#ranking subject to change in five minutes

[abarero]

{ Abarero’s Top 10 Magia Record Girls }

[story-island]

Shot From Above (Simon Riley X Fem Reader)

A/N: Hey everyone! I wrote this one as a longer piece, I might post a part two or the other half might just end up as a whole separate work, because it could be. Anyways, hope you enjoy!

Summary: You and Ghost are on the tail end of a convoy and get shot from above by helicopter. Forcing you and Ghost to get a little closer. Super fluffy aside from descriptions of gun fighting.

Warnings: Descriptions of being shot at, Car roll over, Explosions, Swearing

Word Count: 2.6K

"Ghost, we got birds!" you said to the man sitting passenger to you.

"I see that Birdie, weird being on the other side?" he asked calmly as you drove, avoiding RPG shots as you went.

"Yeah, it fucking sucks" you replied, still keeping your eyes on the road and bird.

You were known to be on one of the best helicopter support teams, so being at the receiving end of chopper fire was new to you.

"Can you get a shot on it?" you asked annoyed that he hadn't even looked out to see it better.

"No, my rounds won't make it that high and still damage enough."

Your mind was reeling, you needed to feel in control of something, everything was up in the air, and you were narrowly avoiding the shots at this point.

"Fuck okay, when they get in range, the tail is your best shot, it might spiral out of control with enough rounds." you said, feeling your anxiety grab you tighter.

"When did you start out-ranking me?" Ghost asked with only a small bit of anger in his voice.

"Um . . I don't sir"

"Then you don't tell me where to put my bullets do you"

"No sir, sorry sir, won't happen again" you said, through a voice crack.

"Don't be sorry, do better." He said coldly.

"Yes sir."

The rockets were getting closer and closer, and you were running out of road and ideas, but the silence that fell in the cab made it a little easier. That was until you miss calculated when you needed to punch it to get out of range. It was a simple mistake that anyone could have made, but it was enough to put you in some deep shit.

In a flash the front of your truck was hit, forcing you to go straight into a series of rolls. You ended up somewhere off the road, mind fuzzy and vision blurry you moved to unbuckle yourself quickly. Noticing that you were the only one in the car. Once you fell to the roof of the vehicle you knew you only had moments to kick out the glass and run for your life. But fuck did it hurt to move, you were banged up pretty bad.

Moving yourself, screaming as you kicked as hard as possible against the glass. It broke the first try, and before you could crawl out, a strong hand was pulling you out by your leg. Ghost had obviously fared better, being able to pull you up in a flash.

"Tree cover" he half yelled, forcing both of you into an all-out sprint.

Not five seconds after you made it away from the truck it exploded, almost pushing you to the ground. Still hearing shots from above, you weren't sure if they would follow you or go after the rest of your convoy. You hoped that you toyed with the Helo long enough for everyone to split up and find their own ways back to base.

"You good?" Ghost asked, breaking the silence before slowing down to a jog for your sake.

"Yeah" you said, breathlessly, thankful he slowed down a bit.

"Your bleeding" he commented, seeing a pretty nasty looking cut on your head.

"Yeah" you responded.

He caught how distant you were with the response, so instead Ghost changed the subject.

"Safe house is three miles out, keep up" he said.

"Sure thing L.T." you said, as he pushed back into a run, slightly slower than before.

The majority of the run was quiet, you were focused on the pain you were feeling, trying to push through. However, at some point you spoke up to thank Ghost for saving you.

"Thank you for getting me out, and not just leaving me in the truck" you said, breathily.

Ghost didn't respond with more than a nod in your direction. He heard you.

You weren't more than five minutes out from Ghost's safe house, but you were getting tired, and the pain was still draining you piece by piece. Eventually though you came to a small one-story building in a big clearing on a hill. It was a nice little place, with great advantage points in case of ambush.

"We stay here for the night," Ghost said, hoping through a window.

This time it was your turn not to respond, just following him into the building.

"Since you'll be up taking care of that nasty thing, why don't you take first watch." he said, dropping some of his gear in a room he seemed to claim.

"Yes sir" you stated, annoyed at him, he must be punishing you at this point.

"I'll be sleeping, wake me when you get too tired." he said, hating how silent you were.

Dropping some of your stuff you went to get a med kit and a mirror. Settling in a room with two windows that looked different ways you got comfortable. Taking a moment to take care of yourself you held the mirror up and saw how bad it looked. It was large, but not as deep as it could be. Didn't need stitches, Ghost wouldn't have made you run if it was that serious. So, you cleaned up the dried blood from your face before bandaging it for a little so it could start healing.

You were determined to have the bandage off before you went back, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. But for now, you would keep it as clean as possible. When you were done, and the med pack was put back together you finally settled in for a long night of being hard on yourself.

Being a naturally anxious person made quiet nights like this hell, having just got in trouble in the past few hours. You escaped into your mind, trying to figure out how to be better as Ghost suggested. Though it might be extreme to some you decided the best way to stop today's event from repeating was to start being quieter. The messed-up logic being that if you don't speak as much you won't accidentally order your superiors around.

You also figured it best to stay on watch for as long as possible, not wanting to meet a cranky Ghost. So, the night fell, and you watched. At some point you saw it getting lighter out, realizing it was daytime you lost any hope of getting sleep. Watching the horizon, you failed to notice the massive, but quiet Ghost behind you.

"It's morning, why didn't you wake me?" he asked, with an edge to his tone.

"I never got that tired." you lied, barely keeping a yawn in.

"Don't lie to me" he warned, stepping closer, now only a little more than a foot separating the two of you.

You didn't respond.

"Jesus Christ Y/N I am not punishing you, fucking nine hours on watch is too much when there are two of us. We talked about this not even a month ago, four-hour shifts and you wake me up." He stated, anger radiating off his body, but it didn't seem to be directed all at you.

"What do you want me to do then" you asked, looking for some way to fix the mess you were in.

"Go sleep" He ordered.

"Yes sir," you said, gathering your shit and leaving the room.

It didn't take a genius to see how tired you really were, beating yourself up in your mind all night. Finding the bed Ghost had slept in you collapsed and fell asleep in seconds. Not even bothering with the blankets. But it didn't matter because you were so deep in sleep that a bomb could have gone off and you would have slept through it.

Regardless of how tired you were, waking up in a place that you weren't supposed to be scary. Opening your eyes in a flash, and frantically looking around. Seeing Ghost driving the truck you were in, you relaxed a little.

"Where are we?" you asked in a scratchy voice.

"Back road, thirty minutes from base" Ghost replied, in a calm tone.

"How long was I out?"

"Only six hours, but I was trying not to wake you." he said, sparing you a few looks.

"Why not just wake me up? Be easier than carrying dead weight." you said, starting to feel more awake with a stretch.

"You needed rest." Ghost said, but secretly he knew something you didn't know about your sleeping habits.

When he picked you up to put you in the vehicle, you weren't dead weight, you were very clingy weight. Almost immediately wrapping your arms around his neck, not wanting to let go even after you were finally buckled in. But he wouldn't tell you, locking that memory in a vault for him to enjoy.

Nodding in response, but not liking the answer you tried to change the subject.

"So, what's happening?" you questioned.

"Managed to get in contact with Price, they secured what they needed and not casualties on our side. He was relieved to hear we were well though." Ghost responded.

"Ok, good to know."

The air went dead, neither one of you willing to break to silence. You were still trying to stay quiet, so you started picking at your nail beds.

"What, no comments to make over there?" Ghost finally managed after a few minutes.

"About what?" you asked, noting that Ghost saw you were acting differently.

"Anything, the weather, asking what we are doing next, fuck even something about how my mask is pointless from an optical perspective. Just something, you're always chatty." He said, frustrated because he wanted to hear your lighthearted voice ring through the truck.

"What if I just don't want to talk?" you asked, looking over, meeting his eyes for only a moment.

"You're making a bad habit of lying to me when it comes to you."

"I'm not lying" you bit back, starting to get snappy.

"Then what is your reason?" he pushed, not backing away from a little bark.

Looking through the window you quieted down and managed a response, but not one you wanted to give.

". . .My mouth makes me a liability, it can get me in trouble, and it did. I'm not exactly ready to go looking for more issues."

"That's what this is about? Seriously?" Ghost asked, almost sounding relieved that it wasn't something worse.

"Yeah" you said, feeling small because of his reaction.

"I was reminding you of your place, not telling you to shut up."

"You're still my superior sir, I shouldn't run my mouth, it's disrespectful." you tried to defend. Knowing full well it was a terrible defense at best.

" You know damn well that's bullshit. We are on a team; I need everyone at one hundred percent. I know for a fact when you aren't talking, you're mentally tearing yourself apart. That can't happen in the field." Ghost explained.

"How . . . Soap that mother fucker" you said, hearing your own words against you. Only telling Soap that when you're quiet you're usually not doing good on the inside.

"Don't blame him, I would have gotten that information eventually."

"Why do you even care?" you asked, managing to look back over at your L.T.

"Do I need to repeat myself?" he asked, giving you another glance.

"No, you need me at the top of my game in the field."

"There you go" he said, almost in a protective tone like a father might say it to his kids.

"Then what do you want to do about it?" you asked, knowing Ghost probably wouldn't go for what you actually needed.

"I'm not in your head, what do you need?"

"Ghost, I can't ask those things of you" you said, looking to your lap.

"Do I have to order you?" he asked with a firmer tone.

"You really want to know?"

"Jesus, just spit it out."

"Pull over" you said, knowing it was pushing an order.

Ghost just nodded and did as you asked. Now stopped he gave you his full attention. Taking a deep breath, you told him.

"I need to hear you say that you don't hate me . . . and a hug."

You met his gaze and saw something in his eyes, some sort of understanding, and not a single ounce of rejection. Even still you felt the need to walk back your words.

"I can go to Soap if you don't want to," you said.

"No, it wouldn't mean as much from him."

Only managing to hum in agreement with the man. Looking back to his eyes he spoke.

"Y/N, I do not hate you . . . I actually quite enjoy your company." Ghost spoke, letting the British slip through a little more than usual.

His words caused tears to well in your eyes, never spilling over, but noticeably there.

"Thank you"

"Now get out of this vehicle and come get your hug." he said with warm eyes.

Practically jumping out of the truck you ran over to Ghost's side, where he stood, towering over you. Not even waiting for a confirmation that you could touch him, you leaped up, giving him a koala hug. Ghost was shocked but he had found his hands under your butt as you clung to him.

"Ok there, you Koala we need to get back on the road" Ghost teased, before letting you drop back to the ground.

"Yes sir!" you responded suddenly feeling so many different emotions.

Back on your game, you leaped into the truck with a smile on your face.

"Feeling better?" he asked after you were driving again.

"Much, thanks again Ghost."

"You know you can come to me, right? It doesn't just have to be Soap" he said, glancing in your direction again.

Ghost was watching you, he didn't usually keep looking over. Normally he would just drive, but you could see that something was different. So, when you responded you tried to match the weird vibe, he was giving off.

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind . . . you know the mask isn't a bad thing, even if it isn't practical."

Taking a moment to let your words sink in a little, Ghost responded.

"You never wonder what's under it?"

"I never said that, but I figure it has to do with your issues, just like I have mine. Regardless, it's still a version of you . . . I still get to know a piece of you." you finished off quieter than you started, but Ghost heard you.

"That's a nice way to think of it," he said, soothingly.

You hummed in agreement and turned to the window, looking out to see a sunny, cloudless sky.

"You know, the sun is nice, but the sky is much prettier with clouds." You said, not meaning for it to be deep, but Ghost held your words close to his heart.

"Sounds like a good motto for life," he said.

"I suppose it is," you agreed with a smile.

The rest of the drive back to base was quiet aside from your little comments. It was nice, for both of you. So, when the base finally came into view you couldn't help but be a little sad you won't be able to spend more time with the man.

Sadly, you couldn't stop time, so you climbed out of the truck and greeted the rest of the team with a smile. Ghost seemed to disappear the second you didn't have an eye on him. Probably off to his room. But that was ok, you were happy with the small moment you shared in the privacy of that vehicle. Only hoping you would have the chance to see more of him in the future.

[mariacallous]

The collapse of the Afghan state amid the United States’ withdrawal in 2021 gifted the new Taliban government with more than $7 billion worth of U.S. military equipment. Afghanistan’s new overlords suddenly found themselves with fleets of Humvees, mountains of machine guns, and forests of radars and satellite dishes. The vast hardware hoard also included dozens of aircraft: a motley mix of Hind and Blackhawk helicopters, cargo planes, and close air support props.

Before the Taliban even had time to inventory their new arsenal, Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim Nash’at arrived in Kabul. From his home in Berlin, he had seen the scenes of civilians storming Kabul’s international airport in a desperate attempt to flee, and he had managed to obtain permission to come to Afghanistan and film. But his plan—to record the suffering of ordinary Afghans—was swiftly dashed. Accompanied by a Taliban minder at all times and forbidden to film anyone other than a Taliban commander and his men, Nash’at was forced to switch tack. That commander happened to be Mawlawi Mansour, the Taliban fighter in charge of creating a new Taliban air force from the equipment and pilots who were left behind.

Under orders from Mansour, Nash’at became the unexpected chronicler of a high-profile facet of Afghanistan’s regime change. The result is Hollywoodgate, a 90-minute documentary named after the sprawling U.S. base in Kabul, where the Taliban created their new air force after U.S. forces fled. In a total of seven months in the new Afghanistan and assisted only by a lone translator, Nash’at shot 220 hours of footage, later culled down with a team of five producers and nine Afghan translators. Overcoming his subjects’ extreme suspicion, Nash’at managed eventually to blend into Taliban meetings, inspections, and military missions, becoming so invisible that his subjects forgot about his camera and relaxed.

Mansour takes command of the former U.S. air base and immediately sets to work. He inspects his new force and is impressed by the scale of U.S. resources. But he is appalled by their Spartan aesthetics; “plant some trees here” is a constant command to scurrying subordinates as Mansour strides across the base. Taliban conversations show a sudden inversion: Off-screen holdouts against the new regime are “the insurgents” opposed by “our special forces.”

For Mansour’s men, the order of the day is repairing aircraft, many of which were purposely disabled by departing U.S. forces. After a perfunctory grilling, a handful of pilots from the old Afghan air force are welcomed into the new force. (Many others had fled with their aircraft to neighboring countries.) Training new Taliban pilots will take time, but Mansour gets a course up and running, his lecturers aided by a cardboard mock-up of a cockpit.

Women are immediately pushed to the margins of the new Afghanistan. With a whiff of amusement at their past effrontery, Mansour dictates that women in his ministry may return to work, but only if they are veiled. His own wife, he brags to his staff, is a doctor, but he restricted her to the home upon marriage.

The mood among Mansour’s future Taliban airmen is upbeat. We see low-ranking fighters exulting in their victory over the Americans and “the Jews.” An ambitious lieutenant is showered in confetti to celebrate his acceptance into the new air force academy. A gleeful door guard flags every comrade passing him in the hall with his U.S.-made M-4 rifle—the cocktail of frivolity and danger that characterizes many an insurgency or militia in the poorest parts of the world.

At times, the new overlords can verge on endearing. Mansour and his men visit the base’s well-appointed gym, where one Talib struggles to press a pair of dumbbells above his head. The boss steps on a treadmill and happily plods along, ordering one sent to his home “to make my belly smaller.”

I witnessed a very similar scene when I was deployed to Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine more than a decade ago. When we handed over a coalition patrol base to one of the Afghan government’s paramilitary forces, the incoming commander breezed by the fortifications, operations center, and mess hall. But a derelict elliptical trainer in our sandy outdoor gym fascinated him. He hopped aboard with a big grin and churned away, to the bemusement of the handful of watching Marines.

Outside the tight circle in which he was permitted to film, Nash’at was far less welcome, he told me in an interview this summer. In his wordless brushes with Afghan civilians, he felt indicted by their stares. He was convinced that they saw him as an Arab propagandist—a voyeur who had come to Afghanistan to see and celebrate the Taliban’s triumph.

Despite the restrictions placed on him as an outsider, Nash’at managed to get glimpses of ordinary Afghan life. Children occasionally appear onscreen, and we get a sense of the extent to which they have been formed and traumatized by a lifetime of war. Hanging on a tow ring of a hulking mine-resistant vehicle, one boy in a camouflage shalwar kameez mumbles that he will “take a weapon and kill you all.”

After months of maintenance, training, and reorganization, Mansour gets his triumph. Toward the end of Nash’at’s filming, the Taliban stage a military parade for their own men and a handful of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian dignitaries. After a show of marching infantry, armored vehicles, and a battalion intended for suicide bombing on motorcycles, Hinds and Blackhawks fly past the grandstand. It’s a successful first operation for the Taliban’s new air force, even if the fly-by is bit too fast for Mansour’s liking.

In the film’s final scene, Mansour is seen on his cell phone berating an official at the Tajikistan Defense Ministry for harboring the Taliban’s enemies. Nash’at told me he believes that many Taliban have aims beyond Afghanistan’s borders. One high-ranking leader told him, “I can’t wait until we conquer Egypt.” The Taliban believe they and their forebears have turned Afghanistan into the graveyard of empires, defeating the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and now the United States. One fighter exults that “with American weapons we will rule the world!”

Whatever their intentions, the film also leaves viewers skeptical of the Taliban’s ability to wield meaningful military power. Like many journalists since then, Nash’at immediately picked up on the boredom among the Taliban fighters that followed on the heels of military victory. While negotiating Kabul’s traffic in a sedan just weeks after the city’s fall, one of Mansour’s lieutenants tells the filmmaker that he already longs for war: the return of the Americans, 500 bullets, and martyrdom. Late in the film, an enthusiastic crowd of Taliban tries to pile into an aircraft for a VIP test flight and are beaten off with curses by Mansour’s men. Afghanistan’s new rulers are likely to have their hands full just keeping discipline among their own former fighters.

Nash’at likened the realities of governing after fighting to coming down from a narcotic high. Building a bureaucracy seems much harder work than winning a war. Staff meetings and wrangling over budgets are a poor substitute for ambushes and assaults. Early in the film, one Talib waxes nostalgic for the life of an insurgent, showing Nash’at the cave he and a few other men took refuge in.

Despite his fear and disgust of the Taliban, Nash’at believes that the West should engage them. He said that if they are ignored, they will act out for the world’s attention, to the detriment of their own people and the region. But he harbors no illusions that such engagement will yield swift changes in the character of the Taliban.

With Hollywoodgate, now streaming after a limited theatrical release, Nash’at may not have made the film he originally set out to make. The suffering of the Afghan people was walled off from him. The Taliban’s strictures confined him to a narrow lane and, as he notes in an introductory voice-over, to the story they wanted to tell the world. But if the Taliban thought that they had put Nash’at on a short enough leash to force him to produce a piece of propaganda for the new regime, they were mistaken, too.

After Mansour’s air show, Taliban secret police demanded that Nash’at come to their office and show them all of his footage. As he told IndieWire in an interview, he knew then that his work was done: “I was filming the transformation of a militia into a military regime, and I realized at that moment the transformation was complete.” Through empathy, patience, and not a little audacity, Nash’at succeeded in capturing a story of Afghan nation-building—but a far different one than almost any Westerner could have imagined 20 years before.

[princess-of-the-corner]

, https://www.tumblr.com/princess-of-the-corner/754856715983421440/chloe-is-the-mlb-version-of-rwbys-weiss-except?source=share

While I get the comparison it also doesn't really work.

Weiss is, like all the major characters, a subversion of the archetype she's introduced to the audience with.

IE, Weiss is the "Ice queen", cold, aloof, haughty, from a powerful family in a place that doesn't encourage emotions, with a very pale color pallet and such. Plus a bit of tsundere for a spice, who wishes to live up to the incredibly high expectations of her name an social rank.

That's the archetype. I'm sure you can pick that which is familiar trope wise out.

Weiss the actual character on the other is very different.

For one she does not give two flying shits about her cold and emotionally abusive father, she expressly went to college on another continent to get out of his influence & wants to undo the ruination his corruption brought to her idea of the Schnee family's honor. Something explicitly endorsed by her older sister.

Secondly her tsundere and cold aspects are very much a mixture of trauma responses and cultural conditioning. Both f which ease right the hell off once she's in a safe environment with people she trusts. She can still be a bit regal sounding but she's actually one of the overall gentler characters, whose irritation manifest more in a "Done with this" vibe than anger.

Thirdly she didn't really require a redemption arc, not exactly.

I have a whole essay the subject of redemption arcs elsewhere but broadly speaking one needs todo like, a notable amount wrong and go through a fairly heavy degree of change for something to be an arc.

Weiss was one of the heroes right from the start, she was just temperamental and prideful but again once in a none toxic environment was able to scale that back relatively easily. Her other notable issue was defaulting to derogatory language in regards to Faunus she expressly associated with crimes.

However, this was not something she did in regards to Faunus in general. & its also made clear from the framing that the only time during the episodes dealing with this. That we were meant to be sympathetic to her was when she tethered her anger at the White Fang (Who represent criminal Faunus in her brain cos she grew up very isolated from regular people) which can spill over into other 'rule/law breaking' Faunus is specifically rooted in how much her father fury and anger impacted her as a child.

