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cy-cyborg · 8 months ago

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Toph Beifong doesn’t hold up as disability representation - Disability in the Media

[ID: A screenshot of Toph, a twelve-year-old girl with black hair in a loose, green and tan short-sleeve shirt and shorts, cheering in an arena. Next to text written in a rough, blocky font: "Disability in Media - Toph Beifong Doesn't hold up as disability representation" /End ID]

Avatar the Last Airbender is one of my all-time favourite TV-shows, and Toph is still easily one of my favourite members of Team Avatar. I was a few years younger than Toph when the show first started airing, and being a disabled kid who was into martial arts, constantly being dismissed by my able-bodied opponents and teachers, meant that I connected very strongly with her right from the get-go.

But upon my last couple of rewatches of the series, I began to come to the realisation that my opinions on Toph as a shining example of good disability representation were... well, pretty heavily influenced by my nostalgia for the show and that many aspects of Toph's character just don't hold up today. Which, honestly is fair, the show is nearly 19 years old (if it were a person in my country, it would be old enough to drink) and I think it's pretty ridiculous to expect every part of every character from an 19 year old show to age well. So today I wanted to talk about the things I think Avatar the original Last Airbender did right with Toph, where I think they missed the mark, and what changes I think would need to be made to Toph to make her work for a modern audience.

So let's start with why I think Toph doesn't really hold up as "good disability representation" today, and the elements of her character that just haven't aged as well.

For me, one of the biggest issues I noticed upon rewatching the show, is how often we are told (often by Toph herself) that she is blind, but how infrequently we are actually shown it's impact on her life beyond her bending or outside of jokey contexts. Outside of her bending, we only ever see her blindness impacting her ability to do things like read or write, otherwise, she functionally has full vision -so far as the audience is informed - with the only exceptions being when she's in the air or water (e.g. on Appa or in the submarines) or in loose soil (e.g. the desert). Having places and circumstances where she doesn't have access to her power that allows her to "see" was a step in the right direction, but I do think it would have been better if her seismic sense wasn't quite as accurate, even in the most ideal of circumstances.

But why? Well, I think Suki explains it really well, long before Toph is even introduced. when Sokka says "I should have seen you as a warrior instead of a girl" Suki stops him and says "I am a warrior, but I'm also a girl". Being a warrior and a woman are both important parts of Suki's character, and only recognising her as one or the other means ignoring a big part of who she is, and the same is true for Toph. Being blind is a big part of toph's character that has informed a lot of her life, but so is being a warrior and bending master. Many people see Toph as a warrior or fighter, but ignore her disability, but both are important. She's disabled, and a warrior, and those things don't cancel each other out, the same way being a warrior doesn't diminish Suki's status as a woman.

When the show was still airing though (and even still today) it was very common to see non-disabled fans of the show exclaiming that they honestly forget that Toph is even blind sometimes, with many people going so far as to say that she's not even disabled (and that this was a good thing). While I do think some of that comes from the fact they weren't used to seeing a disabled character as both disabled and an active participant in these kinds of stories, I do think this mostly happened because of the show's lack of, well, showing the impact of her blindness on her daily life and allowing her earthbending and seismic sense to erase the effects of her disability to some extent. It's much harder to forget a character is blind when it impacts their daily life in ways that are shown to the audience. This doesn't have to be in big, showy ways mind you, showing things subtly but consistently works way better than one "very special episode" type setup.

In the show as it is though, the seismic sense functionally gives Toph a perfect image of her surroundings until it's just not available anymore for *plot reasons*.

[ID: A black and white shot of Toph and how she sees the oponent she's fighting, with shockwaves radiating from him towards her to indicate how she's interpreting the scene. Her foe has jumped into the air and now has his hand dug into the ground of an arena, about to launch rocks towards her. /End ID]

In many ways, her picture of the world is better and clearer than what the non-disabled characters can see, leading to this feeling of her disability being erased. It may have been better though if the seismic sense could give her a general idea of big things in her immediate vicinity but she still missed the finer details, functioning at least a little bit more like a tactile/earthy-vibration version of the limited sight some legally-blind people have in real life. Things like a person's position, movement and overall pose would still be "visible" to her in a general sense, as well as big things in the environment (including things underground, since there are a few plot-points that require that), but smaller things like details about objects and creatures, people's facial expressions or what they're doing with parts of their body that have no direct contact with the ground (like their hands) is less clear. On top of this, she may struggle to detect smaller, lighter objects or creatures that realistically wouldn't cause much of a vibration at all. creatures as small and as light as Momo and Hawky for example might be detectable, but "fuzzy" to her, and anything smaller might make enough of a vibration to tell her it's there when it moves, but not enough for her to be able to tell what specifically it is without some other cue (such as sound). There are a few moments in the show that seem to imply this is what they were initially going for, but it's not really consistent, and is directly contradicted in her debut episode, "the blind bandit" when she explains that she can even "see" something as small as the ants off in the distance.

[ID: A shot of Aang, a twelve-year-old bald boy with an arrow tattoo on his head, dressed in a yellow and orange outfit, standing with Toph at night. In the foreground is an anthill will a trail of ants, which Aang is looking for. /End ID]

With an adjustment like what I'm suggesting though, she still serves her narrative purpose of teaching Aang the importance of being able to wait and listen - possibly even more so, as her needing to wait and collect more information in order to get a clearer image before striking, would back-up what Bumi tells Aang that he needs in an earth bending master. It would also still help to illustrate the connectedness of the world, a theme Toph continues to embody heavily in The Legend of Korra, while still showing the ways her disability impacts her more frequently.

When I talked about the "super-crip" trope a while back, I mentioned that one way to avoid the more harmful elements of the trope (where the character's disability is erased by their powers) is to use the ability in question more like a mobility or disability aid than a straight-up cure. The power should help them, but shouldn't make their disability redundant. People are creative and we would find ways to use a superpower or magic to help with our disabilities if it were available in real life, but what's the point of including a disabled character if you're just going to functionally erase their disability? For a character like Toph, I think this is the kind of approach that should be taken with her. Her seismic sense still helps her, but it's not a perfect replacement. (Ironically, I did use Toph as a "good" example of that trope, but I do think after this last rewatch, for the reasons I'm discussing here, I might have to backtrack that a bit).

I considered giving an alternative approach here, to keep the sensitivity of toph's seismic sense as it is in the show as is, but giving it draw-backs such as making her susceptible to sensory overload similar to what autistic people experience. However, while replacing one disability with another can work for some characters and stories, I don't think it's the best adjustment to make for Toph or any blind character, largely thanks to this also being a trope. The "blind (or d/Deaf) person who's other senses become super-human to make up for it" trope is very common in fantasy, sci-fi as well as older martial arts films, and while I'm not really the best person to cover it, I do know that members of both the blind and deaf communities have expressed a lot of frustration with it. Toph already falls into this trope quite a bit, and any suggestions I could make would have just dialled that element up to 11, and fixing one problem with another is never a good idea.

Another thing that actually did bug me for a while, even before my most recent rewatch of the show, is how Toph is treated on the rare occasions she does point out something won't working for her. There are a number of times where Toph advocates for herself and points out that something The Gaang is doing isn't accessible to her or sets a boundary to do with her disability, and she's either left behind, her concerns are brushed off or she's ignored entirely. The three most noticeable examples of this are in the Episodes "The Ember Island Players," "The Library," and Toph and Katara's segment of "Tales of Ba Sing Se."

In the Ember Island Players, Toph complains that the seats they have for the play are too high up and too far away, and she's unable to "see" what's happening on stage. Her friends don't really take any notice of her though except for Katara who tells her not to worry, "I'll tell your feet what's happening."

[ID: A shot of Katara, a fourteen-year-old girl with long brown hair and blue eyes, sitting with Toph, who is sitting with her arms crossed, annoying in a theatre seat. Both Toph and Katara are wearing red and gold, fire-themed outfits. Katara is looking at something off-screen. /End ID]

My problem here is that this particular kind of situation is something that is familiar to a lot of disabled people. Even the least independent disabled people I know get annoyed when their access needs or requests for accommodations, even among friends, are ignored and their pushback is brushed off with "don't worry, I'll just help you!" It's one of the first things that many disabled people tell non-disabled folks wishing to be better allies to us: you offering help instead of actually accommodating us isn't a good thing. We don't want to rely on others if we can avoid it, because honestly, non-disabled people often aren't very good at actually helping or in this case, relaying information to us without training and more often than not, it just results in us being left out. I find it very hard to believe a character as independent as Toph would accept that without any protest, especially considering that is pretty much exactly what ends up happening (even if the show didn't really acknowledge it). Katara never actually conveys anything about the play to Toph, except when she's attempting to throw Toph's words back in her face when she asks for clarification about the actor playing her - which ends up backfiring on her.

[ID: A shot from the same location as before, this time Toph has a huge smile on her face and is leaning on the balcony excitedly while Katara is leaning towards her, annoyed by her reaction. /End ID]

While it would have been better if Toph was actually listened to, it would have been…fine? if a justification was given for why they had to sit there (e.g. to avoid being recognised), if Katara had actually described the play for her. This wouldn't have been ideal, but it would have been better at least. In real life, many movies, TV shows (including this show's sequel series, The Legend of Korra) and other forms of visual media have an Audio Description track that does exactly that. If they weren't going to move for Toph to be able to see better, having Katara describe the play could have introduced kids to the fact this is an option. but instead it's brushed off, and I'll admit, it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, even back in 2006.

The Library is a bit more forgivable in my opinion, since Toph is still new to the group, but in this episode, she states that she doesn't want to go inside the spirit library because she isn't able to read and therefor there wouldn't be anything for her to do. However, it still would have been nice to see her friends consider this at all before they actually arrived. They could have (and should have) still gone, but some acknowledgement that they at least thought about the inclusion of their disabled friend would have been nice.

[ID: A shot of Aang, Katara, Sokka and another man are talking while looking down at a map on the table. Meanwhile, Toph is sitting on the other side of the table, completely disinterested as she sips from a large ice cup with her feet up on another chair. /End ID]

Alternatively, I do feel like Wan Shi Tong, a self-proclaimed all-knowing-spirit or his assistants would have been able to point her in the direction of something to interest her, since he does imply books aren't the only form of knowledge he collects.

The reason I mention this though is two-fold. In real life, disabled people are very often left out of "fun" group activities, whether that be in formal settings or in casual ones, like hanging out with friends. If the episode had been framed as "the Gaang learns about the library and decides to track it down," I might have been less critical, but it's specifically framed as something that at least starts out as a kind of break for the team where they all take turns picking out fun things to do so they can rest, and Toph's access needs not being considered at all until they're already there hits a bit close to home, especially since they just end up leaving her outside. Secondly, there's also a stereotype that disabled people (and especially blind people) don't belong in academia and places of learning, such as in this case, libraries. This stereotype is about as old as the concept of organised institutions of learning, and definitely isn't unique to AtLA, but the assumption is often that disabled people wouldn't be interested in more formal methods of learning, so it's not worth accommodating us. With blind people in particular, when I've seen this in media, the premise is often "well I can't read anyway so why bother?" which Toph definitely falls into here with no push-back against the trope.

[ID: A close up of Toph and the rest of the group, Katara, Sokka and Aang standing in a desert. Toph shrugs, looking bored, while the others looks confused and surprised with the exception of Katara, who looks mildly annoyed, standing with her hands on her hips. /End ID]

It does make sense that she would have been resistant to going in, and I'm not saying this episode should have turned Toph into a bookwork akin to Wings of Fire's Starflight (another blind character) or anything. But there was a chance in this episode to push back against some of these assumptions, and I think it's a shame they missed it. How cool would it have been if Toph had mentioned not feeling welcomed in more formal learning spaces because of her disability, which was just reinforced by the way her old earthbending instructor and her parents treated her. She decides to go inside the library anyway as "backup" in case something goes wrong, grumbling about it the whole way down. Wan She Tong starts his introduction mostly the same way, saying humans aren't welcome and Toph makes a snarky comment about it. Wan She Tong, equally offended that this human thinks he, the all-knowing-spirit, wouldn't have considered something, shoots back with an annoyed comment about humans being so self-centred. He explains that spirits come in all shapes and sizes, and not all of them have eyes, but they can still access his library. She's not the first sightless being in his study, and he-who-knows-ten-thousand-things knows this too. Once everyone is permitted entry, one of the knowledge seekers shows her to a series of slates about a lost earthbending form that she can actually read (or at least, "see" the pictures on) because it's carved. Or instead of a slate, it's a series of statues outlining the form, similar to what Aang and Zuko find in the episode "The Firebending Masters". Perhaps this form is something that helps her develop metal bending later on, and lays the groundwork for Toph becoming interested in teaching in the comics.

And finally, Toph and Katara's segment of Tales of Ba Sing Se. Katara convinces Toph to go get a makeover with her as part of a girl's day. Overall, this segment of the episode is pretty nice, and I liked that they showed that a person's gender expression (in this case, being a tom-boy) doesn't mean they can't like things outside of what we usually associate with that. Tom-boys can like girly things on occasion, and vice-versa, and I think this is an example of an episode that would seem a bit ham-fisted today, but honestly, was needed in 2006. However, there's a throw away joke where Toph says "as long as they don't touch my feet," and it immediately cuts to show spa workers filing down the calluses on her feet in a way so painful several staff are required to hold her down.

[ID: An image of Toph in a bath robe being held down in a chair by two spa workers while a third scrubs at her feet so hard that she is sweating. Meanwhile Toph is fighting against the two holding her down and has a facial expression like she is in a great deal of pain. /End ID]

this might be a minor thing in the grand scheme of the show, but it's still another example of Toph's boundaries about her disability and her access needs being disrespected by her friends, which the show just doesn't acknowledge it at all. People ignoring Toph's wishes about a part of her body she depends on in a much more direct way that others do is played off like a joke in a montage of otherwise enjoyable and goofy activities and this is a very, very common experience in disability circles.

There are a number of other, much more minor issues that show up with Toph as well, such as the fact she's the only one of the main cast who never has an on-screen (or on-page) relationship. not in the original show, not in any of the comics and not in The Legend of Korra. Again, it's not a big issue on it's own, especially because in AtLA, she's young enough where it's possible that she was just not interested yet, and she does have kids in The Legend of Korra where she mentions a relationship with a man named Kanto (Lin's father). So it is implied she does have some form of relationship eventually, but the issue is that it's never shown on screen or on the page. This feeds into a wider pattern in media of disabled characters being the only ones in their respective cast not given on-screen romantic relationships in stories, and so I still think it's worth pointing out, especially since the creators have had a lot of opportunities to correct that by now.

Toph is also portrayed, pretty much undeniably, as the best earthbener in a way that, at times, comes across almost like the creators felt like they need to compensate for her being on the team "despite" her being blind. This trope is one that I think Toph, at least partially, helped to popularise with the current generation of story tellers: The Disabled Savant. In this trope, disabled characters aren't really given the same room for growth as other characters; they aren't permitted to be average or still learning, they start good and get better. If they do progress, they often become the best, which is the case for Toph. To be fair, everyone in the The Gaang is the best at their respective skill by the end of the first series, which is why I say this is a minor point. She dose, however, have the least amount of on-screen growth in skill out of the whole team. Katara starts out barely able to lift any water at all, let alone actually bend it. Sokka is skilled with weapons from the start but does get his butt handed to him a number of times by others with more experience than him whom he learns from throughout his story arc. Zuko spends most of the early-to-middle of the show having things "blow up in his face" (to use his own words) and being belittled by his family of prodigies. While Aang is an airbending and, to a lesser extent, waterbending prodigy, he fails at pretty much everything else for a while before he starts to find his confidence - especially earth and firebending, not to mention the entire situation with locking himself out of the Avatar state. Toph is the only one who doesn't seem to fail or struggle all that much from a combat perspective. She does grow and improve in her bending (she invents metal bending after all) but she never has any moments where she really messes up or even struggles in combat all that much compared to the others.

All of these points and criticisms I've mentioned are not necessarily big in and of themselves, but when looked at together, they build up to create some issues with how Toph is depicted and how the people around her treat her disability

So that's it then? Toph is bad disability rep and Avatar should be "cancelled"?

God no. Like I said at the start, I still adore Toph and Avatar as a whole, but the show is a year away from being two decades old, it's bound to have some elements that don't hold up and I think it's worthwhile discussing them, specifically because I love the show and it's characters. Despite all the negativity I've brought up, I do think there are a lot of things AtLA did well with Toph too.

