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lately, nabi's been pondering a fundamental problem in life. or maybe it's not so much about life itself, and it's merely only about relationships instead. or perhaps, it's not even that much to do with relationships… and instead the crux of the issue comes from a place much closer to home— her own heart.
…of course, that last notion is inconceivable. nabi can't recall a time where she ever was wrong!
but let's pretend she is, even if just for the sake of considering all possibilities. so then, if she is wrong, there's something to be said about the way in which her head remains held up high, as though refusing to even breathe the same air as cole, despite the fact that doing this only serves to make her closer. what with him being half a head taller than her and all, but those are mere technicalities that do not, in any way shape or form, affect this little thought exercise that is acting like nabi has a problem.
and now that we're here, it's also worth mentioning that she finds herself looking for his attention every now and then; perhaps, nabi gets a little too much joy from her performance of the perfect girlfriend. his perfect girlfriend, to be precise, because even though it is just a possessive adjective it is what makes all the difference… the word possessive and cole don't go together all that well, she thinks, but that's mostly if not only because nabi doesn't like how much she misses the idea of it.
so if someone else's gaze lingers on her for a second too long, she doesn't hesitate to take hold of cole's hand. and if another person dares to so much as talk to him when not strictly necessary, she pulls out all the stops to make it known he's hers. of course, if minutes after the fact cole asks why she was all over him the only reply she has to offer is that she merely wants to completely ruin any and all possibilities of him having a good time on this trip, with a scoff to really sell it, that's all he needs to know. and possibly, if she repeats that enough times she could even come to convince herself that truly, that's all there is to it. what's so wrong with wanting to ruin a man's life, especially after he upended her very own?
this is completely reasonable and it's what any sane human being would do.
( "damn right!" agrees the lamp in front of her, slightly cracked at its base and yet completely whole in its morality. or lack thereof… it is a lamp, after all. )
"hey, cole." when she speaks, she doesn't even glance in his direction. instead her eyes are trained on the menu, as if searching for something… except, the answer nabi seeks isn't amongst the entrées. perhaps she'll have better luck in the desserts section. today, his parents have generously paid for their dinner— "you won't treat yourselves, so i'll just have to take matters into my own hands," had claimed his mother, ever the gracious lady —and if she's being truthful, it was going well until she noticed the man on the table adjacent to their own kept eyeing her behind her (ex) boyfriend's back. "that guy keeps staring at me… it's giving me the creeps. think we can ask for a different table?"
( . . . )
if nabi notices the anger in his voice, she says nothing. rather it’s something she keeps for herself, to be filed away under the cabinet of thoughts to be revisited later. later, when she can ponder it all she wants while pretending to sleep and shuffling ever so slightly closer to cole in her ‘slumber’. when she can berate herself over how small things like this still make him more attractive to her than she’d ever like to admit. “yeah. i kinda feel sorry for his girlfriend or wife or whatever… i know not everyone can be me, but it’s just plain rude to check out other people when you’re on a literal date!”
cole’s movement feels sudden, unpredictable— though if she takes another split second to think about it, it’s about the only course of action that possibly makes sense. the only other idea that comes to mind would be for cole to pick a fight with this man, but first of all she doubts he’s keen to get kicked out of the restaurant much less if it’s to defend her honor like she’s some damsel in distress.
well… is she in distress? yes, definitely. is it because of that rando? only about 5% of it is, but cole doesn't need to know that part.
“alright.” the way cole speaks isn’t an offer— it’s an order. and while yesterday’s nabi would’ve most certainly gotten on his case about speaking to her like she owes him something, today’s nabi feels far more forgiving… it may or may not have to do with how he’d been in her dream the night prior, a good one for what has to be the first time in months, but it’s not like he needs to know about any of that. now cole’s taking hold of her hand, and she’d repressed how much she’d yearned for his touch that even she’s surprised by how electric it all feels. if she had to compare it to something, it’d perhaps be a level below receiving defibrillations when you’re halfway between this world and beyond.
then his lips touch her skin, and that moment is over before she can even process it. now this is definitely defibrillation tier. “thank you.” nabi’s voice is a little unsteady, kind of unfamiliar to someone usually so self-assured. even as she gathers herself to stand up and switch seats, the ghost of mischief playing on cole’s lips doesn’t go unnoticed. and, if nabi wants to kiss that away, once again she says nothing.
for all she knows this could just be part of his little holiday boyfriend charade, so nabi rathers not even considering things like that… and really, why even think about it in the first place?! this romantic destination aura or whatever the hell it has going on is working it’s way into her head and damaging her brain, for sure. she kind of wants to ask for a refund even if for no reason other than spite, because the only thing that’s come out of her pocket for the better part of a week has been a pair of sodas. but even if he is just going along with things for the sake of it… nabi figures it’s still something to be grateful for, even if not feeding her to the wolves is pretty much bare minimum. “don’t worry, cole. this much is okay, it should probably be fine now.” she hesitates, but ultimately decides on adding a, “thank you, really.” the corners of her mouth twitch upwards, and she can’t recall the last time she smiled at him without practically being held at gunpoint to do so.
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you might be wondering how he’s ended up here. and, if he’s being totally honest, he wonders that as well. but things never happen for no reason; so let’s retrace his steps to discover what, exactly, led to him spending a thursday evening out in the local italian restaurant of choice, sitting at a both by the window all by himself looking like a total loser. it’s not because he’s alone, mind you — it’s because corey’s slumping and wearing a downtrodden expression, presumably due to the weight of his friend’s actions bringing him down.
today, he’s a man on a mission. it all started just a couple hours prior, with his friend (you could hardly call him that, though, but that story is not relevant today and involves one or ten drunk nights out) saying something or other about a tinder date he’s simply… choosing to not show up to. he seemed a little too proud for something so foul, really, and despite the group’s protests he stood firm on his stance. that’s when an uncomfortable silence washed over the otherwise fun round of call of duty, and when corey lied and said he got called into work so he wouldn’t have to play another one.
if he never planned on going at all, corey has to wonder why he even arranged the date to begin with. why do something like that to someone he doesn’t even know? why are dating apps so popular? why do people get ego boosts from shit like this? why are we even alive in the first place?
so, after getting the necessary details from the other guys that stayed in the game, he ends up here. an entire hour too early, apparently, due to which he’s read the menu at least eight times from beginning to end and yet he still can’t decide between a margherita pizza or some arrabbiata ravioli. perhaps he’ll ask for a recommendation from the waitress who’s been eyeing him with something very much like pity from across the room every ten minutes or so…
this is the part where corey realizes that he doesn’t just look like a gigantic fucking loser, but a real paranoid one at that. like, the lifting his head from the menu and looking all around the restaurant every two minutes or so kind of paranoid. he does it more out of reflex at this point, really, running on autopilot to the degree that corey doesn’t even notice a new silhouette a couple tables away from him until the third round of glancing after her arrival.
a cursory glance at his wristwatch tells him it’s now the agreed upon time and he thinks her looks match up from the poorly relayed description he received, at least from what he can see (he is nearsighted. do NOT trust him). so, logically, that must be her.
it’s precisely in this moment, right at showtime, that corey finally stops to think and considers his options beyond the dinner menu for today. truth be told, his feet are starting to feel a little cold… but that’s just not fair to her, is it (or to the aforementioned waitress that’s been looking at him like one would gaze towards a kicked puppy, because he did take up that table for a long while… )?
that’s how, crushing under the weight of social pressure and his own moral compass, corey manages to stand up. the first step is always the hardest, but he somehow gets the strength to start walking in her direction… all thanks to promising himself some cherry garcia ice cream after all this is over.