IE, she was working around those negative feelings by pushing them onto a socially acceptable scapegoat so her father could just be like, a scummy businessman and not someone who scared or hurt her. This is especially obvious seeing as Weiss references his anger from when she was a small child, despite the fact the very next episode establishes that the White Fang had only been committing crimes/evolutionary actions for five years. Meaning the anger she saw as a child was just him being pissed off about human rights protests and taking it out on those around him.

But regardless, while rather, clumsily handled at the time, in large part cos of a show string budget and like 9 minute episodes during the first volume. She was able to resolve her main conflict with Blake and broadly chill out on the subject before the first volume wrapped up and barring some untoward language in one conversation had never done anything that'd require like, an arc, is my point,

Beyond that, om other area they are very distinct characters in is that Chloe was taught or learned from example to imitate her parents, cheating, cruel words and all.

Weiss very expressly modelled herself after her grander, even weaving bright reds into the interior of her white clothes as that color was tied to Nicholas (Yes Saint Nick) Who was comparatively extremely noble type. So she was a stickler for rules and intensely workaholic about it.

Basically, barring being rich and having shitty parents whose abuse or neglect led to them being a varying degrees of sharp with people there's not much to compare I feel.

Also the parental dynamics are very different, but that's a whole other post.

I do think Weiss's personal experience and wisdom gained across the series would make her an ideal person to easily handle Chloe at her more prickly though.

Fascinating.

[fancyfeathers]

Society of Protection (Yandere Bungo Stray Dogs x reader x original characters) (normalized yandere au)

Chapter Seven

Two Sides, Part Two

You all have chosen A.) Gaston and Dr. Stevenson have a meeting scheduled with high ranking Japanese government officials, the vice minister of the Ministry of Justice, Tonan, who may be willing you listen to your Society about some change

Prologue and oc intro

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven, part one

“Gaston and Dr. Stevenson .”

Miss Jane nodded and looked over to the the two on the opposite couch for approval and Gaston nodded in approval. “Very well then, I suppose I’ll be off with Alexandre and Victor. I am quite handy with a hand gun.” Miss Jane said, smoothing her gown, “besides my ability isn’t well suited for combat.”

Now that you think about it, you have never seen or even heard about Miss Jane’s ability besides in passing that she has one at the very least

So now you decide to ask. “Miss Jane, if I may ask, what is your ability?” 

The room fell silent and everyone turned to Miss Jane, except Dr. Stevenson who leaned back on her seat, her eyes shut, a smile on her face, and her hands folded in her lap. Miss Jane also smiled but she walked over to you, peeling off her silk gloves as she did so. She extended her hand to you for you to take. “If you may, touch my hand.” As she said this you got a worried expression on your face. She noticed this and gave a little chuckle. “It’s alright, I won’t hurt you.”

You trusted her words so you placed your hand in her own and immediately you felt a relaxing pulse flow through your body, washing away all your stress and fear you had building up with in you for the last few weeks.You saw a light flow admitting from where Miss Jane’s flesh touched your own. You tried to wonder what was going on but your mind felt far too muddled to think. Then Miss Jane released your hand and put her glove back on, your mind returned to you but of course you still felt so calm, so calm, almost unnaturally so. There was a hum heard from over the couch, Dr. Stevenson. “Miss Jane’s ability, Pride and Prejudice, when she touches someone she is able to read their emotions and thoughts and manipulate their thoughts and emotions as long as she is in physical contact with them.” 

“Yes, but it doesn’t last very long though after its usage, its effect on you will probably only last a few minutes.” Jane added with a bit of an embarrassed smile. “I may be the leader of the Society but my gift is the weakest out of us all.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Jane. You know what your gift can do.” Gaston stepped in with a push of his glasses, the light reflecting off them just right so that you couldn’t see his eyes. “It’s how she got away from Fitzgerald, she used it to the point of nearly passing out to sedate him. From what I heard he was in a haze for almost two days.”

“Yes, but Gaston remember if it wasn’t for Dr. Stevenson being nearby I would have passed out myself or worse.” Miss Jane stepped back over to the table in between the couches and picked up a cream file and handed it over to Victor. “Changing the subject now, this is your case. It contains photos of the the individuals you will be keeping an eye on.“ Victor opened the file, looking it over and then tucking it away in his bag that he kept at his feet. Miss Jane then looked at you, Gaston, and Dr. Stevenson. “Dr. Stevenson is in charge on this mission. It is a simple meeting with Mr. Tonan.”

Gaston stood up, dusting off his jacket. Me reached into his pocket and jailed out a set of keys with a smile. “Alright, but I’m driving.”

—————————

The drive to the the government building Mr. Tonan’s office was in was quick enough, Gaston drove and surprisingly he was a very good driver. On the way there you watched Dr. Stevenson go over her notes, seemingly nervous for a meeting, apparently Gaston noticed it as well and spoke as he drove. “Doctor, don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”

She sighed and set her notes down. She reached a hand up and rubbed her temples as if she had a headache. “Yes but Louis would be much better at this than I.”

“Louis is an ability, not an actual person.” Gaston snapped back, almost scolding the doctor, his eyes still firmly fixed on the road. “Your ability is not you as a person, it is just an extension of yourself.”

“Louis? Is that your ability?” You questioned, stepping into the conversation. The doctor nodded looked back at you from her front seat. 

“Yes, my ability is called The Strange Case, call it… giving birth to another personality of mine for lack of better phasing. Letting my alter ego take form via my shadow.” She looked away from you, her eyes back to her notes, rereading them over again. “Do not ask me to use it unless the situation is dire, she tends to be a bit… insane.”

—————————

You three arrived at the government building without a problem. Gaston had parked the car out front, making it not too far of a walk from the building to the car in case anything did go horribly wrong. You three made your way inside where of course with most government meetings you had to fill out a form, and wait… and wait… and wait. Until finally a young man with black hair came over to you all, he looked like somewhat of an assistant but something… some small thing felt off about him, maybe it was his smile? You didn’t know but you weren’t the only one to notice, you glanced over at Gaston and his eyes were fixed on this man with almost of a glare. The man came up to you all and extended his hand to each of you. “I am so sorry for the wait, I’m Mr, Tonan’s assistant and you must be Dr. Stevenson…” he gave the doctor’s hand a firm shake before letting you and his eyes fixed on Gaston. “You’re the famous Gaston Leroux of the Paris Opera, can I just say how big of a fan I am. Your work is something of the angels.” He said shaking Gaston’s hand with an enthusiastic laugh and smile… then he turned his unsettling smile to you and extended his hand to you. “And you are?”

Something about his voice gave you chills as you extended a hand back to him. “(N-Name)”

“Well that’s a very lovely name, Miss (Name).” The assistant shook your hand with a firm shake and that same unsettling smile. After a long moment of silent staring at you with that same uncomfortable expression he turned back to the rest of the group. “Now if you would just follow me, Mr. Tonan is waiting for you in his office.”

You three followed him down the halls of the buildings, both Gaston and Dr, Stevenson picked up on his strange behavior so Gaston stepped in front of you and the doctor stayed at you side, all of their eyes fixed on him. He lead you to a large office where an older man was waiting for you, he was a bit on the heavier side but still seemed kind, genuinely kind, not like his strange assistant. You assumed this man was Mr. Tonan from how he treated Gaston and Dr, Stevenson with a friendly greeting like old friends, but everything they said fell on deaf ears to you because you could feel the assistant’s smile and eyes on the back of your head. It wasn’t until you heard Gaston introducing you to Mr. Tonan that your mind snapped back into reality. 

Mr. Tonan had some tea brought up for you all as you talked and over all Mr. Tonan seemed very receptive your case and when you brought up the break in at your apartment he expressed genuine concern. “Honestly I stand with you with how our system is set up. That is why I took this position in office. I have been friends with Miss Jane for years and when she told me about your society a few weeks ago you know what I said, I said, finally someone is taking the action that needs to be done.”

“You don’t know how much that means to us, Mr. Tonan.” The doctor said with an excited smile. “So you’ll help us?”

Mr. Tonan nodded with a wide smile. “I will certainly try. You are good folk and your cause is just.” He paused and frowned, his expression changing from one of hope and excitement to one of worry and dread. “I must warn you that what you want to achieve will be dangerous, people will try to dig up your pasts to exploit you. You’ll need to prepare for what comes next and-“

“Dig our heels into the ground. Trust us, we know.” You cut Mr. Tonan off, finishing his sentence. “Sir, in the last few weeks I have encountered members of the Guild, Port Mafia, and Armed Detective Agency. Two of which threatened me the last of which tried to convince me that this wasn’t a big deal and I shouldn’t worry my pretty head about it and you know what I took it, I took their threats and words and just stayed silent. I don’t want to be silent anymore, because this is my life.”

“I couldn’t agree more. For now we need to build a case.” Mr. Tonan reaches into his desk and pulls out an ordinary cream paper file. “Miss (Name), I’m going to ask you to be a lab rat in this case. Any time something happens to you. You are going to document it and place it in here in either words or photos. Be as descriptive as you can. If we gather enough evidence we could stop this once and for all. I know this is scary and you don’t have to do this if you don’t wish to but-“

“I’m in.”

“Very well, I’ll have my assistant to stay in touch with you then, you can report things to him that you document. If we play our cards right, then their actions will destroy themselves. They’ll eat each other alive.”

—————————

During the rest of your meeting, Mr. Tonan’s assistant slipped out into the hall and walked it a bit, out of ear shot from everyone. He pulled out a phone from his back pocket and dialed up a number, a wicked smile, more sinister than before comes across his face as the person answered. The assistant spoke, completely dropping the fake accent he used, going that that of one more European in origin. “Dostoy, seems there is a bit of trouble brewing from your little мышь. Seems like she’s aligned herself with that French composer, what was it you called him… oh yes, the angel of music.”

There was a chuckle on the other end of the line and then the voice of a Russian man responded. “Oh really? I should have expected something from him after all these years. No one like him simply gives up. Seems like this game is going to get interesting.”

—————————

After the meeting you all made your way back to the car, hearts feeling full and a new found spring in your step. You finally had hope that things would change for the better for once.  Gaston himself held his head up high and the Dr. was no longer nervous like she was in the car, looking over her notes overly so. “So Gaston, what’s our next game plan? I over heard you and Miss Jane talking about something in her office last night.” Dr. Stevenson questioned her French friend. Gaston smiled, the sort of smile that was scheming but not in the evil sort of way.

“Easy, we’ll gonna see what we can do about an alliance with the Armed Detective Agency and the Port Mafia, if all of us work together we’ll unstoppable against the Guild. I honestly can’t wait to see the look on…”

Then you saw it, on a roof top nearby. It was a man… holy fuck that was a sniper, aiming right at Gaston. As Gaston spoke you began to run in an attempt to push him out of the way and then…

BANG!

As you pushed him to the ground to felt a burning pain sear through your left leg. You let out a loud scream as you toppled to he ground, Gaston beneath you. Dr. Stevenson was. The second to notice where the sniper was and she pulled you and Gaston up, carrying you to the car and leaving the composer to his own devices. She threw you into the back seat along with herself. In your pain you didn’t notice Gaston quite literally walk through the car like a ghost and into his seat where he materialized fully and stepped on the gas, trying to put as much distance between you all and here. You were laid on the back seat row of the car and Dr. Stevenson reached into her bag and pulled out a first aid kit. She took a cloth and bandages and placed the cloth on top of your bullet wound. 

“I need to stop the bleeding, I can get the bullet out at the apartment with my equipment there. Fuck how did this happen.” She said that last bit under her breath as she started to wrap the bandages around your leg, this made you cry out in pain but she squeezed your hand to help you deal with the pain. “Gaston, do you have any clue who did that?”

“The Guild, no doubt in my mind. They were after me, I’m the one who keeps out society’s secrets well hidden. Fitzgerald told Alexandre and Victor that he would exploit us until none of us had a cent left to out names, all of us. With me in the way he can’t find shit out on any of us, he doesn’t know about you in the war, he doesn’t know about me, he doesn’t know about Alexandre’s family, he doesn’t know shit besides me standing in his way.” Gaston made a rather sharp turn as he spoke. “As for the sniper, his name is Mark Twain I believe. I don’t know much about his ability unfortunately, I just remember Miss Jane talking to be about him joining the Guild not to long before she escaped.”

“Noted, for now just drive, I have a new patient it seems…” Dr. Stevenson��s words became hazy as you fell unconscious.

—————————

Meanwhile Alexandre,  I for had run into the Guild members, John Steinbeck and H.P. Lovecraft, trying to kidnap two girls, they were able to team up with two members of the armed detective agency, Junichiro and Kunikida, to help the girls get away. While Junichiro and Kunikida kept Steinbeck and Lovecraft busy, Alexandre, Victor, and Miss Jane, helped them run and board a train, fending off vines that came from Steinbeck’s ability. They boarded the train with the girls, Miss Jane helped calm them down with her ability when a little boy ran right into  them. 

“Oh I’m sorry little one.” Miss Jane said looking over at the boy. They were a strange looking child, wild eyes, two colored hair, and a horrific looking doll. They child looked over to Miss Jane with a curious smile.

“Did you say sorry?” The child asked and Miss Jane nodded. The child looked at her with a smile. “I should apologize, are you hurt.”

Miss Jane and the child whose name was Q, or nickname anyway, got along splendidly. He absolutely adored her accent and her old fashion personality, he said it reminded him of a princess. Alexandre and Victor were talking to the girls, Naomi and Kirako, making sure they were okay and just reviewing over the situation, making sure they had a safe place to go. Apparently they had members of the Armed Detective Agency picking them up at the next stop, which was also the place where the Society had their car that was waiting for them. Soon the train came to a stop and everyone got off the train, Q holding onto Miss Jane’s hand, dragging her along like mother and child. Waiting at the stop was a young man, he had whitish gray hair, with interesting eyes, purple and yellow. He ran up to the two girls wondering if they’re okay. Apparently the two girls were clerks at the Armed Detective Agency. 

“Honestly if it wasn’t for Kunikida and Junichiro as well as our new friends we wouldn’t have had escaped.” Naomi said gesturing to Miss Jane, Alexandre, and Victor. “Atsushi, this is Jane, Alexandre, and Victor. They’re visiting from Europe.”

“Thank you so much ma’am, sirs.” Atsushi said, bowing slightly. Alexandre shook his head and waved Atsushi off.

“It’s alright, just doing the right thing. Also don’t call me sir, I’m probably not that much older than you, kid.” Alexandre said, tucking his hands in his pockets. “Just call me Alexandre.”

Q let go of Miss Jane’s hand and walked up to Atsushi, bumping into him. As Atsushi went to go look down at Q, he began to unroll his sleeve, revealing razor blades taped to his arm. Miss Jane screamed at this sight. They all watched Q tear their doll in hair and a look of madness came across Atsushi’s face, blood coming out of his eyes. He ram to strangle Kirako, but Alexandre and Victor began to restrain him, grabbing each of his arm. Miss Jane ran towards Q, touching him on his cheek, at least weakening his hold on Atsushi. All three society members knew at that moment that this child was insane. Atsushi clawed, literary clawed, at Alexandre and Victor, like cat. In all this panic a young man came forward and grabbed the doll with one hand and touched Miss Jane’s shoulder with the other, disabling both Q’s and Miss Jane’s ability, it was Dazai.

Miss Jane collapsed at that time as Q ran off back onto the train that was starting up again, but before she hit the stone, Dazai caught her, holding her up as he glared at the child. “Mr. Dazai’s friends are so weak, they broke so easily. But that’s fine, cause I’ll be saving Mr. Dazai for last.”

The rest of the conversation went in one ear and out the other for the society members as Victor and Alexandre ran to Miss Jane’s side, helping her get back up after the large use of her ability, taking her away from Dazai. Victor gave Dazai a nod as they walked off, but Dazai grabbed Victor by the wrist and pulled him back to whisper. “I know Gaston is planning on making an alliance with us, just remember nothing comes for free, nothing.”

—————————

Everyone finally returned to the headquarters and Victor and Alexandre sat down with Miss Jane to get her something to drink. At the same time you were waking up in Dr. Stevenson’s office, your leg bandaged up, Gaston and Dr. Stevenson by your side. Gaston was the first to notice you were awake, rushing over to you and hugging you, squeezing the life out of you. 

“What were you thinking? I could have gotten out of the way, you worried us so much.” You felt something wet on your shoulder and you realized he was crying. “Don’t do that again.”

“Luckily it’s only a wound, nothing broken. The bullet did cut through some nerves that allow movement in your leg so you’re gonna be in that wheelchair for the foreseeable future.” Dr. Stevenson added and sighed when she saw Gaston wasn’t letting go. “Gaston, let (Name) breathe.”

He let go and you saw his face tear stained, you reached a hand up and whipped his face off. “Don’t cry music man.”

Dr. Stevenson helped you into a wheelchair soon after to get you back into your room to rest in a more comfortable space. As she rolled you down the hall you heard the front door of the building open and close, and quite a few footsteps walking in. Dr. Stevenson’s eyes narrowed and she quickly made her way to Jane’s apartment where everyone had gathered. “Miss Jane, did you hear that?”

Miss Jane nodded, this was only odd because everyone who lived here was in one room. Then when she was about to saw something there was a knock at the door. Miss Jane looked at the maid, Joan and gestured for her to open it. So Joan went to the front entry, opened the door and you heard a gasp as someone walked in. Everyone looked at each other with worried eyes. Then… you heard Miss Jane drop her tea cup and it shatter on the floor. You all saw a few people who came here uninvited, but in front of them all was a man, a blond man in his thirties and dressed up to the nines. There was a look of horror on Miss Jane’s face and he walked up towards her, like he lived her. He went up to her side, grabbed her chin and made her look at him.

“Hello Zelda.”

…The Guild had found you all

[thebaffledcaptain]

Things that happened at the 2024 Mount Harmon Plantation Rebels and Redcoats Tactical Event

as recounted by a humble fifer light infantryman of His Majesty’s 22nd Regiment of Foot, for his own records:

Thanks to the weather forecast and the distance of the event, the 22nd had a whopping turn out of four men. Originally I had planned to do field music but the sergeant agreed that it was kind of pointless for such a small group, so, in a last minute change of plans, I had the opportunity to do my second new impression in as many weeks as 22nd light infantry??

We don’t even officially have a light infantry company for our unit anymore. This was the regiment’s only light kit, which we only recently put together for use at display events, so I felt very honored getting to christen it on the battlefield.

Officially speaking our battalion was "on reserve" in the morning, according to orders. However, this being a tactical event, obviously that was subject to change. The bets at how long we would stay on reserve came in at about 15 minutes.

We were on reserve for maybe five minutes.

The Doodles came in fast and also didn't feel much like playing by the rules (which were that if you were outnumbered, you were supposed to fall back lest you get killed or taken prisoner). Instead they camped at one end of a footbridge and heckled us while we had them bottlenecked for a good half hour.

For some reason the 22nd lads were all put in the second rank despite being the three shortest people on the company.

The good Sergeant brought his little carbine for me to use, figuring that, being the regiment’s resident Small Person, I would have less trouble with it than with a standard Model 2.

Overall I would agree it was more comfortable for me. My file partner from the 7th, however, was very patient as I struggled to fire from the second rank with a gun that was six inches shorter than everyone else’s and a height that was about a head shorter than his, too.

Established some pretty formidable fortifications by propping up a picnic table in front of the footbridge. No gabions necessary.

At one point our company led a bayonet charge against the Rebels still sitting at the end of this footbridge (and VASTLY outnumbered by British forces, mind you). The Doodles attempted a volley where only about four muskets went off but for some reason our entire company "died" because... well, we were attempting to play by the rules...

According to said rules, we were later miraculously revived by our commander with the Holy and Sacred Incantation "I Shalleth Liveth Forever Ressurectus."

Nearly lost the Sergeant to the Foreman Creek when he leaned back a little too hard on a fence that was a little too flimsy. His first reaction was “SAVE THE HAT! IT’S WORTH MORE THAN ME!” so you can imagine he was fine.

I admit that I, too, gasped about his hat before I vocalized any concern about him, as much as I care about him, but clearly we were on the same page.

The hat was fine, too, by some miracle. Thank goodness.

At one point two of the 22nd lads decide to run everyone’s canteens back up to camp along with a message for headquarters. This was a kind gesture until they ran straight into a group of Doodles and were never seen again for the rest of the battle. We could only assume the poor lads got captured… along with everyone’s water.

Initially I was unsure whether I would regret not sending my canteen with them to be refilled but as it turns out that was the best decision I could have possibly made. It was 83 degrees that day.

Eventually the 22nd sergeant takes his leave from us for Real Life Health Reasons which means I am now the only Cheshire in our battalion, having (presumably) lost both my comrades to the Rebels. I had never fallen out with the 7th guys until this weekend but they’re a nice group and I’m glad I was stuck with them and not… some of the other units.

The 7th guys, almost none of which now had water, spent the aftermath of the battle desperately asking around for any sign of the canteens, never mind the lads who took them…

Got back to camp and couldn’t find the rest of my regiment. After a while I stumbled across the Sergeant who appeared, to me, to have spawned like an NPC under a tree I had already passed multiple times.

