#we had our final performance for our THIRD summer camp today

[covenofthearticulate]

god, I want to share pictures of WHY i haven’t been here/been able to read anyone’s kink week fics, but it is, in fact, illegal 😡

[kats-baku1999]

Play with Fire

Master List

Chapter Two: The New Generation

Shoto Todoroki walked through the halls of UA, halfway listening to his friend Izuku Midoriya go on about the hero that was coming to teach their new lesson. Honestly though, Todoroki couldn’t put much focus into Midoriya. There was too much happening in his home life to even think about it. His last visit with his mom hadn’t gone over well, she was in her own little world. Telling him all about his eldest brother, that Todoroki honestly couldn’t remember. Just remembered the sounds of the screams that came from Natsuo when he found out, and the sobs from Fuyumi trying to calm down her brother. That was one of mom’s last straws, that was the breaking point.

“Hey Deku! Todoroki!” Uraraka came running towards them, grinning widely, “She’s here! The hero Mimi!”

Deku let out an excited noise, and took off down the hall to the classroom. The entire reaction finally brought a small grin to Todoroki’s face, but then again Midoriya usually could. Midoriya did that for almost everyone though, so it was nothing new. Todoroki picked up his pace, walking into the classroom. The smile wiping off his face when he finally processed who was here.

The pro hero Mimi... One of the most public haters of his father. Mimi was never one to hide her distaste of Endeavor. She never disclosed why she couldn’t stand him, but was never shy reminding people she couldn’t. She was notable for taking down many villains, and was the number four hero. Right under Hawks, who just so happened to be her significant other. Their relationship was almost overly publicized, helping them both gain fans. There were so many supporters of the relationship, it was almost ridiculous.

Todoroki quietly walked to his seat, trying to avoid eye contact with her. She was in her civilian clothes, which was unusual for heroes that came to visit. Iida was absolutely losing it over the conflict of trying to not yell at a pro for so casually sitting on a desk. Tokoyami walked into the classroom, nodding his head towards her. Remembering her from his internship, she gave him a small smile and wave. Her eyes instantly going back to the boy who was avoiding looking at her.

Asami felt her chest clench up at how much like Touya he looked when it came to his face shape. Shoto Todoroki had gained a lot of his own fame outside of his father, thanks to his performance at the sports festival. Then there was the whole Stain situation. She couldn’t help but always feel stressed when it came to him, feeling protective over a boy who didn’t know her. She had known him though, and she loved his older brother. Maybe not an in love kind of love, considering they were only thirteen back then, but she did love Touya more than anything back then. Asami knew that she had to look out for his siblings, the way she knew he would have if he would’ve survived.

“Okay class, please direct your attention towards Pro-Hero Mimi for your lecture today,” Aizawa announced and everybody looked forward. All of their eyes focusing excitedly on Asami.

“So today’s lecture is a little, well heavy,” Asami sighed, “Your teachers believed you all needed to begin to be prepared for the worst situations possible, considering what you all have had to face this year so far,”

“You have all been told all your lives that being a hero had its risks, and sometimes those risks aren’t personal, but are towards the people you care about,” Her eyes focused in Todoroki, “Sometimes, we lose the people we care about in our line of work, and I am no stranger to this grief,”

“Ma’am I’m sorry, but what hero friends have you lost?” Midoriya questioned, “I just mean, I’ve never seen a report about it,”

“Well, I haven’t lost anyone since I was thirteen years old, he never got the chance to be a hero,” Asami smiled to herself, Touya’s laugh echoing through her head, “He would have made a fine one though, and would’ve been one of the best,”

“Sorry, I guess I’m just confused as to how this applies to anything, sorry I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” Mina stumbled over her words, and Asami just smiled sadly at her.

“I’m just here to tell you guys, to really think this through, and to understand all of the burdens that come with our line of work,” Asami explained, standing up from the desk, “To also understand, that you do not have to be numb to these feelings, so from now on I will be working with UA to have a therapy section, for you to also work on controlling some of these emotions,”

“How does that have anything to do with us becoming pros?” Bakugo scoffed, glaring at Asami.

“Well, having good emotional control will help your control of your quirk, they’re all connected you know?” Asami smiled, tilting her head a little bit, “I will only be with you guys for a limited amount of time, but how long that limited time is, depends on all of you,”

“Asami here will be using her quirk to place you all in emotionally triggering situations, that you’ll have to pull yourself out of, we agreed that you all need to work on controlling your emotions too,” Aizawa also explained to the class.

“These sessions will have three parts, one where we get to know one another, two where you hopefully help me understand your emotional triggers, and then the third level is the use of my quirk,” Asami handed a stack of papers to be passed around, “These sheets explain your schedules and times with me,”

“I expect all of you to take this seriously, and to respect Asami, she will also be joining us on our summer camp, as yet another chaperone for you disaster children,” Aizawa sighed, “Thank you Asami, we look forward to working with you.”

Asami excused herself from the school for the day. Making her way home slowly, stopping for a few errands along the way. Texting Keigo to see if they were still on for their date. He was quick to respond with a yes and a bunch of winking emojis. So she made her way home, to shower and get ready for her date. Pinning her hair up and putting on a simple red dress.

Keigo didn’t even bother knocking on her front door, just letting himself into her apartment. Making himself comfortable in the kitchen, waiting for her to come out of her room. Asami walked out, and smiled at Keigo. Walking forward to place a small kiss on his cheek. He grinned back at her, taking in her looks for the night.

“Well aren’t you just a pretty little thing tonight,” Keigo smirked at her, “Now going to this uptight hero banquet doesn’t sound even remotely appealing,”

“You know what they’ll say if we aren’t there Bird Boy,” Asami grinned, stepping out of his arms. She walked over to her coat rack, grabbing her jacket and her purse.

“How’d it go with the kiddos today?” Keigo smiled, opening the front door for his girlfriend.

“They seemed more confused than anything, but I think it’ll be successful,” Asami explained, “You know how I feel about all of this, I think it’ll be exciting to watch these kids come to terms with their feelings, and be really successful as pros!”

“My dear Asami, you are really going to change this next generation of heroes,” Keigo grabbed her hand to bring it up to his lips to kiss it. She smiled at the gesture, and at his support.

————-

Asami’s first student session was with non other than Todoroki himself. He reluctantly stood outside of her makeshift office. Unsure of how to approach the situation. After all she hated his father, so surely she had some kind of distaste towards him. Asami slid open the door though, smiling gently at Todoroki and letting him in.

“Don’t look so scared Todoroki, you look way too tense,” Asami laughed at the boy who just looked at her, sitting down in one of the chairs across from her desk. She watched him for a second sitting down in her seat. Opening up his school file she read through it.

“You know who I am right?” Todoroki sighed, “I just don’t want you to-”

“I don’t blame you for anything to do with your father,” Asami interrupted him, “I am sorry for my public distaste towards the man, it has nothing to do with you though,”

“It has to do with your friendship with my late older brother, right?” Todoroki was straight to the point. She looked shocked at his words, and his knowledge of who she was, “My mother and my siblings do nothing but mention how much you’ve grown since playing with Touya,”

“I am sorry I have more memories with him than I’m sure you do, but it’s thanks to that I am painfully aware of how your father is,” Asami looked at the small picture of her and Touya sitting on her desk.

“So why not expose him completely to the press, you could ruin him with the knowledge you have?” Todoroki’s question stuck within her. She knew she had the power to but...

“Despite my anger towards your father, I care deeply for your family Todoroki, I used to play with your siblings, I even got to sneak you into play with us one day,” Asami grinned at the memory, “You were so small back then, but Touya told me it was the first time you had even got to interact with all of them,”

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember,”

“I didn’t expect you to, but I do, I remember all of him and again I am truly sorry I got more time with him than you did,” Asami frowned, feeling guilty, “But your brother he was one determined kid,”

Asami handed the picture of them across the desk to Todoroki.

“He is the friend you were referring to last week, correct?” Todoroki questioned, staring at the photo of his older brother. His hair both red and white, but not in the way Shoto’s was. It was sporadic, and unevenly placed.

“Yeah, he is the reason I am everything I am today, you know originally I wanted to be a teacher, but after Touya passed away I wanted to carry on his dream and become a pro,” Asami closed Todoroki’s file, and took back the photo from him, “Even ended up disowned from my parents, they aren’t exactly supportive of the superhero society,”

“You went against their wishes just for my older brother?” Todoroki seemed confused, “He meant that much to you?”

“I think I admired him more than anything, you know he always made it a point to say it wasn’t your fault,” Asami watched as Shoto showed a bit of emotion... Almost relief. She wondered if he had heard that his father was what pushed Touya past the breaking point. The only one she kept in much contact with was Natsuo, but he said he didn’t pay much attention to anything that happened with his father.

“Well, I need to get to my next class, uh we meet again next week right?” Todoroki stood up from his seat and looked nervously at Asami. Who nodded with a grin on her face.

“You can also get my contact information from Aizawa, and get ahold of me anytime you might need something okay?” Todoroki nodded, before turning around and walking out of the office.

Asami could only think to herself about how in another life they might know each other. How maybe if Touya would’ve been there, if he would’ve stopped his father’s obsession. If he would’ve made sure Shoto was more than some weapon. They could’ve watched him train, and been there for his accomplishments with UA... And the messes he made at UA.

A small, sad, sigh left her mouth. Her eyes focused in on the picture of Touya, and her bottom lip caught in between her teeth. After all, she had another session so she couldn’t be the one crying.

“I miss you, idiot.”

[hlupdate]

The relationship between A-list muse and lauded designer is nothing new. But few have been as serendipitous that of Harry Styles and Alessandro Michele: the pop star’s solo career coincided neatly with the designer hitting his stride as the game-changing creative director of Gucci. Theirs is a mutually beneficial partnership that has elevated the former to new echelons of style, while the latter has become something of an icon to an unexpected fandom.

Unlike the large-scale productions of recent show seasons, Michele first presented his vision for Gucci with a quietly confident collection on 19 January 2015 — reportedly pulled together in just five turbo-charged days. The collection had all the signifiers of the retro-inspired aesthetic that has since become Michele’s beat, introducing the fur-lined loafers, pussy-bow blouses and florals that still form the backbone of his work today. A 20-year-old Harry, meanwhile, was still a long-haired One Direction member set to embark on the band’s biggest ever — and as it turned out last— tour. Just as One Direction’s days were winding down, Michele was picking up speed. Gucci reported a five per cent rise in sales in the last three months of 2015, amounting to 1.1 billion Euro in the final quarter.

Stylist Harry Lambert, who had been working with Harry for a few years by then, decided it was time for the boy-bander to try something new. A floral suit – that floral suit – from Michele’s spring/summer 2016 collection would be just the ’fit for the American Music Awards in November 2015, they decided.

Looking back it was a “very bold move,” Lambert admits. Styles was the first to take one of Michele’s full menswear looks from the Gucci catwalk and wear it on the red carpet. “It was very exciting to see everyone’s responses, but also how great he looked in it,’’ Lambert told Miss Vogueof what he still views as a turning point in his client’s fashion journey. This winning suit encouraged Styles and Lambert to pull more Gucci, and Harry gave his final performance as a member of One Direction wearing a suit in the retro petal print that defined Michele’s early collections.

In fact, Gucci was just about the only thing that the 1D alum carried over to his solo career. Even his shoulder-length curls were shorn. The music videos that accompanied Styles’s eponymous number one album, released in April 2017, all incorporated Gucci, as did his appearances on the promo trail. A navy tailored coat floats through the sky in the video for “Sign Of The Times”, and he wears floral tailoring in the clip for “Kiwi”. When the time came for Harry to take his record on the road, he wore countless bespoke Gucci suits on stage. Most were floral brocade with flared trousers, and paired with pussy-bow shirting.

By June 2018, the relationship had been formalised. Styles was revealed – in a series of photos taken by Glen Luchford in the suitably English setting of a chip shop – as the face of Gucci’s tailoring campaign. Two more campaigns followed, in which Styles models the most exuberant of Michele’s creations without ever sacrificing his schoolboy cheekiness, not even with a lamb slung around his shoulders. The campaigns, two by Luchford, a third by Harmony Karine, helped to usher in a new dawn in menswear advertising.

A year later Harry was unveiled as part of a diverse line-up in the campaign for Gucci’s Mèmoire D’une Odeur — the near century-old house’s first gender-neutral scent. Yes, he was the main event, but Styles shared the spotlight with other creatives in what became an unavoidable campaign, covering buildings, beauty counters, column inches and iPhone wallpapers across the globe. Styles has since quipped that he wears it to bed,making a bottle a necessary purchase for even half-dedicated Harry fans.

That Harry’s work with Gucci has proved so popular with his dedicated fanbase is a key component in the success of their collaborations. Though — and again, this is likely owing to Harry’s own allegiances — his followers do tend to have a keen interest in fashion compared to other fandoms, it’s down to their idol that Harries know the artistic director by his first name alone. “It is really exciting for us fans to see another facet of Harry as a creative individual, and his Gucci partnership cultivates that and gives us an even more in-depth perspective of who he is,” Nadhila, a 26-year-old fan in Indonesia told Miss Vogue.

Nadhila, who has been a part of the team behind the Twitter account @HSNewsUpdate since 2011, believes that the fluid nature of Michele’s vision has contributed to the interest in Harry’s Gucci looks. “There are no boundaries on what he might come up with, so fans are always excited to see what look [Harry] might step out in next,” she says. Styles’s efforts to be a fan-focused, ethical pop star – his motto is “treat people with kindness” – are relevant, too. “He has inspired us to be bold, unique and unafraid to experiment when it comes to fashion,” she adds. “He has shown us that there is no such thing as too feminine or too masculine, we can be both and we can be ourselves.”

Another of Harry’s biggest fan accounts, @TheHarryNews, is run by four women in their mid-twenties: Annie, Océane, Lena and Rachel. “You can really see the confidence he’s gotten from working with Gucci,” they share collectively over email. “[He’s] taking more risks and letting more of himself show… In a lot of ways we’ve seen Harry really come into his own. I think that really resonates with people, especially his fans, who get tiny pieces of [who he really is] through fashion.”

Two fans who have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of this fashion partnership are the transatlantic duo behind @HSFashionArchive. Since April 2016, London-based Lu and Washington DC-based Alex have documented every look worn by Harry in meticulous detail, all to act as “a resource for fans”. Its posts lets his followers know how they might go about procuring these items, but also sheds light on key house codes – thus enabling fans to quickly identify which of Harry’s looks are Gucci, and which aren’t. “We have noticed that fans buy the Gucci pieces that Harry has worn,” 29-year-old Alex explained. “Though some pieces are pricey, we’ve seen people buy the loafers, boots, and bags that Harry has sported over the years. Lots of our followers bought the £34 Gucci lipsticks he wore in Beauty Papers.”

The pair believes that the relationship works because Gucci is able to offer Harry such a broad spectrum of looks to choose from. “Gucci’s looks range from wearable to outrageous, so Harry’s continued partnership with Gucci guarantees both attainable style and flashy moments. There’s nothing like seeing him in a wild new outfit that we couldn’t have anticipated.” And though one might assume the scene-stealing suits are most popular with fans, according to Nadhila, they like his low-key looks best, given that “they show a more casual and intimate look into who he is as a ‘normal’ person”.

Of course, there is a notable exception: the 2019 Met Gala. For the opening evening of the “Camp: Notes On Fashion” exhibition Michele and Harry acted as co-hosts, and arrived on the pink carpet together. “After such a colourful tour wardrobe it was nice to do something a little unexpected,” Lambert told Miss Vogue of the black blouse Styles wore. “[It was about] taking traditionally feminine elements like the frills, heeled boots, sheer fabric and the pearl earring, but then rephrasing them as masculine pieces set against the high-waisted tailored trousers and his tattoos. Camp, but still Harry.” Lambert explained at the time: “We met up earlier this year to share mood boards with the Gucci team. We had pages of printed references all on the table from Alessandro, myself and Harry, then we edited them down.” Today, the @HSFashionArchive duo agree the night “was a massive deal amongst fans”.

There was the now pearl earring-wearing fashion darling of the music world, standing alongside the closest thing to a rockstar the fashion industry has at present. “I love dressing up and he loves dressing up,” Michele told The Face in 2019. “The moment I met him, I immediately understood there was something strong around him. I realised he was much more than a young singer. He was a young man, dressed in a thoughtful way, with uncombed hair and a beautiful voice. I thought he gathered within himself the feminine and the masculine.”

Since the Met, the relationship has continued to go from strength to strength. Styles wore a custom look on the cover of his second record, Fine Line, shot by Tim Walker, and Michele and Styles collaborated on a T-shirt to coincide with it, with a percentage of the sales going to the Global Fund For Women. Gucci’s high-waisted trousers, cropped blazers and dazzling shirting now takes up even more space in Styles’s wardrobe, and bring as much attention to the star as his sophomore record’s commercial and critical success.

Sightings of Styles in Gucci have become a source of comfort for fans in a turbulent 2020. From his Mary-Janes at the Brits to his oversized turquoise blazer and crochet gloves in the “Golden” video, by way of outré sunglasses and floral sunglasses in the clip for “Watermelon Sugar”, Harry’s recent sartorial choices have managed to be pleasingly familiar, while simultaneously keeping his followers on their toes.

A bit like the chicken and the egg conundrum, the question remains: is Harry very Gucci, or is Gucci very Harry? The verdict is out. But without each other, both might be missing a little something.

[seiin-translations]

2.43 S1 Chapter 5.4 - Stand By Me

4. TRANSITION ATTACK

It kind of sucks that the anime cut out a lot of the cringe comedy in the books

Translation Notes

1. Three-stage attack refers to the offense where the ball is received, set, and then the attacker spikes it over the net

2. De Cecco refers Luciano De Cecco, an Argentine volleyball player known as one of the most talented setters in the sport

3. Abe refers to Yuta Abe, a setter who’s 191cm tall

4. A deuce is a term that refers to a tie score where a player needs to score twice consecutively to win

Previous || Index || Next

Starting with his right thumb, taping was applied to his index finger, middle finger, and then his left thumb, index finger, and middle finger, in that order. He covered the nails and left the second joint open. He could already measure the exact length he needed by eye.

Normally, every time he finished taping a finger, he felt a switch turning on inside him, but today, he hadn’t felt that once. He wanted to feel a definite response, so he found himself taping harder than usual. The tightening sensation in his fingers told him that blood was flowing to and nerves were stretching to every corner of his body.

He had brought his bag for club activities, so he had all his familiar gear, including shoes and supporters. He changed in a corner of the gym, having said that he didn’t need a changing room. Finally, he tied the laces of his shoes tightly, stretched lightly, and then stood up.

He kicked his left and right foot backwards in order to check the slippage of the floor, and heard some nice squeaky sounds. It was indeed a nice gym. It was quite a difference from the Seiin gym, where the wax had peeled off the floor and made it slippery. He was so used to practicing in a gym that was as hot as a steam bath that the air conditioning made him feel cold. His body felt like it was stiffening up, so he stretched with great care.

He turned his eyes to Kuroba. Kuroba was bouncing up and down on the sideline. “You have nice shoes,” he said, admiring his borrowed shoes. His jumping power was the same as ever, able to hug both his knees lightly just from jumping a little. Kuroba didn’t have his practice gear with him, so he was only wearing his T-shirt that he wore underneath his shirt and his uniform pants rolled up to his knees.

Meisei High School had two gymnasiums, the larger but older first gym and the slightly smaller but newer second gym. The boys’ volleyball team practiced in the second gym. It wasn’t like in Seiin, where six clubs divided up the days each of them could use the gym, and they could only envy the environment of being able to practice in the gym every day.

On the other side of the court, a dozen or so Meisei team members were gathered, chatting among themselves and sneaking peeks at them. The Seiin team had team jerseys for game days, but their regular practice clothes were all different. Meisei had practice uniforms with their team logo on them. It was intimidating to see a wall of matching practice uniforms lined up in a row.

The only people present were the first- and second-year members of the club. The third years, the coach, and the advisor were having a meeting in the coach’s office with the members of the opposing school for a friendly match. Using that timing, the second years took the initiative to accept the “challenge.”

“Didn’t Haijima get into the best six?”

“He’s gotten big…Having that height with that volleyball sense, how much does he have…?”

He frequently heard his name mentioned in the gaps between conversations. He didn’t know what Komukai and the other first-years thought, but he got the feeling that the second-years were generally interested in finding it out—if the “genius setter” who dropped out of a powerhouse private school had lost his edge.