“hey,” if you don’t read too much into it, it almost seems like they’re old friends as he slides into the seat across from her and starts speaking in a hushed tone. “you don’t know me, but… i know you.” wait, wrong start. what the fuck is this, the godfather?! “ummm… well, i know jason. and i also know he didn’t plan to show up. so i came here to…” he’s not sure he has an explanation for that, so might as well make some shit up. “tell you he couldn’t make it, ‘cause he got a monster stomachache. like, really really bad. trust me!” there’s some irony to be enjoyed in the way he asks to be trusted while telling the biggest lie he’s said all week, and he doesn’t even know why he’s bothering to cover for this.
…
yeah, that’s right. why? “okay, maybe i lied.” his hands rise up at the height of his chest, as though if to say he’s harmless. “actually, there’s no stomachache. he just said he wouldn’t show up and he was, like, bragging about it. but that felt kinda fucked up to say, so i didn’t, but i guess i did it now… and that’s kind of it.”
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this campus is full of horrors, if by horrors we follow clara’s definition and mean spaces all too cluttered with memories that, while once precious, have little to no use in the current day and age and need to be discarded before her eye starts twitching again. out with the old and in with the new, so on and so forth.
you see, the thing with clara is that she’s never quite been good friends with the concept of messy spaces; her upbringing in an environment that was borderline clinical in nature may or may not have to do with it, but if we were to examine that topic we’d end up with enough material for three deep dive videos, an hour long iceberg of things that are wrong with clara including a conspiracy theory or two and a ruined afternoon, so let’s get back on track instead.
it’s summer, and this season has little to offer to clara beyond the grass being greener on the other side ( literally ). because as it stands she’s in the communication club’s room, just clara with air conditioning, some old junk and a dream. while the football field is thriving these days with the extra sunlight she’s not sure she can say the same for its players in this heat, because even from this distance she can make out the faint outline of misery on noah’s features. so then, who’s really winning?
huh… and maybe that can serve as inspiration for the script she’s currently working on for the school podcast, due tomorrow yet largely ignored until it couldn’t be put off any longer, just the way it’s meant to be amongst university students. her second source of inspiration, she then decides, is a summer vibes playlist from a past long gone that features hits such as what makes you beautiful and counting stars. people grow, but songs are always the same even if your perspective of them may vary with the passage of time; and that’s what so special about nostalgia, clara thinks. it’s something we can rely on for comfort, especially when trying to cope with change. summer is to a year what young adulthood is to the life cycle; it’s the transition between the youth of spring and the maturity of fall. they’re buffers for big shifts, and so full of changes of their own as well, that it’s normal if not outright expected to seek a little extra cheer during this period.
…and that’s just great podcast content, they’re gonna eat that shit up!
at first she doesn’t hear anything, far too invested in hastily jotting down each and every one of her ideas on a worn out legal pad, with accompanying crudely-drawn doodles and all to better illustrate her ideas and drive the points home. but then… she does hear it, and despite being fuzzy with static it’s a little too clear to mistake for something other than a voice. “who’s there?” but clara’s not too worried; chances are it’s someone who got lost, or a clubmate who forgot something here. “hello?” after a brief bout of silence more static follows, and that’s when things get kind of weird because she doesn’t quite recall ever turning on the radio so obviously someone must be pulling her hair at this point. “well? if this is for one of those little prank videos you can come out now. i’ll even fake a scream and all, so long as i get part of the royalties for it.” but of course, there’s no camera to be seen. and that’s just irritating, because she was just now really getting into this script and god knows hell hath no fury like an artist interrupted in the middle of their creative process.
“…prank video? what are you talking about?” the voice is still fuzzy, and even so undeniably there. and where, exactly, is there? “helloooo? can anyone hear me?” the strands of clara’s hair might as well be standing up straight with how freaky this whole thing is, and for a moment she considers the possibility of a ghost taking up residence in the warm, welcoming (not) atmosphere of the communications club.
“who even are you?” is all clara manages out, legal pad all but forgotten as her attention shifts onto trying to find the source of the sound instead by carefully walking a lap around the room.
“my name is jennifer… i’m a mechanical engineering major at penn university. and you?” here, clara’s ears narrow the sound down to the storage closet for all the old equipment the professor in charge doesn’t quite have the heart to throw away just yet. one of these days, clara herself will have to take matters into her own hands because keeping all these radios from the fifties is getting ridiculous.
as she fumbles with the comically full keyring trying to find the one to unlock this closet, clara’s reply is a simple, “i’m clara. i’m also studying at penn u, but i’m a communications major with a software engineering minor.”
one, two beats pass before the entity now known as jennifer replies, seconds in which clara gets the door open just in time to hear the voice coming from a visibly broken radio, which if she had to guess clara would say is from about 1975. “…software engineering? what the hell is that?”
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hikari's heart always makes its mind up before her actual mind does.
if she had to define it, she'd say love is a little akin to seasickness for her; something that makes you feel woozy inside, which may or may not be in a good way, and that makes you want to throw up more often than not. more than anything else, though, what both of these things have in common is that they get to you before you even realize it — and no matter how much you may try to fight it, they still find their way into your heart and subsequently your brain like the scariest parasite you won’t ever see in a horror movie.
and hikari's a lover, not a fighter. she's just an ordinary girl, you see — so what's wrong with loving, and wanting to be loved? every day she has a different life, each and every one of them bringing with them a new soulmate. or perhaps she's watched one too many coming of age movies, what with the overt romanticization of... everything and then some these days including the most mundane of things such as scrapbooking fast food tickets to make them look aesthetically pleasing. but that's what keeps things interesting, isn't that right? the world’s a rather bleak place when you look at it from an entirely objective viewpoint, so in recent times it’s become more of a necessity to sugarcoat her daily life to make it all just a tad easier. ah... she's not sure it makes much sense outside her own mind; it's hardly coherent even when within it, for heaven's sake!
still, let's try to rationalize it. crushes come and go, one just as easy as the other, and one thing hikari's recently come to realize is that she's an idealizer. to her, everyone's perfect until proven otherwise; and she's fickle, too, because this proof can be something as simple as them not liking tea ( because, come on... everyone knows the world's most romantic date idea EVER is having a picnic together, and that includes a nice cup of matcha! ). and yet, some other times it takes far more than that for her to snap out of it. the worst it’s been was that one time this guy talked to her for a week, ghosted her the next, then talked to her the week after that. wash, rinse, repeat for… a number of months she’d rather not reveal, given how her ears still heat up in embarrassment whenever the memories come back up to the surface. he was a fellow trainee, and while hikari broke it off with a smile and a gentle goodbye she can’t quite help it if in a tiny, minuscule, dark recess of her heart she kind of hopes he doesn’t debut anytime soon.
i mean… what was that?
but that’s just what happens when you’re a little naïve, a bit too young, and hope for the best in people like you’re getting paid for it much in the way hikari does. you see, one can’t always be right; that’s one concept she’s still grappling with— not because she’s the type of person that needs to always be right, but more so because she genuinely hopes every person she comes across will be kind.
today she's getting fries when it happens. the girl behind the counter's eyes light up as she gives hikari her change, and that's all it takes for the familiar pang of seasickness to make itself right at home in her stomach once again. what the hell... she can't even eat her waffle fries in peace now? this is turning into a problem, really ( or more like it has been one for a while, but sometimes it's easier to ignore things and hope they go away rather than try and accept them ).
