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cleverfoxhound-writes · 4 years

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After 1000 years I’ve written something.

Ryuji Goda x Akira Nishidake (OC)

There were rumors between his men and those curious enough about the Kansai Dragon to catch wind of her. She was a mystery that eluded his men, her appearance, her name, no one knew of it but rumors that their boss was fucking a foreigner was something they couldn’t help but whisper and wonder about.

He was the Golden Dragon among the snakes of Sotenbori, he was the fearsome patriarch of the Go Ryu family, the adopted son of Jin Goda of the Omi Alliance. A man of power within the seedy underbelly of Osaka and soon Tokyo.

A man of power, a name demanded it, strength that commanded. His domineering presence frightened and commanded his men and those around him, no one would dare challenge him. He had no weaknesses to his men but the Kansai Dragon had a weakness.

A woman. A foreigner.

Though he hated rumors, these rumors in specific amused him.

The heavy beats of the music reverberated off the walls in the club, rhythmic beats pounded his chest as he entered the night club. The immense wave of heat from the throng of bodies grinding against one another on the floor washed over him, a stark difference front the winter like weather outside the building. Normally, this wasn’t his scene but he was a man on a mission and dealt with it.

He and the two men, his top lieutenants he brought with him, followed him to the upstairs VIP lounge; he was unbothered by the startled looks of the people who were caught in salacious acts that would cause scandals for months. A smirk crossed his lips as he signaled for his men to wait nearby before he disappeared into the back offices of the club, offices that were off limits to the regular guests.

She was here, they hadn’t seen each other in a month and agreed to meet here.

He sought her out, hungry for her, her magnolia perfume was just a faint lingering scent that teased his senses while taking care of business. It drove him wild and though they agreed to keep things private for her sake he kept himself composed.

He walked down the darkened hallway until he came to a single door, he slowly opened it. The room was cool, illuminated by the muted pinks and oranges neon lights that managed to slip between the shutters. She stood in front of the window arms crossed as she looked down at the streets of Sotenbori

"Ryuji?" a woman's voice said as she looked over her shoulder at the man. Ryuji grunted in reply as he calmly closed the door and took off his coat, discarding it on the sofa. No words were uttered as he quickly closed the distance between them, a hand gently caressed her cheek, as he carded a hand through her silky caresses before he pulled her into a heated kiss.

A deep groan rumbled in his chest as he felt the heat, the soft curves of her flush against him, she looped her arms around his neck fully giving into him with wanton need. He hungrily groped at the exposed flesh thighs, greedily pushing up her mini skirt for the naked and heated flesh underneath it.

“I fuckin’ missed ya Akira,” Ryuji growled softly.

“I missed you too...Ryuji,” Akira moaned softly as he hungrily kissed down the exposed column of her neck leaving marks as he continued.

The way his name sounded coming from her lips, though she wasn’t a native it flowed differently and left him with a burning need for her. Hesitantly he broke the kiss, a string of saliva hung from their lips.

“Ryuji…” Akira panted softly as she looked at him, though the office was dim and only illuminated from the pink and orange lights from her bronze skin seemed to glow.

She came from America though half Japanese with tanned skin, she was still looked down, he helped her and she helped him. They lost contact with each other after they graduated high school and happened to stumble on one another a few months back.

She was a model, one of the top models in Japan, she had grown into a beautiful woman despite the traditions heavily embedded in Japan, she prospered.

He had fallen for her at first sight. She was smart, affluent, and still had that sharp tongue he remembered from high school. After a few they met for a few drinks, privately, and after the interviews she participated in about her connections with the Goda family.

Ryuji knew that he needed to make her his and he did.

A high school friend to lover, none of his men knew that he was fucking the top foreign model in Japan and it thrilled him. She was his now and he wasn’t going to let go of her.

As she clung to him he backed them into the lone desk in the room, he lifted her slightly enough to have her sit on top of the flat surface.

“It’s been too long Aki...You look fuckin’ amazing,” Ryuji growled as he loosened his belt and pants. “Once this is over, I’m fuckin’ makin’ ya mine, I give no fucks of what these fuckers say,”

“You’re still serious…” Akira trailed off.

“Of course,” Ryuji replied as he tenderly caressed her cheek.

“R-ryuji--” Akira began.

“Shut up, I said what I said,” Ryuji growled.

He gently ran his finger tips over her lips, down the column of her neck, across her collarbone. A soft gasp slipped past her lips as he kneaded her breasts before he continued down her taut abdomen and finally dipped between the sopping wet folds of her sex. Ryuji growled deeply in his chest as her head rolled back, her mouth open in a silent moan, an abrupt gasp shot from between her lips, she stifled a cry by biting on her bottom lip.

He was the Dragon of Kansai, a king, he had the power, the reach and lowered himself to none. He had patience for those who deserved it, he had control, he had everything he could want and yet when it came to her none of that mattered. He lowered himself in front of her, between her legs spreading them apart as he feasted on her thighs, her essence, her dripping sex.

They knew tonight they wouldn’t be able to take their time with one another, they wouldn’t be able to take things slow, he wouldn’t he couldn’t spend the time working her open for him, making her scream his name, they couldn’t spend the night with each other and settled for this night, this moment. She was sprawled across her desk, a panting mess before he took her. He was normally slow, methodical when it came to her but time didn’t allow them the slow love making they enjoyed.

“R-Ryuji!” Akira gasped and gripped his shoulder as he quickly thrusted into her.

“Yer so fucking tight for me…no matter how much I fuck you,” Ryuji groaned deeply as he fully sheathed himself in her. His larger frame engulfed her smaller one as he buried his face in the crook of her neck biting her neck leaving another mark.

A hiss came from her lips and an abrupt gasp as he pulled his hips back to slam forward into her tight heat.

“Ryuji!” Akira cried out.

“I know, I know sweetheart...I’ll make it up to ya,” Ryuji murmured and straightened himself and shrugged off his overcoat and loosened his tie tossing it across the room.

His hands were on her hips, bruising grip as he thrust into her, each thrust fast, and powerful that rocked her to her core. Akira arched her back off the desk as she held onto the edges of the desk to keep herself from shifting away from the man despite knowing that her hips would be bruised by tomorrow morning from the man’s strength.

Ryuji snarled as she moaned his name over and over again, praying to him as if he was a god, though clothed he could still feel her nails digging into his skin as he savagely fucked her not giving a damn of who would find them.

Who would stop them?

There was something more carnal about tonight as the thought of love making was the furthest thing from his mind, he was too far gone for gentle love making. Was it her perfume? The skin tight mini skirt and crop top? The way the sheen of sweat on her body? The way she bit down on her bottom lip to keep herself from being too loud? The way her skin glowed in the pink and orange neon lights.

“Fuck,” Ryuji cursed as he could feel her walls pulsing around his cock and he could feel his own body betraying him and pushed him closer and closer to his end. He moaned out her name over and over and over again and she moaned his name as if she was in a trance , with every thrust as he found his chest pressed against her own, rutting into her with instinctual need.

Deeper, harder, faster, short shallow thrusts, and she was coming undone below him. Her back arched off the desk as her mouth opened in a silent orgasm the intensity of her orgasm pushed him over the edge, his body trembling as he leaned down and frantically kissed her in an attempt to stifle his own loud moan.

His hips stilled against hers, their lips swollen but he didn’t give a damn, she clung to him as she rode out her orgasm, milking him for every drop that he would willingly gave her. Pulse after pulse his seed painted her walls and when the rush of their orgasm settled, Ryuji hesitantly pulled from her.

“I didn’t hurt ya did I?” Ryuji mumbled as one of his large hands caressed her cheek and brushed pieces of her hair from her face.

“You left a lot of marks…” Akira panted.

“Had to let them know yer taken. I’ve seen the way the fuck boys fawn over ya,” Ryuji replied lowly as he extended a hand for her to take. He gently pulled her from the desk before he stuffed himself back into his trousers, he watched as his seed dripped down between her thighs.

“ ‘sides…” Ryuji began deeply. “ You got all that makeup to cover them up,” Ryuji commented.

“You’re leaving tonight?” Akira asked as she adjusted her clothing and smoothed her hair.

“Yeah...for a little bit, be back tomorrow night,” Ryuji said quietly as he grabbed his coat that he had tossed on the sofa.

There was a brief silence in the room, between the two. Ryuji slipped on his overcoat and when he felt his arms wrap around his abdomen.

“Be careful...please,” Akira whispered as she gently squeezed. He sighed deeply before he turned around and pulled her into his embrace.

“Ya worry too much,” Ryuji murmured as his large hand caressed her cheek.

“How can I not?” Akira replied as she pushed her cheek further into his hand. “I love--”

Ryuji leaned down taking her lips in a heated kiss and hesitantly broke the kiss, his lips hovering above hers momentarily.

“...why...” Akira whispered

“Tell me that when we’re not in a fuckin club...tell me when it’s jus’ us,”

“I will…”

“Good, cause I’ll be waiting,” Ryuji pressed his lips against hers once more. He brushed the back of his hand against her cheek before he exited the office quietly closing the door behind him.

#Ryuji Goda #Goda Ryuji #Ryuji Goda x OC #Ryuji Goda x Reader #Ryuji Goda x Original Character #Ryuji Goda x Akira Nishidake #ryu ga gotoku #Yakuza Kiwami 2 #writeblr #fanfiction #Yakuza Fanfic #fanfic

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morris9000 · 8 years

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uploading my shitty story boards and what ive done so far cause i don’t trust my laptop to not corrupt my files -.-

#art #story boards #ghostgall #neon goda

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splinteredthorn · 6 years

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@criminaldelights cont from here

Ryuji raised an eyebrow with the much smaller girl in front of him pointed sternly at a chair practically ordering him to sit down. It was true that he did need to dye his hair again, but being told to sit down like this wasn’t something he was fond of. “I’ll do ‘em later. Not in the mood today.” he waved his hand dismissively.

Still… if he could have someone else do his hair for him, that did mean less work for him in the end. Plus, Bara also had her hair blonde so she at least knew what she was doing. “Fine.” Ryuji huffed as he took a seat, surprised at himself for being so obedient. “But make it quick.”

Victory gleamed in Bara’s dark eyes when Ryuji sat down as instructed.

Hand-threaded bracelets of pink beads rattled on her wrist when she stepped behind the chair and raked neon-painted talons back through his hair as though this hadn’t just been a ploy to get her hands on his head. Besides the stiff gel scraping it back from his scalp, Ryuji’s hair was in remarkably good condition — much better than her own brittle locks, anyway. She tutted as if disappointed.

“Why do men always get the nice hair and eyelashes and shit,” she complained, reaching into her backpack to pull out an oversized pink hairbrush which looked as though it ought to have belonged to a Barbie doll, were it not for its obnoxious size. “Wanna go lighter? Pretty sure I could get it lighter.”

Pulling the brush through yellow-blonde to break up the gel, she ruffled his hair cheekily beneath her knuckles - a little harder than really necessary. There weren’t many people who had ever been in the position to give Ryuji Goda a noogie, and she would be doing them a disservice if she at least didn’t take the opportunity. “Head in the sink, big guy.” She seemed to be in an alarmingly good mood for a change.

#criminaldelights #[hayashi]#[goda]#[ watch out she'll wanna paint ya nails next... ]#[hair bears]

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das-boog · 6 years

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I had an idea for a battle-monster setting where instead of being divided up by an elemental type (fire, water, dragon, etc) monsters were categorized by genre. B-movies have an advantage over Modern Scifi due to their solid rubber bodies being hardier than CGI, whereas Fantasy creatures get a fascination effect against Art Flick Metaphor Puppets. Wrote a drabble for it below.