On the other hand, they seemed to take no notice Kuroba for the present. It couldn’t be helped, as an ace attacker from a no-name school in a prefecture they didn’t even know wouldn’t ring any bells for them. Even though Komukai had talked down on it, best 16 in the Kanto Tournament was a considerably good level. Before entering the Kanto Tournament, there were more than 150 schools that participated in the Tokyo preliminaries alone. They were in the best 16 in the tournament, on top of winning the block against a number of schools that was incomparable to the scale that Kuroba had experienced at Monshiro and Seiin.

The rules were two against two. Since beach volleyball was played with a two-person team, there was no reason they couldn’t play. Since they didn’t know when the third-years would come back after their meeting, they decided to keep it short and play only one set with whoever getting twenty-five points first winning. At the turnaround point of thirteen points, they would change courts. There were only two people on the court, so there was no rotation. Naturally, each person would have a wide range of roles, and both people must play receiver, setter and attacker.

For the Seiin team, it went without saying that the two players on the team were Kuroba and Haijima. In contrast, the first player for the Meisei team was the second-year, Tatsumi. Tatsumi was only about 180cm tall, but he remembered him to be a good blocker in middle school, making use of his long arms. To be honest, he was surprised to see Ikawa, a fellow first-year, was put on the team. Ikawa himself seemed puzzled by his selection, fidgeting unsurely.

“Alright!”

Kuroba shouted after finishing his relatively proper warm up. “Oi,” Haijima called out to his back, grabbed his waist belt and pulled him close.

“Whoa, hey, stop that. My underwear would be showing if I was wearing track pants.”

Kuroba, who had turned around to complain, blinked. “Nnn?”

“You’re playing with your glasses? What about your contacts?”

“I didn’t bring them today.”

Isn’t that your fault in the first place…? He glared at Kuroba, who feigned ignorance, and clicked his tongue. He hadn’t practiced properly in a while, so he didn’t carry his contacts with him. Since he started play volleyball, he had been wearing contacts out of necessity, but he avoided using them as much as possible because they didn’t suit his constitution and were too much trouble. This was the only thing Haijima was “lazy” about when it came to volleyball.

“You get it, don’t you? Two against two, we’re at a disadvantage.”

He thrust his face forward and made his voice stern. “You’re talking about that now? You’re a guy who keeps changing your own subject.” Kuroba shrugged and said indifferently.

“They have the same conditions, don’t they? How are we at a disadvantage?”

“You should be aware of your own weaknesses. You were the one who came up with the idea to challenge them. Who’s going to receive the ball?”

Kuroba was worse at reception (serve receives) than digs (spike receives). It was probably because he was strangely under pressure while waiting in the stance. His digs were not so bad, because he didn’t have time to think. Though he had strengthened his reception skills during the intensive practice at summer camp, he had finally become average at it. The dilemma arose when Haijima had to cover Kuroba’s defensive range, but Haijima couldn’t set the ball if he did the first contact.

“You say that, but we can’t back down now. It’s gonna be okay. Let’s go.”

With a strange confidence of unknown basis, Kuroba escaped from reality and stepped onto the court while spinning his arms. It looked like there was a flaming aura rising from his shoulders, and Haijima stared at his back in slight astonishment before hurriedly following him to the court.

He had never seen Kuroba showing so much fighting spirit. The usual Kuroba had the disposition of a spoiled only child, and winning or losing a competition wasn’t fundamentally his purpose of action. Usually, he was the one who was frustrated by his laxness, but…

Komukai and the other freshmen, who were responsible for keeping score and line judging, ran from courtside to take their positions.

The second-year team members watching from the walls, the first-year team members scattered around the court’s perimeter—all eyes were on them from all sides, as though to see what they got.

“You mean, a performance?”

…That was what was said.

He recalled Komukai’s confession again.

So they all conspired to see how I’d react to a teammate’s suicide attempt. So, what did you think when you saw my reaction, where I endured a lot, as planned? Did you enjoy it…?

Before he knew it, the contours of the people disappeared, and many eyes floating in the air surrounded him on all sides and stared at him. …What is this. For the first time, he cared about the stares pouring in from outside the court. I wonder how I’m being looked at.

He said, and then he was suddenly grabbed by his chin and made to look at the court. He blinked in slight surprise and saw Kuroba peering into him with a severe look on his face.

“I didn’t tell you to not care about your surroundings. It’s natural to care about it. I’d rather show them what I can do. Let them know how big of a loss it was to banish Haijima Kimichika from Meisei. I hope your former teammates’ senpais chew them out hard because of that. We’ll make them say, ‘If he had been here, we wouldn’t have just finished in the best 16.’ We’re gonna show off, and then I’m gonna carry you off back to Seiin while laughing. That’s the outline of it. In the first place, if we ran back shamelessly while our crucial setter disgraced, Oda-senpai would yell at us.”

With his both his cheeks squeezed, Haijima blankly looked up at Kuroba. “Still not enough?” Kuroba sniffed in dissatisfaction, then looked like he suddenly thought of something and then whispered to him with his hand over his mouth, as though telling him a secret. “Hey, before we go home, I’d like to go sightseeing just once in Tokyo…like going to Harajuku or something. Those girls from earlier looked like they wanted to talk to us, right? What if we accidentally get scouted…”

“…Don’t get carried away.”

When Haijima gathered his eyebrows and said that in a low voice, “I-I was joking.” Kuroba said and let go of him in fear. “I was just trying to ease your nerves, you know? There’s no way I’d be saying that seriously.” He said, but he probably wasn’t all that opposed to the idea.

“You look happier than before, don’t you? You’ve got a shameless look on your face.”

He said with a grin. Haijima adjusted his glasses with a sour expression on his face. Do I always have a shameless look? It’s not like I’m consciously making faces.

…I can talk now…huh. That reminds me…

He put his fingers to his throat and breathed in and out gently. Somehow, as he followed his usual procedure to prepare, he felt relieved, and the foreign object feeling that had been pressing against his vocal cords disappeared.

He gently manipulated the three taped fingers of his left hand one by one with his right hand. He then did the same with the opposite hand. They didn’t feel cold. His body temperature went through to them. He could handle the ball as usual. I’m fine. My fingers…are still attached.

Alright…maybe this can work?

“Nnn? …You’re kinda…”

Kuroba blinked and looked at his own palms suspiciously.

***

“He’s kind of like you, isn’t he? No, you’re much more developed, but the things he’s trying to do are…”

Kuroba was also surprised and let leak such an impression.

The Ikawa that Haijima knew until his second year of middle school was a reserve setter with no special characteristics. He had a quiet personality and always waited for others to make a move before making a move himself, which was a flaw of his. But today, his impression of him was very different from how it was in middle school. It didn’t seem that the Meisei side sent Ikawa into the court because they looked down on the match.

Tatsumi was an all-rounder with a good balance of defensive and offensive skills, and it was unpleasant how his long reach, especially when it came to blocking and spiking, caused his movements to be a little unpredictable for Haijima. In addition, while he was stuck in the six-person system, Tatsumi on the other hand didn’t stick to the three-stage attack (1) and lightly went back and forth between the first and second stages. There were only two defenders, so even a weak ball would score unexpectedly if it was dropped right at the edge of the court. If you became vigilant about that and stepped back, he would then do the third stage properly and spike. Though they were definitely not losing in terms of technique, it was absurdly frustrating to be reminded of the difference of one school year with such deftness.

He had noticed that he was getting more impatient than ever. If it were a full game, he could spend the first half of the first set observing, and then build up a game to crush them from the second half onwards to crush them in the second set, but this game only had one set. We have to catch them early——.

From Ikawa’s hands came a set that dived straight for the attacker’s hitting point. Now a hard hit came. It was right in front of Kuroba’s block, but Tatsumi skillfully used his long reach to catch his spike on the tips of Kuroba’s fingers and blow it all the way back to the end line. Haijima, who was defending deep, chased the ball, but couldn’t catch up and ended up only used his stamina for unnecessary sliding.

“Shit…”

He should have run. He got up on his arms and pulled up his T-shirt to wipe the sweat from my face. It wasn’t usual for him to be this breathless at this point in the game, but he was more exhausted than usual. “Sorry, Haijima,” Kuroba, who seemed to still have plenty of energy, ran all the way outside the court. He lent him his hand and Haijima let him pull him up to his feet.

“Your hand when you block should be more…” He wanted to give him instructions to fix it there, but he didn’t want to use his energy to even teach him with specific hand gestures, so he just said, “Never mind…court change” and turned around. “Oh, right,” Kuroba was puzzled for a moment before following him. Currently, they were at 10-13. At the turnaround point of thirteen points, Meisei took a three-point lead and they changed courts. The two teams moved counter-clockwise around the sides of the net to the opposite court.

He heard the second-year assistant referee chatting with another second-year by the pole.

“Ikawa’s pretty good. Was Haijima always like that? I had the impression he stuck out more in middle school.”

“No way, he can hit and he’s a good defender? He really can do it all.”

“Yeah, but not as good as I expected.”

“Anyways, the teachers will be coming back soon. We’ll be in big trouble. Should we stop?”

They were beginning to worry about the time. That meant the Meisei side’s concentration on the game was diminishing. The game was not being played in a way that made the gallery lean forward eagerly.

I’ll show you how big of a loss it had been to let Haijima Kimichika go—he didn’t feel like he had shown much to make them think that. Haijima bore much of the defense, so he couldn’t show off his set work. Of course, it wasn’t as though setting was the only thing he was good at. He couldn’t have peace of mind unless he was the best at serving, blocking, digging, and spiking, so he did them all. But more than anything, he wanted to build his offense the way he wanted it to be. He had his hands full with returning the ball in the flow of the game, and he wasn’t able to control the flow himself. Frustration was building up within him because he knew very well that he was playing a mediocre game.

“That set he made just now was a perfect copy of yours.”

Kuroba came up next to him and said. They were looking at the two members of the opposing team, who were moving around the court, talking with relatively cheerful faces.

“Kou is Chika’s fan.”

A voice cut in from the side. It belonged to Komukai, who was keeping score. He leaned languidly against the score board’s frame and looked at Ikawa with a look of displeasure on his face.

“Apparently, he’s been studying Chika’s game videos from middle school, watching them hundreds of times. He said there’s a lot of cool plays he wants to copy. But with how he is today, it looks like he already caught up to you. I think Kou must be disappointed that his idol turned out to be not that great after all.”

When Komukai boasted that, purposely stirring him up, Kuroba said, “Shut your trap. You guys only knew him until second year of middle school. You don’t know high school Haijima at all, do you?” He stepped in between them like a shield and pushed Haijima to the court.

“Good grief, standard Japanese is so creepy. So it wasn’t just you that’s creepy.”

Haijima asked Kuroba, whose anger still hadn’t subsided when he entered the court.

“Am I having a bad day today?”

“Huh? No, not really. In fact, I’ve never seen you have a bad day.”

“If you have the time to see my games a hundred times, you should watch the video of the Argentina game and see De Cecco’s (2) set work a hundred times. You’ll never get bored and it’s way more interesting. I’m still not even ten centimeters away from Abe (3) yet…”

When he muttered that to the floor, Kuroba tilted his head to the side and peered at him.

“You’re…not used to being praised much, are you?”

“…”

He sullenly shut his mouth and looked away.

He saw Ikawa on the opposing court looking at him over the net. The gallery seemed to be getting bored, but Ikawa seemed to be enjoying the game and his eyes were shining in his flushed face. No matter what he did, he was more often shunned or envied than praised, so he just couldn’t get used to being looked at in such a purely admiring way.

He remembered the first time Ikawa replaced Haijima as the setter in the Fall Tournament in his second year of high school, when he would come to the warm-up zone repeatedly while wiping sweat off his face and looking like he was about to cry for help. But now, there was confidence in his face. As Komukai said, he might be beginning to believe that he was more equal to his opponent than he thought.

“…Crush Ikawa.”

He declared, narrowing his eyes and glaring at beyond the net.

“Huh? What did you say? He’s your fan, you know.”

“That’s why it’s good manners to not hold back. I’m going to crush him with all my might and push him away. I’ll make him regret ever hoping to catch up with me. I haven’t done anything to make it easy to catch up to me.”

He hadn’t found much motivation to play this game, but his fighting spirit was finally ignited and his heart began to boil.

Kuroba sighed in disgust. “…You’re a guy who’s never satisfied with anything. There’s not much people out there who can keep up with you.”

He rolled his shoulder blades and relaxed his shoulders. Before he knew it, he was straining in a bad direction.

He wasn’t aware of strange things like showing off his setting to Komukai and the second-years who were watching from around him. It would be enough to remind Ikawa, who was fighting on this court right now. You watched videos of me from up to second year of middle school hundreds of times? Then, don’t you want to feel it for yourself now——?

In that instant, the view outside the court disappeared. He was no longer conscious of the gazes from the gallery that often glanced over at him. He didn’t care what the people outside the court thought of him. He was in absolute control of the court, both enemies and allies. He connected his nerves to the court and made the world move on that board. Because this intoxicating feeling was addicting, he didn’t want to give up this position to anyone.

“Kuroba, starting now, you’re doing all the receives.”

“Huh, all by myself?”

“If I’m on defense, I can’t play setter. I want to play in the middle.”

I’ve said something like this a long time ago…when I was in Meisei. At that time, his statement had caused a wave of disquiet. However, then and now, he had felt that he was being selfish, but he didn’t think he was wrong either.

“You don’t have to return the A-pass. It doesn’t matter where you are, as long as you get the ball up somewhere. You have to do the second contact. As soon as you get the ball, you have to run and hit it.”

“You’re being unreasonable…there’s only the two of us.”

Although he looked fed up, Kuroba opened his legs on the stop without much hesitation, twisted his body left and right, then let out a shout. “So, I should take them all myself. It’ll be easier if it’s that simple. I’ll do my best to keep you from running as much as possible. It’s more something to aim for, though.”

***

After changing the strategy, Kuroba’s movements improved dramatically. It seemed that he had been confused by the unfamiliar two-person team, unable to grasp the scope of his jobs. When Haijima affirmed that he wouldn’t be getting involved with the reception, he seemed to have a clearer idea of what he needed to do and moved on.

Although he called it an unreasonable request, if his partner wasn’t Kuroba, Haijima wouldn’t have said anything at all. Even if he just expanded his defense area, if it was just a matter of catching up, Kuroba could do that. His eyes, reflexes, and physically ability were a cut above everyone else’s. If I tell you that’s your prey, you will react and definitely catch up to it.

“You’re like a border collie.”

When he told him that half in admiration and half in exasperation, Kuroba, looking amazed, said, “That’s rare, you used a non-volleyball related simile.” A border collie chasing a frisbee had come to his mind, but he himself wondered how did he know anything about dogs. That’s right…that was Yoshino’s dog. They lived in a detached house.

He could catch up to it and hit it with his hand, but most of the time it wasn’t even a B-pass, much less an A-pass. However, Haijima predicted where the receive would go based on the angle and rotation of the serve the moment it arrived and Kuroba’s reaction, and got under the ball ahead of time. That was what he meant when he said it didn’t matter where it went as long as it went up. He demanded it because he was willing to do whatever it takes to follow through, as long as he got his teeth into it one way or another. There was no reason to be told that if he was going to tell people to do something, he should do it himself first.

With only two team members, there was no way to make full use of their attackers and show off their combination attacks, but as long as the second touch was given to him, there were plenty of ways to show off his skills as a setter. After letting Kuroba hit the ball from the left or middle as usual, he signalled for him to run to the right. He set the ball to as far as the antenna at the edge of the net and tear off the block. Kuroba alone left the block behind and mutter “This asshole” through gritted teeth as he caught up with the set and drive the ball in straight from the right side.

If he judged that the ball could be stopped even if he set it to Kuroba, he would instantly switch to hitting it himself. The effectiveness of his greatest weapon, the dump, could be demonstrated more powerfully in a two-player system. Fundamentally, the setter set the ball with the right side of his body facing the net, but for a dump, the setter himself threw the ball into the opponent’s court with his left hand from that stance. This was why left-handed or ambidextrous setters were able to perform a powerful dump.

Of course, Haijima’s former Meisei teammates knew the terror of his setter dumps. Ikawa, anticipating that he would do a dump, marked him. He turned his left hand from the jump set stance to do the dump—right before that, he turned his hand over again over the net. Right in front of Ikawa, who had been caught off guard and unable to move, he made a left-handed backhanded set to the right. Even without looking back, he could see Kuroba jumping there. The sound of a crisp impact sounded behind him.

While the two of them were getting into the swing of it, it was Ikawa who had suddenly gotten worse. His face began to show signs of impatience, and he was frequently seen wiping off sweat with his hands on knees. He had been running a lot in the first half of the game, and his legs seemed to be hurting. The two-person team was three times as tiring as the six-person team, so to speak.

However, it was the same for them, as they were approaching the limit of their stamina. Every time the rally was interrupted, he felt so tired that he wanted to sit down.

“Ugh.”

The bottom of his shoes slipped on his sweat and he fell to his knees. He was also quite exhausted. While feeling glad that he wasn’t in the middle of a rally, he knelt down and took out the towel at his belt. There was no mopper standing by to wipe the court like there were in big tournaments, so he did it himself. Even though the air conditioning was working in the gym, a drop of sweat ran along his chin and dripped onto the floor where he was wiping it. He pulled on his T-shirt and wiped his face again, but the T-shirt itself was already soaked, so it was useless.

“Stand up.”

Kuroba held out his hand, but he couldn’t raise his arm. He was squatting down, his shoulders heaving before Kuroba took his arms and made him stand up. “You’re already at your limit…” “What are you talking about?” He spat out those words as he took a breath and interrupted Kuroba. If he could stand up, he could still look up. He wasn’t doing the easy-to-understand actions of looking down and putting his hands on his knees. His experience and force of will was different from Ikawa’s.

Kuroba already knows, doesn’t he… I get that from the way he spoke. But.

“We’re almost there, so don’t say a word. All you, have to do, is give it your all.”

He said choppily while breathing shallowly. His voice had the slight hint of a plea in it.

Kuroba looked like he wanted to say something, but gave up in the end and said, “Okay.”

Just a little more. Just a little… I haven’t been able to show them what I wanted to show them yet.

A feverish membrane enveloped his head, and his consciousness became hazy. Hah… Hah… His rough breathing filled the inside of the membrane and he could hear it reverberating only around him.

But when he heard the in-play whistle, the membrane was cleared away and he could firmly concentrate. It was a conditioned reflex that his mind and body learned.

The ball that Kuroba slid to pick up drew a low trajectory and flicked to outside the sideline. Haijima was already dashing towards it. He braced himself on his outside leg, twisted his body, and dove right under the ball with an overhead stance. Right after he pushed the ball back into the court, he stepped on his sweat again and his heel slipped. He fell backward, unable to keep his footing, but his eyes never left the set he had made.

The set released from his fingers with all his strength tore through the empty space and headed for the net. Kuroba rolled around on the floor, got up, immediately broke into a run and took off. The ball was far away. But Kuroba could hit it. No one except Kuroba could hit it.

He brought his entire body to the front of the net at once with his inherently dynamic jumping distance. Even so, the hitting point was high. Tatsumi jumped to block him, but he didn’t even allow a single touch, as though it was payback for earlier, and went over the block. “Go!” Haijima spontaneously shouted. He could confidently say that there were no high school-class players who could stop Kuroba one-on-one at the net when he was on the top of his game.

He saw with his own eyes Kuroba knocking down the ball with a powerful swing, and then in the next instant,

“Chika!!”

The outside voices that had completely disappeared suddenly flew in from nearby. Komukai?——The moment he turned his head in the direction of the voice, he was hit by something from the side. A violent metallic sound penetrated his head all the way to the other side.

There was a stir around him. All the noise in the gym suddenly came back to his eardrums, and he was temporarily lost in the torrent of disorganized sounds.

“Chika! Oi, Chika!” He heard Komukai’s voice near him, but it was kept away and replaced by another voice saying, “Haijima!”

“Haijima! Are you okay, Haijima!?” “Ugh…” He could still feel the metallic sound reverberating in his head. It feels like I got slapped…he was conscious enough to have that thought in his mind. He could guess from the direction he slid in that it was the metal panel of the score board.

Am I okay…? He checked himself and got the response that he was fine. He sat up on the fallen panel while pressing his face.

“Haijima, oi!”

“Yeah…I hear you. I probably didn’t hurt any…”

The person hanging over him and peering into him was probably Kuroba, but he couldn’t get a clear image of him even if he strained his eyes.

“My glasses…”

“Glasses? Oh, this…mmh? Ah.”

“…What is it.”

“No, this…are you fine with it like this…?”

