… gonna be doing a tennis tournament in socal

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?

if it’s guys talking yeah, otherwise nah

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?

ummmmm probably you?

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say?

I lov u

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

love in color - taeyeon, i blame on you - taeyeon, bambi - jidenna, talking to the moon - kream, foldin clothes - j cole

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair?

if i like them yea!!!

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?

luck idk… but miracles yea it’s a miracle that my girl likes me back lol

15. What good thing happened this summer?

:000 i don’t remember this past summer at ALL

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

UMMmmM OFC not to be cheesy but i literally wrote a song about slow kisses with her afsghfkj

17. Do you think there is life on other planets?

yess

18. Do you still talk to your first crush?

who even was my first crush? probs some girl at church so no

19. Do you like bubble baths?

I haven’t had a bubble bath in years but probably

20. Do you like your neighbors?

idk my neighbours…………. one of them is the ex-fire chief of oakland which is cool i guess

21. What are your bad habits?

procrastination, staying up late, singing 24/7, not finishing drinks and leaving cups without washing them

22. Where would you like to travel?

I was thinking about studying abroad for a summer in college… we’ll see

23. Do you have trust issues?

i don’t trust myself

24. Favorite part of your daily routine?

talking to dio

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with?

my fingers are hella short so i cant play instruments as well as i’d like :(((

26. What do you do when you wake up?

go back to sleep

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker?

neither

28. Who are you most comfortable around?

dio

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up?

no..

30. Do you ever want to get married?

umm mayb? for the benefits i guess. if dio wants to

31. If your hair long enough for a pony tail?

nooo i just cut it hecka short

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?

none?

33. Spell your name with your chin.

pzagtgtik

34. Do you play sports? What sports?

taekwondo… fun fact i used to play basketball.. yea…. all 5 feet and ~1 inch of me

35. Would you rather live without TV or music?

TV!!!! i dont watch tv anyway

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?

i liked you lmao

37. What do you say during awkward silences?

…

38. Describe your dream girl/guy?

about 5′6″… brown eyes… brown hair that has these hypnotizing curly strands that frame her face… has this strong leader aura that u can kinda tell so ppl rly admire her but she doesn’t even realize…. amazing at soccer, competitive… but SO SOFT…. amazing hilarious storyteller… so intelligent and aware and always striving to better herself!! BEAUTIFUL IN SO MANY WAYS i mean i am actually so lucky so maybe i do believe in luck.. anyway that’s my dream girl… name is dio and she’s mine

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in?

thrift town? i dont rly like shopping

40. What do you want to do after high school?

go to college… probably ucsb actually…. parentals want me to go to davis more tho

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?

if u mess up a boba order yea; if ur sm ent making amber miserable no

42. If you’re being extremely quiet what does it mean?

im sleeping or being emo

43. Do you smile at strangers?

sometimes i return that flat-line grimace/smile that white ppl give poc in passing bc now that it’s been pointed out to me i can’t unsee it

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?

bottom of the ocean is terrifying,, let’s do it

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

the fact that i get to see dio

46. What are you paranoid about?

nothing

47. Have you ever been high?

perchance

48. Have you ever been drunk?

mayhaps

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about?

i don’t think so

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?

purple

51. Ever wished you were someone else?

nop

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?

my ineptitude at public speaking

53. Favourite makeup brand?

idk makeup

54. Favourite store?

farmer joe’s lol

55. Favourite blog?

@peachylook

56. Favourite colour?

orange!

57. Favourite food?

korean

58. Last thing you ate?

boba

59. First thing you ate this morning?

oyako donburi

60. Ever won a competition? For what?

I won a poetry competition one time and also a musical chairs game

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what?

nop

62. Been arrested? For what?

nop

63. Ever been in love?

oh man i’m so in love it’s embarrassing

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?

LMAO i’ll pass

65. Are you hungry right now?

nah

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?

some

67. Facebook or Twitter?

uhh twitter produces good memes sometimes so i guess twitter

68. Twitter or Tumblr?

this trash site

69. Are you watching tv right now?

70. Names of your bestfriends?

dio, bryant, clara

71. Craving something? What?

cranberry juice

72. What colour are your towels?

pink/white

72. How many pillows do you sleep with?

one

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?

like 20

75. Favourite animal?

doggos/cats

76. What colour is your underwear?

red

77. Chocolate or Vanilla?

chocolate

78. Favourite ice cream flavour?

mint chocolate chip

79. What colour shirt are you wearing?

white/orange

80. What colour pants?

black

81. Favourite tv show?

fresh off the boat

82. Favourite movie?

currently moana

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2?

havent watched either

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls?

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?

crush

87. First person you talked to today?

my dad?

88. Last person you talked to today?

dio

89. Name a person you hate?

*******

90. Name a person you love?

dio

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now?

tr*mp

92. In a fight with someone?

93. How many sweatpants do you have?

like 5

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?

like 6

95. Last movie you watched?

the shack

96. Favourite actress?

lee sunbin the loml

97. Favourite actor?

???

98. Do you tan a lot?

i dont wear short clothes enough

99. Have any pets?

noooo :’((

100. How are you feeling?

sad bc my girl is sad

101. Do you type fast?

yea

102. Do you regret anything from your past?

oh man so many

103. Can you spell well?

w e l l

104. Do you miss anyone from your past?

yea

105. Ever been to a bonfire party?

106. Ever broken someone’s heart?

i don’t …. maybe??? presumptuous of me to say

107. Have you ever been on a horse?

108. What should you be doing?

homework

109. Is something irritating you right now?

the fact that it had to rain this sunday of all days

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt?

@ dio

111. Do you have trust issues?

trusting my memory wasnt this already a question

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?

dio

113. What was your childhood nickname?

…patti?

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?

i was born out of it lmao

115. Do you play the Wii?

the first and only console i have ever owned

116. Are you listening to music right now?

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup?

yes

118. Do you like Chinese food?

yes

119. Favourite book?

whoa idk

120. Are you afraid of the dark?

only if i’m walking in it outside alone

121. Are you mean?

yes i’m p average

122. Is cheating ever okay?

communal cheating in high school hell yea #finesseTheSystem

123. Can you keep white shoes clean?

124. Do you believe in love at first sight?

not rly

125. Do you believe in true love?

i believe in soulmates

126. Are you currently bored?

127. What makes you happy?

dio, music, good food, games

128. Would you change your name?

yea

129. What your zodiac sign?

pisces

130. Do you like subway?

does BART count

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

i should hope he likes me… we’re soulmates. and we’re both gay as hell

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

?????

133. Favourite lyrics right now?

taeyeon’s i blame on you and love in color!!!!!!

134. Can you count to one million?

i cant count my blessings how am i supposed to count to a million

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?

i liked boys LOL

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?

closed

137. How tall are you?

5′1″

138. Curly or Straight hair?

curly

139. Brunette or Blonde?

brown/black hair

140. Summer or Winter?

summer

141. Night or Day?

night

142. Favourite month?

march idk

143. Are you a vegetarian?

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?

dark

145. Tea or Coffee?

tea

146. Was today a good day?

it was a day

147. Mars or Snickers?

snickers

148. What’s your favourite quote?

“I’m cool as a motherfuck.” - my old man gov teacher

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

not rly

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page?

“If colour was not a straightforward matter in these racial categories, neither was fixity and immutability.”

#answers #skaipio

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

Text

The NBA's Man of Many Faces

On a hot day in early September, three glass revolving doors twirl into the midtown Manhattan high-rise where the most fascinating man in the NBA spent most of his summer. The lobby is palatial, with a dazzling chandelier fixed in the center of the room; a young woman with platinum blonde hair stands directly underneath it, inside a front desk that looks like someone cut a marble egg in half, juggling phone calls and small talk with delivery men as they scurry across the floor.

New York Knicks center Enes Kanter steps out from an elevator behind her, armed for the heat in a white short-sleeve hoodie, dark mesh shorts, and solid teal low-top Nikes. A trimmed beard accentuates his baby-fat-free face, and the thick hair atop his head takes the shape of a Brillo pad that’s been dyed black. A long, red scar runs along his right forearm, memorializing the time he fractured it punching a chair in the middle of a game. A towering, chiseled, bronze sculpture of a man, Kanter’s stride is unexpectedly graceful; it’s unclear if his heels ever touch the ground. If any other first impression can be had, it’s that he’s almost too affable: Over the next two minutes, Kanter asks how I’m doing and/or if I’m good four separate times.

We exit the elevator and pass through a noisy weight room and congested lounge, towards a cafe that’s attached to a broad outdoor terrace. Before we move outside to escape the crowd, Kanter points up at a giant menu populated by fresh pressed juices, açaí bowls, and almond butter shakes. “They have smoothies!” he smiles. I’m not really hungry. “Are you sure you don’t want something? You’re not getting anything? Seriously you have to get something.” We grab two water bottles and make our way outside to sit in the far corner, beneath a giant sun umbrella for the rest of an afternoon that’s already unlike any I’ve ever had. For Kanter, it’s a typical day: A visitor is here to ask questions about his inexplicably complex life.

Over the past two years, Kanter has manifested one of the NBA’s most distinct personas: He’s an activist, one of the world’s hundred best basketball players, a political dissident, gentle humanitarian, and proficient troll. (“I don't know what's wrong with him," LeBron James once said.) He combines mild mischievousness with a big heart, adored by those who know him as he exasperates those who don’t.

“He was a straight enemy,” Kyle O’Quinn, Indiana Pacers center and Kanter’s former New York Knicks teammate, says. “[Now] that’s my boy. Make sure you quote me on that. That’s my boy. That’s my boy. There’s a bunch of o’s and a bunch of y’s. That’s. My. Boooyyy.”

On the court, Kanter is determined but limited in ways that have prevented him from logging heavy minutes on a good team. Off it, he’s an impossibly generous, vulnerable, and self-motivated spirit.