Maybe 20 minutes later the Canteen Lads materialize seemingly out of thin air. I ask them how they managed to escape and they inform me they were never captured in the first place?

In a wild turn of events they managed to make a run for it and escape unscathed when that group of Doodles closed in, making it back to camp and bringing word to headquarters to send reinforcements… so it turns out they were the reason our battalion managed to escape from our position behind our picnic table fortification.

Unfortunately this also meant we were permanently separated from them for the rest of the battle because we were not remotely in the same place as when they left us, so evidently they just sat around until the coast was clear, with all the canteens, while we marched out to route the rest of the Doodles. The sort of stuff you only get at tacticals.

Once we were reunited it immediately became Regimental Nap Time. Every one of us just laid in the grass and slept for like an hour. It’s about the simple pleasures of life.

Both spoiled and not spoiled in terms of food this weekend. Being a group of only four, we had a dinner that exclusively consisted of random bits of cheese and bread and rotisserie chicken, which frankly was fine by me, but by no means our most elaborate meal.

However, the Sergeant seems to have taken up baking recently, and brought us a wonderful apple pie which we ate for dessert.

...and also breakfast the next day (with a bit of Skellig cheese, a new favorite of ours... would highly recommend). I mean, it beats burgoo (18th century style oatmeal) (though I am rather fond of burgoo).

Got to complete what I consider a reenactor rite of passage by using a bayonet as a bottle opener only to realize it was a screw top the whole time.

Made a friend of mine cry via sad 18th century music, which I consider more of an honor than anything else. She was fine, if anyone was worried, only expressing an emotion I too resonate with on a deep level (the Sad 18th Century Music Emotion).

The Rebels were out bright and early the next day—too bright and early for many of our tastes—as we had not received orders nor even eaten our breakfasts yet by the time we spotted them from camp.

It made for some cool maneuvers though so I can’t complain. My brother-in-arms sniped a stubborn Doodle who refused to fall with the rest of his unit. In the end I’m not sure if it was his own moral conscience or the hearty “DIE REBEL BASTARD!” that got him to stand down.

Ran a good bayonet charge at some Rebels who were confident they had us in a pincer maneuver only to discover we had already picked off the other half of said pincer.

In the meantime our commander interviewed our captives, asking questions such as “so, how did you feel when you saw you were being bayonet charged?” “on a scale from one to ten, how likely would you be to recommend this bayonet charge?” and “what was the scariest part—was it the Fusilier feathers, the light infantry [referring to me, the sole light infantryman in the battalion…] or the bayonets?”

The answer to this question was “the fifer.”

As a fifer myself (on most occasions) I am compelled to say this was the correct answer.

This event ended far too soon, partially because we simply routed the Rebels so thoroughly there was no point in continuing. The “war” was over by 10 am, which was far too early to leave, by my standards, so the Cheshires stuck around for a little longer to eat our yet unfinished breakfast.

In a very typical move, my brother-in-arms and I were the very last people to leave the site. Neither of us could be persuaded to leave any earlier than we possibly had to and spent a good amount of time procrastinating by helping the sergeant pack up all his stuff instead of dealing with our own.

In the end we were about five minutes too slow—we had managed to generally skirt the rain for the entire weekend until the very last couple minutes taking down the tent, during which it started suddenly pouring. To me, this seemed like a sign that we had gone as far as we could and now it was probably time to leave the 18th century, something I am always loathe to do, but alas… at least we can say we didn’t waste a second of it.

[fallen-in-dreams]

CHAPTER NINE on AO3.

Chapters on Tumblr: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

Pairing: Gaara/Sakura.

Summary: Her descent into madness came after her friends were all dead and before she was sold off like livestock. To him. He knew a thing or two about madness. And there was peace to be found in the violence of that madness. Even if only for a time. Canon divergence AU.

Rated: Mature.

Chapter word count: 9,004.

Status: Ongoing.

Reminder: the tags/warnings are important.

Warnings: dark themes. Arranged marriage (not what you think). Eventual smut (level and degree of that warning being necessary is subjective). Death. Suicide talk. Self-harm. PTSD – expect some well-known symptoms and some not well-known ones. Please don’t read if you’re triggered by psychological &/or emotional-related trauma and effects.

Enjoy. ^_^

Tumblr version:

… Chapter Nine: Little Bits and Pieces of Lies. ...

.:.

When I heard that sound When the walls came down I was thinking about you About you

-- Skin, by Rag’n’Bone Man

.:.

The shift change was a few minutes late.

The guard sighed into the paper wrapping in his mouth, puffing out a few smoke clouds, trying and failing to form it into something recognisable. Last week, Yaeko had tried to show him how to make rings, but he wasn’t very good at it. Impatient, he looked back along the ridge of the tallest tower on Suna’s borders. The walls of his village were large and imposing above him. On ground level, he could still trail his eyes along the entrance where Yaeko was supposed to pop out of five minutes ago.

Bloody woman.

This was just a bad night overall. He had no idea how this particular kunoichi had ever made it as a genin, let alone her current rank of chunin. She was always late. She didn’t own a clock and slept like a log. He’d gone to wake her numerous times only to be kicked in the head, or somewhere more precious, as she startled into consciousness.

I shouldn’t have to deal with this anymore.

As a newly appointed Jounin, guard duty was supposed to be off his roster. But things had not been going according to plan for several years now. He ran a hand down the front of his flak jacket. There was just no getting used to how much more comfortable this uniform made him feel. The rank came with perks, including not having to do guard duty, but the village had been short-handed recently, with the increase in missions and training of more genin squads than usual. So, he’d volunteered. At least for a few shifts before his new team had been organised. There was nothing to do until then, anyway. Rumour had it, open war was upon them, and his specialty was in high demand, even in this Cold War.

He was a sensor.

This was why he felt it; a sudden spike of chakra that was barely there if you weren’t paying attention. He waved a hand sign to two nearby patrol guards, and they paused, also waiting to see what was going on. If it was another attack, they would be ready. The fires that had spread through their home had come from inside, but anything was possible.

All three guards tensed at the soft flash of light. A figure that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

The newly appointed jounin sighed in relief as their visitor stepped into view. Just beyond the gate there was a blind spot of darkness at night-time that even moonlight couldn’t fill. If you never did guard duty, you’d never know it was there.

“Sorry about that,” she said, looking anything but.

The guard stood to attention. “Lady Temari, everyone’s been worried.” He frowned, eyeing the way she was holding herself; her iron fan weapon was doing most of the holding. “And, if you don’t mind me saying, it looks like we have reason to be.”

Temari grunted at him. “I don’t need a medic,” she said, when he opened his mouth to speak again. “I just need to get home. I have to report straight to…” She winced.

He’d met her in person a few times and if there was one thing he’d learned about the oldest of the sand siblings it was that she hated being treated like she was useless. Nobody helped her. She helped herself. That was the rumour too. By the looks of her, she’d used up all her chakra just to get back and it was clearly embarrassing her. She shifted her stance, attempting to look more imposing. Her face was flushed and there were bruises and gashes on her person he was sure were hurting more than she let on.

No need to drag this out, I guess.

He nodded to her, and she visibly relaxed. “Understood.” He motioned to the patrol guards who were still standing in the same wary stance from before Temari had revealed herself. “I can’t leave my post but–”

“No,” she said, “you.”

Was this because he was a jounin? The other guards were chunin. A number of reasons came to mind, but he didn’t know what the big deal was.

“Come on,” she interrupted his thoughts. Temari started towards him, using her fan like a cane.

He nodded again and ordered one of the patrol guards to take his place until he returned. The blonde grimaced as he slid his arm around her. She stumbled and swore under her breath. They took a moment before he suggested using his own brand of the Body Flicker Technique. She seemed amenable.

“What do I call you, Mr Jounin Guard?” She asked as he manoeuvred them better so he could form the signs properly.

“My name is Arata, my lady.”

.:.

It was only an hour. It felt longer. Gaara carried Sakura’s sleeping form into her room after her breakdown, tucking her into the bedsheets, unable to leave her. For an hour. He just sat on the side of the bed, watching her, and resisting the urge to brush the errant strands of pink hair from her face.

She looks so peaceful right now. And he should leave.

But Gaara couldn’t move. Under normal circumstances, he’d feel like a pervert or creeper for hovering while she slept. But he wasn’t paying attention to her body. Not like that. Not right now. Besides, she was tucked up under the blankets. She was hidden. He just couldn’t bring himself to stand up. To move away from her. It felt like he’d be leaving her behind, or something. It was a ludicrous feeling, he knew, but one he felt, nonetheless.

It was an old story, for himself, how much he’d been worrying over her. Objectively, she was supposed to be his fiancé, so his concern was warranted. But there was a line he’d told himself not to cross. He’d never had cause to worry about that until now.

Gaara sighed as Sakura stirred suddenly. She pouted in her sleep, and he found himself smiling. Whatever she was dreaming about, it wasn’t horrid at least. Without thinking, he reached over and brushed those strands of hair away from her eyes and she sighed, settling down.

Don’t think about that.

Gaara looked around the room. It was a spare room, of course. There were too many rooms in this place. Growing up, he’d wondered if all the rooms were for invisible entities, just like the one that lived inside his head. He’d been too scared to check. After his father started trying to kill him, everything changed. His fear went away. When he returned to the family, he checked them one night only to be disappointed. They were just empty bedrooms.

There was a lesson in there, somewhere, about not fearing the unknown.

His eyes skimmed over what Sakura had done with the room, which wasn’t much since she owned so little. The back of the door worried him. What were all those numbers for? He narrowed his eyes. They were a tally. He didn’t understand it.

Finally, Gaara decided to leave. His presence wasn’t doing anything, negative or positive.

Sakura groaned at the same time he felt a flare of chakra that didn’t belong to her, himself, or Kankuro. It was too weak to identify, and he immediately thought of that Root shadow and, what is he up to now? But it wasn’t him.

Gaara took one quick glance at Sakura to make sure she wasn’t disturbed, and quickly left her room.

Kankuro came bumbling out of his room at the same time, with a stunned look on his face. Spotting Gaara, that expression twisted into a coy one. The redhead had just come out of Sakura’s room, after all. Gaara shook his head to silence his question. There were more important things right now. Kankuro nodded silently, and then barrelled down the stairs ahead of his brother.

The weak chakra flare was closer and stronger now.

“Temari.”

He followed his brother down the stairs and into the study at the forefront of the mansion. Surrounded by comfort and a conference table that his sister had once dubbed a war table, Temari stood in the centre of the room. She was alone. But there had been someone with her a moment ago. Gaara and Kankuro both let out a sigh of relief at the sight of their sister. Kankuro made a move like he was going to rush over to her and then stopped. The tears in her clothes, caked blood, and bruises were all obvious. She wasn’t standing under her own power either, her iron fan signature weapon doubling as a leaning post. Her right hand trembled ever so slightly, out of synch with the trembling of her left leg. Gaara swallowed heavily, trying not to imagine all manner of things she’d been through.

She’s alive, he told himself. And that’s all that matters.

Clearing his throat, Kankuro brushed off his hesitation and moved forward. “Temari, I–”

“Settle down,” she interrupted. “Don’t make a fuss.” She moved toward the largest chair in the room, controlling her trembling as best she could, before stumbling. Both of her brothers stepped forward now, moving to help but Temari held up a hand to stop them. She inhaled sharply through her nose and then sank into the thick, leather lined chair with a deep sigh of relief. “Just give me a moment.”

“Do you need a–”

“No.”

Gaara gave Kankuro a pointed look. But his brother just brushed him off.

“Where is the rest of your squad?”

“They’ll be here in the morning,” she said, not looking at them. “They’re worse off than I am. They’ll need the night to rest before making the journey back.” She closed her eyes for a few blissful, quiet moments before forcing herself to sit up. “I thought I should get this information to you as fast as possible.”

Gaara took the scroll from her outstretched hand, meeting her all the way so she wouldn’t strain herself. He gripped it tightly but didn’t move to open it. She raised her eyebrows at him and glared until he sighed and unrolled it. Kankuro moved next to him to read over his shoulder. After a moment, Kankuro made a distinctly unimpressed noise and moved away, while Gaara reread it carefully. Slowly. Again. And again.

“That’s some intel, sis,” Kankuro said, taking one of the other plush chairs and crossing his arms over his chest.

Temari nodded. “They’re on the move again and the daimyo is moving to intercept. Our spotters have lost their whereabouts.”

Gaara let that sink in. The night that Danzo took over Konoha, the Fire Daimyo called an emergency meeting with all the other daimyo. It was a strategic move to prevent the others from acting on the insurgence. The usurper took over with no consequences on the political and inter-village level. The old man had to know that not all the kage were happy about this betrayal. Gaara was not the only one. Even the Raikage had, allegedly, fought with his daimyo over it. But there was nothing to be done beyond complaining, behind the scenes. To publicly condemn Danzo’s actions, given they were sanctioned by a daimyo, would be too risky. It might even be seen as an act of war.

(It was moments like these in which Gaara missed Naruto most of all. He wouldn’t have taken this lying down.)

So, the Leaf Resistance received no help from anyone. Not officially. They fled their village, those that managed to, and roamed the five nations. Officially, they were deserters and were to be either killed or captured on sight. But the past few years had been very quiet on that front. Because they had received help. Gaara had given it to them. When he could.

That’s a complicated can of worms.

“Should we tell Sakura?” Kankuro asked Gaara.

“Sakura?” Temari sat up straight in the chair, wincing at the movement. “Sakura Haruno is here?”

Kankuro snorted. “Do you know any other Sakura’s?”

It was Gaara’s turn to wince. “She is here.”

His sister looked anxious all of a sudden. “Why?”

Kankuro snorted again, this time a little louder. “Because we have a traitor in the council.”

Temari’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Keep your voice down,” Gaara said. Sakura could wake up. They could gather the attention of the Root shadow outside. He felt the beginnings of a headache throbbing behind his eyes.

“Why is she here?”

“Danzo sent her,” Kankuro said. She scoffed but he continued. “He and our esteemed council decided it was high time Gaara is married.”

Temari raised her eyebrows at Gaara, and the redhead scowled at the light twitching of humour at the corner of her mouth. She stamped it down, though. “If we can’t trust the council–”

“We can trust Ebizō,” Gaara interrupted. “I have a deal with him,” he added, when his siblings looked sceptical. “And you forget all he’s done for the village.”

“We don’t forget, Gaara,” she said, pressing a hand to her side again and wincing. “We simply overlook it.”

“What deal?” Kankuro asked.

Gaara glanced up at the ceiling. “If he retires now, that will leave the council in chaos. I persuaded him to remain, to groom Councillor Ryūsa for the position.”

“And what does he get in return?”

Gaara didn’t want to say. It wasn’t horrible. It just wasn’t the most ethical bribe he’d ever made. Lord Ebizō had initially gone into retirement because of Lady Chiyo. He’d stopped caring about the cycle of ninja problems because of his sister. And now she was dead. Ebizō had always been the more rational of the two. If things didn’t improve, his retirement would become impossible. Or permanent, if he was ever attacked, out in that oasis all alone.

“Come on, Gaara!” Kankuro said. “You can tell us.”

“I know that. It’s just…”

“You keep him in the loop,” Temari guessed. “Even when you feel the need to hide things from other council members.”

“It is a mutual exchange of information,” Gaara said. He waved a hand between himself and his siblings. “Us, Baki and Ebizō are the only ones I trust.”

“You trust us enough to not tell us about Ebizō until now?”

Temari frowned. “Shut it, Kankuro.” She turned to Gaara. “What about Sakura? How does she fit into all these machinations?”

“She doesn’t.”

“How could she not?” She pointed to the scroll still in Gaara’s hands. “She deserves to know–”

“No.” Gaara returned her icy stare.

“Why?”

Gaara eased off on his stare but didn’t back down. His ability to protect the village lessened with every person who knew about that. He did not believe for one moment that Sakura Haruno would shout it at the top of her lungs, let alone pass the knowledge along quietly to the last people who should know. It wasn’t the point. But he’d promised Naruto to keep her safe. To keep anyone from the Leaf that ever came into his care safe. He did not know when or why it would happen, but the blond had been adamant. And Gaara would not deny the wishes of a dead man.

He closed his eyes, lightly rubbing a slight pain on his chest. Gaara moved to the third chair, feeling exhausted.

But was his silence truly keeping Sakura safe? What would she do if he told her? Would she try to escape and get herself killed trying to track those people down? She was so broken. It was clear to anyone who spent even a short amount of time around her. Could he believe she wouldn’t do something reckless, heedless of her own safety? And how was she even going to find them anyway? Nobody had, for two years. Gaara’s communications with them had been mostly one-sided. He had no idea, right this moment, how to contact them until they broke that silence themselves.

(But of course, he had been trying to, with no luck so far.)

He had no answers for any of that. But Gaara wasn’t an idiot. He knew she would find out eventually. His plans were in a delicate balance right now and pulling one thread from it could bring the whole thing down.

“We need to find out who the council traitor is first,” he said, his voice stronger than he felt. “That is our main priority.”

Temari looked like she wanted to argue more but thought better of it. She sighed and settled further into the chair, almost like she was trying to merge with it. Silence. The siblings all sat, twiddling their proverbial thumbs. Kankuro wanted to talk more about the state his sister was in. Gaara wanted this discussion to get to the point so he could order her to go see a medic. Temari just wanted a hot bath.

She sighed wistfully. “I didn’t know she was still in Konoha.”

Kankuro nodded, biting the inside of his mouth. “Nobody did, apparently. Fire’s best kept secret. Probably some sick game Danzo is playing.”

“How is she?” She asked.

Gaara understood that Temari was more empathetic to people than her reputation let on, but he was surprised by the concern in her voice. He wondered if it was because of what had happened to the Leaf as a whole. Or maybe she was being protective in remembrance for another Leaf shinobi she continued to pine for, long after his death. Gaara remained quiet, contemplating that while his siblings continued talking.

“How long has she been here?”

“I dunno. Maybe three weeks.”

“What has she been doing, missions, hospital–”

“The council wants her in the wedding plans.”

Temari scoffed. “Old farts.”

“I know right? That’s what I said!”

Their discussion moved from what Sakura was doing to what they planned to do with her. This façade of an engagement. How Gaara had been delaying the preparations. And landed on the pinkette’s thievery.

“Plus,” Kankuro pointed a finger at the air, “I’m pretty sure she’s been stealing ink bottles from Gaara’s study. She asked me for some once but that doesn’t account for how much more I’ve had to buy.”

Temari didn’t look convinced. “Why would she want ink?”

“She claims it’s for journal writing. Or maybe it was for writing letters. I don’t remember.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gaara interjected as Temari moved to reply. He wasn’t worried about whatever it was Sakura was using the ink for. He had a feeling it was personal, anyway. And if he could help by turning a blind eye, he would. His siblings looked mollified and fell silent. But eventually, Kankuro had to speak. It was a compulsion.

“She’s looking better though.” He waggled his eyebrows at Gaara.

Temari glared at him. “If I could get up without pulling something right now, I’d smack you.” She sighed as her brothers’ expressions grew grim. “About this thing with Danzo…”

That was another can of worms. Temari knew the alliance they had was just for show. But she was behind on why they were going along with it.

Kankuro lost his smile. “His shadows are up to something.”

Temari looked confused for a moment, then it dawned on her. “There’s a Foundation member in the village?”

“I forgot that’s their official name,” he replied, pulling a face. “But yeah, a Root member followed Sakura on this mission of hers. We’re keeping him out of sensitive areas of the village,” he added, when Temari looked scandalised. “And Gaara has a couple of Anbu trailing him at all times. The fucker gets around, let me tell you.”

Temari nodded, then sighed. “It seems I missed a lot.”

“Does that mean you’re staying now?”

“Kankuro,” she said snappily.

“Temari,” he mocked her.

“I have to–”

“No, you don’t,” he snapped. “There are other ninja in this village who can–”

Temari groaned, her voice rising as she interrupted him. “So, you’re fine with others getting hurt and maybe dying in my place while I sit here, holed up and doing nothing of value?”

“Yes! Yes, I am!”

She gripped the arms of her chair painfully, seething and glaring at him as he glared right back. Then she winced and clutched at her side. Temari took a deep breath, her face tinged red with anger. “Well, that’s just–”

“Keep your voices down,” Gaara said, echoing his earlier sentiment. He agreed with Kankuro, but as the Kazekage he couldn’t voice the fact that he’d rather send multiple squadrons out than risk his own sister. Even in front of family. Temari sat back in her chair, staring at the ceiling and Kankuro stood, now pacing behind his armchair. This wasn’t the reunion Gaara had been hoping for. But tension was a given among siblings, no matter their relationship. He waited a few minutes for tempers to settle and opened his mouth to speak again, but Temari beat him to it.

Her eyes had drifted in the direction of the internal staircase. She looked determined. “I want to see her.”

“She is asleep,” Gaara said, ignoring the way Kankuro smirked and waggled his eyebrows, clearly remembering where his brother had been when Temari had returned. “I do not wish to disturb her.”

And she was so exhausted, Gaara doubted she’d be lucid enough for an impromptu visit, even if Temari did wake her up. He had no idea how tiring the events of every day was for her. Especially one as jam packed with work at the hospital as the current day had been. Not to mention how she’d tired herself out with that meltdown. She needed to rest.

