#the stormclouds are crackling

[mumms-the-word]

Wandering the Gray

Pairing: Gale x gn!Tav Summary: In the midst of a brutal battle against Viconia DeVir and the Sharrans, Gale finds himself in the Fugue Plane once again. But this time, he recognizes a voice echoing in the distance. ao3 link A/N: You can 100% blame a 1 minute section of The Underworld from Epic the Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans for this fic. That's the entire inspiration for this fic. I don't want to spoil too much but if you've heard the song you know what's coming. also I suck at titles, every other title was too spoilery to me anyways enjoy the angst CW: some mention of suicidal ideation, death, grief, sad feels in general,

The air is thick with magical darkness, thick enough to drown in, and Gale is barely hanging on by a thread. He can feel the darkness choking him as he stumbles back, narrowly dodging a blade as it arcs toward him, appearing and disappearing in the inky black. Spell effects from the others briefly illuminate the darkness like obscured lightning amidst stormclouds, but nothing is effectively dispelling the swirling black. Shadowheart had warned them this would be the Sharrans’ tactics, and they had prepared as best as they were able, but the darkness was relentless. Gale had lost sight of her and the others ages ago. Now, he dares not cast spells with wide damage, lest he harm Shadowheart, his other allies, and Tav as well as the Sharrans.

His back hits granite and he realizes too late that he’s backed himself into a wall or platform of some kind. He grips his staff, jaw clenched, ready to swing outward or thunderwave the next Sharran that emerges from the darkness. His heart thumps loudly in his chest, in his ears, and though the battle rages all around him, it’s all he can hear. Every last desperate beat of a heart that is failing, his wounds too much to bear.

He nearly freezes as Viconia herself steps through the darkness. She sneers at him, but something in her stance assures him that he’s not worth her time. Before he can so much as summon a firebolt, however, she gestures sharply toward him, uttering a curse in Drowic. He feels the curse wrap around his chest, squeezing tightly, and his head begins to swim. A barrage of thoughts crowd his mind, clawing at his every insecurity and tearing them open to be laid bare and bleeding. Inadequacy, shame, guilt, terror, they all threaten to overwhelm him.

He sucks in a breath and flings a chromatic orb of crackling lightning at Viconia, but she blocks it readily with her shield. Smirking faintly, she steps backward into the darkness, leaving Gale with her curse, like a thousand voices screaming in his mind.

Pathetic. Weak. Flew too close to the sun. Defied your goddess. A shadow of your former self. Not worth redemption. Use the orb, Gale. Kill yourself. Kill yourself!

He doesn’t see the mace come arcing down toward his head until it’s too late.

—

When he opens his eyes again, he’s not surrounded by darkness, but by shades of gray. Gray and white fog swirls slowly around him and the sky overhead is shrouded in low-hanging clouds, all dull silver. Flakes of ash drift by, born aloft by winds that he cannot feel or sense.

The Fugue Plane, he realizes distantly, looking slowly around him. There’s nothing to see. Even the flat ground beneath his feet is a colorless gray, not quite stone but not quite earth either. When he shifts, his steps kick up a fine dusting of ash, or perhaps mist, which floats upward to join the shifting fog around him. There’s not even a shadow of the looming city of the dead to look for, to guide his steps. 

Just an endless expanse of cloudy gray.

The sheer emptiness of it all settles over him immediately, threatening to make him fold. He’d hoped since the last time he died, he would never have to return. Or at least that the next time would be decades and decades away. To be back so soon…

He lifts a hand to his chest, as if seeking out the pouch that formerly rested over his heart, but he knows it’s not there. Even in the Material world, he no longer wears the pouch. Tav carries it now, though it bears little more than a scrap piece of parchment and a flute, the scroll of true resurrection used up some time ago. He knows he ought to be at least a little concerned, though logically, it won’t be the first time that Withers had dragged one of them from the Fugue Plane for a meager sum of gold. It’s just a matter of waiting.

But it is the waiting that wearies him. A moment in the Fugue Plane stretches on for aeons, in his mind. Even his movements feel weighted down. But with nothing else to do but sit or walk, he chooses to walk.

As he moves through the fog, the hush of the plane is oppressive. Like a droning whisper, the only sound he can hear is a white noise that feels thick enough to cut through yet distant enough that the source is always out of sight, out of reach. There are no words to pick out from the hush, however. As he walks, he moves through the mist alone. No other souls pass by or even materialize in the gray.

Never has he felt so desperately alone, so isolated.

But then…a voice. 

He stops and turns his head as he hears it echoing through the fog, half thinking it’s his imagination. But then he hears it again, this time clearer and closer.

“…waiting…”

He grows still and would have grown cold, had he any body left. That voice…he knows that voice.

“It can’t be,” he whispers.

“I’m waiting…”

He takes a cautious step forward, following the voice deeper into the fog, straining his ears for more of that familiar voice. It must be a trick, and yet…

“Waiting…I’m waiting…”

“Morena?” he calls through the gray, but his voice is muffled, swallowed up by fog and mist. He turns to move in the direction of her voice, following it through the swirling gray.

“My darling boy…”

“Mother!” He stumbles forward and then to a halt, a figure materializing in the mist. “Mother…”

There she sits, perched on the flat of a rock, her hands resting demurely in her lap, the same way she sits in her favorite chair on her balcony overlooking the Waterdhavian harbor. A slate gray sea laps onto the ashen shore around the rock, the rest of the waters disappearing into the dark fog. The sound of the waves should have been familiar, comforting, but the sound is quiet, as if he stands yards away rather than only a few paces from the shore.

She doesn’t turn to look at him. Instead she sits, her head turned toward the water, just as he remembers her looking the last time he visited her in Waterdeep, over a year ago. Before his fall. Before his folly. She’d been admiring the sunset then, a wistful smile on her lips, a book abandoned in her lap. Now her expression is distant and tired.

She should not be here.

“Mother,” he murmurs, venturing another cautious step closer. But she doesn’t seem to hear him. She never once glances his way as he finally reaches the rock she sits on, kneeling down near her feet. He barely notices the water soaking his robes and trousers as the sea flows up toward the rock and ebbs away. “Mum...”

Again she ignores him, her white, clouded eyes on the horizon. Or what would be the horizon, if the swirling mist were not obscuring every view. She hums absently under her breath, little melodies that are heartbreakingly familiar, but she never once looks away from that hidden horizon.

She shifts, her hands making a stroking motion as if she were petting something in her lap. “I know he’ll be home soon, Tara,” she murmurs, her voice echoing softly in the mist as it did when he was searching for her moments ago. “I don’t mind waiting for him.”

“I’m here, Mum,” he says softly, his throat closing around tears he can’t shed. He doesn’t have a body to produce tears nor a physical heart to break. So why does he feel so desperately sad? Why does it feel like he’s about to unravel completely? Some part of him still desperately hopes this is all an illusion. A trick. “I’m…I’m right here.”

But she never hears him. The souls of the dead rarely see or acknowledge each other. He knows that from his last visit to the Fugue Plane. But she can’t…she can’t be…Tara would have said if she were…

She breathes a small sigh, smiling gently to herself and looking down at her lap. “My darling boy…my little love. I do miss him, Tara. But I know he’ll return soon. And when he does, I’ll be here for him. Waiting right here, where he knows to find me.” She looks again to the distant horizon. “I don’t mind waiting…as long as it takes…”

“No,” Gale whispers. “It can’t be…when...”

The answer unfolds in his mind with dreadful certainty. It doesn't matter when.

He took too long to return to her. His year-long seclusion in his tower. The journey from the nautiloid. Months spent traveling, moving farther and farther from Waterdeep. He kept himself away for too long and left his home and his mother entirely behind, and now…

Now it is too late.

He reaches up for her hand, but his fingers pass through her and her form flickers briefly. He curls his fingers into a fist, battling the swirl of emotions inside him. Rage at himself, fear, a desperate longing to say something, do something, to get her to simply look at him. To acknowledge him.

But mostly grief. A deep, irrepressible grief that yawns within him like a chasm with no end. Black and cruel.

“I’m here,” he says again, his voice breaking. “Mum…I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I…”

He shouldn’t have stayed away. Yet even as he thinks it, what other choice did he have? There were no choices. There are no choices. Everything he’d done since his fall, he’d done to protect her. Every choice he makes now is for that very purpose, to save her and everyone else in Faerûn.

And now it doesn’t matter. They’re both dead. 

“I love you,” he says, looking up at her, even knowing that she can't hear him. “All my heart, Mum, I love you. Forgive me. Forgive me.” He bows his head, bringing his forehead nearly to her knee, struggling to compose himself. “Forgive me…”

The hush of the plane and the faint sound of the sea are all that respond. But then a featherlight touch brushes his hair. He looks up, scarcely daring to hope.

His mother gazes down at him, her white eyes focused on him. When she sees him staring back at her, she smiles softly.

“My darling boy,” she murmurs, brushing the backs of her fingers against his cheek. Her voice still bears that distant, echoing tone, as if she’s a thousand miles away. “It’s time for you to wake up.”

“Wake up?”

“Wake up, my love,” she says again, and this time her voice sounds even more distant. Altered. Not quite her own. She covers his eyes with her hand, shutting his eyes for him, and he drifts into darkness. “Wake up.” 

“Gale! Wake up!”

His eyes fly open and he gasps, his lungs desperate for air. He looks around wildly, expecting more of the Fugue Plane, but instead he finds the familiar wooden walls and ceiling of the Elfsong Tavern. He turns his head to find Tav staring at him, their eyes wide with worry.

“Tav?” he mumbles.

“It was just a dream, love,” Tav says, brushing a hand over his sweat-soaked forehead, pushing his hair from his face. “I’ve been trying to wake you for a while now.”

“A dream…” He struggles to make sense of it, but slowly the pieces fall into place. 

Their fight at the House of Grief, where Gale had very nearly died. Nearly, but not quite. He remembers going with Shadowheart to free her parents, only to realize that their freedom meant their deaths. It had weighed on Gale’s spirit, watching her parents smile at their daughter mere seconds before turning into motes of light. He remembers thinking it was an impossible choice, one he couldn't have made on his own.

Something about it seems to have stayed with him. Even now, he half-fears that his dream is more than a dream. A premonition, perhaps, or a glimpse of the future.

Gods, he hopes not.

He sits up, rubbing his hands over his face. His shirt sticks to his sweat-soaked back and he wants nothing more than to splash his face and neck with cold water. But first—

“Where’s Tara?” he asks, dropping his hands.

Tav’s eyebrows draw together. “Tara?”

“I’m here, Mr. Dekarios.” She hops onto the back of the bed where it shares a backboard with Karlach’s. Tara always had an uncanny knack for being nearby whenever she was needed. She licks at one paw before fluffing her feathers and fixing her gaze on him. “Oh my. You look as though you’ve seen a ghost, Mr. Dekarios.”

He huffs a shaky laugh, but it’s without humor. “I almost fear I have, Tara. Tell me—this must sound like I’m mad but—my mother. Is she well?”

“Mrs. Dekarios? She’s as fit as ever, last I saw.”

“And how long ago was that?”

“Why, only just the other day,” Tara said, flicking her ears. “I check on her regularly, you know. I wouldn’t miss our evening tea time for the world.”

Gale breathes a sigh of relief, dropping his head in his hands again. It was just a dream. Just a horrible dream. Probably left over from Viconia’s fear curse that had struck him during the battle earlier that day.

He feels Tav’s hand rubbing comfortingly against his back. “Gale? Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” he mumbles. He takes a deep breath and drops his hands again, leaning back against the pillows. “Yes. My apologies. It was a bad dream, like you said.”

Tav is quiet for a moment before cuddling close, wrapping their arms around his middle. He shifts so that his arm is around their shoulders, his fingers trailing absently along their arm.

“Was it about your mother?” they ask quietly.

Gale’s throat closes up, but his silence his answer enough. He clears his throat quietly. “I saw her in the Fugue Plane. A dead soul.”

He can say no more. He reaches up to press his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, as if to block the tears that sting behind his lids. Even the thought of her sitting alone on her balcony, waiting for him, while he puts himself in more and more danger, is enough to break him. He takes a shuddering breath and Tav wraps their arms tighter around him.

“It’s okay,” they whisper. “I’m here.”

“I know. I…thank you.” He manages to compose himself enough to lower his hand and turn his head toward Tara. Her feline eyes glint in the darkness, watching him in silence. “Tara, will you—”

“I assure you, Mr. Dekarios, your mother is hale and hearty,” she says. “And we both have the utmost confidence that you’ll wrap up this Absolute business in time for the upcoming holidays, which you will be spending in Waterdeep, of course.”

“Of course,” Gale says, managing a smile. “But I have a request. I want you to go home.”

Tara blinks, and though she controls most of her expression he sees the fur on her neck start to rise. “Home? And leave you behind?”

“Please Tara,” he says. He rubs a hand against Tav’s back, knowing they’re listening quietly. “I will be fine here. You know you can trust Tav to look after me. But I need someone there to look after Morena. There’s no one more suited to the task than you.”

Tara’s tail flicks several times as she regards him in disdainful silence. But then her fur settles and she looks away. “Very well, Mr. Dekarios.”

“And don’t tell her anything. I don’t want her to worry.”

“Very well, Mr. Dekarios. If that is what you wish.”

“It is.” He knows he’s just worrying too much, but his dream has shaken him. Better to have Tara there, just in case, than to spend weeks wondering and worrying. “Thank you, Tara.”

“You’re quite welcome. But I shall expect you home within a few tendays, you know.”

Gale chuckles, settling in with Tav at his side. “We’ll see what we can do. Safe travels, Tara.”

“You as well, Mr. Dekarios. And you,” she directs her next words to Tav, who turns their head to look up at her. “Do see to it that he does not suffer more bad dreams.”

With that slight admonition, she hops down and disappears into the darkness.

Gale breathes a small sigh, shifting to get more comfortable and wrapping Tav more tightly in his embrace. “You should get some rest, my love. It’s still quite early in the morning.”

“What about you?” they whisper, their cheek resting on his chest.

He’s quiet for a moment. “I fear that after a dream like that, I’m wary of falling asleep again.” 

His dreams rarely repeat in the same night, but he can’t shake the irrational fear that if he falls asleep again, he’ll just find himself back in the Fugue Plane. Searching for his mother.

“Hmm…” Tav turns their head to rest their chin on his chest, looking up at him. “Then I’ll stay awake for a bit too.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” They shift to bring their lips up to kiss him before settling back where they were, pressed against his side with their cheek on his chest. “Talk to me for a bit. Tell me about your mother.”

“My mother? What would you like to know?”

“Everything. Whatever you feel comfortable with sharing.”

Gale pauses to think. Where does one begin when it comes to the venerable Morena Dekarios? But despite his hesitation, he’s grateful Tav is asking. He knows they’re only trying to distract him, but it helps. 

“Well,” he begins. “My mother is the inimitable, dare I say unavoidable, Morena Dekarios. She resides in Waterdeep, in a home overlooking the harbor…”

As he speaks, telling Tav of his mother’s quirks, her affection for him, the way she seems to know everyone, her favorite dishes, her talents, and more, his anxieties eventually fade away. It’s as though speaking of her like this, in the present tense, is proof that she is well. And would still be well when he finally returns to her. 

After a while Tav yawns, their voice heavy with sleep as they mumble, "She sounds lovely, Gale. I can't wait to meet her."

He smiles softly and presses a little kiss to Tav's hair. "Nor I, my love. I'm certain she will adore you."

Tav hides their sleepy smile in his chest and soon their breathing evens out, a sure sign they've been lulled to sleep. Gale listens to them breathing for a moment, grateful for every breath. Grateful, too, that they were willing to stay up and listen to him mumble quietly about his mother for an hour, of all things to talk about.

It’s enough to soothe his guilty conscience for the night. His dream was just a dream, he's more certain of that now. And one day, hopefully soon, he'll be back in Morena's parlor again, suffering her affectionate chiding and introducing her to the love of his life. The thought brings a smile to his face and he closes his eyes, comforted by daydreams of Tav meeting Morena Dekarios.

The daydreams soon bring with them the wave of exhaustion and at last he gives in, closing his eyes and drifting away for a few scant hours of dreamless sleep.

[blizzardstarx]

Pontalo AU Masterlist

LightningWings full information!

LightningWings, also known as mountain, storm, or lightning dragons to humans, are the ancestors of the SkyWings and are one of the seven tribes inhabiting Pontalo, residing in the mountains in the lower “wing” of Pontalo. They are currently ruled by Queen Hurricane.

Description:

LightningWings have scales varying in blue to gray shades, like a stormcloud. Some might also have purplish scales as well, which is uncommon. They typically have blue, yellow, orange, or amber eyes, and have “jewel-hard” scales. LightningWings also have the second largest wings of any tribe, bested by the FireWings, and have long, curved horns. They have thin and long snouts with an enormous nose-spike that acts like a lightning rod, which are small when they are dragonets, but grow over time, and an extra horn on their jaw. They have sharp, yellowish white spikes running down from their head to tail, which have spikes ending in sharp tips. LightningWing eggs are various shades of gray with white streaks.

Diet:

LightningWings eat hawks, eagles, squirrels, mountain goats, sheep, foxes, deer, cows, bobcats, lynx, pigs, rodents, cougars, rabbits, and other birds of prey. They can also feed off of electricity.

Abilities:

LightningWings are the fastest of any dragon tribe, not just in flying, due to their gigantic wings and endurance, but also on the ground. They learn to fly at a young age and are able to manipulate electricity, breathe fire, as well as swim fairly well. LightningWings can also withstand extremely bright light.

Some LightningWings can be born with a condition called lightningscales, where their scales are powered by electricity, and they shock to the touch. The scales are always charged, and LightningWings with them cannot ‘turn them off’, causing issues when swimming and when there’s rain, causing electrocution and sparks. Earlier in LightningWing history, they killed these dragonets to prevent them from suffering, and the danger of lightningscales, but in the modern times they were taught how to control and even use it to their advantage.

The large nose-horn on LightningWings allows them to ‘power-up’ and charge, storing the electricity in the nose-horn until further use. The spikes along their back crackle with electricity and signal how much they have stored, with the more spikes crackling, the more electricity the LightningWing has in power. LightningWings are taught to conserve at least some, and if none of the spikes, including the nose-horn, are crackling, they are most likely dead.

Animus magic:

LightningWings had animus magic at one point, however, they killed them like lightningscales. They haven’t had an animus dragon in centuries.

Society:

LightningWings are seen as quick-witted, sarcastic, short-tempered, and grumpy by the other tribes. Some have been described as calm but then having their personalities completely flipped, like the calm before a storm. Despite this, LightningWings are festive dragons, loving music and dancing, and have bands that perform at celebrations.

LightningWings will gather outside in the midst of a lightning storm to charge up their electricity. There is a ceremony for young dragonets for their first lightning strike to charge their nose-horn. They also fight with their horns and defend eggs and young dragonets. The bigger the horn, the higher their status. If their horn is removed or broken, they are shamed upon, and their powers are weakened.

There is a tradition of their burial system where LightningWings go to the highest peak of the mountains during a thunderstorm and let the deceased dragon’s body, wrapped in cloth or silk, get struck by lightning. LightningWings then set the body on fire to let the dragon’s spirit fly free to reincarnate into a LightningWing instead of the other tribes. The FireWings have a ceremony just like this as well, but more similar to the SkyWings. This was passed down from the LightningWings and SkyWings’ common ancestor to their descendants, then the SkyWings.

LightningWings tend to use their electricity more than their fire, but if they are out of electricity, they will use the latter. They will also use their spiky tails and wings.

The tribe isn’t taking part in the BloodWing War, however, they will attack them if they encroach on their territory, as the BloodWings have conquered most of their neighbors, the LightWings. Scouts and guards are on the lookout of any impending attack.

A few LightningWings have fled to the unknown land Queen Paradox of the ShapeWings went to, and are shamed for leaving their tribe.

Names:

LightningWing names are usually after natural disasters or storms related to the sky (like Tornado, Hurricane, Thunderstorm, Storm) and can also be named after lightning-related words (such as Spark, Voltage, Bolt). They can be named after mountain-dwelling creatures or birds as well (such as Thrush, Plover, Falcon)

Trivia:

LightningWings were originally called ThunderWings, or it was a typo.

There was also another tribe similar to the LightningWings, called AirWings, which were based on the Pokemon Altaria, and were cloud-like and fluffy.

LightningWing electricity is at least 300 million volts, like a typical lightning bolt.

They are slightly based on rhinos, or at least, their nose horns.

LightningWings and FireWings share a common ancestor, which came to Pontalo after the Lightbringer era and separated into those two tribes.

All LightningWings had lightningscales before, but it was changed.

[selenemidnight]

Fan The Flames

Simon Riley x Reader

Word count: 1.65k

Kinks: a lieutenant kink, breeding, choking/breath play, public sex (you're fucking in his office!)

Author's Note: This was so much fun to write. I hope you all enjoy.

-

“You should’ve listened to me, Y/N.” 

You both had just returned from a mission that was particularly dangerous. While out, you had disobeyed orders. To say your boyfriend wasn’t happy with you would be an understatement but something else lingered as you stood in front of one another now. The air in his office held an atmosphere of erotic surrender – every corner, filled with sensual promise, seemed ready to invite exploration. Dim light permeated the entire dwelling, casting soft shadows on the walls, creating an ambience perfect for seduction. 