“I think there’s a lot of guys in the NBA who’re blessed with this huge size and huge strength and huge ability, and therefore they act accordingly. They are loud or they are dominant or demonstrative,” 11-year NBA veteran Steve Novak, who played with Kanter in Utah and Oklahoma City, says. “I think Enes has been blessed with so many of those things. He’s this huge dude. But he’s holding kittens at the humane society and going to the children’s hospital. He uses his platform in as amazing a way as I’ve seen a teammate use it.”

“When I look back at my basketball career, I want to say I tried to inspire as much as I could.”

This summer, Kanter organized 14 free basketball camps for children all over the United States, paying for everything—t-shirts, pizza, the gym, water—out of his own pocket. “When I look back at my basketball career, I want to say I tried to inspire as much as I could,” he says. “When I go to those camps, I don’t just talk about basketball. I talk about education, how to become a good person, everything.”

His interests span wider than the average human, let alone your typical NBA player. He still gleams as the boy who used to dream about becoming an astronaut—he follows NASA on instagram, and half-jokingly won’t let the narrow physical dimensions of a spaceship’s cockpit ever impede him from strapping into one. (“I still would love to go to space,” he says.) Kanter also grew up watching David Copperfield and Chris Angel. He can turn a cup of water into ice, bend spoons with his mind, and plunge a tight string into and through his Adam’s apple. “I actually learned a few tricks from him,” Kerem Kanter, his younger brother who plays professional basketball in France, says. “I try to do them every once in a while to impress people.”

Kanter’s most intense obsession is the WWE, and it’s grown ever since he introduced himself as The Undertaker at the University of Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness in 2010. “It was funny as hell, and the fans flipped out,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari says. “There were people falling from the upper deck to the lower deck when he came out.” (When he met the real Undertaker a few months ago, Kanter’s knees shook.) Today, he’s close friends with several professional wrestlers and is dedicated to becoming one after he retires from basketball, which he hopes won’t be until his mid-30’s.

“I’m actually talking to the people over there now. Vince McMahon, he knows me,” Kanter says. “I had dinner with [Paul Heyman] two, three days ago. I asked him how long he’s gonna do this and he said ‘as long as Brock [Lesnar] goes, I go, and then I’m with you.’ I’m like yes! Seriously. I’m really serious about it.”

A few minutes later, as we discuss how Jersey Shore, Spongebob Squarepants, and Home Alone—“You can not beat that. It’s a classic. I watched that when I was growing up and I still watch it when I get bored,” he says—helped him pick up English, Kanter is suddenly adamant about showing me who he’s been exchanging DM’s with on Twitter. He taps his phone: “I’m talking to Mike The Situation! He said ‘let me know when you have some tickets when the season starts, I will bring Vinnie and the wifey.’ That’s my man.”

All this makes Kanter compelling enough, but the intersection between that playfulness and a literal life-or-death fight he’s waged against the Turkish government is where he becomes one of the most fascinating professional athletes in recent memory. With a voice that serves as a tight fist for thousands of imprisoned Turkish citizens who themselves have been silenced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian regime, it’s critical that Kanter’s diverse interests and sometimes bizarre behavior do not damage his credibility. Instead, what he represents in public is the natural and masterful interpretation of a benevolent rebel. At 26 years old, Kanter pursues it all in the most admirable, cringeworthy, and immeasurably hilarious ways; he exists without an analog.

“I don’t want to say socially awkward,” Kerem Kanter says. “But Enes used to be shy and he didn’t like to talk to strangers. Now he loves the attention. He talks to the media a lot. He has a ton of friends. He talks to people every day. He actually enjoys doing that.”

So much of this side can be seen every ten minutes on social media, where Kanter floods his feeds with political opinions, videos of himself strolling through Times Square, dressing up like a Marvel character, and, of course, the unprovoked albeit harmless attacks on fellow NBA players and teams.

“This guy doesn’t stop. I don’t know when he sleeps,” O’Quinn says. “He just sits on the internet, and I think there’s somebody helping him, behind closed doors, because I don’t know when he gets any rest. He’s on Twitter and Instagram all day.”

That incessantness translates offline into other areas of his life. The impact Kanter’s energy has in locker rooms, on bus rides, and cross-country flights feels relatively miniscule—to a certain degree it very much is—but so many of his teammates cite his ability to loosen the atmosphere as a professional advantage.

He’s the butt of a trillion jokes, but never gets sensitive about any of them, knowing that A) he brings most of the ridicule upon himself, and B) nobody is actually trying to hurt his feelings. Even when they mock his accent, diet (knowing he avoids pork for religious reasons, Kanter’s teammates would sometimes order bacon just to put it on his plate, or convince him their meals were cooked on the same grill), tight clothing, or not-that-rare refusal to shower after practice, it’s never done with malicious intent. The result is an endless collection of stories that make those who tell them smile.

Indiana Pacers wing Doug McDermott didn’t really talk to Kanter when they were teammates in Oklahoma City, but things changed after they were both traded to New York. “He called me like ‘Doug! Man! We’re going to the best city in the world!” he says. McDermott chuckles at all the different ways Kanter made himself an easy target. “Just how cheap he was. I think he still had an iPhone 4 when that was like four iPhone’s ago.”

A popular topic of conversation at the Thunder practice facility was the house Kanter purchased in Oklahoma City (that he’s since sold, at a loss). He was so excited to furnish it and asked around about hiring an interior decorator. But later, when he saw the bill and noticed that he was charged around $10,000 for curtains alone, he lost it. “It became a joke in the locker room,” Novak says. “Like, ‘Oh God, Enes is bitching about his curtains again.’”

Bring up the curtains with Enes and his smile turns into a sheepish grin. “She didn’t charge me that much but it was very expensive curtains. Very, very expensive curtains. I was like ‘what was I thinking?’”

Now a minimalist, Kanter does not own a car or a house. He refuses to indulge in the same luxuries any person on a $70 million contract is expected to enjoy, and in fact, continuing a life-long habit that began in the small bedroom he once shared with his two younger siblings, Kanter sleeps on the ground. “It’s actually better for your back” he says without the slightest trace of embarrassment. “I’m comfortable!”

This is a tiny exaggeration. A twin XL mattress is plopped in the corner of his otherwise deserted bedroom in White Plains, where he lives during the season. It’s wrapped in dark brown sheets, one matching pillow, and a champagne-colored comforter. But that’s literally it. There is no box spring, headboard, bed frame, nightstand, or lamp. (Kanter laughs out loud for a solid five seconds when I ask if he ever reads before bed.) There are no posters, rugs, or, well, anything. Officially listed at 6’11”, his calves still dangle off the foot of the mattress. “I know it’s weird,” he says. “I just like it that way.”

Photo by Jason Szenes - European Pressphoto Agency

Even though he was born in Switzerland while his father, Mehmet, earned his M.D. at the University of Zurich, Kanter’s earliest memories trace back to kicking a soccer ball through the mundane streets of Van, a small city on the east side of Turkey.

His mother was a nurse, but soon retired to take care of her four children (Kanter’s two younger brothers play basketball—the youngest attends high school in Atlanta—and his sister recently graduated from medical school.) “We were not too wealthy, we were not too poor,” he says. “We were comfortable.”

For the Kanter family, countless weekends trickled by on the beaches of Lake Van, Turkey’s second-largest body of water. “There was a rumor that there was a monster inside,” he says. “I don’t think there is.”

Kanter’s passion for soccer grew—he still thanks it for developing his low-post footwork—until other kids in his apartment building and throughout the neighborhood stuck him in goal. They laughed at his big feet and poked fun at how huge he was. He hated it. Life in the classroom wasn’t any more pleasant.

“I don’t know what happened. I became a very terrible student.”

Kanter can still picture the wood switch his first-grade teacher used to wield at students who fell out of line. “Whenever you did something crazy they’d say ‘open your hand,’” he says. “I still remember, man. My hands would hurt so bad. Oh my God.”

School was everything in his family, but it wasn’t his thing. “I was a really good student, first, second grade, third grade, and then fourth grade a little bit. And then I don’t know what happened. I became a very terrible student. I wish I took it more serious.”

His parents still pushed him up through middle school, until the pressure to succeed conflicted with the cold reality of knowing he wasn’t put on this Earth to master or even enjoy academia. (Years later, when enrolled at Kentucky, Kanter passed all his classes except art, which he eventually dropped. “It was three hours at night. Too long,” he says. “We weren’t drawing either. It was like history, with reading and stuff.”) Whenever organized basketball came up as a possibility, Kanter’s father would rant about poor grades and the money he already paid the school. His mother repeatedly reminded him that millions of kids wanted to do the exact same thing. “I was getting so much shit from my parents, from my family,” he says.

But perspectives began to shift when he was eleven. A competitive game of after-school ping-pong against his dad spilled onto the basketball court. The two played one-on-one, a boy against his athletic, volleyball-keen, 6’5” father. Enes won. In Mehmet’s eyes, stifling this gift was officially foolish.

Fate intervened a couple years later, when, according to Enes, Mehmet attended a conference in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. He walked into a store for school supplies and a man tapped him on the shoulder. “Is your son as tall as you?” It was a local basketball coach who wondered if today might be his lucky day. (It was.) Enes’s family followed him to Ankara, where he spent two years playing at a school called Samanyolu. After that he moved to Istanbul to play for Turkey’s top basketball club, Fenerbahce Ulker. Not even 16, Kanter had already become one of the world’s more alluring big man prospects.

He never stayed up until 4 AM to watch NBA games when they aired at home, but did catch Utah Jazz highlights the following day, so he could see Turkey’s Mehmet Okur in action. Aside from Okur and Hedo Turkoglu, there weren’t many Turkish role models in the NBA for Kanter to look up to. But even then, when he was banging up against grown men literally twice his age in the Euroleague, Kanter’s focus was always on the United States. He desperately wanted to play high-school, college, and professional ball against the best of the best. But leaving Fenerbahce was more complicated than he expected. During his second season with the team, Kanter turned down a six-year contract for one million Turkish lira (which translated to about $785,000 U.S. dollars at the time). “They’re saying ‘don’t go, don’t leave,’” he remembers. “I was scared.”