as she sits down, in the very corner of the restaurant with her back towards the world — dramatic much? — she carefully bites into a fry so as to not ruin her lipstick while she mulls it over. what's the 'it' in question, you may wonder? errr... that's something hikari will say when she finds out. her feelings change like tokyo's weather, one day it's warm and sunny yet the next you can look up at the sky and be unable to guess whether or not it'll rain in the evening. or maybe you’ll even consider getting ready for a snowstorm…
maybe her problem is that she's too intense. isn't it? then again, her feelings are hardly intense if they come and go that easily. perhaps a better way to describe them would be whims; fleeting, exciting for a second then gone the next. as much as she idealizes love, it’s only ever happened once for her — and then it hurt, because more than it fading out naturally it rather felt like a bandaid was ripped off without warning. so then, after that kind of pain it's of course natural she'll gravitate more towards avoiding nurturing any and all feelings; after all, she has more important things to focus on.
like her career. and a silly crush here and there is fine so long as it doesn't interfere ( as she takes a sip from her soda, vanilla coke for today, she ignores the elephant in the training room that won't be disclosed right now simply because she's not yet willing to even think about it right now. perhaps on her next day off she’ll try to face that particular demon, one that stands tall at six foot one and despite having a face that displays little to no emotion generally, always has a smile for her ); there's nothing wrong with having a little fun as long as both parties are willing to, right? as a trainee she can't actually date anyone, but nowhere in her contract does it state she's not allowed to play with the idea — if everyone's aware of this line that shall never be crossed and no feelings are hurt, then what's the harm in it?
( vaguely, her mind conjures up a vision. it's her contract, several pages longer than she recalls, cartoonishly zoomed into a part that clearly states :
TRAINEE CODE, PART VII.
SUBSECTION II.
NO TRAINEE IS ALLOWED TO BE ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED. YEAH, THAT MEANS YOU CAN'T FLIRT EITHER. AND WE’D LIKE FOR YOU TO LIMIT YOUR CONVERSATIONS, TOO. ACTUALLY, DON'T EVEN LOOK AT EACH OTHER. SORRY, THAT'S LIFE!
... it didn't actually go like that... right? )
hikari's already finishing her order of fries by the time her train of thought slows to a stop, leaving her feeling far more jumbled than she was before she sat down. she'll need a couple all-nighters to even start unpacking this mess... this is why she prefers to practice so much it leaves her with no time to think.
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it's quiet evenings out in the park like this when he can focus best. sometimes he writes, sometimes he doesn’t; and some other times, he even dabbles in other forms of art. tonight isn’t one of those occasions, though, with juhyun finding some mundane sort of peace in simply sitting by a small pond as he watches the sun set. every day, he walks away with a new realization ; and every time, he gets to know himself just a bit better.
today’s lesson is he really, really doesn’t like having his private space bubble burst by loud voices that are… unpleasantly close, apparently.
his eyebrows are knitted together in frustration as he takes out one of his earbuds, glancing up at the person who called for his attention. "sorry, what did you say?" that apology is about as genuine as those mobile game ads that look suspiciously close to candy crush. "i didn’t hear you."
( . . . )
all the sweetness leaves juhyun feeling somewhat disturbed, truth be told. but he most certainly isn’t rude about it… instead, he opts for simply keeping his expression completely blank as he listens (and this facade cracks in response to the smile she gives him, a barely arched eyebrow giving away just how confused he is by it all).
he’s not sure why she even bothers asking, because for all intents and purposes she does not seem willing to accept a no for an answer. well, it’s almost time to leave for him so it’s not hurting anyone… thus, in favor of replying out loud he scoots over to the side, just about the bare minimum required to classify as some half-assed invitation. you wouldn’t say no to a pretty girl like me. truth be told, that line alone has juhyun with half a mind to respond with an, actually i would… but ah, that’s not a hill to die on, and he’s truly trying to practice mindfulness these days. "um. sure," the words fall from his lips clumsily, instead of even the most bare minimum of a real attempt at conversation. "why, though?"
( . . . )
her explanation is about the only thing that even remotely makes sense between the bizarreness of everything else, and even then it feels like kind of a stretch when he really stops to process it. but juhyun doesn’t bother on questioning it; if there’s one thing he’s learned from being a full-time observer and a part-time punching bag for life itself, is that all sorts of things can happen without any plausible explanation, zero rhyme or reason to it at all.
definitely, this has to be one of such things.
and if she’s reading milk and honey, that in and of itself has to classify as another phenomenon too— a book so bad juhyun just knows it sold half the copies it did simply so people could try and find the humor in it by seeing if it's truly that bad, harsh as it sounds. he’s not sure what to say… a 'why the hell are you reading that' is a runner-up, but that wouldn’t exactly fly over well. juhyun eventually settles on a, "you like that book?" and think he does a really, really good job at hiding his judgment if he does say so himself; totally worthy of a self-pat on the back!
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working title: further joy
if anything, it can be safely concluded that having the worst time of your fucking life at lax is a rite of passage for every traveler around the world. it’s something almost as certain as that you’ll find sand in the arizona desert, or a crowd of completely clueless vacationers falling victim to whatever the newest hip tourist trap right by times square is.
because, you see, not one good thing has happened since he landed. or, in fact, since he even boarded the plane to begin with. the following is an abridged retelling of the series of hapless events that have plagued every aspect of eric’s very existence for about the past twelve hours, because if we sat here and started the story from any further back, then we’d find ourselves here for a long time. like, airline staff finding and shipping back the bag you lost in tokyo two months prior long.
his favorite hoodie seemingly vanished into thin air right at the moment he was about to pack it (only to later find out his sister had taken it hostage, got a bbq stain on its pocket, and buried the evidence to avoid his reaction. talk about a reaction now!).
his dad’s old printer effectively swallowed, chewed up and spit out three sheets of paper as eric tried to print out his tickets. as life just so happens to be, these were the last three sheets of paper they had in the house (and then, eric remembered he can just have his ticket on his phone. right).
speaking of his ticket, it said gate 26. after waiting two hours and focusing really, really hard on the gibberish that came out of the airport intercom, enough so that he couldn’t even peacefully consume the miserable raspberry jelly-filled donut he was having for breakfast because they were out of all the other donut kinds he actually likes, it’s suddenly revealed his flight now departs from gate 8. half a glorified poptart is abandoned in a nearby trash bin as he dashes off like a madman hauling a bag that’s more or less his own weight along with a flimsy jansport backpack that’s most certainly seen better days, sneaker soles squeaking across the linoleum despite the shoes themselves being just barely a tier above unacceptable at a thrift store.
when he finally gets to board, a horrifying finding awaits him… he’s seated right between a mother and her young child. fate smiles upon eric in the way that the kid, surprisingly, doesn’t cry. however, he discovers fate’s also frowning down at him when said kid makes it a task to question whether eric has any games on his phone every ten minutes despite the continual denials from his part.
like, seriously. eric even takes it upon himself to read some random newspaper article his mother had sent just last week about stress-induced health risks, as if to demonstrate he’s just that fucking boring and absolutely not the kind of person to have any games on his phone at all, yet the boy isn’t deterred by this.
the one thing that saves him and whatever remaining shred of sanity he had left by the two hour mark is the youth’s regularly scheduled naptime, at which point eric heaves out a breath and finally gets to play subway surfers.