You huffed, crossing your arms with a sigh. You never disobeyed orders but this time had been different! You needed to call for backup.

“And let you take that bullet?! I don’t fucking think so. Backup was on the way. I was NOT going to let you go out there alone!” “I told you I didn’t need backup! God do you even listen?! At all?!”

You rolled your eyes. 

“Why the hell would I need to listen to you?! We BOTH know I was right!” You snapped. “What? Can’t admit that you’re wrong for once?!”

Your lieutenant walked from behind his desk, his steps slow and methodical. His eyes boring into yours, his lips set in a snarl; a grimace of anger and frustration. His brows were furrowed, sweat beading on his forehead, his body tense, braced to take some sort of action. His eyes, normally a gentle sea of blue, are now a raging hurricane of stormcloud gray and green. The skull balaclava he wore only served to accentuate his hardened features.

You gulped when you felt a large and strong hand grip your jaw, forcing your gaze upwards. Just there. A warning. A silent threat of what was to come. 

“You have such a smart mouth, awfully confident for someone who never hesitates to take my cock down her throat whenever I ask” Simon whispered in your ear. His voice shook you to your core, low and reverent. 

The words Simon spoke should've left you shocked but you understood what this was. A silent plea for foreplay in order to quiet the emotional turmoil of almost losing you in battle. You felt the crackling atmosphere of tension, like static electricity arcing between your bodies as you stood face to face.Your arguments never got sexual but you had a feeling that was about to change. 

“I’m confident because I know when I’m right, Ghost.” You said simply. Using the name “Ghost” during a moment like this only seemed to add fuel to the already growing flames. You could feel your boyfriend’s hard cock press against you. 

“Ghost, eh?” He chuckled then lowered his voice.

 “Oh baby. If you’re going to call me by that name right now, you better call me Lieutenant while I’m stretching you out behind my damn desk. Understood?” 

Higher the flames grew as did your arousal. You loved it when he was straightforward and explicit with his desires. With Simon, nothing was hidden. No lines to read between- especially when he was between your legs. Right now that’s exactly where you needed his mouth or cock, right inside of you. You were craving him so badly it almost hurt. You could see the same hunger in his eyes, begging to be released from its prison. 

“Understood, sir..” You whispered

“Good. On your knees, slut. You’re done talkin.” 

Feeling foolishly bold, you chuckled and crossed your arms 

“Put me there, Lieutenant.” You jeered. “Show me my place. This is your office right?”

His hand snaked around your throat without hesitation, causing you to whimper in both shock and arousal. The lack of air was enough to make your cunt soaked with need. 

“That wasn’t a bloody suggestion, brat.” Simon practically spat. “Get on your knees right now. If you talk back again, you won’t like what happens.”

He let go of your neck and immediately you dropped to your knees, your entire body fired up. Oh you needed this. You needed him to show you where you belonged. You had been running your mouth all day. Now was the time to silence it. 

Simon undid the zipper of his pants, his thick and hard cock making your arousal only grow. He didn’t have to tell you twice. You took the head of his cock in your mouth licking the slit. Simon grunted out a low “fuck!” before tangling his hand through your hair, forcing your mouth around his entire length. 

The slight scent of gunpowder mixed with your boyfriend’s favorite cologne made your mouth water which only turned Simon on more. You knew he loved it sloppy so you weren’t afraid to really get into it. Gagging around his cock while drooling and squirming as he roughly thrusted in and out of your mouth like you were so begging for.

“See? What a good slut you are, being so quiet for me, Y/N. Keep this up and I’ll breed ya so fuckin much, my seed will be all you think about from now on.” 

Those words never failed to make you open your legs wide, craving  nothing more than to let this man cum inside of you over and over again without warning. Your hand immediately went to your pussy, rubbing your clit near viciously. You were absolutely soaked, your fingers already covered in your own slick. 

The soldier noticed this and proceeded to face fuck you even rougher than before. Something about seeing you touch your pussy while gagging on his cock was enough to send the man over the edge. With a few final thrusts, you could hear your boyfriend moan your name followed by feeling warm cum spilled down your throat. You swallowed it instinctively. 

“Get up and get in position behind my desk, sweetheart..” He panted. “I’m going to fuck you and cum inside of your pussy like the cumslut you are.

“Yes, sir.” 

You quickly got to your feet and bent yourself over his desk doggy style. Simon came up from behind you, practically tearing off your pants. His hands wandered to your chest, playing with your nipples. WIthout warning, the man slammed his long and hard cock deep inside your wet cunt.

“God you look so fuckin pretty like this, Y/N. Bent over my fuckin desk…taking my dick like the good little whore you are.” 

So caught up in the moment, you didn’t care about who heard you. All you wanted was to have this man fuck you senseless and cum deep inside of you. You’d simply own up to the rumors later. 

Meanwhile Simon groaned, thrusting in and out of you deep and hard. He fucked you in time with your screams, making sure you could feel just how deep he was inside of you. Every last inch seemed to fit you so well. Hell even his hands seemed to know where to wander, prying the most lewd noises from your mouth with a single touch. Your entire body was alight with pleasure.  

“Not so confident now are you? You’re moaning like a bitch in heat. Really goes to show with enough cock…” Simon punctuated this with one particularly hard thrust, causing you to cry out.

 “You’ll shut up and do as you’re told!”

“Yes, lieutenant!” You wailed. He gripped your hips hard enough to bruise. He was going absolutely feral over your body, wanting to devour every last noise you made and words that fell from your beautiful lips. 

“Tell me how much you love my cock.” Simon ordered. “I want to hear your voice, Y/N”

“I love your cock so much! It fills me up so good!” You whined. “I need it. I need you to breed me so fucking bad!”

“Fuck yeah you do, Y/N. Never forget that, baby.” 

That confidence. Even though he was above you, you could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Say it.” He growled. “Say it again.” You whimpered when you felt the movement between your legs come to an abrupt halt.. Desperate- oh so desperate to finally cum, you finally gave in. 

“I need you, Lieutenant. I need you to fill me up. Please…please don’t stop!” You nearly sobbed, legs shaking. You were so so close to release. 

“That’s my girl.” Your lieutenant panted. “God I’m gonna fill you up so good, baby. I’m gonna breed you until I’m completely fucking empty….” 

Suddenly you were being fucked while being choked like you had desperately begged for once more. His thrusts were deep and rough, the only sound to be heard over both of your moans was skin slapping against skin. You felt deliciously helpless with this strong soldier’s calloused hand around your throat as he fucked you so hard you thought you would break. The slight lack of air mixed with the pleasure of being absolutely railed was enough to make your head spin. 

You could feel that oh so familiar coil in your body about to break.

“I’m close!” You announced. “Simon, I’m close!”

“Oh are you now?” He chuckled, low and seductive. “Tell me…just how badly you want to cum for your Lieutenant. That’s an order, Y/N”

“I want to cum so badly it hurts! I want to cum all over your cock, Lieutenant! I want you to stretch me out and fill me up.” That did it. You could feel your boyfriend’s warm cum spilling deep inside of you as you arched your back, cumming so hard you felt your heartbeat in your neck. You could hear one infuriatingly sexy sentence come from the man’s lips as he pulled out of you. 

“You really should’ve listened….”

[dewdrops-whammy-bar]

Dying Star

Who’s ready for some major feelings!!!!! This is based on this post by @puppsworld and the resulting back-and-forth we had. The spirit of something possessed me and I managed to bang this out in 30 minutes.

I cried writing this… Troi I hope you’re happy with yourself /lh

Warnings: major character death, dementia-adjacent symptoms

Word count: 524

Aether hurt.

He didn’t think fading would hurt this much, but it made sense. His soul, his spirit, everything that was him was falling apart. Dissolving like ink in water.

It had started with a sudden silence. He hadn’t realized how present his magick was in his body until it was gone. He had been walking back to the Abbey from Mountain’s greenhouse when there was a sudden swell of intensity in his stomach. He’d gasped and doubled over as it grew to a painful level. Ozone crackled in the air around him as the Quintessence just grew.

Mountain had been at his side in moments. He had tried to touch Aether, to put his arm around his packmate’s shoulders, but the energy was too strong. There was a sudden swoop in Aether’s stomach and suddenly it was gone.

Everything.

Was.

Gone.

Aether let out a choked sob. He knew what this meant. It was baked into the subconscious of every Quintessence ghoul. One day, your star would burn out, and you’d be gone.

Aether’s star had died. He felt cold and empty without his Quintessence.

The pack had tried to comfort him. They’d held him, wiped his tears, told them how much they loved him. It helped a little.

Aether only had days left. He tried to go about his life as usual, but it was no use.

His memory began to fade on the second day. He struggled to remember the chords he’d practiced thousands of times. His packmates started to look unfamiliar.

He started to hurt on the third day. His body was fading, shutting down for the night. He felt sick, weak and shaky. The pack tried to make him comfortable- they made a nest on his bed out of blankets and added their clothes to surround him with their scents. It helped a little.

He cried a lot. He was scared.

The worst part was, Dew could feel it too. His mate, the man he’d bonded his soul to, was dissolving. He felt him slipping away with every breath, every heartbeat, every second of every day. He curled up in the nest with Aether and cried with him.

He was almost gone on the fifth day. He was fuzzy around the edges like TV static. His hands sometimes passed through things. His thoughts were vague and disappeared quickly. He remembered his pack and mate, though not their names. He couldn’t talk anymore, his tongue felt impossibly light.

It was sunset of the sixth day when Aether faded completely. His pack surrounded him, pressed up against his fragile body. Dew’s fingers were laced with his. He was whispering words of devotion, of love, of bittersweet memories, but Aether couldn’t understand most of them anymore.

It felt peaceful to die, like falling asleep. His form dissolved like ash in water, leaving behind tear-stained blankets.

It didn’t hurt anymore.

He wasn’t there to hear Dew’s keening wail of despair, or his packmates joining in in a chorus of grief. He wasn’t there to watch the sky turn pink and orange and fade to deep gray as stormclouds rolled in.

He wasn’t there.

[mxnsterbabe]

Nonbinary Storm Deity/Nonbinary Reader SFW Wordcount: 1,516 Tags & warnings: it/its pronouns (for the monster) Commissions | Ko-fi | Masterlist

It only ever appears during a storm, tapping on your window to be let in. What happens next, is like a dream.

When the rain started, your heart fluttered. You knew what it meant, what - or rather, who - it announced. It was Derecho, the storm cloud deity. Your strange, beautiful friend.

The pitter-patter on the roof was like a gentle drumroll, the fresh smell of rain-soaked earth like an invitation. Out there, beyond your window, storm clouds gathered in the twilight. Derecho was coming. 

Your heart danced in your chest. You were scared, sure, but also so, so excited. Derecho was like nothing else. A being made from storm clouds and rain, something magical that had chosen you. You had no idea why, but maybe it didn't matter. Maybe it was just lonely, like you. 

The wind picked up, making your little cottage creak and moan. Then, the sound. Tap. Tap. Tap. On the window. Derecho's special signal, your secret language. 

Your breath caught when the shadow appeared at the window. You unhooked the latch, letting Derecho in. It flowed into the room like a wisp of storm cloud, dark and damp. Then it changed, right there in front of your eyes. It turned into something you could touch, something almost human. 

You could never forget the feel of Derecho. Like cool, damp skin just before dawn.

Derecho took a seat by your bedside. It was an entity composed of dark storm clouds, yet there was a certain tranquility about it, like the peaceful hush that came after a fierce storm. Even though Derecho had no face, you could feel its gaze upon you - it was a gaze that was as gentle as a drizzle and as profound as the ocean's depths. 

You named it Derecho, after the potent, fast-moving storms, because it seemed fitting for a being that appeared with the tempest and vanished with its last echo. The deity didn't object - or maybe it simply couldn't - but you liked to believe it found the term agreeable.

Your heart pounded in your chest as you reached out to touch Derecho. Its form shimmered slightly, an incandescent dance of storm-cloud grey and midnight blue. It was akin to touching the surface cool water, dipping like water even though your hand came away dry. Derecho was cold yet inviting, as if you were gently caressing the veil of a morning mist. 

What made it even more astonishing was the level of comfort Derecho provided. The connection you shared with this storm-born deity wasn't about words; it transcended language, the very boundaries of human comprehension. In its silence, you found an acceptance, a companionship you'd been yearning for.

Your fingers traced Derecho's form, a path of fascination drawn on a canvas of stormcloud and rain. The deity's skin hummed under your touch, the vibration a sweet melody that your fingertips danced to. The rhythm was soothing, tranquil, a lullaby whispered by the wind. 

Derecho's presence was as calming as the steady drum of rain on a rooftop, as comforting as the soft crackle of a warm fire on a cold night. It felt like being enveloped in a cozy blanket on a stormy day, a strange mix of excitement and peace.

As you sat together, the gentle brush of your fingers against Derecho's form was a language in itself, a silent conversation that danced between your heartbeats and the distant rumble of the storm.

The room filled with a hushed serenity, interrupted only by the soft, comforting sounds of the storm outside. 

The room filled with a hushed serenity, interrupted only by the soft, comforting sounds of the storm outside. It felt as though you were nestled within a bubble of calm amidst the tempest, as though the raging storm had conspired to create this safe haven just for you and Derecho.

You gently patted the bed beside you, an invitation. Derecho's form seemed to ripple in understanding before it flowed down, lying beside you. The bed dipped slightly under a weight that was and wasn't there. The shadows of the room seemed to dance around its figure, rendering it even more mysterious and beautiful.

Derecho had no face, not in the way humans did. It had no eyes to look into, no lips to smile, no features you could trace with your fingers. Yet, it had a presence, an ethereal essence that made you feel seen, made you feel accepted.

Since you had come out as nonbinary, acceptance was not something you were often granted in the world outside your cottage. People struggled with your identity, struggled to understand something that lay outside the confines of their binary understanding. Derecho, though... Derecho accepted you. It didn't need to understand, it just saw you. And in its acceptance, you found a place of comfort, of safety.

Gently, your fingers trailed up to where Derecho's face would be, feeling the cool, silky smooth surface. It was like touching the surface of a calm lake, undisturbed and serene. You leaned in, pressing your lips against Derecho. It was a strange sensation, like kissing a cool mist, yet it felt right.

Beneath your lips, Derecho seemed to ripple, to move in a way that was almost like a purr. This was something you'd learned to recognise over your time together, a sign of contentment, of happiness. You pulled away, laying your head against the smooth surface of Derecho, feeling the familiar hum under your cheek.

A smile tugged at your lips. You were happier here than anywhere else. Happier in this small cottage, in the midst of a storm, with Derecho by your side, than you'd ever been before. With Derecho, you could just be. Be without judgement, without expectations, without having to explain or justify yourself. You could just exist, and that was enough.

Laying there, in the soft glow of the room, with the sound of the rain providing a comforting soundtrack, you felt a peace you hadn't known before Derecho came into your life. The storm outside raged on, but inside, it was calm. It was safe.

As the storm started to fade, so did the intensity of the rain against the cottage roof. The relentless downpour transitioned into a rhythmic patter, the mighty tempest ceding its dominion to a more serene drizzle. The lashing wind gradually softened, whispering through the trees and across the landscape with a hushed reverence. A peaceful calm began to drape itself over the world, the fury of the storm subsiding, its wild energy spent.

With the gentle lightening of the sky, the twilight hues of the storm began to recede. The darkness that had dominated the horizon started to fracture, its hold giving way to the softer shades of dawn. The silhouettes of trees, once lost in the storm's murk, began to stand tall and firm against the burgeoning light. The transition was gradual, almost reverent, as though nature itself was bidding a respectful farewell to the storm.

The change wasn't just outside. In the room, Derecho too began to transform. As the storm's power waned, so did the intensity of Derecho's form. Its shape, previously solid and almost human, began to lose definition. The entity's form, as tangible as a storm cloud could be, began to fragment and drift apart.

Beneath your touch, Derecho started to thin out, becoming one with the dampness left behind by the storm. It was a gentle dissolution, a respectful retreat that matched the elegance of its arrival. The diety's form slowly faded, like a wisp of smoke disappearing into the air.

There was a pang of loss as Derecho gradually vanished. It was as though a part of you was dispersing with the storm, dissipating into the rain-soaked atmosphere. There was a sense of finality in the air, a silent ending that echoed the serenity of the room. The rain's gentle patter on the window was like a farewell song, a symphony composed for the deity born of stormclouds and rain.

Yet, there was no bitterness, no despair. You understood Derecho's nature, its existence bound to the storms's life. As you watched the last tendrils of Derecho dissolve into thin air, you felt a sense of contentment. Acceptance. Derecho would return, as it always did, with the next storm. 

The promise of Derecho's return didn't erase the sense of loss entirely, but it dulled its edge. Your heart held onto the comfort of that promise, a soothing balm against the sting of Derecho's departure. You knew the storm would come again, bringing with it the soothing presence of the deity.

You wrapped your arms around yourself, feeling the residual cold left by Derecho. The smell of rain, the fading hum of the storm, and the lingering sensation of Derecho's form against your skin lingered in your mind. It may have vanished, but its presence still lingered. In the silence of the room, amidst the calming whispers of the retreating storm, you knew you weren't alone. Derecho was a part of you, etched in your heart and sou.

The dawn broke outside, casting a soft light that painted the room with gentle hues. As you looked around, everything was the same, yet nothing was. The storm had passed, but the echoes of Derecho remained. The world outside your window started to stir, and you carried with you a sense of anticipation. With each passing moment, you were one step closer to the next storm, to Derecho's return.

[kangaracha]

skz + devil by the window

just for you rain <3

LYRE LYRE

---

"What do you think?" asks the boy by his side, one hand heavy on his shoulder and the other spanning the distance between them and the painting that stares at them from the wall.

Jeongin doesn't know what he thinks. The canvas is large, stretching down to his feet and right up above his head, gilded in a frame of golden roses that look out of place against the severe grey of the stone behind. The colours are too bright, the subject is too dark, and the sunlight that falls in cleverly placed shafts across its surface seems to only come from the darkest corner of the room-

"It's kind of boring, isn't it?" he questions, peering past the gold and the grey and the visible footprint of a paintbrush on its surface to the image beyond. A room of cream and honey brown stares back, a table set with chairs and placings adorned with a bouquet of pale lilacs. Above the table, a window creaks open, a breeze blowing the soft gauze of the curtains back to show a glimpse of the world beyond - upturned earth, coils of wire, black clouds and hazy fog over a morning so silent that not even the birds dare to disturb it.

Chan's hand slips from his shoulder, disappointed. "Why is it boring?" he questions, his fingers closing the distance between himself and the paint, that peels and flakes from the surface of the canvas. 

It crackles under his touch, loud enough for Jeongin to hear. "Because no one is in it, and nothing is happening," he says, cringing at the sound. "It's kind of depressing too. The window didn't have to be like that."

Chan's hand moves, tracing the shift of the curtains in the breeze, the dust that's settled on the windowsill. "Yeah, okay, I get it now," he admits. "You're right."

Jeongin wonders what he sees, standing that close to the painting - if the room is visible at all, or if he only stares out at the intricate details beyond the window. From here, the trickery of light and shadow makes it look like he's about to climb through that window into the warzone beyond, only the strange positioning of his hand and the gaudy frame to remind him that it is just a painting, flat to the wall and inaccessible to flesh and bone creatures such as them.

High above them but not so far behind, footsteps pounding their way down the stairs announce that they have been found, down here in this obscure corner of the house. Loud and heavy, like the stout character that they carry around their sweeping curve and out into the space of the empty hall that yawns behind them. "Everyone is looking for you, you know," Changbin says, even louder than the sound that his boots make on the marble floor. "And you're down here-"

Chan's hand slides from the painting, fingers curling by his side. His palm is painted in brown and red, his fingers tipped in black from the stormclouds above. "I've been gone for five minutes," he says, letting a single, put-upon sigh drag itself out from between his lips. "Seungmin was just down here."

"Yeah, and now Minho wants to hunt him for sport." The delighted grin on Changbin's face doesn't match his words, but Jeongin doubts he is being serious anyway; Minho is like an old dog without any teeth to gnaw with, only causing a ruckus when he feels like it. "Anyway, they're not just looking for you. It's our last night with our I.N-nie after all, and you're keeping him all to yourself."

Hands reach out, trying to grab at him - Jeongin darts away on instinct, too used to the cat-and-mouse game and the suffocating squeeze it always ends in. He'd almost feel bad, on this particular occasion, but Changbin isn't deterred, following him doggedly with the kind of wicked grin that means he's maybe enjoying the game a little too much. 

The realisation that it really is his last night in the house hits him as Changbin's arms encircle him, lifting his feet off the ground as he squeezes as hard as he can. It's hard for his heart to break when he can't breathe, but it tries anyway, scraping at the inside of his ribcage and curling in on the ice that creeps around it, the fear of what comes next. There's only hours left now - and he knew that already, he did, but he'd been pretending that if no one says it then it's not going to happen, that he'll wake up tomorrow and the house will still be here and Seungmin will be sitting on the end of his bed complaining about the sun rising and it will be another day yet until he is supposed to leave.

"Maybe I'm just going to miss him more than the rest of you," Chan says around the huff of Changbin's laughter in his ear, feigning accusation just for fun. Chan's good at that, the switch from motherly to childish on the flip of the dime; always watching, always tuned into the turn of the conversation, anticipating which direction to take it before the rest of them even know what they are talking about. 