I've mentioned a few times that we rarely see how Toph's blindness impacts her life outside of her bending and combat abilities, and there's a reason I made that specification. Unsurprisingly, if you know much about the show's development, the ways in which Toph’s blindness and seismic sense impacts her bending and fighting style is one area where the show really does shine, and I still think that is worth a mention. The various types of bending are based on different styles of martial arts, specifically, different types of Kung Fu. Most earthbending in the show takes heavy inspiration specifically from Hung Ga, but Toph is different. Her bending heavily references Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu, something unique to her within this world.

The reason for this (outside of simply wanting her to be visually distinct) was because the show’s creators made sure to consider what limitations Toph might have and what parts of the more common earthbending styles wouldn't work for her. Since her connection to the earth was critical in order for her seismic sense to work, they decided on a style that would keep her feet on the ground more, prioritised strong stances with minimal jumping and put more focus on attacking with her upper body. While not an intentional choice, the style they went with for Toph, according to the show's head martial arts consultant, Sifu Kisu, was supposedly developed by a blind woman in real life, at least according to legend. The creators also made further adjustments to the style with the help of martial arts consultants and just watching Toph fight is evident that a lot of love and care was put into the decisions made on that front.

I also appreciate that Toph's disability wasn't off-limits to joke about.

[ID: A picture of Toph waving her hand in front of her face with an exaggerated smile to remind the others she's blind. /End ID]

As I already mentioned, they didn't land 100% of the time, but lot of shows are afraid to use disability as a source of jokes, which would have felt weird and out of place in a show like Avatar. I see this hesitance in real-life too; people get extremely uncomfortable when I joke about my own disabilities and I've heard several people and even disabled comedians talk about the same observation. My last video on Tik Tok that got outside my usual audience was a joke about my prosthetic leg, and every single stictch and duet I received was people saying some variation of "I'm such a bad person for laughing!" "I'm going to hell!" or just straight up asking if they're aloud to laugh. If I didn't want you to laugh, I wouldn't have posted the joke! But joking about disability does make it more approachable. Despite how often Toph and the others made blind jokes though, outside of the one instance I mentioned earlier, they never felt mean-spirited or like they were punching down. Even when a very sleep-deprived Katara was intentionally trying to be.

I think it's also worth keeping in mind the context of the media landscape when Avatar The Last Airbender was airing. Today, characters like Toph are very common, so much so there's a whole trope about them (super-crips) but at the time, having a character with a major disability be a main character in an action-orientated kids show like Avatar was really rare. She wasn't the first of course, but a lot of the time, if they were included, they were almost certainly sad and depressed, wishing for a cure or they were designated to the roles of "Guy in the chair" (which is a character, usually a tech person, who helps from the background), inspiration, scary villain fake-out (or other variations of "creepy" character) or the actual villain. Having a character that was not only comfortable in her skin as a disabled person, who didn't want or need to be "fixed" or "cured" to be directly involved in the story, and who's main obstacle (at least in season 2) were how the people around her treated her, was pretty ground-breaking at the time (pun not intended) and went against the most prevalent stereotypes of it's day.

And I really want to emphasise that. For many Millennials and older Gen Zers, myself included, Toph was the first character that didn't tell us we were broken and needed to be fixed in order to be part of the group (even if they slipped up with that messaging occasionally). Prior to seeing Avatar, I honestly thought there was something deeply wrong with me for being happy with my life (a reminder, I was 10 years old when this show first started airing), because every other disabled person in the media only ever talked about how much worse their life was because of their disability, how much they hated it and how much they hated themselves. Many outright said that they wished they had died rather than become like me. Toph wasn't the first to go against those tropes, but she was the first example of a disabled character who wasn't like that many people my age saw. Did she do it perfectly? Hell no, but personally, back then, I was happy to have a character who maybe over-corrected and took things a bit too far than another sad character talking about how lives like mine weren't worth living.

I also deeply appreciated that Toph did struggle with her independence, at least initially, and where to draw the line with accepting help. Because of how much she'd been coddled and overprotected as a little kid, she saw any attempt at people being helpful and working as a team as them trying to baby her. It was very on the nose, but I liked that the show gave her an episode just dedicated to realising that it's ok to accept help. Again, this is a bit of a story telling trope today, but having the disabled character realise that it's ok to accept help, and to do it without talking down to them or saying that them wanting independence was bad, was a refreshing change compared to what was around at the time.

[ID: a zoomed out image of Toph, standing before her parents with Aang, Katara and Sokka standing behind her. /End ID]

While I think the show's creators could have benefited from consulting with disabled people and specifically blind people the same way they brought in consultants for the martial arts featured in the show, it's very clear to me that the intention behind Toph's character was good, and that actual effort was put in to make sure they depicted her well, even if some of it was a bit misplaced. It's also worth noting that the groundwork for a lot of my suggestions is already in place, they just didn't follow it all the way through. Overall, I'd say Toph was good for her time, and she's what was needed in the 2000's, even if she doesn't hold up as well today. I also think it speaks to how far we've come in terms of disability representation. When I first started engaging with the online fandom directly, almost no one, even other disabled people, argued that Toph wasn't good representation, because honestly, the bar was on the floor and we were just happy to have something different. But now there are options, and the standards are higher, and that's so, so good. It means that people, even in the media, are starting to listen and be more thoughtful about their depictions of disability than we were in 2006.

And finally, I want to really quickly mention The Netflix adaptation of Avatar. A few people have asked me now what I think they should do with Toph when they get to her, and what my predictions about the show are. I'm not going to talk about my predictions here, because this post is already way too long and that's not what this is about, but I don't think the suggestions I made today would necessarily work in this particular remake, primarily because of the tonal differences. Some adjustments definitely could, such the other characters doing a better job at listening to Toph when she points out inaccessibility and them actually considering her in the first place, but others might be harder to balance. The original show could get quite dark and serious at times, but it was primarily a light-hearted adventure story for kids. From what I've seen of the live action remake though, they're more heavily leaning into those serious elements - for better or for worse, and as such, trying to tone Toph down in the specific ways I mentioned might not balance out as well as it would in the original show. At the very least, the specifics would need to be different. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what approach they should take, that's not really the point of this post, but I did want to quickly address it to avoid confusion. My suggestions today were specifically on how to approach the cartoon version of Toph for a modern audience, and were not meant to be read as suggestions on how her live-action counterpart should be depicted.

#writing disability with cy cyborg #Wow I had a lot more to say about this than I thought (I think this is my longest post to date lol)#writing disability #disability representation #writeblr #writing #Avatar #avatar the last airbender #atla #Long Post #toph #toph beifong #the gaang #Animated Avatar #disability in media #fantasy

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starryinkart · 9 months ago

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so I’m allowed to make a MD human AU…right?

RIGHT!

I wanted to get back into drawing some human characters and I wanted to do some studies of N as a human at the same time, the result- these awesome drawings 🤗

Basically some small information about the human versions of them:

- When a “drone” becomes “dead” or is disposed of incorrectly and the solver takes control, their skin becomes paler then when before they were disassembled. CYN used to have a similar skin color to N, but dying can in fact…make you a bit pale.

- When N, J and V become Murder Drones, their skin also mirrors this quality.

- Due to the nanites in their bodies, their eyes glow, and their headbands and tails are connected to their spines. Their ears have also mutated to be more large and sensitive due to CYNS modifications on them, helping them in their hunts trying to wipe out the “drones” beneath them.

-When they bleed, the Murder Drones blood is neon, matching their headband bulb color and tail color, instead of gray, due to them you know…not being filled with oil and blood instead.

- Their scars tend to glow neon yellow as well when they are in their Feral Murder Modes, due to the scars skin being thinner than their normal skin.

- The scars they have received were mostly given to them in Elliot Manor from Tessa’s parents, except for N’s neck scars resulting from all the times his head has been lobbed off by J and V.

- CYNs left eye was stabbed by a fork by James Elliot before her death, making her permanently blind in it and sporting a not so pretty scar she tends to be self conscious about until the solver takes over her entirely.

- N’s face scar was given to him by Louisa one day while protecting CYN when the others weren’t around, by throwing a glass at his face. And of course, he still had to clean it up while injured. 🤕 Most of his scars come from protecting the ones he loves, such as V, Tessa and CYN.

- N used to have hazel eyes and light brown hair before he died and got his warm yellow Murder Drone color, pale skin and sandy brown hair. Out of his squad, N’s neon yellow is the most warmest color, leaning towards more orange than yellow.

- N also has stretch marks around his shoulders, torso, belly and legs, from where his growth process and body modifications were more…painful.

- P.S this is my first time drawing CYN! I have to draw her drone form!! She’s so fun to draw!💛💛

- I will be doing study’s of human V, J and Uzi!! I’m working on Uzis as I type this!!!

I hope you enjoyed this little practice of mine, more art coming soon! I’m also so glad you are enjoying my new chapter of my Absolutely Fanfic on Archive of Our Own! And for those who don’t know what that is, you can read it below!!!

YOU CAN FIND UZI’s human form HERE !!

#murder drones #artists on tumblr #digital art #murder drones n #murder drones AU #human au #Md human au #murder drones human au #fan art #murder drones cyn #md n #md cyn #drawing practice #art study #starryinkartwork #MDSAB

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blindbeta · 5 months ago

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Hello! I recently got into a ship where one of the characters is blind. I mostly write domestic fanfics and so I’d like to know: what are some items or tools that are common to see in a blind person’s living space? What are some things that their partner or daughter might help them with in their day-to-day life? Thank you!

Here is a post with ideas about making homes accessible.

Here is post I made with ideas for accessible cooking.

A lot of YouTubers, such as those listed here, post about making their homes accessible or ideas they would like to implement. Molly Burke and Sam from TheBlindLife have several videos on this topic.

Claire at canseecantsee is on YouTube and TikTok. She posts often about how she does household and work tasks.

If your story is not modern, here is an example of finding assistance devices to use that work for your story’s time period. You can read it here.

Here are two asks about partners and romance: one and two.

Ideas that are common in a blind person’s living space might include:

-different types of labels

-a cane or guide animal, with a cane often hanging somewhere, in a bag the character uses daily, or resting against a wall by the door

-eye drops or other medication for their eye condition, potential eye strain, or tangentially related pain management

-ice and heating packs for eye strain

-a slate and stylus

-perhaps items such as a Braille display, computer, phone, scanner, or magnification device for reading

-perhaps Braille or large print books, particularly if this person is an elder or a young student, with the caveat that Braille literacy is declining and Braille books also take up a lot of space and so are not as popular

-talking or tactile devices

-bump dots, such as for microwaves

-tactile items, such as figures, tactile art, textured elements, or comfort items like stuffed animals. While this does not only apply to blind folks, we do tend to engage with touch more often and our comfort items and decorative items reflect this

-various lighting devices

-glasses or sunglasses

Depending on your character, you can justify almost anything in their home even if it is not common. For example, a person who plays goal ball or blind football might have a room strewn about with uniforms, shoes, bandages, medication, and sports equipment if needed. In another example, an elderly blind person might continue to use a tape player with books on tape for nostalgia purposes.

Those are some ideas. I hope this helps.

#blind #blind characters #writing blind characters #accessibility #accessible housing

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air--so--sweet · 5 months ago

Text

I found out from the production designer's website and an interview he did that the basement kitchen is actually the 'kid's lounge', a space the siblings created for themselves.

And I've been obsessed with it ever since because I feel it gives us more of an idea about what the umbrellas childhoods were like.

Because, okay there's the slightly extravagant things like the pool table and foozball table, but most of it is very simple. A hifi system and a collection of cassettes and CDs (I bet Luther was only allowed have a record collection as part of his special treatment as Number One), what looks like board games and some toys in what used to be the butcher shops fridges and there's another toy next to the hifi system that looks similar to some of the ones we see in Five's room.

And in the scene where Allison and Diego fight Cha Cha we see art supplies as well.

These are just basic things most kids would grow up with but the umbrellas had to create a secret place, away from their father, to have them. It's just desperately sad.

But I also find it kind of beautiful that they worked together to make a place for themselves and I like to imagine the process of it coming together. Them scavenging furniture from the unused academy rooms. One of them finds the table in storage room, or the attic maybe, and then over the next few weeks they manage to take chairs from different rooms until they can all sit at the table together. Coming home from Griddy's one night (sneaking out became a lot easier once they had a separate entrance that their dad didn't know about) they spot an armchair and a sofa left out on the sidewalk and they don't look in too bad a condition so Five jumps back with the armchair while the others carry the sofa home (Five was still getting the hang of jumping with objects, the sofa was still a bit too big for him to manage). Grace catches them stealing food to take downstairs one day and she mentions it to Pogo (who knows about the room since it's right next to his own room, but he chooses to turn a blind eye) and suddenly there's a fridge in the room and Grace makes sure it and the cupboards are always fully stocked, even after the kids are gone (we see Five make a sandwich here when he comes back from the apocalypse). Hargreeves never interacts with Grace much and doesn't pay much attention to the food orders she makes as long as she stays in budget so some extra loaves of bread or jars of peanut butter won't catch his attention.

And Hargreeves never found out about the room because There's no reason for him to go to the basement, the only things in the basement are Pogo's room (so telling that there are 42 bedrooms in the academy but Pogo is relegated to the basement) and a utilitiy room. Viktor's cell is also in the basement but it's accessed by a separate elevator so Hargreeves wouldn't pass the kid's lounge to get to it.

You can tell how important the space was to the siblings as well because of how they use it in adulthood.

It's where they all go when Five returns and where they hangout when in the academy (we see them in the living room too but mostly for family meetings).

When Viktor comes to invite the others to his concert he comes through the butcher shop entrance.

It's where Klaus gathers his brothers when he tells them that he spoke to Reginald the night before.

And, even when he was the only one left living in the academy, Luther ate breakfast there.

It's the only part of the academy they feel is truly theirs and theirs alone. It's their safe place.

#the umbrella academy #tua #analysis #set design #the siblings #this was partially writtem in my drafts for ages after tumblr only saved a partial draft so I lost a large chunk of it #finally got over it today and finished writing it #the visual syory telling in the TUA sets is one of my favourite things

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shurisneakers · 10 months ago

Text

unsolved (ii)

Summary: Bucky doesn't even believe in the paranormal. So who the hell thought it was a good idea to stick him in a series about everything haunted for the internet's amusement? With his loose-canon of a teammate who has no concept of subtlety or shits left to give, to make things even worse. (Buzzfeed unsolved AU)

Warnings: swearing, frustrated bucky at his little shit supreme, obnoxious reader, mentions of hauntings and the things that come with (body harm, priests, etc). images all have alt texts.

A/N: if you're familiar with the format of BuzzFeed unsolved videos, the pictures in this chapter make more sense. anyway we're starting small to warm up but i assure u there's like actual paranormal shit from next chapter onward <3 thank u for the chaotic response to chapter 1 ily guys sm ! as usual, please send me things you'd like to see in the series! it always make me so happy

Previous part || Series masterlist

Bucky loves the compound. The sentiment carries a lot, considering he’s made it a non-negotiable part of his personal brand to hate everything.

The lush landscape is quiet, spacious enough that he isn’t forced to run into anyone he’s actively avoiding, and has state-of-the art security that lets him sleep soundly, assured that no one will be able to get to his floor in an assassination attempt.

All of his deep love and fond admiration disappears when it’s the crackass of dawn and his oakwood door receives the beat down of a lifetime.

He snaps awake instantly, unsure of whether there was someone actually trying to kick the shit out of his door or it was just another nightmare that often blurred lines with reality.

But after the third deafeningly loud knock confirms it, he scrambles for a pair of pants just so that he isn’t caught entirely vulnerable.

The thrashing doesn’t cease, and by the time he makes his way to the door and yanks it open–

There’s no one on the other side.

Except a coffee cup on the ground and a note scribbled haphazardly on the side.

Shoot day. See you at the studio!

He stares wordlessly at the cup, unable to differentiate whether the feeling coursing through the very fibres of his being currently is pure blinding rage, or confusion that you apparently knew his coffee order.

The studio is fucking empty. If Bucky wasn’t still reeling from the effects of being startled awake by a fake intrusion at 5am, he’d have been over the damn moon.

He does his part as a man of honour and righteousness– calls out a very quiet ‘Hello?’ and then doesn’t bother feeling guilt when his heart explodes in joy at the lack of response.

He spins on his heel to march out, only to come to an abrupt stop when he almost runs into you. He didn’t even fucking hear you come in.

“Oh, hey.” You look at him, hand on a bagel. “You actually showed.”

Bucky’s smile falters, and he returns to his default Grinchian state.

“You made sure I fuckin’ did,” he grumbles. “How’d you get on my floor?”

“I have my ways.”