While Kuroba spoke unfocusedly, he ran his hand over the thing he had given him and checked the shape of the familiar frames. He tried to open the earpieces, but something felt off.

The frames were warped. Well, it’s an emergency measure, but if I forcibly bent it to the other side, I’ll be able to put them on more or less…as long as they aren’t broken… Nope.

“…”

He held up the glasses by the earpieces. Grimacing with all his might, he stared at the fuzzy figure eight outline in front of his eyes.

One of the lenses was gone.

“Oh, here it is, here it is. It looks like it’s not broken.”

Kuroba found the missing lens, but it wasn’t like he could fit it in right here.

“What are you going to do? Quit? We don’t mind if you quit.”

The Meisei second-year who was acting as the referee said. When he used the received lens like a magnifying glass and glared at the referee, he could see the referee flinch a little in the slightly distorted oval.

He pointed the lens at the scoreboard under his butt. The numbers were flipped up and the scores for both sides were unclear, but they were recorded in the scorebook inside his head. Haijima didn’t doubt that Kuroba’s spike right before had went in, so he added that.

“…23-23, huh.”

They were always behind by two or three points, but they gradually closed the gap in the second half and caught up at the end. Now all they had to do was to score two times in a row without giving up a single point. Meisei seemed to be worried that the higher-ups would be coming back soon, but it would be irritating to have the game end with no definite results.

“It’s no problem. I’ll play like this.”

Is he serious? The gallery buzzed. He stood up with his glasses, which couldn’t be used due to the warping of the frames. Kuroba tried to support him, but he pushed his hand away with an “I’m fine” and turned to Tatsumi.

“Tatsumi-san, you’re going to play until the end, right?”

“Yeah, if you’re fine with it. It’s getting interesting, after all.”

Tatsumi said with a wry smile, his voice coming from a completely different direction from where Haijima was facing.

Now we’re talking… His heart boiled up lightly, and he pushed aside his fatigue for the moment. He was glad he was able to play this game. Ikawa was able to rouse him, and there were many things he could learn from an experienced player like Tatsumi.

Absorb it all, push it away, and go up.

“It’s my serve, after all.”

“If you can’t do it, you can rotate the serve order around, okay?” He couldn’t make out the face at all, but a long and thin object that seemed like Tatsumi said.

The serve was Seiin’s. The server was Haijima.

“Kuroba. Put this near my bag.”

He thrust his glasses to Kuroba while glaring at the court. Kuroba let out a shrill “Uweh?”, and he sensed that it was no good. Even though he had been on the top of his game, the current commotion had broken his concentration.

Well, we were able to unveil our ace, anyways.

If Kuroba said he wanted to show off their setter, then Haijima also wanted to show off the fact that there was such an attacker at a no-name public school. He had already accomplished that goal with that shot earlier, and he didn’t need to show their hand any more than that today.

He started walking along the line. His feet were a bit unsteady, but he had no hesitations about the direction he was walking in. Kuroba put his glasses near his bag by the wall and then hurriedly caught up to him.

“Can you see?”

“I can’t. I have 0-0.1 vision without my glasses.”

He stood in the service zone to receive the ball. He tried to catch the ball with one hand and ended up receiving it with his face.

The gallery buzzed for a moment and then fell into complete silence. “…Is this guy going to be okay?”

He once lightly nudged the ball in the service zone. Everything around him looked blurry, like it had rained, but only the white lines, a rectangle of nine by eighteen meters, stood out clearly. Like guide lights illuminating a runway at night, they shone white in his vision. He had only moved away to a place where he couldn’t see the outside of the court. His connection with the court wasn’t broken.

The soles of his shoes squeaked as he checked the feeling of the well waxed floor. He rolled the still relatively new Molten practice ball in his hands.

Haijima liked the feel of a volleyball. Not a soccer ball, not a baseball, not a basketball, but a volleyball. The surface was slightly cushioned, and it fit into his fingers as though wrapping around them. For him, a volleyball was “warm.”

The whistle sounded to resume play.

If the other side scored even one point and it became a deuce (4), then they probably won’t win. They had to score twice consecutively to reach twenty-five points. Of course, they couldn’t miss any of their serves. But there was no option to include a float serve. A lukewarm serve would be easily counterattacked in any case.

To be honest, he couldn’t tell where Kuroba was standing, so he couldn’t tell what defense Tatsumi and Ikawa were taking on the other side of the net. However, the tension given off by those breathing on the court created a slight airflow. He used the feeling on his skin, sense of hearing, and sense of smell to grasp the changes in the air. Even if he couldn’t see it, there was a court in his mind that he could recreate in vivid detail from corner to corner. The bright coat on the wooden floor at his feet radiated out from beneath his feet as though to stretch out the roots of his nerves all around.

He put the ball in his left hand and held it up to his eyes. He could only vaguely recognize the three colors of white, red, and green at the end of his arm, and he couldn’t even recognize the colors of anything further away than the ball.

But…so what?

How many tens of thousands of times do you think I’ve stood in this place and hit the ball from here?

With a snap of his left hand, he threw the ball high in front of him. While looking up at the ball he had just released, he ran forward, sank his knees in the same manner as a spike jump, and jumped. The blurry white, red, and green disappeared completely, blending in with the lights on the ceiling. However, he believed in his set and swung his arm out without hesitation. He felt the sensation of his left hand securely grabbing the center of the ball.

There was a stir at the same time he landed on his toes, and the whistle blew.

“Haijimaaaa!”

Haijima didn’t know what the whistle was for, but it seemed that he had scored as Kuroba cheered and flung his arms around him.

“…Can I hit another one?”

“Of course. You’re our service ace.”

Service ace…it went in, huh… The strength slipped out of him for an instant, and he rested his chin on Kuroba’s shoulder and took a breath. Well, he was confident, but even so, he was surprised with himself.

“Where did that one go?”

“Straight into the right corner…wait, you really can’t see!?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along.”

“That’s scary, you’re strong even in this condition…”

He reproduced every serve he hit on the court in his head while digesting the sensations so as to not forget the sensation of every move that remained in his body. He could clearly imagine the white, red, and green ball that drew a slightly distorted trajectory to the left and sucked into the opponent’s court and stab into the right corner, as clearly as if he were seeing it with his own eyes.

One more…I can do one more.

“The ball…”

He muttered heatedly while staring into space. “Huh? O-Okay,” Kuroba caught the ball that had been released and passed it to him.

He didn’t have to think about the whole court anymore today. He didn’t need to think about game-making for ahead. He only had to think about making this serve——

Kuroba’s voice disappeared from his eardrums. The court he had been drawing in his head with himself as the starting point disappeared as though a dark curtain had been pulled down in all directions. The place he was standing in and the white lines at a ninety-degree angle that indicated the right corner of the opponent’s court. The world was condensed into a single sharp, thin line—the shortest path that connected those two points and grazed the top of the net. A ray of light in the darkness, only for the No.5 ball with a diameter of 20cm to penetrate.

If he had only the nerves to make this one serve, then the circuits in his brain might as well be burned out for the rest of the day.

Previous || Index || Next

[andcontemplation]

I saw your pic of Winona and Helena and I was wondering if you could do a short ficlet of maybe young Joyce discussing her fling/friendzone/love with Hop with her older sister cause hell she's desperate about it

Like the sister could ask her out, give advice, tease her about it, they could talk about each other's experiences or Joyce could even ask her for advice cause she's afraid to fuck things up if it gets physical

I'm not a writer so I'm leaving all my ideas here, I'd love if you wrote this but don't worry if you're too busy or sth

Dear Anon -- I don’t normally take many fic requests because I’m such a slow writer, but this one just sprouted fully formed from my brain the moment I read your ask! It still took me a few days to get after since life got busy for me. It also turned out to be about 1400+ words so I’ve pasted below under the cut. I’ll be uploading it to Ao3 soon too when I get a chance :) I’d be happy to dedicate it to you if you feel comfortable dm-ing me your username on Ao3. Thank you for sending it along!

"Hey, you! What's wrong?"

Joyce nearly jumped out of her skin at the disembodied voice that called out from the empty bedroom -- or at least, the bedroom she thought was empty. She turned on a dime, clutching for her heart. Joyce might’ve been sixteen going on seventeen, but she was far too young for a heart attack.

"Jesus!" She gasped at the familiar figure sitting at the edge of the bed. "I didn't know you were home."

"Ma didn't tell you I was coming home for Thanksgiving?" Stella stopped unpacking the small duffle at her feet and raised an eyebrow at her sister.

Joyce sighed and leaned against the doorframe.

"Ma's not even here! She went to Chicago this morning with her new beau."

"Color me surprised," Stella deadpanned, throwing the pair of socks down on the bed in disgust. "Which one? Tom?"

Joyce shook her head.

"Randy. Tom was married."

Stella rolled her eyes and reached for another handful of clothes.

"Of course he was," she snapped. "How does she keep falling for that same old line?"

Joyce only shrugged and toed the door jamb, waiting for her sister to invite her into her room.

They hadn't seen much of each other since Stella ran off at sixteen to live with her boyfriend in Philadelphia, almost two years previous, and as the months and then the years passed by, Joyce felt more and more distant from the sister she grew up with. It was beginning to feel like eons had passed since they would spend all their days together, playing dolls and dress-up in that exact bedroom, performing plays for the neighborhood kids in the backyard or riding their bikes downtown to go try on perfume and makeup at the five and dime.

Joyce was still a little miffed at Stella for running off and leaving her behind with their mother and not taking Joyce with her when she left. It didn't seem fair that she had to stay when she was the baby -- the baby with the most responsibility -- the one who ended up making sure Ma didn't go completely off the rails, dependent on the bottle again or running off with a third husband. The resentment Joyce still carried always made her forget just how much she missed having her big sister around and how much she still needed her.

Stella looked up from her duffle bag and saw Joyce standing there, looking at her with big, red-rimmed eyes.

"Sorry Ma skipped town. I'm glad you're home," Joyce said, meaning it.

Stella's frown melted, and she dropped the clothes in a heap, patting the bed beside her.

"I am too. Now tell me what's wrong."

Joyce sighed deeply.

"Nothing. It's stupid."

"Boys?" Stella asked with a knowing grin.

Joyce sighed again, and her eyes fluttered up to the ceiling, embarrassed at the degree of stupidity she was feeling that very moment. She willed herself not to cry over him.

Stella pushed Joyce's bangs out of her eyes and off her cheeks, where they stuck to pale skin, and gave her little sister a look. But instead of imbibing confidence, it just made Joyce want to cry more.

She made a face and sucked in a breath before letting it all out.

"Karen and I saw Hop behind the bleachers with one of the cheerleaders today at lunch."

Stella's eyebrows shot up.

"Oh. Which cheerleader?"

"Chrissy Carpenter. That bottle blonde bubble-headed... bimbo!"

Joyce glared out the window and across the street at the edge of Hopper's front lawn, the only piece of his house she could see from that angle.

Stella choked back a giggle when she noticed how intensely Joyce was staring.

"Woah. That's some serious alliteration."

"Yeah, well," Joyce grumbled and shrugged. "I'm upset."

Stella went back to emptying out the rest of her bag, but not before throwing her sister a loving look.

"I can see that. But I thought you and Jimmy were just friends?"  

"We are!" Joyce finally dragged her eyes off his house and pouted at Stella before trailing off. "It's just that…"

"Oh come on," Stella said and ruffled Joyce's bangs. "You know you can tell me!"

There was another eye roll from Joyce.

"I just thought that something had changed between us this year. Maybe... Oh, I don't know anymore."

Then she clammed up.

Stella walked over to the window, took out a pack of Slims, and lit one up before opening the window a crack.

"Know what? Spit it out, sis!"

Joyce couldn't look at her older, prettier, more elegant sister, sitting there smoking at the windowsill like some french model who could have any man she wanted -- wrapped around her little finger. Joyce wished she could only look so mod and in charge.

Instead, she felt pathetic for pining after the boy across the street.

"Well," she started, flopping back on the bed, finding it easier to confess without having to worry about seeing the look of judgment cross Stella's face. "He'd been acting weird since we went camping this last summer. Then I realized by the second week of September that he was over here almost every night. At first, he said he needed help with his schoolwork because he really wanted to graduate, and since we're in all the same classes, it made sense, right? But by October, he was coming over for the dumbest reasons, and then I started to think he was gonna ask me to the homecoming dance. Like, I was so sure he was gonna do it. A few times, actually. But it was like he chickened out or something."

Stella held up a hand to pause Joyce there, even though Joyce couldn't see it.

"Waitaminute. Didn't you say on our last phone call that Lonnie Byers asked you out that night?"

"Yep, and what a date that was." Joyce rolled her head to the side and looked at her sister with a scowl.

Stella smirked, tapping the end of the cigarette out over the eaves.

"I warned you about him."

"Yeah yeah, I know: 'Lonnie Byers is scum.' But I'm pretty sure we're talking about Hop here?"

"Pardonne Moi! Please... continue."

"So, he seemed a bit distant after homecoming, but he'd still come over to study sometimes, and I'd catch him staring at me. It almost looked like he wanted to kiss me or something. And one day during gym, he told me I looked pretty when I knew for a fact I was a sweaty, frizzy mess. I guess it got in my head because I started to think, well maybe I want him to kiss me. And maybe I like him too? I was gonna tell him this weekend. I had it all planned out. But then he runs off and swaps spit with Chrissy, and now here I am, crying over a dumb boy. Stupid, stupid me."

Stella put the last bit of the cigarette out and moved back to the bed, pushing Joyce's legs out of the way.

"Not stupid," she said. "Just young and in love."

Joyce sat up on her elbows, nose turned up in protest.

"Gross. I am not!"

"You are." Stella chuckled.

Joyce frowned as she slowly realized her sister was right and succumbed to her lovesick fate.

"I am, aren't I?"

"'Fraid so, my dear."

"Cripes -- this sucks!”

"Oh, don't worry." Stella smiled. "I know just the thing to fix a broken heart! Ma might not be around but we can still have fun. What’s say we stay up late, paint our nails, eat our way through an entire tub of ice cream and I can give you some pointers for when you find yourself a real man. You'll be over that silly Hopper boy in no time."

"But what if I don't want to be over him?" Joyce whined, feeling sick for even thinking it let alone admitting it out loud. He was her best friend, since before they could walk, and those feelings had remained strictly platonic but lately, she couldn't imagine being without him, let alone sharing him with anyone else. Especially bottle blonde bubble-headed bimbos.

Stella held her hand out to Joyce and helped her sit up.

"Trust me, sis. It's for the best. Boys like Jim and Lonnie will ruin you for life. You belong with someone sweet and kind, who won't rush you before you're ready…"

Joyce scoffed.

"Boys like that don't exist!"

"Sure, they do!" Stella nodded. Then she had an idea. "Say -- isn't there a Sadie Hawkins soon?"

"Yeah, the Snowball," Joyce said, cluing in, trying not to look too excited. "You think I should ask Hop?"

"No!" Stella sighed. "I'm saying you should ask a nice boy to go with you."

"A what?"

"Think of the nicest, and well... let’s say the nerdiest guy in your class, and ask him to the Snowball. Not Lonnie or Hop! No more bad boys who play ping-pong with your heart."

"No, no way!" Joyce shook her head and dove headfirst into the pillows. "I am not asking Bob the Brain!"

Stella threw her hands up in the air.

"Fine, be miserable and alone forever then. See if I care!"

"Fine!" Joyce shouted, muffled by the pillows before dissolving into a fit of giggles as her sister beat her over the head with another frilly embroidered pillow.

"I'm glad you're home," Joyce said when she caught her breath.

"Me too, sis," Stella said. "Me too."

[afaithy]

Prompt 11 for the haunted house headcanon! ;)

Sorry this turned out this long! The whole intention was to make it funny not scary, it turned out kind of silly. 

Hope you like it :)

As usual. This is part of my Universe so...keep that in mind dear readers:

SEND MORE PROMPTS! HERE

If I die I am going to haunt your ass

“Maybe all the people who say ghosts don't exist are just afraid to admit that they do.”

― Michael Ende

“We gotta do it! “Mimi shouted excitedly “I mean look at how things are...Sora, Taichi and Yamato are in their first year of college...when exactly are we going to have a chance to do it?” “Eh..but Mimi-san…” Jou said disapprovingly “You and Koushiro-san are in third year. You two should be using summer vacations to prepare for entry exams and…”

“Yayaya…” Mimi said covering her ears “I’ll be studying design abroad, so that’s already taken care of. Koushiro here has pretty much his way into Computer Science on Todai ensured. So now problems, there. Come on Jou.-..this could be our last summer together, you know?”

“Last summer sounds a little ...dramatic don’t you think?” Koushiro said, chuckling “It’s not like we are cutting tights with each other.”

“No, but think about it. Jou  is in med school. If it was already hard to get him to join us when he was just a regular high schooler, how hard do you think it’ll get now? Taichi, Yamato and Sora are in college as well, soon they will be so busy that they won’t be able to join either; Then I might be leaving to study abroad and Koushiro, you will be busy with school and that cyber security company you are working on with Tachibana. The group is scattering...and soon all that will be left will be those that  pair of love birds over there!” Mimi screeched , pointing at Takeru and Hikari.

“Love birds?” they both replied puzzled. Hikari and Takeru looked at each, and Mimi gave them a mischievous smirk.

“Let her be, Jou.” Taichi laughed “Besides. The test of courage huh...we never did that, and yet it is something so...highschool like. Sounds like a fun thing to do, Right, Yamato?”

“What? Eh...y-y-yes. Of course.”

“I can’t say that Mimi isn’t wrong. We might not get another chance in a while, right?” Sora reasoned “I’m sure we can make an exception for old time’s sake.”

“Yes, yes!” Mimi said, jumping excited “Come on Jou. You can bring Marina-chan along, too.”

“Oh, boy…” Jou said “Ok, I’m going. Someone needs to make sure you kids stay out of problems.”

“Good ol’ Jou.” Taichi laughed. 

“But where exactly are we going?” Hikari asked, tilting her head “IT’s not like there are too many haunted places around here.”

“Well...there’s that old shack by the hill…” Takeru said. ���Didn’t our class go there last time?”

“Eh?” Hikari said “I wouldn’t know.I didn’t go ...it was you  who went with those girls.”

“Ah…” Takeru said “True. I did…”

“ You’re such a ladies man, Takeru…” Yamato chuckled.

“It wasn’t like I wanted to go. Rest assured, bro. THere were other places I would have preferred to be.”  Takeru chuckled.

“No, everyone knows that place is a farce.” Mimi said, waving her hand in front of his face “No, no. Don’t worry.I have that solved. Right , Koushiro?”

“Uh. I think I have the right place we can go.” Koushiro nodded.

“Ah...why am I not surprised about you two ganging up together?” Taichi smirked “I’m sure going to miss that. You are sure going to miss it, too, eh Koushiro?”

“Yeah. I admit it will be kind of strange.”

“Don’t think that you can get rid of me so easily…”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t even dream of that.” Koushiro chuckled “The place is chosen, so all that is left is going.”

“Hooray!” Mimi said happily “We go in three days then. You guys get psychologically prepared. Ok?”

Three days later, the group was sitting on a bus on their way to the outskirts of Tokyo. The weather was burning hot and the cicadas chanted in full volum, as the bus drove through a landscape that was becoming more and more rural. 

“So...this is our itinerary.”  Mimi chanted “ We’ll be camping on the near area so...first things, first. Preparing the campsite, then…”

“Wait…” Yamato groaned “Camping? You’re making us camp in a haunted forest?”

“The mansion is supposed to be haunted, not the forest…” Mimi said “It’ll be alright, right Koushiro?”

“According to my research, the hauntings are only restricted to the mansion area.”Koushiro nodded “ I don't think there will be any problem with us staying on in the forest. We can still ask around the inn we are staying to be sure.”

“That won’t be necessary. I am sure we can stay there without issues” Mimi said, winking “Or do you have anything to say, Yamato?”

“Me...w-w-why-would I...I have s-something to say?” he replied “I-i’t not like I am s-scared.”

Nobody believed it. Everyone knew that Yamato couldn’t stand any kind of horror related subject. 

“He’s scared to death…” Takeru whispered into Hikari’s ear.

“Poor,  Yamato-san. Even now he’s still trying to act tough huh?”

“His pride will haunt him, but this is actually going to be fun.”

“That’s mean,Takeru-kun, you shouldn’t tease your brother…”Hikari chuckled.

“Just a little bit, okay?” Takeru said, winking at her before turning to look at Koushiro. “Where exactly are we going again, Koushiro-san?”

“Ah…” Koushiro replied, turning his tablet to let them see “It’s an old abandoned manor. According to the legend, the family was practitioners of some sort of ritualistic religion and would often make human sacrifices.”

“Ah!” Takeru said “ I think I know. I remember researching it for my story. Isn’t that the shrine where the head of the family went crazy and slaughtered everyone in the middle of the night? Then he took each body and threw them into the pit, one by one before hanging himself in the central hall..”

“Why do you even search for those things?”Yamato mumbled to himself; sinking into his seat. 

“Ah...yes, I believe so.” Koushiro replied, browsing in his tablet “Yes, you’re correct, Takeru-san.”

“But...I think I read that some people have seen child spirits roaming the forest.” Takeru said “ people who have gone lost in the woods say they hear children’s voices and the sound of leaves shuffling as if someone was running around.”

“C-children?” Yamato mumbled.

“Oh...really? That’s creepy. Children are creepy even when they’re alive.” Taichi said.

“Taichi!”

“What? It’s true…”

“Ohhh, I think I’ve heard that story before.” Marina said, peeking over her seat.” They said the children spirits try to lure you into the shrine, right?”

“Right, right…” Takeru nodded with a malicious grin “It is said that they call out at people, feigning to be in trouble so that people will try to find them, and then before anyone even realizes…”

Takeru reached under the chair and pulled Yamato’s leg. Yamato, who had been covering his face and shrinking in his seat trying to tune out the conversation, gave a jump and a very uncharacteristic screech that caused several of the other passengers to look back at them. 

“WHat the hell, Takeru?!” Yamato said, reddening as the group laughed. 

“...the ghosts grab you and pull all the way into the pit…” Takeru said, innocently “Just like that…”

“Yes, yes...That’s what I’ve heard too!” Marina said excitedly “ this place came out in a magazine recently I think. It’s one of the most haunted places in Tokyo.”

“Ehhh?” Jou said “From all the places to choose, Mimi-san.” “Hey, we wanted to feel the real thing, no? Come on it will be fine.”

“Is it really that famous?” Sora asked.

“Uh, I supposed. I think it became quite popular after the local government tried to get it exorcised or something.” Takeru shrugged.

“Yes! It seems it went pretty bad and the priest who came went missing.” 

“Oh god…”

“Eh? Missing?” Taichi said “No way!”

“THat’s only gossip.” Hikari chuckled “ An exorcism was indeed performed. It was successful and the place should be safe now.”

“Thanks god…” Yamato sighed.

“I think…”

The last words Hikari muttered only made Yamato let out a groan. After three hours of road trip, they finally reached their destination. The group checked into the inn, dropped their things and, taking only the necessary things for camping, the group made their way to their destination. 

Ignoring the fact that they were stepping into a rumored cursed forest to camp in the gardens of a famous haunted location, the whole thing would have seemed to be like any regular trip. The sun shone brightly, the sky was blue and the cicadas were chanting noisily around them. Perhaps it was the light or the distraction by the tasks that camping required , but Yamato seemed to have calmed down considerably. His calmness had been short lived, as the sun began to set soon after they had set camp.

“Alright everyone! Gather here!” Mimi chanted, calling out for everyone's attention “It’s time to make the teams for the kimodameshi!”

“Eh?”  Taichi said “Isn’t that too troublesome? We can just make the team ourselves.”

“No, no!” Mimi replied “Absolutely not!” IF we let that happen everyone will just go for Hikari-chan.”

“Eh? Me…?” Hikari said shocked,

“Of course...so I tada…” Mimi said, showing them a bunch of threads she had in her hand “Everyone pick and end. Your partner will be the one holding the other side…”

“But Mimi...we are an odd number…”

“I know that! The threads have colored tags in the middle. THe one that gets the single thread will make a trio with the pair with the same color. Ain’t I a genius?”

“Mimi-san, wouldn’t it be easier if I just used my tablet to randomize the teams?”

“Koushiro-kun...sometimes you gotta do things the old way.Now pick!”

Everyone took one of the ends and Mimi counted to three before releasing them and allowing everyone to see the teams. 

“Ah! Jou, we are together! Lucky” Marina chirped happily.

“Ah...Mimi-san, we are together.” Koushiro said, blinking in surprise.

“Eh...we are the trio, huh?” Taich said, punching Yamato’s shoulder “Don’t worry, buddy. Sora and I will protect you…”

“Sounds more like I’ll be the one protecting you two, instead…”Sora said, rolling her eyes. 

“Don’t be like that…” Taichi laughed.

“Shouldn’t be surprised that you two ended up together, huh? Even fate is on your side,”

Tekeru and Hikari were still holding their end of the thread and looking dumbfounded. 

“Lucky dog…” Yamato groaned “He’ll be the only one leaving this place alive.”

“Yamato!”

“Like you didn’t think of it, too!” Yamato said “hey Takeru. Be a good brother and switch with me…”

“Sorry, bro. I think fate thinks we make a good team…” Takeru smiled “Right, Hikari-chan?”

The girl smiled. 

“Ah…”

“Alright instructions!” Mimi said “Everyone has their flashlights, remember to keep them on. We’ll go in with 15 min of difference between each team. Starting with Koushiro and I…” Mimi winked “Then Marina and Jou-senpai, Sora’s team and finally the love birds.”

“Why do you keep calling them that?” Taichi said, rolling his eyes.

“Here is a layout of the place. The red spot is our goal. Once you get there, you take a photo and you’re done with the challenge.”

“A photo?” Sora asked.

“Yeah, if you get a ghost to photobomb, you get extra points.” 

“God, no!” Yamato said, covering his eyes. 

“You can stay outside i f you’re too scared, Yamato…” Taichi smirked “Alone…”

“Well… I….”

“Uh? Did you guys hear that ?” Hikari said suddenly. 

“Eh? What?” Mimi asked “What? What?”

“Uh...thought I heard a whisper…” Hikari replied very seriously, and the color drained completely from Yamato’s face. Takeru chuckled, he wasn’t sure if Hikari was being serious or if she had joined the “Let’s tease Yamato” train as well. 

“Yeah, you can stay out here, aniki…” Takeru said, poking his brother’s neck with a branch and making him jump “alone...in the dark...surrounded by ghostly children and who knows what else...boooo.”

“Takeru-kun...don’t be mean.” HIkari scolded him.

“Forget it, I’m coming…”

“You’re a scared kid, Yamato.”

“Take a paper bag…” Jou sai, giving one to each of his friends.

“In case I need to throw up?” Taichi asked,

“More like , if you start hyperventilating, but maybe you should take some extra. Just in case. Yamato tends to throw up when he’s scared.”

“I don’t!”

“Mmmm…” Hikari said, “Just in case, too. Take one of these…”

“What’s these?”

“Ofuda(**Paper charms). You know, for protection.”  

“Ah! Well thought, sis.”

“Thank you, Hikari-chan …” Marina said with a smile. 

“Oh, and if you hear someone calling. Don’t listen...keep moving forward. If you don’t pay them attention, they don’t know you saw them.”

“Advice from the expert. Taken.”

“Do you see anything?” Taichi asked casually.

“Mmm, not really. I don’t think there are evil spirits.”

“Thank god. I’m trusting you word…” Yamato said “The building is probably more dangerous, yes…”

“Ok...well, I think we are ready, right?”

“Yeah. We can use the digivice to see each other’s location and to communicate in case of emergency.” Koushiro said “Remember...stick to the map. It would be dangerous if any of us got lost.”

“What do we do if a ghost drags us away?” Taichi asked.

“Eh...well….”

“Taichi...stop scaring, Yamato.”

“I am not scared. Who’s scared?”

“Just saying…”

“That’s not going to happen.” Hikari assured them “Hold each other hands. Don’t let go and you should be fine.”

WIth that said, the test began.

Mimi and Koushiro

The house was, by far, creepier than Mimi had originally thought. The photos online didn’t give it enough credit. It was even scarier than the sceneries in horror movies. The first thing that both tees noticed when they stepped into the old dilapidated house was that it was like stepping into a completely different place. 

Outside, the sound of crickets and cicadas filled the forest. The wind blowing through the trees and one or two night birds, but inside the house it felt ominously cold and the silence was unsettling. 

Mimi wasn’t scared. SHe had already made a quick run through the building with Hikari earlier and the girl had told her that the place was ok, but still, she had to admit that the house was creepy. 

“Uh…ok. This way…” Koushiro said.

 She might not be scared, but this was the perfect time to hook Koushiro. Who could resist the sweet innocence of a scared damsel, after all.

“Wait!” she said, hugging his arm “Hikari-chan said that we should stay close, right? Just in case.”

“I thought you said you weren’t scared…”

“I thought I wasn’t…” Mimi replied “but I must admit, this place is creepy. It’s making me hesitate…”

“Oh….” Koushiro said “That’s reasonable. We can step back…”

“What? No!” Mimi replied “What I mean...is that I would feel safer like this.”

Mimi hugged Koushiro's arm tighter. The action made Koushiro stagger in surprise. 

“Ah..ah! Of course…” Koushiro replied. The dim light of the flashlight didn’t show his blush.” Sure...you can hold me, if that makes you feel better.”

Victory, Mimi thought. The pair began their way through the dark and eerie corridors, Something was hanging from the roof. Mimi remembered seeing ropes and fabric hanging earlier, but in the darkness, it was difficult to distinguish it.

“Do you think Jou and Marina have entered already?” Mimi asked casually,

“Uh? Probably…” Koushiro said, looking around the corridor. The place seemed to transform when the night fell “Knowing Jou, they’re probably walking through very slowly. I can understand, though...this planks could be dangerously rotten.”

“Oh, yeah...it wouldn’t be nice to fall into one of these...AHHHHH.”

Mimi gave a jump and hugged Koushiro tightly. This time it hadn’t been faked. 

“M-Mimi-san?”

“Something touched me…” Mimi said horrified, “Something definitely touched me….”

“It was probably a piece of wood or one of those ropes…”

“No...no...I felt fingers. Cold fingers….”Mimi said looking around “small, cold fingers…”

“Mimi-san...please calm down. It’s probably a self suggestion.” 

"I don't…."  

Hehehehehehehe

"What was that? You heard it, didn't you?" 

Koushiro had stiffened . He had and he couldn't believe his ears. It has to be a trick of their mind. Koushiro's logic mind began to work on any possible explanation when they heard a loud thud. Like if something had fallen down and then, there was a soft rustling. 

A shudder ran down their spines and the pair unconsciously began to walk faster. 

"Oh god!" Mimi screeched. 

They had stopped in their tracks as they had come face to face with two figures, but when they shone their lights at it, they realized that it was nothing but a very old and dirty mirror, and the two phantom images were only their reflection. 

"A mirror? Who the hell places a mirror in the middle of the corridor?" Mimi said gasping for air. That had given her a fright. 

"Uh… Maybe it is a religious thing? A hikari or Takeru would know." 

"Mental note to ask them later." Mimi muttered. 

She'd been here earlier  but she didn't remember that mirror. She wouldn't have missed it. The thing was the size of a wall. 

"Koushiro… Are we on the right way?" 

"Yeah," he answered, flashing his map c right on track to the main hall, why?"

This was Koushiro. She could trust his sense of direction, but why did she feel like everything looked different from when she had come during the day?

They turned around a corner and stopped in the tracks. Mimi swallowed hard and felt a knot form in her gut. This was definitely different. The room was filled with several old kimonos hung on stands, giving an eerie sensation of people standing around them. 

"This wasn't here before…" Mimi muttered" Koushiro-kun… Are you sure we are in the right place?"

Mimi was holding his arm so hard, that she was beginning to sink her nails through the fabric of his shirt. She wasn't feigning anymore, she was really scared and by her friend's expression she could tell she wasn't alone. 

Koushiro had gone pale. He had to admit that  he was beginning to feel scared as well, but seeing how Mimi was clearly upset, he didn't dare to say it out loud. He had to stay firm for her sake, but the task was becoming harder as the sound of tiny feet seemed to have grown louder around them. 

"Y-yeah. This should be it. I mean...it is the kimono room...so I guess it shouldn’t be strange that there are kimonos here….we are in the right place.”

“This can’t be right!” Mimi shrieked” Those weren’t here before!”

 “It's ok. " Koushiro said, trying to sound soothing, "  It’s ok. You probably missed them, that’s all…”

“How could I miss this?”

“Calm down.  Remember Hikari's words. Don't pay attention and let’s keep going.”

Mimi swallowed and nodded. The temperature had gotten colder . The sound of rustling was louder and as they circled between the kimono, Mimi had the uncomfortable impression that someone was watching them.

They were starting to think that perhaps choosing this place was a bad idea. 

"I wonder how Marina-chan and Jou-senpai are doing, hehe…" Mimi mumbled. She felt less nervous when she spoke. 

"Yeah, I'm sure they're fine." Koushiro replied as calmly as he could. He could swear he had seen something move ahead "They should be behind  us and not too far…. '

Almost as if summoned, a distant echo of screams that they easily recognized as the eldest in the group and his girlfriend, cut through the silent stillness of the ruins. The screams were terrified and Mimi automatically jumped into Koushiro's arms. 

"W-what?" Mimi said in horror. 

"Uh, Jou-san….” Koushiro said, “Right. He’s easily  startled. They probably got scared with the mirror at the end of the hallway, too.”

“Oh right...t-that must be it...hehe. How far are we from the great hall?”

“J-just a couple rooms more…” Koushiro replied. Now he was sure he had seen a shadow run past them “T-this way…”

Niii-san, Oneesan… will you play with us?

“K-k-koushiro?”

“Y-yes…”

“C-can we h-hurry up?”

“Of...of course.”

Neesan, Niisan...why do you ignore us?”

That was too much. Forgetting about everything, Koushiro grabbed Mimi’s hand and sprinted away without looking back. Muffled voices sounded around them, but they ignored it and kept running and didn’t stop  until they had reached the main hall.

     Marina and Jou

“So we must wait 15 minutes before going in right?” Jou said looking at his watch. 

“Yup, that’s how it works.” Takeru replied “ The point is that the team aren’t to close to each other as they go through the test.”

“You sound familiar with this, Takeru-kun.” Marina smiled. 

“I’ve gone through a couple of them. “Takeru shrugged “never to a real haunted location though.”

“Takeru-kin is way to popular with the girls…” Hikari said tilting her head” they are always arguing to see who will get to go with him….”

“Well, I can’t blame them. A test of courage is certainly a good opportunity to hug or try to hold hands with the boy you like, right?” Marina said, winking “Isn’t that pretty much the main objective of it?”

“I thought the goal was to prove your courage.” Taichi said, dumbfounded.

“Well, that, too, but I think most of the girls just go in for that priceless chance.”

“Ah…” Hikari said “I see...so how many girls have you hugged, Takeru-kun?”

“Do you really want to know?” Takeru smiled wolfishly.

“I think it should be about time…” Sora said “It’s been 15 minutes. Jou-senpai, Marina-chan….”

“Alright!” Marina said cheerfully, hugging her boyfriend’s arm “you ready, Jou?”

“You’re awfully excited about this….” Jou said with a frown.

“I am excited! Are you not?”

“No...I still think this is reckless…”

“Oh, come Jou. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“You are brave, Marina-chan.” Sora laughed “ unlike somebody I know…”

Sora nudge her head at Yamato’s direction. He was crouched by her side , with his head between his arms. 

“Please be careful.” Hikari whispered “I know you like this whole spirit thing, but don’t let it carry you away.”

“DOn’t worry! If anything happens, I already memorized the Kuji!”

“Hehe...I don’t know if using the kuji, recklessly will help in a bad situation, though.”

“Kuji?” Sora asked.

“The nine hands seals…” Takeru replied “It is often used to ward off evil spirits.”

“You’re getting awfully good with shinto lore. Hikari’s been teaching you, huh?”

“A little” Takeru shrugged  “It’s for creative purposes.”

“Either way. I promise not to use the kuji mindlessly.” Marina smiled “Shall we, Jou?”

“Yeah, let’s get done with this.”

Jou and Marina walked through the door and just like Mimi and Koushiro earlier, they disappeared into the house. A shudder ran down Jou and Marina’s back as a gust of icy wind blew past them. “Oh boy, this is worse than I imagined it.” Jou sighed.

“Yeah, it is even scarier in real life.”

“Ok...let's go.” Jou sighed “ Be careful, Marina. These floors could be rotten for all we know.”

“Yes, yes….” Marina siad cheerfully “Ok...according to the map, we should go...that way.”

Jou used his flash light to point at the direction that his girlfriend was indicating him. A large wooden door laid closed in front of the Jou groaned. 

“Oh, great...doors. WHy couldn’t they trace a straight , no way to get lost, route?” Jou complained “These old japanese houses are like mazes, you know that?”

“Yes,yes...but we will be ok. If we get lost, all we gotta do is use our phones.”

“Knowing our luck...we won’t have a signal.”

“It will be fine. At least we are not alone and worse case scenario, we just need to wait til morning to get out.”

“This is a bad idea…”

 Hehehe

“Huh? DId you hear that?” Marina said, pulling Jou’s hand. 

“WHat?” 

Kekekekek

“That…” Marina said loudly “I heard kids.” 

“You’re auto suggesting, Marina. I didn’t hear anything…”

“I swear, Jou…”

“It was probably the… AHHHHHH!”

“What? What?”

Jou looked at his reflection on the old dirty mirror. 

“Who is so crazy to put a mirror here?” Jou said annoyed.

“Ahhhh...creepy.” Marina said, pushing up her glasses.

“Let’s get done with this. I am sure someone is bound to get hurt today.” 

 “Don’t be so pessimistic.”

“I am not. I call being realistic…” Jou said” just look at this place. If someone panics and runs away...they might stumble with something or fall into a hole…”

“And that’s why we are keeping our cool!”

“Yeah, I am calm….why wouldn't I?Right?”

Kagome kagome...the bird in  the cage...when . oh wen will it come out?

“Jou...tell me you’re hearing that.”

“I….” Jou said. THe color had drained from his face. Suddenly, his flashlight began to flicker until it finally turned off leaving them in darkness.

Marina screeched and grabbed Jou’s arm in panic. 

“Damn thing...the batteries were new! Ok, calm down. Good thing I brought a second one.Let me get it out…”

Hehehehehe...hehehe….

“Jou...you must have heard that right?”

“Keep calm, keep calm….Ah here it is!””

Jou switched his new flash light on, but to both’s horror. They found themselves face to face with a white, masked face.

Hehehe….I found ...you!

Jou and Marina let out a terrified screech the pierced through the night. The doctor grabbed his girlfriend’s hand and ran off in a burst of fear, not looking back even once. 

Sora, Taichi and Yamato

“Are you guys going to be ok out here alone?” Taichi asked, looking at the two youngest of the group. 

“Are you sure you three will be okay in there alone?” Takeru asked instead, with an amused look.

“Touché. YEah...I guess you guys are probably the least scared here, huh?” Sora chuckled.

“I’m not scared.” Taichi said “I don’t have the crest of courage for nothing.”

“Courage doesn’t mean fearless.”

“Are you sure, Yamato-san will be alright?” Hikari asked. 

“Don’t worry about him. “Takeru smiled “ He’s doing his “Courage “ mantra. He doesit all the time before concerts and...finals.”

“Yamato...you okay? It’s our turn now…” Sora said softly.

“Ok? Yeah...I’m ok…Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Yamato blurted “It’s just and old house. There are no ghosts there, just mold and maybe rats, right?”

“Right, buddy and maybe a few corpses as well.” Taichi smirked.

“Taichi!” Sora said, glaring at the boy.

“Oh, god…”

Hikari crouched by his side and put her hands on his shoulders.

“It is alright. There are no evil spirits in there. I promise you that.” she said in a soft soothing voice, that seemed to calm him a little. 

Yamato took a deep breath and stood up. 

“Fight hard, aniki!” Takeru grinned patting his brother´s back.

“Shut up…”

Taichi, Sora, and Yamato cautiously entered the house. Taichi was holding his head and Yamato reluctantly followed, looking around nervously.

“Woah...creepy. It does look like a horror movie setting, huh?” Taichi said, running his flashlight all over the place.” “It also looks like it is falling in pieces.” Sora added” Don't do anything stupid, Taichi.”

“What are you talking about?” Taichi said. 

The piece of wood that Taichi had been touching fell apart and one of the pieces fell to the ground with a strong thud that made Yamato jump.

“I’m talking about something like that…” Sora said, rolling her eyes” Stop messing around and let’s move…”

“Eheh...sorry.”Taichi chuckled “This way…”

Yamato was taking long deep breaths behind them.

“Yamato, if you are scared you can take my hand.” Sora offered.

“Or mine…” Taichi smirked “Like a kid…”

“Shut up, Taichi. Can we get done with this?” Yamato said, rubbing his face.

“Ehehe…” Taichi laughed “Right. Follow me...don’t worry Yama-chan, Sora-nesan and Taichi-nisan will keep you safe.” “Taichi...I swear that if you don’t shut up, I’m gonna punch you.”

“Not cute….” Taichi said putting, the flashlight under his chin and making a “ghost face”  “Not cute at all….”

 Niiisan….niiisan…..

“Huh?” Taichi said, looking around “Hey guys...did you hear that?”

“It’s not fun, Taichi…” Sora sighed.

“No, I...I’m not joking. I seriously  heard something.” Taichi said, looking around with his flashlight.

“Very funny, Taichi.” Yamato said grumpily, looking around with his flashlight as well.“You just want to scare me…”

“No...I swear...I heard something.”

“It’s an old house. Old houses make noises. You probably heard that…” Sora reasoned “come on let’s move. Haunted or not, this place makes me uncomfortable, so let’s hurry up and finish this.”

“RIght...old houses make noises...yeah.”Yamato repeated “ old houses make noises….old house….AHHHH:”

“What? A ghost?” Taichi said, rushing to where YAmato was.”Oh...come on...you got spooked by your own face?”

“WHat did you want me to do? I wasn’t expecting to find a mirror there?” Yamato replied.

“Wow...well. In Yamato’s defense, that mirror does make you look creepy.” Sora said  “This thing is old, it is incredible that it is still intact…”

“Yeah, I don’t really care about old things. Can we get moving?” Yamato said impatiently.

“Why? ARe you scared that someone is gonna try to pull you into the mirror?” Taichi said, tainting him with his hands.

“I warn you, Taichi...if you…”

Yamato paled and both Taichi and Sora looked at him dumbfounded.

“Yamato?”

“Eh….you okay, buddy?”

“Something pulled my sleeve.” “What?” Taichi repeated. 

“I said...SOMETHING pulled my sleeve.”

“It was probably an old nail…” Sora suggested.

“How…? There’s nothing here!

“Chill...Yamato. I’m sure you’re scaring yourself….”

Onisan!

“What the hell?” Taichi said, turning to look behind him “Guys...you must have heard that.”

“Maybe...we should move.” Sora said nervously “now?”

“I second the idea…” Yamato agreed “Move…”

The trio hurried through the old corridors and sliding doors. The sound of their footsteps against the worn floorboards echoed in the burying silence of the manor.

It was then that the group noticed that the steps that they were hearing,  were not theirs alone. There were at least a fourth set of steps that definitely didn't belong to any of the three. They were smooth and light steps, as if they belonged to very small feet.

“Eh...guys….?” Taichi said looking around “Is it just me or something is following us?”

“Stop joking, Taichi.”

“Yeah, shut up…” Yamato groaned.

“I swear guys...I…”

Hehehehe

Eheheheheheeh

“What the…?Oh god, no…” Yamato said, losing all his color “No,no.no…”

“Yamato, put yoursefeñ together.”

“Are hearing that?” Yamato cried “Those are damn ghost voices. They are going to drag us all the way to that pit and we’ll be dead. It’s like one of those damn horror movies…” 

“This could be something that Mimi did to scare us…”SOra reasoned “it’s not a ghost, calm down.”

“I hell...I saw something over there….”Taichi said suddenly “We’re screwed…. We’re gonna get spirited away and Hikari will have to go through the place trying to contact our souls to see if she can brings us back…”

“Taichi, you’re not helping.”

“I knew this was a bad idea. Why did I agree to this?”  Yamato said in panic “Taichi...I swear, if I die I am going to haunt your ass…”

“Yamato….”

“Buddy, you might end up  haunting my ghostly ass!”

Sora looked at the two panicking boys trying to figure out what she was supposed to do, when suddenly...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Taichi and Yamato automatically jumped to hug Sora in terror. The screams had come from somewhere deeper in the manor and after thinking about it, there was certain familiarity in the voices.

“Jou-senpai and Marina-chan!” Sora said in realization. 

“Oh, no! The ghost caught them!” Taichi said   in panic “What do we do? We are next now, aren’t we?”

“Ahhh..! Something touched me again.” Yamato cried.

“OK, STOP IT!” Sora shouted impatiently “Taichi get a hold your reins, your panic is not helping. Yamato, for god’s sake. I promise you, there are no ghosts touching you. Now, we should hurry and try to catch up with Jou-senpai. Something bad could have happened to them and… What, Taichi?”

Taichi’s eyes were wide as plates. He was absently pulling Sora’s blouse as he pointed at Yamato with a trembling hand. Sora turned to the blonde slowly and she opened her mouth to scream, but her voice died away as the light of the flashlights died one, by one.

Takeru and Hikari

Takeru paced in front of the entrance looking at his watch. Meanwhile, Hikari was standing pensively a few steps from him. Her hands were clasped in her lap and her head was slightly tilted.

“Should we give them a couple minutes more?” Takeru asked “I’m sure my brother is delaying them.”

“Sure…” Hikari nodded “knowing my brother, he’s not helping either. He’s probably touching things he shouldn’t  all over the place. I just hope he won’t break anything.”

“Sounds like, Taichi,” Takeru chuckled “So what’s the verdict?”

“Uh?” Hikari replied, confused, 

“Ghosts or no ghosts?” Takeru asked.

“Oh, about that.  Well...there are no evil spirits.”

“Uh...so no ghosts. Too bad I guess. “

“I said no evil spirits. I never said there weren’t spirits.” Hikari chuckled “I just thought that whether they were evil or not, was irrelevant for Yamato-san.”

“Yeah, under this conditions...he’s probably scared of his own shadow.” Takeru laughed “Ok...I think we can go in now.”

Hikari nodded and turned to the door. To her surprise she found Takeru offering her his hand. 

“Uh? You do realize I am not like those girls and I won’t be jumping and hugging you because I am scared, right?”

“Yeah, I know that. I think this is more for my own moral support.”

“Oh, so the hugging went both ways around.”

“You wouldn’t be jealous, would you?” 

“Should I be jealous?”Hikari asked, taking his hand. “Nope. For the record, I would rather go through this with you. Those girls jump at anything.”

“Getting scared in that situation is the normal thing to do.”

“Yeah, I guess I just got used to my little shrine maiden who’s not afraid of anything.” he  chuckled.

“Flirt. Don’t let my brother hear you…” Hikari said, shaking her head.

“Well, Mimi-san isn’t helping. She promised not to say a word, but her teasing is becoming a little too obvious, don’t you think? Lovebirds?”

Hikari shrugged.

“No one seemed to catch the hint. Mimi is like that, I suppose no one takes it too seriously.” Hikari sighed “ what? Are you getting tired of the secrecy? We can say it...but remember that would mean I win the bet.”

“When did you become so greedy, huh?” Takeru snorted.

“Learned from you.” Hikari replied, winking at him “Uh...yeah. Not the most romantic place for a date?”

“Didn’t know you were taking this as a date.”

“Wasn’t that Mimi’s whole idea?” Hikari asked “She did arrange that sorting to leave all couples together, after all.” 

“Including my brother a third wheel?”

“I don’t think she foresaw that outcome. Probably a miscalculation.”

Takeru laughed.

“I pity Sora. She’s probably going crazy with those two.” “Mmmm… My brother can handle the pressure, unless he sees something. Then he’ll just snap and panic.”

“Talking from experience?”

“More or less.”

“My brother is a lost case. They will be lucky if they can get him to walk at all…” Takery laughed “He can’t even see a horror movie without finding an excuse to leave the room every five minutes. I am actually surprised he agreed to this trip.” “Social pressure…” Hikari shrugged “but you telling him those stories didn’t help at all.”

“Sorry?” Takeru smiled apologetically “You know having the chance to tease your older brother is a rare opportunity. “

Hikari shook her head. 

“Poor Yamato-san. Uh?”

“What?”Takeru asked “Saw something interesting?”

“Yeah...kids. Very mischievous kids.” 

“Do you think they will want to play with my brother?”

“For his own sanity, I hope not.”

“So between everyone. Who do you think will go through this smoothly?”

“Mimi-san and Koushiro-san, probably. Mimi is hot headed, but she’s not easily scared and Koushiro is very rational, so I don’t think some random noises and a couples of shadows will make them lose it.”

“Uh...agree.” Takeru replied “So between the other two teams?”

“Hard to tell.” Hikari shrugged “ Jou-senpai gets scared easily, but having my brother and Yamato-san together, puts Sora in a very difficult position.”

“Do you think we’ll end up having to rescue those five?” 

“It’s possible…uh? Weird…” Hikaris said looking around “I think we might have taken the wrong turn.”

“What? Why?”

“This doesn't seem like the right place.”

“Night time makes things look different…”

“I wonder…” 

Suddenly, the two teens stopped dead in their tracks and looked at each other. There was a soft rustling  accompanied by muffled voices that seemed to be in some sort of conversation. 

“Did you...hear something?”Takeru asked

“I did...and those are no ghosts.” Hikari said with a frown. 

“Huh. Hold on a second.”

Takeru grabbed his flashlight and began looking between the boxes and fallen logs until he finally found the source of the muffled voice.

“Patamon? Tailmon? What are you guys doing here?”

“Takeru!” Patamon chirped happily “Look, Tailmon. We found them!”

“Good...but we still have a problem. AGumon and the others are pretty much still missing.” Tailmon sighed. 

“What are you here?”

“We heard you were having an adventure and we wanted to join.” Patamon explained “It was agumon’s idea. We thought we would surprise you.”

“I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen.” Tailmon said shaking her head “then we arrived here and they all said they would search for their partners and  went running on their own. Now we don’t know where they are.”

“Wait...so the digimon are running free around this place?” Takeru asked, surprised, “Well, that’s an interesting twist.”

“A twist that will certainly complicate things. What are the odds that everyone mistakes the digimon for ghosts?”

“Extremely high.”

“We must find them before they get in trouble.”

 Takeru, Hikari, Patamon and Tailmon spent the rest of the night tracking down their friends and their digimon. As they had guessed, everyone had mistakenly seen the digimon as ghost causing them to run away in panic and passing out. By the time they had managed to gather everyone in the great hall -with the digimon’s help, of course -  the first rays of the morning were already getting in through the holes of the ceiling. 

“Good morning…” Hikari said when their friends began to wake up.

“”Morning…” Taichi yawned “Wait...where are we?”

“Mmm...where do you think?”

“Ahhhh…” Mimi screamed “ don’t tell me we fell asleep?”

“ How can that be?”

“We actually spent the night in a haunted house?” Yamato said with a shudder.

“Congratulations, aniki. You can now cross out “sleeping with ghosts” from your bucket list. “Takeru said with a sheepish smile and Yamato glared at him.

“What happened?” Sora asked.

“Well...it seems our little test of courage got hacked by digimon.” Hikari chuckled “Right guys!”

“Sora!”

“Biyomon! What are you doing here?”

“We wanted to play too!” Agumon said.

“And we thought we would give you a surprise.” Gabumon nodded.

“Wait...then...the ghosts…” Taichi said with wide eyes “The ghosts were actually our digimon?” “Uhm...yes, probably.” Hikari nodded.

“No, that’s impossible!” Jou said “I saw it clearly. THe ghost I was wearing a noh mask! Right, Marina?”

“That’s right! I saw it, too.”

“You mean...this?” Gomamon said, showing him the old mask. “I found it lying around...I thought it looked funny.”

“Gomamon…!”

“Sorry,,,I didn’t mean to scare you.” Gomamon apologised. 

“We tried reaching out to Koushiro-han, but they ran off screaming when we tried.”

“Yes...Mimi you went off running when I pulled your skirt!” Palmon said sadly.

“Well, of course I would! You scared me to death, palmon!”

“The digimon didn’t intend to scare you. It was...a very amusing outcome…” Takeru laughed.

“I fail to see the fun in that!” Yamato said, annoyed.

“Sorry, but if you had seen your face...though…” Taichi laughed.

“Hey, you were scared as hell too.” 

“I saw a friggin blue fire floating over your shoulder. Of course I was going to be scared!” Taichi laughed.“Well, at least I am glad it was the digimon and not the actual ghost. That was intense.”

“We are sorry…” the digimon apologised.

“Forget about it. It was fun...wasn’t it?” Sora smiled. 

“Horay...it was, but wait...none of us took the picture...right?”  Mimi said. 

“We did…” Takeru said “While you were sleeping, of course.”

“You mischievous lovebirds.“ 

“We actually got some additional ...bonus photos.” Hikari smiled innocently “but since everyone is awake, why don’t we take one together before we leave?”

“Sounds like an awesome idea!” Mimi said.

“But...wait…” Jou said out of sudden “When did the digimon learn to sing Kagome, Kagome?”

“What?” Mimi asked.

“Ah, you’re right. We heard someone singing that, didn’t we?” Marina said..

“Oh... The song? Those were kids that helped us find you!” Gomamon said. 

“They said it was a game, and they wanted to play with us, too.”  Tentomon nodded.

“WHAT?”  everyone,  except Takeru and Hikari, said.

The two teenagers looked at each other and laughed. Perhaps the trip hadn’t gone as planned, but one way or another, it had become a great summer memory. 

Ok....very crappy art because this was already pretty long. 

[abundanceofsoph]

SkyFire 2: Chapter 16

“Darling, Just Hold On”: Nov/Dec 2016

Word count: 4.7k

SkyFire 2 MASTERLIST

I’ve been debating whether to write this chapter for weeks and I’m still not entirely sure whether I should have skipped it. While I use real people's names and real life events in this story, in my head they’re all fictional characters since I don’t really know them or how they would actually act in any of these situations. I more just use their likeness and their situations to inspire the story so this chapter was something I didn’t feel like I should include. I tried not to focus too much on Johannah but I felt the bond between Louis and Aurora was so beautiful that I decided to keep this chapter in. I hope you understand why I’ve made this decision.

This chapter's also a bit longer than usual because I wanted to soften the blow of the angst with some domestic fluff. Anyway, we all know what’s coming in this chapter so I'll stop stalling and get on with it.

>Instagram posts

After the trip away, Harry and Aurora decided to stay in London in anticipation of attending the X Factor finale where Louis was going to perform his debut single with Steve Aoki. After the show,  Anne and Robin would once again be joining them in New York for the holidays, but in the meantime, they were enjoying spending a few weeks at Harry’s Hampstead house and catching up with Rori’s friends.

One of those days they headed south to Wimbledon, walking the familiar streets of Aurora’s childhood, their winter outfits helping to hide them from prying eyes, however they were stopped a couple of times by observant fans. Aurora offered to take their photos with Harry but he asked them not to post until that evening so that they could enjoy their day without being mobbed. They headed for the Golden Stag as the sun began to set, grateful for the warmth that greeted them as they stepped through the doors. Greg was working behind the bar, his face lighting up as he watched them approach him and he walked around the end of the bar to sweep Rori into his arms. She buried her face into his shoulder as he held her tightly, feeling instantly at home in his arms.

“We missed you sweetheart,” he murmured while placing kisses to the crown of her head.

“Sorry it’s been so long,” she replied, squeezing him tightly one more time before stepping back from the hug.

“Just glad you’re here now,” he smiled. “Good to see you again Harry.”

“Good to see you too, Sir,” Harry replied, offering his hand and chuckling when Greg ignored it to hug him.

“Told you before you can just call me Greg,” he said as they stepped back. “You kids hungry? Grab a table and I’ll go let Helen know that you’re both here.”

They did as they were told, sliding into Aurora’s favourite booth that was close enough to the fireplace without being too hot.

Helen rushed out of the kitchen a few minutes later, beelining straight for their table and pulling Rori out of her seat and into a bone crushing embrace. “Oh, I missed you my darling,” she cooed, holding the younger woman tightly against her. “I swear every time I see you; you look more and more like your mother.”

“Missed you too Helen,” Rori murmured, her eyes glossy in response to Helen’s words.

“Now you’re both far too thin,” she clucked. “Let me get you some food and we’ll see if we can’t put some meet on those bones.”

Harry chuckled as she rushed back towards the kitchen and Aurora settled herself back into the booth. “I like her,” he said. “She reminds me of mum.”

“She reminds me of mine too,” Rori smiled softly, reaching across the table to take Harry’s hand in hers. “Always feel closer to her when I’m here. We should visit more.”

“Well once we buy a place of our own on this side of the river, we can visit all the time.”

“Sounds perfect.”

After dinner, Rori was eyeing the piano in the far corner, her lips twitching up in a slight grin as she remembered the hours she had spent sitting on that bench growing up. Her smile dropped as she once again berated herself for that stupid fall in the lobby a few weeks ago, knowing that she still had another week before she could wear her prosthetic and she was itching to play. “How do you feel about being my left hand?” she asked Harry.

“And what would you need my left hand for?” he asked, a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips.

“When Louis was at tower over summer, he’d play the left hand for me on the piano before I got my prosthetic. Thought we could maybe try that out.”

Harry smiled widely. “Sounds fun. Lead the way.”

Aurora’s answering grin lit up her face and she jumped to her feet joyfully, grabbing Harry’s hand and tugging him across the room towards the piano. The pub wasn’t crowded, with only a few of the regulars on their stools at the bar, a few families finishing their dinner and a couple of young girls sitting by the door. Aurora had noticed the girls flicking glances towards her and Harry over the past hour, and she was pretty sure they were working up the courage to come over and say hi. She laughed as she imagined the stories they would tell their friends tomorrow about Harry Styles playing the piano in the little pub where they had dinner. Helen watched the pair take a seat on the old piano bench, smiling as they laughed, trying to find the rhythm. They stuttered over the start of a song a couple of times before they got the timing right, settling into the tune. Most of the patrons ignored the pair, a few of the regulars smiling softly at the familiar sound after so many years, and the table of girls by the door watched on with rapt attention. Both Aurora and Harry wore matching grins as they played, their arms slung around each other’s backs as together they wove the melody of familiar songs eventually beginning to sing, giving the unsuspecting patrons an exclusive performance that others would have paid hundreds of pounds to attend if given the chance.

xXx

After having dinner at the Golden Stag, Rori and Harry spent the remaining weeks of November meeting with both their wedding planner and their realtor.

The wedding planning was relatively easy going, seeing as how everything was booked in and ready to go. Aurora still had a few more dress fittings in the new year but otherwise everything was finalised for the big day in only a few months’ time.

The house hunting on the other hand was a little less under control. Harry had agreed with Aurora when she suggested that they look at apartments and penthouses as apposed to free standing houses. Her reasoning had been that she wanted to avoid the issues they’d had with fans camping outside Erskine House, and while they were hoping to avoid the publicizing of their new address, they both knew that it would only be a matter of time before Harry’s fans figured it out. Aurora loved his fans and was incredibly grateful that so many people recognised how incredibly talented he was and appreciated him, but she also got frustrated by how invasive they sometimes got about every tiny aspect of his life, and by extension hers as well. After deciding that they wanted an apartment, Aurora had stipulated that they buy south of the river so that she could be closer to Wimbledon, and Harry decreed that they needed at least 4 bedrooms in addition to the master suite. He planned on turning one into an art studio for Aurora, while another could become a simple recording studio, nothing close to the scale of her studios in Avengers Tower, but just a little something to make it feel like home. He hadn’t mentioned anything to Aurora, but the reason he wanted 2 bedrooms left over once they created the studios, was that he planned for one to be turned into a nursey while the other could remain as a traditional guest room for when their families visited. All of these aspects, as well as the need for plenty of room for Harry’s car collection had left their poor realtor, Lee, with the unenviable job of finding the perfect place for the young couple. He found them four different properties and set up private inspections for each.

The first was in Southwark and Harry was immediately impressed the moment they walked into the lobby and were greeted by the doorman. The security of the building was excellent and they both smiled softly at each other as they took the elevator to the 24th floor with Lee.

“Now this isn’t the penthouse apartment,” Lee explained as the entered the apartment. “But there’s only two apartments above you and there’s shared access between you and 3 other apartments for the rooftop garden.”

Aurora let go of Harry’s hand as they wandered into the main living area, large windows opening out to the Thames and a beautiful view of the city.

“The kitchen and entertainment area are all on this level with a bathroom off the entry hall,” Lee continued as they walked around. “There’s 4 bedrooms upstairs including the master suite with walk in robe and ensuite, with an additional bathrooms for the guest rooms.”

“Only 3 spare rooms?” Harry asked. “Not ideal.”

“I don’t really like the idea of climbing those stairs every day,” Aurora added.