Changbin drops him without warning, his mouth open in indignation. The first breath Jeongin drags into his lungs is shaky and half-empty; the second has to work its way around the laugh that escapes on his exhale, triggered by the sight of Changbin's face, and the loud yell that rattles the ceiling. 

Chan backs away towards the stairs, hands outstretched, abandoning Jeongin with Changbin. He's giggling, the coward; Jeongin doesn't even try to fight the heavy arm that throws itself around his shoulders, closer to a headlock than a guide, and drags him after Chan, all the way to the bottom of the stairs. "Do you think I don't love him?" Changbin asks the older boy, his voice rising higher and higher into the house the further up the stairs they climb. 

"Do you, Changbinnie?" Chan questions in response. He's climbing backwards up the stairs, one hand on the railing for balance and the other taunting Changbin. "Do you really?"

"I loved I.N-nie before I even knew him," Changbin claims. The words bounce off the walls and back into Jeongin's ears, loud enough to hurt them - he wants to cringe away from the source, but Changbin pulls him even closer before he's even finished speaking, his elbow squeezing at the back of his neck. "You love me too, don't you Innie? More than anyone else?"

READ MORE

[vannahfanfics]

Of Stormclouds in Sendai, and Silver Linings, Too

Word Count: 17,940

Fluff, Romance, Post-Timeskip

Summary: When Hitoka Yachi set out for Sendai one morning for a surprise visit to her friend Kei, she was beset by a series of tragedies that led her to believe that it was simply not her day. A certain serendipitous encounter doesn't put a complete stop to her bad luck, but it's enough to make her question if it might turn out to be a good day for her after all.

Hello, all! Here is my work for this year's Sendai Frogs Big Bang! The link to my partner's art is here, so please go give it some love!

Today is just not my day! Hitoka despaired as she dashed down the empty sidewalk and through the pouring rain. Her sodden shoes splashed dirty rainwater against her shins and calves with every swift step, but the ripples produced by her footfalls were almost immediately swallowed up by the foaming wake generated by the mud-caked wheels of her suitcase, which she lugged behind her. The hand that was not wrapped around its handle held her purse over her head. Unfortunately, the small, square-shaped satchel did little to shield her from the deluge streaming down from the cloud-choked sky above. She hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella; after all, the weather forecast that morning had predicted that the weather in Hitoka’s destination would be rather pleasant. Apparently, the storm system that the meteorologists had been monitoring had unexpectedly shifted direction. Hitoka had thought she was leaving it behind; instead, it had accompanied her on her little trip. 

Well, at least I made it to Sendai! That’s a start, at least, Hitoka thought with a grimace as she cast her gaze skyward. Her glower deepened with displeasure when she was met with a sea of dark, roiling clouds and crackling tendrils of lightning snaking through them like angry serpents. After four hours on a train, Hitoka had been happy to see Sendai; apparently, it was not nearly as happy to see her. The moment that Hitoka had stepped off the train, the clouds had opened up to unleash their tempestuous fury upon her. 

Well, more like sprinted off the train; it had arrived an hour behind schedule, leaving Hitoka with no recourse but to rush forth into the torrent and try to pry the multiple wrenches from her meticulously made plans. Originally, Hitoka had intended to surprise Kei after his practice with the Sendai Frogs. Considering that it was nearly an hour after their practices usually ended, she highly doubted that her agenda would be successful. She’d just have to call him up once she got to her hotel and arrange a not-surprise meeting. 

I can only hope that Kei will be a bit more welcoming, Hitoka thought wryly. If I can actually meet up with him, that is! Am I even going in the right direction?

Hitoka slowed her pace to a steady trot so she could pull out her cell phone and reference the map in her GPS app. She had entered the address to the hotel right before departing the train, but she had been so startled by the ferocity of the thunderstorm that she had neglected to use it up until that point. After several seconds of struggling to zoom in on the map thanks to the raindrops smeared across the screen, she decided to take temporary shelter beneath the awning of an—unsurprisingly—empty café and get her bearings. Instantly, she wished she hadn’t. According to the map, the hotel was another ten minutes’ walk from her current location. She already looked like a half-drowned rat; she’d look like a fully-drowned one by the time she got there!

Hitoka sighed despondently as she slowly raised her eyes to the curtain of rain suspended from the awning, hanging mere inches from the mud-splattered toes of her flats, and deliberated on her next course of action. Her destination was her hotel, but there just didn’t seem to be any good way to get there. She could sprint the considerable distance, or she could flutter around the sidewalk to try and flag down a taxi; either option would result in her getting completely drenched. Alternatively, she could hang around the café until the storm blew over. That seemed like the best option, at least until she pulled up her weather app and discovered that the storm was supposed to last well into the wee hours of the morning. Kei could meet her there, but… she’d hate to drag him out into this weather. There was no use in both of them ending up like drowned rats. 

What should I do? Hitoka fretted with a groan and a shuffle of her feet. She looked from her phone to the street to the café window behind her and back again, but there came no divine revelation indicating which of the equally unappealing options she should go for. After several more seconds of deliberation, she concluded that there would not be a sign from above at all, that she should make the mad dash for the hotel and put a fitting close to her disaster of a day. Thus, Hitoka breathed a sigh of resignation, cast a doleful look at the stormy sky, and mentally prepared to plunge into the downpour once more. 

As it turned out, the gods were simply waiting for the precise moment at which their heavenly intervention would have the greatest chance of giving Hitoka a heart attack. 

“Yachi-san?”

“Wh-who?! What?! Who?!” Hitoka squeaked, whipping on her heel so fast that she nearly tripped over her suitcase. The person—the man, more accurately—who had addressed her stood at the edge of the awning, presumably having snuck up on her on account of the rain masking his footsteps. The dome of his large black umbrella cleaved through the waterfall cascading down from Hitoka’s canopy shelter; the water streamed in rivulets down the umbrella’s canvas sides to pour in thick sheets on either side of his combat booted feet, except for a few thick-heavy drops that dripped down in front of his face. A rugged, handsome face… and a familiar face, Hitoka realized with a small gasp of recognition. His hair had changed slightly, but other than that, he looked virtually unchanged from the day that she had first seen him, years ago as a high school first-year. 

“Kyoutani-san? Kentarou Kyoutani, from Aoba Johsei High?” Hitoka cried. That’s right; Kei had recently told her that Kentarou had also joined the Sendai Frogs. “Long time, no see!” she greeted with a quick dip of her head. Though she intended it to be out of politeness, she also did it to hide her suddenly sheepish expression; Kentarou was no less intimidating than the moment she’d first clapped eyes on him. 

“How’ve you been?” she inquired shyly, forcing herself to peer up at him through her lashes. Though she’d grown in confidence over the years, she still didn’t quite know how to interact with formidable presences like Kentarou. It didn’t help that he had grown, too—and not just in confidence. 

“I’ve been fine, thank you,” Kentarou quipped in response, clipped but not unkind. He rocked on the balls of his heels as he slowly raked his eyes over Hitoka’s bedraggled form, surveying her with an emotionless precision that almost seemed more uncomfortable than a blatant, lewd leer would have been. When his eyes roved back up to fix his intense, piercing stare trained on her face again, his mouth slowly twitched into what Hitoka interpreted as a sympathetic smile. “I take it that you haven’t been doing quite so well?” 

“No, not really,” Hitoka giggled awkwardly, glancing back down at her muddy feet as she twirled a damp strand of her hair around her index finger. “I left my umbrella at home… and that’s not the half of it.” 

“Home…” Kentarou repeated in a murmur, furrowing his brow in thought. “I’ve heard Kei mention it before. You live in… Tokyo, right?” 

“That’s right!” Hitoka confirmed, admittedly flattered that he’d remembered such a small detail about her though she was virtually a stranger to him. “I have a few days off from work, so I thought I’d take a trip out here to see Kei since it’s been a while! Anytime I have a considerable amount of free time, I try to take little trips to keep up with everybody.” She then chuckled bashfully and tugged at another strand of her hair. “Of course, I didn’t quite imagine it going like this. There wasn’t rain, first of all, and I’d expected to be here an hour ago, surprising him after practice…” 

“Hn,” Kentarou just grunted in response. He didn’t sound uninterested, but there was still something off about his tone—some emotion that Hitoka couldn’t place. Of course, she knew that the odds of her being able to successfully place it were next to none, so she just decided to continue without addressing it. 

“It’s just as well!” she laughed awkwardly and glanced down at her disheveled form with an embarrassed frown. “The storm beat me here, so by the time I would have turned up at the gym, I’d’ve looked like something the tide hauled in! Of course, I’ll still look like that, just when I arrive at my hotel, instead,” she said with a forlorn glance at the rain—just in time for the wind to pick up and whip over a trash can, spilling its soaked contents into the street. “If I even make it that far…” 

“I’ll walk you,” Kentarou volunteered with such speed and earnestness that it took Hitoka aback. Her head snapped up so she could fix him in a wide-eyed gape; his own dropped down to stare awkwardly at his shoes, a haze of pink dusting his cheeks. “I have an umbrella, after all… I can’t just let you walk all the way now that I’m here,” he added in a subdued mumble. 

“Oh!” Hitoka exclaimed, admittedly shocked by his gentlemanly gesture. Not that she didn’t think Kentarou incapable of such deeds, but… it was just surprising, that’s all! Who would expect someone with the moniker of “Mad Dog” to go around offering to walk girls home on rainy days? Oh, but that was so unfairly presumptuous of her, wasn’t it? Kentarou had never given her any reason to think that he was totally incapable of being nice! Then again, this was probably the longest conversation she’d ever had with the guy, so he’d never really given her any reason to think much of anything about him…

“Yachi-san?” 

“O-oh! Right! Yes!” Hitoka started, flushing with mortification at the realization that she’d effectively ignored his very generous offer. Flustering, she clumsily straightened a few disarrayed strands of her hair as she offered him a grateful smile. “That’s very nice of you to offer, Kyoutani-san, but are you sure? You must be out and about in this dreadful weather because you’re on your way somewhere. I would hate to derail your plans… and make you be out in this storm longer than you have to be.” 

“A little rain doesn’t bother me,” Kentarou shrugged. Before she could counter that it was more than just a little rain, he coughed slightly and continued, “As it happens… I was actually on my way to meet Kei and Kanji for dinner when I ran into you.” 

“Really? It’s so nice that you three hang out together!”

“Just on occasion,” Kentarou mumbled, looking equal parts consternated at the notion that he was chummy with his teammates and pleased by the fact that Hitoka found it so endearing. The slightly scrunchy, slightly pouty expression that resulted was so cute that Hitoka couldn’t help but giggle. Her reaction only served to fluster him more; his gaze dropped to his feet, and despite the way he tried to dip his head, Hitoka could plainly see the way his cheeks darkened. Hitoka never imagined that she’d be calling Kentarou Kyoutani of all people cute, but… he could be darn adorable, as it turned out!

“Still, it’s nice,” Hitoka insisted with a sweet, supportive smile. “I’m glad Kei has friends that make him go out! He can be so unsociable, you know.” 

It was so fast that Hitoka almost missed it. Kentarou’s jaw tightened, his brow furrowed, his lips pressed into a thin line. In an instant, the door that he’d cracked open was suddenly slammed shut again, leaving Hitoka speechless and staring at a man whom she couldn’t even begin to understand. 

“Kei…” Kentarou murmured. “Right, Kei.” He cleared his throat, like he was trying to swallow a bitter pill, and looked down at his feet as he shuffled them awkwardly. “You came to Sendai to see Kei…” 

“Y-yes, that’s right,” Hitoka stammered, so stunned by his sudden transformation that all she could think to do was nod. 

“Right. Um,” he huffed while pawing at the back of his neck, looking at his shoes like they pained him to be on his feet. Within a blink, however, he had ironed out the crinkles in his expression to form the blank, stony glower he’d slapped on his face before. His eyes flickered up to Hitoka’s bemused expression, then back to his shoes, then slowly crawled back up to her face again. “Right… You should… You should come along with me. To dinner. To see Kei, I mean. Because he’ll be there. At dinner.” He cleared his throat one more time, then finished with a faint note of what Hitoka could have sworn was despondence, “I know he’ll be happy to see you, Yachi-san… and this way, you can surprise him, just like you want.” 

“Kyoutani-san…” Hitoka murmured, fiddling anxiously with her fingers as she regarded him diffidently. Ordinarily, she’d be delighted by such a kind offer, but there was just something about Kentarou’s demeanor that disquieted her. His entire air just made her feel like it would be wrong to accept so eagerly. It would feel even more wrong to decline his proposal, though… 

After a few seconds of deliberation, Hitoka found herself slowly nodding in agreement.

“All right, Kyoutani-san. I’ll join you all for dinner tonight!” she decided. The next second, however, she suddenly found herself reminded of just how bedraggled she looked. She glanced down at herself, drinking in her sodden clothes and mud-splattered shins, and then slowly trailed her eyes back up to Kentarou’s with an abashed smile. 

“Oh, but, I couldn’t possibly go out like this!” she fretted. “I can’t imagine you’d be anything but embarrassed to be seen in public with me!” 

Hitoka swore that Kentarou grimaced and muttered something along the lines of, “I’d think that you’d be embarrassed to be seen in public with me.” She blinked in shock, only to find that Kentarou was looking at her with the same impassive stare he had been for most of the conversation. She began to question whether or not she had imagined the remark, and her self-doubt was magnified by the nonchalance of his next statement. 

“Well, we have to go to your hotel anyway,” Kentarou said with a small wave at her suitcase. “You can clean up there, and then we can go.”

Hitoka swallowed her urge to protest, realizing that, first, it really was the most sensible and time-efficient option, and second, Kentarou would probably insist that it wasn’t any bother to escort her to her hotel even if she did argue the point. There was another point that she felt was worth arguing, however. 

“But what about the other two? Kei and Koganegawa-san?” she countered. “Surely they’re already headed to the place you three were going to meet.” 

“They can wait,” came his succinct response. His complete lack of hesitation or guilt in declaring such left Hitoka utterly speechless. Kentarou must have taken her astonishment for acceptance; when she said nothing in response to his assertion, he gave a quick little nod of satisfaction, whirled about on his heel to face the street, started striding purposefully away, and said in that same no-nonsense tone that left all protests fizzling out on Hitoka’s tongue like the last few crumbs of a mouthful of popping candy, “I’ll get a cab.” 

Hitoka could only watch in a partly amazed, partly flattered fluster as Kentarou forded out into the squall to hail a taxi. The rain poured in such volume that it looked less like a waterfall rushing down and more like a curtain of stringed diamonds suspended from the awning—and like a curtain, Hitoka peered through the translucent veil as she marveled at Kentarou’s tall, broad form looming in the near distance. His silhouette was reminiscent of a lone oak standing sentinel upon a small hill, with his large, imposing bulk mimicking its mighty trunk while the dome of his large umbrella evoked the image of countless branches fanning out in every direction. 

Hitoka couldn’t help but smirk slightly in amusement as she considered the irony of her comparison. The supposedly feral “Mad Dog,” juxtaposed with something as stoic and tranquil as a towering oak tree? It seemed so contradictory to the memory of the wild, intense boy surging on the court like a hurricane. Yet, as Hitoka watched him calmly scan the sodden street for a cab as he stood unmoving out in the pounding rain, she found that he paralleled the storm enveloping the two of them right at that moment. He was steadily thrumming rain and softly rumbling thunder, a force of nature held in check by his own force of will rather than running loose and wild to rain down devastation upon everything around him. 

He’s changed, Hitoka remarked with a smile. She wasn’t quite sure why it pleased her so; after all, it wasn’t like she had any stake in Kentarou’s personal growth or anything. Still… it was nice, she thought, to be able to reflect upon what a person used to be and the journey they must have undertaken to become the person was now. He knew me just about as well as I knew him, she thought wistfully. I wonder if he thinks I’ve changed at all… changed for the better, somehow… 

Hitoka liked to think that through her experiences with the Karasuno Volleyball Club, she’d grown more confident and, by extension, more notable to others. Sometimes, though, she still felt like plain old Villager B. What impression had she made on Kentarou back then, if any? And… what did he think of her now? Was he pondering her now, as he stood out in the rain and stared into the misty cityscape, as she was pondering him? Was there something about her in particular that had him going so far as to escort her—an acquaintance, really—through this deluge to her hotel and essentially put his plans on hold, when he could just as easily leave her to fend for herself? 

And—and this was the greatest question of all—why did the possibility of occupying more of Kentarou’s mind than mere afterthought make Hitoka’s heart skip a beat? 

“Cab’s here.” 

“Ah!” Hitoka started at Kentarou’s sudden reappearance at the edge of the awning. As she jumped back in surprise, Kentarou arched a brow at her; then, his lips curled ever-so-slightly into a frown. 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he murmured with a slightly pained look at his feet. 

Oh, no! He thinks I reacted like that because I find him intimidating! I mean, I kinda do, but—

“N-no, no, no!” she exclaimed while frantically flapping her hands in denial. “I was just lost in thought!” Realizing that she was reacting just a bit too strongly, she quickly gathered herself. She smoothed down her hair, grabbed the handle of her suitcase, and offered him a shy smile. “A-anyway, thanks for this. I really appreciate you going out of your way so much for me, Kyoutani-san!” 

“Oh—” Kentarou flushed, scratching the back of his neck, “—it’s nothing… ‘S something any decent guy would do…” His gaze had remained locked on his feet the entire time, but it flickered up to the hand that Hitoka had wrapped around the handle of her luggage. He made a vague motion toward it, punctuated by an awkward mutter of, “Decent guys would… take the suitcase, too.” 

“Huh? O-oh!” Hitoka cried with a glance between him and the suitcase and back. Her instinct was to insist that she take it herself, but she thought better of it almost immediately. Beneath the awkwardness, Kentarou just looked so eager to be a gentleman… and who was Hitoka to deny him that? Besides, what girl didn’t like to be pampered a bit, especially after a rough day? She’d never imagined that she’d be getting pampered by the infamous Kentarou “Mad Dog” Kyoutani, of all people, but, hey! Pampering was pampering, and Hitoka daresay she’d earned it after the day she’d had. 

“Okay… Thanks,” she acquiesced with a widening smile, allowing Kentarou to take her suitcase as she stepped under his umbrella. She pushed the handle toward him at the same time that he reached for it, and the simultaneous gestures inadvertently led to their knuckles brushing together. Hitoka’s fingers twitched as an exciting jolt of electricity shot through the nerves of her hand, and Kentarou’s did as well; they both froze, knuckles hovering centimeters from one another’s, and their eyes locked as they both reflexively glanced at each other’s rapidly reddening faces. Several heartbeats of silence passed between them as they just stood there, frozen. Kentarou stood rigidly under his umbrella and Hitoka stiffly under the awning, as if they had both been concurrently struck with the notion that every action up until that point had blurred this invisible line between them, and the act that they were about to commit stood the chance of obliterating it completely. That line of pleasant acquaintanceship was safe and known; when that line was gone, where did that leave them? Was it worth finding out? Or should they stop while they were ahead?

Kentarou took a small breath, then reached for the handle of Hitoka’s suitcase again. 

“We shouldn’t keep the cab waiting,” he murmured as he gently wrapped his first two fingers around the sliver of space on the handle that Hitoka’s hand did not occupy. There was a smoldering intensity in his eyes as he continued to study her, however, that implied that he righteously didn’t care if he kept the cab waiting for the rest of time if it meant he could remain there with Hitoka forever, there in the softly falling rain and warm misty evening. The thought made Hitoka’s hand uncurl from around the suitcase on reflex, allowing Kentarou to pull it across the concrete sidewalk and settle it behind him to make room for Hitoka under the umbrella. The rattling wheels scoured through that invisible line, leaving only a few tattered shreds to mark the barrier of status quo. 

All Hitoka had to do was take a step, and it would be forever destroyed. The familiar distance that once was would be obsolete, replaced by the titillating uncertainty of what could be. A multitude of paths would appear before them all at once. Which one they would take was unknown even to them. 

It was exciting. It was scary. It quite possibly could all be in Hitoka’s head, a product of a mind addled by the turmoil of a stressful day. 

And yet… Hitoka found herself too curious to resist. 

“Right. We shouldn’t keep the cab waiting,” Hitoka echoed breathlessly, and before she could think twice, she took the plunge. As she quickly passed through the open space between the edge of the awning and the rim of Kentarou’s umbrella, the misty raindrops kissed her scalp and hair, and it truly felt as if she were passing through some sort of door that she would not be able to pass through again. Yet she did not look back; she looked only at Kentarou as she brought her body forward to stand fully under the shelter that he was offering her, the threat of the rain now as much a thing of the past as the politeness and awkward amity she’d chosen to leave behind in favor of knowing more. 

“Here we go,” Kentarou breathed, and Hitoka had the sense that the short walk to the cab wasn’t the impending journey that he was referring to. He tightened his grip on the umbrella, followed by his hold on the suitcase; he took a shaky breath. Then, he finally tore his gaze from Hitoka’s, turning to begin their short trek to the awaiting taxi… and the much longer one into the mysterious “What happens now?”

Even as petite as Hitoka was, Kentarou’s hulking frame was such that he still had to shuffle sideways a bit to fully accommodate her under the wide dome of the umbrella. Hitoka tried to assist his effort to keep the both of them dry by huddling close to the center of the umbrella. As he escorted her to the curb, she soon became acutely aware of how close she was standing to him as a result. His form practically enveloped hers, so closely that the heat radiating from him staved off the icy chill that had begun to develop deep in her bones. It felt so nice that she actually had to suppress the urge to press closer to him as they walked side-by-side. The blush triggered by the absurd notion hadn’t even fully risen to her cheeks before another ludicrous thought entered her mind.