Bucky’s glare presses hard into you almost like a palpable entity.

“I did a gig as an escape artist for a while. Paid super well,” you dismiss.

He doesn’t blink once, trying to decipher whether you’re telling him the truth or not.

You offer him a bite from your bagel in return, seemingly having moved on from the conversation already.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asks, turning away from you.

“Maya didn’t actually think you’d show up on time so she told everyone to come an hour later.” You speak through a mostly full mouth. “I figured you could use the company.”

Bucky immediately feels defensive, as if that wasn’t exactly what he tried to do.

He grumbled all through the morning when he saw fifteen text reminders sent to him through the night telling him he had to shoot a video that day. He grumbled when he couldn’t use traffic as an excuse to not show up because the studio is two streets away from the compound. He grumbled when the toaster actually works for once. Everything is right in the world. This was, of course, devastating to him.

He finally shuts up when Sam gives him a piece of gum. Then he just glowers, but his jaw is otherwise occupied.

“She set you on me this morning?” Bucky questions, tone on the verge of being ticked.

You shake your head, swallowing before taking another bite. “No, that was social service.”

Bucky’s eye twitches.

“I’ll come back in an hour,” he mumbles, arms crossed over his chest.

You give him a look that lets him know you’re entirely unconvinced. “Will you?”

Well. No.

“I’m gonna look around the studio. You’re welcome to join,” you say instead, looking past him. “We’ll need to know where we’re working for the next few months.”

Few months? No no– few hours at max, if this were to go exactly his way.

“Video’s not gonna do numbers,” he reminds you in a dull utterance.

“With an enthusiasm like that, it’s hard to see why you’re not universally beloved, Barnes,” you comment seriously, before clapping his shoulder. “Come on. You ever look at yourself in a mirror? You’re gonna be a star, baby.”

Bucky, in his current chosen avatar, looks less 'man of the world' and more 'reject of the jungle’.

But the sentiment is appreciated.

The studio is moderately big.

You find joy in messing around with set pieces of the other Avengers video series that were being shot there. Bucky finds joy in locating every possible escape route within a three foot vicinity.

He’s admittedly surprised by learning how much actually goes into making a simple video. He just figured they’d stick a camera in his face and teleprompt him and get it over it.

You chat animatedly about the use of gimbals and different camera gear, lighting setups and sound quality.

“You into this stuff?” He raises an eyebrow.

“No, I just did a stunt as a wedding videographer once,” you wave off, “It was great. You could always tell which couples were gonna get divorced within a year.”

Something unrecognisable flashes in his eyes.

“Escape artist and wedding videographer,” he repeats.

You stop talking to look at him.

“Yes,” you say simply and go on to provide no further explanation.

If the morning’s antics weren’t enough, now he’s convinced you’re fucking with him.

“Anyway, they’ll probably stick us in makeup before we go on camera because it–”

“Makeup?”

“Well– yeah. For the video.” Your eyes dart toward him, sizing him up in a quick glance. “If you look any paler, you’d basically be translucent.”

Bucky can’t even debate it. His skin looks like it hasn't felt the gentle touch of a sunray in millennia.

“Just say it’s part of the theme.”

You snort. “The first ghost I hunt cannot be one who sits beside me.”

So Bucky gets his makeup done.

By the time the studio fills in, he’s already drunk two cups of the shitty breakroom coffee and found fifteen innocuous things to fashion into weaponry if things were to go awry.

The large bright lights force him to keep wiping beads of sweat away from his forehead. Everything exists in a contrarian state of frenzy, and coordinated down to the second as if it were a damn rocket launch. He’s already had three staff members dart about him cross checking if he’s hydrated and if he’s signed the right forms.

“Oh, you actually showed,” he hears for the second time from Maya, who doesn’t even make an attempt to hide the earnest surprise from her voice.

Bucky wants to scream.

“The team’s picked a really simple case since it’s the first video. You just need to read it out,” she explains breezily, switching from you to him, “and you need to react.”

You flash her a thumbs up. Bucky doesn’t move an inch. He’s convinced it’ll trigger another round of people meddling with his hair until it looks ‘sufficiently casual but not artificial’.

Maya hurriedly leaves after wishing you good luck, probably to fix the walking PR disaster that was Clint, who unceremoniously went live on his Instagram the night before after consuming something he procured from some guy in an alleyway, who described it as ‘carbonated milk’. Bucky watched it for a few seconds and immediately shut down the app when Clint offered to take one article of clothing off for every million people that tuned in.

“I asked for there to be as few people in the room as possible,” you whisper to him.

“Still a lot,” he replies under his breath, watching them buzz around him, still brushing up his face and dabbing at his hairline with a napkin.

Someone hands you a folder full of papers. “We lose any more and we’re filming this video ourselves.”

“All ready!” The camera guy, Shane, announces.

“Copy that,” you call back, before leaning forward in your chair, grinning. “Chill. I’m gonna do the talking. All you gotta do is say a few words and look pretty.”

That sounds…doable.

“Make it fast,” Bucky mutters, crossing his arms over his chest.

Whether he was talking about the video or his death is still up for debate.

“Recording in three…two…one–”

The whole studio waits with bated breath, but Bucky stares right ahead.

“When I said a ‘few words’, I did mean one or two, possibly more,” you talk through your smile.

Bucky continues looking into the camera like it stole his ancestral property.

You exhale, soldiering on, lips still upturned.

You look at Bucky, hopeful that he will at least answer a question. He doesn’t offer the same kindness, and now you understand why Maya reached out to you for this.

So you do what needs to be done, as a person with a responsibility to all these fine and tired souls gathered here on a weekend.

You kick him under the table.

The crew waits for Bucky to say more. He very pointedly doesn’t.

At least one sound has been procured from him, which is more than what they can say for some other videos.

You continue, “Our story takes place in 1954, in the quaint, rural town of Ravenswood. Irene–”

Bucky scoffs. “You made that up.”

Would now be a good time for him to bring up your previous job experiences you had dropped so casually or was this enough to let you know he was onto you?

Your eyebrows pull together, scanning over the sentence. “I haven't even said anything yet.”

“A horror story. Taking place in Raven’s Woods,” Bucky emphasises. “Really.”

Bitch.

“First of all, it’s Ravenswood, not Raven’s Woods,” you shoot back. “And it exists.”

“Where?” He raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t know– fuckin’ West Virginia?” You shuffle through the papers. “Does it matter? You wanna move there?”

Bucky doesn’t add anything further.

You observe him for a moment before deciding to continue.

“In the quiet town of Ravenswood,” you side eye him but he doesn’t look affected. “Irene Wendelin, a 35-year-old woman moved into a house on the outskirts to save up money. She lived alone, had no immediate relatives and worked as a secretary at the local press.”

Bucky continues chewing his gum. You’re not even sure he’s listening, but everyone got paid by the hour regardless of whether he did, so who gives a shit.

“Within a few weeks of moving in, strange incidents started to take place. Irene’s friend Thelma, who also worked as a secretary at the press, recalled how Irene developed a persistent cough, was constantly fatigued, and had issues sleeping due to her skin itching. Thelma suggested solutions from ointments to medication, but not one remedy that she provided seemed to work. As time went by, Irene’s symptoms escalated into severe respiratory problems, leaving her breathless just from climbing up a flight of stairs. She even reportedly started having hallucinations of people crawling around in her house in the dark, but she was never able to catch them in their entirety.”

“How long did this take?” Bucky questions out of the blue, arms still crossed over his chest.

“I think within a couple of weeks of moving in.” You try not to look too surprised. “Further, Thelma recalls Irene saying she heard strange sounds at night which kept her up. The only time the woman felt normal was when she left her house to stay with her cousins for a month.”

Bucky’s head snaps to you, eyes narrowing.

“What?” you challenge.

“Nothin’,” he says instead. “Go on.”

You cast a look at the crew, who look just as confused as you, but you continue regardless.

“Things escalated when one day, Irene showed up to work in complete disarray. Thelma says that upon a closer look, Irene had bite marks over her hands and legs. Thelma, a devout Christian, insisted on getting the place checked out by the church since all else had failed. Father Gabriel, a local priest, agreed to visit the house, but upon setting foot inside, claimed it was haunted by ‘forces of evil whose reality existed beyond mortal comprehension’. This was the last straw for Thelma, who had Irene move into her house until she found a new place to stay. Within a few weeks, Irene was back to normal, and the house is still considered one of the most haunted places in the country to this place, with no one allowed to enter.”

Bucky looks at his arms, jaw tightening.

Your eyebrow twitches.

You could see Maya shaking her head from across the room, entirely fucking defeated.

You wait a few seconds but receive no response. Bucky’s gaze doesn’t shift from the table top.

You start gathering the folder with the story in it, getting ready to read out your conclusion.

You stare at him, but he doesn’t look up at you.

Collectively, every spine in the room straightens.

“Asbestos?” you echo.

“Or mold. Could be either.” Bucky shrugs, chewing on the same stupid piece of gum that had lost its flavour hours ago.

You look at him in bewilderment, partly because you weren’t expecting him to say anything at all, much less this.

“Had an aunt once who thought she was possessed. Turns out her walls were full of mold.”

You stare at him. “You’re lying.”

He finally turns to you, no traces of humour on his face. “She got remarried and moved out. Good as new.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s asbestos.”

“Had the same symptoms an’ everything. Itchy skin, breathing problems, fatigue.”

“Hallucinations?”

“Stress. Being poisoned twenty-four hours a day’ll do a number on anyone.”

“And the bite marks?”

“You never had an itch so bad you just bit it?”

“On her legs?” you ask incredulously. “She bit her legs? Is that what you’re saying?”

Bucky shrugs.

You look like you’re going to lose your mind.

You clear your throat. “What about the priest?

Bucky snorts. “What ‘bout him?”

“'Forces of evil whose reality existed beyond mortal comprehension’?”

“Maybe it was her,” he fires back. “Maybe that's just how she was, how would you know?”

“You’re saying the forces of evil are just… her bad vibes?” you say it slowly, as if that would make it better.

“Maybe.” Bucky’s shoulders rise and drop again. “My aunt was a real stick in the mud too. I coulda called her a force’a evil when she didn’t let me fire a bottle rocket into the tree.”

You narrow your eyes at him. Bucky looks back innocently.

“You’re bullshitting.”

“About my aunt?” he scoffs. “I would never. Rest her soul. Made some damn good cranberry pie.”

You roll your eyes. “It’s not asbestos.”

“Then why was she fine every time she moved out?”

“Because the house was haunted.”

“By mold.”

Maya clears her throat, pointing to her watch.

You look back at her and clear your throat as well, shuffling around your papers.

“Right. So that’s it for this episode.”

The camera guy yells “Cut!’ and you turn to look at Bucky.

But he’s already gone.

The video goes up that weekend.

It takes a considerable amount of time to edit, considering they had to bleep out the steady stream of expletives that you didn’t even know Bucky was muttering under his breath, but got picked up by the mic anyway.

To Barnes (Work):

are you ready for your influencer era

He leaves you on seen. You think you’ll send him more memes of his stupid face.

To Barnes (Work):

influenza

Five hours since the video has gone up, and your phone starts buzzing more than usual. Nat’s already sent you a clearly AI generated article titled ‘Everything We Know About the Latest Avenger’, full of incorrect information and straight up lies.

The first reviews are promising. Sort of. The newest generation of kids on Twitter are saying shit and using terms that are beyond you, but it looks good. You think.

And then somewhere close to midnight, your phone chimes with a text from a number you hadn’t yet saved.

From unknown

Hey. Steve Rogers here. Great job on the video.

Your eyebrows shoot up, discarding your refreshing of the Subreddit that has popped up in your name.

From unknown

Just letting you know though– he was lying.

From unknown

He doesn’t have an aunt.

Motherfucker.

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing!

to keep up with updates for this fic and others, please follow @shurisneakersupdates and turn on post notifications!

Next part

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #mcu fic #bucky fic #bucky barnes fic #bucky fluff #bucky barnes fluff #bucky angst #bucky barnes angst #unsolved fic #winter soldier x reader #Winter Soldier #bucky barnes #bucky

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bonefall · 8 months ago

Text

Clear Sky Killed Bumble; Gray Wing's Desperate Defense

The "analysis" I've seen out there is beyond bananas. We are out there on state-of-the-art exploratory vessels, sailing the 7 seas into brand new lands, discovering new kinds of fruits to compare to the absolute lack of sanity people are displaying.

Clear Sky definitively killed Bumble. Gray Wing does not want to believe reality.

While some try to argue this death down to "negligent homicide," that Clear Sky essentially beat her unconscious and left her in an unsafe area where she got killed, that's so unlikely I'm confident in saying it's wrong. The evidence shows that Clear Sky tormented her to death with a ferocious, sadistic beating which caused her to bleed out, which is second degree murder, and used the smell of a fox and Gray Wing's blind adoration to lie his way out of consequences.

There's not a lot of ambiguity in the evidence that is presented. There is fox scent but no fox bites, and the preceding chapter provides a comparison between the wounds on Misty vs the wounds on Bumble. Clear Sky's story is so convoluted that not a single part of it makes any sense. Quite frankly it's only been topped recently by the "I can confirm this woman is evil because she snored her evil plans in their sleep" fib of ASC.

In either case, Gray Wing believes neither. He does not believe this is Clear Sky's kill in any way.

This moment is an excellent example of how Gray Wing continuously prevents anyone from taking any action against his dear brother's violence until it is too late. By convincing the moor cats to all calm down when they're rightfully furious, and treating the lives and perspectives of native cats as lesser, Gray Wing becomes complicit in some of the harm this tyrant manages to carry out.

To shield a person from the consequences of their own actions is enabling, regardless of if it's direct or indirect, wittingly or unwittingly.

We are going to go over the whole of the 26th chapter of DOTC Book 2: Thunder Rising, from Bumble's death scene to Gray Wing's downplay of it. A meticulous, step-by-step analysis.

Leading-up context

The Scene

The Immediate Response

Incredible suggestions that have been made that I had to read with my own eyes

Leading-up Context

Let's start from square one by introducing the cast, with the assumption you have not read DOTC or are just vaguely aware of it due to its reputation.

Bumble is a kittypet who regularly visits the woods without issue. She is a small supporting character in the first book, The Sun Trail, whose purpose is mostly to be a friend to Turtle Tail, who is the future wife of the main POV character, Gray Wing.

As the two girls become closer friends, Gray Wing becomes more controlling of Turtle Tail and more hostile towards Bumble. This culminates in Turtle Tail leaving "The Settlers" to live with her friend over the winter. All is idyllic until the humans adopt a third cat, known to the fandom as Tom the Wifebeater because of what happens next in Book 2; Thunder Rising.

Turtle Tail becomes pregnant, but notices that her roommates are keeping some kind of secret. She begs Bumble until she reveals that humans tend to take kittens away when they're old enough to be weaned. Turtle Tail leaves to return to the wild, and Tom the Wifebeater begins methodically torturing Bumble over the next month as punishment, leaving scratches, bruises, and "dried blood" all over her when the humans are not looking.

When Bumble tries to seek help from the moor cats, Gray Wing is frustrated that the battered woman has interrupted his walk with his new wife. It is stressed that Gray Wing hates her for taking his love interest away, and he believes she is too fat and clumsy to live in the wild. The leader of the moor cat settlers, Tall Shadow, has a hard time throwing Bumble out, until two outsiders, Wind and Gorse, who are trying to get accepted into this group themselves, take the initiative and drag Bumble back to her domestic abuser.

Gray Wing is biased against Bumble. This is a fact. He explicitly does not like her.

Shortly afterwards, the forest cat settlers, led by Gray Wing's brother Clear Sky, experience a fire and begin to expand their borders. They are already known as a violent group, their leader is a manipulative liar, and Gray Wing himself was once viciously mauled as Clear Sky sat by and watched.

Yes, Gray Wing is aware that Clear Sky sat there and watched, too. He called out to him and Clear Sky did nothing as Fox, a man who knew full well that this cat was his leader's brother, was shredding him.

Gray Wing doesn't want to believe his brother is a bad person. This is also a fact. He explicitly feels guilty when he has thoughts otherwise.

On-screen, through the POV of Gray Wing's nephew Thunder, we see a native woman named Misty slaughtered by Clear Sky for her land. Her children are taken, and her body lays unburied and rotting for two days before Wind Runner and Gorse Fur (sporting new names at the request of the moor cats) find her.

They describe the wounds they found on the corpse in detail and make an accusation,

Now, before this point, Wind Runner and Gorse Fur have been doing everything in their power to endear themselves to this group. Gray Wing himself trusted them, because they've taught him methods for living here, caught and shared food, and even saved the life of his other brother, Jagged Peak, when a burrow collapsed on him.