———

When I was told I’d be conducting an interview with the local MonsTactics champion, I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. Certainly not the woman I’d been handed a photo of; tiny Anzu Goda, in a prim pantsuit, all professional smiles as she held up a tournament trophy alongside two other well known monster breeders clapping politely. Besides the artificial-plastic-orange hair she looked like she could be any other professional athlete, a far cry from the bombastic personae she had in the arena.

That was to be expected though; most breeders prestigious enough to have their own dojo were expected to be larger-than-life personalities. A career MonsTactician had a lot of expenses, and winning battles could often come a far second to selling merchandise. Ms. Goda was known to be more committed to the keyfabe of her profession than most, and I hoped for the chance to crack through that gaudy, vaudeville exterior to show people the REAL Anzu.

Driving up to her dojo, however, I felt the hubris of that expectation settle on me like a lead blanket. Ms. Goda’s flagship dojo, Milktooth Hall, is an imposing edifice miles into the mountains outside of town. Formerly an asylum, Milktooth’s imposing bulk of gothic architecture, wrought iron and apparently unfinished renovations did not exactly give off a welcoming, homey vibe. While the main building looked largely livable, from the road I could see shattered windows and missing shingles on the upper floor, and another house on the grounds that looked like it had suffered a recent fire. Even already knowing her reputation, the structure was intimidating, and I felt it was nearly instinct that made me check my phone’s reception and my pocket for mace before stepping out of the car.

So braced was I for some sort of danger that it was almost a relief when, at my touch, the door creaked open on its own to pitch blackness. It was too blatant for me to keep taking seriously, she had to be messing with me. Repeating that to myself until it was convincing, I walked into the house.

The foyer opened into a largely unaltered reception area for the asylum. Wooden benches had been replaced with plastic seats bolted to the ground and the floors replaced with linoleum the color of curdled milk. Lights seemed broken or flickering at random. I was the only person there. This was all, again, expected decor for the famed MonsTactician Goda, but I was surprised that I was the only person in the room. Had she been told I was coming? Image was one thing, but certainly Milktooth Hall had to have other staff? Battlers being trained, monster wranglers, classes, accountants, clerks, something? Even Black Jacobs, who raised monsters found at the unexplored sections of maps, kept local offices in his port of call to handle business. But besides the buzz of the neon lights and the odd distant creak or snap of the building settling there was nothing. After a few minutes alone and confused I made up my mind to search the building and opened the first door to my right.

This is how I met her, standing stock-still just behind the door, not showing so much as a flicker of shock when I shrieked in surprise an inch from her face. The beloved, bellicose, Bloodsplatter Tactician, Anzu Goda.

She was wearing the costume she had on in all the major tournament photo-ops, faux-leather strips and resin-faked metal scraps covered in fake bloodstains and artistically draped rags. The outfit was ramshackle mess faked perfectly around superhero sleekness. I was briefly disappointed. If she was meeting me the same way she met her battle opponents, then this might be just another promotion opportunity.

“You are… From the magazine.” She giggled, true to her stage presence as ever. Unblinking, mad grin, movements just a little bit too fluid. A performance cultivated by a slew of dance instructors, acting trainers and psychologists whose careers Anzu had made very, very prestigious. I tried not to let my judgment show.

“Yes. Ms. Goda, MonTactics Monthly. I’m Ezra, Ezra Goodfellow? I believe I spoke to your agent on the phone?”

“Yes I… Recall.” She froze and then whirled away from me, fake metal pieces clattering in my face as she made a 540 degree turn away from me. “This way, to down the hall! Everything will be clear there!” She giggled again, “We’re going to have so much FUN!”

I followed and tried not to audibly groan. Ms. Goda skipped ahead, pixielike, in my own opinion probably a bit too much so for a woman just entering her thirties. Lights began to click off at random. “This way, this way!” Another flash of the mad grin and a ballet twirl around a bend, out of my sight. “We’re almost to my favorite place! My favorite place in the whole building!”

Her voice was still echoing, like from the bottom of a well, when I rounded the corner and found her gone.

I was understandably frustrated; I’d naively hoped my status as a professional would’ve spared me this funhouse nonsense and, to be honest, the whole thing was getting to me. Not the building itself, although it certainly didn’t help; As we’d gone deeper in rusted pipes began to drip unidentifiable brown-red substances down the walls, tiling was missing, and the lights just seemed to get worse and worse as I went. It was how clearly manufactured it all was. The hokiness of the whole thing, right down to the dye in her hair. Something glass, a small bottle or vial, cracked under my foot and I cursed. I’d be lucky to leave this place without tetanus.

I have no idea how long I wandered, but it was more than long enough for my irritation to take root and ferment into a constant low-grade tension. The whole first floor of the building seemed like an endless maze of crisscrossing halls, and more than once I turned back toward what I was CERTAIN should be the lobby just to find more carefully-ruined medical offices and creatively stained wards. Eventually at intersections I would just turn the first way I heard a sound down, a distant giggle or a scratch. I briefly considered calling my editor for help but, true to form, my phone had already died.

It was in this high-strung, exhausted mood that I met Anzu Goda again, standing backlit in front of the door to what appeared to be an administrative office. “Ms. Goda!” Decorum long forgotten, I broke into a half-jog. “Ms. Goda please, I-I get it, we just-“

“Do you know what you are here for, Ezra… Goodfellow.” Sillouetted in the doorframe I couldn’t see her expression, but even so it felt like her gaze bore right through me. An air duct banged and dented overhead, something crawling inside!

“Yes the- the INTERVIEW dammit just let me do my fucking job-!” Professionalism abandoned, I broke into a sprint. My shirt had come untucked. Sweat stained my collar. I was grabbing her arms, shouting, shaking, “Just let me know where we can actually sit DOWN and-!” The vent banged again. Something in it. I looked up at the vent. Wrong! Too late! Something screaming from BELOW me, bursting out of the tiles (loose, shitty linoleum, easily peeled up.) I feel back, flailing, screaming, crying-!

And… So did Ms. Goda. Some pale, bruised, almost translucent-fleshed THING had burst from the ground and was standing over her, shrieking, and tears were running down her face. Just two, around a wide mouth that stretched and contorted her cheeks so the tears ran zigzags. Her scream lasted longer than mine. It lasted longer than the monsters… And slowly faded to peals of laughter as she threw her arms around our assailant.

“Oh that was WONDERFUL Humphrey! Oh who’s my jumpy boy, who’s my loud jumpy BOY!” The creature- soft, eyeless, its fishbelly flesh mottled with random oozing bruises- made another small shriek followed by heavy wheezing and panting as it’s tongue lolled over its almost-human teeth, flopping randomly like a slug exploring. It had hooks for hands, and clammy skin pulled tight over bestial musculature and bones. At its full height it came up to Ms. Goda’s chest, and walked with a pronounced hunch. It headbutted her shoulder twice in catlike affection. Ms. Goda turned to me with another of her signature grins. “All the vents, pipes, secret passages and crawlspaces in the building intersect here, so this is the spot I picked for my office. Any of my rowdy little guys can come surprise me at any time. It’s my favorite place in the whole building!”

The office was comparatively more brightly lit, although I noticed there was still a slight flickering problem. I was soon sipping tea in a large comfortable chair while Ms. Goda ushered a few more Monsters into the room, casually pointing out where I could charge my phone (Humphrey had, out of a desire to “play” with me, apparently drained the battery. “He was probably stalking you about a half an hour,” She added conversationally). Her creatures (or, as she referred to them, “rowdy boys”) mostly kept on a large, thick shag carpet where they would stalk the perimeter, groom themselves with their tongues or rusted-looking blades, or get into brief and terrifying scuffles while we were at the other end of the room. The sole exception was a gaunt creature with what appeared to be a metal cylinder for a head, which set down a large butcher knife to crawl across the room and lay its not-head in my hosts lap. She patted it absentmindedly as we spoke.

“Sorry about all that… you seem pretty wiped out!” Her voice remained just as chirpy and sing-song as it had been when I first encountered her but I was starting to believe that might just naturally be who she was, ellipses and all. “That might’ve got a little out of hand. I was hoping to show off the unique… charm, I guess? Charm and beauty of my lil’ guys here.”

“I mean they made an impression. Humphrey was… Very intimidating. I’m sure he’s a terror in the arena.” I mentally went over the recent tournaments Anzu Goda had been in. I might’ve seen Humphrey deployed in the Hugo Arena in Heorot, exactly once, but I wasn’t sure.

“Hm? Oh sure that too, he’s an Aughts Greenscreen, little bit MacFarlene Slasher and Western Jumper mix. TECHNICALLY a vampire. See the hooks?”

“Yes, I remember now, he used those to bring down a Kelpie being fielded by the Heorot champion, Liana Monteblanc. Would you say then that that was your reason for using a mutt rather than a purebred-“

“Would you like to pet him?”

I froze. For most of these interviews a Tactician would parade out a few of their most prized or crowd-pleasing creatures for some photo ops, I’d never been encouraged to actually interact with one beyond throwing a target for it to chase or cajoling it into roaring for the camera. Besides a tank of Slithy Toves I’d kept when I was little and my mother’s loud, squawking Phoenix I’d always been more of a dog person.

“Would that be alright?”

“Humphrey! Come here!” The creature shambled up obediently at Ms. Goda’s beckoning, the one in her lap already shuffling away in some territorial submission display to Humphrey (Ms. Goda seemed displeased by this, but I didn’t really notice until later).

I slowly, tentatively reached out my hand, and Humphrey jerked to bite down on my wrist. I gasped and looked away, but the pain never came, and when I looked back the monster was holding my hand gently, but firmly, between its teeth. Its fat tongue squirmed between my fingers.

“Humphrey no!” Laughing, Ms. Goda placed one hand on the beasts flat face and shoved it away, making it release my hand with a wet scrape. “You’re going to want to reach out more forcefully,” she explained, demonstrating. She patted its head like a three year old would pat the head of a dog, a clumsy pantomime of affection, “Anxiety, fear, tentativeness, they zero in on that really closely. They’re incredibly empathetic creatures, even compared to most other monsters. If you seem doubtful about what you’re doing for even a moment they can tell, and the only way they know how to react to fear is to exaggerate it. Here, try again.” I did, this time imitating her rough handling, and was rewarded this time by Humphrey nuzzling my hand. Pretty soon the creature was hunched next to my chair, my arm reaching down to pat it occasionally. It felt cool and smooth, like leather with a thin layer of silly putty over it.

“Isn’t that nicer?”

“It is,” I had to admit it. I’d never seen a MonsTactician’s creatures behave so… intimately. Like something kept as someone’s pet rather than some grand incarnation of raw power. I’d stood beneath the bellies of dragons while their handlers pointed out the patterns of their scales, I’d seen pixies twinkle toxic or wish-granting glitters inches from my eyes, but casually patting the flank of this bleating, oozing horror I was cowed. My prepared questions fled me. “Do you… Do anything to get them like this? Some socialization training?”

“Oh most tacticians I’ve met are like this with their monsters in private. Some not,” Ms. Goda shrugged, “But for the most part you really cant work with any animal without some degree of empathic connection or affection, monsters are no different. I’m not surprised you cant really get at that side of them though, I didn’t really agree to this for the same reasons.” Her laugh twinkled, “I’m already rich, I don’t need to do favors for publicity.”

That rankled me a little. “That’s a little strange to hear, Ma’am. With all due respect, it seems odd that someone who doesn’t need publicity would go to the trouble of this whole performance.”