His jacket looked so warm, and it would be even warmer from his residual body heat; Hitoka wondered what it would like to put it on. It would probably swallow her up, with how much bigger Kentarou was than her. But she could snuggle into it, be surrounded by his warmth and his scent and his presence… 

Oh, my! The random thoughts that pop into your head sometimes, Hitoka thought, ducking her head to hide the growing redness in her face when Kentarou leaned forward to open the taxi door for her. Yet another random thought moseyed on into her head, filling the void that came from her banishing the first. The way his tall, sturdy form felt standing right behind her, his muscular chest mere centimeters from her petite shoulder as he curled around her tiny frame to pull open the car door while holding the umbrella squarely over her frame to shield her from the pounding rain… She couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to just fall into him. Would he catch her? Hold her close with a strong, secure arm around her waist? Tuck her against his body like she belonged there? 

Okay, I’m just gonna get in the taxi now, Hitoka flustered, once again dismissing the absurd notions to the void where they belonged. She uttered a quick word of thanks to Kentarou before sliding into the backseat of the cab. The door gently thunked shut beside her, and it was then that Hitoka realized that she had been holding her breath for quite some time. She shakily breathed out and then back in as she tried to take the few precious seconds that Kentarou spent putting her luggage in the trunk in order to collect herself. The fact that she was collecting herself over Kentarou Kyoutani threw her for such a loop that she really didn’t get much collecting done; she’d only managed to gather a couple pieces of herself, actually, by the time Kentarou joined her in the backseat of the cab. 

Not that it mattered, because those couple pieces tumbled right back out of her hands when Kentarou tried to adjust himself in the cramped quarters and his knee bumped Hitoka’s. It felt like an electric shock simultaneously rocketed up her leg and up the length of her spine, as well as shot down to her toes, leaving a warm, fuzzy feeling in its wake. 

Kentarou jerked his leg away as if he’d been truly electrocuted. It tore a wounded sound from his throat, akin to the yelp of a puppy that had been kicked on accident but thought it was being punished and was unsure why. He spluttered a frantic apology and pressed himself against the door as if he were trying to phase right through it and fall back out onto the sodden street. Hitoka just stared at him for several long seconds until she realized that the taxi wasn’t moving. 

Kentarou realized it at the same time, and he awkwardly mumbled, “I think he’s waiting on the address…” 

“Oh! Right, right!” Hitoka gasped, then fumbled to scooch up to the small window in the taxi partition and recite the address for the driver. He voiced confirmation, shifted the car into gear, and then pulled the car away from the sidewalk and into the waterlogged street. As the rainy cityscape began to roll by, Hitoka eased herself back into her seat and tucked her hands between her thighs. 

Silence settled between herself and Kentarou, somewhere in the odd space between comfortable and awkward. Hitoka had never been able to bear long silences; she only made it about thirty seconds before she was desperately trying to fill the empty void. 

“So… Was there anything else that brought you to Sendai besides the volleyball team?” she asked, peeking at Kentarou out of her peripheral vision. 

“No,” he responded simply, his expression blank and stony as he stared intently at a droplet of water that was slowly trailing down the rain-sprayed, mist-fogged window beside him. “They recruited me from a lower-division team.” 

“Oh. I see.” 

Hitoka shifted uncomfortably as the curtain of silence threatened to fall over them once more. Desperate to remain on the metaphorical stage, she wrenched the veil back up with a quick sputter of, “So, do you like Sendai?” 

“It’s fine, I guess,” came his uninspired answer. When Hitoka uttered a small whimper of awkward shame, his gaze flickered to her; it just as quickly shot back to the window, and he added in a small mumble, “I mean… ‘S nice when it’s like this. Raining, I mean. There’s not a lot of people out, so, I like to walk around. ‘S peaceful…” 

His bashful mutter was punctuated by a tremendously loud clap of thunder, an accompaniment to a brilliantly bright crack of lightning that illuminated the dark, stormy sky with all the intensity of the sun. The lightning must have been very close, for the ferocity of the thunderclap shook the car. Hitoka jumped at the feeling of the backseat rumbling and the metal frame rattling. She also let out a little squeak of fright, which prompted Kentarou to look at her in concern. 

“Hehe… That wasn’t very peaceful, was it?” Hitoka joked weakly. Her voice was almost swallowed up by the sound of the rain, as its drumming against the roof of the car had intensified tenfold. It now sounded like the car was driving through a hail of bullets. 

Kentarou’s mouth twitched into a small smirk, and he chuckled with a shrug, “Yeah, I guess it wasn’t.” 

The sky rumbled in agreement, bringing identical grins of amusement to their Hitoka and Kentarou’s faces. His eyes locked with hers, but not in an unnatural or uncomfortable way; rather, it felt like a puzzle piece clicking into place. This time, Hitoka did not feel the need to resist the silence settling over them, for it seemed like countless words were about to be exchanged through their gazes alone. 

Not so much as a vowel passed between them before the veil of congenial quietude was unceremoniously yanked up by the shrill squeal of the taxi’s tires on the wet street as it gently braked and turned into the hotel parking lot. The moment lost, Hitoka and Kentarou just eased back into their seats and observed the sodden scenery through their respective windows. As Hitoka drank in the puddle-strewn parking lot, saturated greens and flower beds, and kaleidoscopic refractions of the streetlamps’ yellow glow in the pooled water, she was struck by the realization that it really was peaceful. She imagined strolling down the sidewalk, tendrils of mist weaving through her legs and water vapor kissing her skin as the rain drummed against the umbrella perched daintily on her shoulder… or perhaps Kentarou’s umbrella, held just so over her head to shield her from the rain. She envisioned the wind picking up, and Kentarou snaking his free arm around her waist to pull her close, using his own body to take the brunt of the misty spray that invaded the sanctity of the umbrella’s bubble. She visualized just how snugly she’d fit against his side, all her delicate curves molding perfectly with the rugged contours of his—

Hitoka’s fantasy evaporated with the jarring ker-thunk of her door opening. Just as suddenly, it was revived by the sight of Kentarou standing over her with one hand holding his umbrella aloft and the other held out for her to take. Hitoka blushed as she took it, then blushed further at the feeling of his large, calloused fingers wrapping around her small, smooth ones. For a moment, she didn’t feel like an ordinary, rain-drenched girl, all damp clothes and messy, half-dried strands of hair; instead, she felt like Cinderella stepping out of her pumpkin carriage. Only, Hitoka’s fairy tale was just a little bit different than the classic tale. She didn’t have to attend any ball to find her Prince Charming… 

Do I have a fever? Hitoka wondered with a full-body flush, shocked to her core by her mind’s incessant wanderings. Unnerved, she slapped the back of her hand to her forehead. It was quite warm, but then again, so was the rest of her—especially her hand, which Kentarou was still clutching as he escorted her around the particularly deep puddle between the taxi and the curb. He released it as soon as the soles of her flats were secure on the concrete, and in that instant, it felt like the rain’s icy chill permeated every pore of Hitoka’s body. It drove away the pleasant warmth that had come so close to making a home inside of her. She felt like Cinderella again, this time shivering and cold as her dress hung in tatters from her shuddering frame… 

“Yachi-san? Are you cold?” 

Kentarou’s sudden inquiry snapped Hitoka out of her reverie. Her head whipped up to look at him, her eyes wide with surprise; his own were narrowed in concern, and Hitoka could tell from the way he was squaring his shoulders that he was preparing to shed his jacket. Hitoka didn’t think that she could handle him offering his jacket at the moment, what with all the confusing feelings swirling around inside of her, so she hurriedly shook her head in denial. 

“N-no! I’m fine!” she cried. When Kentarou just cocked a doubtful brow at her, she insisted with a flustered smile, “Really, I’m just fine. I had a chill for a moment, but it’s gone now! Besides, we’ll be inside soon, and it’ll be warm in there.” 

Kentarou continued to stare dubiously at her for a few seconds before giving a slow nod of acknowledgment. 

“All right… If you’re sure,” was all he said, shrugging indifferently as he did. He immediately started for the hotel entrance, folding up his umbrella as he walked. “Let’s get you checked in so we can get settled in your room, get changed into something dry and comfortable, and then get ready to head out to the restaurant to see Kei, yeah?” 

Hitoka had started after him, but her step faltered as she detected the faintest hint of bitterness in his tone. Kentarou kept walking, either not having registered that she’d halted or just not caring that she had; the possibility of it being the latter left her heart sinking into her feet. 

Oh, no… Was refusing his jacket rude? I mean, he didn’t explicitly say that he was offering it, but still, it was pretty obvious. Or, or, maybe he’s more irritated about the situation as a whole than he’s been letting on? Hitoka wondered as she forced herself to resume walking so as not to draw Kentarou’s attention… or irk him more, if he really was irked. She could understand why he would be; he had been on his way to meet his friends, and out of the blue, he was saddled with Hitoka—frazzled, drenched, probably-delirious-with-fever Hitoka. Nobody liked wrenches thrown into their plans—and after today, Hitoka could relate—but people like Kentarou, who had rather serious personalities, despised them even more, she’d imagine. A delusional wrench having Cinderella fantasies was probably just the thing to grind the teeth in Kentarou’s gears… 

Maybe I should just call this whole thing off, Hitoka thought, looking at Kentarou out of her peripheral vision as she stood at the concierge’s desk, waiting for the clerk to process her payment and deliver her room key. Just let him go hang out with the guys tonight, and I can catch up with Kei tomorrow. I can get in my pajamas, maybe have a nice, long bath… she thought, smiling dreamily to herself as she reached across the counter to take the room key when the clerk offered it. Yeah, that sounds really nice, actually—

All the bubbles in Hitoka’s imaginary bubble bath burst when Kentarou cleared his throat with a curt, “Shall we?” Hitoka then realized that she’d just been standing there in a daze, despite having key in hand and no further business to attend to at the concierge’s desk. 

“Ah! Um, yes,” she stammered, instinctively reaching for her suitcase. Her hand only met empty air, for Kentarou had already grabbed it and started striding briskly toward the elevator. “Ah! Kyoutani-san, wait!” she cried and hurriedly shuffled after him. She caught up with him at the elevators, and he looked at her questioningly when she tugged on his jacket sleeve with a slightly winded, “Kyoutani-san?” 

“Yeah?” he clipped, looking between his sleeve and her hand and back again with widening eyes. 

“Heh, um,” she stuttered with an awkward smile, hastily retracting her hand. “I-I was just thinking, you know… You don’t have to do all this. Take me to dinner and everything. I mean, I’ve totally intruded on your evening with the guys. That’s for you three! I would hate for you and Koganegawa-san to feel like third wheels if Kei and I get caught up in reminiscing or something—” 

“You’re not intruding,” Kentarou refuted. If his tone of finality hadn’t implied to Hitoka that there would be no arguing the point, then the way that he stiffly leaned forward and jammed his thumb against the elevator panel’s “up” button would have. Kentarou straightened back up with a sigh, staring at his reflection in the silvery sheen of the elevator door. Hitoka stared at it, too, watching with a sinking stomach as Kentarou’s jaw tightened and his expression hardened ever-so-slightly. 

“Besides,” he continued, his voice simultaneously devoid of emotion and full of a feeling that Hitoka couldn’t quite place, “you’re only in town for a few days, right? You should take every opportunity to see Kei, don’t you think?” 

“I-I suppose,” Hitoka replied with a half-hearted smile, admittedly perturbed by the way his voice steeled the instant Kei’s name appeared on his tongue—like uttering it scalded him with all the intensity of boiling water. Or was Hitoka just imagining it? Was she reading too much into things, or did she not know his mannerisms well enough to accurately interpret his body language? Surely, that was it. It certainly couldn’t be that he was harboring bitterness toward his teammate. That just didn’t make any sense. 

And yet… The first word that came to mind as Hitoka studied Kentarou’s stiff form of his reflection was envy.

Don’t be silly, Hitoka chastised herself at the thought. He has nothing to be envious of! It doesn’t make any sense at all for him to feel that way. 

Yet, Hitoka couldn’t shake the sense that he felt some sort of way about something, and it was just in her nature to want to remedy any sort of miscommunication or misunderstanding. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, restlessly fidgeting as she tried to figure out just what Kentarou might be thinking. If she could figure it out, then maybe she could make things right.

Well, I’ve definitely made things awkward by questioning him so much, Hitoka fretted. I don’t want him to think that I’m trying to ditch him or something because I’m too scared to be in close quarters with him! I’ve gotta recover the situation!

“You’re right, Kyoutani-san!” she agreed, throwing a sweet smile on her face to try and defuse the tension that had begun to mount between them. “And you know, it’s not just Kei that I want to catch up with. I’d love to hear all about you and Koganegawa-san, too!” 

“Yeah?” Kentarou asked quietly, peeking at her out of the corners of his eyes. 

“Yeah! I mean, friends of Kei’s are friends of mine, right?” she chirped. “I want to get to know you better!” 

“Friends…. Yeah…” Kentarou murmured, his voice dropping to a nearly-incomprehensible garble. “That’s all we are…” 

Hitoka felt his demeanor shift again, and not in the direction she was hoping; before she could attempt to recover, however, the elevator announced its arrival with a pleasant ding. The door slid open with an inviting air, and the jazzy music from its ceiling-mounted speakers swirled out into the hall and enveloped the two of them, enticing them into the well-lit cubicle. 

Without another word, Kentarou strolled into the elevator, turning and leaning forward to block the door from closing with his arm. Hitoka hastily scurried in after him, trying to focus on not wasting more of his time. She flashed him a wan smile as she settled in beside him, and he offered an anemic one in return as he withdrew his arm and straightened back up. He pressed the button to her floor, and the doors slid closed, leaving Hitoka and Kentarou staring at their awkward reflections once more. 

The elevator began to ascend. Second floor… Third floor… Fourth floor… 

Ba-ba-booooooooooom!

Hitoka shrieked as a tremendous clap of thunder shook the earth and everything on it. It felt like the sky had crashed down upon them, and then the world had heaved up to meet it in a colossal seismic embrace. Like a boat caught in the mighty crests of a storm-wracked sea, the elevator shuddered and dipped and swayed. The lights frantically flickered, the cables shrilly squealed, and the once-pleasant elevator music became an eerie blend of static and warped syllables. Hitoka splayed out her arms in an attempt to keep her balance as he knees threatened to buckle, reduced to jelly by the fright of both the deafening boom of thunder and the rocking elevator. 

There came another sharp bang! when Kentarou slapped his palm flat against the wall to stabilize himself. His other arm snapped out to wrap around Hitoka’s waist in a firm, strong, almost boa constrictor-like grip. The elevator gave another dramatic heave, causing Hitoka to stumble and fall into Kentarou’s sturdy frame; as her cheek smushed against the plush of his pectoral muscle, her frazzled brain couldn’t help but think back to her earlier musings about falling into Kentarou and how radically different the reality had ended up being from her fantasy. 

The lights gave one final flicker before fizzling out completely, leaving the pair in inky darkness for a split second. Then, the emergency lights kicked on, bathing them in an ominous, blood-red glow. As they did, the quaking elevator finally came to a juddering halt. There came a few distant squeaks and knocks from within the depths of the elevator shaft, and then, there was just silence. After such a racket, Hitoka’s brain couldn’t process the lack of noise, at first; her ears rang for several seconds before finally acclimating to the nothingness that now filled the elevator. 

Shell-shocked by the unexpected and terrifying experience, Hitoka and Kentarou merely stood frozen for several moments. They breathed in tandem, deep and gulping gasps for air; since Hitoka’s head was still pressed against Kentarou’s chest, she could tell that their hearts were beating in unison, too—pounding hard and fast, speeding up with each second they remained locked in their tight embrace… 

“Is it over?” Hitoka finally whispered. 

Kentarou opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by another distant clunking sound from somewhere far overhead. He waited several seconds more, his grip reflexively tightening around her. When no more ominous sounds echoed from within the depths of the elevator shaft, he slowly drew his arm from her waist and reluctantly murmured, “I think so…” 

Now that the chaos had subsided, Hitoka became acutely aware of the fact that she was still pressed up against him. She sprang away from him as if burned, her cheeks holding the heat of the fire. Unnerved, she instinctively smoothed down her hair several times after stepping away from him, nearly to the other side of the elevator. Se looked at everything but him as she did so—the floor, the ceiling, the panel of buttons with the blinking emergency light, the floor meter which indicated that they were halfway between the fourth and fifth floors—

“Oh my God! I think the elevator’s broken down!” Hitoka screamed in realization and rushed for the panel. She frantically began mashing buttons, praying that one of them would magically revive the elevator. None of them did; the elevator remained lifeless, trapped in its inter-floor limbo. Panicking, she looked despairingly between the buttons and Kentarou. “What do we do?!” 

“Calm down, first of all,” Kentarou said as he approached the panel. Hitoka would have expected him to sound annoyed at her hysterics; instead, his tone was amused. He was lightly smirking while he stood behind Hitoka and leaned over her to reach for the panel, sweeping his index finger over the buttons until he located one with a telephone icon. Its label read “Emergency.” 

“If the power’s out, will that work?” Hitoka whispered as Kentarou firmly pressed the button. 

“It should be hooked to a backup generator, like the lights,” he replied with a casual point up at the dull red lights glowing above them. “If not, we can always try to call from our cellphones.” 

Hitoka, not having much faith in the failed elevator to patch them through to the front desk, immediately went to fish her phone out of her pocket. However, it seemed that Kentarou was correct in his assumption. No sooner than Hitoka’s hand had closed around her phone did the speaker within the elevator panel crackle to life. 

“Hello, do you need assistance?” 

“H-hello?” Hitoka cried, crouching down before the speaker and getting right up against it, hands against the wall and lips nearly to the holes in the metal. “Yes! We’re trapped in the elevator! There was thunder and lightning, and the elevator shook and just shut down between floors! We’re stuck!” 

“Is anyone injured?” 

“No,” Kentarou answered, sliding his hands in his hoodie pockets while he leaned over Hitoka to get closer to the speaker as he talked. The feeling of his breath tickling her scalp made Hitoka blush and squirm and itch to crawl away in embarrassment, but she shoved aside the feelings to focus on the vital task at hand. 

“How many people are in the elevator?” the concierge asked, and Hitoka could hear the rapid taps of fingers across a keyboard in the background. 

“Just us two,” confirmed Hitoka. 

“Hold just a moment.”

There came another series of keyboard taps, followed by what Hitoka assumed to be the “enter” key clicking with finality. She next heard the sound of muffled talking; presumably, the concierge was holding his palm over the speaker end of the phone while he spoke to someone in a calm but urgent tone. After a muted reply, the speaker crackled loudly as the concierge uncovered his end of the line, immediately followed by a loud, “Are you still there?” 

“Yes, we’re still here!” 

“We are contacting the elevator service company right now to make them aware of the situation. They will send specially trained personnel to respond and get the elevator working again. Please be advised that this can take up to several hours depending on the cause of the elevator’s malfunction,” the man began to explain. “That being said, there is no need to be alarmed. While I understand the situation can be unsettling, please rest assured that the elevator is still quite safe as long as you remain calm and patient.” 

Easy for you to say, Hitoka thought, unsure if she wanted to roll her eyes all the way back into her skull or burst into tears.  

As if sensing her apprehension, the concierge repeated, “I stress, the elevator is still quite safe. In fact, its stopping function is designed to ensure occupants’ safety in the event of power surges and other malfunctions. Also, contrary to popular belief, airflow is still more than adequate in the elevator car; there is no risk at all of oxygen depletion in modern elevators.” 

Hitoka had been so preoccupied with the frightening possibility of the elevator snapping free of its supports and sending them free-falling to their deaths that she hadn’t even considered such a terrifying alternate scenario. Despite the concierge’s assurances, horrible visions of a slow, dreadful demise began to dance in Hitoka’s mind; she pictured their strength gradually being sapped from their bodies as deadly carbon dioxide replaced the precious oxygen in the air, the both of them eventually collapsing to the ground as they gasped desperately for breath, suffocating as the poison reached a critical point in their blood… Hardly daring to breathe more than what was minimally required to sustain her life, Hitoka looked nervously around the elevator, hoping to spot an air vent to support the concierge’s assertion. Her panic spiked when she could not readily identify one. 

“Th-that’s good to know…” Hitoka whimpered, desperate to believe his statement as truth but also petrified by the potential consequences of it being a lie. She wanted to believe it, but her mind refused to; spurred on by its panic-induced visions of doom and gloom, it suppressed her respiratory drive, forcing her to take tiny, inefficient breaths against her will. 

Soon, Hitoka’s lungs began to burn with air hunger and her mind swim from the deprivation. Despite the obvious signs that her body was giving her, it wasn’t until Kentarou grabbed her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze followed by a soothing rub that Hitoka managed to overpower her fears. She glanced gratefully up at him as she sucked in a greedy, trembling breath, and she was surprised to find her vision blurry; she blinked, causing the tears that had begun to form in the corners of her eyes to bead together and cling to her lashline. 

“I’m sorry,” Hitoka mouthed up at Kentarou, then ducked her head and rubbed at her eyes as a wave of hot shame washed over her. Oh, what was she doing ?! They were just stuck in an elevator! People got stuck in elevators all the time! There was no reason to be scared silly!