The relationship grew tense. One day at the gym, an older teammate untied his shoes, took them off his feet, and hurled both right at Kanter. “How can you leave without talking to me?” he shouted. Kanter wanted to scream back “You’re not my dad!” but kept quiet.

Another long-term contract offer was made, this time for six million Turkish lira. But Kanter spurned the club once again, and along with his life coach and eventual agent Max Ergul, flew one way across the Atlantic Ocean for the very first time. The first stop was Chicago, where Kanter worked out with Tim Grover, Michael Jordan’s famous personal trainer. “There was so much free Muscle Milks,” Kanter says. “I was drinking three or four a day. A day! It was free! I was like ‘Oooh, it tastes so good.’”

From there, actually playing high-school basketball wasn’t easy. As a coveted international prospect, prep schools all over the country wanted him on their side, but thanks to a Nike contract his father signed, along with the money Fenerbahce gave his family, they were also weary of his flimsy amateur status. Kanter initially wanted to enroll at Virginia’s Oak Hill Academy—a basketball factory that’s produced an untold number of success stories, including Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant, and Rajon Rondo—but the team’s head coach, Steve Smith, preferred to avoid any potential scandal.

Plan 1-A was Nevada’s Findlay Prep. With the hope of joining forces with Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph, Kanter was a tank with ball skills. “He could step out and put it on the ground,” Mike Peck, Findlay Prep’s former head coach, says. “His movement was fluid, much like a perimeter player. He wasn’t stiff and rigid.”

But Kanter only spent a couple weeks in Las Vegas before the program ended their relationship. (Oak Hill’s Smith had reportedly refused to compete against any team Kanter was on.) “Our understanding was I think there was something with his dad,” Peck says. “His dad may have signed something over in Turkey that, on behalf of Enes, affected his amateurism. So that’s when we had to say ‘Hey, sorry but we can’t jeopardize our program.’”

Enes, understandably, was crushed. “Think about it, man. I came [to the United States], turned down millions,” he says. “Turned down all the big Nike deals. Turned down...I could be like a legend in Europe. I was killing everybody my age.” But he didn’t sulk. In the days after Findlay Prep informed him of their decision, as Ergul tried to figure out their next move, Kanter’s drive didn’t decelerate. “He was in the gym and he was sweating and he was working,” Peck says. “He wasn’t just, shoes unlaced, messing around. His poise and composure was commendable.”

A similarly frustrating pitstop at West Virginia’s Mountain State Prep preceded Kanter finally landing somewhere that was willing to let him play: Stoneridge Prep in Simi Valley, California, a few miles north of Los Angeles. It was nice to have some stability, but Kanter remembers the situation as anything but normal.

“I walked into the classroom and there were spiders everywhere,” he says. “It was like spider webs. It was very weird. There were like fifteen students in the whole school.” Kanter was there seven months, first living in a house with his teammates before he moved into an American family’s home. It was his first uninterrupted taste of a new culture. At first, he didn’t shop for groceries and ate Nutella for lunch. One morning, he grabbed a box off the top of the refrigerator, opened it, then mixed its contents in a bowl with some milk. A teammate strolled into the kitchen and couldn’t stop laughing. “They said ‘You’re not supposed to eat it like that.’ I said ‘Why? It’s cereal!’ They said ‘It’s not cereal. It’s Cheeze-Its.’”

Practices were held at a 24 Hour Fitness, and Kanter still remembers being confused when random gym members shot at the same basket his team used. But he was dominant, and knew he wouldn’t be there forever. “I remember I had one game, I was so tired of scoring,” he says. “I missed a shot on purpose. A free-throw! I don’t want to score anymore. I still remember that game. It was too easy.”

Kanter verbally accepted an offer made by the University of Washington without ever visiting the school or even stepping foot in the same state. He knew a couple coaches there but had no serious ties or desire to attend. Not long after, Calipari flew to Los Angeles to see Kanter in person for the first time. It was a pickup game at 24 Hour Fitness.

“I immediately said ‘Holy cow, this kid is like 18? This is ridiculous,’” Calipari says. “He was really skilled. Obviously he was really big. But he was really skilled for a guy his size, which kind of surprised me.”

Once he realized they were interested, Kanter immediately decommitted from Washington to sign with the Wildcats. He had emerged as a prodigious cult figure, having recently broken Dirk Nowitzki’s single-game scoring record at the barometric Nike Hoop Summit in Oregon, with a 34-point, 13-rebound gem in just 24 minutes off the bench. (Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson finished with 29 points combined.)

But Kanter’s alleged impropriety followed him to Lexington. And the fact that Washington’s former athletic director, Mark Emmert, had just been named President of the NCAA probably didn’t help. Weeks before his freshman season began, Fenerbahce went public, alleging that Kanter had received “over $100,000 in cash and benefits.” They also submitted financial documents to the NCAA. Instead of playing basketball, Kanter sat through several interviews with investigators, some lasting six hours.

“His dad didn’t want him to go to a club school [in Turkey]. He wanted him to go to a private school, because his father was a professor,” Calipari says. “The club agreed to pay for it, and instead of paying the [private] school directly, they paid Enes’s father to give the money to the school, which the father did. And he had checks and everything that he wrote and showed. The club was upset that [Enes] didn’t come back and said that they wouldn’t cooperate. In other words ‘we’re not gonna say that’s what it was,’ but the dad showed that’s what it was. The NCAA said he’s not paying. I was appalled.”

Kanter learned about his lifetime ban watching television in his dorm room. Calipari remembers a meeting soon after in his office: Kanter looked at the floor and held back tears. Going back to Istanbul never crossed his mind, though, especially after he received a barrage of texts from his former club that outlined how hopeless his NBA dream truly was. If he wanted to succeed, it had to be in Turkey, they told him. “I knew if I went back, that road would be closed and none of the [Turkish] players would take that risk and come to America again,” he says. “Everybody would be scared.”

Kanter stayed in Kentucky throughout the season. Initially he wasn’t allowed to be in the same gym while the team practiced, so the school assigned Kanter his own coach. “I would practice after or before [the team],” he says. The restrictions extended to weight training, where strength and conditioning coaches wrote instructions on note cards and then taped them all over the room. “He said ‘When you work out, we’re not allowed to talk to you’,” Kanter says.

That was short lived, though. Kentucky quickly made Kanter “a student-assistant coach,” and the NCAA allowed him to practice with the team. “Every day, NBA people came in and watched him. He got Josh Harrellson drafted because every day Josh had to go against him. Josh Harrellson got drafted because of Enes Kanter,” Calipari says. “I told him ‘we have a plan. You’re gonna practice, we’re gonna have pro scouts, and you, my man, you’re getting drafted, son. And you’re getting drafted in the top five.’”

In 2011, Kanter was selected third overall by the Jazz, but the NBA’s lockout robbed him of a formal training camp, leading to an understandably rough adjustment period, on and off the floor. He was hazed by veteran teammates, especially Al Jefferson, and found that the more he tried to fit in, the further he drifted from who he really was.

“Enes partied a lot. Everybody knew that,” Trey Burke, Kanter’s current teammate who also played with him in Utah, says. “That was his rookie season, though. He’ll even tell you that.” Indeed, he does: “I was going out with my teammates and hanging out and stuff, but once you’re in your second year and your third year, you get more smarter and more smarter, you know? And you’re like ‘OK, basketball comes first, so stick to basketball,’” Kanter says.

He was not happy in Salt Lake City, primarily due to limited minutes and a diminishing on-court role. “He was boiling on the inside,” Novak says. Right before the All-Star break in the last year of his rookie-scale contract, Kanter demanded a trade. A couple weeks later, he was dealt to Oklahoma City. Novak was included in the deal, news that prompted his wife to burst into tears. When Kanter heard, he immediately called to apologize. “My wife wanted to kill him,” Novak laughs. “If you’re mad at Enes you’re usually not mad for long. He’s crazy so he does dumb stuff, but it usually comes from a really good place.”

The most meaningful upshot from his departure was Kanter’s own maturation intersecting with a rediscovery of the altruistic Muslim principles he embraced as a child. The need to help others, especially those who can’t help themselves, took on a much larger role in his life, dramatically altering how he viewed his responsibilities as a public figure. Kanter was about to become so much more than a basketball player.

As we sit ten stories above New York City’s rush-hour traffic, a fire truck’s deafening siren pauses our conversation. Kanter stops fiddling with his black matte watch, turns his phone over and raises his eyebrows. “Look at this, man.” He shakes his head and stretches his arm across the table. It’s a clip of Florida senator Marco Rubio dropping Kanter’s name during a senate hearing about political censorship on social media. (Kanter’s Twitter account has been blocked by the Turkish government.)

A few weeks later, outside the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, sunlight sifts through a cloudy fall sky and glares off automatic machine guns held by NYPD officers clad in riot gear as they effectively secure the building’s perimeter. We’re at the Oslo Freedom Forum, a conference sponsored by the Human Rights Foundation that’s designed to promote and protect human rights all over the world.

As the conference begins, Kanter stands in the back, watching as a young North Korean defector tells her story in front of a packed, teary-eyed audience. When she’s through, he bends over to give her a hug as organizers latch a microphone over his ear. During their on-stage talk, Thor Halvorssen, the forum’s founder, calls Kanter an accidental activist, someone who didn’t set out to change the world but stepped up once he realized he had enough influence to do so.

Kanter first considered speaking out against Turkey’s backsliding government in 2013, after Erdogan embroiled himself in a corruption scandal. The subsequent power struggle culminated in an attempted coup, allegedly orchestrated by Fethullah Gulen, one of the country’s most popular religious and political figures. Gulen, who denies he was involved, lives in exile in Pennsylvania, where Kanter visits him regularly. Kanter's criticism of Erdogan is well documented, and nearly led to his abduction in Romania while on a worldwide charity tour last year. Since, Kanter has taken every opportunity possible to denounce a regime that’s imprisoning innocent citizens and kidnapping dissenters who live in democratic countries.