“Hm?”

“You know… Your whole battlefield schtick.” I was beginning to get frustrated again. “The abandoned haunted house, the costume, your whole mistress of horror act.”

“What?” She threw another mad giggle into the conversation, the way a card shark throws down a winning hand, “Ezra, what about this do you think is behavior that I wouldn’t exhibit anyway?”

“Ms. Goda,” I was getting a little sick of being condescended to, not that I wasn’t earning it. “It’s well known that every inch of this building, down to the rusted clasps on your costume and the passages in the walls, are the product of teams of set designers, acting coaches, fashion designers-“

“Oh pfft yeah everyone knows THAT Ezra, god,” she waved me to silence, still laughing, “Because I want to do the thing I would do anyway WELL.” She must’ve noticed my confused expression, because she continued, “I LIKE doing this Mx. Goodfellow. There’s no ‘’trouble’ involved. I LIKE playing the mistress of horror, and I don’t hide that I’m acting.” Her hand gently massaged the base of the metal-headed monster’s neck, eliciting a thrumming tinny purr. “I mean holy smokes man, my door opened by itself like something from an October B-movie. You KNOW who I am.”

I was heartbroken. I wanted to get to the real Anzu, and she was essentially telling me that there wasn’t one. That the woman WAS a fabrication, and lived as one, and liked it that way. She grinned at me leaning back in her chair across from me, fang-caps on her teeth sharp and obvious, streaks in her thick black mascara from when she’d been crying just ten minutes ago tracing drips and zigzags down to her jaw like they’d been painted on. Maybe they had been. I sighed and got into the boilerplate questions; if she wanted this to be rote, I could do it rote and leave.

“Most famous MonsTacticians pick a genre of monster to raise, sort of as their bit. Is that why you chose Horrors, to play into this fantasy?”

“Sort of a chicken or the egg thing really. The truth is that when I first got into raising these guys I hated the idea of ever making them fight.”

“Ah, but most monsters need some degree of violence, conflict or intrigue. Even something as docile as a sphinx needs chances to ask riddles and gamble on the outcome,” I pointed out, “We’re not talking about a pet bird or a normal animal, we’re talking about something with flesh wounds for eyes and rusted fishhooks for hands. A lot of monsters are innately aggressive and need an outlet.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No. No monster is innately aggressive.” Briefly, Ms. Goda’s smile took on a frozen edge. A simian display of teeth. “Monsters are reflections of us, of humans. WE’RE innately aggressive and need an outlet. We’re innately dangerous, loving, curious, most HUMANS need some degree of violence, conflict or intrigue. And monsters follow us to them. Do you want me to finish answering your question?”

“I’m sorry, do continue.”

“To fall back on stereotypes, I never really got along with other kids when I was small. My parents had a big house with a property that extended into the woods behind it, and I was an only child, so I spent a lot of time by myself.” She sat back and gripped her mug of tea in both hands, delicately, that soft thrumming anger I’d only barely glimpsed fading to reminiscence. “I was homeschooled for a long while, so I only started spending much time around other children in middle school.” She grimaced, “Bad place to start with humans, really. I honestly think we should raise the age where you’re allowed to take care of monsters a little higher than thirteen, after they stop being monsters themselves. It’s like a feedback loop. But that’s not what you’re here for.” She sipped the tea once, one hand at her jaw to preserve her makeup. “I didn’t really understand them, and they didn’t want to understand me… It felt like the results of every interaction I had with people was completely divorced from my actions. I’d tell a joke, I’d get stared at. The next time I did they laughed. The time after that someone called me an idiot. Eventually I was just… doing random things to see how they’d react. Throwing behavior at a wall to see what would stick.”

“My parents noticed this and would try to get me to break out of my shell. They’d ask me about my classmates, invite the ones they thought I might like to our house for playdates and birthday parties and we’d go romping around the woods, but it still didn’t really click. They liked my toys, they liked my big house and big yard, but I was still an incomprehendable foreign being. The best I could do was mimic them.” She laughed again, twinkling, “Honestly by then it was probably a self fulfilling prophecy. I already assumed nothing I did to make real friends would work.”

“These days, a child with a monster or two can be afforded a lot of freedom. We’d go rollicking deep into the woods, with a couple kids and their monsters keeping watch for anything wild. I remember one of them had a dragon, a big fat goofy eighties-barbera lump of scales and tiny, agile wings, while the other one had some big floppy puppet of a brute that has parents had gotten to teach him his numbers and ABCs when he was little. Supposedly, they would be able to smell any other monsters coming and hustle us home if something were to go wrong.”

“So, when the other kids didn’t see what was following us, I assumed I wasn’t supposed to either and ignored it.” I remember when she got to this part I double checked that the recorder was working. There is a page in my pocket notebook where I distinctly recall writing the words ‘dark backstory???’ and circling it.

“Every glance I got of it was moving slowly, deliberately through the trees above us, gentle enough to be mistaken for just branches moving in the breeze, but it seemed to have no trouble keeping pace with four rambunctious children and their caretakers. Maybe one of the kids had brought a third monster? I heard some fae were supposed to be shy. Or maybe it was something mundane, like some… big monkey. I was twelve.” Ms. Goda chuckled, “It made sense to me.”

“We hadn’t really DECIDED we were going to the creek, Shifat just said he saw a deer there and we just sort of wandered in that direction. Susan hated the woods though; the dragon was hers, and riding on its back had gotten her hair caught in hanging branches here and there. “As she ran up to the waterfront to check her curls in her reflection, I saw the thing in the trees above us speed up, to keep pace with her. I almost raised my voice to shout a warning, but back then I didn’t really have the nerve.”

“I waited with this kind of dread you only experience with social anxiety as like, the look on her face went from preening to frozen fear and confusion, when she saw whatever was waiting above her reflected in the running water. And it was new to me because for once I felt like I could predict how she was reacting. Like, I knew she was about to freak out, because I understood what was prompting this.”

I tried not to salivate and wrote over ‘dark backstory???’, capitalizing it.

“It dropped from above, slower than gravity should allow. Its flesh was mottled hues of dirty pink and green, solid and warty like an armadillos shell. Its face was a cluster of human molars. Its twelve legs ended in delicate, ladylike hands that reached out to brace against the surface of the water, like it might float away without the surface tension to latch on to, with steepled fingers as it lurched its bulk, mouth first, toward Susan.”

I circled ‘DARK BACKSTORY???’ a few more times, excitedly. Ms. Goda did not appear to notice.

“We all screamed. That’s… Kind of the main point I remember. If I focus I could tell you about how her dragon pulled her back with a wheezing burble before horking a wad of flame at the thing, or about Shifat’s Puppet sweeping all of us into its hairy arms and booking it for my house. Or about Aaron’s snotty panicked face a few inches from mine or the clacking howling of the creature behind us but what really stuck with me was that… Scream. It was the first time in forever I’d done anything around anyone else that I hadn’t overthought or tried to control. I just let loose and let what I was feeling come out and everyone else did too, at the same time.”

I underlined ‘DARK BACKSTORY???’ frantically.

“I’d never really felt like I was doing something WITH others before.”

… I thought for a moment, and then crossed out ‘DARK BACKSTORY???’

“I was… Really, really used to not really being in-sync with other children. I didn’t react the same way as them… to bad news, to surprises, to new experiences or enjoyment. Everything I did around my school friends was really carefully analyzed or rehearsed in my head first because I was worried about humiliating myself, or driving people off. But I just reacted instinctively, on the same level as the other kids, without a moment of thought. And afterwards I felt great! Feeling so pent up all the time wasn’t exactly good for a preteen, one good long scream did more for my mood than all the therapy my parents could pay for.”

“I’ve heard some say fear is more of an instinct than an emotion, a defense mechanism.” I offered, “You had trouble connecting empathically, but something so basic-“

“I mean sure maybe,” Goda shook her head and took another sip of her tea, “The point was that I finally had a starting point. Fear. Surprise. Shock. There was a… a Control group that I could start from for understanding other people.”

“So what was the next step?”

“Immediately after? For a couple weeks I was in the habit of hiding in closets and cupboards and jumping out to scare my parents. So when they got fed up with that I got sent along to a new therapist, who figured that I was trying to work through my traumatic incident with the creature in the woods.”

“Something of a swing and a miss.”

“I mean hell, he wasn’t completely wrong. Just whiffed the follow-through. His first idea was exposure therapy, had me play with small therapy monsters they kept that were similar. He had a tooth fairy and a boggart that he thought would be similar. Real couple of cuties, but … Kind of missing the point. The next step was him showing me the articles about how they, y’know like, captured and relocated the thing from the woods that attacked Susan, and that DID catch my eye. Apparently it was a Bandersnatch that had been feeding off ectoplasm runoff from a local prison. When it got big enough to divide, it split into this and a few other ghoulies. It’s really fascinating, like when a Bandersnatch or a Jabberwocky or anything else of the Wunderlander family take in enough external thematic elements they just kind of swell up and SPLIT into new monsters, it’s why there’s so many-“ The topic seemed to be working Ms. Goda up and I was worried we’d lose the plot, so I tried to bring the subject of our chat back to her.

“The creature that attacked you, where was it relocated to?”

“… Uhh, a shelter.” Goda got quiet. “According to the article it was, um, slated to be destroyed.”

“Oh.”

“I guess I understood? It had attacked a child. But I feel like a lot of problems could have been avoided if they’d just moved it to the right habitat. A sunken ship or an abandoned laboratory, someone puts up a sign, maybe get a behavioral specialist in there…”

“A specialist… Like you are now?”

“A bit, yeah.” Anzu grinned, “You know, horrors are the only breed of monster whose primary means of defense or offense requires forming an empathic connection?”

“You mean like Humphrey here did earlier?” I raised an eyebrow and patted the creature with a damp ‘slap,’ “Oh yes, we bonded.” The creature wheezed and, in spite of myself, I rubbed the top of its head and cooed to it. “I’d hardly call screaming and leaping an empathic connection, Ms. Goda.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” There was that stiff, toothy smile again. The woman had some sort of direct access to the lizard-brain prey instincts of whoever she was speaking too. Her pupils pinned me to my chair like a moth to a board. I felt like I’d made myself look extraordinarily stupid to her again. “An abrupt scream can, without language, communicate intent and elicit a reaction that requires an understanding of the recipient and what they’re concerned about, but let’s disregard that. You used Humphrey as an example. Maybe you didn’t feel so close to him, but over the course of the entire time he was hunting you he had to figure out how attentive you were, how much noise he could get away with making in the vents to put you on edge without making you run for it, when to drain your phone’s battery so that you’d feel isolated, and when to bring it all home so that you’d be at your most panicked when he jumped out.”

I looked down at the monster incredulously. It was resting its head on its ankle in an awkward, folded up heap, tongue darting out to lick a scab every so often.

“He played you like a fiddle, Ezra. The instincts that make dogs play fetch are the same ones that they’d use to hunt squirrels. In the wild, the part where you were screaming, flailing and confused would have been where he’d brought the hooks out.”

Humphrey chewed on one toe. I could not find it in myself to describe the action as thoughtfully.

“The more I studied up on horrors, the better I understood what people found offputting. Did you know that there are celtic horrors, a breed of fae called The Gentry, that can completely fake a conversation with a human? They’re no more sapient than any other monster, but can give an impression of complete power with only vague, instinctive answers and precise body language? 50 people a year make bargains with them to grant wishes, and the backfire from the wishes are the Gentry’s feeding apparatus. There’s also the Eastern Haunt which, in addition to constantly emitting anxiety-inducing infrasounds, floods its prey’s den with a gas that suppresses the fight or flight response, but not the desire to act on one of them?”