Be that as it may, Hitoka was scared silly. She’d never been in such a situation before. She didn’t know how to react to this foreign experience, and that was the scary thing. 

As she tried to stifle her sniffles so the concierge wouldn’t hear, Kentarou just continued to reassuringly run a hand back and forth across her shoulders and upper back to simultaneously acknowledge her fear, comfort her, and respect her desire to avoid further embarrassment by having said fear voiced. Another wave of emotion crashed over Hitoka, this time one of immense gratitude; she was extremely grateful for Kentarou’s presence then, for she realized that probably would not have been able to handle the situation well if she had been alone. With a small, pathetic hiccup, she pressed her face against Kentarou’s hand as it squeezed her left shoulder again. Kentarou froze, likely surprised by the abrupt reaction, then responded with a slow, soft stroke of his thumb across her tear-stained cheek. 

Blissfully unaware that Hitoka sat on the edge of a nervous breakdown, the concierge continued to counsel them on the “do’s and don’t’s” of being trapped in an elevator. 

“Please refrain from attempting to pry open the elevator doors, even if you are in position to reach a landing. The elevator doors may try to close as you are attempting to exit, which may result in severe bodily injury, especially if the elevator begins to move again. Also please refrain from jumping up and down. This will not ‘kick-start’ the elevator and may in fact damage the elevator equipment, prolonging repair and rescue. Intense jostling of the elevator can even result in disruption of the suspension mechanisms and result in—”

“Oooooh, make him stop talking, make him stop talking,” Hitoka moaned quietly, struggling not to be overwhelmed by visions of gruesome death once more. 

“Look, buddy, I think we got it.” Kentarou interrupted the concierge’s eerily calm and robotic drone with a pointed declaration bordering on an angry growl. “Is there anything else we need to know?” 

“That is all,” came the concierge’s reply, unfazed in the face of Kentarou’s irritation. There was a pause, and then the man went on to inform, “I’ve just confirmed that elevator technicians are en route to this location and should arrive in twenty to thirty minutes, though it may take longer due to the inclement weather conditions. Once they are on the premises, they will begin immediately working to restore basic function of the elevator to allow for safe extraction. Until then, please comply with the instructions I have provided to ensure your safety.” 

“We’ll do that, thank you,” Kentarou said with faux congeniality, paired with a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head. It seemed he was just as desperate as Hitoka now to be free of the unfeeling concierge. This was all but confirmed to her when he added in a low mutter under his breath, “Hang up the call now, you stupid bastard.” 

“I am going to end the call now. If you encounter any difficulties or changes in the situation, please do not hesitate to call again so that we may keep the technicians apprised. On behalf of the hotel, I apologize for this inconvenience. Please rest assured that we will do everything possible to resolve this situation so that you may enjoy the rest of your stay to the fullest. Thank you.” 

“You are not welcome, you corporate crony,” Kentarou snarled the instant that the line went dead, scowling as he flipped off the call button. 

“Don’t blame him, Kyoutani-san,” Hitoka couldn’t help but laugh, both at Kentarou’s reaction and the weary soullessness of the concierge’s demeanor throughout the call. Though it had been frightening at first, now that she’d calmed down some, she kind of felt for the poor guy. “He’s probably being flooded with calls from dozens of angry customers demanding to know why they can’t watch T.V. or get Internet right now while he’s trying to do what he needs to do to get us out of here.” 

“Yeah, well, I still think we could have done without the elevator episode of A Hundred and One Ways to Die, don’t you?” he scoffed. “Speaking of which—” he said, squatting down to peer worriedly into her still tear-smeared face. “Are you okay, Yachi-san?” 

“I’m okay now,” she assured him with a solemn nod and a smile. “All thanks to you, Kyoutani-san. I don’t know what I would have done without you here. I’m not sure why, but the things he was saying just got me so scared…” Mortified once more by her behavior, she meekly covered her face with her hands. “Oh, I’m so embarrassed! I totally overreacted!”

“It’s okay, Yachi-san,” Kentarou insisted, reaching up to rub small circles between her shoulderblades again. “It’s a scary situation to be in for the first time.” 

“I don’t see you getting so scared that you could cry!” Hitoka countered, pouting as she peered reproachfully out of her fingers at him. 

“Well, duh,” Kentarou smirked roguishly at her, visibly swelling with pride. “Ain’t no way in hell that a guy’ll get scared like that, not in front of a girl.” 

“Are you saying that if I wasn’t here, you’d be more scared?” Hitoka couldn’t help but tease. 

“What?” Kentarou balked at her playful accusation, pride morphing instantly to panic. “N-no! That’s not what I meant!” 

“It’s okay, Kyoutani-san,” Hitoka crooned and gave him a puckish pat on his head. “I’ll protect you!” Delighted by the scowl he gave her, she squealed in laughter, then added in a teasing shrill, “I thought I was stuck in the elevator with the big, bad ‘Mad Dog,’ but it looks like I’m stuck with a widdle puppy instead!”

Hitoka expected him to respond in kind—to make some remark, to scowl further, to maybe even playfully shove her hand away as she playfully mussed his hair. She expected Kentarou to harden, but to her surprise, he did the opposite. He softened.  

“Heh,” he sighed gently, both gaze and body visibly melting. “I’m really glad to see you’re feeling better, Yachi-san.” He reached up to softly encircle Hitoka’s wrist with his hand; stunned by his unexpected change in demeanor, she didn’t resist as he drew her hand down. He looked at it for a second, looking like he was debating on whether or not to do something. He apparently opted to refrain from whatever he was considering, instead giving it a soft squeeze before letting it drop back to Hitoka’s side. With a long exhale, he turned to brace his back against the elevator wall as he stretched out his legs, one after the other. “Well, then…” he sighed, “I guess there’s nothing to do now but wait.” 

“Yeah,” Hitoka agreed in a soft murmur; still shocked by what had just occurred, she moved more on instinct as she eased herself down onto her knees and tucked her legs neatly beneath her body. Silence settled between them, broken only by the rustle of Hitoka’s dress as she shifted slightly several times to tug free the folds of fabric that had become pinched and trapped in awkward places. She dropped her gaze to do so, but she soon felt the smoldering intensity of Kentarou’s keen eyes fixating on her, which caused her to glance up on reflex. Their eyes met, and it was a moment like a cautiously curious lamb’s gaze meeting that of a calm, calculating wolf’s. Their muscles locked at the electric shock. Kentarou was surveying her, she could tell—studying her for the strike, but whatever strike that could be, she didn’t know. 

And like a wolf deterred by the warning growl of a devoted sheepdog, Kentarou abandoned the hunt to instead slip away into the woods whence he’d come; he averted his gaze, severing the connection between them and thus freeing Hitoka’s body from its static shock bindings. She released a shaky exhale as her tense muscles unwound, and she sank down into her legs. It was not the trembling weariness that followed a surge of fear. No, it was the shaky euphoria that came after a rush of adrenaline. It was the exhilaration that accompanied an encounter with the exhilarating unknown—and left one craving more. 

Hitoka did crave more, more encounters with this strange unknown, and so the lamb inside of her began to prance the forest’s edge in hopes of enticing the wolf back out into the leaf-dappled light. 

“So, um…” she started with an awkward smile. “It sounds like it’ll be a while before the elevator crew arrives.” 

“Yeah.” Kentarou responded to her awkward statement with an equally awkward affirmation, still refusing to look at her. 

Hitoka wrung her hands, unnerved by the hot-and-cold energy that Kentarou had exhibited throughout the day. Nevertheless, committed to her path, she resolved to press on. 

“So, um, we’ll probably have a good deal of time on our hands.” 

“Yeah…?” A blush was beginning to color Kentarou’s cheeks, and in response, an identical hue began to dust across Hitoka’s. 

“I-I just thought, you know, we could talk!” she hastily explained, not sure why either of them were getting embarrassed. “We don’t know much of anything about each other, Kyoutani-san. Now’s a good time as any to learn…” 

“O-oh,” Kentarou said with a blink. His blush darkened several shades, and he shifted nervously while running a hand quickly over his close-cropped hair. “O-oh,” he repeated in a breathy huff halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Sure, that makes sense.” He cleared his throat, then raised his arms in an “ask away” gesture. “All right, then. You first.” 

Hitoka had indeed intended to start the conversation, but something about her threw off her equilibrium. Her mind was wiped blank in an instant, like chalk being erased from a chalkboard. Whatever question she had imagined asking evaporated from her mind, and she desperately clawed at the smoke to try and piece it back together. Unfortunately, the formless white tendrils slipped through her fingers and spiraled away into the nether, leaving her painfully empty-handed and thus empty-minded. 

“Er… Well…” Failing to find a suitable question to ask, Hitoka just put her face in her hands with a chagrined groan. “This was my idea, but I can’t even think of a single thing to ask!” 

She heard Kentarou chuckle, and she peeked through her fingers to find him looking at her with a mixture of sympathy, understanding, and what appeared to be endearment. He drew one of his legs up so he could prop his elbow on it and rest his cheek in his hand, palm partially covering his mouth such that only the edge of his smile could be seen. Strangely comforted by his reaction, Hitoka slowly lowered her hands from her face. 

“In that case, I’ll ask,” he offered. “You asked me earlier how I liked living here in Sendai. How do you like living in Tokyo, Yachi-san?”

“Oh!” Hitoka exclaimed, thankful to be relieved of the pressure of furthering the conversation. “Oh, well, I enjoy living in Tokyo quite a bit.” 

“Yeah?” Kentarou asked, his smile widening a smidge as he studied her with increasing interest. “I would think that you’d find the city overwhelming, especially compared to where you grew up. I mean, Sendai’s a big city, but it’s nothing compared to Tokyo.” He paused, and his smile took on a bashful lilt when he added, “And, no offense, Yachi-san, but I wouldn’t peg you as a girl who’d feel at home in a big city.” 

“Well, you’re not totally wrong in that assumption,” Hitoka giggled, shifting on her legs as Kentarou’s spot-on deduction rendered her a little coy. “It was a pretty big adjustment for me. All the people, the lights, the hustle and bustle—it was as disorienting as it was refreshing. And of course, I’d heard all the horror stories of the bad things that can happen to a young girl in the city. I was on edge for a terribly long time… It took months for me to feel comfortable going anywhere by myself, even in broad daylight!” she admitted with a shy laugh. She hummed, losing herself in reminiscence for a moment, before refocusing her attention on Kentarou. “I’ve adjusted for the most part, though.” 

“For the most part?” 

“Yeah, well, I don’t think that I’ll ever really come to terms with the sheer amount of people in Tokyo. It always makes me feel like a flood of ants storming out of an anthill someone’s stepped in—they’re just everywhere!” she said, almost getting overwhelmed just imagining it. “Oh, but at the same time, that’s what I like about it,” she sighed dreamily. “It’s only in a big city like Tokyo that you can really appreciate the diversity of people. You’re constantly surrounded by people, after all, and you can just see how everybody comes from all walks of life; they all have their difference experiences and stories and beliefs. I’ve met all kinds of people who are extraordinary in all kinds of ways, and…” 

She trailed off, a bit bashful about the turn the conversation had taken, and worriedly looked at Kentarou to see if she was boring him. It was quite the opposite; his eyes shone brightly in the red emergency lighting as listened intently. Now flushing at his rapt attention, Hitoka adjusted her skirt before continuing. 

“I think it’s helped me grow as a person, honestly,” she explained, unable to keep herself from smiling as a sense of self-pride welled up inside of her. “It’s helped me feel more comfortable interacting with people as a whole, and because of that, I feel more comfortable interacting with people I might not have so easily been able to talk to just a year or two ago.” 

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she confirmed bashfully, ducking her gaze before flicking it back up to him. “For example, you.” 

“Me?” he questioned, sitting up in surprise at her sudden admission. 

“Well, yeah,” she replied, shocked that he didn’t find it as obvious as she would’ve thought. “I mean, back in high school, I never would have been able to hold a conversation with you, Kyoutani-san! I wouldn’t have been able to get out a full sentence out to you, I’d’ve been stuttering so bad!” 

“Oh,” Kentarou murmured, his expression growing both perturbed and sad. “Did I… Did I scare you that much, Yachi-san?” 

“Oh, no!” Hitoka hastily backpedaled. “No, no, I wouldn’t say you scared me! I didn’t think you were, like, dangerous or anything! I was just—just—” She began to helplessly stammer, struggling to find a word that was both true to her feelings yet not overly insulting. Just as Kentarou began to look doubtful of her genuineness, she sputtered out, “Intimidated! Yes, I was just intimidated. A-and I was only intimidated because you were so intense, Kyoutani-san, and I didn’t really know how to approach people like that back then.” 

“Yeah?” Kentarou asked, a bit dubiously. 

“Yeah!” Hitoka insisted with a firm nod. “I mean, I didn’t even know how to approach a lot of the guys at Karasuno! Shouyou, Tobio, Kei—those guys were so serious, it scared the heck out of me! And Tanaka-san and Nishinoya-san were so crazy energetic that I got dizzy just being near them!” 

“Hah, I could see that,” Kentarou responded in a small chortle, and Hitoka was relieved to see the smile ease back onto his face. “Well, I’m glad that you weren’t deathly afraid of me, at least. I was a punk with a shitty attitude back then—honestly, my attitude still kind of sucks—but despite what rumors might have led you to believe, I didn’t get any satisfaction outta scarin’ girls.” 

“Oh, no, Kyoutani-san, you never gave me that sort of impression at all,” Hitoka assured him with an encouraging shake of her head. 

“Oh? Then what kind of impression did I give you?” 

“Well, hmm… It’s kind of hard to put into words,” she wondered aloud. She tipped her head slightly as she tossed her feelings around in her head, picking them apart to try and find the words to express them meaningfully. “I mean, it wasn’t much different than the impression pretty much all those guys gave me back then. Just like all the rest, it was obvious that you loved volleyball with every fiber of your being—you still do, I’m sure—and it showed. I just think it might have showed a little bit differently than some of the others because you had more difficulty expressing yourself in general.” 

“Wow.” Kentarou released a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a wheeze and a groan. “That’s, uh… A frighteningly accurate assessment from somebody who’s spoken a grand total of ten words to me before today.” He ran his hand over his face, hand coming to rest over his mouth to conceal his half-amused, half-wry grin. “You’re right, though. Still right, really. I’m still not good at it,” he said, lifting his hand from his face to make a vague gesture at the air. “This whole… talking and expressing yourself thing.” 

“Well, we’re talking now, aren’t we?” Hitoka smiled kindly. “And I’d say you’re doing a pretty good job expressing yourself. That counts for something.” 

“Yeah,” he agreed, both his voice and his gaze softening. “Yeah, it does.” 

With the hurdle of self-consciousness successfully mounted, the conversation continued seamlessly from there. For the better part of an hour, the two of them exchanged all manners of mundane facts about their lives. They talked about their childhoods, including their unique experiences in the high school volleyball scene. They discussed their families, comparing Hitoka’s experience as an only child to Kentarou’s life growing up with an elder sister. Kentarou revealed that he was a dog owner, and Hitoka gushed about her recent interest in adopting a small dog to keep her company as well. The conversation naturally deviated to center around that titillating topic, with Kentarou pulling out his phone to show her his surprisingly sizeable camera album full of candids of his furry companion. Eventually, they stopped talking about themselves altogether; Kentarou just scrolled contentedly through the photos, occasionally commenting on context for a particular snapshot, while Hitoka appraised them in a continuous stream of heartfelt “aww’s.” 

The photos did eventually come to an end, leaving them at a natural lull in the conversation. As Kentarou opened his messaging app to reply to a few messages he’d gotten in the interim, Hitoka respectfully pulled her gaze from the phone screen, instead staring into the silvery sheen of the opposite wall, dyed red by the emergency lights. As she found her mind pulled into the red-silver void, she found herself thinking back through the conversation to see if there were other avenues of questioning they could explore to continue to pass the time. As she did, she realized there was yet another question she could ask Kentarou, and a rather intriguing one. 

“Hey, Kyoutani-san?” 

“Yeah?” he asked, immediately locking his phone screen and looking up to meet her inquisitive gaze. 

In that moment, Hitoka became aware of how close they were sitting to each other. When the phone had come out, she’d scooched closer to him so she’d be able to get a sufficient view of the pooch’s photographs. So absorbed in poring over the pictures, Hitoka hadn’t registered that she had drawn her legs to the side and propped her entire body against his side and arm as she’d leaned in to observe the phone screen. Likewise, Kentarou had also leaned in a little to help facilitate her ability to get a good view. As a result, their faces hovered only a few inches apart at the moment. It seemed that, unlike Hitoka, Kentarou had not yet taken notice of their proximity, for he just stared expectantly at Hitoka—apparently also failing to notice her complete and utter inability to speak. 

“Ah, um, I—” Hitoka fumbled over her words, finding herself overwhelmingly desperate to increase the distance between herself and Kentarou yet a teensy bit curious to know what would happen if she drew even closer. Unconsciously, the dichotomous forces came to a compromise, such that she simply stayed where she was; this was the agreement, yet it was one that left Hitoka in a state of fluster. Somehow, she managed to collect enough of herself to answer Kentarou before he began to grow too suspicious. 

“Earlier, you asked me about my impression of you in high school, and I… I just started wondering… What was your impression of me?” 

“My impression… of you?” Kentarou echoed with a slow, dazed blink. In an instant, his relaxed demeanor vanished and was replaced by one of acute anxiety. He swallowed thickly. He dropped his gaze to his lap and chuckled nervously. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips, as all the moisture in them had apparently retreated to his palms, which he rubbed against the fabric of his jeans. 

Puzzled by his abrupt nervousness, Hitoka could only stare at him in a blend of apprehension, anticipation, and mild confusion until he managed to muster the courage to answer the—unbeknownst to her—rather difficult question that Hitoke had just posed to him. 

“Well… To be perfectly honest with you, Yachi-san,” he mumbled shyly, refusing to make eye contact despite Hitoka’s intent stare. Suddenly unable to speak, he pressed his lips tightly together, and his eyebrows pinched together as he uncomfortably cleared his throat several times. “Ahem… Ahem, I, uh… Uhm…” Continuously failing to summon forth words just seemed to make him more nervous; he began fidgeting with his phone, turning it over several times in his hands. With each rotation, his brow furrowed deeper, and by the time he let the phone settle in his shaking hands so that he could gaze into the black abyss of the locked phone screen, they were cinched together. Finally—with his gaze locked with that of his scared reflection—finally, he managed to reveal, “I, uh, I thought you were pretty—pretty cute, and—Ikindahadacrushonyou!”

Kentarou forced the admission out in a single frantic breath. It was in such contrast to the slow, painful way he’d forced out the fumbled words before that Hitoka nearly missed it. In addition, upon uttering it, his voice had dropped to such a whisper that Hitoka almost questioned if she’d invented the response. Almost—for immediately after his confession, Kentarou slapped his hands to his face and screamed. Hitoka winced because he neglected to drop his phone before doing it, and the thunk of the device slamming into the bridge of his nose was quite audible. Out of an anguished attempt to salvage a sliver of his shattered pride or out of legitimate ignorance of the self-inflicted assault, Hitoka didn’t know, but Kentarou didn’t react at all to slapping himself with the phone; instead, he kept it pressed firmly against his face as he folded himself over his legs. He then pushed a long, strangled scream of mortification into his palms. 

“You… You had a crush on me, Kyoutani-san? ” Hitoka breathed, too compelled by the revelation to resist asking for verification. 

Agonized by his own voluntary disclosure, Kentarou couldn’t muster a verbal reply. He did, however, nod miserably into his hands. 

Hitoka likewise found herself rendered mute, but not with embarrassment. She didn’t know quite what it was, actually. Amazement? Delight? Confusion? She did not know. It felt as if a great void had opened up inside of her, as if Kentarou’s admission was the precise catalyst for the explosive burst of a black hole into existence at her very core; that black hole had instantaneously sucked each and every emotion inside of her into its black, inescapable maw, leaving her cold and numb and frightfully empty. Or, perhaps, it was the exact opposite; perhaps, the confession had ignited a supernova of every possible emotion at once, leaving her body so bursting at the seams that it simply couldn’t process it and had thus short-circuited for its own survival. She supposed it didn’t really matter either way. Regardless, she was awestruck.

How could she not be? She never could have imagined that she’d be in such a situation, not in a million years. It’d be a billion years before she’d imagine that she’d be in such a situation with Kentarou Kyoutani. She had no basis on which to even begin to react. So she didn’t; she just sat there, paralyzed by the strange emotional chaos that reigned inside of her, until something within herself finally broke free of the pandemonium and rose to the surface. 

Happiness. Yes. Yes, Hitoka was exceptionally, incredibly, undeniably happy. 

Like the great flood of water from a broken dam, identifiable emotions gushed forth. Curiosity. Apprehension. Delight. Anxiety. Anticipation. Fear. Somehow, while thrashing internally in the onslaught of feelings, Hitoka managed to retain enough rational thought to reflect on all the events of the day, all her interactions with Kentarou leading up to that point. Like an image coming to focus under the lens of a microscope, the reality of the situation became crystal clear. 

Kentarou was not being totally honest with her, in a way that excited Hitoka more than she ever thought possible. 

