#this is all from a haikyuu gacha game
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ashxketchum · 5 months ago
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MEMORIES OF SUMMER: FESTIVAL, FOOD & FIREWORKS (˶˃ ᔕ ˂˶)
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schrodingers-romy · 2 months ago
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It's kinda funny seeing fandoms you know you're never going to get into on your dash all the time because it's like. I know vaguely what characters i would maybe like/crush on/be annoyed by etc. Never gonna happen tho. Perhaps in another universe
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torao-chan · 1 year ago
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share your character playlists with us we beg
aslkjglsdfg most of mine are on private because. they're so subject to change at a drop of a hat and also I constantly fear judgement but >w> since it's something someone's actually interested innnnnn
I can unprivate some and share a few with you haha
These are my One Piece ones o3o I'm very happy with Law's, Sanji's, and my Lawlu one, but the other two đŸ€” well, they're still just vibes and all of them are stillgetting rearranged regularly asdlkjglkdfsg
Sanji - (❀ ω ❀)
Zoro - En Guarde
Zosan - i'll kick you in the front cause i've always got your back
Luffy - Sunshine
Law - Moonlight
Lawlu - Too Many Captains on the Ship
(Also, here's a few general vibe playlists I really like and blatantly browse for songs that Vibe Right! this is how i find new music idk what to tell you Sanji Lawlu Law)
Here's a few other ones I've made that I like for other fandoms that are more stable than the One Piece ones.
I really like my Obey Me playlists for Belphie, my MC in game 1 and my MC in game 2, despite having to leave that fandom for predatory-gacha-gaming-and-it's-addiction reasons.
(Venti from Genshin also has one despite me leaving the fandom for exactly the same reason)
For Touchstarved, I've made this Leander playlist public before- but since you're asking. Here's a second one I've had hidden this entire time lmfao. May become privated again at some point; who knows where my anxiety will lead me.
Sylvain is the only FE3H boi I've made a playlist for and it kinda says all. I love him. He's an angst pit.
BG3 gets one for Astarion and one for Tav(... Tavier. my Tav lmao). As well as a combo one that is literally just a mashup of the two that I'm not going to bother linking.
Ichimatsu from Oso-san and Nagito from Danganronpa both have xReader playlists that are entirely self indulgent.
Lastly, because this link storm is becoming chaotically long, here's three vibe ones I'm pretty happy with; one for Hypnos from the Hades game, one for Wally from Welcome Home, and one for Tendou from Haikyuu.
I have. So many more. They're literally spilling out my pockets asdlkjglksdjgd but these are the most stable and favourite ones of mine.
Let me know if any of the links don't work and uh
Sorry you opened the gates to the dam alkjlkjkfglsdjg >w>;;
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nicohischier · 7 months ago
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get to know me
tagged by: @hischiersjohnston thank you bestie
didn't tag anyone* due to my chronic fear of being annoying but pls snoop all you like
do you make your bed? no, i'm simply way too lazy in the morning to make my bed.
favourite number? 8! i was born on 8/8 so i guess the number just stuck out to me lol
what’s your job? i'm currently in that super fun period of being recently graduated with no prospects, no experience, and no network. also a lot of anxiety. i'm working on it.
if you could go back to school, would you? yeah. i still might go back in a few years to do education or something.
can you parallel park? once upon a time i could, but now i don't drive (classic lack of car woes) so i'm pretty comfortable in saying i can't parallel park anymore.
do you think aliens are real? yes, absolutely. i'm not saying i believe that there's a whole civilized society hanging out a few billion light years away, but the category of aliens extends into every living life form, no matter how insentient or microscopic. the universe is simply too vast for me to even entertain the idea that earth is the only planet or other celestial body capable of sustaining plant life or single cell organism or whatnot.
can you drive a manual car? no! tbh at this point it's been so long since i've drove period, that idk if i'm even allowed to say i can drive an automatic lmao
guilty pleasure? i cannot deny that i have spent money on genshin to get characters/weapons and while i fully acknowledge that i've given into the gacha trap, i spend responsibly and never in excess. it's a game i genuinely love and i do believe that adults are free to spend their money wherever they wish. some people buy cigarettes, i buy little anime characters.
tattoos? world's saddest no. i would like to get some tho, i'm just generally the type of person who gets super invested in something for a while and then drops it after a while, which includes tattoo ideas. right now i'm flirting with the cassiopeia constellation (name of my favourite kpop groups fandom), "we don't need the memories" which is a team motto from haikyuu, line art of a cat because i'm a cat person, and some others with personal significance. and some more fandom ones. but fandom ones are finicky so. shrug.
favourite colour? i do dearly love the colour red. also a big fan of taupe, which is. probably the most boring answer i could give. "oh yeah my favourite colour? beige." god.
favourite type of music? to the surprise of hopefully none of you, i'm a kpop fan. i also really love whatever genre of music guys like alexander stewart and lewis capaldi make.
do you like puzzles? yes so much! i got so into a puzzle the other day that i was up until 5am doing it like i fr just didn't notice how long i was doing it 😭
any phobias? i used to have such a bad fear of spiders. now it's just big ones that freak me out or ones that are on me. i'm working on getting over it though. bugs in general make me feel a bit sick to me stomach tho i won't lie.
favourite childhood sport? i used to be a gymnastics kid lol. was super into pro gymnasts for a little bit, but generally it was a sport i preferred actually doing.
do you talk to yourself? yes and it's so embarrassing because i fucking do it in public without realizing. one day i was in the bookstore talking myself through choosing a book to buy when someone turned the corner and was like "oh! it's just you!". that was almost my 13th reason i am so fucking serious.
tea or coffee? tea if it's hot, coffee if it's cold.
first thing you wanted to be when growing up? wanted to be a vet soooo bad. then i grew up and realized how scary chemistry and biology are and figured maybe i would leave that to the science brained people 😭
what movies do you adore? well my letterboxd top movies are inception, les miserables, the outsiders, and the old guard which is. sorta accurate. the first three are definitely true. i could slot miracle (2004), brokeback mountain, legally blonde, kingsman, etc. into my fave movies list over TOG if i'm being honest but. yknow how it is.
tagging: @sportsnet tyler do this or else.
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yuriolympics · 2 years ago
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today is reshuffle day! we're organizing the rarepair teams and making sure all teams have leaders!
rarepair teams under the cut:
team touhou
Koishi/Flandre from Touhou Project
Keiki/Chimata (Touhou Project)
Nue Houjuu/Minamitsu Murasa (Touhou project)
Okuu/Orin (Touhou Project)
Okina/Yukari (Touhou Project)
Renko/Maribel (Touhou Music CDs)
team gay robots
Arcee/Aileron (Transformers [idw 2004-2018 continuity])  
Nastya/Aurora (The Mechanisms)
team video games
Rebecca/Sasha (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners)
Ruby/Klaasje (Disco Elysium)
Ryne/Gaia (Final Fantasy XIV)
Sylvanas/Jaina (World of Warcraft)
team rhythm game
Aya/Chisato (Bang Dream! Girls Band Party)
Hikari/Tairitsu [hikaritsu] (Arcaea) 
Minori/Haruka (Project Sekai) 
Riko Sakurauchi/You Watanabe (Love Live Sunshine) 
Kanade/Mafuyu (Project Sekai)
team yuri
Shiina /Mimi  (my wish is to fall in love until you die)
Yuzu/Satsuki (Konohana Kitan) 
Alpha Hatsuseno/Kokone Takatsu (Yokohama Kaidashi Kikƍ) 
team western animation & comics
America Chavez/Ramone Watts (Marvel Comics)
Carmen/Julia (Carmen Sandiego)
Hilda/Frida (Hilda) - western
Sofia/Vivian (Sofia the First) 
Scorpia/Perfuma (She-Ra)
Raine Whispers/Edalyn Clawthorn (The Owl House)
Lapis/Amethyst (Steven Universe) 
Lapis Lazuli/Jasper (Steven Universe) 
Kitty/Sammy (Total Drama) 
team atla
Ty Lee/Mai (Avatar: the Last Airbender)
Ty Lee/Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender
team animanga
Yuko/Asa (Chainsaw Man)
Haruno Sakura/Yamanaka Ino (Naruto) 
Amanai Kanoka/Yachi Hitoka (Haikyuu) 
Kouyou/Yosano (Bungou Stray Dogs)
team fire emblem
Edelgard/Byleth (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Edelgard/Monica (Fire Emblem: Three Houses) 
Edelgard/Dorothea from Fire Emblem Three Houses
Marianne/Hilda (Fire Emblem: Three Houses) 
Panette/Alear (Fire Emblem Engage)
team gacha games
Ishmael/Don Quixote (Limbus Company) 
Kafka/Himeko (Honkai: Star Rail)
Shenhe/Ganyu (Genshin Impact)
team visual novels
Satoko/Rika (Higurashi)
Sayori/Monica (Doki Doki Literature Club)
Celestia Ludenberg/Kyouko Kirigiri (Danganronpa)
Kaede Akamatsu/Tsumugi Shirogane from DanganRonpa
team live-action tv
13th/river song (Doctor Who)
Robin/Nancy (Stranger Things)
Robin/Chrissy (Stranger Things)
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justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms · 11 months ago
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Hello! Could I get a matchup for Haikyuu and Genshin Impact?
My pronouns are she/her and I am heterosexual. I am a Pisces and my MBTI is ISTP, I think? I am 5'1 and have short black hair. I like to think that I get along pretty well with others, although I am unlikely to reach out first. I like art, music, and gachas. I dislike having bugs in my home, giving presentations, and thinking about the future. My hobbies include drawing, reading webtoons, and browsing social media sites.
Thank you!
Hi Anon! Thank you for your request! Sorry it took so long. I hope you like your matchups!
In Haikyuu, I match you with...
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You and Suga are the get along with everyone couple wherever you go. Whether it’s the shops, school, or an away volleyball game, everyone loves hanging out with the two of you.
I see Sugo as someone who is creative but often doesn’t have time for it, so he’d love it if you’re able to inspire him to do more in the creative field.
He’d love sitting next to you and drawing the same thing so he can learn from how you create your works. There are a lot of dates that involve walking around town and looking for things to draw.
Will get rid of bugs for you. He’d rather not have them in the house, and he can’t say he particularly likes them either but he’s happy to help where he can.
I think Suga would also enjoy reading webtoons with you. It’s a different form of entertainment and he’d love to read some of your favourites so you can talk about them together.
In Genshin Impact, I match you with...