Temari nodded slowly. “Okay. In the morning, then.”

“You should get healed up,” Kankuro told her. “You’re no good to anyone in this state,” he added, when she growled at him.

“Kankuro is right,” Gaara said, and she sighed. “You could barely walk into the room and are clearly in pain.”

She glared at them both.

“Temari–”

“Fine. If…” She looked away, her cheeks turning red, “someone could help me to the medical core… thanks.”

Kankuro strode over to her immediately and Gaara stood and ducked to lift her slowly so she could stand. She winced again and he almost called his sand to help but decided to manually move her. They hobbled toward the front door.

Kankuro tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve got this. You need to rest. You look worse than you did yesterday.”

That was true. His own sleep had been even more strained as of late, as well. Gaara nodded reluctantly and moved out of the way as his brother shifted to guide their sister better. She would not be carried like she was a child, so he kept her upright and grunted under her weight. Perhaps it was her way also, of punishing him for those earlier remarks. Temari spared Gaara a soft look and he smiled at his sister.

“It is not weak to accept help when you need it,” her admonished as Kankuro took her away. He knew she’d heard him. He could only hope she understood.

.:.

The sound of heavy rain startled her out of her cosy dreams. Light streamed into the room and she blinked heavily, a warm smile on her face. There was no rain. It existed only in her mind. But that was okay. She’d slept well, all things considered. Surprisingly enough. Maybe it had something to do with how she’d exhausted herself the previous night. Sakura had cried herself to sleep a number of times over the years but never did it leave her feeling so refreshed, come morning.

Or maybe it was Gaara.

Even if it wasn’t, it made her feel warm. Safe. Content. She snuggled into the bed sheets and poked a tongue at herself, giggling softly into her pillow as she stretched out as far as she could. There was no logical reason for it but she felt ridiculously happy.

Ridiculous.

Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to question it. Sakura closed her eyes and rolled over, away from the sunlight. But the warmth of it on her back was comforting. All she cared about was that post-dream feeling she’d missed having for a very long time. This was what mornings were supposed to feel like. No headaches. No post-nightmare illusions. She wondered idly if the Prazosin she’d stolen from the hospital had anything to do with this but it was probably too early for the effects to kick in.

Not that it mattered, really. She sighed once more before holding her breath, eyes wide.

There’s a new chakra signature in the building.

She sat up quickly and froze, heart racing.

Who is that?

The familiarity of it struck her but she couldn’t place it. They flared and it spiked a few times as though in warning but it came with no war cry or burst of aggressive pulses. No hand signs were being woven.

Just saying, hello or I’m home. What the hell?

But they’d made it through the sealing barrier and whomever they were, Kankuro was with them so she knew it wasn’t an intruder. Sakura laid back down, following Gaara’s chakra as she sensed him leave his room and join Kankuro and the new (but not really new) person down stairs. She smiled. Her housemates had a really predictable sleep schedule.

She knew that Kankuro fell asleep pretty fast, when he was alone. In that case she simply had to wait for about ten minutes of silence, to be sure there were no conscious occupants of the room. Sakura smiled at that, though she was always careful to silence her room as best as possible. It made her wonder if Gaara (or Temari) had ever called him out on how loud he could be.

Gaara was another matter. He clearly still had a residual level of insomnia so if she wanted to sneak down to the first floor (for example), she had to make it look like she was going for a midnight snack. If he found her, she needed an excuse. She liked the snacks they stocked, so it fit.

Or icecream, she thought, remembering the previous encounter she’d had with Gaara. It still burned her with embarrasment. The council wanted to take the kunai back but she felt a weird sense of ownership over it that her anxiety let get out of control. She hated that her weakness was so obvious and that she’d overreacted to the thought of the kunai being taken away. She could still remember the uncontrollable bubble of emotion that raged right over her as she lost control of herself and her common sense.

She sighed.

I need to get up.

Sakura couldn’t lie in bed forever, and she was curious about this new chakra signature. After she quickly showered though, the anxiety had kicked back in so she decided to find out who they were later. Her hand had hovered over the door nob but she wasn’t ready to go out there and face any of them. The owner of the chakra had come upstairs and she realised with startling clarity that she knew who it was.

She still had memories of the tough, no-nonsense kunoichi that had clearly won the heart of her friend. Shikamaru. The thought of him made her eyes moist but she kept the tears from forming. Years ago, there’d been something special between Shikamaru and Temari, mixed in with their mutual griping. And while it hurt her heart to think of them never seeing each other again, she was glad the other kunoichi had survived.

Sakura pressed the palms of her hands against the door, instinctively pushing down her chakra past where she had already done so and listened to the sounds of Temari moving through the house, entering her own room. Followed by a few light crashes like she was tipping something over.

She’s okay?

Sakura wanted to go check but this was enough for now. She pulled away from the door, getting a face full of the messy scribbles of daily kanji she’d been adding to the back of it. She glared at them. No. She could add to it later. The clock on her wall told her it was almost breakfast time. Unlike dinner, breakfast seemed mostly an individual affair in this house.

But six o’clock was too early for her.

Sakura didn’t feel tired anymore though, so she decided to do something else. There was only one other thing that had been on her mind lately. But while she’d already perfected her ink bird creation and sent one scouting around the village, there was little Sakura could do without alerting either the Root shadow or other ninja to any escape attempt. It still felt important to her to use the creatures and find a path out, no matter what happened. But she also needed another provision, if she was ever going to accomplish this. Sakura needed poison. The land of wind had many avenues with which to explore this combat option, but very few that Sakura had any access to. After rattling through a long list of possibilities in her head, on how to do this, only one option stood out as even remotely feesible. She was going to have to find a venomous animal. A local one. A native. Something very dangerous. It was an exciting prospect.

The difference between poison and venom was simple: the former was used to refer to toxins that were injested (eaten, etc), and the later was applied to organisms that bite or sting to inject toxins. The way the foreign substance was introduced into the body was the key. She needed venom.

Sakura knew some poison jutsu learned from Shizune, but did not own any tools that could help. Everything she ever had on her person was highly regulated, even the travelling bag. Objects like her charcoal and a few trinkets she’d collected that had no combat value had only been allowed because they were inocuous and the Foundation members who poked and prodded it weren’t personally aware of any intimate connections they might have.

She had Sai’s charcoal, which he’d left behind in his apartment and was overlooked when Root ransacked the place. A ragged toad figurine that Naruto had startled her with once as a practical joke and she’d found in rubble near his destroyed apartment. A twig from Yamato’s Wood Release from that time he’d used his technique to help her save her dying plant; it had still been in her parent’s house, waiting for her. A fingerless glove of Kakashi’s, minus the metal plate; she’d found it not far from the last known location of his body. And a scrap of material she’d torn from Sasuke’s mostly burnt Konoha headband that was going to be thrown out after a Root member was caught keeping it as a trophy. These items had each been carefully collected over time, starting with the charcoal during her first time free of the Root headquarters.

Sakura ran her fingers over the travel bag without opening it. The urge to do so was strong though. But no, they were best left covered and out of sight. She had trinkets and nothing useful for what she planned to get out of her stay in Suna. She hadn’t gone out of her way to procur weapons or poisons that Danzo hadn’t assigned to her or she hadn’t stolen, in years.

The preparation this kunai was going to need was more complicated than simply dipping it in venom, so her resources were limited. Trying to get everything she needed would draw too much attention.

I can handle this.

She’d had larger stumbling blocks. She just needed to focus on the things she could do more easily, right now. But that venom was non-negotiable.

Sakura had already practised giving instructions to the ink birds she sent on reconnaisance, so she imagined telling one to bring her a poisonous snake wouldn’t be difficult. She just needed the right tools for this job. Ink based tools, to be precise.

Sakura knelt down on the floor of her bedroom, tucking her feet under her bum and opened the stopper for the ink well, laying out the scroll as usual. She didn’t need to reference the book to get the image and proportions right this time. Practice made perfect but only if you were capable of it. She would just have to deal with what came out of this. But the repetitive motions had afforded her more leeway. She could even experiment with the shape more than before. She ran through the familiar movements, bringing the bird to life first and she smiled as it cawed at her.

“Sshh!” She held a finger to her lips and it obediently dipped its head in a show of what this weird version of anthropomorphism would call compliance. It had been loud, but there was no noise from outside her room. No feet rushed to find the source of the noise.

Sakura sighed in relief. “Keep quiet, okay?”

The bird dipped its head once more and flapped its wings.

“Okay.” She cleared her throat. The bird was larger than the rest as she’d modelled it after a vulture (bad artistic skills notwithstanding), though it was still smaller than the real birds of the species. She needed it large enough to catch a viper snake but not so large that many people would be drawn to it. It occurred to her that maybe this bird wasn’t enough. Wherever it found a snake (and Sakura was mostly sure there were some in a sanctuary within Suna itself, but maybe not) it had to grab it without alerting any humans in the area. Or any jutsu that could alert humans.

So another ink animal would be needed to accompany it.

Snakes had numerous natural predators, not the least of which was other snakes. It was perfect.

The size concerns for the ink snake were the same for the ink bird. She settled on forming a few generic looking snakes to test, as she’d done many times for the bird, but didn’t need to do it as much. They were a far simpler design. The snake she settled on reminded her of the viper in the book she’d borrowed from Kankuro and she was proud of how much better she was at that.

Still no better than a five year old’s drawing, mind.

Sakura tested the snake by telling it to leave the kazekage mansion for a few minutes before returning. Her heart raced as she watched it go, her eyes drifting to the clock on her wall as she counted out the seconds. She waited, with the ink bird impatiently hopping around and pecking at her floor (what was up with that?), and waited. Eventually, the snake slithered back in through the open window and she had to muffle a woop of excitement.

“Yes,” she said with a soft hiss and held her hand out to the snake. It moved to her without hesitation and coiled around her wrist, moving gently up her arm. She’d never held a real snake before so Sakura had no idea if these smooth and dry sensations were from the texture of the ink or just her imagination. It felt so soft though, as her poor attempts at scales were not even scales. But she couldn’t stop grinning.

The ink bird hopped over to her and tapped at the ink snake which caused the faux reptile to raise up and hiss at its attacker. It was more of a gurgling sound that only sounded like hissing if you really wanted it to.

“Hey,” she snapped. “Settle down.”

The bird gave her a baleful look that only made her chuckle at it. How did the damn thing have so much personality?

Maybe it stole mine.

That thought caused a new round of giggles from her. Her creations were so sloppy compared to what Sai could’ve done but the immensity of pride she felt over them could not be quashed. She hadn’t created anything for herself in so long, it felt like a lifetime since the last moment she’d ever felt this proud of herself. Sakura couldn’t remember the last time but logically it was from before Danzo’s takeover. Perhaps in the midst of battle or an accomplishment while studying more difficult medical jutsu.

It didn’t even matter.

She felt so free in that moment. So weightless.

I feel like I can take on the world.

If she could recreate these things then her plans were going to be so much easier.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she said, and both bird and snake facsimiles turned to face her. “I need a venomous snake. A real one. But…” She didn’t want it dead but Sakura also had no experience dealing with live snakes. They were dangerous, even if you chopped off their head. She could use the ink animals to subdue it but there’d always be that underlying fear that it would break loose and bite her. It was not rational for them to bring it back alive.

Sorry.

She sighed. “Let’s try for a viper – they’re native to the desert. Work together. Find something within Suna if you can, but stay out of sight.” She paused. “And kill it first. Quickly. But keep it constrained at all times, and bring the carcass to me, but only if I’m alone, like in this room. Just… don’t be seen.”

No reaction. Their lifeless eyes just stared at her. It was kind of creepy, but she’d prefer these to her look-alike mirage any day. “Now,” she barked.

They moved immediately; the bird hopped up to the window and waited for the snake to slither up to it. Under their own, respective power, they disappeared. Gone through the open window. Sakura watched them vanish, now feeling morose. Her mood dimmed. She had no idea if and when they would return, but despite this, was confident none of this would be in vain.

.:.

There was no excuse to delay it any longer. The day had begun. And like it or not, she had to return to her previous obligations. For now. Fresh on the high of having finally sent her ink creatures out to capture and kill a snake for her venom, Sakura dressed (having already showered), and then tentatively made her way downstairs, knowing all three of the sand siblings were waiting for her.

They were in the kitchen.

Sakura smelled the fried breakfast from the top of the stairs and on the last step, her stomach gurggled painfully. She walked into the kitchen and stopped immediately, her body tensing as one of the figures in the room turned and threw themselves at her. Normally, she’d have ducked out of the way and counterattacked but Sakura found herself rooted to the spot as Temari embraced her. The pinkette didn’t hug her back, despite all the alarm bells ringing in her head, reminding her she probably should. It was a weird way to feel torn. But she did relax into the blonde’s hold and waited her out instead of trying to push her away.

“Come on, Temari,” Kankuro said eventually. “Let her breathe and eat something before you attempt to suffocate her, at least.”

“Sorry.”

Sakura plastered a fake smile to her face as Temari pulled away. The blonde winced immediately.

Bad fake smile.

She was ushered over to the island in the middle of the kitchen, next to Gaara, who gave her a small smile that she easily returned. It seemed they were all waiting for her to do or say something.

“Thank-you,” she whispered, when Kankuro handed her a plate ladden with fired bacon, eggs, and tomato.

“Anything you want to add?” He asked, and she chose some extra bacon and some onion. Lots of it.

Sakura smiled around her food as the siblings fell into silence, thankfully not all staring at her now.

Well this is fun.

.:.

After breakfast, a knock on the door signalled the arrival of Matsuri and Yukata, who had taken over supervisory roles of escorting Sakura to the wedding planning. Gaara had been able to get Sakura out of most of these ridiculous days, but the council had insisted she attend a few days a week, and today was one of those days. He watched her face fall when she realised, but then lighten up when Kankuro flung the door open to reveal her new escorts.

Matsuri and Yukata greeted Temari warmly, clearly having not realised she was back, then did their duty and escorted Sakura away.

Silence fell in their wake. Not that there had been a rabble of noise before then.

Kankuro whistled. “Well, that was interesting.”

Temari’s confusion was evident. She was biting her bottom lip and staring at the door like she was trying to figure out a puzzle. Gaara felt the need to tell her everything. So, he did. In short, stilted sentences, but leaving out all the intimate moments he’d had with Sakura. Just the highlights of the important things.

Temari let out a long-suffering sigh. “Well, fuck me.”

Kankuro laughed and coughed at the same time. She ignored him.

“This complicates things,” she said. “How much have you told her about this fake engagement?”

“He’s been avoiding her,” Kankuro said.

“I have not.”

The brunette just laughed.

“She joins us for dinner every night,” Gaara said. “And… I may have. A little.”

Except for moments like last night. Which they didn’t need the details of.

Temari snorted. “Well, if it’s from some misguided sense of not wanting to get close to her since this marriage thing is clearly a sham, then stop it.” She held up a hand to stop his retort, if in fact he meant to reply when he stood taller and opened his mouth slightly. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that by avoiding her, you might be doing more harm than good? That it could be interpreted as her not being good enough. That you might as well be strangers?”

“Aren’t you overreacting?” Kankuro asked.

“No,” she snapped.

The emotion on her face startled her brothers. Gaara remembered Temari had been on good terms with Sakura several years ago but that hardly equated to the level of protectiveness rolling off her right now. Again, he wondered if it was misdirected concern because of that Leaf shinobi she had grown close to.

“I cannot speak to the reality for those on the front lines,” Gaara said. “She went through… something. I don’t know.” He sighed. “She is not the woman we recall.”

“But–”

“But,” Gaara began, drawing the word out. “I have no intention of allowing harm to come to her for as long as she remains our guest.”

“You should tell her that.”

“I want to,” he said, and sighed again, running a hand over his face. “She is strong but fragile. Anything I say may set her off. She seems so delicate. Like a battered flower more than the emotional teenager from my memories. Last night, she broke down over a kunai that was meant to kill her. I do not wish to add to that.”

“Look,” Temari said, “I can’t say what everyone under Danzo’s tyranny has gone through, but from my own personal, subjective and limited experience with anything to do with that regime, I think that whatever you can imagine she endured, the reality was worse.” Her brothers shared a confused look as she continued. “I’ve heard rumours; nothing that can be corroborated. The Foundation are very good at brainwashing techniques. The really barbaric kind of techniques.”

Kankuro groaned. “What does that mean?”

“Danzo is an expert in sealing jutsu,” she continued, ignoring Kankuro and addressing Gaara. “Rumour has it that he implanted every Root member with his own personal sealing jutsu. I can only imagine what kind of invasive things he’s done to others, including Sakura.”

“Where did you hear all of this?”

“Around.”

“No wonder she is the way she is,” Kankuro said. “I’d have run off by now, in her place.”

Gaara knew from his own experience that a broken mind was easier to predict than most people believed. She had nowhere else to go but back to Konoha. It was familiar. And she likely had no idea the Resistance even existed. What else was she going to do? And he knew that runaway Leaf ninja were not spared quick deaths. It still boggled his mind that she was still a part of all that though.

“Anything’s possible,” Temari said, leaning back against the island in the middle of the kitchen and crossing her arms. “The human psyche is really complicated.”

Gaara didn’t want to talk about this anymore, but these things needed to be said. “She needs therapy.”

“Therapy?” Kankuro was confused.

Another thing he had to explain.

They both gave him strange looks.

“Maybe you could be her therapist,” Temari said. She raised an eyebrow at Gaara when he baulked. “Or maybe I’ll do it.”

“She’ll have to be willing,” he said.

“How to convince Sakura-san to go to a mind medic. Hm.” Kankuro rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He was clearly drawing this out for dramatic effect. “Well, I’m drawing a blank.”

Temari scoffed. “You’re always drawing a blank.”

“There’s no such thing as a mind medic,” Gaara said.

“Oh? I guess I just assumed…”

“Then what was all this talk for?”

“Civilian therapist.”

“Eh, I don’t know about that, Gaara.”

The redhead scowled. “I want to be honest with her. But… I don’t know how.”

“How she’ll take it?”

He nodded. “The civilian therapist said not to force or manipulate her into it. She has to do it willingly. And knowingly.”

“You spoke to a civilian therapist on her behalf?”

Gaara felt his face heat up. But what he was so embarrassed over, he didn’t know.

“Well, at least it’s a start.”

That was that, then. What they needed to do was convince her in a way that didn’t back her into a corner.

“How much of this do we tell her?” Kankuro asked.

“Only what’s necessary,” Gaara replied. “We don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“And we need to kill that Danzo bastard,” Temari said. She rolled her eyes when Gaara raised a non-existent eyebrow. “Don’t try to convince me you’re not planning on it. This isn’t the world that Naruto wanted. And it’s his vision you’re trying to uphold. Everything you’ve been doing behind the scenes, apparently with Lord Ebizō’s approval, has been leading to Danzo’s head on a spike, right?”

Gaara sighed, nodding.

“Then it’s like I said: we need to kill that Danzo bastard.”

“Hell yeah!” Kankuro let out a whoop.

“Let’s hope it all goes according to plan.”

“Don’t be a wet noodle, Gaara.”

“Don’t forget we still have one or more council traitors to deal with first. We can’t move against Danzo until they’re disposed of.”

Temari smiled. “You really are a wet noodle, Gaara.”

He shook his head but couldn’t suppress a smile. They fell silent for a moment. The smell of breakfast still lingered in the air.

“This feels strange,” Temari said. “Talking about Sakura like this behind her back,” she added, when her brothers looked confused. “I know we don’t mean anything by it, it’s just… after everything that’s happened. I think we’re all a little broken.”

Gaara stood up straighter, unable to prevent the pang of guilt he felt at the reminder that he still sent Temari out there in this climate. His sister was too stubborn to just sit on the bench and wait it out. She had also lost someone she loved, just as Sakura had. The Nara boy whose given name Gaara could never remember. Temari didn’t even have the closure of knowing who killed the Leaf ninja, let alone how it happened.

He was just gone.

And that is why she still goes out there.

“You should ask her on a date,” Kankuro said suddenly. He blushed as they both turned to stare at him. “Well, he should.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Temari said, impressed. “He could do it under the guise of getting to know her better because of the engagement.” She poked Gaara’s arm. “Which you will do, regardless. Date her, talk to her, and try to figure out how we can help her in the meantime.”

He sighed and nodded. Gaara wasn’t opposed to the idea, but there were so many ways this could go wrong.

“This is cool,” Kankuro smiled widely. “And if they really hit it off, maybe it won’t be fake anymore.”

Gaara just rolled his eyes.

“In the meantime,” Temari said, rubbing her hands together in a mock evil genius gesture, “go get that date organised.”

“When I return tonight,” he promised, before turning on his heel and leaving.

His siblings watched him leave.

Kankuro gave Temari a one-armed hug. “Aaww, he cares about her.”

“Get off me.” She shoved him away, ignoring his yelp when Kankuro fell over. “Brothers.”

.:.

Where the hell are they?

Sakura had just returned from her day of hellish wedding plans and one of the few things that had gotten her through the day was the hope to see her ink creations returning with a dead snake in her bedroom.

Weird kink.

“Perfect for someone so fucked up.”