“Kyoutani- san… ” Hitoka cooed, shifting so that she could rest her hand on his back as she knelt down close to his head. Like her voice was an irresistible siren song, Kentarou slowly raised his head so that his gaze met hers. The look in his eyes hurt Hitoka, hurt her like someone plunged their hand into her chest and squeezed with all their might; he looked so terrified and yet so hopeful, and the war between those emotions raged in horrid clarity within those honey-hued eyes as they helplessly searched Hitoka’s own for even the smallest hint as to what she was about to say. It hurt her, and not just because she would hate to see such fear in anyone, but because Kentarou really had no need to hold such fear at all. 

“Kyoutani-san,” Hitoka repeated gently, softly, like she was coaxing a frightened puppy from the cold, dark, lonely place it had been sheltering from the terrifying world. “Kyoutani-san… What if I said that I kinda have a crush on you… right… now?”

Hitoka had been pretty proud of herself in the moment for coming up with what she thought was a damn smooth line. The next, she deeply regretted it, for it looked as if she had effectively broken Kentarou. Like, smashing-your-fist-into-a-clock-and-stopping-it-forever kind of broken. 

Hitoka not only saw, but felt every muscle in his body tense at once. Her hand was still on his back, and it felt like he quite literally turned to stone that very instant. His expression froze in a dumbfounded stare, and his hands hovered unmovingly midway between his legs and his face, still cupped from where he’d been frantically shielding himself from her gaze just moments ago. Kentarou was, by all definitions of the word, motionless—that is, aside from his eyes, which had magnified the intensity with which they searched Hitoka’s face tenfold. They roved every centimeter of Hitoka’s face with such dizzying speed that Hitoka simply couldn’t keep up, though she darn sure tried, not wishing to undermine the seriousness of her declaration by breaking eye contact. 

Slowly, painfully slowly, Kentarou processed the emotional bomb she’d just dropped on him. The honey hue of his irises brightened as clarity flooded them, washing away the cloudiness of his confusion. He slowly sat up, his body jerky and uncoordinated as if he were a robot that had just been powered on after a century of neglect. He opened his mouth, then shut it tight, sucked in a breath through his teeth, and then opened his mouth again to state in a low and trembling voice, “That’s impossible.” 

“Im—impossible?” Hitoka squawked, admittedly not expecting such a reaction. “Kyoutani- san —”

“No! That’s impossible!” 

Hitoka flinched away, startled both by the sharp raise of his voice and the anger it contained. Hurt and confused, she curled away from him; at the same time, Kentarou wrenched himself in the opposite direction, angrily scooting all the way across the elevator. Hitoka released a pained whimper of his name, but Kentarou refused to acknowledge her plea; he stared adamantly into the marbled mash of colors that was his reflection in the elevator door, closing himself from her both physically and mentally by drawing his legs to his chest, hugging them tight around the knees, and propping his chin purposively between them to fix his head in a forward position. He positively radiated hostility, and Hitoka for the life of her could not fathom what could have prompted such an extreme reaction on his part. 

“K—Kyoutani- san, what on Earth—” 

“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Kentarou snarled back, still stubbornly refusing to look at her. 

Taken aback by the accusation in his tone, Hitoka could only release a flabbergasted huff in response. Kentarou seemed to take this as an affirmation of whatever grave misdeed that Hitoka had committed by insinuating that she had feelings for him, for his mouth curled into a sardonic, vindicated, yet painfully sorrowful sneer. The expression spurred Hitoka out of her stunned stupor; clearly, Kentarou had some terrible misconception about the situation, and it was imperative that Hitoka correct it if any semblance of the relationship they’d fostered that day was to be salvaged. 

“Kyoutani-san, please,” Hitoka pleaded, falling on her hands to begin crawling across the elevator toward him. He looked at her then, but only to shoot her a scathing glare that immediately halted her movement. She did not proceed any further, but she refused to back down, instead staring imploringly into his angry, hurt, confused eyes as she begged, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“How can you not know what I’m talking about?” Kentarou snapped. “I’m talking about the fact that you’re dating Kei.” 

If Hitoka’s confession had been a bomb, then Kentarou’s accusation was a nuclear warhead. It obliterated Hitoka’s mind on impact, leaving nothing but an apocalyptic wasteland devoid of even a fragment of a coherent thought. You’re dating Kei… You’re dating Kei… You’re dating Kei… The cataclysmic allegation echoed in the emptiness of Hitoka’s mind, and, as devastating as that statement had been, it was also the ray of sunlight that broke through the barrier of the nuclear fallout and beckoned the last bastion of Hitoka’s cognitive functioning out from the deep shadows of the earth from which it had sought shelter from the storm. 

Instinct took over, and Hitoka’s instinct was to scream. 

“Oh my God!” 

“What the hell?!” Kentarou yelped in response to her ear-splitting shriek. The sudden outburst startled him so badly, in fact, that he jumped violently against the elevator wall, his primitive mind perceiving Hitoka’s explosive reaction as an attack and inciting a deep-rooted instinct of his own—to flee. One of his hands scrabbled frantically at the wall and his legs kicked out wildly for a full two or three seconds before his conscious mind regained control of his body; he slowly ceased his flailing, but was panting hard as he regarded Hitoka with wide, wild eyes. “What the hell was that, Yachi-san? ” 

“I can’t believe you!” she cried, sitting up on her knees to point an accusing finger at him. 

“You can’t believe me? I can’t believe you!” he defensively shot back, pointing a finger back at her. “You’re talking about having a crush on me when you’re—” 

“Raaaaaaaaaagghhhhhh!” Hitoka screamed again, so overcome with frustration at Kentarou’s sheer idiocy that she threw back her head and clawed at her hair. Kiyoko-chan and Saeko- had warned her many times that men were some of the dumbest creatures on the planet, but man, she’d never imagined they’d be this dumb!

“What the fuck, Yachi-san—!”

“Listen, Kyoutani-san,” Hitoka sighed exasperatedly, dropping her head to fix him in a dour stare. “Listen very carefully. ”

Thoroughly rattled, Kentarou obediently snapped his mouth shut and nodded frantically in acknowledgment as he squeaked, “I-I-I’m listening, Yachi-san.” 

“I am not in a romantic relationship with Kei Tsukishima,” she stated slowly, clearly, and emphatically. “I have not, at any point, been in a romantic relationship with Kei Tsukishima. He and I are friends, nothing more, and I have never intended for it to be more. I am not sure where you got that thought in your head, but for love of all things, please banish it from your head. Right now.” 

“You’re… You’re really not dating Kei?” Kentarou whispered, staring at her with as much wounded disbelief as a child that had just been informed that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny did not exist, all at the same instant. It was such a comical expression that Hitoka found her anger instantly abated, and it was then that she realized how absurd the whole situation was. 

“Kyoutani-san, nooooooooo!” Hitoka stressed as she fell into a fit of laughter. She fell back on her legs as she doubled over from the force of the giggles wracking her body. Her body flushed with heat, her eyes flooded with tears, and her heart swelled with pure gaiety. It was insane, like a situation out of an anime or a rom-com, and yet here she was, experiencing it in real life—with Kentarou Kyoutani. No one would ever believe her. No one. She could barely believe it, and it had just happened to her, for crying out loud!

It had just happened to her, and it was happening to her; as funny as it was in its utter preposterousness, it was real. It was real, and Hitoka loved it. Oh, she loved it so, so much. And it was that love that brought her back down to Earth from the dizzying heights of the stratosphere, for she and Kentarou Kyoutani had some unfinished business to attend to. 

“Ohhhhh, Kyoutani-san,” Hitoka exhaled shakily, her breath still strangled by hiccupy giggles. She flipped her hair out of her face as she straightened up again, and she found Kentarou still gawking at her in incredulity. “I can assure you, Kei and I are nothing but friends. Very good friends, but just friends.” 

“R-really?” He began to fidget restlessly, and a nervous grin twitched its way onto his rapidly flushing face. “Just… Just friends? Nothing at all between you?” 

“Nothing, Kyoutani-san, I swear!” 

“Nothing…” Kentarou echoed. “Nothing at all…” Finally seeming to process what Hitoka was telling him, he melted against the wall with a dreamy sigh. He almost looked drugged, simply euphoric from the amount of relief that washed over him that instant. He then laughed. It started as a little chortle, but it soon grew into a fit of hysterics just like the one that had gripped Hitoka moments before. As he cackled, Kentarou stretched out his legs so he could press his hands to his face and his face to his legs again, and amidst the howls of laughter, Hitoka heard him wail, “ Aaaaaggggggggggh, I’m an idiot! An idiot! An idiooooooot! ” 

“Teehee,” Hitoka couldn’t help but giggle at the frankly adorable display. “It’s okay, Kyoutani-san. We all have our moments.” 

Like he suddenly remembered that Hitoka was, in fact, there, Kentarou shot back up to a sitting position. He immediately stopped laughing; as he fixed Hitoka in his gaze, he stared at her with such great seriousness that Hitoka squirmed under the intensity. 

“Wait a minute. Yachi-san, do you really—” 

Ka-thunk!

Without warning, the elevator hummed back to life. The bright white of the normal running lights replaced the muted blood red of the emergency lights. The pleasant melody of classical music replaced the humming silence. The cables jarred into motion, rocking the elevator into upward movement. 

“We’re moving!” Hitoka gasped in realization, looking wildly around in every direction. “Kyoutani-san, we’re moving!” 

“They must’ve finally got the elevator working,” Kentarou surmised, quickly rising. He stepped up to Hitoka and offered a hand to help her up. No sooner than she was on her feet did the elevator come to a smooth and gentle halt. Hitoka and Kentarou both whipped around to find the doors, which had seemed so impregnable for the last two hours of their lives, begin to glide apart. 

“Go, go, go, Kyoutani-san!” Hitoka squeezed herself through the opening as soon as it was wide enough to allow her. Kentarou was hot on her heels, and she bumped right into his chest when she whirled on her heel with an alarmed cry. “My suitcase, my suitcase!” she cried, one hand gripping one of his biceps while the other frantically pointed past the other. 

“I got it, I got it, I got it,” Kentarou assured, simultaneously propelling her forward and backpedaling so he could reach back and snatch up the suitcase’s handle. He hovered in the doorway, and Hitoka watched with growing fear as she scurried backward because she was suddenly afraid that the elevator doors—which had been so cruel to them thus far—would snap shut around his middle. A trio of elevator technicians hovered nearby, one of them repeatedly looking up at Kentarou as he held in place a key that was inserted into the control panel in the wall just near the elevators. 

“Ohhhh, hurry, Kyoutani-san, hurry—” Hitoka rushed, stress mounting. 

It was all fluster and fear and fraughtness as they teetered at the edge of their freedom, and so, Hitoka paid no mind to her surroundings. As a result, she backed right up into someone. And, as the one and only irony of the world would have it, that somebody was none other than Kei Tsukishima. 

“Whoa, whoa, watch it, Yacchan!” As Hitoka gracelessly fumbled into him, Kei took a half-step back to brace his body, then grabbed her firmly around each other arm as she forcefully backed up into him. Hitoka tottered, her sense of balance abruptly disrupted; too shocked at Kei’s voice to care, she made it worse by throwing her head back to stare amazedly up at him as he smirked in amusement down at her. 

“What the—Kei?!” 

“I’m here, too!” chirped a pleasant voice, and Hitoka started as Kanji popped out from behind Kei to give Hitoka a beaming smile. “Hey there, Yacchan! How are ya?” 

“H-Hey,” So rattled by the pair’s sudden experience, she greeted on reflex rather than as a conscious action. “I-I’m good…” 

“I’ll say,” Kei hummed with a slight squeeze of Hitoka’s arms. “You seemed to have weathered your two hours trapped in an elevator with the fearsome ‘Mad Dog’ quite well. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re more afraid of the elevator now than you are of him.” 

“Dude, don’t make it sound like I’d cook and eat her if given the chance,” Kentarou groused as he strolled over to them, wheeling Hitoka’s luggage behind him. “What are you two goons doin’ here, anyway?” he asked with a nod at Kanji, who waved excitedly at him. 

“Well, you couldn’t come to us, so I told Kei that we should just come to you!” Kanji jubilantly explained. 

“Essentially,” Kei corroborated, his stonefacedness almost jarring when compared to Kanji’s joviality. 

“Huh? How did you even know where we were and what was going on?” Hitoka asked, looking between the three young men in total bewilderment. 

“Well, I kinda of had to let them know why I was gonna be late to dinner, so I texted them when we got the taxi,” Kentarou explained. “I knew you wanted it to be a surprise, so I didn’t tell them it was you specifically, but I told ‘em I was gonna take you to your hotel to get cleaned up and settled in, then head that way. Of course, then we got stuck in the elevator, so I told ‘em about that, too. They didn’t tell me they were gonna come here, though.” 

“A surprise for a surprise!” Kanji squealed, looking quite proud of himself as he threw his hands into the air. “It was my idea~” 

“Seemed a waste to just go home after all that effort to go out,” Kei added with an indifferent shrug, then looked down at Hitoka with that signature smirk-smile of his, “and, I’ll admit, I was quite curious as to who’d decided to pay me a surprise visit.” 

“Aw, don’t act like you didn’t know it was Yacchan,” Kanji teased, giving Kei a light punch in the shoulder. 

Kei’s expression immediately twisted into one of distaste, and he looked at Kanji dourly as he muttered, “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Well, Yacchan’s the only one who pays you surprise visits. As you would say, ‘it’s the only logical conclusion.’” 

“First, I don’t say that. Second, are you saying I’m a loser with no friends?” 

“Of course not!” Kanji cried, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Look at ya! Ya got three friends right here!” 

“Keep testing me, and it’ll be two friends and a pain in my ass,” Kei warned with a sharp arch of his eyebrow.

“Awww, Keiiiiiii! You acknowledged me as a friiiiiiend!” Kanji sobbed and went to throw his arms around Kei. Quick as lightning, Kei secured one arm around Hitoka while simultaneously flinging out his other to plant his palm against Kanji’s chest and forcibly hold him at a distance Kei deemed acceptable. Kanji’s expression immediately crumpled into a pitiful pout, looking pleadingly between Kei and Hitoka, disappointed that she was so readily granted the invitation into Kei’s personal space that he so rarely gave to others while he was deprived it. 

“You’re so meaaaaaaan, Keiiiiiii~”

“Now, then.” Unruffled by Kanji’s bleats and whines of protest, Kei looked back to Kentarou with a purposeful frown. “It’s very evident to me that Yacchan’s had a rather trying day. I think it would be best if we let her retire to her room and we postpone our plans for tomorrow morning. Don’t you agree?” 

Kentarou blinked, his gaze shooting to Hitoka’s as he did. In response to his silent askance, Hitoka bit down on her lip to try and suppress the big smile that threatened to stretch across her face, and when that didn’t work, she reached up to bashfully bite down on her thumbnail instead. What she did not say in words, she whispered with her eyes; Kentarou received that message, and he made no effort to conceal the shit-eating smirk that blossomed on his face as he returned his attention to Kei. 

“Actually,” Kentarou drawled, absolutely oozing satisfaction and looking to Hitoka, much to her amusement, like a hotheaded teenage boy defying his father for the first time, “I don’t agree.” 

“Good. Now, Yacchan—” Kei quipped and looked down at Hitoka, apparently not registering Kentarou’s response for a second. When he did, his head snapped up to meet Kentarou’s gaze with a dumbfounded one of his own. “Wait, what did you just say?” 

“He said he doesn’t agree,” Kanji whispered helpfully, then gave Kentarou a wink and a thumbs-up.

“I don’t need your help, Kanji,” Kentarou said without breaking eye contact with Kei. 

“Oops. Sorry.” 

“I said,” Kentarou repeated, stressing the word, “that I don’t agree.” 

“And you don’t agree becauuuuuuuse…?” 

“Because I wanna take Yachi-sa—ahem, Hitoka, on a date. Tonight.” 

“Dayyyyyyyum,” came a muffled snicker from the elevator, and all four of them whipped their heads around to see that all three of the elevator technicians had completely ceased working, too invested in the drama unfolding before them. They were all openly smirking; one of them, apparently the one who’d hooted under his breath, wiped his grin off his face and hurriedly turned back to the elevator to pretend to look busy. The other two continued to unabashedly stare, apparently very eager to see how he would respond to the very blatant challenge. 

Kei, however, was not interested in performing for their benefit, because he waved his hand angrily at them as he scoffed, “Can I help you gentlemen? If not, we’re trying to have a private conversation here.” 

“Yeah, don’t you have an elevator to fix?” Kentarou growled in agreement. 

“Yeah!” Kanji trilled supportively. “Mind your business!”

“Can it, Kanji,” Kei and Kentarou snapped in unison. 

“Aww…” 

The other two technicians weren’t intimidated in the slightest by Kei and Kentarou’s glares; they laughed under their breath and shook their heads in amusement as they too returned their attention to the elevator, one of them audibly sighing, “Ah, to be young again.” 

Kei and Kentarou both rolled their eyes as they looked back at each other. The minute their eyes met, the hostility between them flared back up in an instant, like a flash fire sparking to life. Hitoka could only look on in barely suppressed amusement as Kentarou glared at Kei, and Kei glared back at Kentarou. 

Okay, I’m beginning to see where people might have gotten the idea that Kei and I might be a thing… she thought as she discreetly peered up at him, trying not to giggle at how seriously he was taking the whole thing. 

“A date, you say,” Kei clipped, the arm that was still around Hitoka tightening a bit. “That’s interesting. I had no idea that you’d developed such an interest in our dear Yacchan, Kentarou.” 

“But Kei—” Kanji leaned in close to whisper furtively in Kei’s ear. “—haven’t you known about Kentarou’s crush on Yacchan for a while now? Like, you’ve even mentioned here lately that you wanted her to visit soon so you can find a way to get ‘em together because you thought he’d actually be pretty good for Yacchan…” 

Hitoka’s hand was still at her mouth so she could nibble idly at her fingernail; it clapped hard against her lips in an effort to smother the snort of laughter that threatened to be yanked from her lungs at Kanji’s droll divulgence. Oh, the irony! Kentarou had been petrified into inaction because he’d thought Kei and Hitoka were an item, yet Kei had been well aware of Kentarou’s feelings for her and was hoping to help them become an item! Oh, this day was turning out to be so much better than she’d expected it to be, and in the most entertaining way—

Kei inhaled slow and sharp, slowly turning to glare piercingly at Kanji as he did so. 

“Kanji.” 

“Yeah?” 

“You mind?” 

“Wha—Ohhhhh, ohhh, I get it!” he hissed excitedly. “You’re giving him shovel talk!” 

As Kanji nodded eagerly in understanding and backed off, waving his hands in a “proceed, proceed,” motion, Kei pushed his hand under his glasses to rub his eyes while muttering, “God, give me the strength…” Steadfast in his intent to put the fear of said heavenly Lord into Kentarou, however, Kei gathered himself and straightened up as he once again returned his attention to the ‘Mad Dog’ he intended to collar good and well before he deigned to hand over the steak prize that was Hitoka’s hand. 

“As I was saying—” 

Hitoka didn’t know what was funnier, Kanji’s commentary from the peanut gallery or Kei’s devotion to the bit. A large part of her certainly wanted to stay and watch, but a larger part of her was aware of the fact that the rain was drumming less insistently against the nearby windows and the rumble of thunder was fading further into the distance with each passing minute, and she very much so wanted to finally arrive at her room so she could freshen herself up and she and Kentarou could be on her way. She gave Kentarou a pleading look, and, recognizing her yearning to move along, loudly cleared his throat. 

“Look, dude,” Kentarou interrupted, dropping all pretense to instead regard Kei with sudden gravitas. “Let’s cut the crap, yeah? I’m serious.” 

“All right. Cards on the table it is, then,” Kei said. “You’ve been sitting on your ass for the better part of a year, Kentarou. I wanna know what’s changed your mind all of a sudden. Takes more than two hours stuck in an elevator to foster such a change in attitude, if you ask me.” 

“Kei, really—” Hitoka started to object but was shushed by a click of Kei’s tongue. 

“I realize that I do not own you, Yacchan, but please, for the sake of my pride as a man, let me have this, will you? I take my title as your close friend quite seriously, and as such, I refuse to hand you over to anyone until I’m confident you’re in good hands.” 

“O-oh, okay.” Hitoka couldn’t help but obey, honestly quite gleeful at Kei’s earnest expression of emotion. It was so raw and honest that Hitoka would feel cruel to continue insisting. Plus, she felt that perhaps this little exchange would banish any and all reservations that Kentarou might still have about Kei and Hitoka’s relationship. “Carry on…” 

“Thank you,” Kei huffed, then addressed Kentarou again. “Well? Out with it, Kentarou. Why the sudden bravery?” 

“You really wanna know?” Kentarou barked out a dry laugh, obviously not amused by Kei’s continued stonewalling. “You wanna know why I’ve sat on my ass—not just for a year, by the way, but since high school?” Kentarou’s gaze locked with Hitoka’s again as he hesitated. She gave him an encouraging nod. He sucked in a breath, closed his eyes, and steeled himself. When he opened his eyes again, Hitoka knew that he wouldn’t quail again in the face of Kei’s inquisition from that point on. 