“He’s the second-most wanted person in Turkey, after Gulen, and we’re walking aimlessly in Hawaii, in Des Moine, Iowa, not hiding from anyone,” Kanter’s manager Hank Fetic says. “There were a few times this summer where I said ‘Bro, this guy is walking a little close to us. I’m a bit worried.'”

A warrant for Kanter’s arrest was issued by the Turkish government last year, and his father is facing a trial that could put him in jail for years. It’s a neverending nightmare, but Kanter is somehow able to compartmentalize the most psychologically corrosive aspects of his life and stay as upbeat as possible. While with the Thunder, the team’s psychologist tried to speak with him. Kanter politely refused. “Don’t worry about me,” he said he told the doctor. “If I ever need someone to talk to maybe I will. But right now I’m okay.”

The emotional toll is obvious, but Kanter’s sacrifice is evident elsewhere. He can’t leave North America and hasn’t been able to secure any endorsement deals. Nike, the same company that championed Colin Kaepernick’s controversial remonstration by putting him on the frontlines of a recent ad campaign, now refuses to sign Kanter. “I talked to Nike and they said ‘we want to give Enes a contract. We’re watching him. But if we give him a contract they will shut down every store in Turkey, so we cannot give him a contract,’” he says. “I’m an NBA player with no shoe deal. No endorsement deal. And I play in New York!”

He’s curious about the fluidity of American politics, and didn’t initially understand why so many people get upset when he tweets anything negative about Donald Trump—particularly during his time in Oklahoma. Speaking as someone who’s still shocked by what’s happened to Turkey, America’s violent divisiveness and piping hot political climate terrify him. But he still dislikes the idea of protesting in the United States, for fear of turning another country into his enemy. (Don’t expect Kanter to take a knee during the national anthem anytime, ever.)

He wants to be a U.S. citizen—he’s two years from becoming eligible—and has thought about giving himself an American name. (Kanter scratches his chin when I pitch “Michael” as an option.) “I see [America] is going there, to become another Turkey,” he says. “I hope not. I pray not. But right now you see people are getting polarized. When I think about America, I think about freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion. It’s a peaceful country. Now it’s like, for an immigrant, you’re kind of scared.”

Inside the Knicks practice facility, a dozen media members file into a gym that has two full-length basketball courts. New York’s second day of training camp has just ended. As players break up to shoot free throws and work on individual skills, Kanter is the only one who jogs over to the near sideline, where several coaches and front office executives—the team’s president (Steve Mills) and general manager (Scott Perry) included—are seated in a row. He goes down the line, like a the world’s most earnest politician, and shakes everybody’s hand.

Kanter recedes to a far basket and simulates pick-and-rolls with one of his coaches. He steps outside to attempt a few mid-range jumpers and then settles into the corner to hoist some threes. From shoulder to hip, his muscles ripple like a miniature mountain ridge.

“How do you not like Enes?” Knicks head coach David Fizdale says a few minutes later. “For me, he’s like our spirit. He keeps our gym light. He keeps the guys in an upbeat mood, an energetic mood. He doesn’t have bad days. And thinking about what he and his family [are] going through, the fact that he can come in here and still have enough energy to give to us, I love him.”

“How do you not like Enes?”

Kanter began preparing for this, his eighth NBA season, less than a week after his seventh one ended five months ago. Even with a hectic travel schedule, he still spent between three and four hours a day in a gym all summer. The only days he took off were those designated for rest.

“Honestly, he’s the most consistent athlete I’ve been around in a long time, as far as just being on time and punctual and what he demands out of himself,” Mike Atkinson, Kanter’s personal performance coach, says.

Kanter walked into camp with 2.8 percent body fat and 20 more pounds of muscle than he had a year ago. “He’s the healthiest eater of all time,” McDermott says. “I’ve tried multiple times this summer to go to Shake Shack, but he won’t do it. I remember on a plane ride once, I was like ‘Enes, if this plane goes down, what’s the first thing you’d do?’ He said ‘I would eat all the cheeseburgers and cookies on here,’ just because he eats more quinoa and kale and spinach than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

On the court, Kanter is aggravatingly schismatic. At his best—AKA when his team has the ball—he moves like a rhinoceros who could place in the Kentucky Derby. He consistently finishes around the rim at an elite rate and creates second, third, and fourth chances whenever a teammate’s shot (or his own) doesn’t fall. “He’s a walking assist for a lot of us guards,” Burke says. Kanter finished seventh in rebound chances per game last season, averaging at least five fewer minutes than everyone who ranked higher. Since he entered the league, only seven players have grabbed more than 1,400 offensive rebounds. Kanter has tallied at least 2,100 fewer minutes than all of them.

“My thing is to do the dirty work, bang inside, and just be a banger, you know?” he says. “I know my weaknesses. That’s the most important thing. You have to know your weaknesses. I think my [weakness is] defense, of course.” For the past five years, Kanter’s team has been atrocious on defense with him in the game and significantly better when he’s on the bench. Two postseasons ago—after a play in which Kanter was helpless to stop James Harden and Clint Capela from connecting on a lob—that reputation collided with the national spotlight when a camera panned to Thunder head coach Billy Donovan right as he turned to his assistant Maurice Cheeks to seemingly say the words: “Can’t play Kanter.”

“I did see the clip. I could read his mouth. But he said ‘I never said anything like that, I was saying something else’,” Kanter says about Donovan. “He told me he never said anything like that and I go with it. You know what I mean?”

Kanter will never be Rudy Gobert, but he’s spent the offseason building up his legs, training himself to stay in a lateral stance, watching more footage, and conceding that where he is and how he reacts is increasingly critical in a league that goes out of its way to attack him. Physical improvement can only accomplish so much without awareness, zippy instincts, and the capacity to communicate on the fly, though. And big men, like Kanter, who neither protect the rim nor shoot threes—something Washington Wizards coach Scott Brooks first encouraged him to try when both were in Oklahoma City—are an endangered species.

His game is often synonymous with these flaws, but Kanter can still be a devastating weapon if deployed correctly. Size and strength will always have a place in the NBA, particularly when found in someone who’s coordinated, physical, and willing to exert maximum energy.

As a 27-year-old free agent hitting a marketplace that’s flush with cash, so much of his next contract hinges on the progress seen in 2019. “You always think about [free agency],” Kanter says. “Even if people said ‘Oh I don’t think about it, I’m focused on the season’ it’s always in the back of your head. It can not let you affect your game, but you always think about ‘Hey, what am I going to do?’ ‘Where am I going to go?’ ‘Am I going to stay,’ ‘Am I going to leave?’”

Based on everything seen so far, odds are strongly against Kanter ever approaching league average on the defensive end, but marginal improvement is always possible. Even more likely, though, is further growth on offense, where Kanter’s assist rate—normally near the bottom of the league—has ascended over the past couple years. An opportunity to show off his three-point range will be there, too.

“Before I was saying ‘I want to average a double-double. I want to score this much points, this much blocks.’ But how can I make my teammates better? How can I make the young guys better? Because that will take you to the next level. To share the ball, to make an extra pass, to cheer for your teammates. If you’re having a bad game and other big men are having a good game, you clap for them. You stand up and cheer for them. I think those little things add up and you become a better teammate and become a better player.”

Photo by Jason Szenes - European Pressphoto Agency

The most popular example of Kanter’s loyalty—and quite possibly his most relevant on-court moment—happened one year ago, when the Cleveland Cavaliers visited Madison Square Garden. The conflict started hours before the actual game, when LeBron incidentally disrespected New York’s baby-faced French point guard Frank Ntilikina by saying Dennis Smith Jr. should’ve been the Knicks pick instead.

Late in the first quarter, LeBron dunked home a lob, bumped into Ntilikina, and then refused to get out of his way. It was pure intimidation. The rookie responded by shoving James back before Kanter sprinted over to join the fray. “I was like ‘I’m proud of Frank. He’s pushing with LeBron, that’s good!’ But then after that it’s like OK, LeBron is 260 going up against an 18-year-old kid,” Kanter says. “So then I break in and I actually didn’t say nothing crazy. I was like ‘Don’t mess with my man.’ That’s it.”

The Knicks barely lost that game but then won three of their next four. “Our team needed that. Frank needed that. And I think it went a long way in the locker room,” O’Quinn says. “[Enes] got under the skin of somebody who is kinda unfazed by the many different things that people throw at him.”

The moment also cemented a bond between a veteran and a rookie who’s as shy as Kanter used to be. “The first person that I saw who wanted to help me was Enes,” Ntilikina says. “And it’s always like that, in the locker room, on the court, you always know that Enes is going to be there for you.”

This is who he is. Even still with a slight language barrier, Kanter speaks with an intent to ease. At the end of every other sentence, the man he’s talking to is “bro” or “my man.” Back at Lincoln Center, I sat on a yellow couch in the second-floor media room while he conducted an entire day’s worth of on-camera interviews with outlets from all over the world. A little after 4 PM, Kanter met me around the corner at the Empire Hotel. He looked the opposite of exhausted. We sat down on a gray couch in the brisk lobby, and without saying a word, Kanter grabbed my digital recorder and moved it to his side of the table, just to make sure it’d catch his voice. Again, he's almost too well-mannered.

“We’ll be having dinner, and someone will come to the table and ask to take a picture and he’ll stand up and take a picture with them. I’m like ‘Bro, you’ve gotta say ‘No. After dinner.’ But he just doesn’t decline it,” Fetic says. He’s unfailingly polite, but add everything he brings to the table that’s completely disconnected from on-court performance and it’s easy to see why signing him to a long-term deal is risky. So long as he’s on their roster, the Knicks aren’t broadcast in Turkey, no small loss considering a potential market of approximately 80 million people who would certainly tune in to watch.