“So you argue that, what, horrors understand human behavior better than other monsters?”

“I mean, I don’t want to disparage the work of my colleagues.” Ms. Goda grinned and chuckled again, hands fidgeting with each other as she spoke. I got the impression that she would, in fact, LOVE to disparage the work of her colleagues but that isn’t really my role as a journalist. Her fingers interlaced and broke away from each other quickly, like fighting crabs. “Black Jacobs once told me he sees man’s wonder for exploration reflected in the eyes of his favorite sea serpent, I’ve got no reason to disbelieve him. Rational Rick Redcliffe, the Paradox Tactician, says that his Rokos Basilisks and Laplace’s Demon make better company than most people he knows, but I kinda think that’s just because he’s really, really bad with people. I certainly do think Horrors are trying harder.”

“To understand us?”

“To empathize with us. Horror relies on emotion. Connection with an audience where you know exactly how uncomfortable to make them, and what kind of discomfort they need or want.” Anzu shrugged. “That’s what I learned from studying them, anyway. The more I learned about how Horror monsters defended themselves, the better I got at defending myself from humanity. What buttons are okay to push or lean on a bit, which ones to avoid because they’d provoke too much blowback.”

“So that’s all this then?” I gestured to the artfully delapitated building around us, “You do this to push people’s buttons.”

“Swing and a miss, Goodfellow.” Her grin was back, lightly infuriating. “I don’t do this FOR anyone. I just accepted that I’m going to push people’s buttons anyway. So I might as well pick the ones that we both get something out of.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“I didn’t need to pull back from people, Ezra, I needed to throw myself at them with fuller force! Monsters just need presence, the chance to exist as a force upon events. PEOPLE need drama, Ezra. They need the things that they think monsters need. Violence, intrigue, they need to feel like sometimes things have high stakes! Instead of holding myself back, I let myself go off the rails. I got in people’s faces, laughed at my own jokes if nobody else was going to… I let myself be as loud and abrupt and as frantic as I needed to be, with just enough awareness and control of where I was sending things to avoid the stuff that would really hurt people. It didn’t matter if I staggered too far into discomfort as long as I veered out again right after. A good scare is followed by closure. A mess can be therapeutic, as long as it’s cleaned up. After people scream it all out, endorphins flood into the space left behind and they laugh!”

“And this got other children to like you?”

“Oh no they HATED it,” Ms. Goda gave another cackle, “For the most part. But there’s more place in a social group for an oddity than there is for someone trying and failing to fit in. I found people that appreciated who I was naturally rather than having a role in their life that needed filling. Or, maybe they just needed the role I filled naturally? Either way, things picked up.”

“It sounds like this is where you really started to come into yourself. Where the Bloodsplatter Tactician began. What did your parents think of the change?”

“They were glad I was happier, but were worried that my new habits would make life harder for me. Got me tested for aspergers syndrome, fussed over whether I’d be able to hold a job or find a husband.”

“Those sound like the sort of concerns most would buckle against.”

“I never really thought about it enough to have an opinion? My ex-wife thought it was funny as hell though.” I perked up here; Anzu’s personal life was the subject of much gossip and speculation, and there had been a rumor that her five year cohabitation with the troll-rearer Liana Monteblanc had been something more.

“I suppose you may have had some trouble getting close to others, what with your larger than life personality-“ I was rewarded by another peal of frantic, chirping laughter.

“Sure thing Ezra, that’s why so many leads in romance stories play such passive, subdued characters,” That grin was back, toothy and playful, “People need intrigue, remember? They need to be regularly overwhelmed and awed and released. That’s part of what attracts people to monsters in the first place, and it gives monsters a chance to be provided what they need.”

“I thought you said monsters don’t need violence?”

“I’m not talking about violence Ezra, I’m talking about presence. Look at Grendel, or Medusa, or Polyphemous. What they need is to be massive, to have an impact that bends circumstance around it. It reflects on humans that the best ways we can ever think about expressing that is violence. Not that it can’t work in context, but it’s part of what I want to address in my own career. Hence today’s interview.”

“It sounds like your opposition is to the very concept of Monster Battling, Ms. Goda.”

“I’m opposed to ONLY monster battling, Mx. Goodfellow, because it results in drastic misunderstanding of beautiful creatures that have been our companions at least as long as the dog, if not longer. Like look, take in Jiji here.” At this Anzu chucked the cylinder-headed monster under its, lets say chin, and ran her knuckles down its back roughly. I leaned in to peer at the creature, noting the flutelike oozing perforations on its arms and legs.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you employ this one in the arena, Ms. Goda.”

“And you won’t, he’s a rescue.”

“Where from?”

“My last batch of classes.”

“Pardon?”

“Milktooth hall is a battler dojo Ezra, I DO train people here.” Anzu giggled, a high-pitched rattling of pleasure, “A few people wanting to get into the Montactics industry sign up for classes on raising and battling monsters every year. You have to be committed, of course, we’re something of a remote locale, but for people that want it badly enough…”

“I see.”

“Jiji was being kept in a steel locker the trainer had bought at an auction for a dilapidated school, chosen simply for rusted aesthetic without even the slightest attention to who the prior owner had been or whether or not it had been used for any sort of sinister disappearance. The ectoplasm he was being fed was scraped entirely off of vengeance fantasies and suppressed fetishes. Jiji here was weak, malnourished, aggressive, and showed signs of wanton abuse.”

“I mean, it is a horror Ms. Goda, I would expect that-“

“Hence WANTON, Ezra!” Anzu launched forward out of her chair at me, Humphrey and Jiji scattering away with a spray of scabs and soft, flailing limbs. The Bloodsplatter Tactician’s arms reached out to either side of my chair and, instinctively, I tried to recoil and hide deeper in the cushions.

The light was behind her head, casting all of her into a silhouette. Stick-thin limbs interrupted by the jagged offshoots of her costume. All I could make out were here eyes and teeth, gleaming above me.

“Horrors aren’t just a collection of Bad Things you can funnel human grossness into and get a result, Mx. Goodfellow!” Spittle flecked my face with every other word, blowback from the unknowable world of her open and enraged maw, “Each one of these creatures is, in and of themselves, an ECOSYSTEM of emotion, experience, texture, and instinct that has to be kept BALANCED! A monster needs to be able to bend the world around it, to have presence solid enough to keep itself impacting its environment! Jiji was forced to sleep in a box, Ezra! An ugly, unhaunted box, without a scrap of history for it to soak! Forced to choke down and guzzle scraps of teenage agony without the rich nutritional value needed to develop a thematic target! How could it empathize with its prey enough to victimize it without any personal qualities of its own? What archetype is it supposed to break when it’s only disruption is good taste?! I do not train people that don’t aspire higher than running some slasher-mill to keep the new owners of the Native Animosity stocked up on disposeable ghouls!”

She was breathing heavily. Her breath was fogging my glasses, but I almost saw a new trail making its way down the mascara on her cheek.

I clicked my pen, awkwardly, “So you… Took Jiji?” Anzu blinked and stepped back.

“Ezra that would be illegal as hell.”

“I mean, you just sounded very passionate about-“

“Could you imagine if it got out that a major MonsTactician was just stealing monsters from people that came to her for training? My career would be over.”

“Well that’s very-“

“I took her aside, expressed my concerns and explained to her that I was worried that she couldn’t provide what this creature needs. I told her what needed to change, and if that was too difficult I offered to take the creature off her hands and compensate her for it.”

“Okay well that makes more-“

“Then she got institutionalized and I cut a deal with her family instead.”

“What?”

“Uuuugh it was so stupid,” Ms. Goda flopped back in her chair, head rolling back like a frustrated teenager. “The girl heard what I said about history and tried to hook Jiji up directly to a psychoactive pump funneled directly off of a set of violent crime news blogs. If it had worked, her failure to dilute it with adequate metaphor could have taken years off Jiji’s lifespan, but instead the pump sprung a leak and doused her with the raw ectoplasm.”

“Oh my god.” Anzu nodded.

“Stage 3 Cthonic Genre Awareness. They had her taken away to St. Pratchetts, screaming about being a background character in a piece of short genre metafiction.”

“That’s horrible!”

“It is… But I suppose it works out for Jiji here.”

“Cold comfort, I suppose.”

“Is it?”

“You don’t think so? The girl wanted to make a change, she came to you hoping to gain understanding. The fact that your advice was so misunderstood, or went so catastrophically wrong in its execution, doesn’t strike you as a little tragic?”

“I mean, yes, of course.” Anzu’s hand fluttered and grasped, spiderlike, to the back of Jiji’s neck to resume petting. “Honestly, that might be part of what she might’ve misunderstood in the first place.”

“How do you mean?”

“There’s a temptation, in horror, to contextualize it as something that only happens to bad people. That we can feed them vengeance fantasies and gifts from exes and personal, unbreakable judgement,” Anzu pulled Jiji further into her lap, where it began to emit that metallic ringing purr. As she stroked its back, spines dripping some sort of green ichor rose and fell along its vertebre, careful to point away from its masters fingertips.

“I think that’s something people do in real life a lot, too. Contextualize horrors as things that only happen to people who made some kind of moral or tactical mistake,” I hadn’t noticed it at first, but the sound of the monsters playing on the carpet had stopped. A creature like a ball of tar with nails sticking out had paused mid-wrestling with something not unlike a fanged barnacle. Both had turned their heads to stare at me.

Humphrey had too, for that matter. When I reached out to pat his bald eyeless head again he pulled back, with a warning hiss.

“They figure they’ll never be poor, or assaulted, or lonely, not because of any external factor but because they consider themselves ‘good’ in some abstract, unaddressed definition of the term. Pious or rational or charitable or successful or kind.” Jiji’s lower body still knelt on the floor. Anzu Goda, the Bloodsplatter Tactician, wrapped one leg around it possessively and clutched it in her arms like a child with an oversized toy. She glared at me over the top of its head, her voice trancelike.

My phone was still charging on the desk, five feet away. It felt like a mile. I remembered what Anzu had said about monsters not needing to be violent. I also remembered that the one she’d encountered in the woods in her youth, that she had so much sympathy for, had attempted to seize a child.

“The fact of the matter is that horror, that real meat-hook sensation you feel behind the ribs to drag out a scream, works best when you acknowledge that a perfectly good person can do everything right and still be the next…” I heard a low, rumbling wheeze from Humphrey, “… Victim.”

Why would a reclusive celebrity agree to her first interview in years, gush about how much more closely she connected with the most aggressive breed of monster than she does with humans, and then cop to giving advice that might have gotten one of her trainees sent to an insane asylum?

I looked down to organize my notes. My hands felt clammy and I remember hoping, briefly, that they didn’t smudge my ink. Breaking eye contact was a mistake. “W-well Ms. Goda, you’re clearly passionate about your work, I s-suppose I should ask if you have any further thoughts for our readers before-“

Anzu Goda let out an earpiercing HOWL, and Jiji launched itself from her lap. Before it reached me my world turned sideways; some part of me that wasn’t screaming registered that Humphrey had slammed into my chair from the side. I pressed back into the cushions to keep from banging my head on the linoleum and tumbled across the floor, coming to a rest by the desk.

My phone. It should be charged by now. I scrambled to my feet, still lurching and dizzy, and grasped for my canister of mace. It took another three seconds of panicked fumbling, staring down the approaching monsters and the back of Ms. Goda’s seat, before another all-important detail bubbled to the surface of my thoughts.