But now his xenophobia towards them is coming back-- because they're calling for action against his brother. He's only ever uneasy about them when they seem to have an ounce of influence over his group.

Turtle Tail's conclusion is completely sound, and if it hadn't been for someone else, would be correct. Clear Sky DID move to kill the children-- he was stopped by his underling, Petal. Turts was able to understand what Clear Sky was going to do without seeing it firsthand.

The crowd is shocked and furious, for logical reason. They ARE in danger. Clear Sky IS escalating his violence and expanding his territory. It's starting with the native population, and the moor cats are able to understand and predict what will happen next.

Except Gray Wing.

The Scene

While investigating ONE confirmed murder, as there is no reason to doubt Wind Runner and Gorse Fur except for conveniently xenophobic ones, and TWO suspected murders of children, the patrol hears the sudden shriek of a cat in pain.

Bumble is found bleeding to death on a previously unclaimed patch of land, at the very center of a circle of trampled grass. There is the reeking smell of fox, and under that, there is the scent of Clear Sky.

Her wounds are described in great detail,

Completely consistent with the way that the wounds were described on Misty. Nearly word-for-word.

The only evidence of fox is the smell. No one heard it bark, there is no note of it bounding off, there are no bites or wounds consistent with those of a canid. They were described exactly the same as Misty's.

Slits are cat claw wounds. Not fox bite wounds. She was not being bitten, she was cut all over her body, prominently down her belly and sides.

Unless this fox shapeshifted into a cat and then meticulously created wounds consistent with the ones left on Misty, Clear Sky did this.

Where did the fox go? Probably came to investigate, maybe licked at the bloody cuts expecting a meal, and then was scared off by Bumble suddenly waking up and screaming. It's possible, but unlikely that the patrol's clamor scared it off, considering they didn't see or hear any fox noises.

There are also signs of a struggle-- and Bumble was not able to fight in the condition she is currently in. It's most likely it was the struggle from when she was being tormented and trying to get away, unless there was a fight with a fox while Bumble was still unconscious and she was dragged to the middle of it, for some reason.

However, a fight with a fox is still unlikely, as the patrol was able to hear the whimpering of a cat in pain as they approached but not the furious sounds of a battle with a large predator. If there was this whole epic brawl with a fox that trampled the grass around Bumble, why was there only a single shriek?

Gray Wing, expert on the smell of Clear Sky's armpit, confirms it's his brother. His whole world spins when he realizes his Dear Brother is involved in this, feeling horror and disbelief.

(Also note that Gray Wing implies Clear Sky's involvement is the prophetic bad thing his adopted son mentioned in the previous chapter, not the shredded woman dying in front of him lol)

The rest of the group is able to acknowledge reality, coming to the obvious conclusion. Clear Sky is expanding his territory, including the very patch they're standing on. He has been violent in the past, even against other settlers. Misty was slaughtered in a way consistent with the victim dying in front of them, so he is killing cats who stand in his way. Gray Wing's immediate, literally DESPERATE response is first to jump to Clear Sky's defense.

Gray Wing asks Bumble directly if it was a fox, and she is too weak to answer... until she finds the strength, as a domestic abuse victim, to blame herself for the way a cat beat her bloody. She thinks it's her fault for hunting here, because she was hungry, not thinking straight, and stupid.

I have seen this described as Bumble "making a defense of Clear Sky." I will leave it up to you, the reader, to determine if this sounds like Bumble is trying to say he's not guilty of hurting her or if it's the sort of infamous self-blame that domestic violence victims lapse into after a furious thrashing.

When Clear Sky returns to the scene of the crime, he cuts her off while admitting he did assault Bumble, then glares at everyone to challenge a fight.

Gray Wing swoons over him like he always does.

I have heard it said, without examples, that this is normal because this happens all the time in Warrior Cats. That it's a normal thing to be standing next to a domestic abuse victim who is bleeding out and watch her murderer daring all of your friends to do something about it, and admire how brave he is. That, again, without any examples, this is just something that every character does when the Villain of the Week exists in front of them, so it's not even special that it was Gray Wing's first response.

If you believe that, I have a bridge in London to sell you.

Desperation is under all of Gray Wing's feelings which immediately follow. His voice "cracks" when he has to ask if his darling brother did this. He wants to scream when he takes his sweet time answering. He shrinks under Clear Sky's gaze, because he reads that he's "accusing him of betrayal."

But somehow, that FIRST response for him to fawn over his brother is not part of that, because in unquoted books of other arcs a hero has admired a villain?? Context doesn't exist because in some other book the same emotion was described maybe. Incredible.

No mention of how casually he brushes off this sight that makes his eyes show "guilt and horror," either. No talk of how he made a little ""joke"" about how no one greeted him nicely at a tortured woman's deathbed. Almost like he was caught red-handed and the wounds don't actually unsettle him as much as the crowd's reaction.

Even the glare-- Clear Sky is trying to get Gray Wing to do his bidding. He wants him to protect him, be his flying monkey, and control his furious people.

So at the next opportunity, Gray Wing jumps to his defense again. Second time in this exchange.

FIRST he was described as "desperate." Now he takes a deep breath and BRAVELY licks that boot.

Turtle Tail steps forward and posits the obvious truth. Clear Sky is going mad with power, doesn't care who he hurts, and is completely capable of doing something like this to Bumble. This was already done to Misty, and even earlier, Clear Sky stood by and watched as one of his minions savaged Gray Wing in a similar way.

The whoooole crowd can see this. It is Gray Wing, and Gray Wing alone, who prevents there from being any consequences for Clear Sky's actions.

He hypocritically believes that attacking Clear Sky for the murder of Bumble would make them all "no better than he is" when he had no qualms about coming to blows over the exile of Jagged Peak much earlier. "Attacking Clear Sky for Murder" is morally equivalent to "Actually Doing Murder."

This is only for Bumble though, a "foreign" woman he does not like. He did not believe this for Jagged Peak, and he will not believe it later when he watches Clear Sky strangle Rainswept Flower to death. They are worth physical consequences.

He even physically shields him.

"he stepped between Clear Sky and his own cats, not sure which of them he was trying to protect." It's Clear Sky. Bumble's life means nothing to Gray Wing, so he is trying to protect Clear Sky from the fury of the angry mob he has earned by killing her and Misty.

He CANNOT let there be any doubt. Not even from himself. His brother must be protected at all costs. To that end, he is trying to make some kind of opportunity for Clear Sky to escape accountability.

If you are "neutral" in the conflict between victims and their abuser, you have taken the side of the abuser. If you provide opportunities for a perpetrator to escape accountability, you are an enabler. If you allow a suspect to escape the scene of a crime, since every cat in these books seems to be a lawyer the minute anyone wants to react to violence, you could be charged with accessory fleeing and eluding-- a felony.

Before you try to say this is all in the noble pursuit of peace, let's not be dense.

DOTC is not committed to non-violence for any other tyrannical leader. Especially not One Eye, even believing that an underhanded ambush that breaks the terms of a duel Clear Sky set is the good and righteous thing to do. Killing him was the correct action, as it was with Slash in Riverstar's Home. Outside of DOTC this logic is casually applied to Brokenstar, Tigerstar, Scourge, Hawkfrost, Darktail, and Ashfur-- with only Leopardstar and Blackstar being "exempt" for following an evil ringleader.

Gray Wing himself has no moral dilemma about One Eye or Slash, either. Nonviolence is not his goal.

It is Clear Sky, and Clear Sky alone, who the narrative of DOTC will conclude "deserved" a million second chances. That torturing Bumble to death, slaughtering Misty for her land, and countless offscreen cases of attacking natives didn't push him past the "fundamentally evil" threshold into an irredeemable monster, as is the case with Slash and One Eye later in this arc.

The difference between Clear Sky and DOTC's other two tyrants, to me, is obvious. Clear Sky is the POV's brother and a member of the in-group of The Settlers. The lives of his victims, as mostly "foreigners" and entirely women, are worth very little to the notoriously xenophobic and misogynist writing team.

If the moor cats had shredded Clear Sky right here and now, dozens of lives would have been saved. The First Battle wouldn't have happened. Justice would have been served for Bumble, regardless of if the cause of death was 2nd degree murder or negligent homicide. He wouldn't have smacked and beaten any of his other victims.

Gray Wing prevents this, giving Clear Sky an opportunity to tell a lie.

(He even whines about the idea of Wind Runner challenging Clear Sky about boundaries, the whole thing that started this incident in the first place. This is the perfect time to start arguing about boundaries, actually, when he's in the middle of establishing new ones.)

In the past, I'd been too charitable to this exchange. This lie is obscene and anyone who believes it is ignorant. No frills, no bells, you either can't think critically or just didn't want to so Clear Sky can be innocent or Gray Wing can seem "reasonable."

Clear Sky's visibly eager to start his story, "glad of the chance" now that he's had time to concoct a story. He could have explained earlier but didn't, sizing the group up and glaring at his brother to crack a whip, asking if they believed he was capable of it, so he could gauge what he can get away with.

"New part of my territory" = Freshly annexed land he has violently conquered, confirming the patrol's fears of expansion.

"I wanted to give her a warning, just a little cuff" = No one leaves his territory gently. Confirmation he thrashed her, downplay of how severe.

"How was I to know she would faint?" = Bumble is visibly emaciated, and he's blaming her for not being able to stay conscious through the whole beating.

"I could see her paws twitching, and I knew she would come around" = He would not care, Misty's body was unburied for two days.

"So I left" = Leaving Count: 1

Pauses, wincing, because this is another act. Every time he's putting on a little show for other cats, he takes dramatic pauses and plays up his pain and regret. Seen earlier in this book.

"But heard a fox bark" = no barking was heard by the patrol, only a cat's shriek.

"And ran back" = Was apparently so close that he could hear barking the patrol didn't, but so far away that a fox had time to cut her to ribbons, AND this was so long ago the patrol wasn't close enough to hear the fight? Returning Count: 2

"But I was too late" = Wounds inconsistent with fox attack. Leaving Count: 2

"I was going to get help" = There is no medic in proto-SkyClan. When Jagged Peak broke his leg, they had to borrow Dappled Pelt. What help? Who?? Even as he says this, Frost's wound is going completely untreated. If Clear Sky was going to get help, why wasn't he telling Cloud Spots to do something when he got back?

"But then I heard you all arrive" = He left to get help but was still close enough to hear running? Just abandoning his noble quest to get that "help" he apparently has? Returning Count: 3

Not a single part of his story adds up. EVERY aspect of it has a problem, in that it's either deceptively worded to downplay his abuse, doesn't line up with who he is, or just doesn't make logistical sense.

It's not JUST a lie, it's a BAD one.

Even worse, Clear Sky is a known liar at this point. He does this when the truth would not benefit him, like earlier in this book when he fibbed to Thunder about why he abandoned him right in front of Gray Wing's face. The story doesn't make sense and there's not even any reason to give him benefit of the doubt, because he is known to be dishonest.

He's offended when Turtle Tail calls him on being full of baloney, and once again shoots a sharp look over to his flying monkey, expecting Gray Wing to dance on command and defend his honor like always.

But Gray Wing seems to be perfectly capable of being "wise" when it would directly benefit Clear Sky.

I have seen the question begged, "if he's such a bootlicker then why he no verbally bootlick a third time in a single exchange?" and I would tell that person to read the text because it says why. Right there. Here, I've underlined it. So you don't miss it again.

If Gray Wing licks that boot again, THIRD TIME, in front of an angry mob who wants to skin Clear Sky alive, they will lose patience and make the clearing look like Bruce's Eating Dome. So he shuts the fuck up and gives his ungrateful brother the chance to indignantly slip away, even though he desperately wants to cry out and tell him how shiny and lickable those boots are.

"What can I say?" Nothing. "I'll only make things worse" Correct. "If I don't let him leave now there will be a fight" im literally just quoting the text verbatim

He is NOT doing this because he does not believe him, NOR because he doesn't want to defend him. It's because this the best way to protect his brother from consequence.

And then Bumble uses her dying breath to apologize for ever hurting her friend, showing Bumble is still just blaming herself for everything, with Turtle Tail still repeating the same malicious excuses that were used to deny her asylum from domestic abuse.

"I wish you could have found happiness, even though I was unwilling to help you. It sucked to learn that our shared wifebeater started wifebeating you, but we didn't want you in our camp so really this was unavoidable."

I've voiced my ire before, gone on long rants about how angry this exchange makes me and even campaigned for more recognition of the misogyny in this subplot. The fact that the last words Bumble hears are just more excuses from a person who could have done something disgust me, and I think I'm right to feel that it's vile that this sits unexamined in a book for young readers. But it doesn't change what happened.

She senselessly died in intense pain and despair, for the crime of existing. All that's left to say is that I wish Bumble could have found a better friend.

But ultimately, Turtle Tail is another woman in the notoriously misogynistic arc of DOTC. She's just a supporting character for Gray Wing's conflict, and he's got some opinions about what, exactly, is making this so sad.

He doesn't give a fuck that this woman he hates has been murdered after slowly starving to death, for months, since he watched her be dragged back to a domestic abuser. She "stole" his romantic interest for a few months, after all.

It's stressed he "never especially liked Bumble" at her deathbed. It's not JUST "the death of a kittypet," a group of people he is bigoted against. It's about his piece of shit brother.

It's about how HIS REPUTATION HAS BEEN TARNISHED.

"It changes the way my cats think of Clear Sky," THAT HE IS NOW A KNOWN MURDERER, "and that changes everything" IT'S GOING TO BE A LOT HARDER TO DEFEND HIM NOW

This is completely consistent with Gray Wing's behavior into the rest of the chapter, and even the books beyond.

The Immediate Response

Gray Wing explains what happened to the other moor cats. He has to hide his actual belief that Clear Sky didn't actually do anything wrong so that the moor cats don't dismiss him for the biased, brother-obsessed little minion he is. He admits how he really feels about Bumble's death to Turtle Tail at the very end of the chapter-- so what he says here is a lie.

Not a delusion. A lie. He withheld the full truth of his bias when questioned. If he's honest about his conflict of interest, this group will trust his judgement less. He has a goal; to prevent his cats from retaliating.

Wind Runner is, again, the one who is rallying the other cats into action. She's seeing that Clear Sky is murdering innocent cats, possibly even her friend considering how much she knew about Misty, and that this will only escalate. Gray Wing doesn't like that.

So when Tall Shadow starts suggesting the things he agrees with, like how Bumble's life was less valuable anyway so this is no reason to start a fight with his Dear Sweet Brother, and they should all just sit on their butts until no one's angry anymore, he decides she "deserves" his support.

It's a political move.

"After all, she was only a kittypet... omg why are you so mad?? I didnt mean it like that, all im saying is that we should just calm down ugh dont be so sensitive" -Tall Shadow, channeling your racist aunt

If Gray Wing can get the other cats to waste their time on useless half-measures, like more patrols or perhaps writing a strongly-worded letter, he can make them feel like they're doing something when they're actually doing jack shit. Wittingly or unwittingly, this is a measure to stall the inevitable, making them miss their chance to strike while the iron is hot.

He's either an idiot or he's subconsciously acting from a place of loyalty to his brother. Bias resembles the former but is born of the latter, and either way the result is the same.

After this, there's a brief conversation where Tall Shadow makes it clear that there is absolutely no reason to be mistrusting Wind Runner. They both agree "when this is all over" she's a good cat to have around-- they just don't seem want to listen to her now, when she wants something done about the sadistic lunatic next door.

Gray Wing's talk of "working together" is laughable. His idea of "working together" includes the cat who just slaughtered two people for existing on his newly annexed land, who long ago stopped listening to reason. Tall Shadow herself starts preening and announces that her response to all this is that Clear Sky must absolutely be stopped by some cat.......................... so she'll think abt it.

tomorrow maybe. we'll put a pin in it. set a little reminder on her phone or something.

(the genius plan she comes up with in the end is a nonsequitor babble about how rocks don't exist to be sat on, so clear sky should just stop conquering all the land or something. he listens intently and then throws her into a tank of piranhas.)

But anyway, it's time to smooth things over with Turtle Tail, who had been struggling with that uncomfortable truth that the moor cats, and Gray Wing specifically, were also culpable in some way for the slow, painful death of Bumble.

He'll fix that with a big display of affection.