…and all that is without even delving into how he nearly got into a fight with an older french lady who boarded at the connecting flight and kept claiming his seat as her own, but…
the thing is, it’s been a journey and a half yet he still isn’t anywhere near his destination.
baggage claim is another beast entirely, the conveyor belt mocking his nearly empty stomach with just how agonizingly slow it moves, and then makes fun of him once again as if only to ensure his misery by getting stuck at some point. it takes little under five minutes to get it up and running once again, but those few moments are surely enough to have eric questioning why he even packed half the things he did and if it’d actually be that much of a big deal if he left his suitcase to rot away in there in favor of walking to the nearest taco bell and finally having some real food (real is kind of a stretch, but then again he’s running on fumes and half a donut. he who doesn’t know god will pray to any saint).
truth be told, most of his life is kept right here in the bag that’s been his trusty sidekick ever since freshman year of high school— wallet, second favorite hoodie, notebook and handful of ballpoint pens half-empty to varying degrees, toothbrush, headphones and charger are all here (this is the part where he realizes his recently upgraded cellphone isn’t in that list; a hand haphazardly flies in direction of his back pocket, and a sigh of relief is released upon verifying its presence).
right as he’s at the very cusp of turning on his heel and ditching his luggage, the familiar navy blue suitcase with a neon orange tag labeled ‘DON’T LOSE ME!’ and a cat scratch across its axis finally shows up. maybe eric just wanted the conveyor belt to think he didn’t want his bag anymore so it’d spit it out at last, or possibly the truth is he was about to discard it for real. or, perhaps, that’s just what he wants it to think…!
he isn’t sure whether it’s worse to argue with an inanimate object in his head or to do so aloud, because both make him seem like just the slightest, teeniest bit of an absolute fucking loon. as he pulls out the handle of his suitcase and starts towards the nearest exit, eric supposes he can find a marginal hint of solace in the fact that at least those around him didn’t bear witness to him trying to use reverse psychology on, again, an effing conveyor belt of all things.
*
eric’s grandfather seems to always drive at half the speed limit, yet car rides with him never feel long because every time they’re together his grandfather always has a new anecdote from a childhood long gone to narrate. a glance towards his left finds the older man’s features, much like eric’s own although mellowed out by time, his gentle gaze a reflection of his kind soul. “my boy, i’m so glad you could join us this year again,” thinning skin crinkles by the elder’s eyes as he smiles, not once looking away from the road ahead. “your grandmother says she’s already got the perfect role for you at the bakery. you’ll be filling in for the cashier while we find someone new, because charlie— remember charlie, youngjae? —quit a week ago since he’s going off to college in philadelphia, or pennsylvania, or some such thing. we’re pretty short on staff right now, but the kids we have are pretty capable and easy to get along with… i’m sure you’ll have no problem making friends with them, son.”
“that so, pops?” eric doesn’t remember charlie, because from what his grandmother’s told him over the phone the younger boy had started working during fall the year prior shortly after eric had already gone back up north. still, he humors the elder. looking out through the window at the palm trees high above them leaving the frame in slow motion— a side effect of his grandfather’s leisurely driving, eric realizes as an afterthought —makes this feel just like coming back home after being gone for a long time. “when do i start?”
there’s a short pause as his grandfather considers the question, “today’s a what… tuesday, right?” eric confirms this with a nod. “you can take tomorrow off to rest up and get settled in, then start on thursday. is that okay with you, son?” eric plugs his seatbelt in, an action that had gotten tangled up in the flurry of thoughts plaguing his brain and was promptly forgotten about the second he got into the car.
“yeah! i’m excited, i can’t wait to see what this year’s new recipes are…” the promise of fresh bread is more than enough to lift his spirits, and clearly this transmits to his exterior if it gets a chuckle out of his grandfather.
some things never change.
*
lunch had been more of a gossip session rather than a lunch; if his grandfather’s an introvert, his grandmother most definitely balances it out with how extroverted she is. and actually, might even tip the scales in this direction if you ask eric. because, while he’s busy eating enough stir fried beef and rice to cover for an entire day and a half’s worth of food intake, she makes sure he knows all about a budding rivalry with a new bakery two blocks over (whose bread isn’t even good, by the way, according to her), her favorite hairstylist’s pregnancy (and how she can’t wait for the baby shower), the two employees they’ve hired since last time he came (a matter she didn’t speak much on, to his surprise, citing that she wanted him to get to know them himself), and her recent obsession with smoothies (wherein taro root and wild berries are just the anti-aging recipe!).
as he flops down on the bed— decorated by washed-out blue bedding with an assorted sports balls pattern, the windows adorned by matching curtains —a familiar ceiling stands before him, from which hangs a fan with a broken lightbulb out of three along with one of those sticky hands that were all the rage at the playground just shy of fifteen years prior that he’d never managed to… well… unstick. back then he was too short to reach up and too embarrassed to ask for help, and even though he’s tall enough by now he can’t bring himself to take the poor thing down... there’s just something about it that pulls the entire aesthetic of the room together, you know!
(WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FIFTEEN? the thought alone is nothing short of depressing and thus eric folds it up and shoves it into the corner of a drawer between his underwear and a pair of sweatpants that don’t fit him anymore, safely packed away to never see the light of day again.)
this room is just like he remembers it from last year and the one before that, and ten years before it as well, because sometimes it’s not possessions the ones that change. it’s people that do, instead. every time he visits he’s a different version of himself; an eric who’s ever so slightly improved from the last, yet fundamentally remains the same person at his core. or, sometimes, the eric that walks through the door on the first few days of june is a little bit worse than the prior one. and that much is fine, because people are always changing, and regression isn’t always a bad thing. sometimes, getting worse just means you’re experimenting as you try to find out who you really are.
and who is he really, then? is he truly himself, or is he someone else?
eric groans into his pillow drowsy in the after-lunch daze, train of thought deliberately missing the station and re-routing off his mental map as the young man pulls at the covers with clumsy hands, passengers waiting for it be damned. he’s much too tired to entertain this crap today.
as he drifts off to sleep, he wonders whether the framed pictures on the bookshelf next to the bed are of himself or of someone who just so happens to look a lot like him.
*
come thursday morning, the bright red letters of his alarm clock glowing with a furious 6:37 am, eric’s fresh out of the shower and set to start the day with a healthy dose of cautious optimism to his mood. he’d picked out cleaning products at random and is pretty certain this macadamia nut soap bar thing is supposed to be used for hands, but he feels so moisturized and… renewed, as though he’s just stepped out of one of those body wash ads with all the nature surrounding the scene and one of vivaldi’s four seasons playing in the background, that he’ll just keep it for himself from now on.
getting ready is a ritual in and of itself, that must be followed to a t every time or else it can and will disturb the flow of the rest of his day, despite how easygoing eric tends to be in regards to… most other things in life, actually, other than religiously recording and reviewing every single movie and show he's ever watched on letterboxd regardless of if they’re bad (especially if they’re bad, in fact). the last couple steps in the routine include arranging his necklaces to fall in front of his loose t-shirt, spraying a refreshing face mist and tying up dirty canvas sneakers with a double knot lest they come undone and have him tripping over his own feet like some awkward, uncoordinated loser.
not like he’s speaking from experience, of course.
rounding the corner into the kitchen his gaze meets his grandmother’s, a fond smile quickly pulling the corners of her lips upwards as soon as she spots him. “good morning, child! how’d you sleep?” but she doesn’t even let him get a single word in, because before he can even arrange the words in his mind and put them into the queue for his mouth to tell her he dreamt all his teeth fell off and his mother dyed her hair blue since she developed a phobia of ducks, she’s already placing a platter of cut up fruit in his hands and nearly shoving an orange slice into his mouth.
the kitchen itself is simple, a small space that’s all white tile with small floral details at the edges, wood flooring with cabinets that match and appliances that are probably nearing eric’s age and yellowing as time erodes away what once was a pristine coat of white paint, but the special part of it all hides away in each and every touch of individuality to be found; it’s in the collection of fridge magnets ranging from cartoony farm animals to souvenirs from european destinations, the colorful tupperware labeled and neatly arranged inside it, the decorative china set a young eric once got in trouble for using, and the handcrafted recipe book on top of the oven. there’s a treasured memory in every piece, even in the basic little salt shaker with a cracked corner eric bought for her two summers prior at the dollar store.