“… Did you just yell ‘Boo!’?”

Laughter erupted from the other side of the seat. Anzu clambered up to sprawl over the back of her chair. In spite of myself, I began to laugh too. “Oh my god I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect Humphrey to get in on it, that was way out of hand, but that was AMAZING. Are you alright?”

“Possibly a little bruised,” I admitted, still chuckling (I wouldn’t notice until later, in my car, two perforations in my neck just below the jaw. They were healed by the time I’d gotten home, and at the time of writing this I’m pleased to observe no noticeable signs of tetanus). I hated to admit it, but Anzu had a point about how you felt after a fright. My muscles felt loose, my heart was pumping, I was incredibly relaxed. If she could bottle a good rush of fear endorphins I suspected Anzu Goda would never have to work again. Not that she’d ever willingly retire.

“If anything aches I have ibuprofen in the top drawer of that desk and tequila in the bottom one. I hope that wasn’t too much Ezra, I’m supposed to keep them under better control than that.” Jiji and Humphrey had marched back to either side of her chair, and at this remark she reached down and pressed their heads into a lower bow with a ‘tsk’. “You two say you’re sorry, I have to go give Mx. Goodfellow the rest of their tour.”

“You asked me for a closing statement, Ezra,” Ms. Goda went on, escorting me out of the office and locking the door behind her (I heard the sound of some of the creatures clambering back into the buildings air ducts, others scratching and whining on the other side of the wall). “Do you mind if we handle the photos the Monthly wanted while I think of a good one?”

“You mean that whole display wasn’t it?” Anzu gave another cackle and reached up to throw an arm around my shoulders. It felt like being hugged by a rubber Halloween skeleton.

“Mx. Goodfellow, I have to invite you over again sometime. You’re exactly my kind of stick in the mud.”

“A perfect victim, you mean.”

“That too. But really, I don’t think you appreciate how much you’re helping me today.” Her tone softened in a way I hadn’t heard previously. “Horrors are the most frequently misunderstood genre of monsters. I agreed to this interview to sort of… Un-demonize them in the eyes of the public, I guess? Help them get more popular, and into good homes.”

“You un-demonized them by having them chase me around an abandoned asylum?” “I mean I’m not magic. They demonize themselves a little.” She winked, and I noticed some of her remaining makeup clotting at the corner of her eye. “But some folks need a few demons, right?”

The interview portion of my visit was a difficult act to follow, so Ms. Goda elected not to try. Or maybe she took showing me around the actual functionality of Milktooth Hall too seriously to ham up. Regardless, I finally got to meet some of the battlers Anzu had trained, working in the nurseries and pens for her creatures. They were a varied bunch. A man of forty with a long goatee and tattoos on his palms delicately removed a Xenophormous creature from the chest cavity of a pig and gently placed the writhing, mewling monster pup aside as he moved to the next hanging incubator. His name was Marv. He’d gotten into raising horrors as something to do after his daughter left the house. Anzu was giving him the pick of this litter for volunteering, after they’d been weaned and eaten the obligatory runt. I also got to witness the feeding of her latest addition, an attempt at Genty/Greater Vampire crossbreeding, with the assistance of a gaggle of teenagers from one of her classes. They were taking turns swinging a ballistic gel dummy wrapped in a Kevlar vest winched to a cable at the ceiling (which Ms. Goda assured me was a standard enrichment toy most battlers gave to their monsters) into range of the things claws where it would rake the gel body to pieces, babbling gothic nonsense in iambic pentameter. Every successful strike resulted in peals of laughter from the youngsters, followed by dares to swing the next pass closer. It was actually while I was lining up the photo of the group I eventually chose to accompany this article that Anzu settled on a closing statement.

“So far, Mx. Goodfellow, I’ve been threatened with closure seventeen times.”

She simply dropped the sentence into the silence of me setting up my tripod so neatly, like a seltzer tablet into a glass of water, that you could mistake it for your own thought. Words bubbled forward without disturbing the surface as I lined up my shot. She spoke evenly and quietly, not looking in my direction.

“Three times were concerned citizen groups. Two were former students. One was due to a city ordinance that, abruptly, qualified my dojo as an unlicensed slaughterhouse. Once was Rational Rick Redcliffe, although I think it was just because he wanted to prove one of his tedious ‘points.’ I don’t totally remember the others. And most don’t surprise me. I’m in the business of making people uncomfortable.

“People have every good reason to be repelled by horror, Ezra. I don’t deny that. That same immune response that lets people recognize other people as untrustworthy is the one that leads them to the conclusion that me, my creatures, and my work doesn’t belong in the public eye or should be subject to strict, codified limits.”

The teenagers smiles had begun to freeze. I didn’t dare take the picture. If the click of my camera interrupted Anzu I’d never forgive myself.

“Monsters are reflections of US though, Ezra. Denying or limiting the myriad forms they can take is to deny our own nature. Being disgusted by one is like a dog looking in a mirror and getting angry at this other, similar dog. Locking these sorts of things away or shoving them into the dark parts of the world we don’t look at… That doesn’t HELP a lot of people. Some need to understand that discomfort. Some need to experience that horror in order to get their release. Some need to find their way to empathy just by this… groundwork, followed by process of elimination. Raising or handling horrors can often provide those things safely, so long as the owner can be trusted to recognize what they are. “My hope is that these breeds will become more popular with the general populance. Not just battlers, but ordinary people that need this kind of companionship. I want to see more slasher mills shut down, I want to see more Haunts and Psychopomps go to good homes instead of ending up as scared and sickly as Jiji was when I found him. I sincerely implore your readership to look into their hearts and ask themselves… ‘do I need a good scare?’”

Anzu Goda finally glanced in my direction and winked, grin returning like a crack in a cartoon earthquake. “How’s that for a closing statement, Mx. Goodfellow?”

“Sounds like good press, Ms. Goda.” I replied, and took the photo.

-Last Professional publication of Ezra Goodfellow before leaving Montactics Monthly. Present whereabouts unknown.

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gushingaboutgames · 8 years

Text

Yakuza 0

I’m not going to mince words. I fucking love the Yakuza series. With the exception of Yakuza 3, I have played every game in the series that had made its way to the west (yes, even Dead Souls, I like zombie games, shut up). People like to rag on Sega, saying they’re a shit company because their recent Sonic games are a parade of crap, a sentiment that does have some merit. This is the series I hold up as an example that Sega still has it. I was talking about Yakuza with a good friend of mine, and even though she hasn’t played any of the games, even she recognizes that it’s one of the biggest labors of love in gaming.

(note to self: gotta get TL a Yakuza game sometime in the very near future)

It is thus, with a great deal of joy, that I can say Yakuza 0 is perhaps the best game in the series to date, an exemplar of everything that makes the Yakuza series great.

(A bit of warning beforehand: there may be some minor spoilers for the Yakuza series ahead. I’ll avoid the major spoilers, but nonetheless, proceed with caution.)

The game takes place in late 1988, near the end of a period of Japanese history known as the “Bubble Economy”. After World War II, Japan’s economy was in shambles, but with a bit of help from the US, the Japanese economy made the mother of all economic rebounds and went on to become the second largest industry in the world, overtaking others in engineering and consumer products.

With this economic boom came money. Tons of money. Volumes of money. Japanese citizens had cash to burn as the economic bubble grew to epic proportions. Sadly, the good times would not last: the bubble burst in the 1990′s, and Japan has suffered from a recession that it continues to struggle with to this day.

It is in this time of prosperity that Yakuza 0 begins. Being a prequel, this represents an excellent point for new fans to jump in, as no knowledge of the previous games is necessary (though it enhances the experience, natch).

Yakuza 0 is a tale of two cities, and two gangsters. The first, coming out of the Kamurocho district in Tokyo, is series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, a fresh-faced 20-year-old underling in the Dojima Family, one of the most influential (and infamous) factions in the criminal syndicate known as the Tojo Clan. One cold December night, Kiryu finishes shaking down some poor schmuck in debt to a loan shark, then meets up with his best friend and blood brother Akira Nishikiyama for a night out on the town, drinking and singing karaoke before hitting up a cozy little ramen shop.

The fun times come to an abrupt halt when a news bulletin breaks: there’s been a murder in Kamurocho! What makes this different from the other gang-related violence in the city is the fact that the deceased was the same person Kiryu shook down mere hours earlier! Worse still, the body was found on an empty lot in the center of a redevelopment project that the Tojo Clan has been eyeing for quite a while: a dead body and police investigation keeps them from getting their hands on it, and that makes the leadership in the Tojo Clan very cranky.

Not helping matters is a conspiracy among the top brass in the Tojo Clan to usurp the position of the clan’s captain, held by Kiryu’s sponsor and father-figure Shintaro Kazama. If Kiryu was responsible for the murder, it would reflect poorly on Kazama. As a result, the clan’s lieutenants are gunning to have Kiryu take the fall for the murder he did not commit. It’s a race against time as Kiryu tries desperately to clear his name and keep himself and Kazama out of the Tojo Clan’s crosshairs.

Meanwhile, in Sotenbori, Osaka, we have Goro Majima, a 24-year-old gangster from back before he went off the deep end and became a nutjob. He’s living the dream, managing a successful cabaret and raking in dough like a baker in a neon-lit bakery. It is not his dream that he is living, however, for Sotenbori is actually little more than a gilded cage to Majima.

A few years prior, Majima conspired with his sworn brother Taiga Saejima to take down the leaders of one of the Tojo Clan’s rivals. A Tojo Clan higher-up didn’t take this well, and detained Majima while Saejima took the fall and was sentenced to death row. For his trouble, Majima lost his left eye, was exiled from the Tojo and given over to Osaka’s Omi Alliance, where he was tortured for a year before being released on a heavily-supervised work release program, managing the afformentioned cabaret to make enough money to essentially buy his way back into the Tojo.

Eventually, however, a shortcut presents itself: Majima’s handler is willing to put a good word in for him if he is willing to carry out a little bit of wetwork, an assassination. One life in exchange for a ticket back into the Tojo Clan? How hard can it be?

When he realizes his target is actually a defenseless blind woman, though, he hesitates. Does he have it in him to take her life? Is he prepared to face the consequences for not carrying through with the assassination? Can he find some way out of this quandary with his life, and his sanity?

The stories of the Yakuza series have never been anything less than solid. I can’t really talk about it without spoiling it, but it will tug at your heartstrings and keep you on the edge of your seat.

The visuals of Yakuza 0 are a treat, as well: the cities of Kamurocho and Sotenbori look amazing on the PS4, both of them neon-lit playgrounds with a gritty, dingy feel to them. While the graphics may not always be perfect (some textures are a bit blurry and many NPC models look a bit jagged and antiquated), they are never painful to look at. The sound department is no slouch either, with music that is a joy to listen to and voice acting that is always on point.

Of course, a game that looks and sounds good would not be worth a damn if it wasn’t fun to play. Thankfully, Yakuza 0 exemplifies fun.

Kamurocho and Sotenbori are brimming with things to do and sidequests to complete. These substories, distinct from the game’s main plot, are always a treat to engage in, featuring bizarre stories and characters that contrast with the campaign’s hard-hitting crime drama. To name a few examples:

-Kiryu meets a yanki band (a mix of punk rock and ‘50s greaser fashion) who are much too mild-mannered, and must teach them how to be hardcore to impress their fans.

-Kiryu gets swept up pretending to be a TV producer after the real producer was chased off by an overbearing director.

-Kiryu volunteers to help a young boy buy a dirty magazine from a vending machine.