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Unlike Suga, Kaveh is not dealing with any bugs that enter your shared space. Sure, he lives in a rainforest. That doesn’t mean he likes bugs. Sorry but you’re on your own here.
Since you’re more introverted than Kaveh, he’s often the one to initiate interactions with other people. He’s surprisingly good at drawing you into the conversation in a way that seems natural to everyone.
Loves that you’re a creative person. Art is such a huge part of his life and living with Alhaitham meant he was never able to express that fully. Now that you’re in his lift, he has a good outlet for all of his creative ideas.
Speaking of drawing, he’s going to ask your opinion on all of his architectural designs. He values your opinion on these things and enjoys being able to add in designs you’ve suggested. It feels like a combined project that way.
In a modern au, Kaveh would definitely be into gachas. He’s already broke but is that going to stop him from spending all of his money on trying to get the latest character? Absolutely not. Please make sure he doesn’t actually spend all of his money on gachas

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therapycord · 4 months ago
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❝ é€éŽă€ă€ŒăŸăŸäŒšïżœïżœïżœăŸă—ă‚‡ă†ă€ ❞
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❝ ć€©ć›œă‚‚ćœ°ç„ă‚‚ç„Ąă„ăźăȘら ❞
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riri ♡ they/he/she ♡ istp ♡ akito & shizuku kinnie ♡ nagi seishiro & keqing fan
♡ hi! I'm Riri and this is just an archive for all of my ao3 fics since my ao3 page has become a very large mess :)
━━ ♡ please read the full pinned post, thank you!
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★ ! '07 · bllk · literature ! ★
— 🎧 !! 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑎 !! 🎧—
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ć–šăèžćˆ‡ăŒéźăŁăŠă€
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à­­ ˚. ᔎᔎ. ABOUT RIRI !!
♡ please refer to in 3rd person or use the they/he/she pronouns
♡ minor, high school 2nd year, biromantic asexual
♡ very big fan of Keqing (genshin), Baizhi (wuwa), Nagi (bllk) and Mizuki (prsk) so please don't slander these characters in front of riri
♡ hyperfixations and adhd
♡ likes to yap about their interests a lot, please use tone tags when speaking with them since they're terrible with social interactions
♡ uses CAPS LOCK while typing and rambling. likes desserts, animanga, vocaloid and badminton. dislikes spiders and mornings
♡ absolutely adores the hirakagi/kagihira and kyoru ships
♡ akiyama mizuki (prsk) and mitake ran (bandori) oshi but never gets them in game </3
♡ really loves to read novels, classic literature and manga! always open for recommendations to add to their to-be-read list!!
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ă“ă‚Œă§ć…šăŠç”‚ă‚ŠăȘんだろう
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à­­ ˚. ᔎᔎ. ABOUT THE BLOG !!
this blog is for two purposes: 1. to archive and keep track of all of my ao3 works 2. to post my opinions on manga i've been reading recently this blog is mainly to keep a track of my ao3 works since my ao3 page is extremely disorganized and a mess with over 200 fics (some aren't even completed) i will be using this blog ( and another priv. blog) to post my opinions and review on manga - mainly so i can finish reading all the manga i own. the manga review is for a school project.
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さよăȘă‚‰ăźćˆć›łăŒèœŸă„ăŠ
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à­­ ˚. ᔎᔎ. FANDOM WORKS !!
♡ MASTER-LIST/DASHBOARD ♡
Project Sekai Colorful Stage ft. Hatsune Miku
Fruits Basket (anime + manga)
Hirano And Kagiura
Miraculous Ladybug
Genshin Impact
My Hero Academia
Haikyuu !!
Assassination Classroom
━━ ♡ plus a lot more but they all have like 1~5 works so I didn't bother including links
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æș¶ă‘ă‚‹éŁ›èĄŒæ©Ÿé›Č
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à­­ ˚. ᔎᔎ. SERIES !!
Chatfics
Fandom Snippets!! (Completed)
Violet Ballroom (Fandom Snippets Part 2, completed)
Kagihira Week 2024 (Completed)
━━ ♡ I have a few more series posted but they're mostly incomplete so I didn't bother. They can be found under the series tab on my ao3 profile.
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がăȘă‚‹çŸäž–ăźćąƒç•Œă§
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à­­ ˚. ᔎᔎ. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES !!
♡ Please include the title of the fic + author when submitting fics for me to read and add to my bookmarks, it's super helpful!
♡ You can submit nsfw fics but please put a trigger warning before you add the link so I'm aware, thank you!
♡ Include trigger warnings if the fic involves triggering/dark topics (that aren't horror)
♡ I read fics of any and every fandom so don't be afraid to submit fics from fandoms that aren't animanga or video games! I'm always looking to expanding my reading horizon :)
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æ„šă‹ăȘあăȘăŸăŻæłŁă„ăŠă„ăŸ
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à­­ ˚. ᔎᔎ. ASK BOX / REQUEST GUIDELINES !!
♡ Feel free to ask me anything that aren't the following:
my age, where I study, my birthday and other personal information
♡ I will do my best to answer any questions!
♡ When requesting, please write out the full name of the fandom and particular ship you want me to write for. I accept rarepairs as well.
♡ And please make it clear what you'd like: fluff, angst, crack or a combination when requesting.
♡ Unless it's for my own self-indulgence, I will NOT be writing nsfw.
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è–«ă‚‹ć€éąšă«èȘ˜ă‚ă‚ŒăŠă€
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à­­ ˚. ᔎᔎ. HASHTAGS !!
fanfictions = » eulaexe
original character stuff = » therapycord
project sekai = » pjsk🎀
bandori = » bandori🎍
enstars and other rhythm games = » es+others💿
gacha games (genshin, hsr, wuwa, etc) = » gacha🔼
manga reviews / posts = » manga review📖
unrelated rambles / random posts = » chaos
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æ‚ČしくăȘどăȘいさ
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à­­ ˚. ᔎᔎ. EXTRA STUFF !!
♡ favorite song(s)
ăšăŁăŠă‚‚çŽ æ•”ăȘć…­æœˆă§ă—ăŸ (It Was A Very Beautiful June) - Eight Piya O Re Piya - Atif Aslam, Shreya Goshal JUDGEMENT - ASH DA HERO STORMY - Nissy x SKY-HI
♡ carrd !
♡ ask to add me on genshin (asia server), honkai star rail (asia server), wuthering waves (asia server), roblox, ensekai and jpsekai !
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ć€©ć›œă‚‚ćœ°ç„ă‚‚ç„Ąă„ăźăȘら こんăȘæł„ćĄ—ă‚ŒăźçŸćźŸă‚’èȘ°ăŒèŁă‘るた
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kugisakiss · 3 years ago
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Coming from your bio, do you know of any popular shounen manga or anime where the main m/m leads canonically get together? Even if it's only hand hold in the last chapter, I'd like to know if it's possible outside of shounen-ai or romancs category, for relatively popular manga. Someone told me Tokyo Ghoul has canonically gay leads and that's why it lost popularity, I didn't believe them, do you know anything about that too? Thank you.
Let’s talk about Tokyo Ghoul first! idk where your guy got the idea from, the main character literally sleeps with a girl in a chapter and then eventually married and had a kid with her. I don't remember much about it anymore but, I'm pretty sure the reason it lost popularity was because the last arc or two were, by general consensus, rushed/anticlimatic/messy. the ‘general consensus’ being what I remember from the mangastream comments at the end of each chapter lol
For your main question,
Short answer: if we're talking about a ‘series that ran in Weekly Shounen Jump’ then there hasn't been a single one afaik. and I suspect that we probably won’t be seeing any gay leads for a while yet so I wouldn’t hold up hope for that.
Long answer:
when it comes to shounen manga, unless it already has romance in its genre, characters don’t get together all that often to begin with. sure there’s a few that do (Naruto, Bleach, Kimetsu) but most of the time, if the story has hardly any romantic elements in it (or even if it was teased with plenty), it usually stays that way til the end (Haikyuu, Kuroko, Eyeshield, KHR, Gintama, Sket Dance (there was a confession scene in the last chapter and it’s still in this list), AssClass, TPN, Beelzebub, Hikago, Saiki, Death Note, I’m showing off all the WSJ manga I can list but you get the idea). so as you can imagine, looking for a canon gay relationship between main characters there is pretty impossible.
even looking elsewhere, if you’re looking for “there is no doubt in the audience’s mind; these two boys have hand holding rights with each other”, it’s going to be hard. the best I can find is “implied, but can be explained away” type of relationships which seems to be the furthest they go when the demographic is shounen:
Nabari no Ou - a shounen action manga which garnered enough popularity for an anime adaption, by the same author as Shimanami Tasogare. spoiler alert for a series that ended over a decade ago, not a happy ending for them
Samurai Flamenco - a superhero anime more known for throwing some truly insane plot twists when you least expect it. the closest to relationship confirmation is from some images from the gacha mobile game spin off
xxxholic - more seinen than shounen but it is a spin off to the shounen action Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles so I’ll put it here. it’s a CLAMP series where the two male leads’ lives are very interconnected with each other
these two are very explicitly gay but they aren’t very shounen:
Evangelion - probably the most famous of this list, the relationship (if you can call it that) was with a character that only appeared and lasted one episode but it was fairly overt with it rather than just implying
No. 6 - it’s rather neutral in its marketing and it’s not marked as BL so close enough. an anime adapting a shortened version of a dystopian novel series with an overt relationship between the mains
there’s a few of others like, in DGM where one of the mains has a very complicated and free to interpret past with a one arc character. Banana Fish and Yuri on Ice are definitely gay and popular shows which I wouldn’t put as BL but they are also definitely targeted towards a female audience. Ikuhara is a pretty well known director for his storytelling style and his inability to keep things straight, though not very shounen and if you’re looking for mains in a relationship there’s only Utena which is wlw. I haven’t read it but Blue Flag is a shounen romance manga which went where no one was expecting it to, though it is a SOL romance so I’m not sure it’s quite what you’re looking for.
there’s a few other series which have gay characters in a relationship as side characters but this is the best I can do for leads I’m afraid, hope this helps! if anyone wants to correct me on anything or add to this feel free, this is all mostly from memory lol
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klwl-truck · 2 years ago
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New haikyuu!! mobile game just announced, it should be coming this winter!! OMG IM SO EXCITED (it’s gacha, i’m going to be broke before new years lmao).
All images and audio are from @/Haikyu_EN on twt. Check them out, they provide announcements and updates on all things haikyuu!!
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dinosaurtsukki · 4 years ago
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haikyuu!! as genshin impact players
a/n: currently obsessed with genshin impact so i decided to merge it with my love for haikyuu!! this was honestly so much fun to write and i hope you guys like it !!