“It’s because I felt like I couldn’t compete with you. I thought Hitoka wanted you, and for all I knew, you already had her.” Kentarou threw up his arms in defeat, laughing and shaking his head, as he stared at Kei with a mixture of vexation, self-reproach, and disbelief. “There. I said it. Satisfied? Are you satisfied now that I’ve made a total fool of myself for god knows what time today? Or have I made you aware of that fact that you can be a real prick sometimes, and this little dance you just made me do was a real dick move?” he snapped, emphatically spinning his index finger in a circle to illustrate said twisted dance. “Now, I’m gonna ask one more time. Let Hitoka go so I can ask her on date, good and proper, like a real man.” 

Whatever Kei was expecting him to say, it apparently had been nothing like that, because Kei just stared at him in awkward silence for several long, painful seconds. 

“Holy shit, dude,” Kei finally huffed, immediately unwrapping his arm from around Hitoka and unceremoniously nudging her toward him. “I just thought you were chickenshit. I had no idea you felt like that,” he said, holding his hands up in a sign of surrender and shaking his head. "Go on, take her, take her on a hundred dates for all I care. You’ve sure as hell earned it, after all that. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t gonna do her dirty.”

“Whatever, dude. You can bite me,” came Kentarou’s surly and adorably childish response, punctuated by a resentful scowl. 

“Thanks for looking out for me, Kei,” Hitoka laughed, boosting herself up on her tiptoes to give Kei a quick peck on the cheek. “Let’s meet up for breakfast tomorrow morning, okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, get over there before he cooks and eats me.” Kei waved her off with a sigh, suddenly looking like he’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes. 

“Speaking of cooking and eating, I’m hungry, Kei,” Kanji whined as Hitoka started walking away. “I know they’re doing their thing, but can we go eat now…?” 

“Yes, yes, let’s leave them to it. Come on, before I change my mind.” 

“Whoohoo! Let’s go to the buffet! Buffet, buffet, buffet!” 

“Yes, yes… To the buffet we go…” 

Kei and Kanji’s voices faded into the steady drum of the rain as they proceeded toward the stairwell, leaving Hitoka and Kentarou in the hall. Hitoka bit her lip, then slowly and shyly sashayed up to him. When she stopped before him, she coyly peered up at him through her lashes. 

“Well… He we are.” 

“About damn time,” came Kentarou’s drained laugh of a response. “You know, you’re lucky he’s your best friend, or else I’d have half a mind to run down the other set of stairs so I could catch him in the parking lot and show him how I really just felt about that whole charade.”

“Come onnnn, it’s just because he cares about me so much,” Hitoka giggled, lightly tapping Kentarou on the arm. “If anything, it shows just how much faith he has in you! Like he said, he wouldn’t hand me over to just anybody.” 

“Yeah, well, it felt less like a showing of faith and more like torturing me for his own satisfaction,” Kentarou groaned, tiredly rubbing his face with one hand as he used the other hand to grab Hitoka’s suitcase so they could start walking down the hall. “I can see him now, bragging with some shit like, ‘I’m the only one who’s ever brought the big, bad ‘Mad Dog’ to heel.’ Ugh. Makes me wanna barf.” 

“Hehe, well,” Hitoka hummed, clasping her hands behind her back as she fell in step beside him, “I’m rather honored that the big, bad ‘Mad Dog’ would bring himself to heel just for the chance to take little old me out on a date.” 

“I talked all that hot shit, and I didn’t even properly ask,” Kentarou realized with a wry laugh and shake of his head. “Damn it all…” 

“Hehe, I guess Kei managed to get the last laugh after all,” Hitoka teased, skipping ahead the few feet to her hotel room door and fishing her room ket out of her purse.

“Oi, watch it,” Kentarou warned, giving her a pointed look. He caught up with her as she was opening the door, and he pushed the luggage through the doorway such that it propped open the door before stepping back and ushering her in with a shooing motion. “I’ll show you. I’ll give ya five minutes, and then I’ll be knocking on your door to ask you out like a real gentleman.” 

“Kentarou Kyoutani? A gentleman? My, I’m in for a treat,” Hitoka cooed as she slowly strutted into the room. 

“Just get in there!” Kentarou barked, flushing darkly at her kittenish jibes before waving her in with almost panicked insistence. 

“See you in a few minutes, Kentarou~” Hitoka chimed before tugging her luggage forward, freeing the door so that it swung shut as he turned and stalked away, likely to collect himself. Little did Kentarou know that her sudden burst of flirtatiousness was a defense mechanism brought about by the mixture of panic and excitement roiling inside of her. As soon as the door clicked shut, Hitoka raced into the room, tossed her luggage onto the bed, tore the zipper open and threw open the lid, and began frantically rifling through her clothes, flinging unsatisfactory clothes around the room in her fervor. 

Come on, come on, come on!

Finally, she found a good replacement for her current waterlogged and mud-splattered sundress, and as she hugged it to her chest, a sudden sense of calm washed over her. She smiled softly to herself, just marveling at how much her circumstances had changed from earlier that day. That morning, she had been convinced that it just wasn’t her day. And now… Now, it very much was her day. 

No… It’s our day, Hitoka thought with a giddy glance at the door, beyond which Kentarou lay waiting, ready to escort her out for a meaningful night together. It just goes to show you… Every cloud does have a silver lining, even stormclouds,  she thought happily as she spun on her heel to flounce into the bathroom, eager to get cleaned up as fast as possible just to have that much more time to spend with Kentarou. 

That silver lining was waiting for me in Sendai. I’m not going to squander it! Look out, world! Villager B is taking the stage, and this time, she’s got a costar! 

What kind of play would their production turn out to be? There was no telling, but the story would be one of remembrance, however it unfolded… Hitoka could just feel it. 

Did you enjoy this oneshot? Consider requesting from me by visiting my rules, then either commenting on this story, submitting an ask, or contacting me via DM!

[sarandipitywrites]

Dead Roots, Dark Water: Ch 7

Jak was gone. Where had he gone? He'd been just ahead of Daxter, not three seconds ago. Daxter's heart crawled up his throat and squeezed. He scanned the basement for any flash of red or blue. Bunkbeds lined the walls, reducing the floorspace by the stairs to a narrow walkway. Somewhere beyond, a fire crackled. Daxter crept forward; graffiti'd propaganda posters papered the basement walls between the bunks all the way up to the point where the room opened up. A large desk dominated the main area of the basement, littered with an assortment of papers, glasses, and empty bottles. A tall, thin man hunched over the mess.

All that, but no sign of— "Who're you?" The man at the table glared across the room, shaven brows low over stormcloud eyes. Tight, neat braids pulled his russet hair back from his face. A network of slate-gray tattoos contrasted his pale skin. The light from the woodburning stove cast shifting shadows that sank into his gaunt features, giving him a ghoulish appearance. The tattooed man's frown twisted into a snarl. A click echoed in the tight room. Firelight gleamed on metal. "I said, who the fuck—" A low, clicking growl rumbled to Daxter's left. His mouth went dry.

Chapter 7 of Dead Roots, Dark Water is LIVE on Ao3!

DRDW Taglist (ask to be added or removed): @sam-glade, @televisionjester, @surroundedbypearls

[ohmygodshesinsane]

QUILLS IN COLEWORTH

for @jilymicrofics / april prompt 17: order / words: 1270

The lights of the diner flickered, and James Potter glanced up with a frown. It was only mid-afternoon, but between the stormclouds and the clipped winter days, it was dark already. When the rain started, he and his mates had ducked into the cleanest-looking place on the grimy street. It was not a high honour. But only a few stray shreds of lettuce stuck to the table, and a sign denoted a wet floor, presumably meaning at some point or another they had at least bought some of the equipment needed to scrub the place. Despite this, it was empty, save for them in a corner booth. Fifties music crackled over the radio. James drummed his fingers vaguely in time and looked back at his friends. Peter sat beside him, grimacing and wet, and Sirius slung his arm around Remus, who was still rather pale.

“You think,” Remus said, before checking the floor and lowering his voice. He leaned forward. “You think there’s dark magic around here?”

“That’s what Moby said, isn’t it?” Admittedly, the grizzled shopkeeper had not exactly been forthcoming. “The quill was delivered to Cokeworth. This is Cokeworth. Said so on the sign.”

“It doesn’t look very magical to me,” Peter shrugged. “Maybe he got it mixed up? He said the writing was all smudged. Is there a Coleworth?”

Sirius exhaled smoke and tapped his cigarette on the edge of the orange ashtray. “Islington doesn’t look particularly magical. Never stopped the mega-bitch.” James shook his head.

“No, there has to be something here. Some purebloods live up north.” He furrowed his brows. “The Parkinsons…”

“They’re halfway to Leeds from here,” Sirius cut in. “And the Abbotts are well up near Windermere. I don’t know anyone who lives in Liverpool.”

 “Chester,” a woman corrected, voice oddly familiar. James whipped around. “Can I take your -” James gaped, but his mouth failed to open as wide as Lily Evans’. She dropped her pen, green eyes bulging. Her red hair was tied up in a luxuriously thick ponytail, and she wore a pink dress with a ridiculous little hat. “What the fuck?”

James opened and closed his mouth, struggling for words. “Chester,” he eventually said faintly. What the hell was she doing here? Lily blinked and covered her eyes with her hand.

“Well, we’re not in the city, but we’re a lot closer to Chester than bloody Liverpool.” Her voice was very high-pitched. She dropped her hand. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Sirius repeated. Lily scowled.

“Some of us have to work for our supper, Black.”

“You work here?” Peter goggled. Lily scoffed.

“Are all of you allergic to getting a job? I have a reason to be here.” She pointed at Remus. “I thought you lived in Wales!”

“I do!” Remus promised, flinching. Lily put her hands on her hips, glowering, and then realisation hit James. He looked to Sirius, whose eyes widened, thinking the very same thing. Peter squeaked as it dawned on him, and clapped his hands over his mouth. They languished in shocked silence. Lily rolled her eyes.

 “Right, is that your order? Squeak for Peter, eyes falling out of heads because God forbid someone earn their money honestly for Potter and Black – Remus, will you have a side of lying liar who lies, or traitorous traitor who betrays?” She frowned. “That doesn’t work as well.”

“I do live in Wales,” Remus said faintly.

“English isn’t weird, isn’t it?” Peter scrunched his nose.

“Look, Evans,” James said, adopting his best I’m-very-serious-unlike-Sirius tone, “I need to ask you something.” Lily raised an eyebrow.

“It’s extra for sauce.”

“No – it’s important.” He clasped his hands together, trying to maintain his composure. “Evans, do you, by any chance, own a quill?”

 Lily stared at him. Sirius burst out laughing. James winced. “I mean – a special one -”

“I’m getting a pot of tea,” she said sourly, regarding the others before marching off, red hair swinging. James gazed helplessly after her.

“James, did you get dropped on the head?” Sirius asked. James turned back around and buried his face in his hands. “‘Evans, do you own a quill?’”

“I don’t know,” James mumbled.

“And it’s not likely to be her, is it?” Peter piped up. “She is a muggle-born.”

“I get it, I’m the world’s biggest prat,” James groaned, rubbing his face. “But she might know something. If something weird’s been going on, wouldn’t she know about it?”

“Do you think she spends her time with dark wizards?” Remus asked mildly. Sirius shrugged.

“She was friends with Snape, wasn’t she?”

“She’s clever,” James cut in. “One of the best in our year. If there’s been magical activity around, she’ll know about it. She doesn’t walk around with her eyes shut, banging off the walls.”

“Unlike Wormtail,” Sirius grinned.

“Bugger off,” Peter pouted.

 Lily returned with a black teapot and five stacked cups. She looked over her shoulder and surreptitiously withdrew her wand. She tapped the cups, and they planted themselves in front of the four boys. One remained. Lily tucked her wand back in a little pocket in her skirt.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” Peter frowned. Lily smiled mysteriously and shrugged.

“No muggles about. At worst it’ll be a warning.” She nudged James. “Shove over.”

“Oh.” James shuffled down, squishing Peter up against the wall, and Lily sat next to him. A small, dangerous warmth lit in his stomach. She took off the striped hat and flung it down on the table before glaring at them all.

“You can pour your own tea,” she informed them. “This is Cokeworth, not bloody Kensington.” James hurriedly grabbed the teapot and started pouring. Lily pulled the fifth cup towards her. “So why the hell are you here? Are you stalking me?” She peered at James. “I’m not going to go out with you, Potter, just because you’ve decided to spend your Christmas holidays following me about.”

James was flabbergasted. “That’s not – I – I don’t even like you!” Anymore. Kind of. A bit. Lily’s face flooded with colour. She swallowed slowly.

“Good,” she said. James grabbed a fistful of his hair. Why was he such an idiot? Why did he fuck up his life for fun?

 The overhead lights flickered again, and the rain outside grew louder, droplets sliding obscenely down the glass shopfront.

“Lily,” Remus said, sounding reasonable. “We genuinely didn’t realise you were from around here. We’re – well, we’re looking into something, and we got told there might be a wizard, or a wizarding family, around here.” Lily eyed him suspiciously. “Are you the only one in Cokeworth?”

Lily regarded him for a moment, and then she sipped her tea. “What does it matter what’s in Cokeworth?” she asked. “How do you know this is the place you want? Maybe you misheard – maybe whatever you read was a bit smudged. It was probably Coleworth.”

“That’s what I said!” Peter said brightly. Sirius rolled his eyes.

“It was definitely Cokeworth,” he said. Lily sipped again.

“What’s it matter?” James regarded the black depths of his cup.

“It’s about what happened at school at the end of term,” James admitted, looking up. Lily’s eyes met his, so clear and sharp he nearly went to water. “We’ve got reason to believe there’s some sort of dark magic being performed around here. Or someone who knows something about it.”

“That’s what you meant about the quills,” Lily said.

“Exactly.” Sirius stubbed his cigarette out.

“Do you know of anyone else living around here?” James asked seriously, silently pleading. If she could give them a lead – if she could help them –

Lily hesitated.

[neopronouns-in-action]

Neopronouns in Action #065

Neopronouns: wi/vyr/vyrn/vyrself, which will follow the same rules as he/him/his/himself for this story.

Replace he with wi

Replace him with vyr

Replace his with vyrn

Replace himself with vyrself

EX:

"He is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as he gets a fence set up around his yard so the puppy can go outside without him having to walk it. His uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he's letting him use, since he lost his. He's going to buy toys and train the puppy himself."

Becomes:

"Wi is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as wi gets a fence set up around vyrn yard so the puppy can go outside without vyr having to walk it. Vyrn uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting vry use, since wi lost vryn. Wi's going to buy toys and train the puppy vyrself.”

___

Wi was getting old, and the pains wi'd been dealing with since the accident seemed to get worse every year. Vyr hair was almost completely gone now, and what remained was either stark white, or the colors of the stormclouds.

Wi was a Taazmarli, one of the people native to the planet that didn't have a name yet. Wi was a monocular triped, with feathers that had once been bright, shining green, but were now faded and greyed with age, vyr once stark yellow stripes now indistinguishable from the rest. Vyr beak, though, was still as glossy as ever, and had been painstakingly dyed black when wi'd been an adoles. Wi was very proud of how dark it was still, after all these turns of the sun.

Vyr band had skilled hunters and good luck, so wi was always eating well, and had a good layer of fat over vyr bones, helping wi to stay warm when the sun fell and the chill of the night rose into the air to greet the stars and the moons.

Wi wore the same sorts of clothes as most of the rest of vyr band -- leather dyed red from the rocks, supplemented with fur for extra warmth, and beads of bone, sap amber, some shells, and certain kinds of seeds. Only Ecli, who'd come from the far south, wore otherwise, and slowly the original clothes were being traded out for local garb as the years passed and they wore out. She had taught them her original people turned the shells they could find in rivers into jewelry.

Wi could no longer assist in the hunting, or crafts jobs, so wi taught the children everything wi knew, from how to pick the weakest animal in a herd, to how to help the best fruit trees to spread, to instructions on how to weave baskets.

That night the band stopped in one of their favorite caves, after making sure no other predators had moved in since their last visit. It was deep enough to keep out the rain, but still helped trap heat from the fire. The tools they'd left behind the last time were still here, so they quickly put them to use, stewing the day's kills over the fire, with generous chunks of the root vegetable that grew abundantly in the area this time of year.

Wi sat close to the fire with the other elders and disas, and Saffi showed them all the new trick he'd thought of for making thread.

Wi laid down to sleep next to Gimzi, vyr favorite person of all the band since they'd met as adols, and, with the crackling of the fire to lull wi to sleep, wi dreamed of the stars, and the life that lived among them.

[wolfhollow]

92%. Is your character particularly confident? Does their confidence level change if less people are around?

The white limestone cliffs plunged downward, their upper banks crusted with foliage that trailed in vining swags over the sides. Tjra stood balanced on the very edge, their toes curling into the moss as they looked down and down to where the river sent up plumes of spray around the rocky bottom of the canyon.

"Tjra!" Ljot's voice was stern, but Tjra did not look up. They were focused on the golden bell dangling from a branch some fifteen yalms down. The training tool swung in the morning breeze giving off a cheerful chime here and there as if certain death didn't linger below it.

"Let them try if they want," Valdis said. The ancient witch was seated on a flat stone, and she gestured to Tjra with her cane as the youth ignored the clamor behind them.

"You encourage them too much, Valdis," Ljot protested, but anything else she had to say fell away as Tjra thrust their hands out. Their focus was all on the trial now.

Their carved ash rod swung in a wide arc as they gathered the mist around them, pooling it into an invisible stormcloud. The air stank of ozone, the crackling static of the energy making their hair sizzle with sparks as they gathered it, compressing the storm into a glowing blue prism that shuddered under the force of their control.

They held the crystallized storm until sweat beaded on their brow. Not because they needed to, but because they could, the power aching like sweet fire in their limbs. When it was almost too much they lept, sweeping in an upwards arc as the storm splintered into glowing fragments like daggers.

They seemed to hang there in the air and then their arms snapped out again and the bolts plunged into the abyss. Streaking condensation they crackled in a wide arc and then shattered against the branch, smashing it into pieces.

Alone the tiny gold bell was too heavy, too smooth, to lift with their current skill. Its mass too concentrated. Now it hung from a fulm long segment of branch dressed out in green and gold speckled leaves. As they landed, feet crumbling away a chunk of moss Tjra pulled with all their might, funneling the down draft of their previous spell into a whirlwind that gathered and spat the branch fragments back up the side of the cliff.

The branch with the bell landed at Ljot's feet, its sweet golden sound accompanied by the percussion of the rest of the branch thudding all around them and the sharp cries of Ljot and her initiates.

"They're going to get someone killed," Ljot snarled, but Tjra paid her no mind as they untied the bell and brushed past her to place it in Valdis' hand.

"You could be a little less cocky," Valdis wheezed, but Tjra could see that she was proud even if she wouldn't say so in front of the others. They smiled viciously, but bowed their head anyway. Rubbing their victory in Ljot's fuming face could wait for later.

===========================

OOC: Arden, or Tjra here with their old forest name, is like 99% confidence, particularly around big groups. At least when it comes to their own abilities. As in this example they can be a real shit about it, though they've also grown up a lot since their early training back home.

Thanks for the ask @mymistymornings !

Ljot and Valdis were named / created by my wife for one of her characters that has some shared background with Arden and I borrowed them for this.

[nyotasaimiri]

Arc Two 105

Oldarva hummed quietly to herself as she almost drifted through the kitchen. It was hard to move quickly when she felt so calm. She probably should not have felt calm, she realized. Nyota and Hadley were both in the med-bay again, she had gone hand to hand with actual Occasus, and they had a prisoner locked in the storage room turned brig. A few months ago, she would have been nothing but afraid.

“But a few months ago, I was still living under Big Ape’s eye,” she whispered to herself as she took the mixing bowl off the shelf. “I would have never reached the stars.”

She stopped, laughed at herself, and shook her head. She would never have talked to herself like this, either. Too dangerous. But she had stopped being afraid at some point, here. Started to really trust.

A hand knocked on the doorframe. “Someone’s feelin’ poetic,” Lumen said, stepping into the room. “Reachin’ the stars, huh? Now that’s a right purdy way to put it.”

Oldarva laughed and started looking for the flour. “It is better than how Namina would phrase it.”

Lumen hummed and crackled like a chuckling stormcloud. “Don’t ya get me started on him. Yeet at sssky, my boot. The hey’s a yeet? A yet ya stretched too long? Bloomin’ golly. And now he’s got Sonny sayin’ it.”

“Pass the eggs, please,” Oldarva said, trying to mirror that smooth way Nyota had of avoiding arguments in her kitchen. And then, because she was Oldarva and not Nyota, she added, “Does it really bother you?”

“Eh, not really.” Lumen ducked down to get a better look through the fridge. “Just does me some good to fuss ‘bout somethin’ when we got a whole lot of somethin’ I can’t do much about, y’see.” He straightened up and passed her the eggs with a thin hiss. “Hoo-ee, that half smarts, gettin’ the cold air on my brand.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about that…” Oldarva paused in her work with a nervous, apologetic smile.

Lumen waved it off. “Don’t ya worry none, neither did I. I always forget about that. So, whatcha makin’? Don’t think I’ve seen ya use the oven before.”

Eldie looked down at her hands, blushing. “I thought I’d try muffins… SAIL had some useful kitchen safety tutorials, so I thought I might be able to do it by myself.”

Lumen nodded in approval. “That’s mighty wise of ya. And I’m sure the captain won’t mind ya givin’ her a break in here when she’s gotta rest. Saves some worryin’.”