-Majima volunteers to play a pretend boyfriend for a young woman who is tired of her father trying to arrange her marriage.

-Majima must infiltrate a Scientology-inspired cult to rescue a woman’s brainwashed daughter.

-Majima has to help a high school student retrieve his pants from a bully, who turns out to be Yakuza 2′s Ryuji Goda back when he was in grade school.

There are dozens more, but all of them are fun to partake in.

Those sidequests, as well as simply walking the mean streets, may lead to getting into a brawl with some unsavory characters, and combat has thankfully always been one of Yakuza’s strongest points. This remains true in Yakuza 0, which features challenging battles against gangsters and thugs. Each character has three fighting styles they can switch between on the fly: Kiryu has a balanced “Brawler” style, a fast-paced “Rush” boxing style, and a slow but powerful “Beast” style that weaponizes anything not bolted to the ground. Meanwhile, Majima has the deadly “Thug” style, a baseball bat-centric “Slugger” style, and an insane multi-hitting super-stylish “Breaker” style (my personal favorite). Each style has its own strengths and weaknesses, but all of them are practical and fun to use. All of them also have their own unique “Heat” moves that are absolutely brutal, but satisfying to pull of.

In line with the game’s theme of economic prosperity, enemies practically bleed money when you batter them: it’s not unheard of to rake in at least a cool few hundred Gs in per fight. You’re gonna need that cash, too: there is no experience points or levels in Yakuza 0. Instead, you purchase upgrades for your fighting styles, and they get expensive as you make your way through each skill tree, with the highest upgrades costing hundreds of millions of yen, if not billions.

This, of course, means you’ll need to find ways to make money beyond simply beating it out of street punks. One way is by finding and helping citizens being harassed by bad guys. Helping them out gets you high quality items, some of which you can sell at pawn shops for wads of cash. Another is by challenging Mr. Shakedown, a burly buster who wonders the streets shaking down anyone who crosses him. Losing to him means you will lose all of your cash, but if you can beat him, you’ll earn a metric fuckton of money (including any money you lost to him before).

About halfway through the game, you also get a chance to engage in side businesses to further pad your wallet. Kiryu becomes the leader of a real estate agency, and is tasked with purchasing properties and collecting their profits while hiring managers to maximize their profits and security to ensure business goes smoothly. Majima, meanwhile, becomes the manager of a cabaret club, a mainstay of previous Yakuza games, but not as ubiquitous in the 80s as in later in the series chronology. Here, Majima must train hostesses and keep up with customer demands to make a profit. While Majima’s business venture doesn’t have the raw money output as Kiryu’s, it is more engaging and fun. That’s not to say Kiryu’s real estate business is without merit: there is a fair amount of strategy involved in hiring the right people to maximize profits.

All work and no play makes for dull gangsters, though. Thankfully, this is where another large strength of the Yakuza series comes into play: minigames! There is no shortage of ways to burn your money.

There are arcades in Sotenbori and Kamurocho, and they have classic Sega arcade games on display. My inner 12-year-old reveled at the chance to play Space Harrier again since Shenmue, with OutRun also taking more than its fair share of my money. Completing certain sidequests also unlocks Super Hang-On and Fantasy Zone, so there is variety as far as retro gaming goes.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. One new attraction for Kiryu is the telephone club, a unique dating service in Japan. The game plays out similar to an arcade shooter, where Kiryu must hold the girl’s attention by aiming at and hitting the proper phrases to increase her affection and ultimately ask her out. It’s a lot harder than it sounds: the correct phrases are often hard to hit, and until you get some practice, you’ll often end up accidentally asking girls about their baby ferrets rather than their best features.

Another unique outfit in Kamurocho is an underground women’s wrestling ring, where you can bet money on the outcome of fights between buxom battlers. The battles play out like rock-paper-scissors, and are high-risk high-reward.

There are also disco clubs, which feature a rhythm/puzzle game where you have to move an avatar on a dance floor before moving them over spaces with a face button on it. Again, not as easy as it sounds, but still very fun, and the music is a treat to listen to.

Finally, among the new attractions is “Pocket Circuit”, a slot car racing tournament wherein you can customize your own little race car and race for prizes and fame. There are tons of parts to use, some purchased from stores, others found in the world.

Aside from those, there are many other mainstays of the series that return and are still fun to play: karaoke, gambling, underground fighting tournaments, fishing, darts, pool, and so on. You will never be lacking in ways to amuse yourself.

My love of the Yakuza series, and Yakuza 0 in particular, cannot be overstated. I recommend this game to everyone, series veterans and newcomers alike, action game fans, Japanese game fans, and anyone who enjoys good stories, good gameplay, and fun in general.

#yakuza #yakuza 0 #review #video games

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satoshi-mochida · 5 years

Link

Yakuza 0, Yakuza: Kiwami, and Yakuza: Kiwami 2, which are currently available for PlayStation 4 and PC, are coming to Xbox One in early 2020 and will be available for Xbox Game Pass for console and PC, Sega announced.

Here is an overview of each game, via their Steam pages:

Yakuza 0

The glitz, glamour, and unbridled decadence of the 80s are back in Yakuza 0.

Fight like hell through Tokyo and Osaka with protagonist Kazuma Kiryu and series regular Goro Majima. Play as Kazuma Kiryu and discover how he finds himself in a world of trouble when a simple debt collection goes wrong and his mark winds up murdered. Then, step into the silver-toed shoes of Goro Majima and explore his “normal” life as the proprietor of a cabaret club.

Switch between three different fighting styles instantaneously and beat up all manner of goons, thugs, hoodlums, and lowlifes. Take combat up a notch by using environmental objects such as bicycles, sign posts, and car doors for bone-crunching combos and savage take-downs.

Fighting is not the only way to kill time in 1988’s Japan: from discos and hostess clubs to classic SEGA arcades, there are tons of distractions to pursue in the richly detailed, neon-lit world.

Interact with the colorful denizens the red light district: help a budding S&M dominatrix learn her profession, or ensure a street performer can make it to the bathroom in time – there are 100 incredible stories to discover.

Yakuza: Kiwami

“Kiwami” means extreme.

1995, Kamurocho… Kazuma Kiryu, the Dragon of Dojima, takes the fall for the murder of a crime boss to protect his sworn brother, Akira Nishikiyama, and his childhood friend, Yumi.

2005… Akira Nishikiyama has become a changed man. Yumi is nowhere to be found. Ten billion yen has gone missing from the Tojo Clan’s coffers, putting the organization on the brink of civil war. And Kazuma Kiryu is released from prison to a world he no longer recognizes.

With enhanced gameplay, an expanded cinematic story, the return of the battle styles from Yakuza 0, more nightlife spots, and re-recorded audio by the series cast, Yakuza: Kiwami is the ultimate and most “extreme” version of the original vision of the series, now optimized for PC with 4K resolutions, uncapped frame rates, customizable controls and ultra-widescreen support.

Yakuza: Kiwami 2

Kazuma Kiryu thought his Tojo Clan days were behind him. He and the young girl in his care, Haruka Sawamura, have built a peaceful life from the ashes of conflict. All it took was a single gunshot to shatter that peace. Yukio Terada, the Fifth Chairman of the Tojo Clan, has been assassinated. With war on the horizon, the legendary Dragon of Dojima is pulled back into the world he wanted to leave behind.

Kiryu must travel to Sotenbori, Osaka in an attempt to broker peace between the rival clans, but Ryuji Goda, known as the Dragon of Kansai, will stop at nothing to get his war. In this world, there can only be one dragon.

Rebuilt from the ground up, Yakuza: Kiwami 2 uses the Dragon Engine to update one of the series stand-out titles into a modern classic. The PC version includes all the enthusiast features you’ve come to expect: 4K resolution, unlocked frame rates, customizable controls, and robust graphics options.

Play fan favorite minigames including updated versions of the Cabaret Club simulator and Clan Creator, or check out all new additions like an arcade port of Virtual On, golf bingo, and Toylets.

Also new to Kiwami 2 is the ‘Majima Saga’ which features Goro Majima in his own playable adventure revealing events that occur prior to the game.

Watch the Xbox One announcement trailer below.

youtube

#Yakuza 0 #Yakuza: Kiwami #Yakuza: Kiwami 2 #Yakuza Series #Sega #Gematsu #Don't read the site's comment section.

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borisloukanov · 5 years

Video

vimeo

SUN & SEA (Marina) - Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019 from NEON REALISM on Vimeo.

Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019 Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė Sun & Sea (Marina) Lithuanian Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia May 11–October 31, 2019

Location: Marina Militare (Arsenale), Venice sunandsea.lt

Imagine a beach - you within it, or better: watching from above - the burning sun, sunscreen, bright bathing suits, sweaty palms and legs. Tired limbs sprawled lazily across a mosaic of towels. Imagine the occasional squeal of children, laughter, the sound of an ice cream van in the distance. The musical rhythm of waves on the surf, a soothing sound (on this particular beach, not elsewhere). The crinkling of plastic bags whirling in the air. Their silent floating, jellyfish-like, below the waterline. The rumble of a volcano, or of an airplane, or a speedboat. Then a chorus of songs: everyday songs, songs of worry and of boredom, songs of almost nothing. And below them: the slow creaking of an exhausted Earth, a gasp. Vernissage: 8 - 11 May 2019 Performance 10am-8pm 11 May - 31 October 2019 Installation 10am-6pm Tue-Sun Performance every Saturday 10am-6pm (excluding 1-25 August) For the 58th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, artists Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė present the durational opera-performance of Sun & Sea (Marina). Commissioner: Rasa Antanaviciute, Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts. Honorary Commissioner: Jean-Baptiste Joly, founder of Akademie Schloss Solitude. Curator: Lucia Pietroiusti, Curator of General Ecology at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Assistant Curator: Caterina Avataneo. Specially adapted for La Biennale di Venezia, Sun & Sea (Marina) will be the first version of this piece in English, adapted as a durational performance. The original version of Sun & Sea was produced by Neon Realism.

The presentation in Venice will feature a special-edition vinyl catalogue, conceived by Åbäke and featuring texts by Marie Darrieussecq, Daisy Hildyard, Monika Kalinauskaite, Lucia Pietroiusti and more. Visual identity by Goda Budvytytė. Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė (b.1983, based in Vilnius) works as filmmaker and theatre director. In her creative practice, Barzdžiukaitė explores the gap between objective and imagined realities, while challenging an anthropocentric way of thinking in a playful way. Her recent full-length film-essay Acid Forest was awarded at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2018 and is touring extensively in film festivals around the world. Vaiva Grainytė (b.1984, based in Vilnius) is a writer, playwright, and poet. Her writer’s practice usually crosses the confines of desk work and becomes an integral part of an interdisciplinary polylogue. Her handwriting exhibits the features typical of her oeuvre: personal and collective memory, daily routine and social issues are in harmony with poetic and ironic approach. Lina Lapelytė (b.1984, based in Vilnius and London) is an artist, musician and composer. Her performance - based practice is rooted in music and flirts with pop culture, gender stereotypes and nostalgia. Lapelytė’s works were presented at KIM? in Riga, Rupert in Vilnius (solo exhibition), gallery 1857 in Oslo, the Modern Art Museum in Malmo, MACBA in Barcelona, DRAF in London. Upcoming shows include Cartier Foundation in Paris, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Kunsthalle Praha.