“How about we head to the second property?” Lee asked, accepting immediately that this was not the right fit. “We can always come back if you change your mind.”

Harry motioned for Lee to lead the way and they headed back to the elevator. Once they reached the ground they climbed into Harry’s car.

The second property was only a few minutes away, still in Southwark, and just behind the Tate Modern. “I like the idea of just popping over to the galleries,” Aurora noted as they entered the apartment and spotted the familiar building out the window, the river and Millennium bridge also filling in the landscape sprawled out in front of them. While the building ticked off everything on their list, there was something missing that neither Harry nor Aurora could put their finger on. Whatever it was, the third apartment in Vauxhall was also missing it, leaving them with only one property left to view.

“It’s not available today but we can view it on Tuesday if you want to meet me there at 2pm,” Lee explained once they left the third apartment.

“That works for us,” Harry agreed, “we’ll see you then.”

xXx

They arrived in Battersea a few hours before they were meant to meet up with Lee to view the final property on his list, opting to grab lunch in a nearby café and then wander through Battersea Park.

“I used to come here a lot with my mum,” Rori said as they walked, arm in arm, rugged up against the cold wind blowing in off the Thames. “Used to love going to the kid’s zoo, but mum really loved all the flowers, so we’d come every weekend in spring.”

“It’s beautiful here,” Harry agreed. “We filmed a music video here.”

“I know,” Rori laughed. “As soon as the fans found out you were here, Ella actually came down after school to try and meet you all.”

“Really?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, and I would have been right next to her, but I’d already moved to New York. Still remember watching the video and just feeling so nostalgic. Think that’s why it was my favourite song for so long.”

“You never told me that was your favourite.”

“Because it’s embarrassing, Harry.”

“No, it’s not,” he argued. “I think it’s really cute they you were such a big fan. Imagine if you didn’t like our music. You probably wouldn’t have gone to that after party with me and we never would have gotten the chance to get to know each other if you hated the band.”

“It’s still embarrassing to remember I used to read fanfiction about the man who is about to be my husband,” she replied, laughing softly as they turned towards the river.

“I’m flattered,” Harry promised, kissing her cheek as she blushed. “Now let’s go see our dream home, hopefully.”

Lee was waiting for them outside the riverside apartment building, the ever impressive Battersea Power Station looming next door. The lobby was empty when Lee led them inside Scott House, using a key card to activate the elevator. He explained on the short ride to the 8th floor that the building was nearing completion and the first round of tenants were due to start moving in at the beginning of February.

The elevator opened onto a pristine hallway; the colour scheme monochromatic which was very much to Auroras taste. Lee turned right out of the elevator, leading them to the apartment’s front door, once again using the key card to gain access.

They entered into an entry hall that led straight into what Lee called the reception room, which flowed through to a kitchen/dining area. “This was originally designed to be 3 separate units, but they altered it to create one large 5 bedroom penthouse,” he explained as they entered. “There are 4 other units on this floor, but the sound proofing is state of the art, so you won’t be able to hear them. There’s a secondary entrance from the main hall into the apartment that leads directly into the kitchen so you can bypass the entry hall.” He pointed out the specific features of the kitchen and the enclosed patio that was marketed as a winter garden that ran the length of the apartment, looking out at the power station to their right and the river on the left. “Because it was originally three units,” Lee continued as he led them down a long hallway off the kitchen, “you get three parking spots in the underground garage.”

Aurora sensed Harry brightening at this, but her attention was focused on the 4 bedrooms, office space, study and utility room that Lee pointed out as they passed. Each bedroom had its own bathroom and built in robes with an additional walk-in situated in between them all.  They returned back to the central kitchen via the winter garden, and Rori found herself falling in love with the property more and more with every step. In its unfinished state she was able to imagine the furniture she could buy to fill the space and the colours she would paint the walls, really making a home for herself and Harry.

“And now if we head back through the reception room,” Lee said as he directed them. “You have the master bedroom with the spacious walk-in and dressing room which lead through to the ensuite with a full size tub at one end and a twin shower head in the shower at the other end of the room. His and hers basins and marble tiling.”

“God damn,” Rori muttered as she looked around, picturing the décor she could add to bring out their personalities in the space. “H, I love it.”

“Me too,” Harry replied, equally impressed with the entire apartment.

“It’s not listed yet, so if you can organise the down payment, I’d say we can get it locked down within the next few weeks.”

“Let’s sit down and talk contracts,” Harry replied, watching as Aurora’s smile grew as they walked back out into the bedroom.

“How about you meet me at my office in the morning and we can go over all the specifics then?” Lee asked to which Harry agreed.

“You happy, love?” Harry asked, turning to see Rori standing out on the balcony leading off the master bedroom, looking towards the Power Station. She turned back to him, her face aglow with excitement.

“I can see us starting a family here Harry,” she replied, letting out a surprised squeal as Harry picked her up and held her tightly against him, kissing her cheek.

“Me too my love,” he replied. “Me too.”

xXx

They were lying in bed on a Tuesday evening in the beginning of December, Harry’s head resting in Rori’s lap as she sat against the headboard reading. She was finally able to start wearing her prosthetic again, so she was holding the book in her left hand, the fingers of her right tangled in Harry’s curls. His own hands traced patterns across her thighs, a comfortable silence stretching around them. That silence was shattered as Harry’s phone started ringing on the nightstand and Aurora barely looked up from her book as she passed it to him. His head was still resting in her lap as he answered the call and she felt him freeze against her, a soft gasp escaping his lips.

“We’re on our way,” he said softly, clambering off the bed before Rori could even get her bookmark in place. He started throwing on clothes as she asked him what was going on, and it was clear that he hadn’t heard her at all.

“HARRY!” she yelled, finally breaking through to him. He froze, turning to look at her, his eyes wide and haunted. “What’s happening? What’s wrong.”

“Jay,” was all he said, his voice barely more than a whisper and there was nothing else he needed to say as Rori felt her blood run cold, certain that the haunted look in Harry’s eyes was now echoed in hers. She didn’t say a word, but just as quickly got dressed and moved to pack an overnight bag for the both of them. They were out the door and in the car within minutes. They’d both known this was coming for a while, but everyone had been hoping that she’d make it past the holidays. It took them 3 hours to reach Doncaster, and neither spoke as Harry drove through the night. Aurora turned the radio off after the first pop song played, so at odds with the sombre mood inside the car that she couldn’t handle it.

It was well after midnight by the time they reached Doncaster and headed straight to the Deakin house. Harry texted Louis to let him know they were there, not expecting a reply and not receiving one, and they let themselves inside with the spare key. Despite the late hour neither Harry nor Aurora could think of sleeping and Aurora started tidying up the living room. By the time the sun rose, they’d cleaned most of the house and Harry had thrown together a casserole to put in the oven when everyone got home. They collapsed on the sofa; phones clenched in their hands as they waited to hear.

It was nearing lunchtime when they heard cars pull into the driveway and slow trudging footsteps reached the front door. Aurora was waiting with her arms open and Louis fell into them gladly, holding her tightly as he cried. Harry hugged a few of the girls before moving to Dan’s side and ushering them all into the living room. He busied himself making tea while Louis and Rori continued to cling to each other. No one spoke beyond quite murmurs of thanks and the young couple spent the day doing whatever they could to help, ensuring that the grieving family ate before turning in to bed later in the evening.

They left Doncaster Friday afternoon, driving back to London and leaving Louis  with his family to be together before heading to Wembley the next day. They had assumed that Louis would be cancelling his appearance on X Factor, but he shocked both of them that morning when he announced he was going ahead with the show. They promised to be there and hugged everyone tightly before climbing into their car. Neither spoke on the drive south, both physically and emotionally exhausted by the past two days.

“I just spent the whole time we were there wanting to say something to help Lou, but I had no idea what to say,” Harry admitted once they dropped their overnight bags inside the entry hall of the house.

“There’s nothing you can say,” Aurora said, walking to his side to wrap him in a tight hug. “Not really. At least that’s how it felt when mum died. Anytime anyone told me it was going to be ok I just wanted to scream.”

“Did anything help?” Harry asked softly, his face buried in the crook of her neck.

“Ella stayed over at the hospital that first night. She didn’t say anything, but she just held me. Looking back now, that meant more than anything else. Just knowing that she was there and that I wasn’t alone. That’s what I’ve been trying to do for Lou and the girls, just make sure they feel that they’re not alone.”

“I hate that you ever had to go through that, but I’m glad he has someone that knows what it’s like,” Harry said. “Sorry that sounded really shitty.”

“No I get it,” Rori replied, “and I’m glad I can be there for him too.”

They trudged upstairs and collapsed into bed, neither having the energy or appetite to think about dinner and instead just cuddled up next to each other under the covers. They were silent for a while, both sitting in their own grief until Harry started shaking.

“I can’t help but think we’re going to do this again with Robin,” he sobbed.

“Oh Harry,” Rori sighed, holding him tightly as he cried into her chest. “You can’t think like that. Robin’s tough. He’s going to fight, and he’ll be ok. We deserve the win.”

“We thought that about Jay,” he pointed out.

“I know,” Aurora agreed. “I’m scared too but if I let myself think about it then it’s going to crush us Harry. We have to believe he’ll be ok because we don’t have any other option.”

xXx

They were backstage at Wembley, a little under an hour before the show was set to start and there were plenty of people rushing around getting everything ready. For the most part people were leaving them alone, aware of what had happened and thankfully giving them all space. The boys were all there, as were Lottie and Flic, however Dan and the rest of the kids had stayed back in Doncaster. Occasionally someone would come over to offer their sympathy, while Steve took care of all the technical problems in preparation for the performance. Louis had already gotten through the sound check earlier, mostly holding it together and now was just sitting quietly with his sisters, trying to prepare to go out in front of the sold out crowd, and live tv audience.

“Hey Rori, can we go for a walk?” Louis asked not long before he was needed on stage. She nodded, standing up immediately and following him out of the room. They walked the hallways of the backstage area with his arm around her shoulders and hers firmly around his waist. Aurora stayed quiet, knowing that Louis would let her know what he needed from her. “The night we met,” he finally said, “It was the AMAs, remember?”

“Yeah I remember,” she replied, her voice matching his near whisper.

“That was the first time you performed after your mum?”

“It was the first time on my own,” she explained. “I’d done a couple of smaller shows with the band but that was the first time on my own.”

“How did you do it?”

“It was different. I’d had a few years of missing her, so it wasn’t as fresh, but it was still really hard, especially since the song was about her. I know you’re really asking how you’re supposed to go out there tonight and I don’t really have an answer for that.”

“Yeah, I know, sorry. You’re just the only one I know who’s been where I am right now.”

“You never have to apologise to me Lou. I’ll help however I can because I wish I’d had someone who knew how it felt. But you have something I didn’t have; you’ve got your family and you’ll all get through this together. I guess the best advice I can give is that she loved watching you on stage. She really fucking loved it and she was so proud of you. So am I.” They both started crying and stopped walking to bury their face in the curve of each other’s necks. “I love you so much big brother,” Rori whispered. “We’re all here to help you and the girls through this. You’re not alone.”

“Love you too Rors. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she whispered. “Now go out there and show the world our song.”

“Our song?” Louis scoffed, a small chuckle accompanying his words.

Aurora smiled in response and even though Louis knew exactly what she was doing, he appreciated her giving him shit like she always did. Just this little bit of normalcy helped him to believe that she was right and that it wouldn’t always hurt this much.

“Of course it’s our song,” she joked. “I helped you write the chorus when you stayed with me over summer. I expect my royalty cheques in the mail soon.”

“Not a chance love,” Louis laughed. “You can have the family discount off the merch though.”

“So kind of you.”

xXx

Harry stood behind Aurora as the song began, his arms wrapped tightly around her, his chest pressed firmly against her back and his chin resting on the crown of her head. She watched in awe as Louis jumped around the stage, tears streaming down her face as each line of the song hit like the lashes of a whip.

The sun goes down and it comes back up The world it turns no matter what Oh-oh-oh, if it all goes wrong Darling, just hold on

Even though she’d been the one to help write them, Aurora felt as though every word was slicing at her heart. Like every word was a screaming plea for things to have ended differently. For her to still be here with them. For her to still be here with him.

As the lights came up and the crowd cheered, Aurora brushed aside her tears, taking deep calming breathes so that by the time Louis reached them she was ready to be the shoulder he needed to lean on.

xXx

They’d stayed out late with Louis, eventually calling it a night when Aurora could barely keep her eyes open any longer. They’d collapsed into bed as soon as they returned home in the early hours of the morning, exhausted both physically and mentally.

Harry stirred as the sun streamed in through the bedroom window, the angle disorientating until he realised that it was afternoon and they had slept away half the day. He also realised that the sun had not been what woke him as he watched Rori slip into a pair of jeans, struggling to do up the buttons one handed.

“Need a hand?” he mumbled, voice husky with sleep.

She jumped a little, startled by his question before she turned to him with a cheeky grin. “I do need a hand actually. I seem to have misplaced one of mine.”

Harry rolled his eyes at her joke and motioned her over to the side of the bed so that he could reach out and do up the buttons for her. “Why are you getting dressed? Come back to bed.”

“Gonna go see mum,” she replied, kissing his forehead before grabbing a sweater off the end of the bed and slipping it over her head. “Be back in a few hours.”

“You want company or is this something you gotta do alone?” he asked softly, sitting up and letting the sheets pool around his hips.

“It’s ok baby, go back to sleep.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Harry replied. “I’m coming with you unless you want to be alone.”

“I wouldn’t mind the company,” she answered, smiling softly as Harry climbed out of the bed and slipped into his own clothes, taking her hand before leading her out of the bedroom.

An hour later Harry parked near the Wimbledon Cemetery, rounding the car to hold open the passenger door for Aurora before taking her hand and walking by her side through the large wrought iron gates. They walked quietly past the older headstones until they reached the newer plots, following the familiar winding paths until the reached Louise Bennett’s headstone. The grass was damp beneath Rori’s knees as she sank to the ground, Harry’s hand resting comfortingly on her shoulder as she reached out to brush away the dry autumn leaves on the ground.

“Hi Mumma,” she whispered. “Sorry I haven’t been to visit for a while, it’s been a pretty wild year.”

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

[jobrosupdates]

‘We needed to speak our truth – and forgive’: Jonas Brothers on music, marriage and making up | The Guardian

Six years ago, on the back of 17m album sales, the Disney stars split, devastating their fans. Now they’re back with a No 1 single. They talk about family rifts – and why it took so long to patch things up

“Good to see you,” smiles Kevin Jonas, the first of three Jonas brothers to arrive in the back room of an upmarket hotel in Fitzrovia, London. Kevin and I have indeed met before, many years ago, for an interview he has no reason to remember. Between then and today, the Jonas Brothers have split and now re-formed, and for anyone querying just how in sync the newly reunited band are, Joe is the next to join us. “Good to see you,” he says. A few seconds later, here comes Nick: “Good to see you.”

It is three months since they announced their reunion, more than half a decade since a split that was blamed on a “deep rift within the band”. The pandemonium surrounding their getting back together, which has seen Sucker become the band’s first US No 1 single, feels like a mirror image of how fans reacted to the brutality and abruptness of the split in 2013, when, having sold 17m albums and achieved widespread international fame, the brothers ditched a half-made fifth album and cancelled a world tour they were in the middle of. Nick instigated the split, it emerged; there were musical differences, along with the deep rift.

I ask them how being back and once again hurling themselves into full days of press, fan meets-and-greets and invite-only concerts is going. Kevin is the first to respond: “Well, we haven’t wanted to break up yet.”

The Jonas Brothers began life as a standard teen band. Columbia Records had already released solo music by Nick, who had been performing on Broadway since he was seven. (Today, he describes his seven-year-old self as “incredibly driven and focused and not very fun to be around”, which prompts a knowing laugh from older brother Kevin.) The preposterously wholesome New Jersey brothers’ cover of Busted’s Year 3000, in which their vision of the future referenced girls with “round hair like Star Wars” rather than Busted’s “triple-breasted women”, brought modest success. But when their debut album flopped, Columbia dropped the band and around the same time, their father, a pastor whose involvement in the church had a big impact on the family, lost his job. Joe was 17, Kevin was 19; Nick was just 14. “Lost in the shuffle of major label ‘stuff’,” is how Nick puts it now. At the time, emotions ran higher. “We felt like our journey had come to an end.”

But in the words of another sibling pop band, it had only just begun. In 2007, just weeks after leaving Columbia, the band signed with Disney’s record label Hollywood. Disney’s pitch to the Jonas Brothers was simple, according to Nick. “They called and said: ‘You’ve been working with someone who doesn’t know how to market to this audience. This is literally what we do. We see an opportunity and we want to help you grow.’” Disney’s power had already become obvious to the band when the Year 3000 video was played on one of its TV channels. “I saw our Myspace followers go from 100 to 10,000 in just one day,” Joe says.

Only with hindsight is it clear just how effectively the Disney machine made good on its promise. They inserted the Jonas Brothers, albeit not as the Jonas Brothers, into the TV show Hannah Montana, as Miley Cyrus’s favourite band, in an episode that aired directly after the premiere of High School Musical 2. They gave the siblings their own sitcom, Jonas, in which they played a band (again, not the Jonas Brothers). Then came the movie Camp Rock, in which the Jonas Brothers starred alongside Demi Lovato as the band Connect 3. Once again, not the Jonas Brothers, a strategy Joe now recognises as both “genius and confusing”, but the audience joined the dots, thanks in part to another series, Living The Dream – a fly-on-the-wall show in which the band finally starred as themselves.

Those years involved so many of what Nick describes as “pinch-me-I’m-a-Jonas-Brother moments”, such as performing at the White House as favourites of the Obama administration. Joe recalls playing with Stevie Wonder at the Grammys. “The curtains open and there’s Paul McCartney and Chris Martin, and they’re the first ones out of their seats.” They were applauding, not leaving. “Obviously it was for Stevie Wonder, but that felt rewarding.”

Inconveniently, the brothers, being living organisms, got older, and while the Jonas Brothers owe their success to Disney it was inevitable that they would outgrow the channel’s values. Joe wrote a frank assessment of that time for New York magazine in 2013, saying the band were like “frightened little kids” when faced with Disney’s demands for a clean-cut band. Today, he says simply that Disney was “very helpful when we needed it the most”.

Internally, things were also complex. There is a throwaway comment in one episode of Living the Dream in which the brothers discuss their father, who by that point had taken on the role of the band’s co-manager: “The problem is, we’re never sure when he’s just being dad.” Equally, the band realised the line between brother and bandmate was frequently, inevitably, ill-defined. “Sometimes you just want a dad, sometimes you just want a brother,” Joe says today. “There was confusion when it came to family versus band, and what comes first.”

“When the band broke up, he balanced both really well,” Nick says of their father. “Because I had initiated the conversation for the group to break up, he was comforting to me while I spoke my truth. Then when Joe and Kevin’s reaction was complicated, he was a father to them, and managerial to me.”

I ask Joe and Kevin if they can expand on “complicated”. “Sure,” Joe says. “I was mad as hell.”

The split, Joe says, wasn’t something he was expecting, even if the signs were all there: “The music wasn’t as strong as it had been, we weren’t selling as many tickets. And our relationship was unhealthy. We weren’t communicating as we should have been.” Still, Joe remembers thinking that things would work themselves out. “I kind of just assumed we’d get through this bad phase and something great would happen again.”

By 2009, the Jonas Brothers had been releasing an album every summer since 2006 but their fourth album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times, sold less than half its predecessor, and less than a third of the band’s breakthrough album. After that, Nick and Joe released solo albums, which were poorly received. I ask if the failure of those initial solo outings, followed by the ill-fated retreat to the safety of the band, could have fostered resentment that led to the eventual split. Joe nods. “I wanted to at least get that personal win of being able to do something on my own, which I carried for many years, just thinking: ‘I can’t do anything without these guys.’”

After the band’s split in 2013, Kevin spent time with his wife, Danielle, raising their two daughters, starting a construction company and investing in a handful of ventures including a food app called Yood and a service for social influencers called The Blu Market. Nick released two albums, resulting in some decent airplay and chart hits such as the 2014 single Jealous. Joe formed a band, DNCE, whose 2015 billion-stream behemoth Cake By the Ocean was No 1 from Ecuador to Israel. Despite movie roles for both (Nick in Goat and Jumanji, Joe as a voice actor in Hotel Transylvania 3), and a slot judging on Australia’s The Voice for Joe, their projects hit a wall – one of the tracks from DNCE’s latest EP has broken 7m Spotify streams, while Cake By the Ocean stands at 806m.