*
“good morning!” the bakery’s already open by the time he gets there, a good 10 minutes late but still 20 minutes early before the morning rush. the store is mostly unchanged except for the wall calendar now displaying the picture of a cat instead of a dog and being of the current year as well as a new poster advertising the strawberry cheesecake cookies they'd recently added to the menu (though you could hardly call it a poster, given that it’s barely more than just a sheet of printer paper with a title made in rainbow wordart).
“mornin’,” calls a voice from the back of the shop as eric ties up his apron and safely sticks his backpack under the counter. “you’re the new guy, right?” this is when curiosity gets the best of eric, and uncertain footsteps take him directly towards the open frame of the kitchen. the owner of said voice seems to be rummaging around the fridge, the appliance’s door obscuring his view of this mysterious individual, and the only information he knows about this guy is that he knows who eric is and that the old skool vans he wears are, somehow, even more beat up than eric’s converse.
“yeah, my name’s eric,” he answers, sincere smile in place. and then, he realizes the guy can’t actually see him so he shakes his head and tosses the smile out and into the air. “is it just us working this shift, or is someone else coming later?” it’s not until the stranger gets up from his crouching position cradling a monstrously large bag of pastry cream that eric finally gets to actually look at him, and the first thing he notices is that his dark bangs are in his eyes and eric can’t understand just how he can work like that without going crazy.
the second thing he notices is that the grin the other gives him is pretty charming.
“cool. i’m sunwoo.” the shift between his initially relaxed posture and a hand dramatically flying up towards his heart nearly gives eric whiplash, and even though he seems to want to act seriously he can’t help the laugh that escapes as he says, “what, is little old me not good enough for you?” then he shakes his head, simultaneously hauling the bag of cream onto a metallic countertop. it lands with a particularly painful-sounding thud. “bad joke, sorry.” sunwoo turns around, his back facing eric, and eric can only assume he’s now dividing the liquid into equal portions in a bunch of smaller recipients. “don’t worry, younghoon’s clocking in at ten. that way, we’ll be prepared for the lunch rush! shit gets a little crazy out there, man. i had to work register for like two days after charlie left, but!” as sunwoo speaks his words get progressively faster and start blurring into each other, but luckily he halts to turn back in eric’s direction with clasped hands and a smile. “you came to save us! hope you’re good at customer service, though, ‘cause some of these people…”
sunwoo doesn’t have to finish that thought for eric to infer what he means, because even if he doesn’t know sunwoo he’s, woefully, well-versed in the horrors of retail, customer support, and everything in between.
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spending time, remaining time
i.
tooru wasn’t always koushi’s best friend, but that’s neither here nor there because that’s not the point and it doesn’t answer our question. now, the current conundrum at hand is, “just who is tooru to koushi?”.
you see, there’s a fair number of variables that can affect the answer to this query. of which the biggest one, and perhaps the one tooru willfully ignores most often, are koushi’s actual feelings to begin with. of course, it’s easier to push things off to the side when you don’t quite get them; it’s even easier to do so when an understanding implies the acknowledgement that they may not turn out to be the way you want them to. so, since the entirely abstract concept of koushi’s perception of him (without even getting into whether it’s good or bad, mind you) is enough to reduce tooru to the very brink of nervous collapse, it’s only logical if we scientifically establish (based upon the totally irrefutable evidence that are tooru’s disgraced cuticles from biting them until it hurts ) that his mental health will fare much better if he resolves to simply never open that can of worms. like, not until hell freezes over at the very least.
and so, he doesn’t.
anyways, does it matter? because it’s not like tooru even knows what koushi is to him. it’s also not like he ever plans to dig into that topic, either, not quite adventurous enough to go down the slippery slope that’s bound to happen if he does.
maybe a smarter person would realize that knowing there’s a slippery slope in the first place is an admission of the very thing he’s afraid of, but that’s just not tooru. not when it comes to things like that, anyhow.
ii.
the first time it happens, it’s raining.
“you know, i kinda hate summer.” koushi’s voice sounds refreshing as ever, even when he complains. tooru’s head perks up in response, then, the losing round of candy crush on his phone fading out into the background in favor of paying attention to his friend. “but at the same time i like it, and miss it when the weather gets cold. i guess grass is always greener on the other side, right?” the droplets falling atop the bus stop shelter carefully echo koushi’s words, which are finally adorned by a smile with a little too much teeth.
“honestly, i just wish it didn’t rain so much,” tooru follows along without giving it much, if any, thought. and he was gonna add on something else, too— perhaps a justification of his hatred of rainy weather, maybe just a complaint about the roads being all muddy the next day. but in the end, he deems it unnecessary. another glance in koushi’s direction, and the now softer smile he dons is enough for tooru to tell koushi already knows whatever it was he could possibly say next.
as any small talk left unsaid hangs and comfortably settles between them, the first few rays of sunshine of that afternoon begin filtering through the lighter clouds. what doesn’t settle, however, is the feeling that crawls up tooru’s esophagus when he notices the couple raindrops near koushi’s mole, accenting it.
ah, maybe he needs to buy antacids again…
iii.
it’s sometime in early june that someone unexpected finds his way to tooru’s e-mails one morning. the someone in question being yamaguchi, who while certainly nice is most definitely one of the karasuno players he’s least acquainted with.
maybe that’s kind of the point, though.
YAMAGUCHI: good morning, oikawa-san! sorry for the random mail, hinata stole your address from sugawara-san's phone.. ;;
YAMAGUCHI: so!!! we were thinking of throwing sugawara-san a surprise party…
YAMAGUCHI: by we i mean us the first years….!! and shimizu-senpai ofc. and tanaka-san too lol
YAMAGUCHI: well, the thing is we’re keeping it a secret from the other senpais cos we feel they might spill the beans to sugawara-san lol. you know how azumane-san is….!!!!! {{ (>_<) }}
YAMAGUCHI: and since you get along so well, hinata thought maybe we could ask you for help. not that kageyama was very happy about that idea, buttttt….
YAMAGUCHI: ANYWAYS! would you like to help us? ٩(◕‿◕。)۶
tooru finds his answer faster than he realizes, his response typed up and sent before he can pause to even consider it. these days, a lot of things regarding koushi seem to be like that.
ME: sure! send me the meeting details and i’ll be there ^_^
iv.
halfway between tuesday and a dream that tickles the core of tooru’s psyche a tad too close for comfort, work begins. so far it’s shaping up to be more difficult than tooru’s original analysis thanks to one hinata shouyou bouncing all over the place and word-vomiting idea after idea, but luckily it doesn’t take much more than him receiving a scolding from tobio after accidentally existing a little too loudly, a little too closely to him to get him to fall in line.
(“what the hell is your problem?!” tobio begins, and tooru tunes out before he can hear the rest of it.)
peace only lasts for a moment, but at least it’s just about long enough for tooru to clear his throat and command for their attention. “now, then. first we have to make a to-do list… and based off that, we can divide the work in a way that’s fair for everyone, okay?” tooru’s words flow with an effortless charisma, as well as the practiced ease one could only acquire from being team captain for this long. and even though this ragtag bunch couldn’t be any more different from his very own team, by god he’ll find a way to make it work.
WHY? (the question comes from somewhere deep within him, the voice so low it catches him off guard at first.)
for koushi’s sake, of course.
BUT WHY DO YOU CARE SO MUCH ABOUT DOING THINGS FOR HIM?
obviously, it’s because he’s my best friend.
AND IS THAT ALL THERE IS TO IT?