Sun & Sea (Marina) is the second collaboration for the three artists. Their contemporary opera, Have a Good Day! premiered in 2013 is touring worldwide. Have a Good Day! won six international awards in Europe, and it has been performed in more than twenty festivals, as well as broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and the Lithuanian National Radio. In 2018 at the Golden Cross awards in Lithuania the artists were awarded the Borisas Dauguvietis prize for their innovative and original ideas. In their collaborative practice, the artists pay special attention to the relationship between documentary and fiction, reality and poetry as well as the overlap of theatre, music and the visual arts.

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agnesgb · 13 years

Text

Dagens Nyheter – Vårens catwalktrender

Vårens catwalktrender 2012. DN den 8:e april 2012.

Modeskaparna inspireras av gatan. Gatan inspireras av modeskaparna. Det är en ständig symbios som bestämmer hur vi klär oss. Här de största trenderna från vårens catwalk. SPORT

Det går det inte att missa att modevärlden bytt klackarna mot sneakers i vår. Förutom springskor tar den sportiga trenden form i funktionella material, starka neonfärger och en teknisk yta som lyser av sportig expertis. Klassiska sportplagg som hoodies, fotbollsshorts och baseballjacka omarbetas till modets egna sofistiskerade tappningar. Det är kläder man känner sig snabb i.

Så bär man det: Byt klackarna mot sneakers i neon, och kavajen blir en baseballjacka i satin.

Syns på: Stella McCartney, Alexander Wang, Versus.

LEKFULLT Det är alltid glädjande när modets två fundament – spontanitet och lekfullhet – präglar de internationella modevisningarna. I London, Paris och Milano tycker modeskaparna att vi ska leka med kläderna som ett barn i vuxengarderoben. Modevärldens orakel Miuccia Prada slickar håret i en våg, slänger på sig farmors (oäkta) juveler och trycker bilar och racingränder på sina små dräkter. Margela tar det ett steg längre och gör boots och paljettklännigar av mattor (enligt receptet “man tager vad man haver”) och sätter kardborreband på cocktailklänningar så du bokstavligen kan slänga på dig vad som ligger närmast och gå ut.

Så bär man det: Coco Chanel förespråkade att skala bort en detalj innan du lämnar hemmet. Gär tvärt om! Låt humöret och inte den goda smaken styra.

Synd på: Prada, Margiela, Louise Gray.

FLICKIGT UTAN ÅTERHÅLLNING Den flickiga estetisken har sällan fått särskilt mycket erkännande som cool. Men från i vår blir det ändring på det. Med råge. På Tokyos gator och internetcommunityn som tumblr samlas mängder av tejer kring attribut som rosa, tyll, hästar och pasteller, vilket nu snappats upp av modevärldens designers. De öser på med hjärtan, spets, knallrosa och drömmen om en sagovärld som spårat ur. Det är inte babydoll på det där sexiga sättet utan flickigt på egna villkor. Dags att återerövra rosa.

Så bär man det: Önsketänk en flicka utan restriktioner. Bär knallrosa och hjärtmönstrat med stolthet och läppstift.

Syns på: Meadham Kirchhoff, Preen, Prada.

COUTUREKOPIA Mode längtar alltid lite till den förgångna. I vår är det drömmar om couturens guldålder på 50-talet som skapar retrosilhuetter med housewife-känsla. Plaggen får som volym som närmast känns skulpterad och material som neopren eller nylon ger looken en modern skärpa.

Så bär man det: Här är det avskalat som gäller, låt silhuetten tala.

Syns på: Jil Sander, Céline, Rick Owens.

MÖNSTERFRENZY I sommar kommer extrema mönster med full kraft. Ny teknik inom digitaltryck ger nya möjligheter där trycken ser medvetet datorgjorda ut och speglas geometriskt över kroppen. En klassiker som paisley ges också en ny dager.

Så bär man det: Mönster är till för att skapa intryck: matcha olika mönster och färger mot varandra eller bär samma från topp till tå.

Syns på: Mary Katrantzou, Dries van Noten, Christopher Kane.

#dn #mode

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petrsklr · 7 years

Photo

Эскиз к серьезному заказу. Очень рад возможности поработать моей любимой пастелью. #sketch #chalk #pencil #charcoal #crayon #decoration #neon #inspiration #motivation #auroraborealis #nothernlights #nature #natgeoru #sky #nightsky #instagood #instamood #artist #ptrsklr #cosmos #fabercastell #artistspastels #earthofficial #discoverglobe #lifestyle (at Ulitsa 1905 Goda)

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dayanarasi-blog · 8 years

Text

A Lion Kiss A Deer

Embusan angin malam kala itu membawa mereka larut dalam obrolan tak diduga. Di bawah langit gelap tanpa bintang, keduanya memilih untuk bungkam daripada maju menyatakan. Rasa yang sama atau tidak, jawabannya ada di hati masing-masing. Semua demi satu kata, sahabat.

***

Detak jantung seirama dengan detik jam yang melingkar di tangannya. Bunyinya terdengar saking sepinya ruangan kamar. Tak terasa jam sudah menunjukan pukul dua subuh. Ia sudah habiskan waktu dua jam hanya untuk melamun. Ya, lagi-lagi Sira terpaku melihat langit-langit kamar yang berhiaskan bintang dan bulan berwarna hijau neon di tengah gelapnya ruang kamar berukuran 3x4 meter itu. Padahal ia sudah berencana untuk tidak bergadang. Tetapi mau dikata apa, matanya yang berkantung itu enggan untuk terpejam. Ia terus menatap ke hiasan tadi, tetapi pikirannya sedang tertuju kepada seseorang. Seseorang yang sedang datang di saat hatinya senang akan kesendirian.

Ia sedang lamunkan Lerry. Pria yang sudah ia kenal selama sembilan tahun, yang ia cap sebagai “sahabat lelaki sejati”nya. Entah mengapa Lerry jadi bahan pikirannya beberapa pekan ini, semenjak Lerry mengajaknya makan malam bersama waktu itu.

***

Beep. Pesan masuk datang dari Lerry. Aku sudah di depan.

“Bzz, belum juga siap,” gerutu Sira. Segera ia berdandan ala kadarnya, oles lipstik tipis berwarna merah muda dan semprot parfum di bagian leher dan lengannya. Malam itu ia memilih kaus berwarna hitam dan celana jeans. Tak lupa jaket dan sepatu bututnya. Ia tak mau terihat cantik di depan Lerry. Toh Lerry sudah tahu tetekbengek si Sira. Yang terpenting perutnya kenyang. Segera ia menuju ke ruang tengah untuk berpamitan dengan Mama.

“Loh mau kemana malam-malam begini, Sir?”

“Ya ampun, baru juga jam tujuh, Ma. Sebentar mau jalan sama Lerry ya. Dia mau traktir katanya,” jawab Sira santai sambil mengikat tali sepatu abu-abunya.

“Mama gak ada dengar suara motor loh, naik mobil? Mau kemana sih?”

“Nah, gatau si kucrit mau ngajak kemana, pokoe jauh. Pake helm, hahaha. Pergi dulu ya, Bunda,” Sira menjulur tangan ke Mama untuk salam hormat.

Sira buka pintu. Ternyata Lerry sudah menunggu di luar pagar. Senyumnya merekah, lalu menyapa pria yang lebih tinggi dari pagarnya itu.

“Sudah lama di sana? Naik apa ini?” tanya Sira. Lerry mendorong pagar dan masuk. Sira bingung, padahal ia tak mengundang Lerry untuk masuk.

“Malam, Tante. Hehehe,” kata Lerry yang buat Sira bingung. Ternyata Mama mengekor Sira dari tadi dan berdiri di belakang tubuhnya yang sintal.

“Halo, Ry. Apa kabar? Wah sudah lama ga main ya? Mau kemana kalian? Jangan lama-lama loh ya” balas Mama.

“Kabar baik, Tante. Iya ini mau makan bentar terus pulang. Pamit ya, Tante,” tutup Lerry lalu take a bow plus salaman ke Mama.

Sira yang melihat pemandangan itu merasa aneh. Dia sebal lihat Lerry yang tumben sopan begitu. Hahaha. Tapi hatinya terasa lain, jadi deg-degan juga. Kenapa ini?

Lerry dan Sira menuju mobil yang terparkir depan pagar rumah. Keduanya masuk dan berdadah ria dengan Mama. Di dalam mobil mereka bercerita dari A-H. Sampai H dulu, karena sudah sampai ke tempat tujuan. Obrolan I-Z dilanjutkan saat makan bersama. Ya, maklumkan saja. Mereka sudah lama tak bercerita tatap muka, paling lewat aplikasi pesan saja. Itupun tak sering, Lerry disibukkan dengan pekerjaan sambil kuliahnya, sedangkan Sira disibukkan dengan tugas kuliah dan organisasi.

Lerry mulai bercerita tentang hubungan dia dengan Ika, adik kelas yang sudah ia dekati sejak tiga tahun silam. Lerry memang paling jago bercerita, sedangkan Sira hanya diam dan mendengarkan, sesekali ia lontarkan pertanyaan. Karena mereka duduk bersampingan, Sira harus berlelah ria untuk mendongakkan kepalanya ke arah kiri, tempat Lerry duduk. Sudah pasti capai. Tapi demi sahabatnya itu, ia ingin selalu ada sebagai pendengar yang baik. Diam-diam Sira memperhatikan mata Lerry begitu dalam. Baru kali ini rasanya Sira bisa duduk sedekat ini dengan pria bertubuh tinggi itu. Ternyata Lerry punya sepasang mata yang indah dan tajam. Persis mata kesukaan Sira. Kalau Lerry balik melirik, Sira langsung kembalikan wajahnya lurus-lurus ke depan. Sira sesekali mengutuki dirinya karena terlarut suka lihat mata Lerry. Hmm.

Obrolan tentang Ika ternyata belum selesai di kedai nasi goreng tempat mereka makan tadi. Hingga akhirnya kembali ke mobil dan hendak menuju rumah Sira, Ika tetap jadi perbincangan utama.

Sambil memegang alih kemudi, Lerry mulai menunjukkan raut sedih. Sira mendapati dia tertunduk sambil menghembuskan nafas. Hubungannya dan Ika ternyata sudah kandas. Dalam benak Sira hanya satu, “Lerry sepatah hati ini?”.

Ika memutuskan hubungan dengan Lerry yang baru terjalin dalam kurun waktu beberapa jam. Bayangkan, hitungan jam saja! Pantas saja Lerry merasa begitu terbuang setelah berusaha mendapatkan hati Ika bertahun-tahun tapi hanya resmi “jadian” dalam waktu beberapa jam. Padahal Lerry sudah punya banyak rencana, termasuk memamerkan hubungannya dengan Sira. Kejam.

Sira yang tahu sebabnya mengapa Ika akhiri merasa marah. Ia tidak terima sahabatnya disia-siakan begitu saja. Soalnya, Sira tahu benar asam pahit yang Lerry rasakan karena cueknya Ika, belum lagi Sira harus mengeluarkan beberapa ide supaya Lerry terlihat macho di hadapan gadis itu saat Ika sedang manja-manjanya! Sira sungguh kesal. Empatinya keluar. Rasanya kalau Lerry ini seorang perempuan, ia ingin peuk erat. Lerry pasti sedang terluka.

“Rasanya tuh, Sir pas aku diterima kemarin kayak dapat piala. Senangnya minta ampun. Merasa menang dapatin hati Ika itu bagiku luar biasa, Sir. Huft. Terus selesai gitu aja karena hal ga penting? Asuh lah,” kata Lerry. Kata kotor itu memang sering mereka berdua gunakan. Bahkan tak jarang Lerry dan Sira saling “asuh-asuh”an satu sama lain. Hahaha, seru.