Although the brothers were hardly estranged during this period, there was a multi-platinum elephant in the room at family events. In 2017 came the idea of a Jonas Brothers documentary, Chasing Happiness, which is out this week on Amazon. The main aim was closure. “We definitely didn’t think we were going to get back together,” Joe says. During one pivotal moment the band took part in a drinking game (the documentary was not being made by Disney), in which residual issues were pulled out of a hat, and each member rated the other on the honesty of their responses. “We all needed to speak our truth, and be able to forgive,” Nick says. “It’s easy. Say the truth, then it’s behind you. Just say it out loud.”

The brothers insist the plan was simply to draw a line under the band, but a full reunion happened anyway. They contacted the songwriter and producer Ryan Tedder, who has worked with everyone from Adele to U2. They knew they needed to update to reflect pop’s new sound, and what Nick describes as “the ever-changing landscape of the way music is released and how people consume it. We were conscious that there would always be a new wave of entertainers you can feel you’re in competition with but rather than be frustrated with how quickly things change, we’ve chosen to lean into it.” Tedder’s early enthusiasm for the project gave the band the confidence to approach other pop overlords such as Greg Kurstin and Max Martin. “Before,” Joe says, “when it was slowing down, we were nervous to reach out to big producers and writers, thinking they would say no to working with us.”

The result is an album, Happiness Begins, that is arguably better than anything the band made in their earlier years. Free from the late-00s shackles of over-enthusiastic hair straightening, the Jonas Brothers rather suit being older. They seem happy that their audiences in 2019 will generally have drinks in their hands and much like the fans who have grown up with them, these brothers seem more like individuals, too, from Nick in his designer bomber jacket to Kevin in an unassuming lumberjack shirt.

The march of age – Nick is 27, Joe, 29, and Kevin, 31 – also means the brothers are no longer synonymous with the purity rings they once wore as a display of abstinence, which quickly became the target of a rather odd media obsession. Nick has since said that the purity rings ended up shaping his view of sex. “They did,” he restates today. How? “The values behind the idea of understanding what sex is, and what it means, are incredibly important. When I have children, I’ll make sure they understand the importance of sex, and consent, and all the things that are important. What’s discouraging about that chapter of our life is that at 13 or 14 my sex life was being discussed. It was very tough to digest it in real time, trying to understand what it was going to mean to me, and what I wanted my choices to be, while having the media speaking about a 13-year-old’s sex life. I don’t know if it would fly in this day and age. Very strange.”

In any case, the band are all now married. Kevin got hitched to Danielle a decade ago while Nick’s wife is the actor Priyanka Chopra, and Joe married Sophie Turner, Game of Thrones’ Sansa Stark, in a Las Vegas ceremony last month. All three significant others feature in the video for Sucker. “Sophie was pretty adamant that she play the love interest in every music video we do from now on,” Joe notes. “I told her I didn’t think that was possible, but we’d give her the first one.” I ask him if there’s been a strange atmosphere, with one major chapter ending for Turner just as a new one begins for Joe. “We’ve definitely spoken about that. It’s difficult to say goodbye to one … But it’s amazing timing that we could be starting our life together right now.”

The couple’s refreshing approach to dealing with paparazzi in New York, where they live – staring them out, giving them the finger – often sees them go viral. “Early on, we were trying to be secretive about our relationship,” Joe explains. The problem? “We like to sit outside. Pulling faces at the paparazzi is sometimes the best way to handle the situation – and then I see myself on the top of Reddit.” He suddenly becomes rather animated. “I love Reddit! I got so excited when I saw that. I went: ‘We made it!’ She wasn’t as excited.” (He adds that he mainly visits Reddit for Gifs, memes and pictures of “any cute animal”.)

I ask Nick how he and Priyanka, who has experienced a similar level of a different type of fame, manage their public lives. “She’s coming up on 20 years in the business, and weirdly, so am I,” he begins. “But she wasn’t really familiar with us, or me, when we first started dating.” One of their first steps, within their first few weeks together, was a show-and-tell session. “We actually sat down and educated each other, playing videos we were both embarrassed and proud of. It was a helpful way to get to know each other.” (Nick adds, ominously, that Chopra “did a little digging of her own and found out some things about my past”.)

The band’s not exactly hermit-like private lives have undoubtedly boosted their comeback, but, along with Sucker being a nailed-on hit, they have also benefited from a curious type of nostalgia. Their return does transport the mind to a time when their music seemed to soundtrack things slowly getting better, rather than rapidly descending into what Nick describes today as “an incredibly negative time across the whole globe”, and what the rest of us might term an international dumpster fire.

“That should be our album title,” Joe decides. “Before The Dumpster Fire. Six years ago was a lot different everywhere, but we like the idea that we can take people out of it and smile and bring some joy to 2019.”

This feels like as appropriate a time as any to bring up the internet theory that Kevin’s appearance on the US version of Celebrity Apprentice was directly responsible for Trump’s presidency. The Jonas Brothers aren’t known for their political views but the theory goes like this: Kevin’s presence gave the ailing show an early ratings boost, but after Kevin attempted to outfox Trump in the boardroom and got himself fired, the rest of the season’s ratings were poor, and now here we are. “You can do the math on it, and it lines up,” Kevin accepts. “It’s plausible, I guess, that the need for attention could have led from bad ratings to the presidency. I hope that’s not the case.” Would he like to apologise to the world? “No. I do not take credit for it.”

I ask Nick if, as he has previously stated, he would still like to run for president himself one day. “Politics is a very tricky thing,” he diplomatically responds. “It’s a very different time to when I first mentioned my desire to be president.”

“He’s practising,” Kevin laughs.

“We’ll take what we can get,” Joe mutters.

With that, it’s time for the band to clear off and perform for fans in Kingston, London. Before they go I ask what Connect 3, the band they portrayed in Camp Rock, are doing now. “I think,” Nick says, “they’re just really jealous that the Jonas Brothers are back.”

Jonas Brothers’ new album, Happiness Begins, is out on 7 June on Polydor/Republic Records

Source: The Guardian

[jackshithere]

Till and Schneider in an interview with the "Stern"

source

They sing about child abuse, incest, necrophilia. In a video they show excerpts from Leni Riefenstahl's body-cult Olympia movie. And when singer Till Lindemann rolls the R, it roars out of the speakers as it once did from the Volksempfänger. The Wall Street Journal stated, "Woah, that's German!" Rammstein, a german band. A [politically] right band? Since its founding in early 1994, the six musicians from Schwerin and East Berlin are suspected of doing right-wing rock.

In fact, the lyrics with their portrayals of sex and violence are often close to censorship - but fascism is not even between the lines. Now Rammstein, with around three million albums sold, the internationally most successful German-language band since Kraftwerk end of the 70s, a new CD on the market: "Mutter" is by pre-orders even before the release on 2 April for the top 3 of the German charts written down.

The 'Stern' spoke with singer Till Lindemann and drummer Christoph Schneider about their youth in the GDR, Rammstein as a therapy - and provocation as a stylistic device.

On your new album you have underlined the title "Left 234" with the sound of marching boots. That sounds like the newsreel 60 years ago.

Schneider: The piece was the first attempt by Rammstein to deal artistically with the eternal reproach that we are a right-wing band. It's almost funny that this will cause some discussion again.

But you could have omitted the marching sound. Would not the message that your heart seems to be "leftist" be less clear then?

Till: That's the intention. One lets something march and then answers.

Schneider: We hate to express ourselves clearly. Rammstein always has room for interpretation.

That makes for misunderstandings.

Till: That was right from the start. We all grew up in the GDR, come from the punk scene. If we wanted to perform there, we had to present our repertoire before the so-called rating commission. Of course, you had to think very carefully about what you say, what you sing and sometimes how you play. Any criticism of the system was prohibited. So you had to try and make a loop. That's probably why it's still within us that we like to respond ambiguously.

Schneider: When you look at lyrics from GDR bands, you can see how good they are in part when they rewrite a subject with lyrical means. This past is closely connected with us. We can not get away from it. That was our youth. If we came from the west, Rammstein would not exist. At any rate, we would not be so violent.

Why not?

Till: What do you want to do to get you to play in front of more than ten people? You start using provocative means and being extreme. There we were certainly more courageous than East Germans. It started when we sang that kind of hard music in German. And then something has also unloaded what had accumulated in our GDR youth, because we have reacted abreacted. Finally we were allowed to say everything, do everything. Basically it was quite simple: look into your stomach, look into your soul, and start making music.

Out of your seemingly very dark soul came out lines like:

 "My black blood and your white flesh / I'm getting hornier from your shrieks". [Mein schwarzes Blut und dein weißes Fleisch ich werd immer geiler von deinem Gekreisch] 

Was that more than a provocation? 

Schneider: The provocation is exhausted at some point. There are only a few topics that are good for it. We used them up.

Till: What's the use of writing the same kids fuck song for the third time?

Schneider: We started with the tank at that time, regardless of left or right or losses, and we broke through. We have been heard. Now we're going to deal with the pieces left over. And start to realize what we really are - a German metal band. With the new album we often asked ourselves: Is that still Rammstein? Are we starting to make only beautiful music? So far, the new record is no longer provocative. That's certainly mainstream. But good mainstream.

The provocation of Rammstein is not only based on the ambiguous texts, but also on the aesthetics of the band and their show. Military headlights [basically Batman signal thingy] shining in the sky are evoking images of Nazi Nazi party rallies; Lindemann's throaty chant reminds us of the rolled-up R Nazi sizes. Does it have to be that way?

Till: The R comes on its own. When I sing so deeply and expressively, my vocal cord flutters, and then it just rolls. By the way: Peter Maffay's vocal cord reacts similarly, but also rolls the R. And the light dome, which looks good, right? It's not about more. Just because it's associated with those twelve crappy years, should not that be allowed anymore? Then tear down the Olympic Stadium and all the other Nazi buildings in Berlin! This is twelve years that this idiot named Hitler has on his conscience, and again and again one comes back to it. It's about art. There is no relationship between one and the other.

Schneider: This discussion shows that there seems to be no coping with the past in society. You can say: Okay, there is the light dome, I think that's good, and there's the Reich Party Rally, I think that's shit. You can separate that, everyone for yourself. Only in this way can one find the way to one's own history. I can not always think, oh, it's all so loaded, I can not talk about it, and the others could think ... No, open dispute! The task of Rammstein is also the search for an independent music, a German music. Of course, we come across our story and get all these allegations. But I see that rather positively: We try to find our own identity, which many musicians or artists in Germany have given up long ago.

This also means that you show no emotion on stage and Lindemann beats his head bloody with the microphone?

Till: We're actors on stage, that's show. You do not notice the pain when you hit the same spot every night on the head. Schneider has even received a broken neon tube in the shoulder. Paul, our guitarist, burned my ear in Australia now.

Schneider: It's probably like this: Rammstein is like a self-help group for us. Like a therapy.

When did you first learn about the era of National Socialism?

Till: We grew up with Auschwitz. With us was the everyday life: group travel with the school to the camps, see Buchenwald, flowers lie down at monuments, join the concentration camp march through Mecklenburg, to Güstrow along the highway. There are such monuments on every corner.

Schneider: In the GDR civics and history lessons were strongly antifascist-colored. Everything except communism was evil: fascism, West Germany, capitalism. These were all taboos. I think that's why we now have this pronounced right-wing extremism in the East: I'm shit, and I want to draw attention to myself. So I use the worst of what I know - and become a neo-Nazi.

Why do not you participate in concerts like "Rock against right-wing violence"?

Schneider: We do not want to be tense with these carts. That would be ridiculous. Then it is said that we used it only to become even more popular. Besides, what's the use? The right ones are there. They are part of our population. We have to accept this problem and finally accept that there are these tendencies in Germany. It does not help to always exclude the right. We have to talk to those who solve their problems.

Rammstein reaches the Far right scene.

Till: We reach many, including the advertisers in Hamburg. And as far as the right is concerned, for me the state is too soft-spoken about the problem. You have a black half-dead, and there are construction hours as punishment. We used to beat ourselves with skins even before the turnaround in Schwerin - why do not you go through harder today? I grew up with a girl who is a mulatto. She still visits Mecklenburg every summer. She is afraid of people and does not dare to go to certain places. I'm just ashamed of that.

Nevertheless, you play with a Germany image that evokes certain memories.

Schneider:DRammstein is not a concept. We've come together to do this music and show, and we work like a support group. We do what we like well, nothing more. Maybe that's why our fans think we are authentic. Following the motto: Rammstein do their thing and are not like the others. This may also explain our success in the US. But with that our critics get a problem again: They fear that the American kids will not associate with Germany any more than Rammstein. The Americans are really only on our artistic skills. This is politically overrated.

Till: One does not ask Ricky Martin which political attitude he has. You listen to a song, find it good or bad. That's all.

[softkitten]

months in music 2018

Welcome back to another year end round-up. Longtime readers will note that there is not one of these for 2017. That’s because 2017 was no damn good, and writing about it once it was finally over felt like no kind of fun at all. 2018 was much kinder. 

January: Finn - “Sometimes the Going Gets a Little Tough” January’s song plays like an overture for the year to come, an uptempo, retro house track about perseverance and forgiveness. I don’t remember January very well at all, and it wasn’t because I was partying so hard. I spent the first month of the year in the car, back and forth between Calgary and Saskatoon, back and forth over and over, trying to secure employment and housing. It was exhausting and incredibly lonely. The bright chords and pitched-up vocals here promised future happiness and stability, and that was what I was counting on when I played it on repeat all alone. 

February: Mija - “Notice Me” Sheena and I spent all of February in different cities, our longest time apart since getting together in 2010. I was living in my best friend’s basement and in my first month of a new job, Sheena was working herself to the bone packing up our old life in Saskatoon box by box. February was hideously cold in Calgary, and this was what I’d play when I’d shiver down cellar, missing home and warmth and love. 

March: Låpsley - “Operator” (DJ Koze’s Extended Disco Version) On Sheena’s birthday, I played a Thursday night gig in a tiny Calgary club, and the only people in attendance were other DJs. The first guy on sounded like Black Coffee, the dude who played after him sounded like Marcel Dettmann. I was third up and I leaned on vocal-heavy disco and house and all 15 people in attendance agreed that this was the vibe. Getting the tiny room sweating to “Operator,” a song known and beloved to daily Resident Advisor readers and few others, was an early high point in the year. 

April: Calvin Harris ft. Dua Lipa - “One Kiss” Winter lingered in 2018 like a bad cough, with miserable regular snowfalls continuing well into April. “One Kiss” dropped near the middle of the month and signalled carefree times ahead, hot nights and long swims, summer’s inevitability. It was what I desperately needed to hear at the time and I still haven’t stopped playing it. 

May: The 1975 - “Give Yourself a Try” The first single from The 1975′s third album, my favourite LP of 2018. This song scans to me as a reassessment of one’s priorities and one’s capabilities. I was a few months along into a job wherein I ran a day program for disabled adults. Prior to taking that job, I’d worked graveyard shifts in a group home for three straight years, where I was paid to be bored, stay awake and see no one. Switching back to a daytime schedule and having a job where I tested and developed my actual skills made me feel like my personality had changed overnight, as if I’d just kicked some awful habit. I had more energy, more patience. I was a much kinder person, and someone with a focus on my career and my closer relationships, rather than the messy, overextended person I was in previous years. 

June: Disclosure ft. Fatoumata Diawara - “Ultimatum” After a few months on the shelf, I started getting gigs again, including a few nights at a local watering hole downtown. Getting back into DJ’ing after a winter and spring spent on my ass and out of practice was difficult, but after a few sessions I found I was sounding better than ever. I did some of the best DJ’ing I’ve done my entire life this year. I found a sound that’s unlike anyone else local, and found new ways to play to crowds who are decidedly not my people. I’m very excited to double down in 2019 and find more spaces to play the music I love. 

July: Kloves - “Trigger” Compared to previous years, I didn’t get out to as many shows as I’d have liked. Once moved, it took me until December to even get out of Calgary. That said, I saw one of the best shows I’ve ever seen at the Junction this July when Kloves came on before Thor. Kloves began their set playing well above 133bpm and didn’t let up once, delivering relentless, pummelling techno that left the room panting with exhaustion. I’ve learned so much about the role of the DJ from Kloves, and their entire set that night made me feel like I was the coolest person. I think that’s what you ought to be doing, giving your audience space to perform the version of themselves they find the most exciting. 

August: The Midnight - “Endless Summer” I felt cheated in August, pulled in too many different directions. I had gigs most weekends, we had friends and family coming in to visit us, I signed myself up for a three-day camping trip out in Alberta back country with the day program I worked for. It wasn’t without fun, the gigs were well-paid, it was fantastic to see friends I’d missed dearly, but I left the last month of summer wishing for more time to myself. This song reflects the fantasy of that. The Midnight create a world where it’s eternally the last night of summer vacation, and your friend’s just pulled up in a coke-white IROC. I wanted to escape to that place whenever I could, and forestall the warmth and pleasure whenever I could find it. 

September: Robyn - “Baby Forgive Me” September was tough on both Sheena and I. I started a new, better-paid job working with incarcerated women, and the new opportunity was great but also daunting, much harder than my last gig. Sheena’s workplace, meanwhile, went septic as her depression flared. Neither of us were perfect during the month of September, stress did what it usually does to long term relationships, but both of us took care of each other during our low points and talked through the problems we had with tools that weren’t available to us in the year before, or the year before that. 

October: Pulp - “Dishes” A man told me to beware of 33. He said, “It was not an easy time for me.” But I’ll get through, even though I’ve got no miracles to show you. I’ve listened to Pulp, and This Is Hardcore, for literally half my life, but I found myself returning to it frequently in my birth month. Its lyrics about aging, being childless, holding on to persona and wondering what that means as youth slips off made a lot more sense to me than they did at 17. I found a lot of peace this year in being ‘the man who stays home and does the dishes,’ rather than the man out in public doing just anything for approval. I have been slower on the draw to make friends since moving cities. That’s because I absolutely refuse to participate in a social circle comprised mostly of people I don’t like and who don’t like me, as I’ve done in Victoria, Vancouver, and Saskatoon. 

November: Pale Waves - “Drive” This choice is pretty straightforward - I got a new car in November and it’s as goth as Pale Waves are, sexy and fast and loud and cavernous. I can’t wait to road trip in it out to Vancouver in April, to see Pale Waves when they open up for The 1975. I’m already dreaming of putting it into Sport Mode on the Coquihalla and scaring the hell out of the local wildlife. 

December: MK - “17″ I hate Christmas. I wish I didn’t, but, boy, do I ever. Every year, it’s something. Last year I had something like $2500.00 worth of car trouble starting on the 16th and continuing straight through to the 23rd. This year, I stocked my schedule to the absolute breaking point in attempt to see absolutely everyone and please absolutely everyone, and then got the flu on Christmas Day. I write this from bed; today is the first day I’ve felt fully well in about a week. I had to cancel on several friends, an act that I will go really far out of my way to avoid because it triggers all my anxiety and guilt. Fuck Christmas, past the age of about 12 it’s nothing but a regularly scheduled disappointment. 

This is about cutting yourself loose from all that. In the middle of the month, Sheena and I saw Sonny Fodera play a basement venue in Calgary and the set’s highlight came when he dropped this upbeat UK house tune. I felt completely overjoyed and completely free when I heard it, and looking around, it’s safe to assume that the room did as well. It was reassuring, it felt safe. If Sheena and I renew our vows or do some showy anniversary celebration in the future, I want this song played. I want to live up to its promise, I feel every day that I’m hearing it back to me, and I really want to reciprocate. 

Songs of the Year: Nine Inch Nails - “Shit Mirror”

Is it a sign of arrested development that, occasionally, it feels like Trent Reznor is talking directly to me, just like it did when I was 14 and looking for my identity wherever I could find it? “Shit Mirror” is about becoming something new, being surprised and delighted and scared. I tested myself a lot in 2018 and I find I like myself a lot better than I did 365 days ago. 

[desperatelyfullforever]

Time for a Badly Written Out Omo Story!

So, remember how I said that I have tons of stories? Well, here’s one.

So, this story is me in marching band. A bit of info: tall dark-skinned girl, with curly hair that reached my shoulders and was often pulled into a puff ball. Tomboy, always wearing sweats/jeans and flannel. On this typical day however, I was not the person in dire need for a toilet. My friend was.

Let’s call her Angie. Tiny Hispanic girl without a lick of an accent unless speaking Spanish. She had long, curly/wavy hair, brown eyes, glasses, and barely stood past 5’0” at this point in time. Average body, she wasn’t overweight but wasn’t skinny either. Just a bit of pudgy belly that’s honestly adorable.