“Yes, that’s what I hoped.” The blush got hotter, but she didn’t mind it too much. “But I can’t seem to find the sugar. Have you seen it?”

Lumen whistled curiously. “It ain’t in the usual place?” When she shook her head, he sighed. “Well, I can guess. Just hang on half a tick, I got ya.”  

He did not even bother looking for the sugar. Instead, he walked over to the wall, wrestled the grate off the air vent, and banged on the metal. “Hey, Ferny! I know you’re in there. Where’d ya hide it this time?”

A raspy chuckle drifted out of the vent and made Oldarva’s fur stand on end. Stars but he sounded spooky like that. Eldie took a reflexive step back and bumped into the counter as she heard something shuffling in the vents.

Namina popped his head out with a sheepish grin. “Lightss-friend has gotten clever,” he said. “Heard Floran in the air pipess?”

Lumen flicked his nose. “Didn’t need to hear ya this time,” he said, making a strange thin noise like a radio being tuned. “I hear ya scuffin’ ‘round in there all the time when I’m mindin’ the medbay. And we all know ya hide the sugar to play a joke on the Captain.”

Eldie had not actually known that, but decided that now was not the time to speak up.

The floran’s grin widened and he pulled himself out of the vent properly. “Is hidden in freezer today. She does not look in freezer much. Don’t tell. Fun can wait until Captain is done sssleeping, yes?”

“Sure, sure. Oh hold on now, don’t ya dare shake off in here,” Lumen warned as he caught Namina shifting in place. He pulled in the floran’s elbow, with absolutely no effect. “C’mon, get outta the kitchen before ya do that.”

“Floran is not dusty!” Namina protested. “Sparkss-friend cleaned those vents lassst week. Floran is curiousss.”

“Sparks? Is that what ya call Sonny now?” Lumen let go of Namina’s arm and ran his fingers through his corona, thoughtful. “It suits her. But what’s up, then?”

Namina ruffled Lumen’s corona and ducked away, chuckling, as the novakid crackled and tried to swat him. “Floran helps, yes?” he said, sidling up to Oldarva. “Floran gives sssugar, helps with the cooking.”

“Oh—” Oldarva nearly dropped her mixing bowl. He moved very fast. “Well, if you like. It’s just muffins, though. But I can always make extras if I have helpers.”

“Yay! More ssnack!” Namina pulled the sugar out of the freezer and scrambled up onto the counter to retrieve the extra flour from wherever he had hidden it.

Lumen fizzed and shook his head. “Boy howdy but I guess I better help ya too, at least to keep an eye on him. Well, not an eye… ya know what I mean.” He pulled a spare apron off the cabinet door and put it on. “We better make more’n usual anyhow. Captain said we’re visitin’ the rebels soon. They always like a good meal.”

Oldarva smiled and nodded. “They do. They more than deserve it. Let’s see… banana and nut, I think. Oh, but Commander Blake dislikes bananas. Chocolate, then?”

The novakid laughed, then sparked and jumped back. “Blazin—whoa!”

Eldie turned around just in time to catch Namina as he fell off the counter. “My goodness! Namina, you must be more careful. Don’t squish Lumen, please.”

Namina grinned and bonked his nose against hers. She blushed and dropped him in shock. He caught himself easily and presented the cocoa powder with a flourish. “Chocolate, yess! Floran helps.” He spotted the blush and his grin widened even further. “Floran keeps this up and we bake muffins on Eldie’s face, yes?”

Lumen swatted his arm. “Give the poor gal a break and go find the muffin tins.”  

[books-of-the-great-leviathan]

Chapter 40- Azare

***

Azare watched their small schooner's sails fill with wind, watched their witch swoop low over the rigging, cut stark against the blue light.

The Great Leviathan.

It filled the sea and swelled it; waves crashed up the sand, drowning the reek of burning bodies and half-swamping his Witchhunters. They backed up the beach, collecting in close tight file like they'd been trained to do, rifles and blades lowered to fight. But none of them, not Ziva, not Azare himself, had been trained for this.

He looked out, into the incandescent heart of that blue light, and saw it.

A form. A creature. His mind tried to grasp it, fought to fathom its scale. It clawed and stuttered and failed. The Great Leviathan seemed to cruise beneath the surface of the water, but at the same time it was bigger than the sea, filling it entirely: not a whale, not exactly, but the current-carved ocean too, the shape of the sky and the stormclouds, the vast rushing spill of the sea climbing in stronger and higher waves up the beach.

"Sir," Ziva shouted.

The aurora brightened, distant and then not distant, following the Leviathan. Prism light flickered down the long, smooth arc of the beast's spine; its fin parted the waves, and it arched higher than the island, scar-hewn black hide, the glistening shadow of muscle moving the vast and terrible machine that was its body. The smell of salt and storms grew stronger, a pressure against Azare's senses, the approaching god a weight on the fragile surface of Azare's mind.

Oh, Margaux, he thought, amidst the rush of wind and water and the god's form parting the sea, if only you were here to see this.

"Sir!" Ziva cried again, and grabbed him, her fingers digging into his forearm. Azare tore his eyes from the Leviathan and toward her. Her lip bled from a gash, earned somewhere in the battle. Her hair was a wind-whipped fury around her face. Her eyes reflected the blue light in sparks and glints. She was beautiful, she was terrible. All things at once. All things in balance. "You're letting them go?"

"They're not our concern," Azare shouted back. "The whale is all that matters now. Get to the longboats. We can intercept it before they do."

The longboat reared and bucked on the waves, half-swamped. Oars juddered in the rowers' hands, nearly torn from their grip. The sky swirled like a hurricane overhead, luminescent blue, flashes of too-bright stars visible through the ragged clouds. The Mistfox reared too, swaying and groaning on the swells. Wind whipped through Azare's hair as he climbed aboard. Their witch stood on deck, swathed in chains, his arms thrust outward, his eyes closed and his body shaking from the strain of keeping the winds at heel.

His eyes sprang open as Azare closed in.

"Take us out to the whale," Azare ordered. "Now."

"You feel it," the witch said. "Don't you? You feel it coming. And you're wondering if you can do what you came here to do. Such bloody work."

The witch's gaze flicked to the bolt cannon on the bow. It stood, silhouetted black against the sky, jutting over the Mistfox's prow like some great predator lunging for its prey. The twin fellfoxes shone vivid blue. Witchhunters supported the javelin crate between them, two to each side, carrying the crate steady despite the pitch and roll of the Mistfox.

"Kill a god," the witch said. "Not an easy thing to do."

Azare grabbed the witch's chains. He yanked tight, wrenching the iron collar round the witch's neck. Its edge cut into his pale skin. The witch's golden eyes sprang wide. Lightning arced and crackled between the Mistfox's masts, spirit-fire and feylight, casting an eerie glow over the rippling sails. Azare felt the thrum of power in the deck under his feet, the spatter of rain against his back as the storm strained at the witch's control.

"Take us to the whale," he snarled. "Or I pull this tighter and snap your neck."

"Ghost on your back," the witch whispered. "Claws in your heart."

"Remember your promises, witch."

A smile fluttered over the witch's face, showing the sharp points of his teeth. "And you should remember yours."

Azare's grip trembled. He shoved the witch away, and the boy stumbled, chain scraping chain, his skinny body bent nearly double under their weight.

For Estara.

Azare turned before the witch could rise and felt the pressure in the air shift. The sails lifted, swelling taut as the Mistfox met the wind. The blue light swept closer: nearly two miles out by his estimate, and nearing by the second. Valere's schooner was a black scrap on the surface of the sea, almost at the first tendrils of blue radiance.

"Ready the bolt cannon!" Azare roared. "All hands, prepare to sail, prepare for hard winds! We are all of us children of Estara, and tonight, here on the edge of the world, we honor her! There has never been greater glory. There has never been a brighter horizon than that which we fight for, you, and me, and all of us. For our king. For our empire. For Estara!"

Shouts echoed him, from the throats of his soldiers, from Ziva, her voice harsh as a bird of prey's hunting call. For Estara.

Blue light flooded the Mistfox as it plunged ahead, loosed by the witch's winds, waves turned to mist and salt spray hissing against the ship's hull. The waves were vicious; there came the crack of breaking ropes as one spilled over the Mistfox's deck, tearing free a longboat and swallowing it down, lost to the sea. Two men heaved a javelin into the bolt cannon's toothed gears, winding back the firing mechanism. It locked into place. Now the machine seemed complete, vast twin bow-arcs sweeping to a deadly, humming point.

Like Luca Valere's harpoon, Azare thought grimly, his head down against the spray as he walked the deck, calling orders.

"Sir," called one of the men at the bolt cannon, "it's ready to fire."

"Not yet." Azare narrowed his eyes. "The beast's not close enough."

"Soon," Ziva breathed at his side.

She burned with some strange fire, her body tense, her eyes wide, filled with that brilliant blue glow. Stars trembled in them- stars in the water, in the sky, Azare didn't know. The light filled the clouds, filled the sky, pulled the stars from their settings and cast them into the sea.

All things made one.

The Leviathan's back broke the surface again, an impossible expanse, scars like ravines, ancient wounds made by ancient horrors. Power pulsed in Azare's blood. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so alive.

Do you remember what I told you about the Great Leviathan, Severin? The same thing I told you about the world.

The sea teemed with life: Azare looked down as a vast shape cruised by and saw the ocean filled with creatures, like the Leviathan's coming had shaken out the skirts of the world and gathered all its beasts in this singular span of sea. Sharks, and flat gliding rays, and monster fish he had no name for,  entire shoals of herring winking like stars. Phosphorescent things half-flower and half-squid danced on the currents. Platefish with great crushing jaws swam inches below the surface, and even the armored gray flanks of sea-orks gleamed in the Leviathan's light. Their tusks jutted above water as they breached and snorted and shook their massive heads, venting their lungs into the air. Blow-spume spattered the decks, hot with breath and glimmering blue. The waves lifted like fortress walls, enormous breakers to shatter masts and men alike.

Gods are in balance.

Just as the world is in balance.  

Flukes rose, sliding from beneath the ocean. Azare could not look away from the Leviathan. A wound gouged a half-moon from its right fluke, edges ragged and crusted with ancient scar. He smelled it, the weird animal reek of it, heady and salty and living musk. All too real. This beast was flesh as much as it was divine.

Balance.

He remembered Luca Valere clutching his dying sister, Sirin's eyes as she stared him down, prepared to kill him, to kill herself in the doing of it.

He remembered Cereza, the princess whose death he'd engineered. A child, clinging so ferociously to life despite the curse crushing it from her.

Emotion rose, tangled like it always was, a razor snarl inside him. He remembered Alois in the corridor of Pavaloir Tower, the last time he'd seen his son alive. Alois's eyes, so like his mother's, had shone with such hope. He remembered being young with Daval, laughing, sparring, the brilliance of his friend's smile, the surety they would fight together forever. He remembered the first time he'd seen Alois, a sleeping baby, fragile and defenseless.

How the world seemed to break, then: all hopes thrown aside for this child, his son sleeping in Margaux's arms. How he'd broken the world again, and again, for Daval, for Estara, for duty and honor and loyalty, for the love of a dead woman, for all he had thought was right.

For Estara.

For Estara.

He had thought his loyalty was just, pure as Bellana's light. But it was dead inside, a devouring rot at the heart of him.

All things in balance, Severin.

"Keep her steady," Ziva cried. She strode toward the bolt cannon, the sleet soaking her curls. "No faith lost now, Witchhunters. We're so close-"

Azare reached out and caught Ziva's wrist.

Ziva jerked back and spun, wrenching her arm from Azare's grip. Her eyes narrowed. "Captain, what by all Saints-"

"Not yet," Azare said.

"What do you mean not yet? We're in range." She swept a hand toward the Leviathan. "We can take the monster down now. We can end this now, sir, in one shot. One damned shot."

"No," Azare said.

She stepped toward him, her eyes still wide, still burning blue. He took her by the shoulders. Spray rained across them as the Mistfox cleaved closer. He felt Ziva's heartbeat under her skin, the shiver of her muscles. She wanted this. She wanted to see the ocean set on fire. This was her life coming to a point, all her fury and all her pain at last made worth it.

Azare's heart blazed with love, and fear, all the things he'd once kept locked so deep inside him.   Ziva's eyes and her beautiful face were inches from his.

"I saw you," she shouted. "I saw you let them go-"

"None of that matters," Azare said. His hands found her face and held it, his fingers wound into the dense, wet tangle of her hair. Ziva's fingers braceleted his wrists. "Look at it, Ziva."

He turned her head so they both looked toward the coming Leviathan. Valere's ship was no longer visible amidst the waves.

"Look at it," Azare said again. "We can't destroy it. Not for Estara. Not for anything."

"Have you forgotten your vows? We both swore them. I swore them at the feet of Bellana herself. At any cost, sir, at any sacrifice-"

"I remember them. And I am defying them."

"Captain," Ziva said. Her chest rose and fell, her eyes shining. "We have a mission."

"Damn the mission," Azare said. He turned Ziva's face toward him again. "Do you understand? We kill it, we kill everything. All mercy. All hope. It made the world, Ziva."

Her nails dug into his wrists so hard they cut in. "How long, sir? How long have you doubted the mission?"

"I don't know. A long time, I think." Tears streaked her skin with silver. Azare stroked her face with his thumb, wiping them away. "Not long enough."

"The king-"

"Daval can have his empire," Azare said. "I'm done with it, done with his wars and his vengeance. We can leave. You, and me. We can be anything. We can be free."

Her mouth trembled. Her hands left his wrists, climbing to his chest, to his face, cupping one cheek. Her skin was so warm. A sob choked him. He needed her, needed to gather her to him, to hold her and be with her and rest, pure and sweet and unbearable. Twenty years he'd fought alongside her, watching her rise. All those years with her wasted, all of them dedicated to nothing. Soldier's oaths. War, and blood, and sand. Dead men, and fire, and children weeping in the dark. How much else had they lost, in this campaign of dust?

The blue light brightened. It cascaded. It illuminated her, glory, glory. He heard the Leviathan's song, then, shuddering from below, more feeling than sound.

Ziva heard it too. Her eyes creased, as if holding back some great strain. "You," she echoed. "And me."

"Yes. Yes."

"All this time."

"I know. I am so sorry-"

"Severin." She drew closer, her hand still cupping his face. She traced the line of his cheekbone, his lower lip. Her eyes still shone with tears, refracting the Leviathan's light.

"Severin," she said again, and he heard the rush of feeling in her voice as if for the first time. There was no more fear. All had turned to starlight inside him.

Azare pulled her face to his and kissed her. Her lips were chapped and warm against his; he tasted blood from her split lip, the rasp of scar, the softness of her skin under his fingertips. Ziva's lashes fluttered against his face, light as moth wings.

They half-parted, a bare thread of wind snaking between them. Not for long. With a soft oh she twined closer, lips parting, deeper, harder, brilliant, all of him alight.

His mouth left hers, and the wind returned, the light, the roar of the ocean. The Leviathan's song peaked, a wave of sound.

"Ziva," Azare murmured.

She smiled, and it transformed her: no hook of a grin, no reservation, just that smile like sunlight.

"Severin," she said. He felt her pulse quicken under his hands, felt another wave of whalesong, so close it shivered in her eyes. "I've loved you for so long."

Cold slid into his heart.

Azare stared down at Ziva's dark eyes, the shifting veils of blue in them, and at her fading smile. He couldn't breathe. Cold was inside him, and pain, a white spear of it straight through him. He tried to draw breath, and the pain sharpened. He looked down, between them, as heat spread under his uniform.

Her hand gripped the bone hilt of her plain knife.

Her knife.

In his heart.

He looked up at her again. Her smile was gone, her eyes wide. No tears anymore- just traces of salt lingering on her cheeks.

"But I've loved Estara longer," she said.

Whalesong rose. Azare heard it stronger than before. Dark pushed in at the edges of his vision. He staggered forward, closer to her; the knife slid deeper but he felt no pain, just pressure, just the cold of it in him. So much cold. Had it been cold before? He didn't remember. He held Ziva, her shoulders, her hands. They were slick with his blood, and red to the wrists. The world became narrow. All he saw now was her face.

She turned, knife still in him. Her hair lashed in the wind as she looked to the Witchhunters, ready at the bolt cannon.

"Fire!" she cried.

And she wrenched the knife from him, and shoved him, hard. Azare struck the gunwale and toppled over the side of the Mistfox, toward the heaving waves below.

He had no strength to resist. Ziva's face receded. He hit the water, hungry current pulling him down.

The next wave rolled over.

Azare sank, a plume of red trailing behind him. He closed his eyes. All became blue light and whalesong.

[conversationswiththemoon]

New MGiT fic: THE LION AND THE LARK

I just posted the first three chapters of my Modern Girl in Thedas fic, the first fic I've written in Bioware's sandbox. It's a Cullen romance, and I hesitate to call it a slowburn because it does have a strange arc. There will be fluff, angst, heartbreak, and smut. And, if we're all very very good, a happy ending. CHAPTER ONE - THE PORTAL 6 Solace, 9:41 Dragon The portal flared to life with an intense flash of eerie purple light. “Are you sure this will work?” Maxwell asked. The unease in his gaze had developed into a veritable stormcloud. His anxiety over this experiment was clearly growing by the second. “Well no,” Dorian replied, rolling a tip of his mustache back and forth between two fingers. A nervous habit. Not a good sign. “It is called theoretical magic, after all. That generally precludes surety, you know. As we've discussed. Exhaustively.” Max sighed. They had indeed been over the magical theorems numerous times. But something about the way the portal hummed made his skin crawl. Everything in his gut was starting to yell at him that something was not right. “Maybe Cassandra is right about this. If we're not sure, we could just make things worse.” There was a pointed cough behind them, where a few members of his inner circle had gathered to watch at a distance. Max didn't have to turn his head to know that Cassandra still vehemently objected to the attempt. Or that two of them had hands resting upon the hilts of their swords just in case. And she wasn't wrong. Dorian was a genius, to be sure, but if his mentor couldn't find a way to open a portal to a time before the Conclave explosion, could they expect to fare much better? And a failure could be disastrous. A memory of the future-that-cannot-be vividly flashed through Max's mind. The red lyrium-blighted husks of his companions, each with eyes glowing crimson from the horror spreading within. The thought made him shudder. “But is it not worth an effort?” Dorian had asked in their last discussion, an uncharacteristic pleading tone coloring his voice. “We've all been over these formulas again and again. They do not guarantee success, but they are logically sound. You know that! And yes, It might take some time, some trial and error. But I think there's a way to prevent the Breach from ever opening.”

He took a deep breath, his eyes falling to the floor. “I worked with Alexius. I know there is. There must be.” I can fix his mistake, is what he meant. And so they had reluctantly decided to try. The portal sparked, bathing the Undercroft in a its hypnotic violet glow. It buzzed maddeningly, crackling with bursts of sharp static in sporadic fits. It made Max, seasoned elemental mage though he was, deeply nervous. “This portal looks different from the one in Redcliffe. For starters, it's the wrong color.” “Different timestone. It's not the same one as Alexius used, but Dagna said but it should substitute adequately.” He took a step closer to the portal, squinting to see if he could discern anything on the opposite side, but couldn't make anything out. “Now, I just have to tune it to the right time and place.” He ran his thumb over the faceted gem in his hand. “That's the hard part.” But before he could begin, the portal cracked like a giant clap of thunder. Dorian took a hasty step backwards and noted the telltale blue shimmer of a barrier envelop his body. Max already had his staff ready. And then a woman tumbled out of the void.

Read THE LION AND THE LARK at AO3.

[altruists-reverie]

Here I stand, suspended in stormcloud.

Fury crackles all around,

But in the storm I forget that I am me.

I am held poised within its grasp, ready to strike mountain or tree.

To a new threat, my mind gives birth.

What of the hand that rips me down to earth?

From the cloud I bolt, from the sky I scream.

I clutch my bedding, and find that it was merely a dream.

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

"Bullets, Thunder, Fireworks" by edwardian-girl-next-door

a storm is coming

on the fourth of

july.

dark holy wings

inking the nervous sky

like a shroud,

like a thread picking up gathers

in the vanquished, light-streaked air.

lightning and fireworks

black and white

and red and green

and purple and blue and

a devouring bruise of history

crackling eardrums

above the trees.

little bullets of sound

--unmerciful sound--

a rosary of death

when they fell

amongst the clash of brass and banners

and fathers

hiding children in alley dumpsters.

another whip

steels the air

in tumult.

this mortal flag we fly --

phosphenes of white

sparkling behind lines of

red police tape.

the storm roils

and the crowd flees on the

grass, the

pavement -- barefoot --

from drops of metallic rain.

mountains, valleys, oceans,

we dance over the graves we have

supplied

so we can build over them.

the shoulders of progress

are crying.

they are tired of being stood upon.

the storm is coming, they say.

and what good have you done?

bullets, thunder, lightning.

enter three futures.

we only play a waiting game

with the wind that

knocks out our power.

which future will avoid it

the longest?

you are tired, say the futures,

of having to fix us.

of being the ones with the eternal answers.

the shoulders of progress

and children in dumpsters

scream with the rocket

launched into the stormcloud.

the blackness swallows the world.

we are of it, and we have made it,

but we recognise it not.

it is always

someone

else.

and who can tell?

perhaps one day,

in a torrential stint of rain,

we can tell the difference

between

bullets, thunder, and fireworks.

perhaps one day,

a holiday will mean more

than murder.