Hinata: he’s the one who always asks for help in the group chat when fighting bosses as well as the dragonspine quests. super thankful when you help him but you just have to be patient with him jumping and accidentally pressing ‘attack’ when gliding’
Kageyama: honestly thought that collecting all the anemoculi was the first objective so he went out and found EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. loves to flex his stamina at hinata by jumping up cliffs
Tsukishima: RIP most of his characters are hydro users so he has to visit the oceanid twice every day all like 'hey, fucker. it's me again'. someone please give him fischl. hides the fact that he failed the gliding exams about twenty times
Yamaguchi: wanted xiao so bad he made 150 pcs. of almond tofu and a summoning circle in his room before wishing for him on top of wangshu inn. cried tears of joy when he got him 
Ennoshita: super intellectual player. takes the time to calculate the stats on weapons, artifacts, and talents before enhancing them. likes using archers to spam long-distance attacks
Tanaka: in it for the WAIFUS. wants mihoyo to add a trade character feature so that he could trade his male characters and have an army of waifus. currently saving up primogems for hu tao
Noya: BENNET MAIN !! ceo of bennett supremacy basically and loves watching his ‘bouken da bouken!’ idle animation. adamantly believes that he should be a five-star character
Daichi: wasn’t that invested in playing until he got albedo as his first five-star character because he loves the guy so much. loves bringing him when he does co-op and when the other player thanks him for the ‘albedovators’ 
Sugawara: klee main because he loves how chaotic she is. like, he’ll literally use her to kill fish in the springvale lake and timmie’s birds. he’ll use his elemental burst for destroying the training dummies for ellin’s commission
Asahi: even though he has five-star characters, he still likes using the starter team because they feel like his family. explicitly uses amber and kaeya a lot just to prove the haters wrong
Oikawa: venti main because he relates to him on a spiritual level and actually cried during his story quest. also emotionally invested in the NPC quests and actually felt bad about not finding joel’s dad
Iwaizumi: has the WORST luck when it comes to gacha rolls. always gets a five-star on like, roll 80 and when he does, he always gets the non-banner one first. doesn’t know the diff between crit rate and crit damage and is too afraid to ask at this point
Hanamaki: fucking kills timmie's birds for FUN. also does livestreams of him walking from mondstadt to liyue or farming as many pieces of meat he can in a day (the most was 1126). calls the primo geovishap ‘rock daddy’ 
Matsukawa: believes in traveler supremacy and invests in leveling them up, no matter what anyone says about them being a support. ‘y’all are going to wish you leveled them up when traveler becomes the avatar’ he says
Ushijima: very much an explorer kind of guy and takes the time to forage everything he sees. also cooks a lot and has 288 sweet madame even though he doesn't really need it
Tendou: actually enjoys being in dragonspine because he likes the thrill of freezing to death and the aesthetics. farms so much frozen meat because he can. lets ushijima co-op in his world to farm stuff
Semi: used up his fragile resin early in the game and now that he's at ar40 he has Regrets. yells a lot when he plays but that’s whenever he accidentally presses ‘climb’ instead of attack
Shirabu: someone told him that sucrose shouldn't be used as a main and now he's doing that out of spite. actually likes his team comps to be full of supports for the #supportsupremacy
Goshiki: he has such a hard time with boss fights but he's too proud to ask for help. knowing that, his senpais just show up in his world and ask if they could farm there to help him out
Kuroo: collects husbandos and co-op's in other players' worlds while role-playing as that husbando. he's gotten very popular because of this and is known as ‘the legendary co-op player’ 
Kenma: an amazing player, as you’d expect. he got to ar40 in probs two weeks and started livestreaming his plays. an absolute king at clearing abyss levels and showing off those satisfying elemental reactions
Yaku: WHAAAAAALE. you can tell by the fact that he always has the battle pass weapons and so many primogems. definitely a collector who tries to get all playable characters 
Lev: very chaotic player and accidentally walked all the way to liyue at ar10 while running away and dodging monsters. SOMEHOW managed to defeat boss childe without revival materials and by spamming noelle
Bokuto: has the best luck in gacha rolls, opposite to iwaizumi. he showed akaashi a pic of his first 10-wish roll (feat. qiqi, mona, and fischl) and was all ‘is this a good roll?’ 
Akaashi: great at building characters so he shares his knowledge by making videos on optimal character builds and team comps. explains things super well and everyone loves watching his stuff
Atsumu: likes to turn up the volume on his headphones and making lisa climb a really high cliff if you know what i mean. also desperately tried to roll for ganyu and spent all his primogems but got diluc instead 
Osamu: likes to spam genshin fan pages with dumb theories like ‘joel’s dad is the missing cryo yaksha’ or ‘madame ping is going to be on the next character banner.’ has a soft spot for barbara though
Suna: he’s often falling off cliffs trying to farm violetgrass but he does it out of love for qiqi. shows off himself using qiqi as main dps when someone says she’s just a support because he can
Kita: his signature literally says ‘come to my world if you want to farm’. his map is full of landmarks for ascension materials and will even help you find them. in charge of bringing a healer when you guys fight bosses
Sakusa: loves doing photoshoots with his characters, especially capturing stills of their elemental bursts. his fave character is ningguang because of beautiful and photogenic she is (even has the yellow seelie to match her)
▾ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂
taglist (check out my post for details on being part of my taglist):@montys-chaos​ @miyumtwins​ @strawberriimilkshake​ @pocubo​ @sugawara-sweetheart @akaashisbabydoll @laure-chan​ @therainroguefanfiction​ @atetiffdoesart @stephdaninja @oikaw-ugh​ @charliefredb​ @dramaqueenweeb1469 @tremblinghearts @applepienation @kirakirasaku @haikyuu-my-love @waitforitillwritemywayout @kattykurr @atsumusdomain​ @goodfoodxoxoxo​ @ah-kaashi​ @guardianangelswings @definitely-yours @amberalisa @whootwhoot​ @liz-multifandom-hotel @kac-chowsballs​ @procrastination-lady @miyakiyo0mi
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kanonavi · 3 years ago
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FFXV anon from yesterday, with other fandoms that seem your type
FF7(Zack is your type if Prompto is, but Cloud is also Loveable Dork)
FF13 kinda fits the aesthetic I've gotten from your vibe? The story can be hard to follow(I didn't find it hard, nor did the person who got me into final fantasy as a whole, but apparently a lot of people do and hate it?) Idk man it's pretty and very futuristic.
Jujutsu Kaisen. Fits your vibe perfectly.
Hunter×Hunter, killugon would probably be your ship there?
Kizuna Ai, the Vtuber, seems like she'd give you a laugh
On the subject of vtubers, Korone. And Okayu.
Fire emblem 100%
Ive seen genshin in your posts so ik you like that, and with that i suggest Honkai if you haven't played it
Elsword? Not for everyone but you might like it? Laby is my main, love her to bits
Might come back with more later. Do you listen to vocaloid? You seem the type. Feel free to suggest stuff for me lol I'll give anything a shot!
Hello again, anon! This is... quite a bit, so let me just go down in the order of your list
The FFVII remaster has been on my radar since I follow some of the voice actors who were in it on twitter, and it seems like a classic for a reason, though I think that between it and FFXV I would probably pick the latter first. But FFXIII I know absolutely nothing about, so I’ll see about checking that out sometime to see if your assessment is correct!
Now, JJK is something that I’ve definitely considered on one particular day where I had a big hankering for shounen anime, but I ended up starting Haikyuu instead (though I didn’t get too far in that). The animation looks super nice though, I think I’m confident in saying that it’s currently rotting on my watchlist lol
HxH I have actually seen! I binged the whole thing back in winter of 2021 and sustained critical emotional damage from it. You’re absolutely correct that killugon is my ship, they’re just... so good. Definitely one of my favorite anime that I’ve seen
So there’s kind of a funny story with vtubers. I’ve kinda sworn off falling into that hole purely because my roommate is a huge vtuber simp (I say that affectionately btw. She’s working towards becoming an independent vtuber herself and it’s genuinely really cool). If I were to start looking into them though, I’d probably start with Calliope Mori and Kureiji Ollie. I like their vibes
I was actually a huge nut for Fire Emblem back in junior high school. I’ve played pretty much all of the newer games, and I’m just hoping they remaster the old ones so that I can experience their stories. Echoes and Three Houses have probably been my favorites that I’ve played, though Takumi and Leo from Fates will always hold a special place in my heart because they were one of my first otps
Honkai I’ve seen a bit of because my roommate plays it sometimes, but its world and characters just don’t grab me in the same way that Genshin’s do, so I think I’m gonna give it a pass in the long run. I’ll stick to just one main gacha hell
I was actually big on Elsword back in junior high as well. Lu and Ciel were my mains until Ain stole my heart and refused to return it. I doubt I’ll ever go back because grinding is such a huge pain in the ass, but Apostasia will always be my beloved angsty boy
Oh, vocaloid. Okay. Vocaloid was one of the main things that kind of led me to anime, so I do absolutely listen to it. Since you asked, I’ll give you a few recs!
- I’m Glad that You’re Evil Too, by Pinnochio-P feat. Hatsune Miku
- Becoming Potatoes, by Neru feat. Kagamine Rin and Len
- Pokapoka Planet, by Harumaki Gohan feat. Hatsune Miku
And as a little SynthV Bonus:
- Aura, by GHOST feat. Solaria
Admittedly I haven’t been listening to vocaloid as much recently (A lot more video game OSTs by the fault of Genshin and also orchestra), but these are some reliable bops.
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ramonabulaklak · 3 years ago
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I loved anime so much as a kid. I didn’t realize it then, but I grew up watching hundreds of hours of anime all throughout grade school and high school. I progressed from playing Tinier Me (god bless this gacha game), albeit having zero funds, to listening to Vocaloid and Miku Hatsune, and straight up watching hentai or how-is-this-not-a-hentai? stuff like HOTD. I committed lots of my time drawing anime characters, which somehow led to a serious interest in the arts and refined my crude style to something I could actually sell later on.
Lots of people said I would eventually grow out of it and I did, actually. For the entirety of my college years, I completely shed all the otaku in me and turned punk rock lololol. don’t ask me why. I had a completely blank slate and I thought maybe it was time to discover other things. I loved Green Day, My Chemical Romance, and a lot of other punk and emo bands during my freshman and sophomore years. I then discovered indie OPM and went to gigs in Makati and QC. I felt so cool smoking cigarettes after a wild gig infront of B-Side in my tight black jeans, black shirt, and black high-cut Chucks. 
It was all fun, but I outgrew that phase too. The pandemic came and when we were stuck inside of our houses, I decided to watch anime again. I watched Haikyuu and boy was it good. Then that was the start of me getting hurled again to the otaku world. 
I don’t regret hitting pause to my anime obsession. It made me experience things that I’m very thankful for. I wouldn’t have had funds for concerts and gig nights if I was still mindlessly purchasing anime merchandise hahaha.
I’m happy to discover that the love I had for Japanese anime and games is still very much alive and somehow just grew stronger, I guess. If you’re somebody like me, maybe you will get the sense of what I’m trying to say, but if you’re not, maybe you will find it ridiculous and weird haha. I used to be ashamed of being an otaku, but I think I outgrew that too.
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rainstormfes · 4 years ago
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Genshin Impact PSA!!
This is literally an ad and I'm not even sponsored or anything lol but SERIOUSLY anyone that can, needs to try out this game for themselves.
First and foremost of course, we got some top tier seiyuu here. There's Yuuki Aoi (Diane from Seven Deadly Sins)/Horie Shun (Asta from Black Clover) as the MC, Toriumi Kosuke (Mista from Jojo Part 5) as Kaeya, Ono Kensho as Diluc (Giorno from Jojo Part 5), Murase Ayumu as Venti (Hinata from Haikyuu), Saito Chiwa (Senjougahara from the Monogatari Series) as Jean and many, many more both in game and to come since this game is still being added to right now.
The graphics are AMAZING. For example, these are a couple screenshots i took:
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The lighting, the shading, the colors!! đŸ˜đŸ˜đŸ‘đŸŒ
AND in the last pic, that was in co op with a friend of mine. So speaking of which the co op is so smooth for the first week of this game's launch. Barely any complaints. Even with different internet connections, it works almost perfectly. Not to mention, you can play with friends!! It's so much fun just to go around explore or beat enemies up 😂
Which brings me to the gameplay. It depends if you use pc or mobile or ps4 but the principles are the same and really easy to understand. The game has a very extensive tutorial so it wasn't too difficult to understand how everything works. There's also the elemental aspect of the gameplay which is tough to remember at first but at this point I'm just like 'mix elements and if it doesnt work out just switch characters loll'
Now onto everyone's not so favorite part: the gacha aspect. FIRST OF ALL I'd like to say that having not-so-good luck in gacha in general is PERCECTLY FINE. Cause, especially within a good month of launch, we'll have been given 2 or 3 GUARANTEED 4 star characters to play as. So you wouldn't necessarily have to rely on the gacha for good characters unless you wanna get waifus or husbandos for the voice lines or whatever (I'm still working on getting my bois but its fine đŸ€§đŸ€§)
Overall, the experience I've had since Genshin Impact's launch has been nothing but absolutely amazing. I am a sucker for open world games (I'm still obsessed with Breath of the Wild and since this game was inspired by it, I HAD to try it out) so idk I'm biased?? But don't just take my word for it, I seriously encourage whoever comes across this post to search up the game and try it for themselves if they can. (the specs are kinda scary for pc and mobile but it is what it is 😅 I PLAY ON THE LOWEST GRAPHICS ON PC and the experience is still beautiful as you can see by the screenshots)
Anyway imma drop these links to some of my bois hehe~
youtube
youtube
youtube
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todoscript · 4 years ago
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20 questions tag
saw someone do this on the tl so i thought about just jumping in!
tagging @shoutogepi @shoutodoki @jojosmilktea @tsuhika @katsushimaa @shoutosteakettle + anyone that sees this and wants to join in :-)
1. what do you prefer to be called name-wise?
just astrid is fine! â˜ș
2. when is your birthday?
april 4th! shigs and i’s day haha
3. where do you live?
usa!
4. three things you are doing right now?
procrastinating outlining for an upcoming exam, listening to classical music, and drinking hot green tea!
5. four fandoms that have peaked your interest.
not sure if these fandoms have “peaked my interest” but i’m also involved in the haikyuu, fire emblem, final fantasy, and kpop fandoms respectively so feel free to pop into my asks if you want to talk about that
6. how has the pandemic been treating you?
could be worse! i am definitely not going to complain about the state of my living when i’m sure there are many others struggling twice or thrice as much as me. i’m just grateful that my friends and family are safe and that all my companions live close by so i can still talk to them from time to time
7. a song you can’t stop listening to right now?
via purifico by nobuo uematsu but from the ffx piano collections! the arrangement is so beautiful! the dynamics and repetition make the piece really addicting to listen to and set the tone of the game very well! i have the song playing on the desktop version of my blog if you want a quick listen! (also play final fantasy 10–)
other than that i’ve been listening to blue hour by txt, from home by nct, not another love song by ella mai, and obvious by ariana grande (also give her new album a listen ;-))
8. recommend a movie.
princess mononoke and corpse bride
9. how old are you?
20 years old but i feel older somehow haha
10. school, university, occupation, other?
currently a uni student!
11. do you prefer heat or cold?
i prefer heat on a cold day!
12. name one fact others may not know about you.
i play gacha games 😬
13. are you shy?
it depends on the people i’m talking to
14. preferred pronouns?
she/her
15. biggest pet peeves?
when people can’t admit that they’re wrong even though they clearly are. like damn use your critical thinking skills and stop grasping for straws that aren’t there (ahem ahem, half of the people on twitter)
16. what is your favorite “dere” type?
idk i don’t usually fuck around with dere types but derederes are q
17. rate your life from 1-10, 1 being crappy and 10 being the best it could be.
7! it’s passable! maybe even borderline 7.5?
18. what’s your main blog?
@seokbwis
19. list your side blogs and what they’re used for.
@todoscript - bnha writing obviously
@bulbasamu - under construction and url may be subject to change later but planning to use for haikyuu fic recs and possibly writing in the future
@raindrift - a long abandoned gif-making blog lol
20. is there something people need to know about you before becoming friends?
when i get comfortable with someone and start talking one-on-one i can never shut up. sometimes, i just go on and on so bear with me. also, i message better on discord than tumblr dms since those are kind of a mess right now considering i occasionally use that feature to inform people i’ve added them to a taglist. so if you wanna talk just ask for my discord handle
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alicemitch09writes · 4 years ago
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hiiiiiiii author-saaaaaaaan! um, do you play geshin impact? and if you do, WILL YOU WRITE GENSHIN FICS!!!?!?!?!?!?
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Aha, nope. I am overly familiar with it, thanks to @hitsuackerman and Twitter (and no thanks to its toxic "fANs" who ruin it). But nope, I don't play it, not now, NOT EVER.
And besides, it's a gacha game. I don't trust gacha games and, as a pessimist, know just how low my chances are with winning stuff and all.
I am familiar with the story, a bit of its lore, the characters, and more importantly, its Japanese voice actors - because majority, if not, of the cast are in Haikyuu!! I will say though, the day they get my top faves (Nakamura Yuichi, Hosoya Yoshimasa, Namikawa Daisuke, Uchida Yuuma) will be casted...I'll nervously sweat (ăƒ»ăƒ»ïŒ›)
Though, I am rooting for Enoki Junya (Itadori Yuuji from Jujutsu Kaisen, Jack from Beastars) to get a role!
And Nobunaga Shimazaki (Suna Rintarou from Haikyuu!!, Mahito from Jujutsu Kaisen, Yuki Sohma from Fruits Basket, Nanase Haruka from Free!) just got casted as Kazuha!
And to answer your second question, I'm not really confident about writing for Genshin Impact. Maybe not now, I'll need A LOT of research and thorough study of the lore.
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corpsentry · 5 years ago
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fandom: haikyuu!! rating: teens pairings: atsumu/hinata, thomas/inunaki, gen stuff characters: the entire msby black jackal starting lineup, but with a heavy narrative focus on meian notes: quarantine fic, stuck in a mountain lodge fic, quarantined in a mountain lodge fic, ensemble dynamics
Nature is healing, the birds are returning, and Miya Atsumu is setting the kitchen on fire.
ao3 mirror
Every evening at six, they have the Animal Crossing debate.
“So,” begins Atsumu. He raps the whiteboard he stole from the hidden walk-in closet. He makes eye contact with each of them in turn except for Inunaki and Thomas and Sakusa, because Inunaki is asleep on Thomas’ shoulder and Thomas is having an existential crisis and Sakusa is studying his nails.
“So,” Shouyou parrots back. Shouyou is the only reason the Animal Crossing debate hasn’t devolved into an Animal Crossing dictatorship. He leans forward in his seat, brushing elbows with Bokuto who is distracted. Bokuto’s Skype hasn’t been working properly all day.
Feeling validated, Atsumu clears his throat. He gestures at the contents of the whiteboard which include his obscene monthly paycheck and Raymond and a list of every online gaming store in Japan.
“Today’s question.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Should I spend a hundred thousand yen—“”
“—Objection your stupid honor, no—” Sakusa.
“—On the Animal Crossing switch which comes with a tempered glass screen protector and the Animal Crossing pouch and the Animal Crossing: New Horizons game and a laminated mini-poster of Raymond or should I—”
Thomas nudges Shuugo’s shoulder. “Is he actually sleeping,” he whispers frantically.
Shuugo glances over at Inunaki. He’s jammed into the side of Thomas' sweater and crunching something imaginary between his teeth. He doesn’t look like he’s thinking of killing someone or thinking of killing someone.
“Yes,” Shuugo whispers back.
“—and destroy the garden,” Atsumu concludes.
The sound of something creaking above them. Bokuto thinks there’s a ghost haunting the attic. Shuugo thinks it might actually be Bokuto haunting the attic. He is simply unaware of the possibility.
“No,” Shouyou says brightly.
“Yes,” Bokuto says distractedly.
Atsumu begins to lean against the whiteboard in an unconscious bid to look like he has everything under control. “What.”
“Don’t destroy the garden and don’t buy the switch,” Shouyou clarifies.
Doubt flashes across Atsumu’s face even though Shouyou has said no to him every single day this week and last week and the week before that as well. Sakusa has produced a nail filer and is filing his nails in his corner of the sofa. Inunaki’s eyes are wide open and he’s looking at Thomas like he wants to kiss him or kill him. Thomas is looking at Shuugo like he wants to kill him.
“Meian-san.”
“Shouyou.”
“Atsumu.” Shouyou is the only reason Atsumu is still sane and also the only reason Atsumu is not quite sane anymore but sort of just dragging himself through each day with his face on the floor.
Sakusa has begun to file the sofa. Atsumu’s whiteboard slides three meters to the left, yanking him off-balance with it. Bokuto gives his phone a half-hearted shake and it bounces harmlessly off Thomas’ shoulder. Inunaki hisses at him.
Atsumu tries again, “is this about the garden or is it about the Animal Crossing. Hey, Shouyou. Are you listening.”
“Where are you going, Meian-san?” Shouyou asks, serene as a Buddha.
“To the bathroom,” Shuugo says after a pause, and then heads up the stairs and locks himself in his room and plays Candy Crush on his phone until he falls asleep.
::
The lodge was initially Shouyou’s idea. His mother’s friend’s uncle owned a lodge at the base of Mount Fuji and while they usually would have rented it out to AirBNB guests at this time of the year, the website had recently been banned in Japan due to transparency issues and they were good law-abiding citizens, so they stopped. Since they had the space anyway, they said to Shouyou’s mother over tea and rice crackers, would her son be interested in spending a few weeks in the mountains? Of course, there would be a generous discount.
So Shouyou said yes but only discovered later, as he had not thought to ask, that the lodge was not the size of a 2LDK apartment but a small castle. There were six bedrooms and eight bathrooms and a large industry-grade kitchen that contained three bread machines and a brick kiln. There was a barbecue pit in the backyard. They discovered an ouija board presumably left behind by previous inhabitants, Shouyou texted all of them about it over the weekend, and so the deal was done.
Shouyou would go because he liked the mountains and resonated with them spiritually, having cycled up and down one for most of his high school career. Atsumu would go because Shouyou was going. Bokuto would go because two of his friends were going and Sakusa would go because he was promised his own room and two bathrooms, and he was interested in the ouija board. Inunaki would go because he liked mountains despite being the emotional equivalent of a volcano, and Thomas would go because he was still caught in the middle of their fucked-up courtship ritual that had been going on for years now. Shuugo was hired as parental supervision. The Black Jackals could not afford to have their starting lineup incapacitated in the mountains before the next season began.
Naturally this all took place in early March, before the entire situation devolved into mass hysteria and toilet paper shortages and nature’s attempt to reclaim the gacha machines from mankind or whatever. When they arrived at the lodge COVID-19 was only on Sakusa’s mind, because Sakusa read the news religiously. It was also occasionally on Atsumu’s mind, as Atsumu was prone to bouts of sudden and sustained anxiety. However, every time Atsumu made eye contact with Shouyou the matter would be expelled from his mind as a ball, hit out of the ballpark, lands in some deserted parking lot several cities away. So Shuugo figured they would be all right.
Then, of course, they were extremely not all right. But by then all the local supermarket ladies had already fallen in love with Thomas and his cashmere sweaters and his smile. Surely they wouldn’t let them go back down the side of the mountain without trying to tear off a limb. Or two. Or twelve. So they stayed.  
::
On Friday, Atsumu breaks the washing machine. He claims it broke by itself and that he was simply pressing buttons like a good Japanese citizen but Sakusa later extracts the truth from him, which is that he bodyslammed the washing machine before he tried pressing buttons like a good Japanese citizen. Which makes him a shitty fucking Japanese citizen, said Sakusa. Anyway all the buttons he pressed were the wrong ones, so it wouldn’t have made a difference. Shouyou calls his mother’s friend’s uncle to apologize for the washing machine in the evening and he doesn’t seem that bothered. It was turning twenty-five this year, apparently, which made it an immortal god of a washing machine. Someone would have had to put it in its place eventually.
They don’t tell Atsumu that he broke the twenty-five-year-old washing machine though, because Sakusa’s mad about having to hand-wash all their clothes from now on. Additionally, Atsumu seems to be experiencing emotions in relation to the washing machine as he doesn’t host the Animal Crossing Debate for the first time since they got stuck here, and goes to sulk in Shouyou’s room instead.
Shuugo knocks on Shouyou’s door after dinner, meaning to check on him and make sure Atsumu hasn’t ripped a hole through the bedroom wall that Shouyou shares with Bokuto. He’s a little concerned but not too concerned. There are sounds coming from behind the door, which means that he still has at least one spiker or one setter.
He sticks his head inside. He sticks his head back outside.
He regrets everything.
“Meian-san,” Atsumu says several moments later, fully-clothed and experiencing even more emotions than he had been experiencing when he first found out about the washing machine.
“No.”
“...I’m sorry.”
Shuugo doesn’t have it in him to meet his eyes. He passes along Sakusa’s message with less bite than Sakusa had probably intended, and then goes to the kitchen to look for a drink.
::
NINTENDO SWTICH @m_atsumu
You Will Never Know The Value Of A Moment Until It Becomes A Memory.
::
“What do you mean you finished all the peach purunto.”
“Uh.” Thomas stares at his feet. He stares at the ant presumably crawling on the floor beside his feet. He stares at Shuugo, who is watching him from the big sofa in the living room and drinking a pouch of grape purunto. “Um,” he repeats in a slightly higher-pitched voice.
Shuugo salutes him for good luck and Thomas' shoulder twitches in response. He can’t make any big movements now or Inunaki will be startled and then try to kill him. This has been the state of affairs between them for a while now, since the Izakaya in December where a waiter tried to take Thomas home and Inunaki almost set their private room on fire.
“I’m sorry,” he tries.
The truth is Thomas doesn’t even like peach purunto. He likes grape purunto because he thinks the peach-flavored stuff doesn’t taste artificial enough. Everyone on the team knows this except for Inunaki, who Thomas has been engaging in a fucked-up courtship ritual for the last fifty-nine years. Everyone also knows that Shuugo and Bokuto have been stealing things from the fridge after midnight and not Thomas, who sleeps like a newborn baby placed in subzero temperatures and thus retires to bed early every night. But Thomas isn’t in a position to tell Inunaki anything.
That being said, neither is Shuugo. Shuugo squeezes the plastic pouch dry. He props his arms up on the back of the sofa, chewing peacefully on the last of his konnyaku, while Inunaki approaches Thomas and Thomas approaches the counter.
Thomas makes a sound when his hip bumps into the drawer. “Sorry,” he says again on instinct. Oh Thomas, Shuugo thinks wistfully.
Inunaki stares up at him. Shuugo can’t see his expression but he can picture it perfectly in his mind. It’s the same expression Inunaki wears when he’s about to receive a nasty serve. It’s the same expression Inunaki wears when he’s deciding what drink to get from the vending machine outside the gym.
“Peach purunto is my favorite.”
“I know.” Thomas does know. Poor guy. Shuugo sends him another prayer.
“So what.”
“What?”
Inunaki’s voice almost cracks here, as if he were the one being cornered and not the one actually doing the cornering: “Am I not your favorite?”
Thomas' knees give out. He slides to the floor. The two of them vanish behind the kitchen counter in a dramatic moment full of romantic tension and fear.
“Is that allowed?” he asks in a voice so high-pitched and breathy and small it probably wouldn’t register on a decibel meter or the Richter scale.
“Do you like me or do you not?”
Shuugo flops silently back onto the sofa and rolls to the ground, excusing himself from the room. He doesn’t need to watch this part.
::
Or maybe he should have because apparently Thomas said no out of embarrassment and Inunaki flipped him off and stole the third button off his shirt and now there’s a problem. Thomas takes a swig of his shochu mixed with grape purunto. “There’s a problem, Meian-san,” he says miserably. “I only have one good shirt. And now I look like a gravure model.”“Because of the button?”
Another swig. “The button is enough.”
Downstairs Bokuto is talking to Akaashi the shounen manga editor on Skype or at least trying to. Upstairs Sakusa is ransacking the hidden walk-in closet for more cleaning supplies. Last Shuugo checked, Atsumu’s room was empty. Shouyou’s was not. Shuugo is never sticking his head into anything without acquiring firm vocal confirmation of his safety ever again.
“Where is Inunaki-san anyway?” Thomas looks right through him to the other side of the world where he is probably having the time of his life in Paris.
Shuugo thinks about it. He sips at his peach purunto.
“The backyard?”
::
The story goes that they all wound up in a lodge the size of a small castle at the base of Mount Fuji but then the world blew itself up and everyone got sick. Their supervisors decided, talking anxiously to Shuugo over the phone, that it would actually be better for the Black Jackals’ starting lineup to hang out in the lodge until this whole thing blew over. Was that possible? Please, Meian-san? Please?
Meian Shuugo, being completely defenseless against the word please, immediately turned to Shouyou. Shouyou, being completely defenseless as a general state of being, called up his mother’s friend’s uncle and offered them a generous portion of his obscene paycheck. And Atsumu’s obscene paycheck. And all their paychecks, actually.
Of course you can stay, they said over tea and rice crackers that could not be seen but could be heard over the crackling speaker of Shouyou’s Nokia phone. We don’t really want to go up there ourselves right now anyway, what with the cruise ship and the epidemic and everything.
Thanks, said Shouyou. In the background Sakusa was making Atsumu sign a contract to stop using Sakusa’s second bathroom.
Are you sure you’ll be okay, Shouyou’s mother’s friend’s uncle added as an afterthought.
Shouyou laughed brilliantly and confidently into the receiver.
“Don’t worry, Kishimoto-san,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”
::
Bokuto video calls Akaashi the shounen manga editor every night. They’re boyfriends, so this makes sense. What doesn’t make sense to Shuugo is that Bokuto conducts these video calls in the living room. He has either not discovered the wall socket in his room or decided that he is above it. He has also either not discovered that Akaashi, his shounen manga editor boyfriend, is very busy, or has decided to ignore the fact entirely.
They don’t use Zoom because Akaashi the shounen manga editor has qualms about private user information and where his is going. But Akaashi doesn’t seem to say anything during any of their calls anyway, so no one’s really sure why Bokuto bothers calling to begin with. Is Akaashi the shounen manga editor even real? Is Bokuto imagining things the way he is the ghost haunting the attic? One time Shuugo walked past the sofa while Bokuto was on it. His laptop screen was blank.
“Akaashi,” Bokuto says, stretching the ‘a’ like a piece of taffy formed from several pieces of taffy stuck together.
“...About the ghost in the attic...”
“...Tsum-tsum broke the washing machine...”
“...I think his name is Jonathan...”
Shuugo gives Bokuto one last glance before leaving the living room with his chips. Who the hell is Jonathan? Who is Bokuto talking to? Today, as well, the mystery remains unsolved.
::
HEY HEU HEY @b_koutarou
MY SKYPE ISN’T WORKING SOMEONE PLEASE HELP
hey @k_tetsurou
Are you sure it isn’t working. Maybe the other person just doesn’t want to talk?
HEV HEY HEN @b_koutarou
SUDDENLY I CANNOT READ
::
They all find it unnerving that Atsumu politely agrees to do the dishes for the next two weeks as emotional compensation for breaking the washing machine. They find it unnerving that Atsumu doesn’t snap back when Sakusa declares that he is inferior to business majors over dinner on Tuesday. They’re all so busy being generally unnerved that it doesn’t occur to them that Miya Atsumu may have other plans that have temporarily deterred him from being an asshole, such as being an asshole at a later date.
“GONNA TAKE MY HORSE TO THE—”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP.”
“ —OLD TOWN ROAD—”
“WHAT’S HAPPENING BOKUTO-SAN?”
“RIDE TIL I CAN’T—”
“MEIAN-SAN.”
“THOMAS?”
“ATSUMU.”
Silence. Atsumu turns to look at them. “Shouyou!”
“Atsumu!” Shouyou takes a step towards Atsumu from behind the sofa, where the rest of them are gathered like one’s online shopping information hides behind a firewall. He holds his hands up in front of him, palms out, to indicate non-aggression. “What are you doing?”
“I’m washing the dishes,” says Atsumu, who has clearly given up on washing the dishes.
“And what are those?”
“Portable speakers. Found ‘em in the hidden walk-in closet.”
Shouyou tries to get closer but Atsumu holds up the kitchen hose like a knife and waves it at him. Every decent industry-grade kitchen comes with two meters of kitchen hose these days. It’s a necessary self-defense tactic.
“Come any closer and I’ll hose you. Even if you’re Shouyou.”
“Do you not love me?” Shouyou asks, heartbroken, probably.
“Does he really love him?” Sakusa comments from behind the sofa firewall.
Thomas and Sakusa exchange a look of equal parts horror and indifference.
“I love you,” Atsumu says, blissfully unaware of Sakusa Kiyoomi’s general existence at this time. He is in Clear Pain. The hose is trembling in his hand and Shuugo fears suddenly that he may let go of it. The water being emptied at breakneck speed into the sink can be dealt with later. If it decides to empty itself in another direction, they will need more than a sofa to save them.
“But I,” Atsumu lowers the hose, shuts the water off. His hands are still soapy and there’s an odd, unhinged look in his eyes. “I can’t wash the dishes in silence.”
Shouyou takes three steps forward. “Why?”
“Well, I mean.” Atsumu tilts his head to one side like a serial killer in a serial killer movie does in the moments before they jump the main character’s best friend who is dictated by cultural tradition to be the first to die. Or maybe Atsumu is the main character’s best friend. Or maybe Atsumu doesn’t watch any serial killer movies.
He tilts his head to the other side quietly.
“It’s boring?”
::
They let him keep the portable speakers.
::
Shuugo calls his wife and kids on Skype every other night. On every other other night he wanders around the lodge like a ghost until the early hours of the morning, thinking about unresolved high school conflicts and the next V League season and his grandparents up in Hokkaido. Sometimes he checks the attic for ghosts. Usually he doesn’t. He’s confident he’ll find Bokuto there one day.
“Why don’t you just come back?” his wife asked, the first time they Skyped. He had to explain that he trusted his wife with all his heart when it came to looking after herself and their kids. But, and Shuugo said this earnestly and passionately, he didn’t trust a single member of the MSBY Black Jackals to look after themselves, except maybe Barnes, who was not present. They were professional volleyball players, not professional adults. No one ever really becomes a professional adult.
“This is a good chance for them to learn,” his wife commented, patting the top of Kenta’s head like a buzzer in a gameshow, but more gently.
Shuugo shrugged. “This is a major historical event. They’ll learn some other time.”
Kenta pushed himself up into the camera and said something indistinguishable. It was about Doraemon or the cockroach infestation episode of Gintama and Shuugo wasn’t sure which. He waved back at his eldest son. His eldest son nodded gravely and was buzzered back into his mother’s lap.
“Say bye to daddy, Kenta.”
“Insect repellent.”
“Love you too, kid.”
Tonight is one of those long, sleepless nights. Shuugo ducks into the hidden walk-in closet to see what’s been stolen this week, makes a note of who to yell at the next day, and ducks back out before he can meet anyone he doesn’t want to meet. He checks the toilet paper reserves. He spends an hour lying on the sofa in the living room by himself, scrolling through photos of his family and his dog. His wife sends them every day except for Thursday when she has to catch the live simulcast of her favorite drama on NHK. Kenta looks like he’s managing; Kohki, less so. But then and again, Kohki is three.
He dozes off on the sofa. In his dreams he’s fifteen again and everything sucks except for volleyball, which he doesn’t suck at, which he’s the best at. There’s a boy he thinks he might be in love with but first he wants to get a popsicle from the corner store. Wait a minute, he tells the boy. I’ll be right back. He runs to the corner store and buys his popsicle and runs back to the place where he had promised to meet the boy and it feels like no time has passed at all. Maybe three seconds, maybe three years. But the boy isn’t there anymore. The sun is setting. The street is empty, and there’s a volleyball bouncing by itself at the far end of it, silhouetted in red and orange and gray.
In the morning he’s awoken by yelling from three different directions and the smell of something burning. It’s unbearably, saccharinely sweet so it must be Atsumu again, perhaps with the help and passionate support of Inunaki. The time on the clock reads something fifty-two and he can’t be bothered to squint harder. It doesn’t really matter. Sun’s up anyway.
“MEIAN-SAN.”
He clears his throat. “COMING.”
He sighs, shakes the cramps out of his shoulders, and heads off to save his kids. The ridiculously tall and fast and powerful ones with the impulse control of a flock of mature geese. The ones who play volleyball.
::
Inunaki wants to go grocery shopping. This is not news as everyone generally wants to go grocery shopping, barring Atsumu who has been living in a bubble of sustained anxiety since they got here and is only maintaining his sanity because of Old Town Road and Hinata Shouyou. But this week Inunaki seems particularly agitated about it. He starts the morning off by trying to make sourdough and destroys the first bread machine. He gets pissed about that and destroys the second bread machine. He pulls down the giant projector screen in front of the sofa and blasts K-ON at full volume all afternoon while Sakusa tries to film a skincare tutorial and Bokuto tries to nap and the whole house smells like sourdough starter. Shuugo almost regrets drinking his peach purunto. No, he chides himself. You will not regret what cannot be changed. Like peach purunto and sake parties. Like sake parties.
In contrast Thomas has always seemed the most hinged of the lot, though recently Shuugo has been approaching the astronomical revelation that this may in fact be a false impression created to lure you into trusting him with your life. After all, borderline-nonexistent impulse control is an entry requirement for all members of the MSBY Black Jackals except for Barnes, who is not present. Every once in a while Shuugo catches Thomas staring off in Inunaki’s vague direction like a chicken stares at a smaller chicken. It worries him.
Through the combined efforts of Shouyou, Bokuto, and Atsumu, they trap Inunaki in Sakusa’s second bathroom without Sakusa’s knowledge and convince him to watch a purunto infomercial on Sakusa’s laptop, also borrowed without his knowledge. The infomercial is something like ten minutes long. It’s a contingency measure arranged by Sakusa several days ago. If you need to stop Inunaki-san, he said last Friday or Monday or perhaps Sunday, dabbing at his cheeks with pore cleanser while Shuugo leaned against the doorway of his first bathroom and played Candy Crush. Then use this.
So they use it. Inunaki is successfully eclipsed from the equation and Thomas and Shuugo haul ass to the old Toyota parked outside and while Sakusa dreams of whatever Sakusa is capable of dreaming of, like clean oyster shells and hand sanitizer commercials probably, they drive down the side of the mountain to the supermarket.
::
Meian Shuugo grew up in a prefecture just outside of Tokyo. It was the kind of bland suburban neighborhood that wasn’t particularly interesting and contained only three convenience stores, located next to the police station, behind the police station, and several hundred meters away from the police station beside the supermarket. By extension, the supermarket Meian Shuugo grew up with was not particularly interesting either. It had all of the aisles a supermarket was expected to have but it didn’t have a playground for kids or a box television for kids or a giant stuffed Pikachu in the candy aisle. Shuugo, being a kid for most of his childhood, was unimpressed.
The supermarket in the town located half an hour shy of their lodge reminds him, acutely, of his unimpressive youth. He walks through the sliding glass doors and is assaulted with upbeat music, chatter, crying babies. Perhaps in another life he was born in this town and grew up bounding up the side of a mountain, doing mountain-child things like chasing beetles and building rafts to float down the creeks that were embedded in its face. Perhaps in another life he grew up the exact same person.
Thomas hands him a list, then goes to grab a shopping cart. They work methodically; Shuugo reads out Thomas’ neat, Sharpied-in handwriting and Thomas grabs things from the aisle at record speeds. Shuugo wonders, this week as well, if Thomas is secretly telepathic.
“Toilet paper, the eight-pack.”
“Got it.”
No, he corrects himself. If Thomas were telepathic he would not have said no to Inunaki, who clearly wants to resolve the conflict they launched in the Izakaya last December even if his actions seem to say otherwise. Thomas hauls the toilet paper off the highest shelf and deposits it, with care, in their cart. Thomas the shopping cart chauffeur. Thomas the good guy.
“You’re a good guy, you know,” Shuugo says seriously. There’s not much left on their list; eggs, sake, dried seaweed sheets for Atsumu who has recently added it to his collection of coping mechanisms he picked off of self-care articles on Buzzfeed.
Thomas the shopping cart chauffeur turns to look at him. “I am?”
“Course you are.” Shuugo squats down in front of the chocolate section. His hand hovers over the thin row of plastic Chocobaby’s. It’s Kenta’s favorite.
Thomas laughs quietly. “Inunaki-san doesn’t seem to think so.”
If he buys the Chocobaby he’s sure Thomas won’t call him out for it. But Atsumu might, if he gets jumpy enough and his brain decides to latch onto it. And Sakusa definitely will. And even if neither of those things happen, who will eat it?
Shuugo sighs. “No, Thomas,” he says, stands up, brushes off the front of his pants. He grabs a bag of mini M&Ms resolutely, dumps it in their cart. “He does.”
“He does?” Adriah Thomas, twenty-eight this year and six-foot-seven, tall enough to strike fear in the hearts of most modern modes of transport including the Boeing 377, looks at him quizzically.
“You’re surprisingly dense, Thomas.” Shuugo takes over his chauffeur service for the time being and wheels their cart down the aisle towards the frozen goods section. His starting lineup may not be fond of tiny unimpressive chocolate pellets but he knows for a fact that ice cream will make the next week that much more bearable. “Maybe that’s how you got this far in life.”
“What does that mean, Meian-san?”
“C’mon. Let’s get more peach purunto.”
::
NINTENDO SWTICH???????????? @m_tsumu
instagram user @joshokfine is the only remaining source of stability in my life. be like joshokfine. be better.
::
It starts pouring just a little shy of four in the morning on Saturday. Ordinarily one would be awake to witness this but they’ve been stuck up here for four weeks now, or maybe five, or maybe twenty-seven. No one sleeps when they’re expected to anymore except for Sakusa, who has packed enough moisturizing face masks to last him through the second coming of Christ.
So it starts raining and then the wind starts screaming and the windows start yelling and Shuugo is in the kitchen pouring himself something like his seventh cup of sake with sparkling fuji apple juice when Atsumu shows up at the end of the hallway in a giant pink quilt.
“Meian-san,” he croaks.
“Morning,” Shuugo says cheerfully, toasting him from the kitchen counter.
“It’s raining.”
“Yes.”
“It’s thundering.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t sleep.”
Shuugo sets his glass down. He combs a hand through his hair and cringes. When was the last time he showered? Yes. No? He removes himself from the kitchen, steps out into the dim orange light of the living room. Atsumu has designer eye bags and designer eye bags beneath his designer eye bags. The kid looks like he’s been through hell. Or had a nightmare about it. Or had a nightmare about something else, like a pandemic or Raymond from Animal Crossing or breaking up with his boyfriend in the middle of a pandemic while still being without Raymond from Animal Crossing.
Shuugo wipes his hand off on his shirt and clears his throat. “What can I do for you?”
::
The lodge is fucking huge. That was the first thought Shuugo had when they’d finally finished lugging all their shit up the side of the mountain and Thomas’ old Toyota had been parked in the clearing outside and Sakusa and Atsumu were arguing loudly about optimal bathtub water temperatures just beyond the front door. Seriously, Shuugo mused, craning his neck, this lodge is fucking huge. The living room was not a living room so much as it was a giant open space with a vaulted, three-storey ceiling and spiraling staircases that led off on each side to narrower, but equally majestic, hallways. Carved into the eastern wall of the first floor was a large, industry-grade kitchen which contained a walk-in fridge and a brick kiln. In the center of the floor was a floral sofa.
They argued over whether the space that the sofa, and the accompanying automated projector screen and thirty-nine succulents, occupied should be called a living room at all. This went on for the first few days. In the interim Shouyou and Thomas explored the kitchen and Atsumu explored setting the kitchen on fire. Atsumu also explored the door at the end of the northern hallway on the third floor, and discovered the hidden walk-in closet that probably hadn’t been opened since the economic bubble burst in the early 90s. Bokuto explored the attic above the third floor via a trap-door in the ceiling and declared that it was haunted. Inunaki drank peach purunto. Sakusa found a hornet's nest in the woods nearby and tried to bring it back.
They never did get to have the full-blown debate about whether the sofa space should be called a living room, because by the start of the second week or the third or maybe the tenth, maybe the eighteenth, the world had stumbled backwards into the figurative hornet's nest of life itself. It emerged from the immediate aftermath covered in burns and uglier burns and violent, angry scrapes. As China began to pull itself together by the seams its neighbors both immediate and distantly-related began to show symptoms, keeling over in the dystopian-movie-dust.
Come April, they were all in the thick of it. Of what, you ask? No one knew. But they sure were.
::
There’s something about rain and nighttime that demands your attention. Shut away in your highrise apartments and your suburban houses, your grandmother’s old Japanese-style estate; shut away at home with the lights on and the world off, the world cordoned out; the rain is the only thing that reaches you. The sound of it. The pitter-patter. The footsteps.
Meian Shuugo invites the rain to shut the fuck up as he herds his starting setter to the sofa. Atsumu has been going through it for a while now. They all know this, the way they know he talks to his twin on Zoom some nights because he doesn’t care for private user information and what happens to his. However, no one mentions it because unlike Bokuto, Atsumu has discovered the wall socket in his room, and decided to use it.
“Shouyou’s asleep,” Atsumu explains and for the hundredth time or maybe the thousandth, he doesn’t think numbers are real anymore, Shuugo marvels at how tenderly he says Shouyou’s name. If someone had said his name like that when he was twenty-three Shuugo would have driven off immediately and bought them a ring or challenged them to a Beyblade fight. He wonders if Shouyou will do either of those things one day. If he’ll get the chance to.
Shuugo hums. The star of the lodge, beyond the brick kiln with the unidentifiable bones and the thirty-eight succulents, is the chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Usually it’s bright as ass but it’s raining outside today and it’s four, so they’ve got the lighting mode set to Orange And Moody. Which, Shuugo gathers, seems to be the correct setting.
Atsumu opens his mouth, still wrapped up in the giant pink quilt that he probably stole from the hidden walk-in closet. “I’m being an asshole right now, aren’t I?” he asks, uncharacteristically quiet.
“Not right now right now, if that’s what you’re talking about—”
“—Meian-san.” Atsumu is unimpressed and he shows it too much. If he wants to look unimpressed he should look dimly unimpressed or at most vaguely unimpressed, or he’ll come off as being over-invested in the whole affair. Granted, the kid’s always been bad at handling his emotions. But this is a moment of what Shuugo recognizes to be shaky vulnerability. Even for Miya Atsumu.
Shuugo smiles. “Yeah?”
“That’s not funny.” Atsumu sinks further into the sofa, vanishing between two very large floral cushions.
No, Shuugo has half a mind to say. You’re not very funny. I try not to tell you that because Sakusa says it enough for all of us but really, most of your jokes suck.
“Well,” Shuugo says instead, thoughtful. “What does being an asshole mean to you?”
“Uh. An inconvenience?”
“What does the current situation look like to you?”
“An inconvenience?”
Shuugo claps his hands together and then winces in very quick succession. If he’s judging this right then there’s a high chance Inunaki’s still awake thinking about the Izakaya they went to last December, and Bokuto might still be in the attic. He should stop.
“That’s right,” says Shuugo, not stopping. “If being an asshole is about being an inconvenience then the whole world’s being inconvenienced right now. In general. Does this look like optimal functioning to you?” He gestures broadly around him and hopes that Atsumu doesn’t think he’s pointing at the thirty-eight succulents.
“Because it isn’t. Everyone’s tired, Atsumu. Everyone wants things to start getting better.
“So given that we’re basically living in the asshole of the universe right now, I don’t think you’re being an asshole. Do I wish you’d stop listening to Old Town Road while doing the dishes? Yes. But do I wish Thomas and Inunaki would stop pretending they never want to see each other’s faces again off-court like the two main leads in a Korean drama? Yes. Do I wish I were at home right now in Tokyo with Mai and Kenta and Kohki? Of course.
“But no one gives a damn about what I want in the asshole of the universe. So no one gives a damn about you either.” Shuugo reaches for his sake. “What I’m trying to say is: buy your switch.”
He takes a sip of his sparkling fuji apple sake thing. He’s good at holding his liquor but the alcohol’s loosened his tongue and the rain isn’t letting up and it’s late or it’s early, depending on who you ask. Depending on who you are, and what you’re afraid of. He wonders if Atsumu’s still thinking about the thirty-eight succulents. The thirty-ninth has been missing for a few weeks now. No one knows for how long exactly. Time, remember?
Atsumu furrows his brows. He seems to be thinking very intently about something. Shuugo hopes it’s the fate of the universe.
“So, the Animal Crossing edition,” he says slowly, the color returning to his cheeks. “Do you think I should get that one?”
Around them the rain continues to fall. Every once in a while a bolt of lightning comes within an arm’s breadth of their tiny sanctuary away from the world and the toilet paper shortages and all the suffering and cruelty and unfairness. It lands at their feet. Light erupts from the ground like a star splitting in half and sticks to their faces, their hands, their teeth. For half a second, the interior of the lodge turns so white, it almost blinds them.
::
Shuugo wakes up at five in the evening on the sofa. His toes aren’t frozen solid the way they were the last time he fell asleep on the sofa. He sits up. Something pink and fluffy slides off his chest.
Inunaki is yelling at Thomas from the second floor. They’ve made an error in the toilet paper calculations, or someone’s used up all eight rolls in a week, or both. Inunaki’s disappointed and upset and he wants to get out of the bathroom. And he wants to talk about the Izakaya incident. And he wants a peach purunto.
Shuugo scrubs the heel of his hand down his face. He stretches his arms over his head. Then he rolls off the sofa with the quilt still drawn tight around his shoulders like a cape. And so begins another day in the life of Meian Shuugo, father and husband and professional volleyball player, and motivational speaker, and friend.
::
A conversation between Shouyou and Atsumu, as overheard by Bokuto who was taking a really big dump in (Sakusa’s bathroom) (but don’t tell him that) (no one tell Sakusa anything no really I will sic my ghost on you):
(Shouyou, I have something to tell you.)
(Let me guess. You ordered the switch.)
(Huh????? How the fuck do you know I ordered the switch.)
(You talked to Meian-san, didn’t you?)
(What the fuck. Are you telepathic?)
(No, Atsumu. I’m your boyfriend.)
::
A conversation between Thomas and Inunaki, as overheard by Atsumu who was hiding from his demons in (Sakusa’s bathroom) (who the fuck owns a bathroom anyway) (this is a communal household) (I am not hiding from my demons I am engaged in an act of civil protest):
(Inunaki-san.)
(I know you’re not the one who finished all the peach purunto.)
(Oh. Okay.)
::
In a surprising twist of events Sakusa has not only brought enough moisturizing face masks to last him until the second coming of Christ, but also stashed a metric fuckton of toilet paper in his second bathroom.
“I knew you would disappoint us some day,” he says neutrally to Thomas, who goes off to cry in front of the barbecue pit for twenty minutes.
“It was partially my fault too,” Shuugo says, feeling apologetic for some reason.
Sakusa watches Thomas go with the face of a merciless, unsmiling god. “But mainly his.”
In spite of the hornet's nest he tried to bring back in the first week, Sakusa consents to the public use of his second bathroom. He deletes the contract he made Atsumu sign that had previously prevented him from legally entering, but refuses to let them port the twenty-four toilet paper rolls jammed under his sink to any of the other bathrooms. It’s a personal thing, he says while peeling his third milk honey face mask of the day off with his fingertips. Who are they to complain? It’s his toilet paper.