A bit more information about her: Angie typically, by some ungodly reason can go an entire school day without so much as a glance at a bathroom. I would know, I’ve known her for 7 years and she’s only urgently needed one about 6 or 7 times. So, to see her desperate is a godsend.

So, for this story, we were in high school. I’ll add that we’re both instrumentalists and thus played in our school’s marching band, her playing the clarinet while I played the trumpet. We typically did a football game for our high school varsity team once a week, while almost every week we had a competition. Then there were “double-headers”, where we would have both a football game and a competition in one day.

On this day, reporting time was 9am in the morning. Me being the good friend that I am, I call Angie and asked if she wants a coffee, because I’m on my way getting one. She said yes, got her a large. Got to school and she finishes it within ten minutes. No big deal, it was expected. We all arrive and go through today’s agenda: away football game in 2 hours, leave during halftime, arrive at competition, get home by midnight.

Not really surprised, honestly I expect it. Buses get there at 12:30, so we have a bit of time in between after a couple run-throughs. We get food, with her buying an iced tea and a water to wash the sugar out of her mouth. Both the water and tea are gone within an hour, and by the time we’re scheduled to leave we camp out in front of the school, waiting for the buses to arrive.

Did I mention that it’s incredibly hot on this day? Did I also mention how shitty the band uniforms are? Our uniforms are thick enough to trap heat inside in the summer, yet not thick enough to act as insulation in the winter. The band parents pass out water to all of us, Angie grabbing a couple.

Finally, the buses arrive. The school is roughly about a half hour away, and I sit with Angie. Normal conversation, nothing out of the ordinary. It’s at the tail end of the bus ride that I notice her a bit tenser than usual, wincing when zipping up the band uniform (they don’t stretch at all; sitting down in them is a pain because it typically just cuts into your body). “Are you okay?” I asked.

She blushed a bit. ��I’m fine.”

I left it at that. Didn’t pry, didn’t ask. We finished changing and after the bus stopped, got off and heading to the game. For away games, we perform before the game unless a special request is made (such as the away team not having a marching band or some sort of halftime show), so we were asked to fill in for them. We warm up and get on the bleachers, not really allowed to play because we’re using the show as our warmup for the competition later that night.

I sit with Angie, and she’s quiet. A lot more than usual. She’s also a lot tenser than earlier, not saying anything and simply keeping to herself. “Are you sure everything’s okay?” I ask.

Allow me to describe the field. It’s fucking huge and a bit of a ways away from the high school, so there’s concession stands and bathroom (read: port-o-potties) on both sides. Today just so happens to be this high school’s Senior Day, so it’s packed with families and whatnot. She’s sweating bullets so, in concern and curiosity, I ask her, “Do you need something to drink?”

She stiffens immediately and vigorously shakes her head before stammering, “No! I mean, I…I’m good. I had a bit of water earlier when we first sat down.”

No, she didn’t. She hadn’t had anything since the bus ride, and I know the large coffee, iced tea, water bottle, and two smaller bottles of water earlier were starting to go through her. So, I decide to be a bit of a bitch and ask, “I had a lot to drink, I’m gonna head to the bathroom. Do you need to go?”

I can’t even begin to tell you how many emotions went through her eyes when I said that, and that right there told me that her bladder was, if not full, at the very least filling up enough to be of mild concern. Part of her wanted to say yes, while the other wanted to stay put. Guess what side won out?

“I’m fine. I don’t need to go.” Lies, but I left it there and went to the bathroom. Admittedly, if she had gone one of us would’ve been shit out of luck because I left to go pee around the middle of the first quarter, and the marching band leaves during the middle of the second quarter to warm up and prepare to march onto the field. I get back right as we are packing up to head onto the track surrounding the field, and Angie looks worse for wear. Typically, she’s a lot more hyper, but right now she’s quiet as hell and keeping to herself.

As we’re walking onto the field the band parents are handing us cups of water to drink before we go onto the field (right now it’s about 85 degrees, or roughly 29 in Celsius) and they won’t let us go until we finish it, so we do. Angie takes hers like it’s a damn shot and chucks the cup in the trash before putting on a face, marching to her section.

So, from that point we’re simply warming up, playing parts of the show, etc. About two minutes left on the scoreboard we stand on the track, waiting for the players to be done with the first half so we can perform. We march on in a block, with it going by grade: seniors, juniors, etc. Angie’s standing next to me, and she’s fidgeting. It looks more like her being impatient, but to the trained eye it’s clear she’s feeling full. She’s shifting from foot to foot just a tad while fiddling with her clarinet.

Finally, we perform, and let me tell you, our show this year had a TON of kneeling, running, etc. Keep in mind earlier I said how our uniforms don’t stretch, so the material digs into your skin. The show is eight minutes long, and after we perform we march off to load the buses immediately and to use the bathroom when we get to the next high school. We get on the bus, and drive to the next school.

Now, this ride is about 45 minutes long. Angie is clearly fidgety; she’s rocking back and forth and has her hands somewhat in her lap. I ask her again if she’s okay and she insists that she is. Then we hit a hard, hard bump and she gasps out loud before clawing at her uniform, saying she’s hot and wants a bit of fresh air before we march again. Okay, fair, I don’t pry.

Halfway there, re run into traffic. She’s being way too obvious at this point, and I simply watch in silence while increasingly growing turned on. We get there an hour later, having barely enough time to get ready to perform. We’re told that we’ll use the bathrooms after, which is not going to end well; we’re the third to last band, so we can’t wander too far because the second band just gets to the sidelines while the last band performs. We quickly put our instruments away and the vast majority of kids haul ass to the bathrooms or getting food. Angie and I are captains, so we straggle behind to make sure everything’s okay with our respective sections. All five of the kids in her section hands her their clarinet so that they can rush to the bathroom (she’s known for never needing the bathroom, so they just assumed), and she’s squirming like hell. Her legs are crossed and she just can’t seep to get comfortable. By this point in time, it’d be stupid to rush to the bathroom because everybody is already in line, so she’d have no chance in getting in one until after the awards.

Finally, everybody comes back. Her section takes their instruments from her, and the second they do I notice her frantically unzip her uniform (it’s two layers, a jacket over an overall-type pants that zip up in the front) and sighing in relief. It’s still warm out, so the band parents once again hand out cups, and she once again chugs it.

Boring part of it is sitting through awards. She sat near family so I didn’t really get a good look at her, but the awards lasted for about 75 minutes before we closed (about 16 bands performed, and there were a lot of awards and scores such as best drumline, best color guard, etc.), so we ended roughly on schedule (we got to the football game before around 1ish, the game started at 2, we performed at 4:30, left at 5:15, got stuck in traffic until 7:30, performed at 8:10ish, last band performed at 10:15, awards started at 10:45, and ran until midnight).

I finally meet up with Angie who’s looking entirely too anxious to leave. “I’m hungry,” she says to me, grabbing my hand and pulling me from the crowd. “Can we get food?”

I know why she wants to go. The bathrooms are right next to the concessions. Luckily, we need to leave right away because it’s so late, so the band parents had already brought food for us to eat. We grab food and drinks and board the bus again. Of course, people are being asses and using chairs as tables for plates so there are less seats. I let Angie sit in my lap as we sit by the window.

In order for both of us to be comfortable I basically wrap my arms around her so that she stays steady, which means putting pressure on her bladder. The moment I do this she winces and crosses her legs tightly (by this point we’re out of uniform, both of us in shorts and a t-shirt). I say nothing for the most part.

About five minutes in, she gets a phone call with her parents asking me to take her home. Sure, I don’t mind. We’re gonna get home after 1 in the morning, so I didn’t mind in the slightest. But that meant waitng even longer, because I typically help unpack everything, and that takes about twenty minutes.

Anyway, another few minutes pass and she begins to tremble on and off. There’s times she’s still yet tense, other times she’s squirming like fuck. She slips a bit after a bump, and I naturally tense my arms to catch her. I push a decent amount on her bladder, and she gasps loudly while grabbing herself.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” I ask. “It looks like you need to…”

“Don’t say anything,” she cuts me off as she rips her hands away. “I’m…fine…” this is said while she’s tense as fuck and rocking back and forth in my lap.

I shrug, smirking. “Do you mind handing me my water, then?”

Of course, that fucks with her hard. She grabs it out of my bag and moans, “Oh, fuck,” from feeling the condensation, tossing it onto the seat next to us. She grabs herself again and wheezes, “Fuck, I need to pee damn it!”

Finally! With her saying it she finally gives in, whimpering while rocking her hips back and forth. She’s grinding into me pretty hard, rubbing against me every so often to work me up pretty damn good. “How much time left before we get to the school?” she whispers.

“About a half hour left.”

That only seems to make her need to go more, as she clutches herself. I sit there, not knowing what to say until a few moments later she goes, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”, grabs my hand and places it over her crotch, pressing her hands over mine while grinding into it.

Cue me overwhelmingly horny and turned on beyond belief at this point. I’d never thought I’d see the day where Angie’s dying for a piss, yet here she is, grinding into my hand while sitting in my lap. Unconsciously, I begin massaging her with the palm of my hand while relishing the sight in front of me.

Allow me to tell you how the hell we didn’t get caught. It was dark as hell inside the bus, and we were near the very back. Plus, the majority of kids were already knocked out from exhaustion. We’d only get caught if someone heard or was looking for it.

Here we are, with her grinding into my moving hand when I feel a spurt against my fingers. She moans and curls into a ball, rocking her hips harder. “Help, please,” she pleads.

Well, she asked.

Instantly I pull her against me even more and tilt her head to mine, kissing her. At first she’s understandably shocked to hell and back, but after a desperate grunt she kisses back. I rub my hand faster against her, making sure to get enough friction through her shorts.

I move from her lips and begin kissing her neck, urging her to keep quiet. She grabs at my legs and cocks her head to the side to give me more access, biting her lip. Did I ever mention that she’s bi, and we’ve had a crush on each other for the longest time? At this point we’ve had unresolved sexual tension like you wouldn’t believe, hence this situation happening like it did.

Anyway, after a lot of heavy petting I decide to risk it and slip my hand underneath her shorts into her slick folds, rubbing her clit while putting a bit of pressure on her bladder to see how she responds. She shivers and grinds harder into my hand, whispering words in Spanish. “Si bebe, no te atrevas a parar.” So, I keep going.

I never fully bring her over the edge because I don’t want her to cum and accidentally lose it, plus it’s just too good to be true for me and I don’t want it to end. By the time we get back to the school she’s leaked a couple more times and can’t keep a hand from between her legs, whether it’s mine or hers. I help pack everything away, with her standing to the side squirming and shuffling around.

I rush a bit and finish five minutes early, hurrying her to the car. Angie lives about ten minutes from the school so it’s not horrible, but right then and there it felt way too short. So, I stop for gas. It’s at this point that she’s on the verge of tears and is frantic as fuck in the car; both hands between her legs, legs moving back and forth, constant crossing and re-crossing, whimpers and moans, and so on. By the time I pull off she gasps again, louder than ever. “I can’t hold it, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna pee!” she whines, looking around as if there’s something she can go in.

“You better not piss in my car,” I warn.

She moans again and rips her shorts down, as if to squat down. “Don’t you fucking dare,” I growl. She finally lifts her shorts back up and continue holding it in, but now I hear steady, sharp leaks. By the time I get her to her house she’s so full it’s insane. She steps out of the car, makes it two steps and the damn bursts. She moans loudly it concerns me, until I notice the HUGE mess. A puddle already is forming, and she looks so relieved.

She takes about two minutes to finish, before inviting me inside and us finally sleeping together. 

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Nearly a third of U.S. workers under 40 considered changing careers during the pandemic (Washington Post) When Orlando Saenz was laid off at the end of January, he was devastated. For nearly a decade, he had worked as an executive assistant at an Austin law firm, and it was hard to envision his next steps. But then it dawned on him: This setback could be the kick he needed to finally finish his associate’s degree and seek a better career. A few days later, Saenz, 40, enrolled in community college. He plans to get a paralegal license. The enhanced unemployment aid gave him the financial cushion to “treat school as my job,” he said, for a few months. “If you come out of the pandemic the same as you were, you’ve missed an opportunity to evolve and grow as a person,” Saenz said. “I just realized I needed to do better.” Saenz is not alone. Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. workers under 40 have thought about changing their occupation or field of work since the pandemic began, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, conducted July 6 to 21. About 1 in 5 workers overall have considered a professional shift, a signal that the pandemic has been a turning point for many. Many people told The Post that the pandemic altered how they think about what is important in life and their careers. It has given them a heightened understanding that life is short and that now is the time to make the changes they have long dreamed of. The result is a great reassessment of work, as Americans fundamentally reimagine their relationships to their jobs.

Food stamp benefits to permanently expand by over 25% in October, USDA announces (USA Today) Needy families will get a permanent boost to their food stamps benefits in October under an expansion of the program announced Monday. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will increase benefits for about 42 million program participants by more than 25% after finishing a review that determined existing benefits are too low to pay for a healthy diet. The increase kicks in on Oct. 1, when beneficiaries in what is officially known as the SNAP program will receive an average bump of about $36.24 per month, the agency announced Monday. While benefits have increased along with inflation, the USDA said this adjustment represents the first expansion of its purchasing power since it was first introduced in 1975.

First-ever water shortage declared on the Colorado River, triggering water cuts for some states in the West (Reuters) For the first time, federal officials declared a water shortage at the Lake Mead reservoir, a status that causes a slash to the annual apportionment of water to several states in the Southwest. In the year beginning in October, Arizona will lose 18 percent of its annual water apportionment, Nevada will lose 7 percent, and the apportionments to Mexico will decrease by 5 percent. Right now, 59.2 million Americans live in a place with drought, which encompasses 99 percent of the Western United States. Total water storage in the Colorado River system is at 40 percent capacity, down from 49 percent in 2020.

T-Mobile hacked (Motherboard) T-Mobile confirmed that hackers accessed the telecom’s systems on Monday. One hacker claimed that 100 million people had compromised data in the breach, and in a forum post offered 30 million people’s data for 6 bitcoin (about $270,000). Samples of the data contained “social security numbers, phone numbers, names, physical addresses, unique IMEI numbers, and driver license information.”

Tropical storm drenching earthquake-stricken Haiti (AP) Tropical Storm Grace swept over Haiti with drenching rains just two days after a powerful earthquake battered the impoverished Caribbean nation, adding to the misery of thousands who lost loved ones, suffered injuries or found themselves homeless and forcing overwhelmed hospitals and rescuers to act quickly. After nightfall, heavy rain and strong winds whipped at the country’s southwestern area, hit hardest by Saturday’s quake, and officials warned that rainfall could reach 15 inches (38 centimeters) in some areas before the storm moved on.

Japan to extend COVID-19 emergency lockdown as cases surge (Reuters) Japan was set on Tuesday to extend its state of emergency in Tokyo and other regions to Sept. 12 and widen curbs to seven more prefectures, as COVID-19 cases spike in the capital and nationwide, burdening the medical system. The state of emergency will cover slightly less than 60% of the population after the government adds the prefectures of Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Shizuoka, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka.

American diplomats reckon with Afghanistan’s collapse (Foreign Policy) Current and former U.S. diplomats who served in Afghanistan have watched the events of the past week with horror as the Taliban stormed through the country and ultimately seized control of the capital, Kabul, on Sunday, undoing two decades of hard-won progress in the country. For many American officials, the collapse of the Afghan government and the hasty evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul are deeply personal. Around one-quarter of the U.S. diplomatic corps has served in Afghanistan or Iraq over the past 20 years. In interviews with a dozen people who held posts in Afghanistan, current and former diplomats conveyed feelings of deep anger, shock, and bitterness about the collapse of the government they spent decades trying to build. Several currently serving officials, who spoke to Foreign Policy on condition of anonymity, said the events had prompted thoughts about resigning from the foreign service. But mostly the diplomats said they felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and fear for the lives of the former Afghan colleagues and local staff whom the American government left behind. “We did such a disservice to the local staff who worked for us,” said Shaila Manyam, a former career foreign service officer who had served as spokesperson for the president’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2015. “They take on incredible risks working for us and we’ve screwed them too,” she said. Ryan Crocker, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012, said the fate of Afghan women weighed heavily on him. “We encouraged them to step forward, and they did. In politics, the economy, the military,” he said. “The implicit part of that deal was, ‘You step forward, and we’ve got your backs.’ And now we don’t.”

Biden’s Betrayal of Afghans (The Atlantic) There’s plenty of blame to go around for the 20-year debacle in Afghanistan—enough to fill a library of books. Perhaps the effort to rebuild the country was doomed from the start. But our abandonment of the Afghans who helped us, counted on us, staked their lives on us, is a final, gratuitous shame that we could have avoided. The Biden administration failed to heed the warnings on Afghanistan, failed to act with urgency—and its failure has left tens of thousands of Afghans to a terrible fate. This betrayal will live in infamy. The burden of shame falls on President Joe Biden. For months, members of Congress and advocates in refugee, veteran, and human-rights organizations have been urging the Biden administration to evacuate America’s Afghan allies on an emergency basis. For months, dire warnings have appeared in the press. The administration’s answers were never adequate: We’re waiting for Congress to streamline the application process. Half the interpreters we’ve given visas don’t want to leave. We don’t want to panic the Afghan people and cause the government in Kabul to collapse. Evacuation to a U.S. territory like Guam could lead to legal problems, so we’re looking for third-country hosts in the region. Most of the interpreters are in Kabul, and Kabul won’t fall for at least six months. Some of these answers might have been sincere. All of them were irrelevant, self-deceiving, or flat-out false.

A war’s secret history (Washington Post) In the summer of 2011, Army Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV made a round of public appearances to boast that he had finally solved a problem that had kept U.S. troops bogged down in Afghanistan for a decade. “They’re probably the best-trained, the best-equipped and the best-led of any forces we’ve developed yet inside of Afghanistan,” he said. But according to documents obtained by the Washington Post, U.S. military officials privately harbored fundamental doubts for the duration of the war that the Afghan security forces could ever become competent or shed their dependency on U.S. money and firepower. “Thinking we could build the military that fast and that well was insane,” an unnamed former U.S. official told government interviewers in 2016. Over two decades, the U.S. government invested over $85 billion to train and equip the Afghans and pay their salaries. Today, all that’s left is arsenals of weapons, ammunition and supplies that have fallen into the hands of the enemy. Though it was obvious from the beginning that the Afghans were struggling to make the U.S.-designed system work, the Pentagon kept throwing money at the problem and assigning new generals to find a solution. Recruiting was hard enough, but was compounded by startling rates of desertion and attrition. Another biggest hardship was having to teach virtually every recruit how to read. Making everything harder was the Obama administration’s decision to rapidly expand the size of the Afghan security forces from 200,000 soldiers and police officers to 350,000. With recruits at a premium, Afghans were rushed through boot camp, even if they couldn’t shoot or perform other basic tasks. As the years passed, it became apparent that the strategy was failing. Yet U.S. military commanders kept insisting in public that everything was going according to plan.

Blaming Afghans? (The New Yorker) The Afghans now have suffered generation after generation of not just continuous warfare but humanitarian crises, one after the other, and Americans have to remember that this wasn’t a civil war that the Afghans started among themselves that the rest of the world got sucked into. This situation was triggered by an outside invasion, initially by the Soviet Union, during the Cold War, and since then the country has been a battleground for regional and global powers seeking their own security by trying to militarily intervene in Afghanistan, whether it be the United States after 2001, the C.I.A. in the nineteen-eighties, Pakistan through its support first for the mujahideen and later the Taliban, or Iran and its clients. To blame Afghans for not getting their act together in light of that history is just wrong.

Taliban allowing ‘safe passage’ from Kabul in US airlift (AP) The Taliban have agreed to allow “safe passage” from Afghanistan for civilians struggling to join a U.S.-directed airlift from the capital, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said Tuesday, although a timetable for completing the evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and others has yet to be worked out with the country’s new rulers. Jake Sullivan acknowledged reports that some civilians were encountering resistance—“being turned away or pushed back or even beaten”—as they tried to reach the Kabul international airport. But he said “very large numbers” were reaching the airport and the problem of the others was being taken up with the Taliban, whose stunningly swift takeover of the country on Sunday plunged the U.S. evacuation effort into chaos, confusion and violence. Pentagon officials said that after interruptions on Monday, the airlift was back on track and being accelerated despite weather problems, amid regular communication with Taliban leaders. Additional U.S. troops arrived and more were on the way, with a total of more than 6,000 expected to be involved in securing the airport in coming days.