"Don't be mad at me it's nobody's fault :) She wouldn't have been able to cope so it's inevitable she wound up dead :) I'm sorry you're hurting bc i like you, not that i give a damn that your friend was shoved into a blender and shredded alive after starving for months :) Thanks to you I am now ready to lead this clan directly off the side of a cliff." -very endearing conversation i assure you

It works because Turtle Tail is not allowed to maintain her own opinions as a girl in DOTC. Obviously. Her husband licks her ears and tells her that he likes her and that's the end of any examination that they have any responsibility here. god forbid she re-examine her feelings towards the writers' favorite in light of how much of an ass he made of himself at her friend's deathbed.

Just in case it slipped your mind though, once again it is made clear that Gray Wing is reacting with leisure because he does not believe (or care) that Clear Sky killed Bumble. No, not even in the negligent homicide sense, that Clear Sky's actions allowed Bumble to die through beating her unconscious and leaving her alone in an unsafe location. He does not think this was something to blame Clear Sky for.

He believes that the fox did it-- he was lying earlier when he said he "didn't know what to believe." He does. He didn't reveal his bias when he was being questioned, because he wants to prevent the moor cats from fighting Clear Sky over Bumble's death.

Also note the sneaky little turn of language Gray Wing makes there. In denial of Turt's claim that "innocent cats are being slaughtered," Gray's counter is Bumble alone before the pivot. The patrol was originally about Misty's murder and her missing kittens as Clear Sky expanded his borders-- but Misty's apparently not an "innocent cat" who's been slaughtered. She's absent from that category, implied to be part of Clear Sky's hypothetical "good reason" for expansion that Gray Wing needs to get to the bottom of.

Bumble's murder is denied. Misty's is implied to just be collateral damage for the unknown plan. He's unbothered about the death of either one.

Gray Wing: "No one else can get to the bottom of this! theres only ME! I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP CLEAR SKY"

Also Gray Wing: (leaps in front of an angry crowd to defend his brother. cries that he doesn't believe hes capable of such terrible violence. actively prevents anyone else from doing anything about him)

Anyone with a vague awareness of DOTC knows how this ends. Gray Wing is going to lead them astray with his bad judgement, so purposefully delusional about his brother that they will have to dig a mass grave at Fourtrees. Gray Wing thinks he's a *~special boy~* who is the only one who can truly get through to his brother, and maybe he is, but not before dozens of people have to suffer and die for it.

This is enabling. To enable is to directly or indirectly support another's harmful actions, such as addiction or abuse. He did it here, both during and after Bumble's death, giving Clear Sky the cover to escape consequences for his actions and halting any attempts to do anything concrete. Because of him, Clear Sky never pays for what he did to her.

In the book 3, Clear Sky denies all wrongdoing, and in Bumble's last mention in book 4, her torture is described in passive voice. A terrible "happening" which seemingly couldn't have been avoided. No one is held accountable. Not the moor cats for turning her away, not Clear Sky for her killing, and even Tom the Wifebeater is redeemed after being given a chance to live in a clan for not being "soft" like his female victim.

All so sweet, beloved little Gray Wing never has to confront that he let a killer get off scot-free because the uncomplicated childhood memory of his brother as a lovely good boy was wrong. That he was so consumed by spite that he smugly watched Bumble get dragged away from the only people who could have helped her. That he was complicit twice.

Incredible suggestions that I have had to read with my own eyes

fucking ✨Bonus Round✨

"If clear sky fought bumble, why bumble leave no scratches?" I'll let you sit there and think about why the DOMESTIC ABUSE VICTIM did not fight back against a large, violent man who was beating her. I'll give you a minute. I'll play some jeopardy music.

"he's quote 'horrified and guilty' at the wounds which means he didn't make them himself" Clear Sky has a repeated habit of "blacking out" when he butchers women (Rainswept Flower, Willow Tail). He's also a liar and an actor, even according to his own account he'd seen these same wounds before when he came back a second time. Most importantly, what fucking part of "horrified and guilty" implies he didn't make those himself, does a toddler not look "horrified and guilty" when it spills chocolate milk on a couch and its parent sees it? Does that mean the toddler didn't do it? If you wouldn't accept this logic for a toddler why the fuck will you accept it for a suspected murderer?

"Maybe Clear Sky fought the fox off?" He doesn't actually say that, it's just implied during his lie when he says he showed up too late, but it's hypothetically possible. Even if he did fight this fox off, he must have still mauled Bumble because she is covered in claw wounds, even if he doesn't remember it because he "blacked out." There's also still the problems of Bumble being in the middle of the trampled grass, the patrol not hearing the sound of battle, his framing that he just tapped her and she passed out, and him apparently running to get help he does not have. Occam's Razor still suggests the solution is that this fox was scared off when Bumble screamed, with Clear Sky just using the convenient smell to lie his way out of consequences

"How'd Clear Sky get fox scent on him?" Probably from showing up to the crime scene that absolutely reeks and prowling around like an axe murderer, which we saw him do. Bumble had no fox bites and no one heard a fight. did you know that if you stand in a sewer you smell like shit

"Gray Wing just doesn't want to think his dear sweet brother could ever do such a thing :("

"What if the Erins are just so incompetent that they created a crime scene completely inconsistent with the very true and real story that Clear Sky told, it just happens to look like a lie on accident, they unwittingly made him a liar earlier in this book because they forgot the events they previously wrote, and don't know anything about a type of predator that appears in nearly every entry of warrior cats and happens to be one of the most popular animals of all time" what if i tripped and fell and a shawarma with extra tahini sauce fell into my mouth, followed by an apple slice, and 3 litres of water. should i continue my fast or has Allah fed me.

All of this is why I am adamant on saying that Clear Sky killed Bumble by beating her to death. In order for this to have been the cause of a fox, you'd have to take a liar at face value and ignore every other detail. That's what Gray Wing does, described on the page as "desperate to believe in his brother's innocence."

Unfortunately, this will also not be the only time that Gray Wing's obsession with his brother and shockingly horrific judgement will put other cats in danger or get them killed. It's just the most deliberate example, and thus imo the most upsetting.

#warrior cats analysis #Bumble #Bumble wc #Dotc analysis #dawn of the clans #dotc hate #clear sky #skystar #gray wing #dotc #Justice for Bumble #Bumble dotc #Gray Wing The Wise

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icedsodapop · 1 month ago

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Look, Tyra Banks is problematic and has been rightfully criticized for the many, many problematic statements she had made on ANTM. But, there's something so hypocritical and rage-inducing about seeing White women viciously commenting on Tyra Banks' physique and appearance at the Victoria Secret Fashion Show, saying that she deserved it for making women feel bad on ANTM.

There are a couple things that I think need to be addressed which is:

1. Using fatphobic statements and bodyshaming Tyra Banks and thinking that it's justified becos she had made fatphobic and bodyshaming statements before, does not make you any better than she was. You are still bodyshaming. Also seeing White women thinking they are justified in shaming a Black woman's body? No, fucking no.

2. The individualizing of systemic problems to Tyra Banks. Banks is literally not the only person on ANTM who bodyshamed the contestants on the show. The other judges had participated in it as well, and it tells you a lot about the modelling industry in general. Banks has also been criticized and denied jobs in the past for not meeting beauty standards as a curvy Black woman. Is it too far of a stretch to consider that in order for her, a curvy Black woman, to succeed in the modelling industry, she'd internalized a bunch of toxic beauty standards?

All this to say, I think it's possible to re-evaluate Tyra Banks' legacy and hold her accountable for what she has said and the harm she's complicit in upholding, while also making space to be compassionate and nuanced about her. I mean, if (mostly White) women can see Ballerina Farm as a victim while she's been profitting off promoting white supremacist, cisheteronormative patriarchal values in a pretty soft-lit package to young impressionable pple, I think we can do the same for Tyra Banks?

Anyways, please read this:

#tyra banks #america's next top model #misogynoir #fatphobia #bodyshaming #white feminism #double standards

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mikareo · 9 months ago

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౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆ A LOVE LETTER TO: THE LOUVRE ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀呪術廻船; geto suguru x fem reader ⠀ ꒰ . . org. writing repost ꒱ . . . word count; 12.9k

⊹ ⠀⠀ for as long as he can remember, geto's world has been black and white - giving him no reason to appreciate his mother’s profession as an artist and the beauties that art can provide. however, an accidental meeting with you gives him reason to doubt his former beliefs - proving to him that there may be true beauty in a world that’s void of everything bright, that beauty being the sunshine that you provide.

contains; colorblind!geto, painter!reader, geto's mom is reader’s art mentor, he hates art, strangers to friends to lovers, major crushing from both sides, slow burn but also not slow burn, swearing, fluff, reader acts like she’s on an adrenaline rush 24/7, jealousy, angst, explosive arguments, lowkey toxic, extremely inaccurate depictions of colorblindness!!, geto sucks at flirting author's note; repost of a bllk fic i have, titled 'rationalism'. if there are any plot errors pls let me know,, the original fic is still posted, i just wanted this up for jjk too,, enjoy!

Whenever the sun meets its peak at the high dawning point in the sky is when Suguru knows it's a perfectly acceptable time to visit his oh-so-beloved mother. If he could, he would spend every waking moment with her - he’s a momma’s boy through and through - not only because she birthed him and taught him everything he knows, but because she’s kind and good. She’s also one of - scratch that - she’s the only person he can stand to be around for more than twenty four hours - and he takes great pride in having such a wonderful woman in his life.

However, despite how dearly he holds his mother to his heart, the issue with visiting her at this time of day is that she’s in her art studio. A place he loathes more than having to wear wet socks with sneakers. While it’s a beautiful space, with high wooden beams and floor to ceiling windows, he finds himself nauseous at the mere sight of the countless tubes of oil and acrylic paints. It’s not that the smell or colors are distasteful, it’s the fact that no matter how hard he squints and struggles, he cannot fathom what the simple color red looks like.

Complete black and white color blindness isn’t a life threatening condition in the slightest, but for Suguru, it feels as if he’s being stabbed through the sternum at any notion of the changing leaves or colorful streaks of light across the sun-setting sky.

He doesn’t hate his mother for being an artist, he simply hates the art itself.

And he especially hates pieces of art like the one sitting before him, now. With the blobs of squares and triangles against the supposedly white canvas, sitting perky on the easel as if to mock him - he decides to reach his hand out - and remind himself how emotionally detached acrylic paints make him feel. It’s wet, he observes, rubbing his thumb and pointer finger together to mix the possibly different hues. Suguru hopes he didn’t ruin the artist’s painting in any way, he wouldn’t know if he’d accidentally smeared shading or contrasting primaries - but surely the artist could fix it in a jiffy.

“Do you like it?”

Well, that certainly isn’t his mother’s voice.

“I tried using cooler tones in the corner here, and then migrated towards warmth in the lower portion.” You’re beside him now, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his position, and completely ignoring his personal space - all while he’s never met you before this day. Your finger is extended, pointing towards the artistic decisions you’re elaborating on that, in all honesty, he doesn’t give two shits about. “I’m thinking about sketching some paper cranes on top of it all, I want it to represent the change of seasons.”

“What do you think?”

You’re staring at him now, bright eyes shining with curiosity. Suguru is at a loss for words, mostly due to your unannounced appearance in the studio, but also because you’re possibly the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid his eyes on - which is shocking, considering the sight of thick paint smudged against a person’s face typically sends him running the opposite direction. He’s never felt an immediate connection to the women of his past - however you, a strange girl who resembles a dog waiting for its treat, has his heart beating at twice the rate.

“I like this shape.” Suguru purses his lips into a straight line, never having felt so awkward in his whole life. “This square is nice, too.”

You look utterly unimpressed with his evaluation. Your nose is scrunched in distaste and the fold beneath your right eye seems to be twitching in disapproval for your own artwork. “That’s all that you like?” You step ever so slightly closer to him, chin tilted up to meet his gaze, before retreating quickly and coddling your painting. “Perhaps I overestimated my color palette. I really thought it would be the outstanding moment of this piece, but I guess I could rework it if the shapes are all that matter—”

“Did you touch my painting?”

Oh boy, he’s in for it now.

A nervous laugh leaves his mouth, embarrassing him further as he reaches up to scratch the back of his neck in an attempt to look casual, only for you to grab his wrist out of thin air. “Oh my god, you did!” Your mouth is agape, inspecting his tattered skin in shock - yet somehow he knows that you aren’t truly upset with him - you don't seem like that kind of person. “Did you not realize that you’ve got scarlet red all over your palms?”

Suguru’s mind is blank, his ability to form coherent sentences is gone, and he can only muster up the cheesiest, most terribly dreadful joke that he’s said in the twenty three years he’s been alive.

“I guess you caught me red handed?”

There’s a moment of silence, with the two of you displaying the most aloof expressions either of you have ever made, until your face lights up with laughter. He doesn’t understand what could possibly be so funny - his joke was awful - but the sound of your contagious fits of giggles make his heart feel a little bit warmer in a place that he commonly feels suffocated in. For the first time, the studio gives him a sense of comfort rather than distress - and he knows it's because he’s developing a very clear crush on the pretty girl beside him.

You’re hysterical, resembling that of insanity while Suguru is simply stuck in time. He can’t tell if he should be steadying you before you trip over your own feet or if he should simply take his leave and forget this day ever happened.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” he begins, watching you wipe a tear of laughter from the crinkle of your right eye, “but why are you here? Do you have an appointment, because I could’ve sworn there weren’t any other people that were allowed in the studio at this hour—”

“Oh, I do know you!” The volume of your voice just seems to get louder and louder. “You must be Miss Geto’s son! She always mentions how lovely her little boy is, I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you! Though, I expected you to be like six or seven, not my age. She should’ve mentioned that you were handsome, not cute - she really chose every adjective other than the ones that wouldn’t make you sound like a primary schooler.”

Does she ever stop talking? Suguru doesn’t think he’s ever heard another person ramble on-and-on like you do. Normally he’d have ended the conversation by now, walked away without a second thought of whether he acted rude or not, but he knows that his mother would strangle him if he was to blatantly disregard her current favorite student. The student that she loves telling him stories about at the dinner table every Sunday night as he’s just trying to eat his fingerling potatoes in peace.

The same student who he’s somehow enjoying talking to - though it’s mostly just you talking to his blank face - and is causing a soft yellow blush to form on his cheeks. He doesn’t actually know if yellow is the color related to blushing, but he thinks he’s read it somewhere before.

“Anyways, to answer your question—”

Suguru feels like he’d asked you hours ago.

“—I’d walked all the way to the train station and realized I’d forgotten my wallet here - which is strange because normally I never forget anything. I’m a very organized person—”

Yeah, he doesn’t believe that.

“—and then I had to run all the way back here—”

Your shoes are scuffed. You definitely tripped on the way.

“—where I accidentally ran into a stroller…poor baby—”

Yep. Tripped.

“—which led me to you!”

You’re smiling now and Suguru doesn’t think he’s seen so many teeth shining at him in all of his life. God, do you ever run out of energy? No matter, he knows exactly where your missing item is. The anonymous wallet had been the first thing his eyes had grazed over when striding towards your artwork - good thing it’s only an arm’s reach away.

He snatches the wallet from the art easel and is pleasantly surprised by the quality of the possibly monochromatic leather. The clasp is simple, requiring just one twist before the contents of your identity are laid out before him. “Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Suguru recites the name written on your license and holds the items out to you, to which you reach out, eager to reunite with your belongings. However, at the last second he waves it in the air - away from your dying fingertips - and clicks his tongue two times. “Try not to lose it again. It’s a luxury brand, isn’t it? I like the black color.”

“Black?” Shit. The tilt of confusion your head makes indicates that your wallet is not, in fact, black. “I’m either stupid or color blind, but this is red.”

Before Suguru can respond, he’s saved by the bell. Well, technically his savior isn’t an actual bell, but you get the gist. “Miss Geto!” Thank god she’s finally here to distract you. He’s been fighting to maintain his pride throughout your entire interaction. “I made an extra trip to the studio and ran into your son, here! You weren’t lying when you said he’s a little quiet - honestly, I feel like I’ve been talking to myself this whole time.”

You quite literally have been doing that very thing for the past ten minutes.

“Oh, Suguru! Have you been acting rude?” His mother’s expression is tense, stricter than the time he ‘accidentally’ took her (grey?) Kia Soul on a joyride that one weekend he and Satoru decided to go on a midnight run to the department store. “Please don’t mind him at all, dear. You see, he doesn’t exactly get out much - his social skills might be a little underdeveloped.”

She can’t actually be saying this right now. This is exactly why he hasn’t had a girlfriend in months - his mother embarrasses him in front of every pretty girl they come across in the first two minutes of saying ‘hello’. It isn’t that Suguru is a terrible flirt - which he is, but he likes to deny it - it’s that he loves his mother so much that he can’t bear to tell her that her attempts at ‘hooking him up’ are always bound to fail.