Sakura glanced toward the door to her closet where the mirage stood, a maniacal grin on its ugly face a shiver running down her spine. She tried standing up to the damn thing, but it made no difference. It freaked her out. Old and new pain.

“Just admit it: your little experiment failed. You took drugs to sleep better but you’re as fucked up as ever.”

“Shut up.” Sakura started pacing her room. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just a mindless, stupid, ugly mirage.”

Not mature, but she didn’t care.

The figure floated toward her, and she stepped backward.

“You’re regressing,” it said. “Letting your fears barricade you in this room. Because you know you don’t deserve anything better.”

“You’re wrong.”

It cackled.

Shaking, Sakura moved toward the window and turned away from the ugly mirror that was the mirage. It was like turning your back on an enemy when you know they have a kunai in their hand. Her own kunai was currently tucked in the window frame. She stroked the handle as it sat in the grooves of the frame, lovingly. There were no distinguishing marks, because it had been procured for a man whose final mission was to sneak into the hidden sand village for assassination, but she liked the blandness of it.

And soon it’ll shine. Soon it’ll sing and shine and kill. With poison.

She smiled at that, forcing herself to ignore the mirage, hoping it had disappeared behind her back.

The sunset was still a little while away, so she just stood and watched the light patters of the bright rays as they slowly changed colour to signal the end of the day. A soft breeze made her shiver, but she embraced it. Even the occasional shadowy hint that her Root stalker was nearby didn’t lessen the contentment she felt as she stroked the kunai. Over and over again.

Blessed silence.

And then the sun fell from the sky.

When she finally heard Gaara return and climb the stairs to his room, Sakura pushed away from the window, leaving the kunai behind. The mirage watched as she grabbed the stick of charcoal from her travel bag and wrote the kanji for twenty-four on the back of the door before leaving the room. She wasn’t going to get anywhere just hiding out with her broken psyche. It grinned at her, like it was silently challenging her to do what she was about to do. Or telling her she was too chicken to even try.

I’ll show you.

She drew a deep breath and then threw her bedroom door open. Adrenaline drove her. She moved, forcing herself not to overthink it. If she stopped and ran through the ramifications of what she was about to do, in her mind, she would not be doing it.

Now or never.

Sakura knocked on the door. His door. No hesitation. No fear. Even as she clasped her hands together in an attempt to control the trembling. Noise from within. She gulped. And forced a smile to her face as the door swung open.

Gaara looked a little surprised to see her. She supposed if her chakra wasn’t currently suppressed instinctively, he’d have sensed her coming.

“Hi.”

“Hello.”

Sakura cleared her throat. “Can we talk?”

Gaara moved to let her into his room and closed the door. “I was hoping to speak with you soon.”

“You were?” She was surprised.

Gods this is nerve wracking.

He looked a little nervous now too.

“We should spend some time together.”

What the hell was that?

Her eyes widened. He just blurted it out. The edges of his ears were tinged pink, and his face was slightly flushed. It was cute. He was cute. Incredibly so. She had to hold back a grin. Her heart was racing. In a good way.

“Like a date?”

He nodded. She didn’t think anyone’s face could get that red, that fast. It made her swell with pride. Maybe she could have a little fun with him after all. If he was up to it. If he even knew what that meant. But no matter how excited he was making her; Sakura still felt a bundle of nerves eating at her stomach.

“Okay,” she said, trying not to stutter. He let out a sharp breath and a genuine smiled lit up his face, making her face warm. She tried to return the smile as nonchalantly as possible. “Yeah. I’d l-like that.”

Did someone raise the thermostat? It just got incredibly hot in here.

.:.

[hermitologist]

My Favorite Records of 2022

Hi. I made another list.

First thing’s first. I apologize for the lack of music recommendations and runs on my Instagram this year. Thrice had a pretty busy touring schedule, and with the kids back in school the local virus carousel was BRUTAL. Seemed like we got to sample a new strain of the crud literally every other week. It’d rip its way through the house, we’d send the kids back to school, they’d bring a new batch of snot home a few days later, and it’d start up all over again. Rinse and repeat. It was hard to get out there and run with all that going on. Also: Blame where blame is due ... I got a little lazy when I wasn’t picking up goopy Kleenex or horking up some crud of my own. I”ll be back next year. (Hopefully.)

An-y-waaaaay ... 

I did manage to listen to a lot of new music despite "the circumstances”, and I have compiled all of my favorites for you here. There's a pretty clear cut Top 5 this year based on play counts, but the rest of the list didn’t really make sense to rank because this shit’s really all subjective anyway. I broke the list into categories that made sense to me, at the time, for organization’s sake. Each record has link to the band/label’s Bandcamp or website, so please please PLEASE support the artists you love beyond just streaming their music.

Playlists with a song from each record are below. I know it’s a lot of music. I know it’s all over the place. I know you don’t have time to listen to five-and-a-half hours of music. At the very least, I’d suggest at needle-dropping through the entire thing and earmarking some stuff to check out. That’s how I find a good chunk of this stuff. 

And please let me know what you dug this year and think I should check out!

Hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season. See you next year!

PLAYLISTS

My Favorites of 2022 Playlist (Spotify)

My Favorites of 2022 Playlist (Apple Music)

My Favorites of 2022 Playlist (Tidal)

THE TOP 5

Elder - Innate Passage

No contest here. This is a clear cut #1 for me. Fifty-four minutes of absolutely glorious, wholly transcendental, life-affirming, dreamy/heavy metal-adjacent prog. As a musician, I can tell you firsthand how hard it is to write a long song that doesn’t *feel* long. These fellas routinely crank out high-quality 10-minute-plus jams that you’ll hope never end. Queue this up and take it for a run, a long walk, or a long drive and you’ll see what I mean. It’s magical. And yes, it came out late in the year, but I haven’t been able to stop listening to it or thinking about it since, and I don’t see that changing for a long while.

Meshuggah - Immutable

It’s damn near impossible to find the right words for this band, let alone this record, but this is absolute wizardry, yet again, from the best metal band that has ever existed. Pure face-melting heaviness. They routinely reset the bar for what heavy music can and should be, and Immutable is no exception. It might even be my favorite Meshuggah record ever.

Museum of Light - Horizon

Ultra-heavy, sludgy, dynamic, meditative, push vs. pull, melody vs. dissonance post-rock in the vein of Kowloon Walled City, Shiner, Traindodge, and Torche. The songwriting is so clean and efficient, and the record as a whole is just a gorgeous, perfectly crafted arc. It’s perfect.

Holy Fawn - Dimensional Bleed

The heaviest, prettiest, most infectious batch of post-rock/metal I’ve heard in a long while. Dynamic shifts that are pure catharsis. A band that has the ability to give you euphoric chills one minute, and bring you to tears the next, headbanging all the while. Their first LP blew me away, and I wasn’t sure they could top it, but they totally have.

The Beths - Expert In A Dying Field

This record was an instant pick-me-up this year. A much-needed salve amidst all the stress and anxiety and depression the world can throw your way these days. Twelve preposterously hooky jams, that will put a smile on your face and a bounce in your step (even when the lyrical content dips into darker themes). It totally rules.

15 OTHER RECORDS THAT STAYED IN HEAVY ROTATION (in no order)

PLOSIVS - S/T

Drug Church - HYGIENE

Tvivler - Kilogram

Birds In Row - Gris Klein

gospel - The Loser

Cult of Luna - The Long Road North

Russian Circles - Gnosis

Conjurer - Pathos

Anxious - Green House

SPICE - Viv

PUP - The Unraveling of PUP The Band

The Smile - A Light For Attracting Attention

Pianos Become The Teeth - Drift 

Cloakroom - Dissolution Wave

Stray From The Path - Euthanasia

OTHER RECORDS I ENJOYED (also in no order)

Architects - the classic symptoms of a broken spirit Pedro the Lion - Havasu And So I Watch You From Afar - Jettison Mass Worship - Portal Tombs Rival Consoles - Now Is  Fleshwater - We’re Not Here To Be Loved Abraham - Debris de Mondes Perdus Norna - Star is way way is Eye Dan Mayo - Greenhouse Silvan Strauss - FACING Vein - This World is Going to Ruin You Author & Punisher - Krüller Black Thought/Dangermouse - Cheat Codes Cave In - Heavy Pendulum Square Peg Round Hole - Reservoir  Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers Pete Rock - Petestrumentals 4 Pet Fox - A Face In Your Life Swami John Reis - Ride the Wild Night Heriot - Profound Morality  Bastions - Majestic Desolation Wake - Thought Form Descent Inclination - Unaltered Perspective Momma - Household Name Hot Water Music - Feel The Void KEN Mode - NULL Animals As Leaders - Parrhesia Mark Giuliana - the sound of listening Meat Wave - Malign Hex Haunted Shores - Void Blessed - Circuitous Celeste - Assassine(s) Louis Cole - Quality Over Opinion Grivo - Omit Wonder Years - The Hum Goes on Forever A Hope For Home - Years Of Silicon Mountaineer - Giving Up The Ghost Norma Jean - Deathrattle Sing for Me Lamb Of God - Omens Psychonaut - Violate Consensus Reality Callous Daoboys - Celebrity Therapist Easy Prey - Unrest 84 Tigers - Time in the Lighthouse  Codespeaker - S/T Colonial Wound - Easy Laugh Thousandaire - Ideal Conditions

THE NEW BOTCH SONG I LISTENED TO LIKE 247 TIMES IN 3 DAYS

Botch - One Twenty Two

10 FAVORITE EPs

Downward - The Brass Tax  Cult Leader/End - Gather & Mourn  Irist - Gloria  Gleemer - Here at All  GoGo Penguin - Between Two Waves Lockstep - Lockstep 2  Portico Quartet - Next Stop  Be Well - Hello Sun  Chamber - Carved In Stone  Waldo’s Gift - Improvisations Vol. 2 

1 RECORD FROM 2019 THAT DIDN’T “CLICK” UNTIL 2022

Car Bomb - Mordial

2 RECORDS THAT DIDN’T COME OUT IN 2022 BUT GOT A LOTTA SPINS

Low - Double Negative Pile - Green and Gray

3 PODCASTS THAT I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT

Office Hours - humor, music, pure joy The Distraction - sports and social commentary/humor Effectively Wild - baseball analysis/humor

[velvetwastaken]

👀 for the wip wednesday if ur willing

Absolutely! And! I bet I know which wip you'd like a snippet of 😅

Title: Barycentre (very much subject to change)

935 of 25139 words (so far 😭)

A Ganqing ✨SciFi AU✨

Ganyu rounds the last corner to the Bridge, bringing into view what appears to be a mildly agitated young woman. Human, by the looks of her, but that’s not really surprising; well over ninety-five percent of Qixing Spacefleet personel are human. She’s already dressed in standard fatigues in the Morax’s colours and wears a sort of headset over one ear, a tinted purple lens, the same shade as her hair, covering her left eye. She has her hands on her hips and a dangerous set to her brow as she frowns at the access panel which displays a red flashing message: ACCESS DENIED. She glances up at Ganyu as the distance between them closes. They have not yet been formally introduced, but it’s safe to assume that this is the new Chief Engineer. 

“Commander Keqing?” asks Ganyu as she gives her a formal salute. Not that she really needs to; even though Commander Keqing is technically higher ranking, Ganyu’s other qualifications and seniority make her own rank somewhat ambiguous—had she taken all the promotions she’d been offered over the years, she’d have long been in the Admirality. But she gets the overwhelming impression that Keqing is more by the book, more rigid, than some others she’s worked with in the past. Better to play it safe.

The Commander turns to fully face her. Ganyu can see her eyes flicker up to the top of her head, resting briefly on her horns, then to her collar, noting the bars indicating her rank. After a slight hesitation, Keqing offers a return salute. “That’s me,” she says. “And you are?”

“Lieutenant Commander Ganyu, lead navigator and pilot aboard the Morax,” says Ganyu. She stands as straight and as tall as she can. Keqing is almost her exact height, a shade shorter perhaps, but her presence is a force all its own. Ganyu has to consciously hold her ground rather than take the few steps back her instincts seem to deem necessary. 

“Aah. You’re the one who sealed the Bridge.”

“I am. A standard security measure. I expected to meet you at headquarters where I would have provided you with the override codes. I apologise.” 

Keqing’s eyes narrow for a moment, then she blinks and shakes her head. “I understand. I just wanted to run a shipwide diagnostic before cycling the reactors.”

Ganyu is impressed in spite of herself. Keqing has been on duty for all of, what? Twenty minutes? And she’s already hard at work. In all Ganyu’s years serving, that’s something she’s not seen before. “Of course,” she says. “Morax?”

“Yes, Lieutenant Commander Ganyu?” says Morax. Ganyu suppresses a smile at the formality. She can’t remember the last time Morax addressed her so formally. 

“Please grant ship-wide access to Commander Keqing. And have the previous Chief Engineer’s logs sent to her comm.”

“Done,” says Morax as the doors to the Bridge glide open with a waft of cool recycled air.

Ganyu gestures for Keqing to lead the way before following her inside. Keqing pauses for a moment just past the threshold, taking in the view. Ganyu is so used to it she hardly notices it anymore, but she watches as Keqing’s expression softens for a split second. 

The Morax is an older starship to be sure, but not once has it been neglected. Regular maintenance and upgrades have kept it on par with most of the rest of the Qixing’s fleet, and the Bridge certainly reflects that with its wide shielded windows, smooth gleaming surfaces, state-of-the-art holo projectors, and arrays of delicate instrumentation. 

Keqing takes one tentative step, then in the next resumes her confident air as she presses forward to the main command console. Without hesitation she begins calling up infographs and booting up programs, her hands dancing over the keypad before they reach into the holo to rotate an image or swipe through a series of files, quick as lightning. Ganyu continues to observe her for a moment, mesmerised at the speed she’s working before she moves to her own station to check the logs.

“So, that AI,” says Keqing after a few minutes.

Ganyu glances at her over her shoulder. “What about it?”

Keqing pauses in the midst of scrolling through some files, her eyes meeting Ganyu’s. “What’s its purpose, exactly?”

Ganyu furrows her brow. “Um, I’m not sure what you mean. It’s the ship.” 

Keqing waves a hand and the holo in front of her vanishes. “It’s the ship? You’re telling me it’s not just some kind of concierge program?”

“Oh, no,” says Ganyu, shaking her head and turning in her seat to face Keqing. “It’s an AI interface for the Morax. It is the Morax, actually.”

“So it’s just this omnipresent… presence? I could just say ‘hey, Morax run a diagnostic on the reactors’ or—”

“Running diagnostic,” cuts in Morax smoothly. “The results will be sent to your personal work station in the Engineering Bay, with a summary forwarded to your comm.”

Keqing stares at Ganyu, her mouth slightly open. Ganyu, for her part, holds a hand over her mouth, trying her best not to laugh. Morax is usually more astute than that. It knows when someone is actually asking for something versus a hypothetical request like Keqing just made. Then again, she was probably going to run those diagnostics later anyway. Perhaps Morax just wanted to save her some time. Or maybe show off, who’s to say?

“Okay,” says Keqing after another moment. “Yeah. I really hate that.”

Ganyu does laugh at that. “You get used to it.”

Keqing shakes her head as she resumes her work. “Not likely,” she mutters.

[keeloves]

Winx Club Head Canon for Trix: Workout Edition

I have posted about the Winx Club, the Specialists and now I will be making a post on each Trix workouts. Once again, these head canons will be based on their powers, personalities and their redesign made by my boyfriend @WickedMerman.  I will also be starting with the Ice Queen herself Icy and Ending with Stormy. Icy is the leader and the oldest so it makes sense to start with her while Stormy is the youngest, so it makes sense to end with her. Without Further ado here are my head canons for each Trix’s workout routines.

Icy: Witch of Ice. 

Due to Icy having Ice powers, I feel like she also would be able to have a lot of makeshift workout equipment Similar to how Aisha, Flora and Brandon would have makeshift workout equipment. I believe her workouts would consist of cardio such as ice skating, ballet, Pilates and she would also know a lot of martial arts and she would know how to fight with those sticks. I also think Icy would be a great a knife thrower only she would throw icicles. 

Darcy Witch of Illusions and Darkness. 

I can see her workouts being similar to Helena Bertinelli aka Huntress who is a part of Birds of Prey. I believe she would be an expert martial artist. I believe she would focus on strength training, cardio and perhaps Pilates. Of the three girls I see her being the least athletic either her or Icy. It’s hard to pick between two. However in my head canon and my boyfriend’s head canon she will later be dating the most athletic of the specialists Riven. I also see her doing Arabesque as in what Pink the singer does in her concert. Pink’s Performance it is five minutes and twelve seconds long. Skip to the 2min 40 second mark. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MKI3KKHyds

Stormy. The Witch of Storms. (I did this collage because team curly hair)

Out of the Trix Stormy is definitely the most Athletic and the best hand to hand fighter of the three girls. Due to Stormy growing up in an orphanage and being outcasted because of the stigma of Witches. Her workouts consist of weightlifting, kick boxing and she would know mixed martial arts. Infact, I think she is similar to Riven in how she workout. She has a lot of pent-up aggression, and I can see her joining a cross fit gym. She also prefers to workout in wide open spaces or outside due to her claustrophobia. 

These weren’t as detailed as my other two posts, but it was only on three girls. I had a lot of fun making posts. As I have asked on the last two posts if you disagree, please do so respectfully. Let me know what you guys think of this post. Here are each Trix back stories. Ranking the Trix from least to least to most athletic (This may be subject to change however Darcy and Icy might switch places but Stormy remains at Number one for most athletic) 

Icy

Darcy 

Stormy

 https://at.tumblr.com/thewickedmerman/the-trix-dark-witch-forms-version-2/47jt3dgavwtg

[maximoxaguilar]

✦ PEDRO PASCAL, CISMALE, HE/HIM ✦ MAXIMO "MAX" AGUILAR  the FORTY-THREE year old has been in Hidehill for THREE YEARS (SINCE HIS RETURN) and was a ONE NIGHT STAND to Miyeon Kang, the murder victim. Whispers on the streets are that the PERSONAL ASSISTANT/SECURITY AT THE VANILLA UNICORN who lives in HOVE LAKE are said to be DEDICATED and STAND-OFFISH but I guess we’ll find out for ourselves. WRITTEN BY MEL.

TRIGGER WARNING: death, birth complications, pregnancy, infidelity, emotional abuse, smoking, grief

⸻  𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘

Max was born in Hidehill to Hector and Josephine Aguilar -- a seemingly happy couple when the familiar sounds of screaming matches weren't resonating from their Hagfield property. Max was their only child, knowing his mother for a grand total of two minutes. She died shortly after giving birth to him, something that Hector would never let him forget.

Hector Aguilar was a man who rarely said a word that wasn't dripping in anger, especially to his only son. That is, until he met his second wife, Rebecca. The first year of their courtship was peaceful for Max, the now nine year old no longer being the subject of his father's attention. Shortly after the pair married a year after, however, Hector showed his true colors. The now eleven year old Max soon essentially began to raise his much younger stepsisters, who he cared for as if they were his own flesh and blood.

Hector and Rebecca were like teenagers in their own right, so intrinsically lost in themselves and their relationship that Max was sometimes left wondering if they remembered they even had children.

By the time Max reached high school, the child was on the straight and narrow. He would rarely ever engage in extracurriculars, even going as far as to be the one to pick up his sisters from school when he got his drivers license.

When the time for college came, as assumed by most, Max knew the only prospect he felt that he had was to protect. He had protected his sisters his entire life, it was what he did best. And so, it was no surprise when he began to work in private security.

He made the decision to move as far away from Hidehill as possible, knowing that he had never been able to get away from the responsibility that his father and stepmother had forced upon him.

His first stop was Florida, when he came into the crosshairs of Pablo Martinez. It was he who moved young Max up the ranks and soon enough, he began guarding some high-profile clients.

Five years ago, he relocated to Los Angeles as he was sent on a new assignment, protecting a beautiful, fan-favorite a-list celebrity by the name of Sylvie Dubois. She would change his life forever, the pair soon falling into an affair and staring at a positive pregnancy test.

While Sylvie herself was recently separated, unable to be set free due to a controlling ex who would not let her ruin his perfect life, as he put it. This did not stop Max and Sylvie from bringing their son Mason Aguilar into the world. Sylvie kept herself from the public eye throughout that time, knowing that their dalliance would cause nothing but scandal.

Something in Max told him that this was his endgame, him and Sylvie together raising Mason, soon surrounded by a white-picket fence. He was planning on asking Sylvie to marry him over dinner, but that plan was shattered when the pair got in a car crash on the way to Max's property. Sylvie died on impact, while Max sustained very severe injuries. Mason, luckily, was spending time with the elder of his two stepsisters.

Now left with their child and a shattered heart, Max knew he couldn't stay in California anymore. Thus, the only thing he could do was move back home and make some effort of giving himself and his son a fresh start.

Working for Adriana simply made sense, especially considering his work with her father over the years. He does his job as best as he can, serving not only as her personal assistant but as security for both her and the employees of The Velvet Unicorn. His place in Hove Lake acts as a very calm, quiet solace in the midst of chaos.

⸻  𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

While Max does have feelings for Adriana, he would sit back and let the rest of her life unfold if it meant that she would be happy. Even if it means him suffering in silence.