McDermott believes Kanter is a perfect fit where he is: “I think, not anything bad against anywhere else he’s played, but I just think he’s meant to be in New York or L.A. He just has that presence.”

He’s unpredictable and different, but being unpredictable and different, in this case, is good. Instead of ego, there’s curiosity and compassion. Given all that encompasses his world—a deteriorating homeland and troubled family that's endured so many challenging circumstances—who has time to feel pressure on a basketball court, especially when it’s impossible to prepare any more than he already has? Kanter is unafraid of his own ambition and has long established himself as a productive professional, someone who can unmistakably affect his team’s culture without taking it over.

One day after the loss to Cleveland, Ntilikina sat by himself in a cold tub at the Knicks practice facility. A few minutes later, Kanter walked in and slid into the freezing water. They acknowledged each other and then sat in an awkward, shivery silence before Ntilikina looked up, turned his head, and stared at the teammate who just stood up to one of the world’s best and most famous athletes on his behalf. “Thank you,” Ntilikina said, softly. Kanter nodded back. “No problem, my man. I’ve always got your back.” The room fell quiet once again. “Whatever happens,” Kanter said. “It’s us against the whole world.”

The NBA's Man of Many Faces published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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topmixtrends · 7 years ago

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This is Part III of LARB’s serialization of Seth Greenland’s forthcoming novel, The Hazards of Good Fortune. Greenland’s novel follows Jay Gladstone from his basketball-loving youth to his life as a real estate developer, civic leader, philanthropist, and NBA team owner, and then to it all spiraling out of control.

A film and TV writer, playwright, and author of four previous novels, Greenland was the original host of The LARB Radio Hour and serves on LARB’s board of directors. The Hazards of Good Fortune will be published in book form by Europa Editions on August 21, 2018.

To start with installment one, click here.

To pre-order on Indiebound, click here; on Amazon, click here; at Barnes & Noble, click here.

Chapter Six

In Alpine, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan and north on Route 9, was an eleven thousand square foot stone mansion of recent vintage with twenty-two rooms, a five-car garage, a swimming pool, and a guesthouse. The trees were striplings and the property, purchased by its current owner for slightly north of twenty million dollars, was less than five years old. A tall hedge surrounded the four-acre spread. Security cameras swept the perimeter. Wrought iron gates obscured a circular driveway where a late-model SUV, a Maybach, and a custom-built McLaren preened. This showplace was the home of basketball superstar D’Angelo Maxwell, who could be found in the sunny kitchen talking to his agent, an Armani-suited, athletic-looking young black man with a diamond in his left ear. Dressed in a T-shirt and sweats, Dag leaned against the marble counter, frustration creasing his handsome face.

“You’re thirty-two years old, Dag,” Jamal Jones said. “Late middle age in basketball years.”

“I know how old I am, Jamal. It’s not a secret,” Dag said. His chef, an older black man with Chinese characters tattooed on both forearms, stood at the kitchen island and chopped fruit for a smoothie. Dag reminded him to soak the almonds before grinding them.

“But you deserve respect,” Jamal said, looking up at his client.

At six foot eight and two hundred and thirty-five pounds, D’Angelo Maxwell dwarfed his agent. His upper torso carved from granite. Arms and neck festooned with tattoos, headband crowning short hair. The highest paid player on his team, he was on the final lap of a four-year deal paying him twenty-two million dollars annually. The numbers he produced—23 points, 6 rebounds, and 3.2 assists a game—were solid, enough to maintain his position in the league elite, but not stellar. He was a perennial All-Star who had never reached the finals or been named first team All-NBA, the highest achievement of every universally acknowledged wealth-generating, sneaker-automobile-energy-drink-endorsing superstar.

The rap on Dag was that, while his skills were unassailable, he was one of those players who did not make his teammates better, had never, after over a decade in the league, advanced to the conference finals, much less won a championship, so was he really worth a huge investment this late in his career? A team could bank on promise, but observers who closely followed the league believed that Dag was, simply put, not “a winner.” Not a loser, to be sure. His previous team always won a lot of regular season games, but without playoff success that was an increasingly hollow accomplishment. There was a litany of great players who had retired without having managed to win an NBA title, and a growing consensus had emerged among league executives that Dag was destined to join their melancholy ranks.

Dag heard the talk. Although he had spent only one year at the University of Kentucky before jumping to the pros, he understood the business well enough to know another franchise was unlikely to sign him at his current rate. But it was his firm belief that his aging body, for all of its infirmities—the creaky knees that required icing during time-outs, the sore feet plunged into an ice bath after each game, the lower back that required electric stimulation and the daily ministrations of a masseur—was capable of earning one more epic payday.

“It’s why I came out to the crib to talk to you in person,” Jamal said.

Jamal was not an exceptionally gifted basketball player but he had played at the University of Maryland where he had earned a business degree, worked two years for a famous sneaker company, and then parlayed his relationships with the more talented guys he had played with—he met Dag on the tournament circuit when they were teenagers—into his position at the forefront of the sports agent ranks.

“You got good news?”

“I think it’s good news.”

“That Chevy deal we talked about?”

Product endorsements were worth additional millions but, more importantly, conveyed status. They were essential building blocks of a player’s “brand.” World-class athletes hustled cars and soft drinks. An invitation to be the face of an insurance company that pitched its product to every family in America was ideal. Dag’s most recent endorsement had been for Odor-Eaters, a shoe insert. This gig did not please him despite the munificent amount he was paid for three hours of work. He longed to be among the elite pitchmen; they were endorsing pickup trucks and energy drinks, not Odor-Eaters.

“I’m still trying to make Chevy happen,” Jamal said. “Big ticket stuff takes time.”

Dag sucked in his cheeks. “You gonna tell me?” In the pause that followed this question, they heard the hum of a television from another room. Dag looked toward the offending sound and yelled, “TURN DOWN THE TV!” before bringing his attention back to the agent.

“I talked to Church yesterday,” Jamal said.

As the coach and general manager of the team, Church Scott was the man responsible for not only guiding the players on the court every night but determining which ones were worth what amount of money.

“What did he say?”

There began a discordant roar of what sounded uncannily like a pneumatic drill run through an amplifier. Dag looked over at his chef standing at the blender. The chef smiled apologetically. The racket made it too loud to talk. After what seemed an eternity the chef turned the machine off and poured the contents into a pint glass which he handed to Dag who immediately placed it on the counter.

“Yo, man,” he said to the chef, “Would you mind giving us a little privacy?” The chef nodded and departed.

“I want you to hear me out before you respond,” Jamal said.

“What the fuck did he say?”

“He wants to win a title, Dag.”

“We all want to win a title.”

“The man needs flexibility under the salary cap.”

“I want the max deal allowable under the union agreement, Jamal. Five years, a hundred and twenty-five million.”

As loud as the kitchen had been, that’s how quiet it was now. The only sound was coming from one of the several large screen televisions in the house which members of Dag’s entourage were still watching. No one had lowered the volume.

Dag shouted, “I SAID TURN DOWN THE DAMN TV!”

He stared at the smaller man, waiting. The offending noise abated slightly.

“Then let me cut to the chase,” Jamal said, delaying the inevitable.

“Damn, man, spit it out.”

The agent stroked his smooth chin as if considering the most delicate way to impart his information. He bit his lip, rubbed his nose. These delaying tactics were too much for Dag. “Come on, Jamal!”

“Ain’t gonna be no max deal,” the agent blurted.

“Church said that?”

“Basically.”

“How much did he offer?”

“Four years guaranteed, and at your age that’s amazing.”

“For how much?”

“Ten million a year,” like it was the greatest news imaginable.

“He can’t be serious.”

“You’re coming off a torn ACL; you turn thirty-three this summer—come on, Dag, forty million guaranteed?” The part of his job that entailed begging spoiled athletes to accept a paltry forty million dollars for their services was not something Jamal enjoyed.

“That’s bullshit.”

“You’re still a superstar.”

“Does Gladstone know about this? Did he sign off?”

“Church is the general manager, man. You know that. He’s got final word.”

With supreme effort, Dag reined himself in. Pro ball was a business, and he was a businessman. Couldn’t keep popping off if he intended to flourish as an entrepreneur when he retired. Some former players died indigent; others got invited to play golf with the President of the United States because they had parlayed their basketball talents into commercial success and were now tycoons. He knew which one he would be.

“I had dinner with Gladstone before I signed with the team and the man looked me in the eye and said he wanted me here for life.” The respect in Dag’s voice when he invoked the owner’s name was unmistakable. Dag admired his business acumen and intended to emulate it when he retired, in what he hoped was the distant future. It was inconceivable to him that Jay Gladstone would not do what Dag believed to be the right thing. “For life, Jamal. The man said he wants me here for life!”

“He probably does,” Jamal agreed. “At four and ten.”

“Gladstone can’t know what’s up with Church.”

“I don’t negotiate with Gladstone. I negotiate with Church, and he’s authorized to speak for Gladstone.”

Dag thought about this. He took a sip of his smoothie.

“If they ain’t gonna give me a max, I want a trade.”

Jamal did not immediately respond, but from the look on his face, Dag knew whatever came next would be less than optimal.

“I made a few calls around the league,” Jamal said. “Everybody got much respect for your game, Dag. Much respect. But ain’t no one signing Dag Maxwell to a max deal.”

Jamal’s declaration hung in the air. Dag cracked his knuckles. He took another sip of the drink, placed the glass back on the counter.

“Who put you in that Maybach?”

“Dag, I appreciate that you let me represent you.”

“Then talk to Church again.”

The view through the kitchen window from where Jamal stood was of the meticulously landscaped backyard. The pool was still covered, but in a few weeks the tarpaulin would be rolled back, and sunlight would sparkle off the ultramarine water. Jamal thought about all he had set up on Dag’s behalf, the charitable endeavors like the D’Angelo Maxwell Foundation and the D’Angelo Maxwell Summer Basketball Jam, the business ventures they were involved in—the clothing line (DagWear) and their nascent video game company (DagTronics)—everything big and small he had attended to for his illustrious client, and wondered why, for some people, there could never be enough.