However, you don’t appear to be phased by her words. If anything, you’re actually pleased by the sound of him being socially impaired.

“That’s actually perfect!”

What.

The.

Fuck?

“He can be my portrait model!” You’re still talking. Please, for the love of God, stop talking. “You know how I’ve been trying to become better skilled in the emotional aspect of my paintings, he could definitely help me out by showing anxiety and embarrassment - and you’ve been telling me it’s about time that I found myself a model.”

The endless trail of words that continue to string from your mouth seem to reach their end. Rather than speaking in spitfire, you’re now crazily staring at Suguru, himself. Both of your fists are clenched together in a pleading hold and he doesn’t think that you’ve blinked since the start of your conversational rampage - but despite the absurdity of your proclamation, he believes you have good intentions. There really is no reason to deny the request - after all, he’d be helping out his mother in the process, she does love having successful students - but he just can’t imagine himself spending any more time in the dreadfully grey studio than he already does.

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea.” His mother catches your words before he has a chance to give you his own oral letter of rejection. “Suguru’s never been one for art.”

“Oh.”

All you have to say is ‘oh’?

“I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” you continue. The expression on your face is suddenly stern. Has he offended you in some way by saying no? “I’ll figure something else out, Miss Geto. I apologize if I overstepped.”

You’re bowing your head before him now, and Suguru is shell shocked. His first impression of you was undoubtedly a dud, considering how you actually do seem to have a rational bone in your body despite the hyperactivity you displayed just moments before. While he’s mustering up a response, you lift your eyes - lashes fluttering like upwards brush strokes on a canvas - and send a small smile his way. It’s as if you’re silently apologizing to him for the undivided attention you tormented him with, but he doesn’t want you to apologize.

He just doesn’t know how to say that he actually liked your personality.

God, he’s so bad at flirting.

“Thanks for finding my wallet, though.” Your fingers are suddenly touching his, momentarily grazing against his skin as you pluck your wallet from his hands. There’s no chance that you haven’t noticed the rising heat that’s currently warming the blossoms of his cheeks, and he hopes that you find it endearing. While he isn’t great with words, he likes to think that he may be at least a little bit cute. His mother always calls him a ‘cutie’ - which he appreciates, but it’s also so degrading for someone of his age. “Maybe I’ll be forgetful more often, now.”

He hopes you’ll start being more forgetful, too.

You’ve left your entire bag this time.

He can’t tell if you’re trying to be subtle and coy with the budding feelings that’re growing between the two of you, and you’re just as awful at flirting as he is - or if you’ve just given up on leaving small signs of attraction. Honestly, in the past few weeks of you leaving paintbrushes and lanyards in the studio, he’d assumed it was all naturally an accident. This, though? How do you expect him to believe that you left your entire satchel in the studio? Sure, you can be a little dense, but not that dense.

It’s obvious that you’ve begun to lose track of your belongings for the simple reason that you enjoy partaking in the awkward exchange of items when you ‘hastily’ return to the empty renovated greenhouse and get to act surprised to see him standing there with his arms full of things with your name written all over them. In fact, this instance has happened so often that Suguru is beginning to believe that he actually enjoys it, too.

Sometimes he thinks that maybe you should just write your name on him to speed up this dreadful ‘will they, won’t they’ process that you’ve been pacing together.

He likes you. He really really likes you, and you both know it.

You’d picked up on his feelings from the second time you met - when he willingly stayed behind in the studio for an extra two hours just to hear you ramble about the difference between heavy and soft body acrylic paints. There was something about the way you grinned at him. How your chin would angle upwards to his height in order to have a proper conversation. How you weren’t afraid to say anything and everything that was on your sporadic mind. How your eyes would sparkle at the dedicated eye contact he was making - letting you know that he was hanging on to every word that left your lips (which he just recently found out are pink - and boy does he wish to know what that undoubtedly lovely color looks like against your skin).

He hates to compare you to a painting - which he still finds a positively dreadful blob of nothingness - but to him, you are one. You’re a captivating piece of art hanging on the walls of the nationally acclaimed museum in his mind.

A captivating piece of art whose art of subtlety is extremely lacking, considering that your phone number is quite literally painted on the largest white canvas your easel can hold, in bold lettering that he would have to be visually blind to miss, plastered behind the hiding place of your bag.

‘P.S. It's written in red paint. I know you have a thing for red.”

As much as he likes you, you can be such a pain in his ass. The bane of his existence, if you will.

It pains him to notice how he hadn’t thought twice about typing the digits into his text bar, smiling to himself at the sight of your make-shift contact with the horrid selfie you’d taken on his phone to be your future contact picture. Your hair is an utter mess, with flecks of paint scattered across your hairline - which, to be honest, look like dandruff to him with their lack of vivid color, but he told you that they resemble snowflakes. He lied - but what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you.

Without hesitating, he types a singular ‘hey’ before backtracking. What if you don’t know that it’s him texting you? What if you think that it’s a random stranger who just so happened to be in the art studio and thought to add your contact information to their phone? He better be more clear.

‘Hello. You know me.’

Perfect.

In less than a split second, you respond. He can feel his nerves itching at the sight of the grey text bubble popping in and out of view. Suguru can’t even remember the last time his heart beat so fast. Perhaps when he was standing in front of his secondary school health classroom and he accidentally mistook a photo of the urinary system with the ovaries during a speech about the female menstrual cycle? The stream of liquid projected against the white board was in fact not what he thought it was (how was he supposed to see the difference between red and yellow?), which turned into a horribly disgusting presentation that Satoru still bothers him about to this day. That was dreadful - but this is definitely equally as dreadful, if not more.

‘Stalker much?’ Huh? ‘Hi though, Suguru. That text was very…you.’

‘You added my number pretty quickly.’ Man, you text really fast. ‘You just couldn’t resist me, could you?’

He doesn’t know what to say back. It’s as if his mind has been scraped raw of all romantic material that one would usually use in this situation - the situation in which an unbelievably pretty girl is talking to him through a phone screen. Suguru is completely frozen in place, time, and thought. The only part of him that isn’t paralyzed is the hole in his chest that is beginning to be thawed by you. His frozen heart of past relationships has found its fire - and oh does it burn for you.

“Cat got your tongue?”

Where the fuck did you come from?

Swiveling on his heel, he turns to face your approaching figure. Your footsteps are lighter than air, likely being the reason as to how you managed to stealthily sneak in so quietly while he had been distracted with his phone. The light denim jeans that cover you from waist to ankles are perhaps his favorite pair you own. You’ve painted on them over time, sketching out a garden of patterns that don’t require color to appreciate. Your artistic ability is uncanny - he can’t deny the fact that you’re incredibly skilled - and he believes that you should be given an award for making ‘art’s number one hater’ a growing fan.

“You left your bag.” No shit, Captain Obvious. “Do you want it back?”

He’s so bad at this.

You skip towards him, your left foot following your right in a rhythm of peppiness, and lean up towards him with a shine in your eyes. God, you look so pretty. Sure, seeing you from a comfortable distance with an easel separating your bodies was nice and all, but when you pull stunts like this - with no room for him to scurry off and run - he actually takes the time to digest your features in their true beauty. You’re the artist, yet he seems to be the one who’s always studying you.

“Do you have any plans for today?” You ask in a curious tone. Your hands are held together behind your back as you send him a beaming grin with an upturned lip. “—because I was thinking about grabbing some tea, and it would be so unfortunate if I had to go all alone and sit by myself with all of those strangers around me. Who knows what could happen? If only there were someone who could protect me in case a sleazy guy asks for my number…”

Are you trying to manipulate him, right now?

“I’ve got nothing to do today.”

—because he’ll gladly let you do so.

The peaks of your eyebrows raise in surprise, not expecting him to accept the offer so quickly. Over the short time you’ve known one another, you’ve noticed that Suguru’s reluctance to spend one-on-one time with you has dwindled. He’s slowly becoming more comfortable in your presence and whatever inner turmoil that he’s facing is fading into the tide of your raging tsunami. There’s a peaceful gaze behind his brown eyes, now. One that you love to study whenever he isn’t looking your way (which isn’t often).

“Then it’s a date!” Surging forwards, you take his arm in yours and link yourselves together. He’s initially shocked by the immediate physical connection you’ve managed to make within mere seconds, but he thinks that he likes it. It’s been so long since he’s even held hands with a girl, so he’s understandably tense, but you’re giving him time to adjust. After all, scaring him away would be your last intention. “I’ll even pay for your drink, since you were kind enough to find my lost satchel.”

“Yeah, your lost satchel was so hard to find.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He smiles to himself.

Yes, you do.

He isn’t sure how, but he’s somehow burned his tongue again.

“Shit!” Suguru hurriedly places his mug down onto the circular wooden table that separates the two of you, while attempting to be gentle since he doesn’t want to waste the perfectly tasty coffee that you paid for. He groans, dabbing the corners of his lips with one of the complimentary paper napkins. “Why does it get me every time?”

This is perhaps the third week in a row that you and him have ditched the studio and decided to claim the neighboring cafe as your designated date spot - though you’re still an unofficially exclusive couple. Unofficial as in Suguru hasn’t found the nerves to ask you to be his girlfriend, and exclusive as in neither of you are nor want to see other people. It’s a confusing situation for both parties to be in, but he just can’t seem to take that next step with you no matter how hard he tries to push himself towards the ideal solution.

Suguru is a rationalist. He takes in the information given to him through interactions and associations, working through it with logistics on his mind, and tries to find the best outcome. It’s how he’s lived every hour and every day of his adulthood, and he’s fairly set in stone with his mannerisms at this point. He always known who he is, what he wants, and how to obtain those things. What he didn’t know, though, was that an unpredictable variable (you) would crash into his life and disarray the routine that he’d been building for twenty-three years.

The hypothesis born of the situation isn’t a difficult one to solve, after all he’s had it written down for a month: if Suguru finds the courage to ask you to be his girlfriend, then you’ll likely say yes and the two of you will live happily ever after. Easy, right?

Wrong. He’s a chicken.

“Here. This might help you cool down.”

Your arm is extended, offering him your drink of the day without hesitation. Every time you come here, arm-in-arm, you order something different. ‘There’s no fun without surprise’, is what you tell him after the consistent strange glances he sends your way when you’re ordering, and he can’t help but disagree. You’re very different individuals - and that difference is extremely apparent with the light, mint garnished tea in your glass compared to the dark roast coffee in his.

“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.” He sighs in relief as the cool liquid flows down his throat in an internal waterfall. “Holy shit, this is actually so good.”

You laugh, “I would hope so. I only got it because of the photo on the menu. It’s like a rainbow of color.”

And there it is. The thing that isolates him the most from your world.

As much as he likes you, which is more than he can explain, he can’t help but have that itching thought at the back of his mind that you’ll never truly be able to connect with one another. You bask in the beauty of the world around you. From the apparent golden sun showers and bouquets of stark red roses - two things that you’ve described to him in great detail amidst your walks through the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings - to the countless brush strokes against the white canvas at his mother’s studio, you adore a world in color.

It’s a viewpoint that’s shaped who you are, from infantry to your current age of twenty-two, and it’s something that you’ll never be able to let go of.

To be quite frank, it scares him. It keeps him up at night knowing that seeing the world through your eyes is impossible. That it’s a far off dream that is unobtainable, taunting him in his mind and heart like a bone dangling in front of a dog’s face. He wishes that he could admire the blue streaked skies and emerald green ferns that line the streets of the city. He yearns to feel overcome with pride at the sight of your watercolor drafts - which you attempt to show him after every class session to no avail - and congratulate you on the progress you’re making. There are so many things that he dreams of doing with you, dreams that exist solely in your world, as they’ll never be possible in his.

He hasn’t officially asked you to be his yet, because how could he?

How could he bind you to him? You’d be miserable looking through his eyes - having to see only hues of black, white, and grey, similar to the pencil sketches that you’ve openly shown your hatred for in front of him. ‘There’s just nothing there,’ is what you mumble to yourself. ‘No life, no anything without color.’ To which you then drop a single ounce of paint against the seemingly dreadful piece of art - and the sparkle in your eyes as it comes to life is something that he loves to see but can’t understand…

…as you see the world in a way that he can never understand.

Suguru doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to tell you about his condition. It would end everything all at once, and he isn’t sure how he would recover from that kind of heartbreak. You’re so blissfully unaware of how much conflict runs through his veins on a daily basis. Hell, you don’t even notice how he orders a singular black coffee every time you approach the counter together. You don’t see how he struggles to agree with you as you admire the assortment of blended beverages with a forced smile on his face. You don’t understand why he chooses to indulge in such a bitter drink and make sure to comment on it every single time.

He can’t blame you, though - it really is disgusting - but he also can’t tell you that he orders his coffee black since it’s a universal drink that appears the same to everyone who sees it. At least when he’s holding the steaming mug between his large palms, he knows that it appears to you as it does to him. That the divide that’s ripping a ravine through your connected hands is lessened in a sense - and you’re truly viewing one thing as the same.

Which is why he sits pretty and appreciates the short time that you do spend together, and suffers through piping hot coffee three times a week with no interruptions.

“I think I’ve made some progress on my portfolio.”

Your drink has been returned to your hands now. The small, clear glass is ringing as you tap the sides with your fingernails. It’s somewhat soothing, the rhythm following the tune of one of your favorite songs that Suguru happens to know very well after walking in on you in the middle of ‘art therapy’, in which you blast the music at full volume and deafen all other sounds. You have a tendency to be impatient - art being the only thing that can really pin you down for a long period of time - yet you’ve made room in your heart for Suguru despite this.

“Really?” Suguru dabs his mouth carefully, being ever the proper suitor in your presence. “My mom hasn’t given you any recent critiques?”

“No, she has.” As your words continue, you take a long sip of your tea. He can feel his cheeks flush while you swallow. He loves anything you do. “Just little comments about negative space and color theory, but I’m getting there.”

“Nice.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that.

“Yeah, nice.”

Despite his seemingly rude reaction, you’re still gazing at him with a smile on your face. It isn’t an exceedingly joyful smile or one of excitement, but something of contentedness. You’ve become comfortable around him - shedded the hyperactive layers of skin that you display to onlooking strangers - and have begun to share the side of yourself that only your bedroom walls know. Seeing this side of you has made him fall even harder. Knowing that someone so confident, so bold, is just like him - caring so much about first impressions and likeability - and has their own insecurities is validating. Validating in the sense that you find him special enough to throw away the filter and be your true self in his presence.

“You know,” you begin in a wistful tone, “you aren’t a man of many words, Suguru - and if I’m being totally honest, my patience is running out.”

He hopes this isn’t going where he thinks it is.

He’s not letting you ask him out before he can—

“What am I to you?”

Oh.

Your eyes are giving him an expectant look, now.

What the hell is he supposed to say to that?

This is the quietest you’ve ever been, you aren’t even swirling the star-shaped ice cubes in your strawberry lemon tea.

Why can’t he think of anything to say?

His silence is causing you to furrow your eyebrows in concern.

This is so embarrassing. Just say something. Anything.

“You’re my mom’s student.”

Anything but that.

“I’m…” the words at the tip of your tongue seem to dissolve like damp sugar cubes, “I’m your mom’s student.”

Your sentence is more of a statement than a question. It’s as if there’s a machine in your brain, working through his given answer and comparing all of the other possibilities he could’ve said. There were endless responses to your inquiry, and he somehow managed to pick the worst one.

He needs to fix this. How can he fix this?

“You’re not just a student, though.” His words are tumbling over one another in somersaults and you seem to perk up at his continuity. The hope in your heart grows a little bit larger, pulsating and yearning for him to say exactly what you’d been wanting for weeks-on-weeks. “You’re my mom’s special student.”

Oh God, he made it worse.

“What?” Suguru tries to reach for your hand in an attempt to compensate for his actions through physical touch, but you retaliate and instinctively jerk away. You quickly stand, drink in hand, and back away from him as he follows like a lost puppy. Your head is shaking from right to left, disbelief exerting from the pores of your skin like poison - sentencing him with death while it seeps through his gaping mouth and empty palms. “I’m a special student?”

How the hell are you so fast?

Within seconds the two of you are at odds outside of the building. The weather is somewhat chilly - springtime having just come around with the cherry blossoms in full bloom - and it’s probably a beautiful day with the petals raining down on the pavement. You’d usually make a comment about how wonderful the horticulture was outside of the shop, but now you’re stomping over every fallen flower and budding stem that lies in the way of your rage-filled path. He’d always thought of you as a gentle soul, but apparently even gentle souls have their breaking points - and he never dreamed that he’d be yours.