A known cigarette smoker. On late nights, there are very few times when he will leave the club to take a smoke break outside.

Loves his son more than anything else in the world, but it is getting harder and harder to deny that his son looks almost exactly like Sylvie. His first real love, the woman who taught him what it means to be alive.

Firmly believes that he destroys everything in his wake and that he is the problem in the lives of the people that he loves.

A very soft-spoken, thick-skinned individual, unless someone gets close. Adriana and the employees at The Vanilla Unicorn are some of the very few who sees his softer side.

MORE TO COME.

⸻ 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒

PINTEREST.

PLAYLIST.

[maximoaguilar]

the echoing sound of a sigh that has been held back for far too long, a calm demeanor broken by the swing of a fist, the smell of fresh sheets, a leather jacket that like him has been worn by the passage of time.

✦ PEDRO PASCAL, CISMALE, HE/HIM ✦ MAXIMO “MAX” AGUILAR the FORTY-THREE year old has been in Hidehill for HIS ENTIRE LIFE (THREE YEARS SINCE HIS RETURN) and was a ACQUAINTANCE to Carter Thompson, one of the shadows. Whispers on the streets are that the SECURITY AT THE VANILLA UNICORN (FORMERLY) / SECURITY AT LA VELA (CURRENTLY) who lives in HOVE LAKE are said to be DEDICATED and CLOSED OFF but I guess we’ll find out for ourselves. WRITTEN BY MEL.

TRIGGER WARNING: death, birth complications, pregnancy, infidelity, emotional abuse, smoking, grief

⸻  𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘

Max was born in Hidehill to Hector and Josephine Aguilar -- a seemingly happy couple when the familiar sounds of screaming matches weren't resonating from their Hagfield property. Max was their only child, knowing his mother for a grand total of two minutes. She died shortly after giving birth to him, something that Hector would never let him forget.

Hector Aguilar was a man who rarely said a word that wasn't dripping in anger, especially to his only son. That is, until he met his second wife, Rebecca. The first year of their courtship was peaceful for Max, the now nine year old no longer being the subject of his father's attention. Shortly after the pair married a year after, however, Hector showed his true colors. The now eleven year old Max soon essentially began to raise his much younger stepsisters, who he cared for as if they were his own flesh and blood.

Hector and Rebecca were like teenagers in their own right, so intrinsically lost in themselves and their relationship that Max was sometimes left wondering if they remembered they even had children.

By the time Max reached high school, the child was on the straight and narrow. He would rarely ever engage in extracurriculars, even going as far as to be the one to pick up his sisters from school when he got his drivers license.

When the time for college came, as assumed by most, Max knew the only prospect he felt that he had was to protect. He had protected his sisters his entire life, it was what he did best. And so, it was no surprise when he began to work in private security.

He made the decision to move as far away from Hidehill as possible, knowing that he had never been able to get away from the responsibility that his father and stepmother had forced upon him.

His first stop was Florida, when he came into the crosshairs of Pablo Martinez. It was he who moved young Max up the ranks and soon enough, he began guarding some high-profile clients.

Five years ago, he relocated to Los Angeles as he was sent on a new assignment, protecting a beautiful, fan-favorite a-list celebrity by the name of Sylvie Dubois. She would change his life forever, the pair soon falling into an affair and staring at a positive pregnancy test.

While Sylvie herself was recently separated, unable to be set free due to a controlling ex who would not let her ruin his perfect life, as he put it. This did not stop Max and Sylvie from bringing their son Mason Aguilar into the world. Sylvie kept herself from the public eye throughout that time, knowing that their dalliance would cause nothing but scandal.

Something in Max told him that this was his endgame, him and Sylvie together raising Mason, soon surrounded by a white-picket fence. He was planning on asking Sylvie to marry him over dinner, but that plan was shattered when the pair got in a car crash on the way to Max's property. Sylvie died on impact, while Max sustained very severe injuries. Mason, luckily, was spending time with the elder of his two stepsisters.

Now left with their child and a shattered heart, Max knew he couldn't stay in California anymore. Thus, the only thing he could do was move back home and make some effort of giving himself and his son a fresh start.

Working for Adriana simply made sense, especially considering his work with her father over the years. He does his job as best as he can, serving not only as her personal assistant but as security for both her and the employees of The Velvet Unicorn. His place in Hove Lake acts as a very calm, quiet solace in the midst of chaos.

FROM SEASON ONE: Max was attacked and taken from his home by Carter Thompson and Nadia Kucuk, where he was later brutalized by the three Shadows alongside Marcus Shaw. While Marcus succumbed to his injuries, Max did not. He has carried the guilt with him ever since, wondering if it should have been him.

⸻  𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

While Max does have feelings for Adriana, he would sit back and let the rest of her life unfold if it meant that she would be happy. Even if it means him suffering in silence.

A known cigarette smoker. On late nights, there are very few times when he will leave the club to take a smoke break outside.

Loves his son more than anything else in the world, but it is getting harder and harder to deny that his son looks almost exactly like Sylvie. His first real love, the woman who taught him what it means to be alive.

Firmly believes that he destroys everything in his wake and that he is the problem in the lives of the people that he loves.

A very soft-spoken, thick-skinned individual, unless someone gets close. Adriana and the employees at The Vanilla Unicorn are some of the very few who sees his softer side.

MORE TO COME.

⸻ 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒

Pinterest

Playlist

Self Para: Max's Attack (Season 1)

⸻ 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

Friends: Kit Blackthorn, Dallas Parker, Julian Nieves, Brielle Perez, Emmeline Astor-Roberts, OPEN

Essentially his children: Kit Blackthorn, Dallas Parker.

Exes ( any gender - 0/2 ): OPEN

Hookups/FWB ( former or current ): Julian Nieves ( former ), OPEN

Love Interest: Adriana Martinez ( closed forever and ever )

Coworkers: Lakeyn McCray, Adriana Martinez, Dallas Parker, Danny Alexander, OPEN

These are just ideas, I'm here and ready for all the plots!

[chorusfm]

Craig Manning’s Top Albums of 2023

Sometimes, the things you love leave you. Sometimes, those things come back. Musically, 2023 for me was a year defined by the things I got back. Six of the 30 albums listed below were made by artists or bands I thought would never release music again. All six were artists who played key roles in extremely formative moments of my life; then they all went dormant for extended periods of time. Three of the six had been out of action for a decade or longer; one’s been gone for 23 years. Getting all six back – plus a few other long-awaited returns not represented on this list – felt like a little gift from the music gods, and made 2023 feel so special. There’s a Dawes song I love that goes, “May all your favorite bands stay together.” 2023’s blessing, for me, was more like “May all your favorite bands get back together.” 2023 was also the year that I wandered back out into the live music world, after being extremely hesitant about doing so in 2021 and 2022. While that post-pandemic return to normal didn’t come without its costs – I definitely contracted COVID-19 at a Taylor Swift concert – it felt so wonderful and so life affirming to be a part of a deafeningly-loud audience again. Getting that sensation back in 2023 – and having a couple of my very favorite concert experiences ever along the way – was a gift of its own. So, here’s to getting things back, whether that’s the bands you love or the kinds of communal live music experiences you weren’t sure you’d ever have again. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the past five years, it’s to never, ever take anything for granted, and I tried to instill that spirit into the making of this list. To quote yet another Dawes lyric, “Most people don’t talk enough about how lucky they are.” Most people also don’t talk enough about why they love the music they love, so here’s 30 albums from 2023 that I love – and more importantly, the “why.” 1. Kelsea Ballerini – Rolling up the Welcome Mat 16 minutes: That’s all it takes for Kelsea Ballerini to lay her marriage to rest, and to absolutely level you in the process. If you tack on a bonus track from a later re-release, Rolling up the Welcome Mat still only clocks in at just under 19 minutes. But despite the fact that Welcome Mat is brief, and despite the fact that I’ve always been hesitant about putting EPs on my end-of-the-year lists, there’s something to be said for an artist who somehow manages to say everything there is to say in such a remarkably compressed space. And, for my money, it’s hard to imagine needing more from Rolling up the Welcome Mat than what’s here. Over six tracks (again, seven if you’re counting the bonus song), Ballerini takes a broken marriage and puts it six feet under. I’ve always thought Kelsea was a bright, bright talent – ever since the first time I discovered “Dibs” back in 2015 and decided it was one of the most infectiously catchy songs I’d ever heard. But for all that I’ve followed and supported her career – up to ranking last year’s Subject to Change as my seventh favorite album of 2022 – I never thought Ballerini had something like this in her. Throughout her career, Kelsea has often been considered as a singer or performer first and a songwriter second. But on Rolling up the Welcome Mat, Ballerini so thoroughly laps every other songwriter that got in the game this year – including all-time greats like Jason Isbell and Lori McKenna – that it left me having to reconsider her entire career. Half solo writes and half co-writes with a single other collaborator (a songwriter named Alysa Vanderheym), Rolling up the Welcome Mat is a potent and poignant examination of what happens when you get married at 24 and then watch as the entire thing crashes into the rocks before you even get to 30. No one ever plans to be at that point; marriage, after all, is supposed to last forever – as Ballerini’s own lovestruck 2017 album Unapologetically will attest. But sometimes, the fates just aren’t aligned, and the ties that bind just come… https://chorus.fm/blog/craig-mannings-top-albums-of-2023/

[abcnewspr]

ENCORE BROADCASTS OF ABC’S ‘THE VIEW,’ AUG. 7 - SEPT. 4 

ABC/Jeff Lipsky* 

Called “the most important political TV show in America” by The New York Times, “The View” is a priority destination for our guests and must-see viewing for our loyal fans with up-to-the-minute Hot Topics and invaluable conversations with live broadcasts five days a week. The Daytime Emmy® Award-winning talk show ranks No. 1 in Households and Total Viewers among the daytime network and syndicated talk shows and news programs season to date. “The View” is executive produced by Brian Teta and is directed by Sarah de la O. For breaking news and updated videos, follow “The View” (@theview) and Whoopi Goldberg (@whoopigoldberg), Joy Behar (@joyvbehar), Sunny Hostin (@sunny), Sara Haines (@sarahaines), Alyssa Farah Griffin (@alyssafarah) and Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) on Twitter. 

Encore broadcasts for the week of Aug. 7-11 are as follows (subject to change): 

Monday, Aug. 7 (OAD: 6/12/23) — Eva Longoria (director, “Flamin’ Hot”) 

Tuesday, Aug. 8 (OAD: 6/13/23) — Jesse Tyler Ferguson (podcast, “Dinner’s on Me”); Ken Jennings (author, “100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife”) 

Wednesday, Aug. 9 (OAD: 6/14/23) — Gabrielle Union (“My Journey to 50”; “The Perfect Find”); Pamela Dias, mother of Ajike Shatrell Owens who was allegedly fatally shot by her neighbor, joined by attorney Anthony Thomas 

Thursday, Aug. 10 (OAD: 6/15/23) — Hannah Waddingham (“Ted Lasso”); “The View” celebrates Alyssa Farah Griffin’s birthday 

Friday, Aug. 11 (OAD: 6/6/23) — Lala Kent (“Vanderpump Rules”); performance from Broadway’s “& Juliet” 

Encore broadcasts for the week of Aug. 14-18 are as follows (subject to change): 

Monday, Aug. 14 (OAD: 6/20/23) — ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl; Chris Paul (author, “Sixty-One: Life Lessons from Papa, On and Off the Court”) 

Tuesday, Aug. 15 (OAD: 6/22/23) — The Political View with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA); co-hosts’  Favorite Things Under $50: Summer Edition 

Wednesday, Aug. 16 (OAD: 6/27/23) — Jason Alexander (director of Broadway play, “The Cottage”); performance from Andy Grammer 

Thursday, Aug. 17 (OAD: 6/28/23) — Kim Cattrall (“Glamorous”) 

Friday, Aug. 18 (OAD: 6/1/23) — “The View” kicks off pride month with Montana State Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who was barred from the state’s House floor for opposing multiple anti-LBGTQ+ bills; Nick Mohammed (“Ted Lasso”; “Maggie Moore(s)”; “Nick Mohammed is Mr. Swallow”) 

Encore broadcasts for the week of Aug. 21-25 are as follows (subject to change): 

Monday, Aug. 21 (OAD: 7/11/23) — Jake Tapper (author, “All the Demons Are Here: A Thriller”); Raven-Symoné and Miranda Pearman-Maday (podcast, “The Best Podcast Ever”) 

Tuesday, Aug. 22 (OAD: 7/12/23) — John Boyega (“They Cloned Tyrone”) 

Wednesday, Aug. 23 (OAD: 7/13/23) — Geraldo Rivera 

Thursday, Aug. 24 (OAD: 7/18/23) — Performance from Michael Bolton 

Friday, Aug. 25 (OAD: 7/19/23) — The Political View with 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Will Hurd; Jenna Lyons (“The Real Housewives of New York City”) 

Encore broadcasts for the week of Aug. 28-Sept. 1 are as follows (subject to change): 

Monday, Aug. 28 (OAD: 7/21/23) — Christopher Nolan (director, “Oppenheimer”) 

Tuesday, Aug. 29 (OAD: 7/25/23) — Jim Gaffigan (“Dark Pale”); Paul de Gelder (shark conservationist and shark attack survivor; Discovery’s Shark Week  “Florida Shark: Blood in the Water” and “Deadly Sharks of Paradise”); “The View” kicks off “The Ladies Get Lit” series with the co-hosts’ favorite summer reads 

Wednesday, Aug. 30 (OAD: 7/26/23) — Jason Reynolds (author, “Miles Morales Suspended”); “The Ladies Get Lit” 

Thursday, Aug. 31 (OAD: 7/27/23) — The Political View with Beto O’Rourke; “The Ladies Get Lit” 

Friday, Sept. 1 (OAD: 8/1/23) — Deena Nicole Cortese, Jenni “JWOWW” Farley, Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, Vinny Guadagnino, Angela Pivarnick, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino (“Jersey Shore: Family Vacation”); “The Ladies Get Lit” 

Encore broadcast for Sept. 4 is as follows (subject to change):

Monday, Sept. 4 (OAD: 8/3/23) – Neil deGrasse Tyson; “Rock and Roll Man” performance 

COPYRIGHT ©2023 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All photography is copyrighted material and is for editorial use only. Images are not to be archived, altered, duplicated, resold, retransmitted or used for any other purposes without written permission of ABC. Images are distributed to the press in order to publicize current programming. Any other usage must be licensed.  

Follow “The View” (#theview) on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. 

“The View” is now available on a podcast. Listen to the full show for free on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app every weekday afternoon.  

“The View” can be streamed on ABC News Live weekdays at 5 p.m. EDT. 

For more information, follow ABC News PR on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

[yeongwonie]

lost cause — yang jungwon

tags. high school au, friends(?) to lovers, slow burn warnings. cursing, one mention of piss 

word count. 8.5k

note. thank u in advance for reading! i’m kind of nervous about posting this but i hope you enjoy and look forward to more writing from me in the future :))

playlist. MIMI by youra, 몰랐어 (just a little bit) by enhypen, 긴밤 by seori ft. GIRIBOY

masterlist

SYNOPSIS. since your brief friendship with your crush, yang jungwon, ended in radio silence, you’ve been determined to keep him at arm’s length. jungwon, convinced that you’ve grown to hate him during your months of disconnection, is equally as determined to win you back.

IT’S ALMOST TOO EASY, FALLING for Yang Jungwon.

Between the way his dimples poke into his cheeks when even a hint of a smile crosses his face and the sound of his laughter breaking through the murmur of the cafeteria every so often, the amount of time you spend reminiscing such menial details shows how much of a chokehold the boy has on your mind.

Even in the classroom, he’s diligent and well-spoken in a way that can only be described as admirable. Although the two of you are now freshly seniors, he’s been a shoo-in for class president quite literally since your first year. Although you’re always at the top of the class rank, Jungwon is never far behind, and one semester, he’d even taken the top spot for a few weeks.

Not only does he excel in every subject, but he’s also insanely sociable, which is something you lack. Your mind drifts back to the prior Valentine’s day, when the poor underclassman volunteer had spent 10 minutes handing out his candy grams alone. Or the day he’d gotten a homecoming proposal during every single passing period. It’s honestly a miracle the popularity hasn’t inflated his ego.

You’d formally met Jungwon two years prior when you’d been partnered together for a history project. Initially, literal chills had shot up your spine when the pairings were announced.

You were terrified that Jungwon would slack off and leave you to do all the work, or worse, that he’d be the nicest person ever and you’d let him down and he’d never want to work with you ever again. The two of you ended up talking for hours over a video call the same night, long after the project had been finished.

Three weeks later, you’d realized your feelings. In your mind, putting distance between you and him was the best solution. Jungwon was all kinds of unattainable, and you almost felt bad every time you texted him, the little voice in the back of your mind telling you that he had more important things to be doing and that you were a hindrance.

Your relationship dwindled down to waves in the hallway, then to brief eye contact, then nothing at all. You doubt you even passed the classmate-zone in his mind.

Nothing much changes, when you and Jungwon stop talking. You both continue your studies, you and him remain at the top of your class rankings, and you push your feelings aside.

You spend a year completely fine without having Jungwon in any of your classes to distract you, and the second you’re sat next to him, you fall back into your old ways.

In the year that you don’t speak, Yang Jungwon gets all the more intelligent. Unfortunately, his intelligence also comes with a keen sense of observation. You can’t stare at his side profile, one seat away, without him noticing.

You find this out slightly too late.

“Need something?” he inquires, with a smile so polite it almost hurts.

It’s so weird speaking to him again, with the thick curtain of awkwardness strung up between the two of your chairs. You feel more like a student asking a teacher for help with a math problem than a classmate talking to another.

“Oh, um. I’m good, Sorry,” you stutter out, turning your head back to stare down at your notes so quickly you almost get whiplash.

Five minutes ago, your teacher had seated you next to Jungwon, and not even halfway into the class period, you already want to move.

The said teacher walks to the front of the room and addresses the class with a tight-lipped smile.

“Tell the person sitting next to you about one fun thing you did over break,” she says, then promptly sits at her desk and opens a book. You’re not surprised; the first day of school means playing random icebreakers in every single period, even though your entire class has known each other for years now.

Slowly, you turn back around to face Jungwon, forcing your eyes to meet his. You’re only able to hold his sharp gaze for a few seconds before fixing your stare on your fiddling hands.

“Do you want me to go first?�� Jungwon mercifully asks (although you feel slightly ashamed, knowing he sensed your discomfort).

“Sure.”

“I just started a few college applications, but I think that’s about it,” he chuckles.

You nod; probably 99% of your classmates are saying the same thing, which is why your teacher’s choice in question is so ridiculous.

“And I played with my dog.”

“Aww, that’s nice, where are you applying?” you ask, smiling softly at the last comment. He’s still as endearing as ever, unfortunately.

“The usual, I guess. SNU, Daegu, Gwangju. I applied to a couple in the U.S. too, but I doubt I’ll even get in.”

“Of course you’ll get in, I can totally see you at Harvard or something,” you smile. You don’t even have to lie, if anyone can get into such a prestigious school, it’s your class president.

“I think you think too highly of me,” he says, finally breaking the one-sided eye contact to glance up at the front of the classroom. “What about you, where are you applying?”

Your conversation continues until the end of the period, with Jungwon picking up all of the slack that you leave in your nervous state. Eventually, your comments start to flow more naturally, as they had those months ago through the FaceTime call plastered in your head to this day.

It’s sort of unfair, the way he makes you feel like he actually cares about what major you’re planning on pursuing, giving you false hope that this could turn into something more. That’s what everyone else thinks, you suppose, and then they end up as one of the discarded candy grams or the homecoming posters sitting in the trash.

So yes, it’s way too easy, falling for Jungwon, especially when you know firsthand that getting over him is one of the hardest feats in the world.

☆☆☆☆☆

YANG JUNGWON CAN’T FIGURE OUT why you dislike him.

He would even consider you a friend, despite the distinct lack of interactions between you two, save for that one history project a year or so back. You had been surprisingly easy to talk to, and Jungwon would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little sad when your conversations grew drier and eventually subsided.

He knows the two of you were buried in work, thanks to the ever-looming prospect of college applications on the horizon during your junior year. But still, it wouldn’t hurt for you to not act like he’d hit your dog with a car every time you make eye contact.

Jungwon knows what you’re normally like. He’s seen you with your friends; how you act when you don’t think he’s watching you. But the second your eyes meet his, your posture stiffens and your face twists into discomfort, as though being within a one-meter radius of him is equivalent to being dunked head first into a tub of ice water.

Sure, there are plenty of people with valid reasons for hating him, he thinks. People who project their insecurities about their grades or their social life onto him, who paint him out to be some perfect valedictorian golden boy. Or the people he’d had to reject in the weeks leading up to homecoming (he had nothing against them personally, honestly, but he’d have felt too bad choosing one person out of dozens he really didn’t know that well, and there was no way having 20 dates to homecoming would go well).

But, you don’t seem to be either of those things. Your own grades are pretty good, good enough to rival his own, and there’s a distinct lack of your name on all of the love letters he’s received in the past few years.