[silence.]
in the background, tobio snarls at hinata once again as they both get into a competition of who can fold the most origami stars within five minutes.
v.
it’s still little over a day before the thirteenth, yet all the preparations are done and taken care of due to a combination of tobio’s obstinacy and the sheer willpower of everyone involved. tooru can’t say he worked much, personally— truth be told, his so-called ‘job’ mostly boiled down to blowing up a couple balloons and drawing up a pros and cons list to every cake kind he could possibly think of so koushi’s team could make an informed choice (strawberry shortcake won, but tooru was personally gunning for some type of roll cake. you win some, you lose some).
picture this— the silhouettes of two young boys on the balcony outside tooru’s bedroom, koushi’s head leaning on tooru’s shoulder and tooru’s legs hanging from between the rails. the time is nearing eleven, yet there’s some familiar sort of comfort to be found in the cold breeze of a summer night. “are you tired yet?” speaks koushi, and even though tooru’s muscles feel sore from training earlier that day he can’t say he’s really tired.
“nah. besides, it’s the weekend! let’s make the most out of it and pull an all-nighter.”
��and what would we even do, huh? do you have a plan?” albeit quizzical, koushi doesn’t sound totally opposed to the idea. or maybe that’s just tooru’s wishful thinking.
“i could either kick your ass at smash bros, or…” at this, koushi scrambles from his cozy position on tooru’s shoulder to sit upright and give him the stink eye. naturally, this elicits a laugh from tooru… and, somehow, koushi seems even more unamused than he was in the first place. tooru digresses. “or! we could go on a walk.” if the moonlight reflects prettily upon koushi’s light gray hair, tooru says nothing.
koushi appears to mull it over for a second or two, bottom lip sticking out slightly as his eyes drift upwards in thought. it doesn’t take long for the jury to reach the conclusion of, “okay, but if you get sleepy i’m so not carrying you back here.”
“wasn’t counting on it, wimp.” the shit-eating grin tooru accompanies these words with only serves to further enrage koushi.
“oh, go to hell.” it’s spoken with more fondness than it is with venom, and coupled with one of those affectionate eye rolls koushi reserves for only those closest to him.
for you, tooru’s brain unhelpfully supplies.
(koushi stands up and exits the scene, saying something or other about getting a drink before heading out.)
meanwhile, the rational part of tooru’s mind recalls a time where sawamura got so mad at the rest of the team (read: it was tobio and hinata’s fault, really, but everyone else was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and thus witnessed sawamura’s wrath as well) before a tournament that he started rambling on and on in a way not unlike a mother would, and koushi rolled his eyes as he tried to soothe the captain and get the team back together.
okay, maybe he does that for sawamura and the others too. but also for you.
there’s no reasoning with something that doesn’t want to be reasoned with, and maybe tooru’s really starting to go crazy this time.
v.v.
there’s a drag to koushi’s step as they approach the main avenue, nearly deserted as the clock closes in on midnight. it’s now officially a day before the thirteenth, and the marginal slump to koushi’s shoulders as well as the way his friend seems to have stopped listening to tooru’s exposition of why lucas is, arguably, one of the strongest characters in smash bros ultimate both seem to be classic symptoms of the nearby birthday life crisis disease.
“hey, koushi.” his case seems to be particularly bad, what with how he’s not even pretending to listen to tooru by this point. “hey, hey koushi.” the stars overhead always shine a bit brighter this time of the year, appearing close enough to earth that tooru feels that if he were to jump, perhaps it wouldn’t be all that difficult to catch one in his hand.
(and maybe, then, he could present it to koushi. koushi would tilt his head to the side and give him the funny kind of smile that’s paired with slightly knitted eyebrows, the one that wonders just what goes on in tooru’s brain sometimes. he would accept the star, regardless, because that’s just who koushi is; gracious and gentle, always refreshing.)
…
“hey, tooru.” he hadn’t even realized koushi had stopped walking three paces prior.
“yeah?” a long blink, a step back. tooru’s glasses are pretty smudged today.
“nothing will ever be the same again, will it?”
tooru’s feet edge closer to koushi’s own. their shadows, artfully cast onto the pavement by the waxing crescent, intertwine. “what do you mean, koushi?”
“it’s our last summer in high school. and i’m not, like, scared or anything… but things will change. and it’s weird to think nothing ever stays the same, no matter how used you may be to it.” koushi’s gaze seems somewhat different today, although tooru pins that on how his glasses are really so fucking smudged they’re misshaping reality now. “i’m excited to see what will happen next, but at the same time i already know i’m gonna miss this... all of it.” the end of his sentence comes with a sigh, as well as the scarcest hint of pain in his eyes.
which tooru doesn’t see, by the way, because he’s too busy cleaning the aforementioned lenses on the bottom edge of his t-shirt. and yet, he can infer it from the way every one of his words seems to latch onto the previous one, as though letting go means dying in his throat and never getting another chance to be spoken again.
“things will change, but they won’t break,” says tooru after a particularly long second, vision now crystal clear as the space between the two closes in. his hand is placed comfortingly on the small of koushi’s back, a gesture of silent reassurance familiar to both of them. “we’ll always be friends, koushi… and i’m not just talking about me, ‘cause the guys at karasuno really look up to you too.” tooru would know… hinata nearly had a meltdown when he couldn’t find the perfect present for koushi and he made sure everyone knew that on the party planning group chat he’d been roped into.
koushi, on the other hand, seems unsure. of what, exactly…?
tooru doesn’t know anymore.
v.v.v.
there’s something to be said about the kind of bond that can only be shared by two people so enmeshed yet independent whose stories, while spun separately, always seem to tangle up into a knot at one point before parting ways once again.
“that’s not what i’m talking about, tooru.” huh?
tooru prides himself on adapting; on always gaining a quick understanding of every situation he could possibly be in and acting accordingly. so naturally… not knowing what’s going on right now is distressing for him.
said distress only grows when koushi glances up at him, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at tooru. “hey… what got into you today, koushi? i know you get a little crazy around your birthday, and i mean shit, so do i! but… i have no idea what the hell you’re on about right now.” and a confident smile along with it should do the trick, even if the only thing tooru can possibly be completely certain of currently is that koushi’s eyes look really, really lovely in this moment.
there’s a pause. and there would be silence during it, too, if tooru’s heartbeat wasn’t threatening to rupture his eardrums with the most sickening ba-dump, ba-thump, of all time.
“hey, tooru.” this shit’s starting to feel somewhat like groundhog day, except koushi’s face is closer to his own than he remembers.
“yeah?”
“i’m talking about, i like you.” koushi’s emotions are laid bare in his eyes, and tooru doesn’t need to question it at all despite the shock this confession comes with. instead, he believes.
that’s not to say his reply is particularly intelligent. instead, it’s a rather pathetic, “oh.”
koushi waits for tooru to speak once again. if his friend’s face takes on the faintest tint of red, tooru will attribute it to the clouds overhead dimming the moonlight even though both of them full well know that has nothing to do with it.
but even though koushi keeps waiting, every moment becoming exponentially longer than the last as the realization of what he just did dawns upon him, tooru doesn’t say anything else.
rather, tooru closes whatever distance remained between them.
vi.
it’s the thirteenth now.
yachi looks at him as though he grew two heads, yet withdraws her gaze and blushes deeply every time tooru catches her looking in his direction. tobio looks disgusted by him, but honestly, that’s just business as usual. and koushi… koushi’s glowing.
“you guys… when did you even manage to get all this done?” he cries as soon as he steps inside and the lights come to life, both his hands covering his mouth as he looks at everyone around him with wide, sparkling eyes. “i can’t believe it… you have no idea how much this means to me.” tooru thinks he has an inkling of it, but if he’s learned anything lately it’s that as well as he can read koushi most of the time he can always look forward to a surprise or two from his best friend. “and you’re telling me you did this all on your own?” this time koushi’s eyes are on the first years, and if there’s tears on the very corner of them nobody mentions it because everyone knows that’s just a part of who koushi is.
hinata looks pretty proud of himself, chest puffed up and all, as he answers with a, “see all those origami stars, senpai? i folded allllll of ‘em all by myself!”
tobio looks positively murderous as he starts considering the best of the worst ways to threaten hinata’s life. but before any poisonous words get to leave his mouth, yamaguchi interrupts him with an, “oikawa-senpai helped us out a lot here, actually.”
this has koushi’s gaze shifting in tooru’s direction now, and tooru’s not sure whether koushi’s eyes soften as soon as they meet with his own or if he’s just making that up right now. “thank you, tooru.”
koushi smiles, and tooru returns it. he’s not imagining any of this, and that’s a sure thing. “happy birthday, koushi.”
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looking for attention
EPISODE ZERO.
in which we meet kozume kenma, age seventeen and in desperate need of some sleep.
( a prologue. )
[IDOL CAMP JP] ARE YOU READY TO PRODUCE THE HOTTEST NEW BOY GROUP THIS YEAR?
[+3,672, -1,739] another season of this???? for real??? we got the point 4 seasons ago
[+2,193, -509] mf focus on last year’s winners before making a new damn group i bet they already made friends with the rats in the basement from how little promotions they get
“you look like an idiot, kuro.”
the idiot in question shoots him a wink in lieu of giving him anything resembling a real reply, the golden sunlight filling in the clubroom via the dull windows kenma’s so painstakingly tried cleaning over and over again illuminating sharp features arranged in a soft expression. “wanna help me out? i need a backup dancer for this next song,” kuroo doesn’t even bother pausing the camcorder that sits smack in the middle of the room for this intermission, a relic from an older time courtesy of a box of his sister’s forgotten belongings after moving out. if kenma mentioned it the older boy would claim he’d edit out the irrelevant footage later, but kenma’s not so sure he can trust his word on it.
“pass. i’m tired already,” says kenma, eyes remaining trained on the rpg menu displayed on his psp’s screen. now, if he was in a game, this is right about the time he’d choose the FLEE option.
unfortunately, this time it’s kuroo’s turn to act. “c’mon, bro. just one song, alright?” kenma doesn’t know why kuroo even asks in the first place; because if there’s one thing about him it’s he doesn’t accept a no for an answer. he’s persistent to a fault, really. resourceful, kuroo would correct him with the ghost of a smirk playing on his lips. irritating is the word kenma finds far more apt to describe his best friend. maybe kuroo’s trying to craft a pantomime of politeness, but after knowing him for this many years that’s more laughable than it is convincing. and he didn’t even throw in a please or thank you, so is it even that skilled of a performance to begin with?
it’s tuesday, and school’s been out for the day for a couple hours by now— it’s late enough that the rest of the dance club is long gone after a chorus of invitations to karaoke and see you tomorrows, yet judging by the sun outside it’s still early enough that kenma’s mother won’t get on his case for not being home by dinnertime. not yet, anyway. she will if kuroo keeps him here much longer, though, especially given that today’s a shogiyaki kind of day.
this is how kozume kenma caves, after a cursory glance at the time on his smartphone; when it’s not kuroo coercing him directly it’s by proxy, and in this case the impending threat of doom via his mom is enough for awkward, sore limbs to slowly struggle into an upright position. “sure, i guess.” hell hath no fury like a mother scorned, after all, and there’s little that pisses the woman off more than the sanctity of family dinners being perturbed by scheduling conflicts.
kenma pads into frame, languid footsteps leading him to kuroo’s side. if he said the blinking red light of the video camera doesn’t have stage fright seeping into the spaces between every joint of his body as though it were synovial fluid that would be about as honest as saying cows are blue, but nobody asked him and thus he won’t mention it at all.
like most things in kenma’s life, of course, that later proves to be the wrong choice.
because, a week or five after the fact, wonderful news befall upon a barely-conscious kenma on a saturday at a time far too early to be pleasant (for any species other than whatever those birds that just love chirping first thing in the day are, anyway).
LOOK SUSPICIOUS? MARK AS SPAM (YES / NO)
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: FWD: Your application for Idol Camp JP
ur about to be mad as hell but LOOOOOKKKKK!!!!
— ORIGINAL MESSAGE —
Congratulations, KOZUME KENMA! Your application has passed the last round of reviewing. You are now officially a contestant for this year’s season of Idol Camp JP! We are looking forward to having you.
Filming starts on January 20 of the current year. To finalize the application process, please visit our offices before the 15th of this month within business hours (…)
Kind regards,
The team of Idol Camp JP.
for the sake of being totally transparent, let’s clear one thing up right here and now: kenma never submitted that application.
kuroo did on his behalf as a complete and utter intrusion to kenma’s autonomy, where the justification of such a vile action was, in his own words, something as senseless as: “you’re crazy talented, kenma. i know you’re pretty shy, but you can’t gatekeep that from the whole world forever! besides, even just being there will be good for you. a learning experience, and whatever. you know what they say! the journey is as important as the destination, and all that.” that old saying has about as little correlation to the problem at hand as apples do to trains, and this is the part where kenma taps his phone screen with purpose to end the phone call without even bothering to gratify kuroo’s speech with a response.
on kenma’s behalf, kuroo can go to hell.
kozume kenma’s set on enjoying his breakfast, a plate of soft-boiled eggs accompanied by pickled plum and a cup of steaming hot green tea, only to then climb back in bed and, upon waking back up again, realizing the entire day thus far has merely been a nightmare with just about enough realism sprinkled in to scare him shitless. he’d text kuroo afterwards, some lazy approach to pettiness such as “you pissed me off in my dream, so i’m not going to practice this week,” or perhaps even a “when i see you next, remind me to punch you btw” if kozume’s feeling particularly feisty. if he’s lucky, he’ll get another good two or three hours of sleep…
we should keep the following in mind, however: kozume kenma is not a lucky person.
would not know the definition of the word ‘luck’ if it hit him like an uncoordinated forearm to the face or a heel with a particularly thick soled shoe digging into his metatarsals, in fact, which both had very much happened just the day prior. this is exactly why kuroo beats him to the punch, then, kenma’s smartphone all but burning a hole into his pocket with the quick succession of dings! and the nonstop vibrations all throughout the remainder of his cup of tea.
it’s not until he’s wrapped up doing the dishes that he finally sits down and checks his messages, giving the poor phone a borderline accusatory glance as though it’s the innocent electronic’s fault that kenma’s just this fucking hapless.
KURO: itll be just fine!! im gonna be there too yknow~
KURO: so ill have your back all the time! were gonna always be in teams together
KURO: ill make sure of it, so trust me!
resourceful, the word echoes in his head, the space of his cranium reverberating with the sound. if there’s one good thing about kuroo, it has to be that he always keeps his promises.
ME: ok
ME: u already signed me up anyway so
ME: might as well ig
KURO: great!! i knew youd want to give it a try kenma
KURO: im so proud of you
KURO: let’s get some extra practice in from now until the 20th, okay???
KURO: some of my friends will be there too and i don’t wanna let them win
ME: what friends…
briefly, kenma considers blocking kuroo’s number before the other gets to answer his question, far too scared of what the reply may be.
and then, he actually does it.
****
EPISODE ONE.
enter kuroo tetsurou, the culprit of everything that’s ever gone wrong in kenma’s life.
[IDOL CAMP JP] ALL 101 CONTESTANTS PROFILES REVEALED!