“If I’m so special, what makes me different from the girl before me and the one before her?” This is the first time you’ve ever raised your voice at him. “Did you take all of them out for drinks? Did they all get to spend one-on-one time with their mentor’s ‘handsome’ son? Did you lead all of them on, too? Suguru, what kind of answer is that?”

You’ve found yourselves in an alcove now - about a block from the cafe in a small garden nestled between two buildings. The blossoming trees continue to surround you from all sides, perfectly framing the tragic picture of him saying anything and everything you absolutely do not want to hear. A large sigh leaves your lips, heaving from your chest as if he’s popped a balloon and is pushing all of the air out with the strength of his smooth hands.

“That’s not what I meant!” He pauses as you halt in place, slowly turning to face him like you're something out of a horror movie - a monster who’s ready to murder their prey. A gulp runs down his Adam’s apple. You’re terrifying when upset. “Please, just let me explain!”

“Explain what?” Suguru flinches at your volume. “If you want to explain yourself so badly then tell me why the hell would you say something like that?”

“Sure, you aren’t the best with banter or having a crush - but dear God, you cannot possibly be that dense.” This is getting bad. “I’ve left hundreds of hints! Every single goddamn day - and you’ve picked up on all of them! You know, I thought that when you’d hold my hand or kiss my cheek that you actually meant something by it. I figured ‘he spends so much time with me, he can’t possibly not like me’, but no. I’m just a student.”

Your face is fuming with every dreadful word that comes out of your mouth. “Oh, sorry. I’m a special student.”

If this were a scene in an animated film, your hair would be on fire now. Flames as high as mountain tops would be spiking in sharp peaks at every end of sentence and statement spitting from your mouth. Your normally warm irises would be drawn as ice cold, not leaving any room for life as they skate across his timid features - wishing for him to reach freezing level so you could smash him into a million pieces.

You’d always told him that red and blue - fire and ice - were two things that you admired most. With their ever changing states of matter and forceful power amidst the seasons, he found himself believing as you do. Suguru actually learned to appreciate their vast palette as if he could see it with his own eyes - but now? Now he thinks that they’re the two worst things in the universe - as their destructive nature has decided that their target is him, and he has absolutely no defenses prepared.

“I should’ve caught on sooner, shouldn’t I have?” You’re still going, hot tears building up and threatening to stream down your cheeks. Never in his life has Suguru been at the receiving end of such anger - and never in his life has he learned how to manage a situation as such. So, he does what any clueless man would do - he returns the anger.

“You’re not even listening to me!” His hands are violently moving while his words cut like knives. “You never listen to me!”

“I never listen to you?” He’s apparently hit another nerve. “Is that some kind of sick joke? Suguru, all I do is listen to you! It may not look like it, but I see the way you tense whenever I talk about my passions and dreams. I notice the way your face drains when I’m asking you for your opinion on my works in progress. Sometimes it’s like I can physically hear your eyes rolling when they see me walk into the studio with my bag of brushes and materials. Yet, you think that I don’t listen? I take note of every single thing that you do when you’re around me, because I don’t want to miss out on a single moment with you, and you don’t even care!”

He can’t believe that you’re pinning this on him.

“How could you even say that?” Suguru can’t tell who’s in the right or wrong anymore - all he knows is that if he doesn’t stop speaking, you’ll walk away forever. “I’ve never cared about anyone as much as you! I’ve done my best to entertain your interests and the absurd things you ask of me—”

“Well, your best hasn’t been enough.”

You’ve got to be fucking kidding.

“Are you being serious, right now?”

Your eyes are stoney, rock solid with stubbornness as you refuse to accept his side of the story and he knows that you won’t be budging from the beliefs that you’re choosing to hold against him. Suguru doesn’t know how everything went so wrong so fast, but he does know that he doesn’t have what it takes to save the situationship that he mistakenly put the two of you in.

“What the fuck did I do wrong that you resent me this much? Not even an hour ago all you wanted was to see me get down on one knee and profess my ‘undying’ love for you.” He’s so angry. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this angry. “Now I’m some asshole who doesn’t give a shit about your wellbeing? If everything I’ve done hasn’t been enough, then I might as well go fuck myself, right? I’m sorry I’m not perfect like you! I’m sorry I can’t see the world through crystal lenses like you! I’m sorry that I’m not good enough for you!”

His face feels wet. When did he start to cry? Was it ten minutes ago? Five? Just now? The hurricane of emotions that he’s putting himself through is more than he’s endured in years - his mental blockage of his condition finally coming to light as his heart runs off of the rails - and you’ve definitely seemed to notice considering the concern etched into your expression.

“I was never going to be perfect for you,” he begins with a softer tone. Perhaps his hot bundle of rage has subsided for a few moments. “I can’t be with you. I can’t understand how you see the world. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life listening to you ask me all of these questions and opinions on your work when I can’t even see it fully.”

You’re so close to him. Somewhere in the flurry of words, you took a step in his direction. “Suguru, what’re you talking about?”

As he bites his bottom lip with the fear of judgment raging in his mind, his secret is set free.

“I’ve always liked this shirt on you,” he solemnly smiles, “This shade’s my favorite color that you wear.”

You look up at him, pulling at the fabric against your chest in confusion. “Red?”

“Grey.”

He’s laughing lightly, making up for the thoughtful silence that you’ve found yourself in. It’s like he can physically see the gears turning in your head as they attempt to make sense out of his statement. “It’s more of a rich grey - almost black - and it compliments your skin tone. You know, my mom used to tell me that the way to a woman’s heart is through compliments. I’ve always tried my best to do that, but it clearly hasn’t been working.”

His hands somehow find yours as he shares the inevitable truth he’d been hiding so hard - and with a deep gulp, his secret is finally exposed.

“After all, how could I ever reach someone’s heart without even knowing what color their eyes are?”

He misses you. He can’t help it, but he does.

The memories he has with you are a cassette tape on autoplay - constantly running through his mind on repeat, and always ending with the awful confrontation that you’d left each other with. Suguru wishes he hadn’t raised his voice. He wishes that he would’ve been honest with you from the very beginning, but he hadn’t, and there’s no changing the past. All he has now are two empty hands that would much rather be interlaced with your paint-covered fingers.

“How much longer do you think you’re going to be moping?” Satoru’s call is distant from the turning gears within Suguru’s brain. He’s sure that his best friend has grown tired of his constant state of melancholy - having been forced to be his support system after you walked out the door - and Suguru feels awful about it. If he could, he’d rip his heart from his chest and allow you to step on it. To stomp and tear through the organs just as you’d done to those poor bystanding cherry blossoms on the sidewalk.

“As long as she’s still upset with me.” He groans as his forehead hits the marble of the island counter. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Yeah, well we already knew that.” The bright-eyed man beside him scoffs while taking yet another drink of his apple juice - which he has unfortunately had to drink for the past hour and a half since Suguru had somehow consumed his small supply of alcohol within the past few weeks that the two of you hadn’t been speaking. “I was really rooting for you, man. I thought she was the one to break your cycle.”

“Cycle?”

What the hell does he mean by ‘cycle’?

“Oh, you know,” Satoru continues without even taking a breath, “The cycle of life you’ve got going on with your inability to actually attract girls.”

Suguru hates him.

“You’re so funny.” He grumbles, taking his own swig of the pint of orange juice he found in the back of his fridge. Is it expired? Likely yes. Does Suguru care, at all? Definitely not. Is he even more pissed off that he doesn’t understand the irony of why it’s called orange juice? He doesn’t want to answer that question. “An unhelpful funny guy who should definitely stay over and cook dinner for me since he wants to make up for being so unhelpful.”

Satoru scoffs, shaking his head whilst the thin, soft strands of his hair flit back and forth. His right eyebrow raises in a mocking expression, “You need to get yourself back out there, man. You’ll be old and grey if you keep waiting for the perfect girl to come knocking on your door, so just talk to her. Just talk to her and put me out of my misery.”

“Are you trying to make this about you, right now?” Suguru stares at his best friend in utter disbelief, but he’s not truly upset. He knows that Satoru holds good wishes for him in all manners of life - this being no exception - and takes his words to heart. He’s right. Of course, he’s going to lose you if he doesn’t even try to get you back. “The sun must be falling out of the sky because I’m actually considering following your advice.”

“That’s a pretty picture to imagine,” his friend chuckles, causing Suguru to roll his eyes. What’s the sensation that everyone has with mentioning imagery every five seconds? “Just talk to her, man.” Satoru continues, “Please, I’m all out of advice.”

Suguru takes his friend’s pleas to heart. It is quite ridiculous that he’s spending his time depressed and lonesome when he could be reconciling with you. Perhaps it’s his fragile masculinity acting out and refusing to take blame for the situation, although he’s fully aware it’s completely his fault that you’re upset with him.

It’s difficult for the gears to begin turning in Suguru’s head. They’re covered in brittle rust that’s been creeping deep into the crevices of his mind for his entire life - slithering down his spine towards his blackened heart that you had only just begun to breathe life into. He misses the feeling of spring that came when you called. The freshwater rain of your laughter and budding blossoms of your smile that washed away his loneliness and replaced the awful emotion with an overgrown garden of bliss. He still doesn’t understand how he managed to mow that garden down with one sentence. He might as well have taken a chainsaw and brutally hacked into every connection that he’d managed to make with you in your time of knowing each other.

Now he’s going to be on his knees begging for forgiveness with his hands stained by the minced grass. Does grass stain green or yellow? Hopefully not brown, dear lord. He’ll be buried deep into apologies that should definitely be rehearsed, but he knows he’s not an artist with words and he won’t bother to waste your time with crumpled-up ‘I’m sorry’ notes and improvised tears.

You deserve nothing but the best - so much more than he’s been giving you and he needs you to hear those words come straight from his mouth.

When did you begin to mean so much to him? Suguru doesn’t even know.

It could’ve been when you showed up to his community soccer game unannounced, with first row seats and a booming cheer that he never knew he desired. ‘C’mon number ten! I know you can do better than that! Beat their asses, Suguru!’ He nearly tripped at the sound of your voice, and falling on his face was the last thing he wanted to do in front of the opposing team - but to be completely honest, he doesn’t remember much of his qualms with his rivals from that day. Suguru was solely focused on playing well for you. The world stopped and he was given all the time needed to impress you. You give him a reason to be better, a selfless reason to do good.

Perhaps it was when you’d shown him around your homey apartment, with maple art easels and splattered canvases lining the walls, and watched with glee as he made his best attempt at a finger painting (which may or may not have ended up looking like two worms kissing). ‘It’s abstract’, you’d say every time he found something new that was wrong with the art piece, ‘All it needs is a home. See?’ You hung his shitty little sketchbook paper on your living room wall, right next to your TV for the whole world to see. The way you stood there staring in awe still rattles his brain. You’ve always been able to find beauty in even the smallest things.

Or maybe his heart had begun to beat a little faster that Saturday night on the way out of the theater. The romance of the film the two of you just witnessed was still on Suguru’s mind, provoking his alcohol-induced body to make a pathetic attempt at holding your hand - which resulted in him accidentally knocking you over into a street puddle that swallowed the heel of your shoe. ‘I needed to take a shower anyway, Suguru, it’s fine!’ Your smile continued to be bright despite the low temperature and sprinkling rain, and he can recall wondering how you managed to stay so positive in such a dreary situation. As you discarded your soggy heels into a nearby trashcan and skipped barefoot on the pavement, you called, ‘Come on! Dance with me!’ The shared laughter between the two of you echoed through the seemingly empty streets that surrounded you - hands connected as you swung in circles around each other and fell over one too many times, until he carried your sleeping body home. He doesn’t think anyone’s ever been able to make him laugh as hard.

The way the corners of your eyes crinkle amidst fits of giggles is his favorite image to replay. He doesn’t need to know the color to be able to see how beautiful they are - to appreciate the blinding sparkle that overwhelms your irises when he accidentally trips over the uneven sidewalk or knocks over your painting station - or even when he unintentionally makes a sexual innuendo that you just so happen to pick up on. ‘That’s a love hotel, Suguru! Why would I have stayed there before?’ It was almost as if you were conducting a symphony of glorious laughter that night. The violins played the tune of your voice in a higher octave and the cellos added a punch everytime you’d bite your lip in an attempt to calm down. He hadn’t known what a love hotel was intended for before that night, but he’d also made the mistake to say, ‘I wouldn’t mind going to my first one with you, it could be a first for both of us.’ and you still haven’t let him live it down. Suguru’s honest with himself for the most part. He’s awkward, insufferable, and a bore to be around - yet, for some odd and unknown reason, those are your favorite things about him. Why?

Why is it that he can’t function like a normal person when your eyes meet his?

Why do his words rearrange themselves and become complete gibberish when he attempts to woo you with his charm?

What is it that keeps him coming back to you, despite holding such deep hatred for the things that you love most?

“I need to text her.” Suguru feels his chest vibrate as he finally makes a decision, the words pouring from his mouth in a short word vomit - forcing Satoru to piece together the jumbled mess and attempt to comprehend whatever it was that his big brother was trying to say, to which he jumps up from his seat at the island and aggressively pats Suguru on the back.

“That’s what I’ve been saying, dumbass! Get those fingers movin’!”

His phone falls into his hands in a millisecond, with Satoru eagerly awaiting to hear his poetry. He’s grateful to have such a supportive friend. Suguru knows that there aren’t many people who would be willing to put up with him for so long - having been moping around and complaining day-and-night of relationship problems that were solely caused by him - and he can’t imagine not having his support. Hopefully he’ll be able to introduce you, one day. You’ll both give him so much shit for his attitude. Oh well. It’ll all be worth it having two people he loves get along.

…

Did he just…

What did—

There’s no way.

Did he really just use that word? That godforsaken word?

He’s trembling. Suguru’s phone is shaking in his hands as he finally comes to the realization that he does, with his entire heart and being, love you. In an instant, his entire world scrambles together with rapid dashes and line art that he can’t even comprehend. There’s no rules to follow with these types of feelings - this insistent need to see you. Hold you. Kiss you.

Fuck, he wants to kiss you. He can’t think of anything else he’d rather be doing.

Like tapping raindrops that never cease their fall, his fingertips move against the keypad in a rhythmic motion - singing a song of love that can’t be contained into a simple lullaby. His heart pours out into the message, apology after apology being pasted in paragraphs, and hopes with his whole soul that you’ll find it in yourself to at least see him in person. There’s no way you won’t. Suguru knows you well enough now that he’s certain he’ll be seeing you again. All he needed to do was take the first step towards forgiveness, and he’s finally willing to be vulnerable and own up to his inability to be honest about his feelings, because he loves you. He loves you and he wants to tell you a hundred times, a thousand times, and a million times until you beg him to shut the hell up and kiss you.

‘I’ll be at the studio tonight. I miss you, and I’m sorry.’

He ends the message with a final apology, begging fate that you’ll read it in time to meet him while he still has courage - and with that, he’s on his way to the place he hates most, awaiting the person whom he loves most.

An hour has passed - well technically it’s been fifty-seven minutes, but who’s counting?

He’s counting.

The sun went into hiding ages ago and the moon now stalks him as he sits in his chair, lonely with two vacant eyes that wish they were gazing at yours. Suguru can’t even tell if you’ve read the text or not - the grey speech bubbles look the same as they always have, and the delivered sign is posted at the bottom with no response. He wants to send a follow-up message, just a little ‘hey, you there?’ but he knows that’s a little bit much. If you want to see him, you’ll see him and he’ll confess his feelings once-and-for-all - though, he’s feeling much less confident than he was an hour ago. Ahem, sorry. Fifty-nine minutes ago.

Suguru has a plan of what he’s going to say to you, and hopefully it makes sense when the words begin to fall from his lips. He’s said it many times before, but he’ll say it again, he’s never been good with words or feelings or anything of the sort. He wants to get better, though - to become more emotionally aware for your sake, because he knows that’s a priority for you. You have an image of your dream guy that’s been in your wishes since primary school - tall, handsome, daring, dashing, yada, yada, yada - and he’s trying to be that guy. He needs to be that guy. He’ll be anything for you.

Anything and everything…even the desperate guy who can’t get a text back.

Y’know, for a moment - a brief and fleeting moment - the world seemed a little more beautiful in his self-realization of love. The stars glistened brighter and the street lights sparkled in their reflections. Before tonight, Suguru hasn’t ever been able to appreciate the natural beauty of what surrounded him. He never understood your fascination with replicating real life into paintings and sketches, but he seems to have digested the concept - at least a little bit. The only thing that could undoubtedly make his world more dazzling would be the sight of you, and holy shit there you are. There you are opening the front door - and your gorgeous, perfect reflection in the glass is looking straight at him.