Regardless, the toilet paper doesn’t grant him immunity from Meian Shuugo, who despite his stunning alcohol consumption record is in fact still the parental supervision figure in this household. This gives Shuugo certain rights such as the right to walk into rooms without knocking, though he’s decided to stop doing that and become a better person, and the right to use the barbecue pit after ten. Also, if he says they’re going to have a Ghibli movie night, they’re going to have a Ghibli movie night.
They have the Ghibli movie night. On Sunday. Or Friday. Or whatever. Whatever. They have it.
When Shuugo was a kid his family would sit on their ugly living room couch and watch Ghibli movies together instead of working through their disagreements with transparency and care. This is partially why Shuugo was not a kid for as long as most kids, but he can tell you exactly which scene comes after the fat cat in The Cat Returns gets stuck in the giant vat of pink Jell-o. He can also tell you, with full confidence, that Ghibli movies will do things to you. What kind of things, you ask? Does it matter?
Once again, they head into the hidden walk-in closet on the third floor and return with piles of blankets, quilts, and a bag of Calbee chips without an expiry date. On the way out Shuugo notices shuffling from above him and discovers, for the first and hopefully last time in his life, Bokuto Koutarou in the attic having a serious conversation with an owl.
“His name is Aka,” says Bokuto.
“Very sly of you,” says Shuugo. “I’m not going to ask why there’s an owl up here.”
“He only visits sometimes.”
“Okay. Great.”
Bokuto follows him downstairs. Shuugo picks a feather out of his hair and wonders if this is what zookeepers feel like. They collect Sakusa from his bedroom after peeling off twelve honey-and-lavender face masks, and make a stop at Thomas' room. The door creaks open after a few seconds and Inunaki sticks his head out. His hair is tousled and his eyes are puffy.
“What do you want,” he says.
“We’re having a movie night.” Shuugo resists the urge to pat his head. He may be turning thirty this year but sometimes he feels like he’s eighty-five and everyone else on his team is four and he has to do something to make sure they grow up right.
Inunaki follows him and Sakusa and Bokuto down the stairs and Thomas sneaks out of the room afterwards when he thinks no one is looking. They are actually all looking and rightfully so, seeing as it is Thomas’ room they just stopped by and Inunaki should not have been there at all. But no one says anything. Thomas tip-toes down the stairs in all his Boeing 377 glory. Inunaki goes to the fridge.
Shouyou and Atsumu have returned from the hidden walk-in closet and have started building a fort in front of the projector screen. The process consists of Atsumu lying face-down on the floor, motionless, while Shouyou throws things with a hardness rating of less than five at him: a blanket, a stuffed Pikachu, a bolster.
“What movie are we starting with,” Atsumu asks.
Shuugo salutes him from the kitchen even though Atsumu can’t see him. “Princess Mononoke.”
Atsumu lifts his head for a moment and stares past the floor-to-ceiling window to the other side of the world, where he is having the time of his life in Florence.
“Good,” he says. Then Shouyou throws a slightly larger stuffed Pikachu at him, and he disappears from sight.
::
In Atsumu’s words, everything sucks like fucking shit. In Sakusa’s words, everything’s piss-awful. In Thomas' words everything is sort of unbearable and in Inunaki’s words where is the peach purunto. In Bokuto’s words Akaashi the shounen manga editor is more stressed than the entirety of Japan combined and needs some time to himself. In Shuugo’s words, ew. Ew, ew, ew.
“Ew,” Atsumu says when the mountain god’s head gets decapitated and the screen fills up with the blue liquid-y stuff that mountain gods are apparently made of. Inunaki gives him a look that’s so utterly and completely disgusted that Atsumu excuses himself from being Shouyou’s armrest and stands up.
“You wanna fight, Inunaki-san? You wanna fight?”
Inunaki does not detach himself from Thomas’ cashmere sweater. “No.”
“Atsumu, I can’t see the screen,” Shouyou says sleepily, and Atsumu’s expression does a one-eighty off a cliff and dies.
“Oh. Sorry.”
It’s three in the morning by the time they get to the fifth movie. Or is it six? Shuugo decides it doesn’t matter and then pulls a fast one on all of them by putting in Grave of the Fireflies which, Sakusa complains, is too dry for this time of the year. In spite of that, Sakusa is the only one who manages to watch it from start to finish, his eyes glued to the screen while he files his nails discreetly in his corner of the sofa. Beside him Inunaki has fallen asleep against Thomas’ shoulder and Thomas has fallen asleep against the headrest, Sakusa having pushed him gingerly off of him half an hour ago. Bokuto is snoring loudly with his face in Inunaki’s armpit. Beside Bokuto Atsumu is asleep with his head in Shouyou’s lap, and Shouyou is mumbling something incoherently about rice.
Meian Shuugo reaches for the remote control and turns the projector off.
“You should go to sleep too,” he tells Sakusa. He reaches for the blankets and begins to drape them carefully over the sofa in criss-crossing patterns.
Sakusa yawns. “When do you think this will end.”
Shuugo shrugs. “Eventually.”
Sakusa inclines his head, then stands up and stretches. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for us.” He collects his belongings from the coffee table and goes to the kitchen for water.
“No, thank you for the toilet paper.”
“Self-preservation skills. You learn them early on in life when you’re me.”
::
They stop having the Animal Crossing Debate because Atsumu’s switch arrives next week, delivered by a courier in an inflatable T-Rex costume who says he’s here on god’s business. But they keep going with the whiteboard and the six p.m. discussions and everyone jammed up on the big sofa in the living room. It still doesn’t feel like a living room and the lodge still feels like a castle, complete with ghosts and unidentifiable bones and the ouija board Sakusa’s smuggled away to his room. But when they roll up all the curtains, the floor-to-ceiling windows start communicating with god or something, and the sun does a cool break-and-enter routine that ends in fireworks. Everything it touches goes up in flames. It’s kind of beautiful.
“Today’s question.” Thomas raps the whiteboard they stole from the hidden walk-in closet weakly. “Should we have spaghetti for dinner?”
Atsumu looks up from his switch, and Shouyou follows. “Did you read my tweet?”
“Atsumu. I follow you on Twitter.”
“Oh.” Atsumu looks back down at his switch. On Shouyou’s insistence he’s recently downloaded Kirby Star Allies. He is surprisingly into it.
Inunaki raises his hand. “Objection your honor,” he says. “I don’t think we should have spaghetti for dinner because it sucks.”
Thomas makes a face at him. It doesn’t really work because he’s six-foot-seven and wearing a Victorian suit he found in the hidden walk-in closet, but apparently it works for Inunaki, who repeats, with more conviction, “it sucks.”
“It does not suck,” Thomas insists. He begins to lean against the whiteboard in an unconscious bid to look like he’s not emotionally affected by Inunaki’s words.
“Can we have rice,” Sakusa says. “We’re Japanese.”
“I’m not Japanese.”
“You’re Inunaki’s boyfriend. Honorary Japanese.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Sure it is,” says Bokuto, who is back to texting Akaashi for the time being instead of calling him on Skype. He now carries a power bank and a cable with him everywhere. To the bathroom. To the barbecue pit. To the woods.
“Why don’t we have both?” Shouyou suggests. Shouyou is the literal and metaphorical light of their lives right now, although Sakusa would be hard-pressed to admit it unless they gave him another bathroom. Shouyou also comes up with some of the most god-awful ideas sometimes. Like inviting everyone to a lodge in the mountains during the off-season and getting them trapped in a major historical event. Like trying to live each day to the best of his ability as if he’s Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled and not twenty-three and severely, inhumanely sleep-deprived. He still wakes up at five-thirty every morning. Shuugo asked him about it once. He said he needed the time to meditate.
“Why don’t you just meditate later?” Shuugo went on, hanging over the back of the sofa and watching Shouyou channel his inner Buddha of peace for something like the third time that week. The sun had not yet risen but it was beginning to put in efforts towards it. A thin strip of gold ran horizontally between the land and the sky, dividing them in jagged and uneven strokes.
“It’s not the same,” Shouyou said, exhaling through his mouth, eyes closed. Shuugo wondered briefly if he was bothering him, then figured that Shouyou would tell him if he was.
“I need to be awake each morning to make sure the world’s still there. To say good morning.”
Shuugo picked idly at the upholstery. “What happens if you aren’t there?”
“Who knows,” Shouyou laughed, brilliantly and confidently, and in that moment Shuugo understood for the first time in his life how he alone had not succumbed to the timeless insanity of quarantine. Perhaps in another life Shouyou had been born tall and powerful and with the kind of instinct and skill that Kageyama Tobio carried around on his shoulders all day. In this one, he had seen the second coming of Christ once already, and built himself a new skin in its wake.
It was the routines. The morning meditation and the rolled eggs and the five-hour-nap in Atsumu’s room. The evening runs through the woods and the card games at night. It was Atsumu’s Animal Crossing Debate and the chaos that always followed, the chaos that generally followed the MSBY Black Jackals everywhere they went, as if they had been born into incredulity and outrageousness and passion. Passion for their sport. Passion for life itself.
They aren’t professional adults. No one ever becomes a professional adult. They try to be professional siblings and children and lovers, professional commuters and pastry chefs and shopping cart pushers. They try to leave their suburban neighborhoods and the boys they never get to see again behind. They try to be kind to themselves, even as the world begins to slide resolutely off a cliff.
And they fail. And everything sucks. And everything’s sort of unbearable right now. Even Sakusa has stopped checking his phone religiously. They’d rather watch Grave of the Fireflies ten more times than put on NHK news.
So ew. Ew at the present state of the universe. Ew at Shuugo’s hair. Ew at the amount of money Atsumu spent on his Animal Crossing switch which came with a tempered glass screen protector and the Animal Crossing pouch and the Animal Crossing: New Horizons game and a laminated mini-poster of Raymond.
And fine. Because what else can they do now but shut up and keep going? If there’s a God up there he’s definitely laughing at them with his hands full of nail clippers and clean surgical masks and health, cash, all the forgiveness the world needs right now. He’s probably making coffee as they run themselves into the ground, as they run their rivers dry.
So everything’s been going to shit for a while now. You’d think they’d get used to it, but they still haven’t. Which is to say that they’re still angry enough to fall in love and expect something to happen. Which is to say that they haven't given up on their dream of finding a ghost in the hidden walk-in closet. Which is to say that, in spite of the toilet paper shortages and the hornet's nest and the weepy sake parties, all the fucking weepy sake parties, there’s hope.
::
Are you sure you’ll be okay?
(The sound of rain, laughter, a ball hitting the ground.)
Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.
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