[+1,277, -243] aw, the kid with the pudding head is kinda cute… he looks like someone threatened him into getting his photo taken and all, but that’s kind of what makes him charming wwww
[+333, -115] what’s with this show? seriously, all these guys look like middle schoolers… TT
kenma stares at the wall ahead of him, crisp ice blue paint marred by an assortment of signatures and goals, realistic and borderline imaginary alike, scribbled with a dissonance of contrasting— not complementary –colored markers. if kenma was just a smidge more easily influenced perhaps their motivation and optimism would rub off on him, but he’s just not that kind of guy… he can be influenced enough to come here in the first place, that’s one thing, but there’s just no way he can be talked into having a good time while at it, not at all, because now that would just be plain ridiculous!
besides, he ponders as he paces across the room following along the length of the wall, most if not all of these are pretty basic phrases… it’s “let’s make our dreams come true!” on top of “do your best!” with a thick layer of “good luck!” laid across it all, and as narrow golden eyes give the glorified graffiti a once over the only thing of interest they can find is a particular name kanji, one they pause to wonder on its meaning for a second or two to promptly disregard the thought just about as quickly as it had come. generalized positivity seems like little more than the most superficial kind of wishful thinking, and while kenma would rather put his faith onto something more solid like his own skills (or alternatively, wish upon the downfall of the other contestants), he reasons everyone has their own ways of coping with the discomfort of being in this strange, new environment.
as for kenma himself… well, he’s still looking for it! now accepting suggestions, just text +81-xxx-xxx…
next to him, kuroo pretty much bounces in place. you’d think with such a tall frame he’d have enough place to store all that energy and then some, but unfortunately for kenma, kuroo’s a freak of nature who must be of an entirely different species from homo sapiens sapiens. “liven up a little, kenma. we’re already here, right? might as well enjoy it now!” the look kenma shoots him then is a cross between a threat of violence and intent to study him under a microscope with a 100x lens (and he can almost imagine the little spiky-haired cells he’d get out of it, too, the shameless microbes laughing at him as they swim in an ocean of methylene blue).
arms folded tightly across the taller’s wide chest betray near to nothing as he scans the aforementioned wall of dreams, but kenma knows better; it’s all hidden within high cheekbones and poorly-concealed dark undereyes adorned with bags from a bad night’s sleep, presumably from being unable to keep the excitement of what was to come the following day from letting his imagination run wild.
now, as his friend looks down at him after noticing his stare, his gaze is curious—it’s a silent question kenma isn’t sure how to answer, so in its place he only shakes his head in response. albeit lazy the movement is enough to have his hair, bleached blonde and reaching the halfway point between his chin and his shoulders, bob along with the motion. “you want me to liven up when i have to live with a hundred people in a high-stress environment.” the words are spoken flatly, oddly reminiscent of a soft drink that’s been opened and left out in the sun for a long, long time. during the summer. and if he’s being honest, that just about encapsulates how kenma feels at the thought of this being his life for the next couple months… or just a few weeks, hopefully!
kuroo just smiles down at him, all perfectly straight teeth and a promise of sincerity shoved somewhere between his central incisors. “a hundred people’s nothing you can’t handle, kenma. there’s three times that, easy, at every dance competition we’ve been to!” that does little to alleviate kenma’s anxiety, but at least he’s trying… or so kenma figures, at least.
kenma merely blinks in response, long and slow, much like a cat particularly looking forward to nap time would.
behind them, a boy who is more lanky than he is boy trots up with beads of sweat gathering up by his brow. “i’m sorry, i’m late!” he calls as kenma looks him up and down, flashy outfit blinding his eyes for a moment. the scarlet sequins don’t fit the rest of the newcomer’s colorimetry, all gray hair and pale skin with teal eyes to boot, but kenma doesn’t say that part out loud.
actually, he says nothing at all. he doesn’t have to, because this guy just starts spouting off random information like nobody’s business. and it is, in fact, not any of kenma’s business. “my name is haiba lev, it’s so nice to meet you!” he bows, a movement so clumsy he nearly collides with kuroo’s torso in the process. “i’m, like, soooo happy to be here. like, you don’t even know! my family’s already telling the whole town to vote for me, and…”
if this guy keeps talking, kenma’s brain isn’t there to hear it. it escaped through his ears a sentence or two ago, swearing it’d just take a short and well-deserved vacation for only a second…
“kozume, kuroo, haiba. all ready? you guys are up next.” the sound that booms over the loudspeakers by the ceiling leans more towards crackled static rather than a voice, enough so that kenma wouldn’t be sure of what he just heard if it weren’t for the weight of kuroo’s hand on his shoulder as an unspoken nudge of encouragement.
well, that was one short second.
it’s not until now that reality truly sets in. as anxiety infiltrates his bones kuroo’s hand only begins to feel all that much heavier, presumably due to his skeleton slowly degrading as stress chips away at every millimeter of its surface, from his phalanges to his frontal bone. “kenma?” even though he hears kuroo’s voice loud and clear, kenma chooses to ignore him in favor of pondering what his death certificate will be like. if nothing else, this shit’s gonna be a real funny cause of death! see, it’ll look a little bit like this:
NAME: KOZUME KENMA
AGE: 17
CAUSE OF DEATH: HIS BONES ERODED SO BADLY DUE TO STRESS HIS SKELETON BECAME KINDA SQUISHY AND COLLAPSED DUE TO THE WEIGHT OF THE REST OF HIS BODY. A TOTAL FUCKING LOSER, IF YOU ASK ME!
“if the kid won’t go out, you two are gonna have to go ahead without him.” now, this voice is one kenma doesn’t recognize. “not the producers will be happy about it, though. didn’t you sign a long-ass contract? i didn’t get to read all of it, but some parts of it were stone cold, man!” what is familiar to him, however, is the weight on his other shoulder— god, does kuroo want to speedrun kenma’s fall, or something? since when are hands this heavy…?
a blink, long and slow once more.
and then another one, as if just for good measure, as he tries to get himself into a headspace fit for survival. well, he’s already here. that much is an unavoidable truth he can do nothing about now that he’s already signed his soul away to the evil machine that is this god damn broadcasting corporation, other than go out there and do so fucking badly he’s expelled on sight.
ACTUALLY… THAT DOESN’T SOUND HALF BAD!
fueled by a newfound resolve kenma brushes his hair out of his eyes, tucking it behind his ears. his forearm is held out in front of him and he taps it with the opposite fist, as though trying to ensure he hasn’t effectively turned to jelly just in case.
which, truth be told, wouldn’t be all that horrible. at least then that’d get him out of this one…
and because this is real life his bones are still made of, unfortunately, bone. “ummm, sorry… i spaced out,” briefly, kenma thinks he sees concern flash across kuroo’s features. but he’s still trying to focus his gaze back on the world surrounding him in the first place, and so he doesn’t pay it much mind.
the first thing he notices after exiting the narrow hallway all three were led through, the other guy ranting and raving about whatever inane thing his mind has decided to zone in on for that specific fraction of a second, are the bright stage lights overhead. the second thing kenma sees are a hundred (and one!) chairs arranged neatly in a pyramid shape, with each step containing less and less steps. little more than half of them are already occupied by boys happily chattering away, the ones presumably guilty of defacing the poor wall he’d seen earlier, and kenma shortly entertains the thought of wanting to know whoever this nishinoya guy is because really, if a person’s handwriting is that horrendous they’re certain to be quite the character.
…
on second thought, he doesn’t want to know him.
kenma doesn’t have to think twice about it before beelining in the direction of the very last seat, made of a clear material and accented with a 101 in glittery silver numbers, kuroo’s protests of at least going for seat 50 falling upon ears that aren’t deaf—they’re simply selectively closed for the time being.
if one thing is certain, it’s that murphy’s law never fails. so, let’s see how this goes.
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