He doesn’t need the ability to see color to know that you’re the most fascinating and jaw-dropping sight in the entire universe - and that the rainbow should be rearranged in the letters of your name in honor of your ability to captivate attention and inflict a multitude of emotions on him that he’s never felt before.

“Suguru?” Your melodious voice is the remedy that his ears have been yearning for. “Suguru, is that you? Why’re you in the dark?”

This means you haven’t read his text, right? Otherwise, why would you be confused as to why he’s here? Wait, why’re you even here?

You begin to explain yourself without him needing to ask, “I left my phone in here earlier like an idiot and I’ve been looking for it all day. Isn’t that so dumb?” You let out a little laugh, amused at your inability to keep track of your personal belongings. Why aren’t you acting like you’re upset with him? The last time you talked, you could barely look him in the eye - yet now, you’re so casual, almost as if nothing happened. “Here I am looking for my lost phone, but instead I find a lost Suguru Geto.”

“What are you doing here? Sitting in the dark?”

The repeated question is met with a pregnant silence as Suguru fails to piece together the rehearsed words he had come up with earlier, settling on a bear hug that nearly suffocates you.

He’s so overwhelmed by the feeling of touching you again that he barely notices how stiff your posture is. You’re practically a piece of rock in the midst of being carved by its maker, frozen and unable to formulate an action in response - which, in this case, means that he’s your artist. Suguru relaxes his hold, urging you to reciprocate his warmth by nestling his face in your neck. Your right arm finds its place wrapped around his waist and your left around his neck, allowing him to engulf you further into his hold. You smell so nice. He notices the lavender perfume that he bought you is still rubbed into your skin, and he’s glad that you’re finally using it.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

Suguru’s fingers run through your hair in smooth waves, gently kneading out the small knots and helping you relax - and he can tell that your full attention is on him. For the first time in knowing you, there aren’t any distractions or excuses to avoid this conversation. It’s just you, him, and the bare truth. He just hopes he can execute this right.

“There aren’t enough words to explain how sorry I am, genuinely. I shouldn’t have ever belittled you like that.” He takes a deep breath, one of many, and closes his eyes. The scene of you stomping away from him has no end in his mind. It constantly plays at every hour of the day, re-run after re-run, to torment him and remind him how horribly he screwed up with you. Please, please forgive him. “You’re not just my mom’s student. You’re not just a friend that I get coffee with. You’re so much more than that and I’ve been such a fucking chicken and haven’t been able to be honest with you.”

“You couldn’t have possibly known about my condition and it was wrong of me to take my frustration out on you.” Suguru can feel himself begin to cry, his tears raining down his cheeks in cascades of pent up anger and hatred for how he made you feel that day. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t deserve to be treated like shit by him. “Your work is important to you and I know it should be appreciated. What’s important to you is important to me, okay?”

“You love your art, and I love you.”

He says it over and over again. Those three special words rapidly become six words, nine words, eighteen, forty-two, and onwards as you look at him with an empty expression. Please, please say something. For every second of no response, he confesses his love to you. He confesses as if it’s his source of air - the only way that he’ll be able to survive this encounter is if he bares his emotions with no regrets. If this were a movie, he’d be the desperate protagonist in the climax of the story who fucked up his love life and is begging for a second chance - hell, this is real life and that’s exactly what he’s doing. Just, please, have a happy ending.

You open your mouth, yet nothing comes out. No words. No statements. No confessions. You’re simply staring at him like he’s just told you the most absurd news in the existence of the universe…

…and then a tear falls.

One tear slips from your eyes, followed by another, and another…until your face is drenched in salty rain with black mascara creasing your eyes. You look like a raccoon. Suguru almost starts laughing. No. He is laughing; laughing because your false lashes have fallen into your hands as the glue refused to be waterproof - and now you’re standing before him in a puddled mess of makeup and disheveled hair. You’ve never looked more beautiful.

Suguru brushes his fingers across your cheek, attempting to wipe away your tears like an artist covering up a beautiful mistake. If he were a painter, he’d paint you a million times and more - hanging every portrait on every single wall of his apartment, until there was literally no space left for a scrap of paper. You’re the most gorgeous girl he’s ever laid his eyes on, and the smile that suddenly bursts from your sobs confirms it.

“What’s going on? I’m so confused, are you happy or are you sad?” He’s so concerned and his inability to read emotions correctly only makes him more helpless. “Talk to me, beautiful. C’mon.”

You lean into his touch and he instantly knows that everything is going to be okay.

“I just never thought I’d hear you say that.” Your smile is directed at him now, and he feels a warmth that is so familiar yet unfamiliar and he can’t get enough of it. It’s similar to the feeling of being showered in sunlight or snuggling beneath a comforter in the winter - an overwhelming comfort that’s a gift from you to him. “I feel like I’ve been waiting forever. Fuck you for that.”

Now you’re both laughing, giggling, and beaming at each other. His heart feels so at peace. The civil war between his divided emotions, love and loneliness, has finally ceased.

“I love you.”

Neither of you can stop the flow of confessions that slip from your tongues and in an instant your lips are on his - clashing and colliding in a furious kiss that rivals the strength of a hurricane. It’s almost as if he can physically feel your love pouring into him and warming his heart into a heated flame, stoked by the embers of your touch. God, he missed your touch. The feeling of it is addicting. It’s his personal heroin and he’ll never get enough of it.

Your lips are just as soft as he imagined them to be, perhaps they’re a rosy pink color with the slightest touch of strawberry lip balm that he keeps getting a fleeting hint of taste from. Never in his wildest dreams did he think you’d love him too. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. He silently repeats over and over - grateful that he’s been so blessed to know you…feel you…and love you in the awful world that he hated living on his own - the world void of color that you’ve somehow brightened by simply breathing beside him.

His hands are everywhere. Your hips. Your waist. Your breasts. Your neck. He can’t get enough of the feeling of you. With every passing second he’s falling deeper and deeper in love. You’re utterly perfect, he would kiss you for years if that was an option—

Aw shit, he knocked over an easel.

“Goddammit,” he mumbles while briefly pulling away from you. Of course he had to interrupt the moment he’s been waiting months for with his clumsiness. He’s such a dumbass. If he could punch himself in the gut, he would - but that would be way too embarrassing in front of you - hold up, this painting is familiar!

“Well I'll be damned.” He chuckles and turns the canvas towards you, to which you burst out laughing. “I thought you’d have thrown this out.”

“No,” you gaze at the painting with love in your eyes. “I could never, that’s how we met.”

The painted streak he accidentally inflicted upon your artwork remains in the same position. It seems that you never even bothered covering it up and embraced the imperfection. While Suguru cannot decipher the magnitude of colors on the canvas, he’s sure that the various strokes look gorgeous and masterful. You’ve always been so talented. He’s so lucky.

As he places the painting upon a now-standing easel, you rest your forehead against his. He loves you. He loves you so much. So much so that he can’t help but take a step closer, not just one but many, and embrace the overwhelming love and passion he holds for you. There are so many words he wants to say, confessions that can carry on for an infinite number of lines, but there’s no need for that now. You have forever - and he decides to start that forever with his favorite thing…

…a kiss.

“I love you.” You whisper.

“I love you more.” He replies.

This is a fancy-ass venue.

Suguru can’t help but feel underdressed for the occasion, despite being clad in a fitted white button up and black tie, whilst his dress-shoes cramp his feet in the worst ways imaginable. He almost looks like that one moviestar in the romantic comedy you love so much. Was it the one with the rich guy in Singapore or the one where they worked in an office and he was a businessman? Suguru can’t remember. Whatever, it doesn’t really matter either way. He’s distracting himself too much, he needs to focus— tonight is one of the most important nights of your career. No, it is the most important night for your future career. His mother contacted every big art distributor and critic that she has professional relationships with. It’s your night…and wow did you kill it.

It’s almost as if you’ve plastered yourself across the walls. Every art piece that his eyes roll over is exceptionally you - your personality, your passions, and your heart - and it’s obvious you’ve spent months curating the most perfect array of paintings a person could muster.

He can read your story like an open book while he slowly makes his way through the gallery. There are paintings depicting your childhood, ones that remind him of the stories you tell him of your primary school drama and premature interests. That one must be when you broke your arm while learning to ride your bike. You’re particularly stuck on that story— strongly stating how upset you were because it was your dominant arm, halting your ability to paint for seven weeks. Referencing your painting passion, there’s a whole array of canvases dedicated to your love for art; beginning with inspirations of immaturity to skillful selections of texture techniques. Suguru is obviously no art critic, but if he were, he’d write a whole expose on how amazing you are.

With his mind so engaged with your talent, he’s oblivious to the people passing by; so oblivious that he doesn’t even notice his own family approaching.

“She’s talented isn’t she?”

Holy shit. The familiar voice of his mother startles Suguru, but he instinctively wraps a loose arm around her waist and greets her with a grin. She returns the affectionate expression and it’s painfully obvious that he got his smile from her, and even more painfully obvious that they’re all trying to embarrass him when Satoru walks up with his teeth beaming.

“Your girlfriend’s a pro at this stuff, Suguru.” Satoru ruffles his best friend’s hair and lightly nudges his shoulder. “I told you something like this would happen one day! You’ve found yourself a dream girl.”

Suguru rolls his eyes in amusement at his friend’s quips, completely ignoring him and focusing on his mom. Satoru’s always been his number one supporter. Though he’d be surprised if Satoru actually kept a girlfriend longer than a month with his constant busy schedule and inability to focus on one girl at a time; but that’s a story for another day. What matters now is his mom’s praise of you.

“Y’know I always knew she had an innate ability.” Miss Geto has a faint smile on her face, gazing at her son with nothing but pure happiness. It’s a true display of a mother’s love for her child, and Suguru doesn’t know what he’d do without her guidance. She squeezes his side and presses a gentle kiss to his cheek. God, he’d be so embarrassed if his friends saw this. “Though, I always thought she specialized in artwork.”

Hm? Suguru sends a puzzled glance in her direction. What is she going on about?

His mom continues, knowing her son well enough that he needs a clear explanation in order to understand anything at all, and presses her hand against his chest. “I didn’t realize she was so skilled at touching hearts.”

His heart is beating faster at the mere thought of your beauty.

There are tears behind Miss Geto’s eyes and Suguru can feel the waterworks attempting to break his own dam. They’re an emotional duo, him and his mom, Satoru gets tired of their antics sometimes— but Suguru knows he loves them. His mom always knows the right thing to say. “I never thought I’d see you like this, Suguru.”

Satoru smiles, nodding in agreement. “You seem so at ease. It’s cute.”

Reflexively, he pulls them both into a big hug— which is the first girl-related hug he’s given Satoru since he was a teenager, seventeen years old and inseparable. Suguru finally understands what it means to love and be loved, all because of you; and now he can apply that same love to his perspective on life, which was dreary for so long. The overwhelming comfort he feels in his family’s arms is the same warmth he felt when he was a child, to which he ran into his mother’s arms at any moment for a grasp at joy. For a long time, Suguru believed that it was only possible to have a singular love. Oh how wrong he was.

“I get it now.” he says softly into their ears. “She helped me understand.”

“And we’re happy for you,” Satoru pats him on the back as hard as he can, eliciting a threatening glare from his best friend, to which Suguru’s mother laughs.

“Check out the centerpieces down the hall.” Miss Geto nudges Suguru on, standing beside Satoru. “I think you’ll love them, sweetheart.”

With their encouragement, he carries on with the gallery and down the straight hallway of evolving paintings. Every step he takes, seems to carry him into a new era of your life. It’s almost as if he’s time traveling through memories that seemingly morph from abstract to realistic art; and he learns more and more about you with each passing second, ultimately leading towards one large painting in the center of the room.

Holy shit. You’re breathtaking.

Never in Suguru’s life has his world stopped due to paint on canvas— but right now, it feels like every single brush stroke is a frozen second that he gets to relive again and again, just basking in the presence of your beautiful skill.

The way you’ve outlined your hair with thin lines and highlighted your lovely cheekbones, is nothing short of masterful. If he looks close enough, he can understand the comforting feeling of cupping your face with just his eyes. He didn’t even know you did self-portraits, but now he wishes he could hang this very one right above his couch; to show off the talent of his amazing girlfriend for everyone to see (not that he actually has many friends other than his former classmates).

Where are you? He needs to let you know how special it is to be with someone like you—

“Cat got your tongue?”

Speak of the devil.

“Do you like it?” You raise your eyebrows at him expectantly. “What do you think?”

You said the same thing when you first met.

Suguru looks between you and the painting, now realizing that no matter how masterful your skill is, it’s impossible to capture just how gorgeous you are in any form of art. You’re simply exquisite. The most talented painter in the world wouldn’t know how to appreciate your beauty. Davinci? No. Botticelli? No. Di Angelo? Not even he could sculpt your features to perfection. However, despite his high standards, Suguru believes that your self portrait is the greatest thing he’s ever seen.

The familiar feeling of flusteredness grows on his cheeks as he holds eye-contact with you, wondering what color it is you’re wearing. He bets it’s red, you always wear red around him. “I love it.”

As your right hand finds his palm, the left reaches up and cups his cheek. With a gentle touch, your lips are on his and Suguru feels his head take a spin on the merry-go-round of love. He can’t get enough of you. If he had a choice, he’d spend every waking second of his day peppering you in light kisses on every part of your body— and he’d make sure that you never felt loneliness again. You deserve nothing less than the absolute best, and he’s made it his life’s goal to give that to you.

Slowly, he begins to feel your smile against his lips and you pull away with a lovesick gaze. He pulls you into his chest, cradling your head and kissing it softly before whispering how proud he is, and it’s almost unbelievable how far Suguru’s come. Somehow you’ve lured him into a bottomless ravine where the only resource to live is to be hopelessly in love with you— and truthfully, he never wants to escape. You’re everything to him.

“You love it?” your eyes are shining brighter than the sun. “You haven’t even seen my best work yet.”

“Oh?’ Suguru raises his brows, mocking surprise at your statement. “Well now you have to show me. It’s only fair.”

You place your hands on his chest and peck his lips before spinning him around. He’s confused for a moment, wondering what you’re doing when you could’ve just led him to the canvas instead of guiding him around like it’s a dance class…but then he sees it.

He sees himself.

Never in his life has he completely understood what being in love is. Yes, he's felt love. From his mother, who raised him to be the man he is; caring, thoughtful, and compassionate. From his best friend, who helped him understand ambition and sacrifice. From his community, who challenge him to be the best he possibly can and to support one another without holding grudges. He's felt different types of love from so many people in his life. Familial. Platonic. Admiration. This is different, though. The love you show him is true love. It's the kind of love that movie stars win awards for portraying. It's the fantasy that kids dream about having when they grow up into big adults. It's the thing he thought was impossible to obtain, but was lucky enough to stumble upon you in that empty art studio on the best day of his life.

He didn't know love could be expressed in this kind of way. Through the very same paint strokes and brush marks that used to make him nauseous with hatred. Seeing your masterpiece, he doesn't understand how he could ever hate something so amazing. Art is spectacular. No. Your art is spectacular. You are spectacular.

"You love it right?" You're trying your best not to giggle at his awestruck reaction. "Want to know the best part?"

Suguru can feel himself nodding, desperately reaching for your hand in an attempt to ground himself from the air he's walking on— and you begin to explain. "It's a dual piece. Notice how we're facing each other?"

Oh my god, you are facing each other. He hadn't noticed it before, but he can see clearly now. You've placed him in the dead center of the room, giving him a full view of both of the paintings— opposite of one another on two opposing easels. "Tell me more, baby." His voice is nothing louder than a whisper, only for you to hear.

"I'm painted in black and white."

Oh?

"You're painted in color."

...Oh.

"I wanted to show how love knows no bounds. There's beauty in how you see me and how I see you. It doesn't matter that I'm colorless to you, you still look at me like I'm the prettiest girl in the world; and I only wish you could understand how vibrant your eyes are, Suguru. You're the most handsome man I've seen in my entire life."

He loves you.

He loves you so, so much.

A part of his heart feels like he's falling in love with you all over again. It's growing larger and larger, unable to contain the capacity of feelings he holds for you. He's so overwhelmed with joy that tears begin to fight to escape his eyes, ultimately dripping down his cheeks like watercolor on paper, and he sweeps you into the tightest hug known to man.

There's really only one thing left to do. One thing to close this chapter and carry on with the rest of your love story, something that's sacred only between the two of you. Something that he hopes to say to you everyday, every night, every hour, and every minute that he can.

"I love you."

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