“Iya, asuh eh. Asuh banar. Sabar ya suh. Huff,” balas Sira tak tahan. Setelah Sira membalas itu, mereka berdua pun saling mengumpat untuk Ika. Ternyata Lerry mulai tertawa, Sira senang. “Jangan sedih lagi ya, kamu jelek kalau sedih. Aku juga ikutan jelek nanti,” gumam Sira dalam hati sambil melihat Lerry sedang tertawa.

“Nah, Sir gini juga ya. Aku pengennya kalau sama Ika dulu itu ga jaim-jaiman. Kayak aku sama kamu begini, aku nyaman. Beda banget kalau lagi berdua sama Ika. Sepi,” kata Lerry sambil melirik Sira ke arah kiri.

“Ya, mungkin karena cewek cantik males omong banyak kali. Kalo aku kan rewel,” jawab Sira santai. Tanpa sadar, kalimat yang Lerry lontarkan buat hatinya senang dan tersimpan rapi di arsip hatinya. Hahaha.

Sira dan Lerry sudah sampai di rumah tua dua lantai yang bercat hijau tempat Sira bernaung. Setelah Sira turun dari mobil, Lerry melihat tubuh Sira dari atas ke bawah. Sira merasa aneh.

“Lah kenapa? Ada yang salah?” tanya Sira.

“Ckckck, dasar gendut. Besok jogging lah. Biar kurus kamu. Bakar nasgor tadi,” jawab Lerry. Sira pastinya sebal. Bukannya terima kasih malah menghina. Sungguh terlalu.

Tidak peduli Lerry berkata apa, Sira segera membanting pintu mobil. “Gak urus, bye!” tutupnya. Lerry hanya balas dengan tawa.

***

Ternyata Lerry serius dengan perkataannya. Dia mengajak Sira untuk lari pagi. Berdua. Bahkan Lerry yang rumahnya sangat dekat dengan tempat mereka olah raga nanti, menawarkan diri untuk menjemput Sira yang notabene rumahnya cukup jauh. Untung Sira tolak. Ia menolak jelas karena merasa bingung. Kenapa Lerry jadi sebegitu pedulinya. Lerry sampai siapkan obat segala buat Sira supaya gadis itu berkeringat lebih dan kuat. Tak lupa juga dia bawa dua botol air mineral. Membingungkan.

Sira yang tidak pernah bisa lari satu putaran tanpa berhenti, tiba-tiba terdorong untuk bisa karena tidak mau terlihat cemen depan Lerry. Setelah hari pertama jogging bersama itu, diam-diam Sira bertekad untuk berlatih keras agar bisa berlari satu putaran tanpa henti. Dia minta Mama untuk menemaninya berlatih.

“Walah, sahabat jadi cinta iki,” goda Mama saat menemani Sira berlatih. Sira jelas terkejut. Tetapi ia merasa ada benarnya juga, kenapa ia rela berlatih demi terlihat bagus depan Lerry? Bukannya Sira awalnya tidak peduli mau bagaimana pun karena tahu Lerry memang “sahabat”nya? Kenapa sekarang tiba-tiba terdorong untuk terlihat “cantik”? Bukannya Sira lagi “nyaman” sendiri?

Omongan Mama tidak Sira gubris, tetapi otaknya terus berpikir. “Apa benar aku jatuh cinta? Ya, masa sama Lerry sih? Ih gak deh amit-amit,” gumam Sira sambil menggelengkan kepalanya saat berlari.

Setelah berhari-hari tanpa adanya Lerry, kembali dia muncul ke permukaan. Mengajak Sira lagi. Sama, makan malam dan besoknya work out.

“Kok cepet juga ya? Udah kurusan kamu ku lihat,” kata Lerry sambil berlari-lari kecil di sebelah kanan Sira.

“Efek baju hitam. Ga usah ngolok pagi-pagi,” balas Sira kesal.

“Kamu disini sebulan lagi ya, Sir. Please? Nanti aja balik ke perantauan. Kalau kamu di sini ku jamin badanmu sudah ideal! Gimana?” ungkap Lerry. Sira kaget bercampur bimbang. Tapi tidak ia tunjukan. Lagi-lagi ia hanya balas itu dengan gurauan. Lerry begitu membingungkan dirinya. Apa dia ingin Sira yang menemani kesendiriannya? Lagian dia tidak bisa menetap sebulan lagi di kota tercintanya itu. Ada tanggung jawab yang harus ia kerjakan di kota rantaunya. Sepulang dari work out, Sira galau. Antara memenuhi keinginan Lerry atau kembali. Dia bingung juga, kenapa bisa Lerry jadi pertimbangannya sekarang?

***

Lerry mengajaknya makan malam kembali. Alasannya lapar, padahal karena bosan di rumah. Tetapi saat itu Sira sedang di gereja menemani adiknya berlatih paduan suara.

“Aku lagi ga di rumah. Ini di gereja nemenin Dora latihan. Emang segitu lapernya ya?” ketik Sira lalu sent.

“Iya, laper bets. Ku jemput ya di gereja. Dari pada kamu gabut juga disana cuma nemenin,” balas Lerry.

Sira mengiyakan. Saat Sira keluar dari gereja, ia mendapati pria yang “sedikit ia rindukan” itu sedang duduk sambil membersihkan telinga. Sira senyum-senyum, tapi agak jijik juga.

“Bzz, dasar gembel. Yok lah,” kata Lerry seraya berdiri lalu jalan menuju motor yang ia tidak jauh dari tempat ia duduk tadi. Masih sambil kucek-kucek telinganya.

“Ya, kapok siapa suruh dadakan, gembel lah. Dasar jorok,” timpal Sira yang selalu dengan nada kesal.

“Sengaja, nanti kamu suka sama aku. Aku terlalu ganteng soalnya,” balas Lerry yang buat Sira jadi berpikir. Baper. Makin sayang. Senyum. Aw.

Setelah puas menghabiskan makanan berkuah tinggi kalori, seperti biasa Lerry mengubah haluan yang lebih jauh supaya sampai ke tempat tujuan lebih lama. Tak lain karena ia ingin bercerita dengan Sira sepanjang perjalanan. Sira, ga bakal pernah nolak.

Obrolan malam itu begitu panjang. Bahkan Lerry dan Sira sudah hampir mengelilingi satu kota kecil itu. Canda tawa, obrolan serius, umpatan, olok-olokan, dan masih banyak lagi terucap di sana. Sira yang berada di balik punggung Lerry merasa begitu nyaman. Ingin rasanya Sira peluk sahabatnya itu seperti waktu kelas 12 SMA dulu yang tanpa malu-malu. Bedanya ia urungkan niat, karena kali ini perasaannya sudah tidak sama seperti dulu. Ada cinta yang sedang menodai persahabatan mereka. Tak terasa, obrolan mereka sampai ke sebuah pembahasan yang tidak diduga.

“Hmm, aku sih ga bisa berhubungan baik lagi dengan mantan. Makanya, aku males pacarin teman sendiri. Udah nyaman malah bakal kehilangan kalau putus nanti,” kata Lerry. Entah mengapa Lerry berkata seperti itu. Sira yang mendengarnya cuma bisa jawab seadanya, ia sibuk menghapus rasa “terlanjur sayang”nya dalam hati. Perkataan Lerry tadi menggores sedikit hatinya. Ia merasa salah langkah.

***

Yesterday I saw a lion kiss the deer. Turn the page, maybe we’ll find a brand new ending. Let’s get drunk on our tears and God gave us the reason, youth is wasted on the young. It’s hunting season, and the lambs are on the run searching for meaning. But are we all lost stars? Tryin’ to light up the dark?

Berulang-ulang lagu Lost Stars-nya Maroon5 Sira putar setelah sampai rumah. Semua karena Rendy, pria yang sudah ia anggap abang kandungnya. Ia mengajak Rendy bertukar pikiran lewat aplikasi pesan, temanya suka sahabat sendiri. Buat Rendy, memang tidak ada kata “sahabat” antara pria dan perempuan. Mau sehebat apapun persahabatan keduanya, pasti pernah jatuh cinta. Bullshit kalau menurut Rendy. Ia menggambarkan sahabat antara pria dan perempuan itu seperti singa yang bersahabat dengan rusa. Salah satu akan menjadi singa yang hendak menerkam rusa seiring waktu bersama. Entah itu si pria atau si perempuan, keduanya bisa menjadi singa tadi.

Sira merasa dirinya manjadi singa. Singa yang sudah hampir lapar dan berencana menerkam rusa. Ia merasa bersalah.

“Do not love him, Sir. Just do not!” kata Sira dalam hati. Ia berulang-ulang katakan itu pada dirinya sendiri dalam hati. Sepertinya Sira menemukan dirinya jatuh cinta. Tapi kali ini dia benci dengan perasaan itu. Dia merasa bodoh bisa secepat itu jatuh cinta. Sama sahabatnya sendiri lagi! Padahal dia sudah tutup rapat pintu hatinya agar tidak bisa dibuka siapapun. Ternyata kali ini dirinya sendiri yang buka pintu itu. Sungguh bodoh.

Sekelebat pikiran dan hati buat sepasang mata Sira tak tahan untuk segera mengeluarkan butiran air. Ia menangis. Kali ini bukan karena patah hati, melainkan benci kepada diri sendiri. Ia sudah tahu bagaimana ujung perasaannya nanti. Tapi ia malah putuskan untuk menikmati. Hingga akhirnya ia sadari, bahwa ia nantinya akan tetap sendiri.

“Bodoh kamu, Sir,” makinya dalam hati. Tangisannya terbawa hingga dia tertidur lelap dan menemukan tambahan kantung di bawah mata. Kini dia punya sepasang mata lelah, seperti kondisi hatinya.

***

Beberapa hari sejak di kota rantau, Lerry masih cukup sering menghubungi Sira. Begitu juga dengan Sira. Bahkan saat Sira sedang rindu-rindunya, Lerry menyapanya lewat pesan singkat. Serasa punya telepati. Hahaha. Sira sadar akan keganasannya. Tapi baginya selesaikan saja yang sudah terlanjur terjadi. Kalau memang jatuh cinta, ya sudah. Nikmati saja perasaan itu dan siap-siap patah hati. Belum lagi Mama yang setiap kali menelpon Sira selalu menanyakan kabar Lerry buat gadis itu semakin larut.

Hingga beberapa minggu berjalan, kejadian yang sudah Sira perkirakan pun terjadi. Lerry kembali bercerita bahwa dirinya di hubungi kembali oleh Ika dan sekejap kembali merajut kasih. Sira tahu itu dari Lerry sendiri. Ia mencurahkan isi hatinya itu kepada sahabat yang tanpa ia tahu sedang memendam rasa cinta juga untuknya.

“Wah, selamat ya. Yeay!” balas Sira ceria menutupi rasa hancurnya.

“Ah, andaikan aku bisa seperti Ika yang bisa selalu jadi idola,” lirih Sira sendu.

Langgeng ya, Ry. Muah. Akhir Sira setelah Lerry puas bercerita.

Sejak malam itu hingga kini, nama Ika masih tertera di status akun Line Lerry. Sedangkan Sira, masih menyulam hatinya perlahan dari luka yang ia buat sendiri. Ia harus segera mengemas serpihan-serpihan cinta yang buat dia terluka, lalu menguburnya sedalam mungkin. Sahabat jadi cinta tidak boleh berlanjut.

Sira tidak tahu apakah Lerry pernah merasakan perasaan yang sama dengan dirinya. Harap Sira sederhana, semoga dia sempat sedikit singgah di hati Lerry juga.

#bestfriend

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