“I’m sure they don’t hate you, Jungwon,” Heeseung says. The older boy bumps his shoulder, breaking him out of his daze as his eyes continue following you down the hallway. It’s a little scary that Heeseung knows what he’s thinking, although he’s sure the way his eyes trace over your every step makes it a little more obvious.

“I don’t know. What if they’re mad that we stopped talking?”

“Didn’t you say it was mutual? I’m sure they understand how busy you were—they were probably just as busy.”

“I guess,” Jungwon’s voice trails off as he readjusts the strap of his book bag on his shoulder like a soldier, bracing for combat. In long, measured strides, he follows you into the classroom, making sure to greet the teacher standing by the door with a kind smile before scanning the room.

Jungwon’s a little scared to choose a seat. You’re probably the only person he’s had more than one sentence of exchange with in this class, but the months of radio silence between the two of you has built you up in his mind to be some sort of intimidating shadow figure.

Typically he’d just pick another seat, branch out, make new friends. But, at every single other pair of seats, there is at least one girl who has sent him a candy gram or sent him a love letter or even confessed in person in the last 24 months. There are still empty seats, but somehow leaving his partner for the rest of the year up to the hands of fate seems even more formidable.

Basically, Jungwon spends about 45 seconds standing at the front of the classroom, doing mental gymnastics to justify taking the seat next to you, before his legs actually walk him towards where you sit.

As he sets his book bag down and slides into the metal chair, he feels your eyes flit over his frame. Steeling himself, Jungwon turns to face you, but you’re already looking away, hyperfocused on the whiteboard, then the teacher, then the clock ticking on the wall.

He doesn’t know if he’s relieved or terrified when the teacher announces an icebreaker activity. On one hand, it’s the perfect opportunity to talk to you and prove that he’s not the asshole he’s sure you see him as. On the other hand, something about the way you purse your lips at the announcement is insanely intimidating, and a flash of doubt shoots again through his mind.

But he refuses to let this period go to waste. Yang Jungwon will not spend the entire period sitting in awkward silence, especially when the conversation had once flowed so easily. Hesitantly, he begins, telling you briefly about what he’d done over the summer break.

By the end of the period, Jungwon has to bite back a wide grin now that you’re talking to him again. He’s not sure why this fact relieves him as much as it does, maybe you’re a representation of simpler times in his mind, when he wasn’t so worried about the future (or maybe he just missed talking to you).

By the time the boy waves goodbye to you and steps back out into the hallway, he has only one goal in mind. Jungwon is determined to become friends with you again, even if it takes him until graduation.

☆☆☆☆☆

TWO DAYS LATER, YOU DON’T think you’re making any progress. Jungwon is still cute, and you still want to rip your hair out every time his eyes meet yours.

You tell yourself you no longer care what he thinks about you, yet you start waking up earlier and taking extra care while buttoning your uniform and tying your tie in the mornings. The thought of walking into your literature class fills your stomach with equal parts of excitement and dread.

Tapping your foot slowly against the tile flooring of the classroom, you keep your eyes focused straight forward. You’re almost militant about avoiding eye contact with Jungwon unless absolutely necessary now.

You feel a nudge against your shoulder.

“Do you want me to share the lab notes with you?” Jungwon asks, bearing his signature smile. Your brain is split in half between wanting to poke his cheeks and wanting to scream in frustration.

“Yeah. Thank you,” you reply stiffly, missing the way the corners of his mouth drop just a fraction.

You open your laptop with one hand, then grab a pencil in the other. Today’s classwork is relatively easy, typing out observations on some pictures of various plants under a microscope. Your fingers switch between flying across your keyboard and writing in your notebook as your mind drifts elsewhere.

“Woah, that looks so cool. Can you teach me?” Jungwon murmurs, his voice cutting through the daze of your tired brain so early in the morning.

You stare at him, then down at your hands, finally realizing you’d been spinning your pencil. As you look down, Jungwon winces in embarrassment, letting what he’d said replay in his head. He probably sounded like an idiot, and now you’d ask the teacher to move seats and ignore him for the rest of the year.

“Um, yeah. I learned it from a Youtube video like three years ago, so I might not be the best teacher.”

Positioning your pencil in your hand (and praying the slight quivering of your fingers isn’t visible), you look down at Jungwon’s hands to make sure he’s copying you. You demonstrate how to bend your fingers to make the pencil spin around, then stifle a laugh as he fails on his first, second, third, and fourth attempts at following suit.

“Here,” you say, adjusting his grip on the pencil with a feather-light touch.

Jungwon swallows before attempting to give the pencil a slow spin. The grin makes its way back across his face as the pencil actually moves instead of flying out of his grip.

“There you go,” you smile, turning back to continue typing on the document. Jungwon’s eyes linger on your profile for just a second more before he, too, returns to his work.

While you sigh, frustrated at your lack of success less than a week into the school year (because despite your efforts, the feel of Jungwon’s hands against your own was definitely still enough to make your heart race), the boy seated next to you replays the memory of your fingers brushing against his own.

Jungwon thinks that if things continue like this, you’ll be best friends by the end of the month.

☆☆☆☆☆

BY THE NINTH DAY OF your senior year, you are wholeheartedly convinced your literature teacher is trying to kill you.

“Who the hell assigns a partner project one week into the school year?” you scoff under your breath, copying down the rubric into your notebook and pressing extra hard with your pencil into the paper out of spite.

Thankfully, the period ends right after your teacher, Mrs. Park, gives her announcement. You need a little time to process the situation before you can even think about facing your seatmate. Jungwon thinks about staying with you after class for a bit, just to discuss what time you’ll work on your slideshow and script, but you’re already rushing out the door.

He’s a bit disappointed, but you seem frantic to get to your next period. And besides, he has a whole week to talk to you and get the project sorted out. Jungwon lets himself worry for the five minutes between class periods, then moves on.

☆☆☆☆☆

“I THINK YOU SHOULD TRY just being friends,” Sunoo suggests later that day, completely aware that your gaze has been stuck on Jungwon for the past 10 minutes. Even though you and Jungwon have been speaking more and more in class and you’re now able to hold a conversation without picking at your nails or bouncing your leg frenetically, you’re sure a literary analysis project will undo any progress you’ve made.

“Yeah, because being friends with Jungwon turned out so well for me last time,” you groan, rubbing your eyes with the palms of your hands.

“I don’t know, it could be like exposure therapy or something. I just don’t think this whole ignoring him and then screaming at me over the phone about how cute he is every night is working. I could be wrong, though.” At this, you shove him in the arm, causing his light chuckles to turn to full-on giggles.

“I don’t scream about him,” you protest, brows furrowing as your friend eyes you sideways before turning back to his food.

“Sure, and I don’t have pink hair,” Sunoo sighs as you stab at your rice with your pair of chopsticks. “Don’t you think you’re, like, putting him on a pedestal? That boy is literally a puppy dog. The little white ones with the crusty eyes.”

You know Sunoo’s right. He knows you know he’s right, too, and he’s way too smug about your clear internal conflict.

“Maybe you’re right. People always say you can’t be friends with someone you’re attracted to, so maybe if we become friends I’ll finally get over it.”

“I don’t think that’s what that means, but yeah!”

Deep down, you know it won’t be such a simple fix. But, you also feel incredibly guilty, meeting Jungwon’s attempts at conversation with terse replies and avoiding his gaze at all costs.

Across the cafeteria, Jungwon is having an incredibly similar conversation.

When he tells Lee Heeseung about his predicament, his senior stares at him for a solid 30 seconds.

“Hey, are you gonna give me advice, or what?” Jungwon complains, waving a hand in front of the elder’s face.

“Sorry, I just don’t see what the issue is. Your project partner isn’t making enough eye contact with you?”

“Stop making me sound stupid. I want things to go back to normal. Y/N and I used to just click, but now they’re acting like we barely know each other,” he says. Heeseung eyes the younger boy, whose brows are drawing closer together, skeptically.

“I don’t know, from what you’ve told me it just sounds kind of awkward. But that’s pretty normal, you guys haven’t spoken in a long time.”

Jungwon’s brow furrows even more.

“Okay, here’s what you’re gonna do.” Heeseung pulls out a spiral-bound notebook and tears a page of lined paper from the binding. After rummaging for a pen and uncapping it, he begins to write:

“1. text Y/N about the project

2. invite them on a study date”

“Date?” Jungwon interjects, and Heeseung rolls his eyes. He adds “(platonic)” onto the end of the line before continuing.

“3. get an A

4. go out to celebrate somewhere

5. friends!!”

Heeseung finishes the list with an obscene amount of smiley faces after the final step before sliding the paper over to the boy next to him. Jungwon regrets asking for help in the first place.

“Thanks, I guess. I was going to do most of this anyway.”

Heeseung flicks Jungwon’s forehead, then stands and stretches out his legs. “No way, you probably would’ve gotten nervous and then done the entire thing by yourself.”

“No, I swear. Here, watch,” Jungwon whispers as he sees you approaching the same doors. He tugs Heeseung by the arm through the swarms of his classmates, eyes never leaving you. Once he’s close enough, he sets the first phase of the plan into motion. His hands are only a little bit sweaty as they fiddle behind his back.

“Hi, Y/N” he calls out, adding a small wave.

His bright voice makes your head snap up. When your eyes finally fall on his face, you want to bang your head against a wall.

“Hi, Jungwon,” you reply before remembering what Sunoo had told you. “Do you wanna start planning out our presentation tonight?”

“Yeah, that would be great,” He’s a little shocked (but even more relieved) that you’re carrying out his part of the plan all on your own. “I’ll text you?”

“Sounds good.”

After a momentary pause, you continue on your path to your math class, thinking about looking back at Jungwon’s retreating form but never actually doing so because you still have some little sliver of self-control.

Jungwon grins at Heeseung, who gives him a thumbs up. The list remains safely in his pocket.

☆☆☆☆☆

AT 10:13 PM, JUNGWON SITS on his duvet and kneads his lower lip between his teeth. Your contact is open, the last message sent from over a year ago glaring back in mockery. For some reason, it’s so hard to come up with a way to say “Hey, do you want to work on the project right now?” without throwing his phone across the room.

Suddenly, three dots appear, as you’ve started typing out a message of your own. Jungwon nearly leaps off of his bed.

“hey, r u free to work rn?”

Grinning like an idiot, he starts typing out a reply, fingers flying at light speed over the screen of his phone.

Like Jungwon, you sit perched on your own bed, phone in your hands (which are quickly growing clammy). You reread the message you’ve just sent, searching for any spelling errors and contemplating if you’d been too informal or too forward with your wording (even though it was only 7 words). For two minutes, you wait, opting to put your phone down and look around your room, but still picking the device back up every 10 seconds to check for notifications. Eventually, you get a reply.

“yeah, fs! i’ll share a doc w/ u :)”

Satisfied, you flip open your school-issued laptop and click on the new link in your email, smiling when you’re greeted with a blank page and Jungwon’s cursor blinking on the screen. As diligently as would be expected of the student council president, Jungwon begins typing, listing out ideas for your presentation topic, and occasionally texting you to clarify specific details.

At first, your exchange is a little awkward, neither of you wanting to cross the careful boundary between project partners and friends just yet. But, as the night stretches on, you find yourself falling back into the same comfort you had years ago. It’s a little aggravating, seeing firsthand how you still click so easily with Jungwon.

At 12:45, you’re complaining about your various annoying teachers and your coursework. The project remains long forgotten; the two of you had done far more than you’d needed to anyways, seeing as the whole thing is due in 2 weeks.

Suddenly, Jungwon remembers the lined piece of paper, folded up and sitting on his desk. It’s not explicitly written in the plan, but things have been going so well tonight, and he slowly types out a new message. It sits in the little bar below the chat for a solid 30 seconds before he winces and clicks send.

“after we present and get a perfect score, we should go out and celebrate!!”

“what if we don’t get a perfect score?” you reply quickly, though you know better than to doubt the abilities of Yang Jungwon.

“we will.” he shoots back, and you smile a little at the addition of a “>:(” at the end.

At 1:09, you move on to the topic of family and learn that Jungwon has an older sister. By 1:27, you’re back to the topic of colleges, but this time, you find camaraderie in your and Jungwons’ mutual fear of the future and what lies after graduation.

And by 1:58, when you’ve started checking for notifications a little too frequently for your liking, because yes, you are still desperately trying to push any romantic attraction toward Jungwon out of your head, you power your phone off and force your eyes shut. Sleep eludes you until 2:36.

Once you stop replying, Jungwon sets his phone down beside him and flops onto his back. He closes his eyes and breathes in, then out.

A smile crosses his face as he falls asleep.

☆☆☆☆☆

OVER THE NEXT WEEK AND a half, you and Jungwon fall into a routine. During lunch, you spare no small amount of glances his way. By the time the sun sets, his messages fill your hours until you break away from your phone to go to sleep. When you wake up and go to school, he’s waiting for you, never failing to be one of the first few students to arrive in class.

Your resolve crumbles a little more with each passing day.

And now, you’ve allowed him to infiltrate your afternoons. Sunday, three days before your project is due, the two of you meet up to practice presenting. Jungwon had offered up his house, seeing as he’d have the place to himself for the afternoon and early evening, and instantly, sirens went off in your brain. Eventually, you resigned—you know firsthand just how persistent Jungwon could be. And, as if that weren’t enough, he’d bribed you with pictures of his dog.

You and Jungwon sit on the wooden floor of the small study tucked into the corner of his house, slideshow pulled up on the laptop that rests in the space between the two of you.

The door is left ajar, allowing Maeumi—Jungwon’s dog that somehow has the exact same energy as he does—to walk in and out on occasion. Maeumi, who is the only reason you’d agreed to come, rather than insisting on working in the library or a cafe or even over video call.

Being inside Jungwon’s house is so nerve-wracking. It’s not the classroom, or the hallways, or the cafeteria, the places you’ve grown so accustomed to seeing him in. There’s no screen separating you from him, allowing you to hide behind carefully thought-out messages or a well-timed sleep schedule.

There’s just you (sitting cross-legged on the floor and trying so hard to take up as little space as possible that your legs are starting to hurt) and Jungwon, whose catlike eyes seem to peer into your soul.

“Okay, let’s run through the whole thing and time it to see if we need to cut anything out,” Jungwon begins after clearing his throat.

“Sounds good,” you mumble, reaching for the mouse plugged into your laptop to scroll to the top of your shared script.

Jungwon has the same idea.

You feel his hand bump into yours as you rest it over the mouse, and you swear you’re getting heart palpitations even though you’re near 18 years old and absolutely should not be getting so hung up over something as simple as touching fingertips. Quickly, both your and Jungwon’s hands shoot back into your laps, and you take great interest in examining the frames lining the walls of the office. Your ears and cheeks burn in embarrassment.

Hesitantly, Jungwon moves his hand back and scrolls up, and you open a stopwatch on your phone. With a nod, you signal your partner to begin speaking and click play.

“Hello everyone, I’m Jungwon, and this is my partner,” he trails off, leaving the end of the sentence for you to complete, as you’d planned. Instead, you stare at the screen of your laptop, chewing your lower lip.

As the silence registers in your mind, your eyes widen.

“Sorry, I, uh, got distracted rereading the script.

“All good, let’s try again?”

With a nod, you restart the stopwatch. The two of you make it exactly four more lines before your rehearsal is once again brought to a halt. This time, Jungwon is the one who forgets to chime in with his part, instead opting to stare at the floor.

“Jungwon,” you whisper. His ears start to match yours in color.

“Sorry.”

You think that if you can get through today without embarrassing yourself any further, the presentation on Friday will be a walk in the park.

Just as you take a deep breath in, mentally preparing yourself for a third try, Maeumi trots in. The small, white dog wags his tail and runs up to Jungwon, and the project is thrown to the back of your mind.

“Hi, Maeumi,” Jungwon coos, and you reach out a hand to stroke the dog’s fur. At this, Maeumi starts to leap around, excited about seeing the new guest in the house for a second time.

Jungwon stands up, smiling softly and saying he’ll find some treats for you to give the dog. Once he’s on his feet, Maeumi perks up, walks into the center of the room, and starts to pee on the floor.

Jungwon’s smile drops. He looks like he wants to die.

“Shit shit shit. I’m so sorry, he doesn’t usually do this,” he cries, grabbing your arms and ushering you out of the office.

Once the two of you and your laptop are safely outside, standing in the narrow hallway lit by the afternoon sun streaming through the windows, Jungwon’s shoulders slump and he releases his grasp. His lips pull into an even deeper frown and his brows draw closer together.

You look at him, then back through the doorway into the room, and your lips quiver. He looks so distressed, but you can’t help it as laughter wracks your body. Soon enough, Jungwon joins in, and the two of you remain in the hallway, chests hurting and cheeks aching from smiling too hard.

“Um, I’m gonna go clean that up,” Jungwon chuckles as your laughter dies down. “We can just work in my room.”

You nod, and he directs you up the stairs and into a small room. You sit down a little hesitantly on the bed at his suggestion, and then he bolts out of the room, presumably to find paper towels.

Jungwon’s room is somehow exactly as you’d pictured it (not that you spend your free time imagining what Jungwon’s bedroom looks like, obviously). A few pictures are scattered across the white walls, and a navy blue duvet is draped over the full-sized bed. The white desk positioned in the corner of the room is spotless, scattered with a few sheets of paper and a desktop.

A few minutes later, Jungwon finally trudges into the room and collapses down onto the bed, hand covering his face. He peeks through his fingers at you, sitting next to him, and promptly starts giggling again.

Jungwon notices you look a lot less tense, relieving the tight feeling of anxiety in his chest and making his stomach flutter (in relief, he tells himself). He supposes he has Maeumi to thank for cutting through the previously awkward atmosphere, even if it did mean he had to clean up dog pee. He pushes himself up so that he’s upright and peers over your shoulder at your laptop, which rests in your lap.

Your eyes flicker to his face, a few inches away from yours, so close that if you were to turn your heads at the same time, you’d be touching.

“Let’s just run through it first, yeah? We can time it after.”

Stiffly, you nod.

This time, the rehearsal goes without a hitch. Once you’ve said your final line, you both pause, faces breaking out into two matching grins.

Jungwon pulls you into a brief hug, arms tightening around yours. You’re stunned for a second, and then you’re reciprocating, wrapping your own arms around his waist and giving him a quick squeeze before you both pull away.

���See, I told you we’re gonna get a perfect score,” he says as he resituates himself on the bed.

“We better, isn’t it worth like 15% of our grade now?”

Despite your first impressions of Mrs. Park, the woman knew all too well that more than half the class would slack off once college applications were submitted and their grades no longer held as much importance. It adds a whole new layer of stress to the already nerve-wracking project, but you’re just glad it’s happening now, rather than in a few months, when the entire year will be focused solely on their future schools. You’re also glad you have someone like Jungwon.

You’ve decided the two of you work well together. And you’re beginning to hope that he feels the same.

☆☆☆☆☆

DESPITE ALL OF YOUR DOUBTS, Jungwon is right. Your presentation is probably the best run-through you and he have done, and at the end, you see Mrs. Park’s genuine smile for the first time this year.

As you both return to your seats so the next group can go, Jungwon shoots you a smug look, and you can hear his voice in your head saying he told you so. As you watch the pair of students standing near the whiteboard, Jungwon slips you a bright orange sticky note.

“do u still wanna celebrate later?” is scrawled across the slip of paper in looping handwriting. You shift so that you can write your own reply underneath.

“we haven’t gotten our scores yet”

Jungwon frowns at your pessimism.

“did u not see mrs. park smile??? we def got a 100”

“wtv u say”

He unsticks the note from the table once you’re finished writing and resticks it in front of himself. Then, he moves his arm so that you can’t see what he’s writing. Annoyed, you face forward and actually start paying attention to your classmates’ analysis of the poem you don’t know the title of. Jungwon taps his pen to his lips a few times, deeply contemplating his next words.

Eventually, he sticks the note directly in front of you, then swivels to the front, watching your reaction out of the corner of his eye.

“are u free friday at like 7”

You’re a little surprised as you read it; you hadn’t expected Jungwon to actually stand by his suggestion of celebrating after the project ended. You would consider him a friend now, but you didn’t think he’d actually voluntarily want to spend time with you outside of class if not for schoolwork.

“think so,” You write back, trying your hardest to sound noncommittal. The last thing you want to do is turn down the implied invitation, but your palms are sweating a little and your handwriting is a little shakier than normal at the thought.

“great, you’re coming over,” Jungwon pens with finality, effectively shutting down any protests you might give as he grabs his backpack. It’s then you realize that the period has ended, and you watch his retreating figure strut out of the classroom in slight awe.

With a few seconds delay, you also make your way out of the classroom, meeting Sunoo in the hall to walk to your second class of the day.

“Jungwon just asked me to hang out again,” you immediately tell your best friend as you start to walk side-by-side down the hallway. “At his house.” When Sunoo sees your grin, his eyes immediately narrow teasingly.

“What happened to becoming friends so you can get over him?” he drawls, and you immediately look away. “It’s fine, I’m sure he likes you back at this point.”

You almost choke.

“What are you talking about?”

“He asked you out literally five minutes ago and you’re acting like I’m crazy?” Sunoo says incredulously, crossing his arms.