“It won’t help,” the agent said.

There was something about the finality with which his representative uttered these words that made Dag hesitate. The player lapsed into a silence that lasted for thirty seconds during which the sound of the TV continued to bleed into the kitchen. Without another word to Jamal, he stomped off in the direction of the noise.

On the sofa in front of a large screen television, Dag’s younger brother Trey held a bong between his knees. He glanced up as his older sibling appeared.

“Yo, Dag,” he said, by way of greeting. “Jamal still here?”

“We’re workin’,” Dag said, extra mustard on the verb.

Trey was in his late twenties, six foot five and sturdily built, with an elaborate neck tattoo of a cross, a souvenir from his brief embrace of Jesus. When Dag signed as a free agent, he negotiated an invitation for his younger brother, who had played a year of Division I college ball at Tennessee State, to try out for the team. Trey was on the roster through the pre-season but was cut loose before the first game of the regular season. Now he served as his brother’s lieutenant. Anything Dag needed, breakfast cooked, dry cleaning dropped off, gassing up Dag’s custom-built McLaren, Trey handled it promptly unless he was high in which case it took a little longer. Lately, he was stoned every day, and Dag had meant to talk to him about it. Two young black men flanked Trey. Babatunde (formerly Stephen) Worrell, a diminutive bodybuilder in shorts, and a tight T-shirt who rechristened himself after becoming obsessed with the Civil War in high school and determining Stephen was a slave name, and Lourawls Poe, an ex-shot putter from the University of Texas clad in a DagWear hoodie. They were lifelong friends of Dag’s. The coffee table in front of them was strewn with video game cartridges, several empty pizza boxes, and a forest of soda cans. In the middle of the mess lay a copy of The Classic Slave Narratives by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. A male Rhodesian ridgeback snored near a Nerf hoop that had been set up for the visits of Dag’s six-year-old son.

The crew was watching Hoop Ladies, a reality show about the antics of a group of current and former NBA wives. One of the hoop ladies caught Dag’s attention. This was Brittany Maxwell, his almost ex-spouse (the couple had separated just before the current NBA season began and had filed for divorce in January). She was in a clothing store listening to an agitated white woman ranting about a perceived slight from some “bitch” of their acquaintance, presumably another cast member. Brittany was nodding her head and repeating, “Totally, right.” Both women sheathed in outfits that accented butts and breasts. Bling bedecked their fingers and wrists. Dag scowled at the sixty-inch screen, his candy-wrapped ex, the gold-plated post-divorce lifestyle the legal system provided, and thought of the ocean of alimony that was going to be required to keep the whole catastrophe afloat.

What made it particularly unbearable was that he was still attracted to Brittany, still a little in love. She was fine-looking, smart, and a good mother. Right now, he wished he had not been a serial adulterer, or at least had not been a serial adulterer that got caught. When Brittany discovered the cell phone snapshots of his impressive harem—a seemingly endless display of female pulchritude—and threw him out of their Bel Air home (like many NBA stars, Dag maintained a house in Los Angeles), there was no defense.

“I told you to turn off the damn TV,” Dag said. “Why are you watching this shit?”

“It’s hilarious, man,” Lourawls said. “It’s more like a satire of the lifestyle than a reflection of it. But I guess it’s kind of a reflection, too.”

Unamused, Dag asked, “What’s in that bong?”

“Some dank,” Lourawls grinned.

“Brittany’s got it going on,” Babatunde said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dag said.

He grabbed the remote control from the coffee table and changed the channel to a cable news show. A female newscaster of indeterminate ethnicity was reporting about the police shooting that had occurred in White Plains.

“Ain’t no way that cop does time,” Trey said.

“The guy was naked,” Lourawls said.

The annoyance on Dag’s face downshifted to endurance.

“Police do whatever they want to a black man,” Dag said. The crew stared at their benefactor. “I catch any of y’all watching that show my wife’s on, Ima throw your ass outta the house. Y’all need to get up on the news.”

To punctuate his point, he flung the remote control against the TV screen. It bounced off and rolled on to the shag rug. This caused the slumbering dog to stir. The animal lifted his massive head. Dag glowered at his crew. Any notion Trey, Babatunde, and Lourawls had that Dag might have discharged his anger by flinging the remote control was now abandoned.

“When was the last time Biggie got a walk?” Dag asked. “Damn dog can’t walk himself, right, Trey?”

“Naw, man,” Trey said. “Biggie ain’t learned that trick.” Lourawls stifled a laugh. Dag glared in his direction. Trey turned to Babatunde. “Walk the dog, man.”

“I walked him last time,” the beleaguered subordinate said. “It’s Lou’s turn.”

The fiery coals in Dag’s eye sockets scorched Babatunde, whose brawny physique seemed to melt beneath the withering blast. There was a chain of command from Dag to Trey, then south toward the other two, neither of whom had any clout, and Babatunde had violated it.

“You above walking Biggie?” Dag said to Babatunde. “You too important now? You too essential to the way things run up in here to get your ass off the couch and do your damn job?”

“Why you so salty?” Babatunde said.

“What the fuck you just say?” Dag inquired.

“I ain’t say nothing.”

“Do your job with some dignity,” Dag said.

After another pause that was too long for Dag’s liking, Babatunde rose from the couch and skulked out of the room. Before working for Dag, Babatunde had been a personal trainer. Now his only client was Biggie.

“Where are you going?” Dag demanded.

“Dog needs his leash,” Babatunde replied. “He’s dangerous.”

Dignity was vital to Dag. He admired it in others and tried to manifest it himself. An important component of a dignified bearing, in his view, was how you did your job. Whether it was as an NBA star or as someone who walked the dog of an NBA star, you discharged professional tasks in a dignified way. Today’s brief exposure to Hoop Ladies had compounded the irritation he already felt because he believed it was undignified of Brittany, as the soon-to-be-ex-wife of D’Angelo Maxwell, to display herself in such a degrading context. Why did people watch those shows if not to see brassy, uncouth women bite, scratch, and tear each other’s weaves out? Dag might have screamed Bang bang, Motherfucker, inarguably a vulgarity, at top volume whenever he scaled new heights on a basketball court, but that was always in the heat of a game, under the bright lights. Anyway, he was a basketball star and that, as far as he was concerned, made it not only excusable but inspiring. Now Babatunde, who Dag’s business manager was paying god-knows-what to hang around, smoke weed, and read paperbacks about black history, was balking at handling his obligations. It was a challenge, Dag reflected, to maintain his dignity in an environment where the workforce was too high to walk the dog.

Who had saddled him with these fools, and why was he obligated to look after them? He was tired of loyalty, the unwritten code that someone like him who, by dint of hard work, divinely bestowed talent, and, yes, perhaps a little bit of luck, was somehow responsible for providing in perpetuity for this collection of sybaritic parasites. When it came to someone like his revered mother, he was thrilled to spoil her. She had worked three jobs, kept him off the streets, been his biggest booster, and never asked for anything. If the Baptists anointed saints, Kimberly Maxwell would have been one. She lived to witness her son’s success before diabetes caused her premature death two years ago. But these jokers, and everyone else he ever knew who always seemed to have a hand out when he approached, took mooching to dizzying heights. And Dag was an easy touch. Checks to this group, that organization, piles of money into the riskiest, craziest business ventures of friends and extended family and where had it gotten him? He had earned well over a hundred million dollars in his career and had already burned through a hefty portion of it. He wished he could talk the situation over with one of his guys, bat it around, examine it from various angles, but that was impossible. Jamal was sympathetic, but couldn’t empathize with what Dag was going through as an aging professional athlete. The entire state of affairs infuriated him, and to expend the energy it took to hide how he felt was exhausting.

Babatunde reappeared with a dog leash in his hand. Dag regarded the man as if he’d like to extract his molars with kitchen tongs.

“Why you throwin’ shade?” Babatunde asked. “I got it.”

Dag stalked out of the room.

In the kitchen, Jamal drank a glass of water. He knew that his conversation with Dag was not over, that he would have to listen to more complaining before he could leave.

“Can you believe what I gotta put up with?” Dag said as he re-entered the kitchen. He took a deep breath and collected himself. He looked at the prominent tattoo on his right bicep: the 5th. The ink was a reference to Houston’s Fifth Ward, the combat zone of a neighborhood where Dag grew up. Through his talents, he had burst from its rickety streets, but he never pretended he was anything other than a kid from the Fifth. For him, the tattoo was a touchstone, a visit home. He rubbed it with his palm.

“I’m paying my brother and them guys to watch TV. I bought houses for two of my sisters. I lost track of how many millions I gave Brittany so she can live like a damn queen and raise our kids with all the shit I never had. I pay my bills. I take care of my family. I’m a responsible motherfucker, Jamal.”

“You’re a good man.”

“And I’m a good father.”

“True that.”

“My father, man, whatever he did, I did the opposite.”

“Your kids love you.”

“Responsibility costs.”

“Indeed, Dag. Indeed. Wise words.”

“Which is why you gonna get me a max deal.”

A strong belief in God allowed Jamal to cope with his greatest challenges, and in Dag’s absence, the agent had prayed that the player would absorb the words of wisdom he had attempted to impart. Jamal groaned.

“I told you, I can’t snap my fingers and make that happen.”

Dag turned the dominant force of his personality toward the backyard, where a flock of starlings had alighted on the lawn. The player watched as they hopped along the grass searching for food.

Jamal knew ornithology was not Dag’s thing, and as the gap in their conversation lengthened he worried what his friend might be thinking. Being yelled at was easier than being ignored. Dag kept staring at the birds. What was Jamal supposed to say? He tried this:

“I wish I could.”

Dag bowed his head for a moment. There was no point in yelling at Jamal.

“Explain to me how we’re supposed to elevate my brand because I don’t see how we do that if I’m not playing on a max deal.”

“That’s our challenge.”

“And you’re sure you can’t get that contract?”

“I tried, man. I told you.”

“Then you’re fired,” Dag said.

“I’m fired?” Jamal laughed.

“Why you laughing? Ain’t nothing funny.”

Jamal angled his head, tried to plumb Dag’s thinking.

“For real?”

“Most definitely.”

This particular exchange had occurred several times before, ending with Dag giving his agent a fist bump and saying, “I’m just playing.” But if it was a joke, he was taking it further than he had in the past. When Dag broke eye contact and looked away, Jamal realized he meant it.

“That ain’t right.”

“You disappointed me.”

“We boys!”

Occasionally Dag’s shots misfired, and the team lost, but reality off the court nearly always bent to his expectations. The news Jamal delivered? It did not compute with Dag’s all-conquering outlook. Someone had to pay.

“We ain’t boys,” Dag said. “You bush league, man. Rinky-dink.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Get your ass outta my house.”

“C’mon, D’Angelo—”

“I’m done with you, man.”

Once more, Jamal thought about making a case to Dag, but he would not debase himself. He was aware of the value Dag placed on comportment. He was not going to point out everything they had accomplished, all of the money they had made together. When the agent turned toward his biggest client, now former client, he humbly lowered his eyes.

“Thank you for letting me represent you,” Jamal said.

“I gotta get mine,” Dag explained.

Jamal left and Dag was alone in the kitchen. He thought about joining the entourage in the TV room. Maybe smoking a little weed and playing NBA 2K would get his mind off the situation. But he quickly dismissed the thought when he realized hanging out with Trey, Babatunde, and Lourawls would only remind him of his obligations. His obligations! Damn, he spent a lot of money. And his earning window, if Jamal’s report was anywhere near correct, appeared to be closing. Best-case scenario he could play another five or six years. Then what? He saw the kinds of penny-ante products ex-players were asked to endorse. Stain removers and cockroach traps. The big payday? Forget that. You grabbed the main chance by the neck, and if you still had game, you wrung every dollar out of it. He knew he was worth a max deal and he suspected the owner agreed with him.

Owner. Dag didn’t like that word. In the sphere of American race relations, its connotations were unavoidable. During union negotiations with the league, there was always one player that would refer to the NBA as a “plantation,” but Dag refused to countenance that interpretation. No one got millions of dollars to endorse sneakers on any plantation he knew. Still, it chafed him that the ownership class appeared to be a photographic negative of the league itself. He was aware that it was beyond his ability to alleviate centuries of systematized inequality single-handedly. But getting a max deal from Jay Gladstone was something else. That he could do.

Chapter Seven

In the winter of 1911, a young Russian immigrant named Yacov Glatstein arrived in London with a few coins in his tattered pocket. With the stroke of an official’s pen, he became Jacob Gladstone. Soon he discovered that to be a Jew in England was not something to which a sensible person would aspire and a year later sailed for America, bearing only the clothes he wore and his shiny new name. In New York, the industrious greenhorn found work with a cousin who was a plumber on the Lower East Side. He married a young factory worker named Ida Abramovitch, fathered two sons and a daughter, and less than a decade later had his own successful plumbing business with other workmen in his employ and jobs in all five boroughs. When the exultant racket of the 1920s flung the entire city skyward and all new construction required sinks, tubs, toilets, showers, pipes, and drains, Jacob was ready. In the years after World War II, Gladstone Plumbing was one of the most successful outfits in the city, designing and fitting the innards of addresses where the brash century’s Anglo-Saxon elite turned the taps with unsoiled fingers.

Jacob’s sons, Bernard (who acquired the nickname Bingo as a student at James Monroe High School) and Jerome (always called Jerry), enlisted in the armed forces, served, respectively, in Europe and the Pacific, and, upon their discharges, followed their father into the business where they contributed to its continued growth. Bingo married Helen and begat Jay and Beatrice. Jerry’s contribution to the legacy consisted of his wife, the former Estelle Schatz, and their children, Franklin and Deborah (now married to a radiologist and living in Chicago).

Bingo and Jerry worked like camels, pooled their money, and bought their first apartment building in the Bronx in the late fifties. In the sixties, they started developing real estate—the brothers had a preternatural ability to intuit what marginal neighborhoods would cycle back from the near-doom of white flight to the advent of gentrification—and a decade later were among the wealthiest real estate families in New York City.

More than merely capitalists, the Gladstones were civic-minded boosters lavishly donating to public projects around the city, a fountain at Lincoln Center, a copse of birch trees in Central Park, grace notes that belied their aggressive business practices. In the dire, arson-scarred 1970s, the Gladstones were among the real estate dynasties that, by agreeing to pay six hundred million dollars in property taxes a year ahead of time, helped save the metropolis from—FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD screamed the infamous Daily News headline—bankruptcy. In Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, Gladstone Properties built middle-class housing under the Mitchell-Lama plan. They were not known for their aesthetic aspirations: “Whatever its blocky design and red-brick facades might lack in poetry,” a prominent architecture critic wrote, “the Gladstone brothers more than compensate for in welcome efficiency.” Years later, the Wall Street Journal quoted Bingo: “We gave the people what they wanted at a price they could afford. We took them out of public housing, out of ghettos. And I put our name on it. Our first big project, my brother wanted to call it Windsor Court. I said, ‘What are we, English?’”

Jay idolized his late father, but where Bingo blustered, his son was smooth. Bingo ordered, Jay cajoled. The Bronx and World War II formed Bingo, who never lost his New York accent. Jay was a creature of Westchester County and the Ivy League, and when he spoke, it was impossible to discern his birthplace. He could raise his voice but preferred to whisper. And where Bingo was intuitive, a believer in gut instincts, Jay preferred to talk things over. Of all the highly competent, well-remunerated people who worked for the Gladstone Group, the one whose guidance Jay consistently sought was his sister Beatrice, known to everyone as Bebe.

If you were to ask Jay what Bebe’s finest qualities were, he would say her keenness of insight and her loyalty. What Jay could not say, because it would reflect a degree of psychological insight he did not possess, was that Bebe, while capable, assertive, and accomplished, was also skillful enough to let her older brother shine.

“This isn’t going to fly,” she said. Her voice was like the lower register of an oboe, clear and penetrating.

Jay was seated on a sofa in his sister’s large office on the 44th floor of the steel and glass tower on Park Avenue just north of Grand Central Station built by their father and uncle in the 1980s. She was opposite him in a pearl gray chair. The siblings usually checked in with each other in person several times throughout the day. Bebe had redone the space in the mid-century modern style popularized by a current television drama. Several framed and matted photographs of Palm Springs, California, taken by Julius Shulman, were arranged on one wall. The wall opposite featured a geometric painting by Piet Mondrian, one of two recently purchased by Bebe in an auction at Sotheby’s (the other hung in her East 73rd Street duplex). On the teardrop shaped coffee table, a small Henry Moore sculpture commanded attention. Three years younger than Jay, Bebe’s attractive face was tanned from a recent European ski vacation. Through diet and thrice-weekly workouts with a trainer, she retained a youthful physique. Her hair was dyed honey blonde and fell loosely to the shoulders of her cream-colored pullover. She wore matching wool drill trousers, ankle high black boots of the softest leather. Her jewelry—earrings, a bracelet—was straightforward and stylish. There was a folder on her lap and she had just finished scanning the contents.

“What do I tell Franklin?” Jay asked although he knew the answer.

“He needs to present more thorough documentation.”

“You don’t think he could be stealing?”

“I hope not,” Bebe said. A graduate of Smith, she served on the boards of several cultural institutions (generously funded by the Gladstone Family Foundation, of which she was the president), where she was known for her ability to understand spreadsheets and budgets.

“Do you want me to talk to him with you?”

“He’ll think we’re ganging up and then he’ll tell Ari and Ezra to join the meeting.”

“We don’t want the twins,” Bebe said.

They no longer bothered to roll their eyes when either invoked the names of Franklin’s twin sons. Because the young men were Gladstones, Jay and Bebe tolerated their presence in the family business, but Ari and Ezra did not yet warrant respect. It was unspoken between Jay and Bebe that neither believed this was a remote possibility. The mention of his young cousins sent Jay’s mind reeling back to the previous evening and the malevolent twins he encountered on the deserted concourse of the arena. He wondered if their appearance portended some incipient nastiness—their materialization seemingly out of nowhere had been strange—but quickly dismissed the idea. He considered relating what had happened to Bebe but repressed any further thought on the subject. Instead, he told her about the invitation he had received from the president of Tate College.

His sister was impressed. “And what are you going to tell the graduates?”

“I’m going to talk about the joys of working with relatives.”

Bebe’s laugh filled the room.

The last Gladstone project built in New York City was a residential rental building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan nearly ten years earlier, while Bingo and Jerry were still nominally running the business. It was a reliable moneymaker for the family, but like much of what Jay’s father and uncle had done, architecturally undistinguished. Jay wanted to leave his mark on the portfolio and his imprint on the metropolis, so he was in the process of arranging to purchase the city land on which a Brooklyn branch library currently stood. On that parcel, he intended to build the tallest structure in Brooklyn, one that would redraw the skyline, now a feast of rectilinear tedium. To that end, he had retained the world-renowned architect Renzo Piano, and his design for the Sapphire was, in Jay’s view, nothing short of a tone poem composed of steel and glass. The gently curving structure—to Jay it suggested the hip of a female athlete, forceful, tensile, a hint of motion—didn’t contain a single straight line and rose to just over a thousand feet, nearly doubling the height of Brooklyn’s next tallest building. The Sapphire would be to the Brooklyn skyline what the Empire State Building has been to Manhattan’s; the signature, the flourish. When illuminated, it would blaze like a monumental gemstone. Let the other developers erect their boring modernist boxes. Jay would bring the soul. As for the library that he planned to demolish, he intended to replace it with a more modest, mostly subterranean, state-of-the-art version.

Sipping a double espresso, Jay stood in his large office admiring Renzo Piano’s scale model. Rendered in paper, wood, and titanium, the Brancusi-like sweep had been difficult to fabricate. Three feet tall, it rested on a table surrounded by a mock-up of the projected landscaping. On the wall behind the model hung the architectural drawings. Jay had thought the plans would only be there temporarily, but it had been over a year since he had pinned them up. In the many fights with local groups who viewed the project with everything from suspicion to outright contempt, gazing at them on his office wall every day was a constant reminder to remain steadfast. Jay’s vision would be forty-two stories when complete. The plan he intended to submit to the city was for a building of only forty stories, the zoning limit for the area. He did not want to apply for a waiver and was willing to gamble that the city did not want to spend years in expensive litigation over an edifice that would be the envy of the world.

Jay finished the espresso and placed the cup on the coffee table next to a transparent case that held a scuffed baseball. He opened the case, removed the ball, and felt the rough red stitching with his fingers. It was a souvenir from his Little League team in 1967, when he was twelve. They were called the Gas House Gang, after the mighty St. Louis Cardinal teams of the 1940s, and Bingo was the coach. The players had all signed the ball, their decades-old signatures now faded. For years Bingo had kept the memento on his desk. It was a talisman, an object of connection, and although Jay was not superstitious, he would occasionally touch it for luck.

While some builders slap their names in huge gold letters on everything, trumpeting their importance directly into the world’s collective ear, Jay preferred to operate in a less brazen mode and this was reflected in his office décor. Thick solid mahogany moldings, raised paneled walls, and fluted pilasters with a hand-rubbed “French polish” finish. The Carpathian walnut burled desk. The leather and antique brass nail head Chesterfield couch and matching overstuffed guest chairs. The sculptural bronze and smoked glass coffee table that lay on the antique hand-dyed Indian print rug.

The traditional design of the office contrasted with Renzo Piano’s thrilling display, and Jay applauded the difference. The tedious boxes that currently comprised the Brooklyn skyline would, in their aggressive tepidness, serve as a neutral background against which Jay’s dynamic slash of steel and glass would instantly draw the eye. The bold strokes of this building might not have been in keeping with his more low-key modus operandi, but he had his reasons for undertaking something so striking. The Sapphire would be the first New York City project he was going to build out of Bingo’s long shadow, and, if it went well, it might also be his last.

Like many individuals of his great station, Jay saw a larger role for himself in the world than that afforded him by the real estate business and professional sports. Civic life had long drawn his interest, and he had donated bountiful sums of money to the Democratic Party. Particularly unstinting when Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, he developed a friendly relationship with the magnetic senator, even playing golf with him on Martha’s Vineyard two years earlier in a foursome that included the U.S. Trade Representative, and former NBA great Charles Barkley. Through appropriate channels Jay conveyed that, in the event of Obama’s re-election, he would like to be appointed the ambassador to Germany. Until his dying day, his father refused to contribute a dime to the German economy. When his friends purchased Mercedes, Bingo stuck resolutely to Cadillacs. He could never forgive. Jay’s ambassadorship would be Bingo’s revenge. To this end, he had been meeting with a German language tutor. Recently, he had stood in front of his bathroom mirror and intoned: Als Botschafter, begrube ich Sie auf die US-Botschaft un jetzt bitte kussen sie meinen Judischen kiester. Which translated to: As the ambassador, I welcome you to the American embassy, and now you may kiss my Jewish ass.

That morning Jay went over cash flow reports. He met with the chief investment officer about a deal they were considering to build a mixed use high rise in Boston. The property manager briefed him on the situation with the union leader he was to meet with later in the day. When that meeting ended, Jay thought he might walk down the hall and talk to his cousin Franklin. He preferred to deal with things obliquely, and because he was not sure how obliquely he could accuse someone of embezzlement, he continued to put it off.

At lunchtime, Jay met with his trainer, a young Israeli woman, at the executive gym two floors below his office. It was a well-designed space equipped with state-of-the-art strength training equipment, cardio machines, and ceiling-mounted television monitors always tuned to news or financial channels. He stretched and lifted, grunting and sweating through his routine. Several other Gladstone Group executives were exercising, engrossed by whatever played in their headphones. Gym etiquette required that they not address the boss unless he spoke to them first. On this day, Jay was not interested in conversation. He finished the workout, toweled off, and thanked his trainer.

In the sauna, his thoughts jumped from Franklin to Nicole and her declaration about having a baby, to the Sapphire and the pride he would feel upon its completion, to his basketball team and what he would do if they failed to qualify for the playoffs. Losing was not in his nature. He ate a tuna sandwich at his desk as he drafted a letter to the NBA commissioner regarding the possibility of shortening the season. There had been too many injuries recently, and Jay believed fewer games would result in less wear and tear on his guys. It was important to him that he be perceived by the players in the league as one of their advocates.

When he left the office at the end of the day, he still had not spoken with Franklin.

Jay and Boris sipped club sodas with lemon and bitters in the bar of the 21 Club. It was late afternoon, and they were talking about the Sapphire. Three Chinese businessmen sat at a corner table conversing in Mandarin. Jay was a popular figure in the building industry, as well regarded by the unions as anyone in his position could be. For this reason, he was asked from time to time by his colleagues to engage in back-channel communications during contentious negotiations.

A white man in his forties arrived at the table. The dark suit he wore could barely contain his impressive musculature. A thick head of hair was moussed and he wore an ID bracelet. Boris stood to shake his hand. Jay remained seated. The man shook Jay’s hand first, and Jay introduced Boris.

Gus Breeze registered the name Reznikov. “Any relation?”

“His son,” Boris said.

Breeze shrugged. Marat Reznikov had been the subject of an article in New York several years earlier. It had been years since Jay had spent time with him but he enjoyed seeing the reaction his name produced. To invoke it casually was not to overtly threaten, merely to inform. But the leader of the Service Employees International Union did not seem worried.

A waiter appeared, and Breeze ordered a beer.

The union contract was up, and it appeared that a labor action was imminent. If there were a strike, Jay knew it would inconvenience thousands of his tenants. Breeze told Jay that if all the union demands were not met, a strike would be unavoidable.

The beer arrived and when the waiter tried to pour it into a glass Breeze waved him away and performed the task himself. He took a sip, then put the glass down on the table. Instead of speaking, he exhaled slowly through his lips like a tire losing air.

“You’re a man with a lot of weight on your shoulders,” Jay remarked.

“I can handle it,” Breeze said. “I wish I had better news for you.” He spoke in the sandpapery tones of someone who has seen too many gangster movies where the tougher the tough guy is the more quietly he speaks. “But it is what it is.” It is what it is. A phrase Jay found annoying, what a dullard remarked when he couldn’t think of anything else. “And listen, Jay, I don’t have to tell you what a huge inconvenience this is going to be for your tenants. I did a little research and found out how many rental units your family controls. That’s a lot of pissed off customers.” Breeze took another sip of his beer. Over the rim of his glass, he looked at Boris in a way that let him know he was not afraid of Marat Reznikov. Boris said nothing, only returned Breeze’s gaze.

“It would be extremely inconvenient for them,” Jay said.

“We all want to avoid that,” Breeze gangster-whispered.

Jay smiled in a way to suggest he was taking the labor leader into his confidence. It was painless, disarming. Had he not been born into a successful business this smile would have helped him build one.

“Here’s the thing,” Jay said, placidly. The union leader tilted his head back and jutted his smooth chin. Jay looked directly into his dark, slightly bloodshot eyes. “I hired a private investigator and a forensic accountant. I didn’t tell any of my associates, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Breeze tried to hide his astonishment at this news, but a quiver of the left eyelid was his tell. “You got to the books?” Jay nodded. “How’d you get to the books?” He asked as if he were inquiring about directions to 34th Street, no big deal.

“Come on, Gus,” Jay said. “Who do you think you’re dealing with? The house you purchased in Southampton last year with money siphoned from the pension fund, the one on Swallow Lane with the four bedrooms a block from the beach that the union owns but only you and your family seem to use? It could be a problem with your membership, not to mention the attorney general of New York. The same goes for the condo in the Virgin Islands. You needed both? Maybe your union might have overlooked one vacation home, but two?”

This information was all imparted in the friendliest, most confiding way.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“Listen, Gus, it pains me to say this, but I’m—I think disappointed would be the word. Yes, I’m disappointed. How long have we known each other?” Breeze did not answer, nor did Jay expect him to. “Over a decade. We’ve been honest with each other, forthright. But after we offer your union a fair deal, one that I believe to be generous, you put me in a position where I have to hire a private investigator.”

At this point in the conversation, Gus Breeze resembled a flounder pulled from Sheepshead Bay lying in a dinghy, mouth open, lips moving barely perceptibly.

Jay continued, “This reputable man who I have no reason to distrust comes to me with certain information and then you and I have to talk about these problems you’ve created for yourself that in other circumstances would not be any of my business. You think I enjoy squeezing you? I don’t enjoy it at all. I don’t want to dig around in your personal affairs like this, believe me. Everyone knows I like to operate on the up and up. What you’ve done might have passed in 1962, but it doesn’t fly for a union leader in 2012. So, I’d like to get these negotiations wrapped up.”

Breeze mumbled something about how unions operate, but the confidence to press the point had abandoned him.

“Think about what you want to do, Gus.”

Jay paid the bill, and he and Boris walked out. It had been a strange day. Nicole had implicitly threatened their marriage, Franklin appeared to be siphoning funds from the company, and this union ballbreaker thought he could press an advantage. Perhaps if Jay were more swaggering, more puffed up and bullying, he would never be challenged. But that was not remotely his style. When would people learn that no one was going to beat Jay Gladstone?

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.

Seth Greenland is the author of five novels. His latest, The Hazards of Good Fortune(Europa Editions), will be published in 2018. His play Jungle Rot won the Kennedy Center/American Express Fund For New American Plays Award and the American Theater Critics Association Award. He was a writer-producer on the Emmy-nominated HBO series Big Love.

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