Luckily, you’re only a few feet from your next class. Sunoo glares as you wave to your teacher and practically skip into the classroom. Soon enough, you get a text message from the said boy.

“u know i’m right.”

You roll your eyes and tuck your phone back into your pocket.

The next three hours are spent with you completely tuning out the various lectures and wrestling with your own thoughts. Part of you does know Sunoo’s right; knows that there has to be some deeper meaning behind the lingering glances and touches shared between you and Jungwon. The other part believes that such a thing is impossible, and that you’re delusional for even entertaining the idea.

By the time your lunch period arrives, you’ve psyched yourself out to the point where you think you’ll throw up if you see Jungwon in the hallway.

Of course, this is exactly what happens (besides the throwing up). Heeseung and Jungwon stand by a row of lockers, engaged in animated conversation. Thankfully, there are still more than a few other students walking through the halls, so you’re sure you’ll be able to pass by unnoticed. The two also seem extremely engaged in their own conversation. Jungwon looks a little flushed, while Heeseung wears the condescending grin you’ve seen far too many times on Sunoo’s face.

Briskly, you walk past, ducking your head down, but you’re still able to catch a snippet of their conversation with how loudly they’re speaking.

“See, I knew you guys would get an A,” Heeseung exclaims, clapping Jungwon on the shoulder. “My plan worked perfectly, you should listen to me more often.”

“Of course we did, Y/N’s one of the smartest people in our year,” Jungwon replies, swatting away his friend’s hand.

You nearly forget to keep walking. It feels as though your heart is sinking deep into your chest and pulling your lungs down with it, and you suddenly feel nauseous for an entirely different reason.

In your haste, you miss the second part of Jungwon and Heeseung’s conversation.

“You speak so highly of them,” Heeseung smiles, finally lowering his voice. “It’s nice.”

Jungwon’s eyes widen a little before he, too, starts to smile.

“I think very highly of them.”

“I don’t think you ever needed the plan, honestly,” Heeseung’s smile shifts from genuine back to teasing. You’re both whipped and it hasn’t even been a month.”

Jungwon hums in thought before closing his locker and briskly strutting down the hallway, leaving Heeseung standing a little dumbfounded for a moment before he follows.

During lunch, the last two people you want to see sit perfectly in your line of sight, as usual. Contrary to your normal routine, however, you refuse to look over and bear witness to Jungwon’s joyous laugh or his bright smile. Now that you know, you can’t help but feel he’s laughing at you.

If Sunoo notices your dramatic shift in attitude, he says nothing. It’s not that you don’t want to tell your best friend about what you’ve just heard, but the entire situation has filled you with humiliation so deep that you think you’ll need a few weeks to even admit to yourself that you’ve been completely played.

Eventually, the lunch period ends, and for the rest of the day, you solely think about Jungwon. The boy had occupied many of your thoughts before, but now, instead of reminiscing on his dimples or his cheerful voice, you’re stuck wondering how you’d gotten here in the span of a few hours.

The worst part is that Jungwon seemed so earnest when asking you to hang out just hours before. If you hadn’t overheard the conversation with your own two ears, you’re sure you wouldn’t have believed it.

As you lay in bed, ignoring the couple texts from Jungwon trying to start your usual idle evening conversation, you feel like an idiot.

☆☆☆☆☆

WHEN JUNGWON WAKES UP THE next morning to a distinct lack of a response to his messages from the night before, his heart sinks. He wants to believe that you just fell asleep early or were extra focused on a difficult assignment, but he can’t help the little voice in his head telling him he’d been too pushy the day before, and drove you away.

This fear is only confirmed when you sit down next to him. To your credit, you do respond to his little good-morning wave. But Jungown can see from a mile away that your smile is a little too forced, and your posture is completely closed off.

Rummaging through his backpack, he finds the pad of orange sticky notes and sticks one onto your shared desk. He uncaps his pen and writes in his looping handwriting.

“everything ok?”

When you read the note, you want to cry. You stare straight forward and give Jungwon a single, sharp nod. In your peripheral vision, you don’t see his shoulders slump as a frown is painted across his face.

Luckily, the rest of the period is taken up by more presentations, allowing you to look extremely invested in what your classmates are saying so that Jungwon doesn’t try to start any more conversation. When the bell rings, you quickly sling your bag over your shoulder and walk out. Jungwon peels the orange paper from the desk and crumples it into his pocket.

Jungwon hopes against hope that the sudden shift is temporary. He tells himself that maybe your phone has been broken for the past two days, or that your pet fish died and you’re just too deep in mourning to talk to anyone that isn’t Kim Sunoo.

But then he walks into the cafeteria and sees you and Sunoo, crowded around your phone screen and giggling at a video you’re showing him.

He envies Sunoo, your best friend since freshman year and probably since junior high. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that you and him are not meant for a friendship that lasts more than a month.

His messages still go unread. Your next shared class period on Friday morning is possibly the most awkward hour he’s spent, although he’s opted to join you in your vow of silence towards him.

It’s the final day of presentations, and after the class period ends, Mrs. Park says she’ll be releasing scores. Jungwon, who’d been insistent on your success from the beginning, doesn’t even want to check.

This time, he’s the first out of the two of you to leave the classroom. Even though you’re supposed to be angry, you’re equally concerned. You know that Jungwon cares about his grades just as much as you do.

As you’re gathering your notes, you hear heels clicking against the tile floor.

“Y/N, I just wanted to let you know that you and Jungwon gave the best presentation I’ve heard in years. You’ve both earned a perfect score, please tell him as well,” Mrs. Park tells you. At the moment, she looks strangely maternal, so different from the strict, tight-lipped woman you’d known for the past month.

“Thank you, Mrs. Park. I will.”

☆☆☆☆☆

FOR SOME REASON, YOU STILL show up to Jungwon’s house at 7 o’clock on the dot.

You ring the doorbell, still contemplating getting back in your car and driving home. Before you have the chance, the door swings open, leaving you face-to-face with Jungwon himself. He’s clad in plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt, looking at you as though flowers have started growing out of your head.

After he’s scanned you from head to toe, toe to head, and back down again, he steps aside and lets you enter.

“I didn’t have anything planned,” he mumbles. “I didn’t think you were still coming.”

“Sorry,” you say, because you can’t think of any other way to properly portray how you feel. And you do feel sorry; sorry that you realized too late, that you’re still so willing to show up at his doorstep even after learning the truth.

Jungwon ushers you into the living room and offers you a seat on the couch. Once you sit, he rushes into the kitchen, telling you he’ll be right back.

For the millionth time that week, you've left him completely and utterly confused.

As you listen to Jungwon pacing around the kitchen and flip through different movies with the remote, you begin to hear a faint tapping. When it grows louder, you peer out the window and are met with a rainstorm.

It’s already dark, and with the rain, you would feel completely uneasy attempting to drive home. You get the feeling all of your exits have been sealed.

When you finally decide on playing the first Harry Potter movie, Jungwon re-emerges from the kitchen holding two bowls of ramyeon.

“Here, I didn’t know if you wanted any so don’t feel like you have to finish it.”

“Thank you. Sorry,” you mumble again as you pull your bowl closer to you and pick up the pair of chopsticks resting on the side. The word is quickly becoming the only one in your personal dictionary.

Jungwon spends about three seconds seemingly deep in thought before reaching for the remote and pausing the movie.

“What’s wrong?” he whispers, turning to face you on the couch.

“Nothing, sorry,” you reply, chewing your lower lip and picking at the skin around your nails.

“Why do you keep saying sorry?” he continues, and you almost feel guilty with the way he looks at you.

Your mouth is completely dry. You can’t think of an answer.

Jungwon sighs. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”

Then, before you can even blink, he’s out the door. You sit in slight shock for a few moments, wondering what the hell you’re supposed to do in a situation like this.

And suddenly, all of the sounds surrounding you rush back into your ears. It’s raining, probably harder than it’s rained all year. With the realization, you’re on your feet, slipping on your shoes and racing outside.

The neighborhood is dark, only dimly lit by streetlights. The moon is hidden behind the storm clouds.

Quickly, water soaks into your hair and clothes, the short sleeves and thin sweatpants doing nothing to keep out the frigid temperature.

You nearly cry when you see Jungwon, walking alone in the middle of the empty road, his figure growing smaller and smaller.

“Jungwon!” you call out, cupping your hands around your mouth in a futile attempt to magnify your voice amidst the torrents of rain pouring from the sky.

A few meters ahead, he pauses, shoulders heaving as he catches his breath. You can see the hesitation in his movements as he contemplates whether to turn around or keep walking away. Shivers start to run through your body.

“Jungwon, please,” your voice breaks, rasping from the frigid weather and the tears pricking your eyes.

Finally, he turns around. He inhales, exhales, opens his mouth, and you finally see Yang Jungwon lose his composure.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Y/N,” he says, with such a sharp look in his eyes that you’re almost taken aback. You grit your teeth. He starts walking closer.

“You,” he huffs, “are so confusing. We talk for the first time in a year, and you can’t even look at me. And then just when I think we’re finally becoming friends again, you completely shut me out.”

Your stomach clenches as remorse and anger simultaneously course through your bloodstream. You have to reassure yourself that no, you’re not being irrational, no matter how much you want to believe that Jungwon hadn’t just been using you.

“I’ve been trying, so hard, to talk to you,” he continues, each word accented with a step in your direction. “I can’t keep chasing after you when you’re making it so obvious that you want me to stop.”

“So why don’t you?” you hiss. “It’s not my fault you see me as some sort of extra credit assignment or something, right?”

You know you’re being unreasonable, but you’ve been wound so tightly this past week that you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Is class president not good enough for you? Do you have to make everyone fall in love with you to fuel your sick ego? I don’t want to be used to keep up your GPA.”

“What are you talking about? Do you really think I’m like that, after all these years?” He spits back at you. “I thought we were friends, but you really can’t trust me enough to believe that I would spend time with you just because I like being with you?”

“So then what did I hear you talking about on Wednesday? Your plan to get an A on the presentation?”

You can pinpoint the moment realization washes over his face like a bucket of ice-cold water.

“You heard—Heeseung, he,” Jungwon begins out, face quickly overtaken by remorse. His shoulders rise, then fall. “The only reason he came up with that stupid plan was because he knew I missed talking to you. I was…”

He runs a hand through his hair, the wet strands still clinging to his forehead.

“I was desperate, okay? I didn't want to lose you before I had a chance to figure this out.”

It feels like you’ve been punched in the lungs.

Even in the noise of the storm, his words sound out clearer than anything, resonating through your head like it’s an echo chamber.

“Sorry, I don’t really know what I’m saying,” he says after the silence stretches out indefinitely. You can see the wall separating the two of you slowly being built back up, right before your eyes. “I can, um, walk you home now. And then I’ll leave you alone.” You swallow.

“I’m sorry for not trusting you, Jungwon.”

“It’s okay,” he chuckles bitterly, still refusing to look straight at you.

Another pause.

“You didn’t lose it,” you whisper. It takes everything in you to keep your gaze off of your shoes as his eyes finally meet yours. “Your chance, I mean. I didn’t even know I had a chance with you, and I still couldn’t get over you after a whole year.”

The rain, the distant sounds of traffic, all of it goes completely silent, and the world stills around you.

Jungwon’s eyes search yours for one, two, three seconds, and then he’s curling his fingers around the collar of your soaked t-shirt, crushing his lips against yours, and breathing you in as the rain beats down on your backs. The tension seeps out of your body in waves as his features draw into a sweet smile.

Everything is so much, the now-soaked fabric of your clothes clinging to your skin, the feeling of his hands running up and down your bare arms, lacing around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer until you swear you can feel his heart pounding against your own.

Your fingers hover over his cheekbones before finally threading through his hair, and he shakily exhales into the kiss. You’re only a little satisfied that he feels equally as overwhelmed as you.

Eventually, the two of you pull apart, though you maintain the close proximity.

“You could’ve just told me, you know? Then I wouldn’t have wasted so much time trying to move on,” you tease, heart still soaring.

He ducks his head into the crook of your neck, and you feel his smile press against your skin.

“I know, I already feel stupid.”

“I think that’s an oxymoron or something,” you simper. “I should tell Mrs. Park her star student thinks he’s stupid.”

“You’re really annoying, you know,” he complains, lifting his head and dramatically sliding a hand down his face before turning around to glance along the road.

“Come on,” he says, holding out a hand for you to take. “Let’s go back before we both get hypothermia.”

Something in your chest flutters, and you smile for probably the hundredth time in the span of 10 minutes. Tugging on Jungwon’s hand to pull him towards you, you press a chaste kiss to his lips before releasing your grip and starting off down the sidewalk, giggling.

Maybe you’ll have to give up on getting over Yang Jungwon for a while.

[uhzuku]

𝐠𝐨 𝐨𝐧 — 𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐳𝐞. // 𝐦. 𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐨.

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬— in a fit of jealousy, mikey yells at his girlfriend; he quickly comes to regret it later.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠— manjiro sano/f!reader.

𝐰𝐜— 1.71k.

𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠— nsfw ; minors dni.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬— mommy kink, overstimulation, domesticity kink, degradation, humiliation, punishment, cum eating.

𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 | 𝐡𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐩 𝐣𝐚𝐫.

“what are the plans for today then, hmm?” y/n asks softly, hands on her ankles while sitting cross-legged in her seat. mikey doesn’t answer, too busy talking to two of his friends to be able to give her one. it doesn’t bother her though, and she’s quick to pull her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and start fiddling with it to pass the time. her lover was a busy man, she was more than aware of that, and over the last few years, she’d grown more than patient with him when it came to working.

the sound of the chair next to hers slightly scraping against the floor doesn’t escape her notice, but she doesn’t act as if she was paying attention to it.

“does mikey leave you alone like this often?” comes a playful voice she recognizes instantly, and she smiles warmly down at her phone, still not bothering to look up.

“you know how he gets when it comes to work, ken,” she replies quietly, still smiling. she’d met the man years ago, not too long after she'd met mikey, and he’d tagged along on more than a couple of their excursions together. “i’m more than used to it.”

“should you be?”

“are you offering to take up the time he usually does?” she shoots back, and draken falls silent, thinking. y/n returns her attention to her cellphone, but draken’s reply manages to tug a chuckle from her.

“i mean — if you’re offering, you can definitely buy me dinner,” he replies, shrugging a little. a shit-eating smirk makes itself at home on his face as he throws his arm behind her so it rested on the back of her chair — a genuinely innocent motion, but one that still caught mikey’s attention nonetheless.

“dinner?” she murmurs, her smile widening ever so slightly.

“mhmm, and a couple of beers too,” he continues, his smile widening. as his knuckles gently brush against her shoulder in a friendly way ( rubbing ever so slightly; he was more than comfortable around y/n and they both knew it ), she finally looks up, a playful twinkle in her eye that he was quick to recognize.

“oh? and why do i have to pay?” she asks, putting her phone away and diverting all of her focus onto him.

“i don’t wanna,” he replies with ease, and they both laugh between themselves quietly before changing the subject, talking about this and that and draken catching y/n up with the goings-on of the gang ( which she had missed due to being more or less a civilian with a nine to five ). in fact, they’re so wrapped up in their conversation that they hardly notice the way mikey had been glowering at them for the past hour.

it’s when draken gives her a side hug because of the way he had his arm over her shoulders that makes mikey break, and he ends the conversation he was having on the spot and storms over to the two of them, surprising them both.

draken smiles up at him good-naturedly. “hey, mikey—“

“we’re leaving,” he spits, taking them both aback. “grab your shit and let’s go.” they both can tell he’s pissed off, but why? had something gone wrong in the thirty or so minutes he’d spent talking to the lower-ranked gang members? regardless of whether or not something had happened, though, he had no right to speak to them that way, and y/n was more than willing to make her feelings known.

she raises an eyebrow at him before speaking her mind. “i don’t know if i appreciate your tone, manjiro.” her tone is cold, and she’s clearly peeved by this sudden bad behavior, but mikey just scoffs.

“and i know i don’t appreciate you flirting with my best friend,” he retorts bitterly, and it’s like a light bulb’s gone off in y/n’s head. oh. he was jealous. “now take us home.” jealous or not, he again didn’t have the right to speak to them that way.

he’d pay for it in due time.

“no, mikey, it’s not like that!” draken protests, his eyes wide as he removes his arm from the back of y/n’s chair as he speaks. that doesn’t go unnoticed by mikey and only seems to make him angrier.

“i didn’t ask what it was like, i saw it for myself,” he growls, then turns to y/n again. “i said let’s go. we’re leaving.”

y/n just looks at him for a moment, clearly unimpressed by the act he was putting on, then gets up and strolls up to him. she makes to pass him, but before she’s done so completely she leans down and whispers, “you are in for a big fucking shock when we get home.”

the minute the pair get home, y/n grabs mikey by the collar and slams him against the wall, earning herself a squeak of surprise.

“just who the fuck do you think you are, acting like that?” she hisses in his ear. she can see the jealousy still swirling around in his eyes and scoffs. “are you really such an insecure bitch that you think i’d leave you for one of your friends?”

he looks away, and y/n rolls her eyes.

“for fuck’s sake manjiro, ryuguuji isn’t even my fucking type! if i was really into tall guys with tattoos do you really fucking think i’d be stringing you along?” her voice betrays her and she sounds a mixture of annoyed and bored, and this just upsets her boyfriend further.

“maybe until you get a new boy toy!” mikey spits, and y/n’s hand flies up on instinct to slap him. he lets out a whimper at the sudden stinging feeling, clearly pained from more than just the hit. his cheek hurts and he barely resists the urge to bring a hand up to cradle his face.

“who the fuck told you that you could talk back to me?” she snarls, her eyes wild like a rabid beast’s, and honestly it scares him. he presses back into the wall, eyes wide.

“w-what are you—?!”

“i told you you were in for it when we got home,” she growls lowly into his ear, biting down on it hard until he let out a cry before moving her nips and biting down the soft skin of his neck, “and we’re fucking home now, so i hope you’re fucking ready.”

for the next few hours ( well into the early morning hours, in fact ) she’s got him wailing, desperate for his release and begging to cum for her. his cock was an angry red and was leaking copious amounts of precum, and she just wouldn’t let him cum! he needed it so bad, he’d begged her to let him please, please, please let him cum — and she just kept saying no.

“p-please, i gotta!” he sobs, tears running down his cheeks, “g-gotta, i’gotta, nee-eed i-i-it!”

“then go on — apologize,” y/n murmurs, licking a line up his cheek to collect the tears that had fallen down it. he shakes his head, getting her tongue off him and steadfastly refusing to say the words that would get him what he wanted.

“n-no!”

“no?” she asks, amused. she keeps jerking his cock ruthlessly, toying with it in ways she’d only ever been able to and making him writhe against her.

“no!” he cries stubbornly, biting down on his bottom lip after. she looks up at him from her place between his thighs and raises an eyebrow before shrugging.

“alright then,” she replies, refocusing on his dick and running her thumb over his cockhead with one hand while gripping the base so tightly with the other that he couldn’t cum. he starts whining again, new tears prickling at his eyes,

“wan-na c-cum!” he sobs, “need it, wanna cum so bad — h-hurts!”

“then apologize!” she snarls, and he just can’t take it anymore.

“i’m sorry — i’m sorry! oh god, please, mommy — i’m sorry!” he shrieks, desperately bucking up into into her hand.

“for?”

“being rude ‘nd mean ‘nd an a-asshole!” he sobs again, “i’m so sorry, didn’ mean it, promise — please, lemme cum!”

“mmmmm, that’s what mommy wanted to hear,” y/n growls, letting go of his cock with the hand that had been keeping him from cumming and speeding up the way she was jerking it with the other. mikey’s hands fly up and grasp at her shoulder, desperate for something to hold onto as her tongue curls over his oversensitive cockhead twice before withdrawing and being replaced with her thumb.

“oh god — g’nna cum, gonna do it, please!” he begs again, and she just barks out a laugh and nods. as soon as he sees her do so he cums all over her hands and she sticks her fingers into his mouth, ordering him to, “suck.”

he cleans her cum-dirtied fingers up with his tongue instantly, swallowing what he can and choking ever so slightly when she shoves them a bit too far back in his mouth.

“stupid little slut f’me’s what you are, aren’t you manjiro?” y/n asks cruelly, making new tears spring up in his eyes, which widen once he feels her grip on his cock tighten and her start to jerk at it all over again.

“wh-what— what’re you-?!” he cries, unable to finish what he was saying as he starts scrambling against her in an attempt to get away from how she was treating his beyond oversensitive cock; she just laughs at him and keeps working at his cock, a wicked glint in her eye.

“i told you, manjiro — you were in for a big shock. why would i stop now? you wanted to cum so bad for mommy, after all, so what's four more?”

“f-four?! no, i — i can’t-!” he gasps, his chest heaving as something deep inside twinges in a mixture of pleasure and pain at the feeling of her continuing to wring his cock for all it was worth.

“mmm, let’s make it six now,” y/n purrs, licking a line up along the underside of his cock, her tongue following the faint vein on it. “after all, bad boys don’t get to say no to mommy.”

𝐟𝐨𝐫 @em-plosion.

𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 © { 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 } 𝐛𝐲 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧. 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐲, 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞, 𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭.