#and it turns out that all of akemis instincts were right and she was in danger the ENTIRE TIME
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Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows
In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.
If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.
So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.
I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?
However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.
Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)
And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.
Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.
It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.
Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?
While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:
She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.
You see where I'm going with this.
When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:
And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD
When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.
MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS
No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.
And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:
Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!
The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.
And, uh
Yeah.
I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.
But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.
Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:
But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.
There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.
After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:
"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.
Kind of like another bird in this show:
#blue eye samurai#mizu#akemi#kinuyo#bes#women are birds okay they are BIRDS#the let me die line is so SCARY AND SAD like a part of Mizu wants death but she cant? she doesnt know how?? excuse you show???#when all these other delicate birds are dying all around her#akemis character gets more and more gutwrenching upon subsequent rewatches because whenever she says her life is in danger#NO ONE BELIEVES HER - certainly not other women#because shes rich and pampered and that means shes safe and is worrying about nothing right? right?????#and it turns out that all of akemis instincts were right and she was in danger the ENTIRE TIME#also I need to make a post just for kinuyo because I am sad
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Please, write more physical headcanons about your girls, they are brilliant.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I'm so happy that people love them, luckily I had this for a while, hehe.
OC Triplets Physical Headcannons
Asa
•Asa always looks melancholy with her downcast eyes. Her mouth always seems to instinctively turn into a small frown.
•Killer point: her eyes.
•She looks so gentle with her eyes, especially when she smiles. Yet at the same time her eyes can turn very intense, especially when she glares at you.
•Her eyes are the lightest color among the three by a small margin. It glows into a paler blue when she’s trying really hard to find spirits that are trying to hide from her or about to dissipate.
•You could say she looks quite HAUNTING-
•Asa’s has wild curls for hair. It used to be longer and curlier when she was a child. No one really knew how to maintain her locks except her mother Felicia.
•It leaves Akemi confused on how to tame Asa’s mane and she tried to recall how their mother managed her own hair. But alas, neither of them can remember how their mother took care of her hair.
•When she and Akemi had the same hair length, everyone couldn’t tell who was who if their back was facing them, except Amaya.
•It was also Amaya’s idea that one of them will cut their hair shorter. Akemi protested by telling them she had short hair for decades and it should be Asa’s turn. One Rock Paper Scissors session later, Akemi got to cut Asa’s hair as the victor.
•Asa doesn’t mind her short hair, if anything she still cut it short because she thought it was more convenient.
•Asa’s body used to be incredibly toned from her days as an assassin. It softened over the decades since she doesn’t need to fight as often and she got more food in her system. So on a Kibbs scale, she is a soft natural.
•Her pale golden skin is littered in scars that she hides in long sleeves. She’s not ashamed of them, the scars would just raise questions, that’s all.
•Asa’s fingers are callused from the violin and guns, they tend to be clammy and always felt like her hands had just been dipped in cold water.
•Asa always feels like she’s about to slip away so her sisters have a tendency to hold Asa’s hands harder and tighter.
Akemi
•Despite how cold Akemi presents herself, she has gentler features than her sisters and it makes her look delicate and fragile.
•Killer point: her ENTIRE FACE.
•Bright doe-like eyes with long blonde lashes, naturally rosy cheeks, and soft pink lips. With the bat of her eyes and a shy smile, she can get anyone hooked without trying. (sadly she opted for a colder approach, just to keep people away from her.)
•Asa’s hair and Akemi’s hair used to have the same curliness to it until Akemi’s hair became less and less curly as it grew out while Asa’s stayed the same.
•Compared to Asa’s hair, Akemi’s hair is more in the wavy side and it curls up into golden rings at the end. The kind you can twirl your finger around.
•Akemi likes having her hair end at the end of her waist, like a safe curtain she can bundle up in. Her golden hair looks absolutely stunning when she twirls around in daylight.
•Her sisters had to convince her to get a layered cut for the hotter days because she wouldn’t let go of her long hair.
•Akemi has a dancer’s body, flexible legs with the right amount of curves on her chest and hips. She looks incredibly soft to touch that you want to wrap your hands around her waist. If you were to put her on a Kibb scale, you get soft dramatic.
•Ah, she used to hide her body when she was going through puberty when she was in the whore house.
•Her eyes can burn into a more intense blue once she’s beginning to bursts into flames. Her rosy skin turning a faint blue can also be another signal for you to run.
•Her pianist hands are quite dry and rough from summoning flames which she tries to fix by using a ton of hand lotion. It’s the only part of her that’s not completely soft.
•Amaya jokes that’s it’s fine because it’ll be easier to tell who’s who between her and Asa. (It comforts Akemi a little.)
Amaya
•Exactly how you would envision Snow White. Pale almost translucent skin with red lips that is the color of dried blood. A mole under her right eye and more moles below her neck.
•One mole on her collarbone, two on her left wrist. There is even one mole behind her ear. (there's more-)
•Killer point: her hair.
•Amaya’s hair is stark black and slightly wavy at the tips that ends mid bum and has a large undercut behind all that long hair. She asked Akemi to do the undercut but was convinced to go to a professional.
•When she started attending Ryotei the principal asked if she dyed her hair and demanded that she grows it out. Reiji had to get a real hair certificate that proves that her hair is natural. (As well as Asa’s and Akemi’s)
•Her hair is too slippery to work with and it manages to get out of intricate hair styles. If you want it to behave, you have to use a lot of hairspray.
•Her natural expression makes people assume she’s scarier and more mysterious. When she smiles, it looks like she wants to gain your trust. That or she looks quite cocky.
•When in reality she’s just genuinely happy. She has derpy cat energy.
•Amaya’s eyes are a darker ocean blue than her sisters. The type of blue that you find when you’re looking down underwater and it shows the glimpse of the deeper levels of the ocean.
•The body Amaya has looks much thinner, narrower, sharper angles and with fewer curves no matter how much she ate. If you were to put her on a Kibb scale, you get dramatic.
•Amaya still feels insecure about how she looks since she has few features that resembles to her sisters. However, you can tell they're sisters if you noticed how in sync they are with one another that it's kinda creepy.
•Amaya’s hands are eerily smooth minus her writer’s callus and the calluses at her fingertips when she works on her dolls. Till this day, she never cut a deep gash on her hands when she’s making dolls.
#diabolik lovers#dialovers#diabolik lovers oc#dl oc#diabolik oc#asa sakamaki#sakamaki asa#akemi sakamaki#sakamaki akemi#amaya sakamaki#sakamaki amaya
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Can I request how the gang bang would have happened if yuri didn’t save the reader? That yuri fic was just 🤌🤌*chefs kiss* but my mind kept wandering to the what if...
Haaaaa. Bet! - yari
TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT / GANG RAPE, blood kink (if you squint), dacryphilia (oil immersion)
“Please! Yuri, help me! Don’t let them-”
Your cries fell on deaf ears, a maniacal laughter filling your own. It was hard to tell if was Yuri's; you hoped not, but the pitch seemed all distorted. Your senses were overwhelmed as Tamura pulled you gruffly against him. He forced his leg between yours, pressing his thigh against you.
"Nggh, she even smells good!" he grunted in your ear as he wriggled his pants to his ankles.
More hands had made quick work of your clothes and your head snapped back on the whims of a sharp tug on your hair. Akemi, his nose ghosting across the now exposed skin of your neck as his teeth carved into the flesh, shifted over so Tamura could adjust his grip, and Itome could grope your ass.
"Move over," Shikatani groused. "I want her throat."
"Shika-kun, that's no way to ask her, is it?" Itome nudged Shika forward. The latter wrung his hands in front of him, pink spreading across his cheeks.
As he bent forward, licking your mouth open, he asked you in a voice like sugared honey. "Let me fuck your throat?"
You let out a groan, unsure even yourself of whether it was a denial or an affirmation.
The cup of your bra was digging into the meat of your breast. You whined. Tamura sighed, yanking the garment down around your true waist. In one motion, you swerved through the steamy air, and landed on top of Tamura on the couch, leaving Yuri behind you.
"Y-Yuri-kun," you whimpered, your hands fumbling behind you to pull him closer for just a moment's comfort.
"Shh, shhh, shh!" he hummed with a squeal, an arm snaking up your chest. His hands found your throat, and while one gave you a soft squeeze, the other pried your lips apart. You hadn't realized how much saliva had pooled on your tongue, the fluid spilling past your lips and around Yuri's slender figures much to his delight.
Tamura pulled your weight against him once more, bouncing you on his lap as he swirled his tongue around the shell of your ear.
Your head fell forward. Yuri's fingers slipping from your mouth. You felt yourself clench against Tamura's muscular thigh, your hips inching back and forth. You heard him chuckle.
"Finally coming around, eh? It'll be easier if you don't struggle too much, hurts less that way."
Warm lips peppered across your shoulders, soon joined while at the nape of your neck by Yuri's tongue, the cool steel ball of his piercing sending a jolt of shivers up your spine, but Tamura's vice on your hips and Yuri's grips on your arms kept you from giving out on them.
As spots of black danced in your periphery and tears pricked at your eyes, you realized Akemi, who had Itome on his knees already, and Shikatani were all beside you.
"What's that now? The loser finally broke?" Akemi's hand replaced Yuri's, turning your head to face your seniors. "Poor thing. Better learn to pace yourself. After all, we're just getting started."
His index finger tapped your cheek. You were running on an unknown instinct, something dark and animalistic, your most feral desires overpowering rational thought. You opened your mouth wider, as far as you could, and Shikatani tilted his hips forward, sliding his cock into the awaiting orifice and beginning to fuck your throat with reckless abandon.
Who were you if you couldn't even let out one last scream before he did, one last prayer that it would all relent? Instead you felt a cold sensation around your bud; Yuri lubing you up with his thumb so he could take you, the sweat from his chest practically gluing him to your back. Then came Tamura's thick fingers scissoring inside you, and when the pads of his first two fingers curled, brushing across the soft spongey wall, you were gone.
"Likey, likey," Yuri sang.
You tried to reply, the only noise coming out a gargle of your own spit as your tongue lolled out the side of your mouth.
"Huh?" he taunted, pulling you off of Shikatani. "Want something?"
Shikatani blows before you can even think to answer, his mess streaking across your face. While Yuri pushed Shikatani's cum further into your mouth, forcing you to swallow it, the warm head of his cock pushed past your rim, and as you gasped, your eyes screwing shut, Tamura took the opportunity to tuck into your front, bucking into you inch by torturous inch before growing impatient and yanking you down on him.
Each push from Tamura was met by a pull from Yuri, their rhythms so in sync you could tell the only first here was yours. Yuri's nails scratched at your scalp and raked down your arms to pinch your nipples, even twisting them just to hear how pretty you sounded when you cried their names.
At the feeling of their dicks brushing each other through your gummy pink, Tamura bit down hard on your lip and soon the taste of iron mingled with your spit. Tamura licked across your lips with a feral fervor that could only make you moan, finally succumbing to the ecstasy of the overstimulation.
"Careful, Tamu-kun," Akemi calls, his voice lighter now that Itome's got his nose right against his pubes, tongue slurping at his balls. "If she thinks she's being punished, our little pet will run away. . ."
"Nah," Tamura wheezed, thrusting up once more before he gave you his load. "She won't go anywhere if she knows what's good for her."
As you glanced down at the space where you and Tamura were connected, watching his thick, creamy cum drip out from your hole around his softening cock, you could only hum in content satisfaction and blissful agreement before Yuri followed his lead.
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Song: Certain Things by James Arthur
Summary: When the setter's decision led him to a war with his heart.
Pairings: Keiji Akaashi x fem! reader
Word count: 5.3k
Genre: angst
A/N: i used to listen to this song nonstop and it just suited how sad this is so no happy endings for this one🤺
"Keiji!"
You watch as she runs up to him, engulfing him in the sweetest hug you could ever imagine. How you envy the feeling of being welcome in his arms. His eyes soften at the sight of her, as she rambled on how amazing he was. He gives her his heart fluttering smile as he lets his palm set on her shoulder, kindly thanking her for watching and supporting him throughout the entire game.
Did your shouts of love become silent to him?
She grabs his towel, patting it lightly on his forehead as he blushes finding the gesture extremely embarassing for the girl he longs for to just wipe away his sweat. He tries to stop her but she insisted, even grabbing her water bottle and giving it to him, asking him to drink some water and rest.
"Hey hey hey- look at me please."
Bokuto says, coming from behind you. You turn to him with water baring eyes, a heartache eating you up with every second you continue to watch. Bokuto sighs as he pulls you in his arms, his chin resting on your crown, as he caresses your hair as you let out an agonizing sob. Bokuto sees the way Akaashi didn't bother to spare them a glance, as Akaashis overall being was captivated by the girl that was beside him. He coes her, whispering how he's got her and he'll never have the courage to let her go, the way the dark haired boy did.
"We won today yeah? Why don't we celebrate?" Bokuto tries to tone his voice in his usual cheery self but feels defeated when he sees her. Y/N looks up at him, he tenses up as he holds your head, an instinct that you were going to look again. You were mid way into letting your eyes land on them but Bokuto stopped you as he held your face in his palm, looking at you with an expression you were well familiar with.
"Y/N."
" 'Taro, shit I'm sorry!" You shouted before wiping away your eyes as his heart winces seeing his friend poorly attempt to regain the sunshine that she once was. Puffed cheeks, swollen eyes, red tinted nose, what a cruel sight yet she dared to cover all of these with a smile. It was disgusting how she made it look so believable, fooling almost everyone that witnessed her little facade. Bokuto falling for it countless of times but has learned to tell the difference every now and then, fitting in for the spot of her once best friend who knew exactly what she was truly feeling.
Akaashi would've read her like a novel he loved but it seems like it wasn't as timeless anymore.
It was now up to Bokuto to handle the shattered girl, even when her own broken heart pierced through her like a knife everyday.
"I-I know a good place to eat at! Maybe then I can treat you for being my favorite ace?" She offers with a sickening chuckle. She was achingly trying. He only gives her a smile, accepting her efforts of hiding how empty she felt. He lets his arm fall on her shoulders, comforting her with everything he can do.
"Oh! I'd like that, kind of like a double date huh? Seems like I get to treat my favorite setter too!" Akemi states, eyes darting towards Akaashi as he becomes flustered with her words. Bokutos eyebrow furrows, and with a pout he tries to insist that you didn't want her to accompany them, but you let your arm come before him as he questions your decisions.
"Sure! The more the merrier right, Ko?" Akemi claps her hand as she gathers her things, Akaashi doing the same. Bokuto takes notice of your longing gaze as he pulls you with him.
"So is that right? I'm your favorite?" Bokuto teases, as you laugh punching him lightly on his shoulder. He chuckles but was taken by surprise as you wrap your arms around his neck, standing on your tip toes to reach him. He immediately wraps his arms around your waist as you pat his hair, nuzzling your face in his neck as you smile, feeling gratitude for an amazing friend like him.
"You were fantastic earlier, I'm sorry for being so-" Bokuto cuts you off with a shout of triumph, making you confused as he pulls away. He wouldn't let her continue her sentence, knowing he couldn't stand hearing her blame herself for something she couldn't handle.
"Ah! What a starter! Thanks Y/N! No wonder I'm the best huh?" He shouts closing his eyes, putting his hands on his hips smiling to himself. You laugh, enjoying how it fed his confidence. Akaashi turns to the two of you watching how Bokuto oddly portray his muscles as you laugh loudly. Akemi smiles beside him, finding the duo quite suited for each other
"They should date! Bokuto makes her so happy!" She claims, as Akaashi blinks, shaking his head turning to meet her green eyes.
"She hates guy who shows off their muscles like that. She think's its a bit cocky." Akemi laughs at Akaashi, since what he said sounded like a known fact.
"Maybe everything can change when she's with him."
She states, making his eyes widen. Impossible. She can't just switch her words just because of Bokuto. He says to himself. Once he hears how genuine your laugh was and realizes that the ace was the cause of it, he stiffens at the thought of the you and the captain together. Akaashi was the one to introduce you to him so it was a surprise you two would come together like that, especially when he felt how Bokuto adjusted to you quite quickly.
"Ooh Y/N likes that color! Will you get it for her, Akaashi?!" Bokuto asks, pointing excitedly at a plush toy. Akaashis blue eyes turned to the location where the finger was pointed and he smiles seeing an immensely cute plush toy he knew you would love but this glee ends when he realizes that Bokuto managed to remember your favorite color.
"Bokuto-san, I'm impressed you knew what she liked." He said with an amused smile. The other boys eyes glimmered in the moonlight, remembering your past conversations with him.
"It's easy! Y/N always talk about many things and it's so freaking awesome. You've known her for the longest time right 'Kaashi? She's so cool." His words bring a smile to the setters lips, loving how Bokuto got along with you so well.
"Oh wait! Akaashi!"
"Yes, Bokuto-san?"
"Well! You've been with her since you were young right? So that means.. you like her!"
Akaashi coughs on his water looking at Bokuto. Bokutos cackle echoed through the air and his words consuming Akaashi's thoughts.
"I do like her but not romantically ok?" He defends, but Bokuto let's out a displeased scoff skipping ahead of the flustered setter. Happily moving knowing he's got him on a hot seat.
"That can change Akaashi!"
And it did.
For Y/N to watch Akemi casually serve Akaashi his food, it was like being tortured in a chamber or watching it to make your brain rot. They look perfect, she thinks. Bokuto was eating happily beside him, and setting aside how hurt she was, she chose to ignore the throbbing of her heart. Akaashi was in front of her as Akemi was in front of Bokuto. The two were in well conversation as Bokuto tried to gather your attention while he brings up how excited he was for a new move.
Dropping your chopsticks, you curse as you got out of your chair to bend down and reach it. Grabbing it in your hands as you look up to see a hand covering the sharp corner of the table. Your eyes follow it and realizing it was Akaashis hand, protecting you if you were to hit your head. This minimal effort was enough to set your soul on fire, admiring how he was able to act so quickly and composed. You return to your seat, Akaashi watching you steadily to make sure you were back. You give him a nod, thanking him for being observant as he smiles to you instead.
Just maybe.
You feel the rising heat on your cheeks as you sip water, hoping it were to ease your frantic heart. You observe Akemi, and painfully suck in the harsh truth that you couldn't deny. Everything that Akaashi has told you about his dream girl, the list of expectations he's had, it was all her. The embodiment of what Akaashi wants to hold, to love and to keep. You hear how her laughter sounded like gentle music, even her personality radiated nothing but sunshine.
All you can do was sigh, when a dream like her already has captured the heart of the young boy you grew to love.
She drops her phone, somewhat mirroring your actions beforehand. Akaashi turns to her immediately, as your heart took another strike seeing him mimic the same actions he had with you. Hand covering the edge, with a gentle hand on her back as she picks up the device leaving you stranded in strings of pain. She smiles at him, casually resting her hand on his as a thank you. Akaashi immediately blushes before placing his other hand on top, eyes lovingly holding onto hers.
The string of hope that you held on for dear life, immediately broke as you let the cup of water fall from your hands, taking an excruciating hit as you were brought back to the silent beating of your heart.
I'm certain that I'm yours.
Or at least I thought.
Bokuto calls your name multiple times as he frantically wipes the spillage of the water that was on the table and on your attire. You felt towels pat your lap gently as Bokuto still continued to put effort in grabbing your attention. Akemi looks at you concerned, worried for whatever thought that you had in mind was enough for you to completely lose your grip on reality.
"Y/N, hey!"
"I didn't think I'd be able to stay with you this long, Y/N." He says with a smile as you walk with him. It was early in the morning, both on your way to school. Coffee in both hands as you give him a pout, finding his statement in a different tone.
"You make it sound like you're unfortunate." You joke as Akaashi laughs beside you, sipping coffee before letting out a satisfied sigh.
"You've been with me even before I got in Fukurodani. I'm just really happy I've found somebody to turn to." You smile as your fingers brush against each other in which at the contact made you both blush. All the tension that was held in the moment was a bunch of unheard confessions, both unwilling to let them speak.
"I'm lucky I have you too, Kei."
"Seems like someone isn't technically happy of sharing the spotlight with me." Akaashi teases pointing at a very sleepy Bokuto who was walking up to you two.You giggle at the setter, while his blue eyes stayed on your smiling lips, relieved that it didn't fail to make him smile as well.
"Y/N."
A stern voice makes your gloomy eyes trail over to a pair of blue ones you were addicted to.
"Y/N? What's wrong with you? You made a mess." He says, completely knocking you off your limit. You stood up, hands on the table with your head down as Bokuto grunts knowing exactly what was bound to happen.
"I'm sorry Akaashi."
"That was reckless. You could've spilled it all over us, even Akemi-"
Bokuto winces when the name slips off of Akaashis lips as you hastily grab your wallet placing the money to Bokuto and mumbling a sorry before rushing to leave, tears falling from your tired eyes once you were out of the restaurant. Bokuto observes the way Akaashis eyes remained enlarged when it hit him how harsh he was. The captain wished that this worry of Akaashi would last long, since this was his first time seeing the setter show any concern for the poor girl in such a long time.
"Bokuto, will she be alright?" Akemi asks him, as he lets out a shrug of defeat. Akaashi bit his lip feeling the responsibility of his actions weigh on both him and the ace. He knew that Bokuto would never be able to comfort her the way he does, and reading her expressions when she left, reassuring her wouldn't be as easy.
Because he was the reason why she was hurting, not even realizing the damage has been done too many times already.
Your feet felt like weights as you ran, feeling the burn of guilt pass through you. On your way to pick up some snacks and refreshments for their match, a certain sight caught your eye leading you to your current decision.
"Yes thank you!" You say with a smile before, leaving the store with the things you bought. You rub your eyes, hating how early you had to catch a bus for their match. This was your only chance to watch them again since you avoided Akaashi for days, making Bokuto your company. You apologized dozens of times to Bokuto for leaving him in an awkward situation. Of course he forgave you, deciding to treat you to a movie instead to erase your worry.
Suddenly a familiar voice spikes up your interest, your head turning left and right to find Akemi. Instead, a tall man walks pass you carrying a bag that you've seen multiple times. You shrug, not wanting to lead to conclusions knowing how Akemi was genuine with her admiration for Akaashi.
"Haru-san!"
Akemi greets, arms wrapped around the waist of the man. You turn to see the two hugging and you gripped the plastic bag in your hands, as Haru places a gentle kiss on her forehead making you stunned even more.
"So where we going later?" He asks, as you lower your head, trying to control your breathing. This is impossible. How could she just lead him on like that! You despised how you weren't able to save Akaashi from the beginning, and now it was your turn to drop a heavy bomb on your best friend.
"We'll meet up later okay? I'll just attend my friend's match."
Friends.
You immediately walked away, weakened at what she just said. No matter shape or form, Akaashi would be hurt, completely. It hurt you that you'd have to see the painful expression on Akaashis face. You bit your lip, trying to avoid the look of dismay on your best friend. You let out a sad sigh as you began to pick up the pace in your walk.
Is it his turn to feel hopeless?
You've tried your best to avoid him. The tension being unresolved between the two of you yet you were happy Akaashi understood why you've created distance between you and him.
Knowing the two were inseparable, you were the one to adjust whenever Bokuto would be heading to practice or even going to lunch. Although, Akaashi gave you some space knowing his outburst completely set a different side to your friendship. You two have never really fought in such a way, he knew even if it was a small fight there was a distinct aura that surrounded the two of you. Beyond what happened, he knew you were facing some other problem that he was clueless of and him adding to your issues wasn't helping the both of you.
So whenever the dark haired boy saw you bid goodbye to Bokuto whenever he was on his way to approach the captain, it stung in his heart.
Akaashi sighs beside Bokuto. Koutaro was prepping himself up completely, pressing his palms to his cheeks. They were up to play soon and the blue eyed boy wonders if she would be able to make it back in time. While he wonders about you, his mind swerves to Akemi. He finds himself foolishly smiling at the thought of them holding hands at the restaurant so he looks at his phone, finding her contact and glancing at their photo.
Next to her contact was yours, which he was hesitant to tap on. He shuts off his phone before seeing Bokuto wave frantically with a smile on his face. Akaashi looks at you, eyes shining knowing you made it just in time to bid him goodluck and hopefully to clear up the quarrel. You felt your heart leap with every step, a war in your head in how you were going to tell him. Your hands tightened as you walk over to them, Bokuto patting your head showing how delighted he was that you were there. Akaashi wonders if you could even spare him a glance.
" 'Taro! I have your snacks but- promise me you'll be the best out there and maybe I'll treat you later!" You say as Bokuto punches the air, his mind in a frenzy at the scenario in his head of eating his favorite food.
You turn to Akaashi, shakily grabbing his arm as he stiffens at your sudden contact. He looks at your weary eyes as you desperately tried to calm down.
"Keiji, can we talk?" Why did you say it like that? He asks himself. His name has never sounded so troublesome before. He fidgets with his fingers as he trails behind you as you lead him to a more private place. You felt the shivers reach your body, immediately bringing coldness at how anxious you were. This was the first time in days where you two would be able to converse properly again.
As you make your way to a corner, Akaashis feet was tapping furiously, scared of what you were going to say. He waits for you to speak as he watches you take a deep breath as you hold his arm once again. Softer than before but it felt like a desperate touch.
"Kei- you do trust me right?" Akaashi nods immediately, lips frowning at the tone of her voice. Is she going to leave me? Please say no. He wanted to get this over with so he wonders if you were just going to rip off the bandaid and end the friendship even if he was willing to apologize multiple times. But then, how could you end it just because he was right about being reckless?
"Akemi- she has a boyfriend, Keiji-"
"You came.. to tell me this?"
"Akaashi- I-I know you like her but"
"God Y/N how could you.." Akaashi exclaims as you aggresively run your fingers through your hair, before grabbing his jacket trying to make him stay. He stands there in shock, as rage and envy flow through him overwhelming him in the process. His hands form a ball as it tightens quickly at the thought of how Akemi was just being nice all the time.
Akaashi looks at you only to find truth in your eyes but his heart betrays the both of you, now broken and in denial that the girl he adored was dating somebody that wasn't him.
"Akaashi, please listen to me! I don't want you to get hurt..believe me!" You pleaded, throwing away how hurt you were from the drastic change in his tone.
"Hurt? So you think you're being considerate then?" Akaashi questions her with spite in his tone. His demeanor towering over her as she crumbles at his voice. Akaashis heart coming back to the reason why it was guarded in the first place.
"Keiji.. you know that's not what I mean!" You defended yourself as Akaashi scoffs. It was mocking you how composed he looked yet the tone of his voice was laced with pure hatred. Deep down, Akaashi accepted the fact that he could never really win Akemi but he was blinded by the pain that you brought him.
"You're just jealous, Y/N. Stop lying." He continued, making you shake your head as you tried to grasp his jacket again but this time your hands barely touched the fabric making your heart gasp at how Akaashi was out of your grip.
"I didn't know you could pull off being a liar, and I don't see myself being a friend with a trait like yours."
The tears flowed down your cheeks as you let out a shakey breath, in disbelief at what he just said. I'm not lying, Akaashi. You promised me you trusted me.
"You said you t-trusted me, Akaashi! How could that change for you!" You shouted as he was brought back to Akemis words.
"Maybe everything can change."
"You promise I'll be okay?"
"I've got no reason to doubt you." He says smiling as you lean your head on his shoulder, tracing random lines and doodling away on his soft skin. Under the beautiful tree, with purple painted skies with clouds up above. After a stressful day on your side, the setter took notice of how you've let yourself fall onto your insecurities once again so he took it upon himself and brought you to a silent place to show you how you shouldn't worry about anything, comforting you with his kind words and him trusting you that would be able to regain your old self again.
"Certain things hurt and you're my only virtue." You confess as his heart spikes up its speed with your response. You sat up, gazing at the houses who seemed too tiny from your distance. You held your knees to your chest with lips formed in a relaxed state as you lean on your arm that was on top of your knee.
And I'm virtually yours.
Akaashi remained with his back on the grass as he admired your features wondering how you could ever put yourself down, when you took away his words whenever you were with him, hiding it perfectly and keeping his admiration far from you to avoid the continous breaking of his heart knowing he'd betray your beloved friendship.
I adore you, he thinks to himself as the only thing that reflected in his eyes were the girl he's lost to his wrong decision.
"You changed and it's disappointing. All because of jealousy? I've been with you for so long, how did you become selfish?"
Selfish. I must've been crazy then, you think. You let out a bitter chuckle, Akaashi frightened at this side of you you've yet to show him before. It was like poison consuming your body, in which the poison came in the form of his words.
"All I've ever been is selfless, god I even let you fall for someone else when I've been in love with you for years."
You took a step back as Akaashi stood where he was, feeling as if his feet couldn't leave the floor as he lets himself drown in your confession. He gulps as he was struck with regret since he had no idea how to respond to you. His eyes trail to the floor as he struggles to find the words.
Then the battle began, between in what he knows whose right for you and his heart who wanted no one else but you.
He was miserable. A side of him wanted to say how much he's waited for you to bid those words to him and claim that he's felt the same as you, but the other side wanted to badly decline knowing he was stuck in choosing you and Akemi. Akemi who has effortlessly tugged on his heart strings and gained it with her gentleness and beautiful personality, and you who's promised to stay forever and loved him longer than anyone else has.
Don't make me choose on who I love more.
He knew the time would come where his decisions would bare another heavy mark on him. He's already made a terrible one by putting his heart in the hands of Akemis instead of yours. He wishes there wasn't a deadline to this difficult decision, but to him it seemed like if he doesn't choose now, he'd feel the pain everyday.
"AKAASHI! LET'S GO!" Bokuto screams as Akaashi turns his eyes to you in a swift move, finding your eyes covered in tears but how come you looked like you felt nothing? You sniffle as you give him a warm smile, a reaction he didn't want to see knowing it wasn't a smile that could bring him joy.
"Goodluck, Akaashi."
He takes a step forward trying to capture you in his arms but Bokuto grabs him by the arm pulling him away from you, Bokuto saying goodbye to you as well and reminding you the promise you gave him. That moment, all that Akaashi wanted to was run and replace the silence he gave you. You deserved to hear what he truly felt, but his words were trapped as he still had to examine if he was choosing the right ones.
But he ran out of time.
-
The game starts and he prays for his performance to be at his usual best. Once Bokuto had the setter to himself, Akaashi couldn't hold back and told him what happened. Bokuto felt horrible for both of you, while feeling revengeful to Akemi since he too fell for her sweet gestures to Akaashi thinking that she actually liked him. Importantly, Bokuto badly wanted to be there for you. He knew how much you liked him so for you to confess so suddenly during your argument, it had the grey haired boy worried about you.
He couldn't blame Akaashi, as much as he wanted to. He acted in a way because he was suffering, but they didn't realize they both were. Though, he wished Akaashi could've treated her better, believed her. Bokuto believed her the minute Akaashi told him, and it was because he trusted her completely and she wouldn't speak out without a reason meanwhile Akaashi chose to hold onto denial.
And as they play, Akaashi looks over to the stands, searching for you when he came upon Akemis. The pretty girl with an arm wrapped around her shoulder as Akaashi loses the ball in his hands from the view.
"Akaashi, please listen to me! I don't want you to get hurt..believe me!"
"You said you t-trusted me, Akaashi! How could that change for you!"
Like the ball falling to the floor, his heart went along with it.
Scream. That's what he wanted to do. How absurd of him to get it wrong twice, there shouldn't even be any room for mistakes. I can't believe I lost her..again. Akaashi thinks. There was a painful ache in his heart, yet he couldn't set it free not wanting to let down the team. Especially in a match like this. He wanted to break, to land on the ground and let his consciousness scold him for hours. He deserved it. He should've learned but he was trapped inside a world where he thought Akemi would've been his everything, when he was blind to how powerful his love for you all this time.
Come back to me.
"Akaashi!" Bokutos hand reach his shoulder and all he could do was stare at a pair of blank eyes. Before the ace could ask what happened, Akaashi was clutching on to Bokutos jersey harshly taking the older boy by surprise.
"She was right." Akaashi utters as he points to the crowd making Bokuto squint just to find where Akemi was. Once he finds them, he sighs sadly before trying to come up with a response to cheer the boy up. It was obvious that Akaashi was too affected to perform properly. Lip quivering as if his world was destroyed twice.
"Doesn't that mean the only thing you can come back to is Y/N?"
Akaashi looks up to him, confused. Bokuto patted the boys shoulder with a soft smile.
"Look over there." This time, it was Bokutos turn to point to the other side of the stands to see you glancing over them. Akaashis eyes glimmered at the sight of you, like life was brought to him in an instant. Happiness couldn't be the only word to describe his emotions.
You were watching.
And he was going to win. Just for you.
This brings him a massive wave of energy, not digging into his thoughts. You smile wiping your heavy eyes seeing him back to his usual self. In his heart he was happy but a mistake shouldn't be rewarded by a smile.
Sticking to his promise, they won but an unfamiliar feeling sets in his skin making him stop in his tracks making Bokuto look behind him to see Akaashi with his hand on top of his chest and eyes straight to the floor. Bokuto grips the phone in his hand, biting his lip and looking down, his heart aching as well.
"Bokuto-san, where is she?" His voice cracks, a tear finally escaping his eyes. He lets out a soft sniffle looking everywhere for a trace of you. Bokuto just shakes his head as a response and Akaashis eyes widen as he harshly wipes away his tears with the sleeve of his jacket. Written in his lips and eyes, Akaashi was exhausted. At first, he thought that letting go of his emotions would be the answer but now he was letting them free yet he didn't wanna scream anymore. He already felt his throat dry at the realization.
"Doesn't that mean the only thing you can come back to is Y/N?"
You sank in your seat, numb to how wet your cheeks were from the continous flow of your tears. Your chest was heaving up and down but your eyes were already closed with tight lips pressed into a line. There were certain things you wish you could've done, but staying wasn't an option when you've gone through multiple battles already. This was the last straw.
Even if you did wanted to fight for him, would he do the same?
You let out a sigh as you open your eyes seeing the road and reminiscing on your last walk with Akaashi.
"What's her name again?" You ask, kicking a rock to the side before shoving your hands inside the pocket of your blazer. Akaashi smiles out of bliss at the thought of her smile and once you've got a glimpse of his expression, you question the drop in your heartbeat as you see him blush before fidgeting with his fingers.
"Akemi." He says, his heart beating loudly. Saying her name already brought the setter in touch with his emotions. It was unlikely for him to feel his heart flutter, but being around Akemi brought him to smile whenever she was there, get anxious to respond to her, and get a flush on his cheeks at the thought of her moments with him.
The name rings in your ears as you were greeted by the silencing beat of your heart. You watch as he turns to you since you've trailed behind him. You visualize how you've seen him with Akemi during lunch and that's when you knew.
It's never going to be me, is it?
"Let's go, Bokuto-san." Bokuto bit his lip, waiting for you to go to them and proving him it was all a prank.
"Akaashi-"
"She left already and I-" His voice breaks making Bokuto gaze at him in pain.
"I'm sorry I couldn't make her stay, Akaashi." Bokuto whispers. Akaashi drags his sleeve to his eyes again, hating how his eyes grew heavy with the tears that escaped his sorrowful blue ones. With a tragic wound embedded in his heart, he spoke.
"I couldn't either."
#haikyu x reader#haikyuu!!#akaashi keiji#akaashi angst#haikyuu akaashi#akaashi x you#bokuto x reader#hinata shouyou#nishinoya x reader#sugawara x y/n#tsukishima fluff#tsukishima x reader#daichi sawamura x reader#hinata x reader#akaashi x reader#hq akaashi
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Top 5 Favorite Louis Moments
So... have I ever told you guys that Louis is my favorite character in TWDG? No? I didn’t have to? You could tell by the everything that is my blog that he’s my favorite?
Well your deduction skills are great because it’s true-- Louis is, indeed, my favorite character and after all the nonsense going on with last week’s T5F, I wanted to talk about my boy to get that salty taste outta my mouth, y’know?
I want to talk about some of my favorite Louis moments from The Final Season, and in turn, about why I love him so much.... also this challenge of giving myself only 5 moments was just cruel and I struggled because I love nearly every Louis moment. I had to narrow it down to the favorite moments where I believe his development as a character were at its greatest, because that’s something I love about him-- his growth through the season.
Wanna give a quick shoutout @pi-creates for letting me use some screenshots for this post! I’m also doing a bit of a collab with Pi and a few others for this T5F. I thought it would be fun if they did some lists for other characters! I’ll update this post with links to their Top 5′s as they come out. :D
Pi’s Top 5 Aasim Moments
@kaylee-wolf’s Top 5 James Moments
@taurusicorn2400′s Top 5 Favorite Things About Violet
@akemi-rose578′s Top 5 Favorite Ruby Moments
5. Appealing to Louis
I won’t spend too much time on this one because I talked about this entire scene in great detail in my Marlon character study, but I do truly love everything about it.
When you appeal to Louis, he’s pretty insistent about staying out of it... even though you can tell this whole situation is hurting him. With Marlon still having a grip on him, Louis feels like he has to side with Marlon because he’s his best friend, he’s always had his back, he’s gotta trust him... Marlon wouldn’t kill Brody like that, it just doesn’t make sense, right?
Add that on top of the fact that Louis is already established as “Marlon’s lap dog,” as Aasim puts it, and Marlon himself even implies that Louis is irresponsible and doesn’t ever step up.
So to have Louis instinctively puts his hands up like “Oh no, no, noooo I am not involved! Sorry, I like ya Clem but yeah, you’re on your own.... sorry,” makes sense with how he’s established, and you as Clementine have to sway him to your side by giving him some much needed courage and a chance to break from Marlon’s control to do the right thing, which is executed super well.
My personal favorite choice is to ask Louis if he’s really going to just let Marlon shoot me just so that he doesn’t want to get involved. You can see from his body language and facial expressions that Clementine’s words struck a nerve... he doesn’t want that to happen, that he doesn’t want Marlon to murder Clementine like this, and that he knows this is all wrong.
Also, Clementine’s “I thought you were more than that” is just.... so good. When you consider his entire arc... as far as we know, this is the first time someone has said something like that to Louis and it shows.
So he tries to talk to Marlon the first time, and Marlon intimidates and manipulates him to where you believe he’s not going to help you... and I love it. I love the way this is shot where Louis, with his hands up, slips right in front of Clementine and talks Marlon down. He sees that Marlon has a damn gun pointed at him, but he puts himself in danger to protect Clementine [and Marlon, in a way]... someone he doesn’t know that well, and he even walks towards Marlon while the gun is still pointed at him to protect her and those around him.
There’s also the other bits where Louis tries to be reassuring to Marlon, that they’re gonna help him out, that they’re all they got, that Marlon wasn’t always pathetic.... which that last one prompts the “Yeah I was, you’re just the only one who didn’t see it,” and that’s... a whole thing.
This is the first glimpse of growth we see with Louis and I love it.
4. The talk in the dorms
Okay... this scene.
I love this scene... obviously. One of my favorite’s from Ep2. After AJ is patched up and recovering in the dorms, Louis comes by to bring AJ some new clothes since his got torn up from Abel’s magic shotgun.
At this point, we already know that Louis is dealing with a lot of shit-- his best friend of 8+ years was murdered right in front of him, he’s traumatized, mourning, and hurting buuuuuut most of the Ericson crew don’t seem to care that he’s going through this. Violet keeps invalidating this pain and calling him a shithead while talking shit about Marlon right in front of him without any care. Mitch acts like Louis should be more aggressive because he was Marlon’s best friend, which results in Louis feeling even shittier.
He doesn’t know what to do about Clementine and AJ, all he knows is that them being there makes everything feel worse and he’s scared... AND on top of that, he just learned what Marlon was really like, Brody did indeed die because Marlon hit her, the twins might be alive because Marlon traded them away, AND there are asshole raiders coming to kidnap and/or murder them.
AND because he took part in the vote that got Clementine and AJ kicked out and insisted they follow through, AJ ended up getting shot by Abel’s magic shotgun and could’ve died... and Louis feels responsible for that, but he’s conflicted because this kid literally murdered his best friend that’s why they were kicked out in the first place.
Also, presumably, he’s dealing with all this by himself.
Honestly, I’m surprised he’s still functioning because that’s a lot.
Despite all that, he still sticks with Ruby in helping patch AJ up, and is thoughtful enough to bring him new clothes so he’s more comfortable. It says a lot about him, y’know? He’s still hurting, he’s still angry, but he doesn’t hate Clementine and AJ for what happened. He never did, he just didn’t know what to do. He’s still processing what happened and sorting out his feelings.
Oh and then the talk with Clementine... okay, I love the talk.
It’s quiet, sincere, and emotional. Clementine kinda begins to pry about whether or not he’s okay with them staying after AJ gets better and the raiders are taken care of, and he avoids giving her a straight answer until she pushes, to which he answers with an honest, “I don’t know, Clementine.”
Then AJ wakes up, and I love the way Louis responds to AJ asking if they’re friends again. He doesn’t lie to make AJ feel better, but he’s not a jerk about it.
And finally, we get the final dialogue prompt with him. I usually tell him I really missed him, to which he responds with, “Missed you, too. Goodnight.” and I just... it’s so good.
Honestly, Louis could’ve turned into a real bitch and not bothered, he could’ve remained angry and took every opportunity to remind Clem and AJ of how terrible they are... I can think of plenty characters that would’ve done that in his situation, but that’s not Louis. He’s not that kind of person... which is interesting when you consider his backstory and what landed him at Ericson in the first place. He’s seen what that kind of resentment, no matter how great, can lead to.
Overall, one of the best moments in his character development.
3. Louis opening up to Clementine in the music room
Oh, where to begin?
First off, not gonna gush too much about the clouis because this is a list focusing on Louis, not necessarily his romance with Clementine... I’ll only bring it up when it pertains to his character development, y’know? Second, not gonna get into the poor lead up to this scene where the writers dropped the ball with the ‘go with Violet to protect the school vs screw around with Louis and probably die’ thing. That’s a topic for another day. Just talking about the scene itself.
Because this moment is so damn good. Honestly, these last three entries I could probably do entire posts picking them apart and analyzing everything but we don’t wanna be here for hours so I’ll try to condense it the best I can.
So Louis invites Clementine to the music room because he needs up with a project. Clementine enters to find him playing a song that he wrote, and they have a fun conversation. Right off the bat, we get Clementine mentioning that they haven’t heard any music for a while [implying that Louis hasn’t been playing] and Louis responds with, “Some say you’re not about to hear it now.” which we all know is him trying to make light of people telling him he doesn’t have any music talent and like.... his face. The way it falls as the music goes from cheery to sad. The way Clementine looks at him.
I talk about Louis having a wall around him a lot. Well, that’s because he does. It’s the irony thing where the happy, loud, funny character is actually putting that on as a façade because they’re hiding behind a wall too scared to let anyone in because it’s either bit them in the ass before or no one has bothered to ever take them seriously anyway or a number of other reasons.
Louis seems to let that wall down for little bits at a time without realizing it, then when he does, it shoots right back up. A great example of this is in ep1 when he and Clementine talk in the woods. The shift is obvious, and here he’s still doing it.
He turns around and asks Clementine how they feel about their imminent deaths in a jokey tone. My favorite thing to do is here is remain silent. When you do that, he becomes serious again and in a soft voice, he tells Clementine that he’s here for her.
I find this whole sections of the scene, including the tuning the piano part, so interesting because it’s him testing the waters with Clementine, if you will. He’s inching the wall down until they’re both sitting comfortably at the piano when he begins to play his song for her. They mark the piano, and I think that seals it for him that they’re here together, that Clementine isn’t like the others who have never taken him seriously or never bother to look below the surface.
So, he takes a chance and fully brings the wall down, opening himself up to her as he thanks her for being there with him, even after everything.
Like... Louis is just so aware of people’s perceptions of him. This is a discussion that I’ve had with people before where Louis is very much a people person in the way that he’s not just charismatic, he’s observant, too.
Anyway, you can have Clementine confess she has romantic feelings for him, establishing them as a couple, or you can remain friends but now you’re super best friends. You know me, I go the romance route because clouis.
I do wanna point out that Louis does have romantic feelings for Clementine no matter what you pick, but if you do wish to remain friends, he’s incredibly respectful of that. There’s no bitterness, there’s no pushing. He’s maybe a little sad for two seconds before he realizes that he has a new [and probably better] best friend and embraces it. He’s just happy to have Clementine at his side.
As for the romance, I will never get over his reaction to Clementine confessing. His face? So good. Then he becomes so giddy talking about how he was hoping Clementine felt that way and “Holy shit, it’s me!”
Then he names the song he wrote after her and they smooch~!
uhh sorry, said I wasn’t gonna gush about clouis but can’t help it... and hey, in my defense, it does pertain to his development because this relationship influences him greatly.
What else can I say? It’s fucking great.
2. Louis finally shares something from his past & plays Don’t Be Afraid
Yeah I’m combining them, they go hand in hand okay.
Listen.... like I said before, I could write an entire analysis of Louis in this scene, but I’m gonna reel it in.
We finally get the reason Louis was sent to Ericson in the first place-- he was stupid rich with parents who gave him whatever he wanted except singing lessons, and being the spoiled child he was he didn’t take kindly to that... so he broke into his father’s credit card accounts and faked an affair in order to break up his parents marriage, and then when it was all said and done, he threw his fathers words back in his face.
Like.... I’m pretty fucking sure not a single one of us thought this was going to be the case when it came to Louis giving us his backstory.
He finally puts it all out there and now Clementine knows what kind of person he was before he arrived at the school, what he was capable of before she met him. That wall is gone.
But this is what I was talking about before. Louis knows first hand what can happen when feelings go unchecked, when resentment is held onto, when you don’t apologize or try to repair mendable relationships, when you’re vindictive and bitter and take it out on others. He’s been there and now he’s here, and he holds a lot of that with him. You can see he does in the way he talks about himself and struggles with confidence in his abilities.
I also love the line he says when you remain silent about how he doesn’t even know the person he’s talking about, how it’s like the only thing they share is the same name. He then goes on to say that Clementine should know who she’s riding into battle, which I’ve always seen as his way of telling her she should know who he really is, good and bad, before she puts anymore effort, faith, love, etc. into him and their relationship.
Then there’s the song.
Tenn asks Louis if he can play Don’t Be Afraid for them, a song that he composed with Minerva back before she was taken by the delta, and it’s my favorite version.
Just the way he looks at Clementine before he starts and she gives him a small reassurance before he starts, and he fucking dedicates the song to Minnie... who is going to try to kill him later and that’s a whole thing, but it’s still a sweet sentiment.
Then the song plays and it’s that calm before the storm moment, y’know? Like, everyone is sitting there listening to him play this beautiful song while realizing that shit’s going down soon and this might be the last happy moment they get.... and then as he’s playing, Louis looks over at AJ’s drawing of Violet, Aasim, and Omar and just.... his expression.
Also, he looks up at the ceiling as he’s playing and given how glossy his eyes look at the end of the song.... you know he was trying to hold it together. And that last look he and Clementine share? ugh.... it hurts my heart.
I adore this scene.... We finally got something about Louis’ past, which is something he hardly shares up to this point. Anything shared is minor, like how he used to play baseball or he hates cantaloupe.... but nothing major, y’know? So good.
1. The walk back to Ericson
This is it.
When it comes to Louis’ development as a character, this is it. Let me tell you about this moment because oh my god.
To start things off, Louis gets back to the school with everyone and then alone decides he’s gonna go look for Clementine, AJ, and Tenn. Which I don’t know if that’s something he would’ve done in ep1, at least he wouldn’t’ve gone alone. This to me says that he got back, made sure everyone was taken care of based on his comment about Violet’s eyes, and then set off on his own to look for them.
Then we get the cute clouis, Louis celebrates victory a little too early, and they begin their walk about to the school... and it starts off so quiet. He and Clementine steal glances at each other before Louis brings up Dorian. Y’know, the woman he killed.
We learn that it’s his first human kill ever.... in the 8+ years of the apocalypse, Louis has never had to do that and it’s one of the things he was so scared off. We were supposed to get a bit about that during the party but y’know, it was cut for budget reasons.... which is lame but you can figure it out from his behavior before they snuck onto the boat anyway.
It’s a great talk between them. I usually tell him that it’ll get easier, and he acknowledges that it’s fucked up, but he believes it will get easier and he’s just glad he has it in him at all. He tells Clementine that having a home means protecting it, he shares some things about his past, and then he and Clementine talk about a dream house together.
And this.... THIS. Okay look. Listen. I know people give Louis shit for how he behaves in ep1. You don’t have to go far before you see people writing him off as lazy, irresponsible, blah blah blah..... and like, I think people forget that character growth is a thing? That a character usually starts out flawed and over the course of a story, they change? for better or worse?
I’m perfectly okay with Louis being portrayed as irresponsible and carefree and whatnot because from that point he grows.
Remember what he said in ep1? He says he prefers to think of survival as a day-to-day task, he says that the future doesn’t exist and there’s only today, that the only thing anyone has is this moment.
Louis didn’t look at the future because he didn’t care, or rather, it wasn’t a priority for him. He slacked off because he turned away from responsibility when Marlon needed him, and while I don’t disagree with his view of appreciating the now, I do believe the future should be considered.
Now compare that to Louis in ep5.
That whole conversation is Louis telling Clementine he wants a future with her and the rest of Ericson, and while maybe they can’t build that 914-floor purple mansion, they can still try.... they can still create a home together. I think he still believes his this moment talk, but has a better grasp of what he really wants, y’know?
His whole journey when you stick with him is just.... so good. It’s not perfect, I mean y’all know that I have my issues with how some things were done, but Louis’ development as a character is one of the greatest accomplishments in TFS.
Also, Louis lost the 4th grade spelling bee because of “recommend” and he had a pet turtle named Geoff. My patience has been rewarded and I know more about his backstory.
I don’t even know what else to say? It’s #1 for a reason? Because it’s a great showcase for how far he’s come? and I love him so much? Seriously this scene is so good?
---
Honorable Mentions
-Louis’ introduction in the music room. It’s a classic fave.
-The walker piñata moment where Louis lets his guard down around Clementine to tell her his view point on survival.
-The archery moment where Louis apologizes to Clementine and opens up a bit about Marlon.
-The card games. Both of them. He’s great.
-Everything in the dorms in ep3.
-y’know what? Just everything that isn’t the cell scene okay? 90% of Louis scenes get honorable mentions.
---
So there we go. There’s all my gushing about Louis. Could do it for much longer, but I don’t think we wanna be here for hours. So, what are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with any of my choices? Or have anything to add? I’m always down to chat about muh boy.
Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D
—
Next week’s T5F
Top 5 Reasons Doug Was Pretty Great
#twdg t5f#twdg louis#twdg clementine#twdg aj#twdg violet#twdg marlon#twdg aasim#twdg tenn#twdg minerva#twdg mitch
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I NEED A PRE DATING IDIOTS PART 2! OMG! IT'S SO! URGH! PLEASE IF YOU CAN!!??
here’s just a little bit more…
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You didn’t mean to slam the door, the intent was to “violently shut it,” but either way, Loki flinches.
Or…Robert. Or something.
“You could’ve poofed yourself out of the office,” you hiss, taking as menacing of a step as you can towards the god. “You could’ve turned invisible, I bet. You could’ve just said that you are a new hire.”
His adam’s apple bobs.
Ohoho, are you making him nervous?
“Instead you told her we’re dating.” Up comes your finger, jabbing into his leather-bound chest. “You absolute dick, I—what the hell were you thinking??”
He opens his mouth to say something, but you’re ranting again before he can get more than a halfhearted “but—” out.
“I don’t—I don’t know what to do now!” You laugh, a damn near psychotic sound, Loki notes. “Oh, my day was great, now I’m just apparently dating a nonexistent doctor who in reality happens to be the most dangerous thing on our planet—”
“Am I really?”
“—and you told my boss! Seriously, I wouldn’t be so pissed if you’d just pretended to be some doctor, but noooo, you had go all the way with the whole ‘guess what we do in the nighttime’ charade—”
“I had to sell it—”
“And I—I have to make smalltalk with these people! Guess what they’re going to ask? ‘How’s Robert? How are you and that cute doctor doing?’ And—”
“…you thought I was cute?”
Your jaw falls slack, staring at the stupid excuse of a god in front of you.
“You are un-fucking-believable.”
See, it wasn’t so bad at first.
When he let that “I’m her’s, she’s mine” bomb drop, yeah, you were pissed and desperately wanted to blow his cover, but he…held your tongue.
Like, held it.
You had opened your mouth to of course, announce to agent Hill that “hey, remember that psycho god you picked up the other day? Yeah, you just shook his hand,” but you couldn’t lift your tongue.
What felt exactly like two fingers, the pad of a thumb and a forefinger, were literally holding your tongue.
Both his hands were behind his back, but after the snowball out of thin air and the extensive use of clones, you’re not sure where his cool little abilities might end.
It got worse, with Hill finding “Robert” to be a fairly charismatic man and asking how long you’ve been dating.
“Two years, a week from today.”
You’d jerked yourself away from him, but he held you tight and to your dismay, your cheeks were being tugged into a completely involuntary smile.
“You two seem very happy together,” Hill had commented, buying right in to the illusion. “She’s a real catch, Doctor. I’ve seen her work, she’s good at what she does.”
A quiet “oh, thank you,” came out of your mouth before you could fight it back.
“You can be damn sure of that,” Loki—Robert—chuckled. “I’d say she wears the pants of the relationship, but the majority of our time is spent with neither of us in pants, so that doesn’t seem very appropriate.”
You gave screaming a try, only to twitch against Loki’s side and not make a sound other than a flustered giggle that is so not like you, and Hill rolled her eyes.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she laughed, waving a hand at the two of you. “Word of advice, don’t do anything in here. Tony’s a stickler, and I’m ninety percent sure Jarvis is programmed to interrupt at the, erm, worst times.”
Loki laughed as she winked and walked away, and to your dismay you laughed, too, screaming on the inside.
The last thing Loki was allowed to say before switching back to his Loki form and releasing his hold on your tongue was “well, that didn’t seem very suitable for work.”
And now he’s getting all caught up and blushy over the fact that you called him cute.
“You’re not allowed to talk yet,” you seethe, shoving him in the chest. “That was so fucked up, you held my tongue a-and made me say things, made me laugh at your j—”
“You were extremely easy to control, actually.” His lips tilt, almost smug and you want to slap him. “I was pleasantly surprised.”
“Hope it was worth it,” you spit, grabbing your desk phone and angrily punching in numbers. “I’m reporting you.”
Loki blinks and swallows thickly.
Watching him carefully, you scan his face for any sign of anything as the line rings; you’d expected at least some kind of reaction.
“Human Resources, how can I help you?”
“I need to file a harassment complaint,” you reply, glare holding steady with Loki’s. “And a potential security threat.”
His gaze flits from the phone to your eyes and back—okay, he’s starting to look a little bit nervous. Good.
“First of all, there’s a prisoner out of his cell—”
Loki grabs the phone out of your hand, crushes it in his fist like a piece of paper, and hurls it across the room.
You stare at him, mouth stuck mid-word.
He stares back.
Eyes wide, chest lifting a little faster than normal with every breath.
“Sorry.”
You take a deep breath.
“GETOUTOFMYOFFICERIGHTNOWISWEARTOGODI’LLTELLTHOR—”
“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT,” he shouts, not backing away from you screaming in his face. “I had to think on my feet, you think I don’t know I’m not welcome here?”
“Then why was your first instinct to tell my boss we’re dating?!”
“It was the first thing that popped into my head!!”
“I don’t even want to know why that was the first thing you thought of,” you retch, realising you’re pointing a pen in his face—you must’ve grabbed it while you were yelling. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you did that.”
Loki falls silent and a moment passes, you catching your breath and him trying not to cower, his hands still raised to your angered pen.
“…i-is it really that bad?”
At that, you lob the pen at him, watching it bounce off his chest with a satisfying thoink.
“Well, I’m pretty sure my boss now believes I invite my boyfriend into work with me for an afternoon fuck, so yeah, it’s that bad.”
“Look,” he sighs, resisting the urge to argue that maybe it’s not the worst thing to happen. “If It’s of any consolation, at least you’re not dating me. Doctor Robert Laing seems like a wonderful man, give him a chance.”
“Hilarious,” you groan, sinking into your chair and dropping your head to your hands. “There’s just this one quality about him I just can’t get over…oh, yeah.”
You lift your head just for the sake of glaring.
“He’s you.”
“Now you’re just being mean, darling.”
“Don’t call me that!!”
A flash of light washes over him and he’s Dr. Laing again, leaning on the edge of your desk and smirking down at you.
“Can I call you darling?”
“No,” you hiss, pointing at the door. “You’re still you. Now get the fuck out of here before I track down Thor.”
“I wonder if they would hire me,” he hums, ignoring you completely and lowering himself into the chair in front of your desk. “That would be rather mischievous of me, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t. you. dare.”
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hope you enjoyed, please reblog and feel free to send me ideas!
~ masterlist link in my bio ~
loki tags: @bluediamond007 @himitoshi @drakesfiance @destiel1597 @dangertoozmanykids101 @archy3001 @jcalpha1 @yzssie @skullvieplu @forthesnakeofdragons @skulliebythesea @wegingerangelica @storiesfrommirkwood @agarwaeneth @adaliamalfoy @laurfangirl424 @paradisaicsam @fitzsimmons-is-forever @ladylokimischief @katelinwrites @tarynkauai @polaristrange @loavesofmeat @canadian-ravenpuff-multishipper @lou-makes-me-strong @holyn0vak @chocolatealmondmillk @swtnrholland @kenzieam @jessiejunebug @catticas @the-republic-and-face-of-texas @doralupin01 @whitewitchdown @atomiccharmer @falconfeather23435 @babygirlicecream @avengrcs @vethrvolnir2 @bookgirlunicorn @wabisabigrl @myhealingstar @khaleesi-marvel @ei77777 @spacecrumbs @scarlettghost13 @rocks-are-pretty-odd @confessionsofastrugglingteen @easilydistractedwriter @arttasticgreatnessoftheawesome77 @fluffyllamaswearinghats @milktearose @lcyouinhell @h0tshotholland @dontmesswithmemundane @southsidesarcasticwriter @helnik-s @lilith-akemi @fire-in-her-veinz @unlikelysamwinchesteronahunt @mischievousbellerina @kcd15 @mellowgirl01 @lokislilcaribbeanprincess @allthingzhiddleston @scorpionchild81 @lokixme @blue-automne @galaxycharmed @devilbat @kangaroobunny @end-up-well @planetariumx @sarcsep @mrfandomtastic @amaru163 @im-way-too-many-fandoms @caswinchester2000 @kybaeza @wester-than-west @vintagesunshinebitch @adefectivedetective @poetic-nikolai @moonduhsted @kerri-masson @iamverity @innaminitus @spnbarnes @narcissxblack @woohoney @anxiousamandapanda @padmeisgay @authordreaming13 @lokisironthrone @theunknowinglys @highfuncti0ningfangirl @epicfallenismine @stubby-toe-589331 @fandomnerdsarecool @retrofantasyland @arch-venus25 @forever-trapped-in-my-dreams @littleredstarfish @marshyrebelcloud @okie–loki @atterodominatus @stfxlou
#loki x reader#loki reader insert#loki imagine#loki slowburn#loki fake dating#loki enemies to lovers#loki x reader fluff#pre-dating idiots#loki requests#loki tension#loki fanfiction#loki drabbles#loki laufeyson#loki fluff
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Haibara Ai had only known Mouri Ran for not more than a few months, but she can safely say she didn't hate her. She never hated Ran. Sure, she was indifferent towards her and tried to stay as far away as possible, but she was like that to almost everyone she met.
Ai has had a rough childhood, taken in by the organization at a young age and being forced to do horrible research while being separated from her sister was proof of that. Unlike the others, she never had time to play and act like a normal child. She was always stuck in the corners of a laboratory, researching and working on drugs and chemicals that can very well end a person's life.
Her surroundings had resulted her into a rigid and cold eighteen year old young woman whose whole life centered around death than magazines and boys. After being shrunken into an eight year old, socializing with the other kids was harder than acting like a child who knows nothing.
Fortunately, her ice like personality was slowly melted away by the ever innocent and energetic—can be a tad bit annoying—detective boys. Where she had been like the cold winter, they were spring that brought new light and hope in her life. They helped her to be a bit more open and social, enough to pass as a kid who's just shy than an introverted woman.
With the help of Ran's amicable advances and Ai's newfound openness,—courtesy of the detective boys— the two slowly but surely started becoming friends.
Ai thought that she found someone who's almost the same age to converse with her about different topics; fashion, clothes, maybe even guys. It made her smile and look forward to getting closer with Ran.
However, those visions were crushed almost in an instant as Ran made her way towards Ai's confused state while being showered with a slew of bullets from Calvados. The young woman slid her down the ground, wrapped her arms around the false elementary student in a protective manner, and whispered at her to endure and wait a little longer. An image of her sister popped up in Ai's head as she held the clothes of her shaking saviour.
Ran's heroic and brave gesture reminded Ai so much of Akemi that she just had to stay away. It wasn't out of hatred; quite the opposite. It was out of love and guilt for her sister.
After that night, she expected nightmares of her childhood and her past with the Organization but it was so much worse. She dreamt of her sister. Usually, it would have been a great dream since her older sister was the most precious thing in her life, but that night was different.
It started with her beloved older sister's kind and cheerful expression that Ai always adored. Her weird yet endearing habits, her meaningful words. Until, they slowly changed to her final moments, her freezing dead body being crushed by Ai's warm one, her soft smile being erased from her beautiful face. The voices behind Ai became louder and louder until it was all she could hear.
'It's all your fault! All your fault! All your fault!'
What's worse is that she couldn't argue. It was really all her fault.
Ai's plaguing thoughts of regret caused her to isolate herself away from the woman who had too much in common with Akemi. Their soft and gleaming eyes, their coaxing voices, their saccharine smiles, their honest words, their courageous acts for the people they love, the very same acts that would caused them their very own death.
Reminding herself that they are in a grave situation, Ai stopped at her tracks and shook her dark brown hair to refocus. Unbeknownst to her, she had stepped—slipped—in the edge, where the cliff with an unseen end lies.
"Ai-chan!"
For a second she saw Ran in a blur, rushing towards her out of balance body. Instinctively closing her green orbs, Haibara Ai succumbed herself to the fall.
-
Haibara Ai thought she had died. After all, that was the most logical thing to happen after a fall. She felt numb all over, all senses didn't seem to work for a while. She expected to feel pain following after, but it didn't. Ai felt like instead of being face flat on the ground, she was hanging mid-air.
Soon enough, her senses started coming back. All she could see was black,—logical since her eyes are close— she smelled damp earth and fresh air, she could hear a strained voice just above her and a felt warm hand snaked around her right arm. Ai fluttered her eyes open and she was immediately met with a view of the muddy ground, a few feet beneath her. She looked up and was astonished to see Ran, whose right hand hold hers while her left was stretched upwards, holding on to a protruding piece of thick branch, preventing them from falling further.
Ai wasn't just feeling it, she really was hanging mid-air.
The strained voice she heared seemed to be from Ran as the seventeen year old woman looked down at her. Her panic-stricken visage quickly turned into a relieved one as Ai stared at her, dumbfounded.
"Ai-chan."
"Wha--Ho--"
"You were standing too near from the edge and slipped. After seeing what happened, I rushed all the way here and well... anyways, just wait okay? I'll pull us out of here."
Ran's voice was calm and comforting, trying not to cause panic in Ai. However, she still heard the slight tremor in the other's voice, making it less effective.
Just like what she promised, Ran tried to pull them up but to no avail. She tried once more but it only made their situation worse. Her hand slipped further from the twig making her and Ai even close to their awaited fall.
Despite her life being in more sooner danger, Ai tried her hardest to remain calm, letting out the woman who's too old for an eight year old body to handle. Ai looked around to see something—anything—to assist Ran and get out of this mess. Unfortunately, her view was limited to the vast rocky edge. She couldn't see any branch to hold onto in case they fall further down and the bottom was not a good sight either.
Despite the ground looking soft and wet, Ai knew the feeling of coming in contact from a long vertical drop was anything but that. She glanced once more at the teenager above her trying their hardest to get them out of the mess she made.
Again. It was her fault again.
Ai kept quiet as Ran offered some kind of comfort through uttered incohorent consoling words. She may not fully hear them but she knew they were filled with kindness and positivity. Even in the face of a horrible situation, Ran was acting mature, Just like an adult, just like an older sister. And that's exactly causing her to feel exasperation. Despite being trapped in a three foot tall body, she was still, in both heart and mind, an adult. A year older even.
But right now, she's nothing but an actual helpless little girl. Because of her clumsiness, they're in this predicament. Because of her carelessness, they might die.
Ran might die.
Suddenly, a dreading image entered her mind. It was Ran, covered in blood from falling, the forest's trees hiding her well. The scene made Ai recall a terrible memory. Another woman covered in her own red fluid, only it was from a gunshot in a dark place filled with trucks. They're different scenarios but have two things in common; both are dead, and both are Ai's fault.
A cold chill ran down her spine despite the sweltering sun. With it came an all too familiar yet novel feeling. It was fear, but not the bone crushing, mind boggling type. It was the kind that would creep to you slowly, eating away bits and pieces until there's nothing left. For a second, being scared at the organization didn't sound so bad.
She had felt this type of fear before. It was when she realized that she could cause Ran's death like she'd done to Akemi.
The idea was absolutely terrifying. Ran was a facsimile of Akemi that just looking at her would bring Ai back in time. Back when her only sibling was still alive and kicking, bringing kindness wherever she goes. Then it would forward itself on her very last day, benevolence gone just like her.
That's why after the Vermouth incident, Ai was more adamant about Kudo keeping his secret from Ran. It was more than just Ran's safety, it was also for the sake of Ai's heart. If Ran were to get involve with B.O and meet the same fate as her sister, Ai knew she'd never be able to forgive herself anymore.
In this situation, it won't be the criminal organization's mistake, but Ai's. She gazes at Ran as the girl kept talking and talking, probably to calm her down even though the woman needs it more than her.
Ran was tired. She did well hiding it by keeping the lines of her mouth curved upward, but behind that reassuring smile was someone who's near their limit. Sweat can be seen rolling down at the side of her face, her body extremely tense, brows furrowed in intense concentration, eyelids drooping but tries their hardest to stay awake. Also, her body isn't exactly in most relaxing position. One arm stretched upwards, holding tightly to the thick branch—her hand was reddening and blisters can be seen from holding too tightly— while the other dropped downwards snaked around Ai's in a firm grasp. Ai could notice some of her Ran's nerve showing from being stretched far too much.
She was burdening her. With Ran's condition and Ai's childlike body, It's almost impossible to get themselves out of this mess. Ai also took note of the branch's condition. She was sure it won't last very long to support the both of them. But if it's just one...
Right now, Ai is nothing but useless. Not only is she being saved once more, she's also endangering the life of one of the few people she swore to protect.
Not only will she prompt death to an innocent life, not only will she diminish the light of Kudo Shinichi's most beloved person, not only will she kill the only angel that smiled upon Vermouth, but it would mean that she failed once more to protect another important someone, another family member, another older sister.
Stealing a glance from the talking Ran once more, with a cold voice, she decided.
"Mouri-san, let go."
Ran's random blabbering to calm down was cut off by that one sentence. She looked at the little girl who's eyes are focused sideways, in an incredulous manner.
"What?"
Ai, still refusing to look at her, just hardened her eyes alongside with her tone.
"I said let me go."
Ran couldn't believe what she just heard. Why would she even request of that?
"Why? If I let you go--"
"I'll fall off."
"So why?"
Hearing her steel intonation, Ai blocked out any emotion and finally met Ran's confused stare. She doesn't need feelings. What she needs is logic, practicality.
"If you let me go, you'll be able to free one of your hand. Then, your chances of pulling yourself out will definitely increase so--"
"But you'll die."
Ran's stare was too intense that it felt like boring holes in Ai. She wanted to look away but that would mean backing out of her plan. The only plan that would work.
"Yes but atleast--"
"No."
Ai expected that. After all, this woman was the person Kudo Shinichi loves. Of course her sense of moral is as high as his. She just wish that Ran won't be too clouded with her emotions that her mind would refuse the most convenient and easiest way to get out of this mess.
"We have no choice Mouri-san. We have to--"
"Yes, we do. Just give me some time and I'll get us out of this mess. So throw that reckless idea away Ai-chan."
Ran knew that Ai was mature for her age. Unlike Ayumi's adventurous and curious personality, Ai was a cautious person that would prefer sleep than to play. She's sure that if Ayumi was in Ai's position, the little girl would cry. Unlike other kids reaction, Ai was calm and rational. But Ran didn't expected the little girl to think that far ahead. Even going as far to thinking of sacrificing her own life for Ran.
Once again, a part of Ran felt melancholy just imagining the things Ai must have gone through to be like this.
"Mouri-san, we don't have time. It's either you let me go and you survive, or we both fall down this cliff."
"I can't do that Ai-chan. You're just a kid! Do you really think I'd sacrifice your life for my sake? No!"
Ai instinctively looked at her own body, remembering she was still trapped inside her eight year old self. Still, she doubt Ran would agree even if she's in her proper form.
'Fine, if acting like an adult won't work, maybe a bratty child will.'
With no warning, she used her free hand to grab Ran's right hand and tried to shake it off from her arm.
"Wait, what are you-- Ai-chan!"
She paid no heed at the teenager's screams and focus on loosening her tight hold. She's careful of course, because she doesn't intend Ran to go along with her.
"Ai-chan, stop!"
"Let me go, Mouri-san! it's my choice!"
"No! What kind of person would that make me!"
"A completely rational kind who understands the situation!"
Ran tried to stop the rampaging eight year old girl but nothing seems to be working. The only time Ai seemed to act like a child seems to be the worst kind of timing. Having no choice, Ran decided to make a risk.
After a few more fiddling and skimming, Ran's hold was really relaxing. But before Ai could do one more skim, she was frozen by the young woman's words.
"If you don't stop and I let you go, I'll go after you."
Haibara completely froze. She stared up at Ran, gaping. This woman--
"You don't mean it."
Ran gave herself a pat on the back, satisfied at making Ai's tantrum stopped. She knew Ai only wanted to save her, but Ran wouldn't like to be save at the expense of someone's life on the line. Specially not a kid.
"Try me."
Note: Will have a Chapter 3
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The Coffee Readathon TBR
This month I am participating in The Coffee Readathon. I’m nervous about this as I’m starting back to school this month so I don’t know how much time I’ll have. All book descriptions are from Goodreads.
LATTE - read a hyped book
I picked Exciting Times by Noaise Dolan for this prompt.
Ava moved to Hong Kong to find happiness, but so far, it isn’t working out. Since she left Dublin, she’s been spending her days teaching English to rich children—she’s been assigned the grammar classes because she lacks warmth—and her nights avoiding petulant roommates in her cramped apartment.
When Ava befriends Julian, a witty British banker, he offers a shortcut into a lavish life her meager salary could never allow. Ignoring her feminist leanings and her better instincts, Ava finds herself moving into Julian’s apartment, letting him buy her clothes, and, eventually, striking up a sexual relationship with him. When Julian’s job takes him back to London, she stays put, unsure where their relationship stands.
Enter Edith. A Hong Kong–born lawyer, striking and ambitious, Edith takes Ava to the theater and leaves her tulips in the hallway. Ava wants to be her—and wants her. Ava has been carefully pretending that Julian is nothing more than an absentee roommate, so when Julian announces that he’s returning to Hong Kong, she faces a fork in the road. Should she return to the easy compatibility of her life with Julian or take a leap into the unknown with Edith?
ICED COFFEE - read a summer read
I picked Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman.
Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.
Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.
TURKISH COFFEE - read a book written by an author of middle eastern origin
I picked Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon for this prompt.
For Princess Jaya Rao, nothing is more important than family. When the loathsome Emerson clan steps up their centuries-old feud to target Jaya’s little sister, nothing will keep Jaya from exacting her revenge. Then Jaya finds out she’ll be attending the same elite boarding school as Grey Emerson, and it feels like the opportunity of a lifetime. She knows what she must do: Make Grey fall in love with her and break his heart. But much to Jaya’s annoyance, Grey’s brooding demeanor and lupine blue eyes have drawn her in. There’s simply no way she and her sworn enemy could find their fairy-tale ending…right?
His Lordship Grey Emerson is a misanthrope. Thanks to an ancient curse by a Rao matriarch, Grey knows he’s doomed once he turns eighteen. Sequestered away in the mountains at St. Rosetta’s International Academy, he’s lived an isolated existence—until Jaya Rao bursts into his life, but he can't shake the feeling that she’s hiding something. Something that might just have to do with the rose-shaped ruby pendant around her neck…
As the stars conspire to keep them apart, Jaya and Grey grapple with questions of love, loyalty, and whether it’s possible to write your own happy ending.
ESPRESSO ROMANO - read a book with a unique plot
I’ve picked Wildcard by Marie Lu.
I won’t put the description as it’s a sequel.
CAFE CREMA - read a book with less than 750 ratings on Goodreads
I picked Here is The Beehive by Sarah Crossan.
Ana Kelly can deal with death. As an estate lawyer, an unfortunate part of her day-to-day is phone calls from the next of kin informing her that one of her clients has died. But nothing could have prepared Ana for the call from Rebecca Taylor, explaining in a strangely calm tone that her husband Connor was killed in an accident.
Ana had been having an affair with Connor for three years, keeping their love secret in hotel rooms, weekends away, and swiftly deleted text messages. Though consuming, they hide their love well, and nobody knows of their relationship except Mark, Connor's best friend.
Alone and undone, Ana seeks friendship with the person who she once thought of as her adversary and opposite, but who is now the only one who shares her pain -- Rebecca. As Ana becomes closer to her lover's widow, she is forced to reconcile painful truths about the affair, and the fickleness of love and desire.
CAFE CON LECHE - read a book written by a Latinx author
I have picked We Set The Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia.
At the Medio School for Girls, distinguished young women are trained for one of two roles in their polarized society. Depending on her specialization, a graduate will one day run a husband’s household or raise his children, but both are promised a life of comfort and luxury, far from the frequent political uprisings of the lower class. Daniela Vargas is the school’s top student, but her bright future depends upon no one discovering her darkest secret—that her pedigree is a lie. Her parents sacrificed everything to obtain forged identification papers so Dani could rise above her station. Now that her marriage to an important politico’s son is fast approaching, she must keep the truth hidden or be sent back to the fringes of society, where famine and poverty rule supreme.
On her graduation night, Dani seems to be in the clear, despite the surprises that unfold. But nothing prepares her for all the difficult choices she must make, especially when she is asked to spy for a resistance group desperately fighting to bring equality to Medio. Will Dani cling to the privilege her parents fought to win for her, or to give up everything she’s strived for in pursuit of a free Medio—and a chance at a forbidden love?
VIETNAMESE ICED COFFEE - read a book set in Asia
For this prompt, I picked Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen
When eighteen-year-old Ever Wong’s parents send her from Ohio to Taiwan to study Mandarin for the summer, she finds herself thrust among the very over-achieving kids her parents have always wanted her to be, including Rick Woo, the Yale-bound prodigy profiled in the Chinese newspapers since they were nine—and her parents’ yardstick for her never-measuring-up life.
Unbeknownst to her parents, however, the program is actually an infamous teen meet-market nicknamed Loveboat, where the kids are more into clubbing than calligraphy and drinking snake-blood sake than touring sacred shrines.
Free for the first time, Ever sets out to break all her parents’ uber-strict rules—but how far can she go before she breaks her own heart?
BLACK COFFEE - read a classic book
For this, I picked Mary Poppins Comes Back by P. L. Travers.
I won’t put the blurb as this is a sequel.
IRISH COFFEE - read a book with a sassy/fiery character
I took this prompt literally and decided to go with Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander.
An approved textbook at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry since publication, Newt Scamander's masterpiece has entertained wizarding families through the generations. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an indispensable introduction to the magical beasts of the Wizarding World. Scamander's years of travel and research have created a tome of unparalleled importance. Some of the beasts will be familiar to readers of the Harry Potter books - the Hippogriff, the Basilisk, the Hungarian Horntail ... Others will surprise even the most ardent amateur Magizoologist.
PUMPKIN SPICED LATTE - Spooky/Witch/Autumnal Read
For this, I picked A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro.
The last thing Jamie Watson wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s great-great-great-granddaughter, who has inherited not only Sherlock’s genius but also his volatile temperament. From everything Jamie has heard about Charlotte, it seems safer to admire her from afar.
From the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else. But when a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances, ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Jamie can no longer afford to keep his distance. Jamie and Charlotte are being framed for murder, and only Charlotte can clear their names. But danger is mounting and nowhere is safe—and the only people they can trust are each other.
And that’s my entire TBR for this readathon. I’m so excited to complete it!
#tbr#reading#reader#readers#book#books#coffee readathon#readathon#book blog#book blogger#fantasy#ya#middle grade#bookworm#bookworms
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Lost at the Summit (IzuOcha) (Part 2)
Part 1, Part 3
Chapter Two: Memory
One life.
She wanted to save at least one life today.
"You should probably take a break," a voice in her helmet said.
No. She could not. Not when every precious second could make the difference between life or death. Not when she could still move and tear through the rubble in search of a still-breathing body.
The community centre's collapse - courtesy of a rampaging villain - was catastrophic. It happened too fast and too sudden for heroes to respond. What had started as a rescue mission had quickly devolved into corpse retrieval.
Uravity lifted another piece of the collapsed structure out of the way, moving deeper into the rubble.
It was her first week as a full-blown professional, officially under Ryukyu's agency. It was exhilarating to reach this point. Her dreams were finally coming true, and she eagerly awaited her first big payday to start saving for her parents. The work had been light to start, but she was content with that, knowing her time would come soon enough.
But things escalated far faster than anticipated. Already, they were counting on her. She had seen grim scenes in her high school days, but this was something else entirely.
It frustrated her to no end - to be unable to help these poor, lost souls. To lack the power to have saved their lives.
She dug through, even as her hands started to bleed. She breathed hard, refusing to stop. The shouts of her fellow rescuers had long since faded as she got deeper in, parting the rubble in her wake.
She could not give up. He never would.
As she walked through a collapsed hallway, shifting broken pieces of the building with every step, she heard it - a breath.
Uravity turned around, eyes scanning, desperately searching for the first sign of life she had heard from the ruins today. Nothing was apparent but more rubble, but she did not falter. She kept her senses sharp, desperately seeking out a life she could save.
She heard the breath again and saw where it came from this time - a steel locker peeking out from beneath a massive pile of rubble, collapsed on, but only somewhat crushed. With desperation, Uravity got to work, lifting debris out of the way, tapping as much of it as she could, floating herself up in the air to grab onto more and ensure it would not fall when she pulled the locker out.
"Hello! Is anyone in there? We're here to rescue you!" she called out unevenly, her exhaustion leaking into her voice.
She heard a soft gasp from the locker, the life signalling again. Her heart renewed, she pushed herself back towards the ground, scrutinizing the locker as the rubble floated around her.
The locker had collapsed like a pop can, the door nearly breaking along an opening on the left side. From it, she could see a head of red hair, though the metal obscured the rest of the person.
"I'm a hero, and I'm going to try and get you out of there. Can you tell me if you're injured?" she asked, her training coming to the fore, allowing her to regain some of her composure. She had to be strong for this terrified person.
"...Not hurt," a soft murmur responded.
Uravity let out a sigh of relief, before taking another breath to steel herself. She put a smile on her face, shifting her tone to be as reassuring as she could.
"I'm glad. I'm going to try opening this broken door. Do you think you can shift away from it? As much as you can. Tell me right away if something is wrong."
The person whimpered. "Okay."
"Don't worry. We're going to get you out of there. You'll be alright." She tapped a button on the side of her helmet, sending an electronic beacon for her location. She touched her ear to communicate. "Found someone here. Getting them out. Requesting backup." She could not know how long it might take considering how deep she had gone in solo, but she could keep busy in the meanwhile.
Uravity grabbed onto a broken part of the door; it was rough to hold, but she hardly minded. She tugged, testing its weight, surprised by its give. She pulled hard, careful not to trigger her quirk. The mangled door resisted her, but she would not be stopped; it gave way to her strength.
A small girl sat curled up, her face buried into her knees, wearing a bright-red athletic shirt. She gasped again when the door popped open, her body shaking in fear.
Uravity felt a powerful surge of relief at finding this girl. So many lives were lost - so many people she was powerless to do anything to help. Here, at least, was someone she could help.
"Hello there!" She said it as brightly as she could manage, radiating as much warmth as she could for the girl enshrouded in cold and shadow. "I'm Uravity, and I'm here to rescue you! What's your name?"
The girl did not look up, still quivering, but she whispered a response. "Haruka Akemi."
"That's a lovely name. Now, do you think you can move? We should get you out of there."
"...You can't," the girl murmured in reply.
Uravity blinked. "Come again?"
"You can't. Save me. I'm cursed," the girl said, letting out a guttural sob that broke Uravity's heart. "My dad tried to save me. He couldn't. Now he's gone."
Uravity frowned, knowing it would be difficult to console her, given the almost assured death of her father.
She suddenly felt bile rising in her throat, instinctively covering her mouth, her Quirk straining from overuse. She had been going hard all day. She could not hold this that much longer.
She took a deep breath, summoning the last bit of her strength and courage to push on.
"Hey. Look at me."
Mercifully, the simple instruction garnered a reaction, as the small girl peeked her brown eyes over her knees, staring at the hero.
Uravity could not be sure of what she looked like, but she did her best to exude calm. She knew she could not be breezy anymore.
"I know it's hard right now. Sometimes, it feels like it's impossible to keep going. Like the people we care about are too far away," Uravity reached her hand out, swallowing hard as she felt another surge of queasiness. "But we have to. For ourselves and for the people we love. Because the people we care for are cheering us on, no matter how far away they might seem. We have to try and help them if we can. And I know wherever your father is, he would not want you to give up. He would want you to keep going."
She edged her hand closer as an offering.
"So let's keep walking together. I promise we'll get you all the help you need. Let's get you safe, and I'll be right there with you."
Uravity could not see all of Akemi's expression, but her eyes widened, looking glossy beneath the veil of her tears. Her small hand reached out, shaking, but eventually found purchase against Uravity's own.
"Thank you," the hero said with a grin, gently tugging at the soft hand in her grasp. To her surprise, the girl did not budge in the slightest. Another, slightly harder tug did not yield a better result.
"Can't move," Akemi whispered, burying her face into her lap again. "My Quirk. I'm too heavy."
A Quirk that makes her heavier? Uravity thought, eyebrows furrowing at the implications, but she had no time to waste. Despite how hard she had already strained her ability - and the queasiness she was struggling to keep at bay - she wrapped her fingers around the girl's hand, activating her Quirk and pulling the girl forward.
This time, she found success, quickly yoinking her charge out of the locker. Before Akemi could react, Uravity surged forward to grab hold of her, holding her tightly, before jumping backwards out of the way of the rubble.
She sprinted away from the floating debris, gently depositing the shocked girl on the ground. She released her Quirk, letting the rubble crash downwards, while she fell onto her knees and panted in relief.
"You...I...how…?"
Uravity's head flew forward to look at Akemi, concerned she may have been a little rough with the rescue maneuver. The girl's face was uncovered now, her cute features marred by shock and tear-stained eyes.
Summoning one more toothy smile, Uravity flashed her a thumbs up, showing the source of her Quirk on the appendage.
"I can make anything lighter than air," she explained. "No trouble at all. Thank you for being so brave through that!"
Akemi's eyes shined brightly, but more tears rolled down them, her lips trembling as the weight of everything fell upon her. Uravity leapt into action once more, embracing the child and holding her, finding it necessary to trigger her Quirk again to move the girl.
"Anytime I get upset, I...I...don't budge…"
"Shh, it's okay; it's not your fault. I'm here."
"Everything's so...so..." the girl sobbed into Uravity's arms, safe and sound.
"You're going to be alright, in time. I promise. I'll make sure of it."
Uravity felt a tear of her own fall, so happy to have saved a life - and wanting to make sure it stayed that way.
Help arrived before long. Uravity had to stay with Akemi to take her to to the medical tent as the only person who could lift her. Not even the strength Quirks seemed to work on the girl, who appeared to increase the force of gravity on herself. Fortunately, Akemi was miraculously uninjured, her locker shelter protecting her, steady under the weight of the Quirk.
Eventually, Ochako found herself sitting next to her in the infirmary, thoroughly spent for the day. They stayed on the ground as Akemi's Quirk made a bed impossible, though they hoped that might stop once they coaxed her to sleep. The girl leaned on the hero, sighing, her eyes getting droopier.
"Will I really be okay?" the girl asked, the terror of everything still weighing her down. They had not found her father's body yet, but unravelling the subsequent trauma was not something Ochako was really in a position to do. She had no control over where this child ended up.
"You will be. But it won't be easy." Ochako smiled down at her, gently stroking the top of her head. "You may have some bad days ahead, and that's okay. You'll have plenty of people watching out for you. Just keep moving forward. Never give up - that's the most important thing."
"I'm just a burden, though," the girl murmured, closing her eyes to the world. "My Quirk keeps getting in the way. I just wish it would stop."
"Your Quirk is a gift. You gotta figure out how to use it." Ochako idly looked at her free left hand and the prominent pads at her fingertips. "My Quirk used to cause trouble for me, too. You've just got to work at it, as hard as you can. You'll learn to control it."
The little girl was quiet for a moment. But eventually, she let out a response: "...thank you. I'll try it."
"That's all anyone can ask for."
"Uravity...hero…" Akemi whispered, her voice growing fainter.
"Yes, I suppose I am," Ochako whispered back. "I still wish I could do more."
"Mmm..." the girl mumbled as sleep overtook her. "...The greatest."
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Ochako's eyes flew open as she sprung upward, breathing hard as the remnants of the vivid dream clutched at her mind. She could feel sweat at her forehead, the intensity of the visions affecting her in reality.
The dream started to recede, like waves retreating from the shore. She struggled to chase them, wanting to hold onto the fleeting visions.
She remembered her encounter with Akemi back when she had started out as a hero. She struggled to piece together her memory with how hazy it had appeared in her dream, where the background could go fuzzy, and her thoughts were muddled. Why had her mind summoned that memory - and why was it affecting her so?
Ochako breathed deeply, trying to steady her racing heart. She looked around their dark room, her eyes falling upon Izuku in their shared bed. He was still fast asleep, his weathered face at peace beneath the covers. A loose arm stretched at his right side as if reaching toward her, wanting to pull her in.
As always, she smiled at the sight. She carefully edged out of bed, hoping not to disturb him and his rare chance to get a full night's sleep. She knew she did not have long - neither of them slept well anymore without the other there - but she desperately needed water and a chance to clear her mind.
She put on a robe and quickly journeyed to the washroom in their spacious home, a luxury they had long since been able to afford.
The water she splashed onto her face from the sink was bracing, a cold slap releasing her fully from her dream. She panted as she let herself feel the water against her skin, clearing her mind of all other things for just a moment.
The reflection in her mirror looked tired, worn bags under her eyes sagging much more than in her heyday. Time ravaged her image. She poked at her rosy cheeks, the odd wrinkle starting to creep through them. She smiled at herself, finding in that a trace of the hero she once was, though no one would ever mistake her for being in her prime. That Ochako had come and gone, for whatever she was worth.
The aging hero did her utmost to keep her steps light as she walked out onto the terrace in front of their home, peering out into the night sky, the stars sadly blocked by the nearby city's light pollution. She sighed, sitting down, her legs hanging over the edge towards the ground. At the moment, her heart yearned for the stars only the country could provide, something she was looking forward to exploring come retirement.
Her mind began to replay what she could remember from her dreams and her faded memory. It had been so long since she had thought about Haruka Akemi, the first person she had ever saved as a professional. She could remember staying with the girl for a little while, sharing more heartfelt words the next day before authorities whisked the girl away to stay with distant relatives after the death of her father. It was a sad situation, and Ochako had wondered at the time whether she had done enough. But a hero's life left little time to dwell on such things.
It was just another part of her story that had faded into nothingness.
She frowned, idly staring down at her weathered hands. Why had her dreams conjured that memory? And why was it bothering her this much?
Deep in her heart, she knew the answer.
"Need someone…" a wide yawn punctuated the sentence. "To talk to?"
Ochako jumped slightly at the entrance of her husband, who stepped forward and sat down next to her. She internally cursed herself for losing track of time; she had fully intended to be back in bed before he missed her.
"Sorry about that. Just had a weird dream," Ochako said, brushing it off. "It's late, and we have work tomorrow. We should-"
"Talk to me about it," Izuku interrupted her, quickly grabbing hold of her hand to keep her in place. "It's okay. I want to know if something is bothering you."
He gave her a gentle smile that made her walls immediately crumble; it was a talent he had picked up over time.
She groaned, closing her eyes; she knew she could still end the conversation, but it would do her little good. Besides, they had precious few chances in recent weeks to talk, given all his media appearances. Even though they slept together most nights, they had little time together otherwise. She often found herself missing her best friend and confidant.
Ochako told him about the dream and how it disturbed her. About how strange it was to think back on something that happened so long ago. About how it reminded her of her powerlessness, but also her determination. About how the memory was so muddied in her mind.
"That's a lot to take in," Izuku replied, stroking at his chin in thought. "Well, have you had anything else that's been making you feel weird lately? Something else that's been bothering you in reality that might be linked to that memory?"
She frowned at that, biting her lip, tempted to end the conversation there. She had an answer, but it was uncomfortable, and she was unsure how much she was up to share tonight.
But once glance at his kind eyes was enough to move her; she knew she could not hide those feelings from him. With a deep breath, she released the question that tormented her, day after day.
"Was I a good enough hero?"
Her question hung in the air for a long moment, a poisonous, sinister little thing. It was a question that would not be judged not by their eyes, but history's. With her best days behind her, she had little control over what the world saw of her.
"Of course you were. Why would you ever doubt that?"
She expected such an answer from him. Even if she could not agree, the words were still honey to her ears; a part of her longed to submit to them, to find peace in the praise her partner could provide.
But she could not bring herself to.
"Because I can't control what the world sees in me. I never cared to." She opened her eyes to look at him, a deep frown now marring his face. The wrinkles beginning to appear across him made such unhappiness even more unpleasant.
"Ochako...if this is about the press conference, I wouldn't worry. They were ridiculous, but that doesn't mean much."
"It's about more than that, Izuku," she said, standing up, suddenly restless. "There really hasn't been any reaction to my retirement out there. I never did it for the glory - but it makes me wonder whether I left much of a difference at all. Maybe I achieved less than I realized. Maybe I helped less people than I hoped for. My limits weren't boundless - and maybe I wasn't good enough to make that much of a mark. Perhaps my story won't get told."
She stared up at the starless sky, with only faint glimmers of light able to make an imprint on the sea of inky darkness. If she squinted hard, she could just make out the north star, still able to shine through despite it all.
"Ochako…"
"I spent my whole career trying to do the best I could. You inspired me towards that. But the truth is, it wasn't enough to make much of a dent. I didn't help enough people for that. I knew everyone in our class would someday be eclipsed by your shadow. But you shone far brighter than any of us could have imagined."
She turned back towards him, the hero standing alone atop the summit. His face looked pained now, the creases in it prominent, but his mouth remained firmly sealed.
"It's not your fault, not really. I'm proud of everything you accomplished, and I'm happy you're getting celebrated. You deserve it. I guess I just hoped people would care that I'm retiring, too. More than I realized."
Before she could react, he stood up and grasped her hand in his, squeezing softly, his palm warm. She snapped her head upward to look into his eyes. They were burning, filled with a familiar intensity.
"You shouldn't sell what you've been able to accomplish short," Izuku said, voice steady and comforting, without a trace of doubt. "You've saved so many people, Ochako - including me, more times than I can count. All of that matters. You are one of the greatest heroes the world's ever known. Of course people are upset about you retiring."
She gave him a gentle smile, her heart-stirring at his kindness. Even now, his unabashed praise and awe at her made her feel warm inside.
But she already knew he held her in high regard. He lived with her, watched her rise like no one else. He could not exactly give an unbiased perspective - nor could his perspective control who wrote their story.
On an impulse, she reached over to kiss his wrinkled cheek, delighting in the blush that stretched across his face afterward. Even now, they could still catch one another off-guard like that.
"Thanks, Izuku. I appreciate it. But it's not going to change what happens out there. What they think of me." She turned her head over to the front door and the world beyond it, filled with eyes that judged them both. "All I can really do is move on and live with it."
She stood up and stretched, letting out a yawn as her own exhaustion caught up with her. "Thank you for listening. I feel better, but I think I'm ready to go back to bed now. Coming?"
Izuku did not move right away, his eyes drawn to the horizon where she had motioned earlier. "In a minute. You go on ahead, I'll be in before you know it."
She raised an eyebrow, but decided not to question it for the moment, the quiet allure of bed a little too strong to resist. "Alright, well let me know if you need anything. Don't take too long. Good night."
"Good night!"
As she turned away, she wondered if she had offended him somehow with her self-doubt. With even more to ruminate over, she ventured to bed and the likely uneasy sleep that would follow.
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AN: Written for the IzuOcha Discord Server Big Bang Event. Prompt: "Thank you for always saving me!"
Thank you very much to Mal for editing this and to Xylveon for the incredible artwork provided for the fic. You can find it at https://twitter.com/Xylveon700/status/1294469669361840129.
Please leave a like and/or reblog if you enjoyed it! ^_^
#IzuOcha#My Hero Academia#fanfiction#shipping#midoriya Izuku#Ochako Uraraka#IzuOcha Temple 3rd Anniversary Big Bang#Angst#Oldchako#I Promise things get fluffier from here
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RD Walpurgis Nights 8: Part 2
Then…
In a very short period of time, the freezing girl came to learn several facts about her perilous situation, none of which made her happy.
In addition to her being naked and tied to the face of a gigantic clock tower high in the air in the middle of a rainstorm, she also didn’t seem to be human, or at least something different from most humans. Most of her body seemed to have the standard equipment, all save for her legs. For one, she did not have the usual set of thighs, knees, calves, shins, feet, etc. Instead, she had thin whiplike wires, like the kind used to support a billowing skirt.
Also, she had twelve of them.
The freezing girl was pressed against the exact center of the clock’s face, with each one of her legs stretched out toward one of the hours. They did not reach all the way of course, so they had their lengths increased by being wound around wires attached to the perimeter of the clock.
Barbed wire.
More barbed wire stretched her arms out to either side. Her legs hurt, certainly, but her arms were the worst of it, as they were of pink flesh, with the barbed wire wrapped around her forearms up to the elbow, the points digging into her skin. What was more, there seemed to be yet another wire, thankfully not barbed, pressed against her throat, making even breathing difficult.
She had tried yanking on them, but that just brought tears to her eyes. She had tried screaming for help, but there was no one to hear her cries. She was alone.
Thrashing did no good. In fact, that just made things so much worse, as she quickly found out. Hanging limp was also an agony. It was a nightmare paradox. Nothing she did gave her the slightest relief from the torture she found herself trapped in.
She panicked. Even though it sent burning lances of pain through her body, she again began pulling at her restraints, screaming the whole time. Something had to give, something had to happen, something had to-
Something did.
With a snap, one of her legs came loose and was free. The freezing girl frozen in place. Then, with almost fearful hesitation, she brought her leg up.
Though it was not of flesh of bone, it obeyed anyway, curling up like a snake. She twisted it around and was equally fascinated and horrified by how easy it was. No human limb ought to move like that.
Well, she could figure that out later. For now, she was in kind of a pressing situation.
Now that she had a tool to work with, she set to work freeing her throat. Fortunately that wire wasn’t actually wrapped around her throat, so all she had to do was seize it with her leg and push out. Surprisingly, whatever was holding it in place was very flexible, and she was able to slip her head under, freeing her neck.
Next came her arms. In another stroke of luck, the barbed wire was just wound around them and not tied, so all she had to was find the end and unwind it.
All she had to do. Ha. Like it was that simple, with the barbs still gouged into her skin and the mind-rending agony every movement brought.
Every loop unwound made her want to die. Heck, she probably ought to have died by now, but if death had no come to claim her yet, then she wasn’t going to let it come for her now. So she let herself cry and gasp and scream, but she kept on unwinding.
Then one arm was free. Her eyes squeezed shut, she immediately cradled it against her chest, afraid to look at the mangled mess it must be. Keeping them closed, she then reached up with her free leg to get to work freeing the other.
Again there was pain, but as horrible as it sounded, she was started to get used to it. She gritted her teeth and kept at her task. Another loop, and then another, and then another, and then another…
Suddenly, her other arm was free, and the worst of the pain was starting to ebb away!
Unfortunately she wasn’t given time to celebrate, as her horrible mistake suddenly became clear.
Though her legs kept her pressed to the face of the clock, it had been her arms keeping her upright. And with them no longer bound, she found her upper body pitching forward. Arms flailing, she screamed.
A moment later the pitching stopped, and she found herself pretty much upside-down, staring at the white of the clock face itself.
The freezing girl shut her eyes.
How long she hung there too scared to move, she had no way of telling, which was kind of ironic considering that she was strapped to a giant clock. However, she couldn’t remain like that forever.
She blinked. Then her eyes reflexively went up, or rather, down.
This proved to be a mistake, and she quickly closed her eyes again.
Keeping them closed, she extended her trembling arms until they touched something hard, cold, and wet. She pushed with her arms and her core, mostly expecting herself to not have the strength to move back upward.
But she did.
The freezing girl would have been surprised had the last hour or so not been packed with one surprise after another. Regardless, she was soon upright again, arms behind her back holding onto the clock hand for dear life.
Though she was still subjected to pain in the ends of her legs and the freezing cold from the elements, at the very least the bulk of the agony was gone as she had some space to think. She wracked her brain, trying to seize upon anything of worth, anything to explain where she was, why she was there, or even who is was to begin with.
To her rising dread, she came up with nothing.
Oh, there were bits of information, flashes of memory, but they didn’t seem to be connected to anything. She was able to pull up general knowledge about…society, pop culture, school subjects, and more of the same nature, but her personal life was a muddled blur. She saw fleeting glimpses of faces, rain coming down on a ruined city, a red-eyed cat��thing, a shattering pink gem, but no context to give them meaning.
Her panic started to return. What about her name? Surely she had a name at least. She dug into the scattered mess of her memory, trying to bring it up.
To her surprise, that was the one question that had a definitive answer. Her name was…
…
Now…
Madoka. Kaname.
Two words that Homulilly had never heard in her life. Two words that meant nothing to her. Two words that ought to be nothing more than gibberish, worthy of nothing more than an askew eyebrow and a look of confusion.
Then why were they tugging at something deep inside her heart, something long forgotten but incredibly important?
Unfortunately she wasn’t given much time to try to figure things out, because that was when the green-haired girl that had identified herself as “Hitomi” rushed over to seize the stupefied Gretchen by the hands.
“I knew I would find you!” Hitomi said as tears ran down her cheeks. “It worked! The wish actually worked!”
“I…uh…” Gretchen stammered. “I-I’m sorry, I don’t really-”
“How did you get here? Do you know a way home? Oh! Is Sayaka here with you? Is she okay?”
“I…who?”
All right, enough was enough. Homulilly seized Hitomi by the shoulder and yanked her away from Gretchen. “Stop it!” she cried. “You’re upsetting her!”
Hitomi looked at Homulilly as if seeing her for the first time. She blinked, and her forehead creased. “Wait…Homura?” she said. “Homura Akemi? Is that you? Are all the disappeared girls here?”
Homulilly felt her insides twitch. Again the strange words Hitomi was saying really didn’t mean anything to her, and yet they did. Only this time it felt even more significant.
But before she could ask for more information, Hitomi so happened to glance down at the skeletal hand that was holding her by the shoulder and the equally skeletal arm it was attached to. Her eyes again went wide, but with terror this time.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” she screamed. She slapped Homulilly’s hand away and tried to run away, but her feet got tangled up beneath her and she fell.
Gretchen instinctively moved to help her, but as Hitomi turned toward her, she finally caught sight of Gretchen’s many wire-legs that were extending out of her skirt, as well as the conspicuous lack of legs and feet between the skirt’s hem and the floor.
Hitomi cried out again and scurried back on her palms, heels, and butt. She thrust one hand out, and there was a flash of green light, and Gretchen found herself stopped by the canopy of an emerald umbrella, which was spread in front of Hitomi like a shield, the handle of which was clutched in Hitomi’s shaking hand.
“What are you?” Hitomi said from behind the umbrella. “Madoka, what happened to you? Where are your legs? Why do you have tentacles?”
Gretchen slowly backed up, her hands held up, palms forward. “Uh, they’re…not actually tentacles. They’re-”
“Oh. My. God.” Hitomi lowered the umbrella just enough to show her face, which had gone completely pale. “You turned into a witch! That’s why you never came home. You became a witch! But…but that means…”
The trembling got too bad, and the umbrella handle dropped from Hitomi’s hands to clatter on the ground. She curled up into the fetal position, knees drawn up and face buried in her palms as she started crying again.
The caretaker finally snapped out of her stunned stupor and rushed over to her. She knelt down and put her arms around Hitomi. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Calm down. It’s okay.” She then looked up at Homulilly and Gretchen, who were staring in complete bemusement. “I’m so sorry, girls. I’ll…I’ll take care of this. You two better go.”
“Uh, okay,” Gretchen said. “But. But is there something we can…”
Homulilly gently took Gretchen by the hand. “C’mon,” she said, tugging insistently. “We should go.”
Gretchen still looked unsure, but she nodded and let Homulilly lead her away from the sobbing girl and out of the building.
…
The gang was sitting around one of the circular tables in the FIB’s courtyard, waiting for them.
All of Homulilly and Gretchen’s belongings had already been sent to their new home, so now that their dorm had been restored to its neutral state and their keys turned in, there really was nothing left to do but take the final journey from the Freehaven Integration Bureau to the house that they had visited many times but would now be their home. They had anticipated it being a joyful trip, with lots of laughter and excitement. Unfortunately, that rather unexpected encounter in the hallway had pretty much killed the mood.
Their four friends were all chatting merrily, and upon seeing the two of them exit the building, immediately rose.
“And here they are!” Ophelia said as she stood and straightened out her blazer. “Ready to begin the first day of the rest of your lives?”
“Uh, yeah,” Gretchen said. “Sure.” Homulilly said nothing at all.
Immediately the two of them found themselves faced with four nearly identical looks of concern. Well, of course they would pick up on something being wrong.
“Er, everything okay?” Oktavia said as she maneuvered the legs of her mechanical chair around.
“Sure!” Gretchen said, altogether too brightly and too loudly. “Ready to go?”
Homulilly sighed. If there was one thing Gretchen absolutely sucked at, it was lying. Which…kind of was a virtue if you thought about it.
And naturally, nobody bought it. “Okay,” Charlotte said. “What’s wrong?”
Gretchen sighed. “W-Well, I guess there’s no point in pretending it didn’t happen,” she said as she scratched the back of her head. “See, on our way out, we, uh, ran into someone.”
Ophelia and Charlotte both exchanged a look, and their eyes immediately narrowed in exactly the same way.
“Not like that!” Gretchen hastened to say. “Not someone you need to beat up! And…please don’t beat anyone up. But it was a new girl. Someone who, uh, who just died, and only just got here. And she was pretty upset.”
Immediately their faces softened. “Oh, wow, yeah, that would suck,” Ophelia said. “But you must run into people like that all the time here. Why was this one different?”
“I…er…” Gretchen shot Homulilly a pleading look.
Sighing, Homulilly stepped forward. “It’s because she recognized us.”
“Er, what?” Oktavia said. “Like…she had seen you around before, or…?”
Candeloro, who had been silently standing at the back of the group so far, stepped forward then. “Homulilly,” she said. “Do you mean what I think you mean?”
“Wait, hold up,” said Ophelia, her eyes going wide. Charlotte looked at her in askance, only for realization to dawn on her own face.
Homulilly winced. “Yeah. I-I’m pretty sure it was someone who used to know us back, you know, when we were…alive.”
Ophelia stuck her hands into her pockets and let out a low whistle.
“So…was it like when you all recognized each other when you first met?” Charlotte said. “Like that whole déjà vu thing?”
“Um, no,” Gretchen said. “She wasn’t, um, she wasn’t a witch.”
Oktavia slowly breathed out. “Oh, holy shit.” For once she wasn’t scolded for her language.
“She called you by your old names, didn’t she?” Ophelia said.
Gretchen swallowed noisily but said nothing. Homulilly took a deep breath and said, “Yeah. Yeah, she did.” She looked down at the ground and shuffled her feet. “She seemed really surprised to see us. Like she hadn’t known that we were dead and was looking for us or something.” She hesitated, and then said, “Then she saw that we were witches and kind of freaked out.” One hand unconsciously started rubbing the opposite arm.
All four of their friends exchanged equally uncomfortable glances. “Are you two all right?” Candeloro said as she stepped forward.
“We’re fine,” Gretchen said, though unconvincingly. Her hand found Homulilly’s and squeezed it tight. “It was just kind of startling, you know?”
Candeloro moved to embrace them, and the two welcomed the gesture, grabbing onto her in return. “Look, I can’t understand what that must have been like,” she told them as her held them close with her ribbons. “But remember, whatever happens, we’re with you every step of the way.”
Homulilly felt herself getting a little choked up, so she just nodded and whispered, “Thank you.”
“All right, come on,” Candeloro said as she straightened up. She wound a ribbon around one of their hands each. “Let’s go home.”
…
The walk to their new home was far more morose than Homulilly had initially expected, and much, much more silent, with the only consistent sound being their footsteps, the patter of Gretchen’s wire-legs, and the soft hissing from Oktavia’s chair. Occasionally Ophelia would start humming some song or another, but that never lasted long. Everyone seemed to either be lost in thoughts of their own or respectful of those who were.
Homulilly sat deeply in the former category. She barely noticed the trip. Her mind was entirely occupied with a handful of strange words, ones that repeated over and over in her head.
Homura. Akemi. Homura. A name that she had technically never heard before until today, but apparently had always belonged to her.
Well, Homura sounded close to Homulilly, so there was that. And it was a nice name, all things considered. Still…Akemi. A family name. And surely a family name must indicate that there was a family attached.
Homulilly thought back to the conversation she and Gretchen had had that morning, about their respective families and what they might be up to. Did that mean that there was a Momma Akemi out there? A Papa Akemi as well? Did she have siblings, older or younger? Grandparents? Aunts? Uncles? Cousins, of varying degrees of separation?
With every block that they passed, the imagined Akemi clan in Homulilly’s head grew a little larger.
“Madoka,” Homulilly heard Gretchen whisper. She glanced over. Gretchen looked just as contemplative as she did.
Madoka. Well, that was also a very nice name. Not as nice as Gretchen, but even so. Homura and Madoka. Homulilly and Gretchen.
It had a nice ring to it, she had to admit.
How close were they though? Back then, she meant. Did they even like each other? Or did they just so happen to be members of the same group? Homulilly couldn’t imagine ever disliking Gretchen, no matter what world they inhabited or what names they went by. Had they actually been close or had they just been teammates? Regardless, it was unlikely that they had actually been in love the same way they were now. More than likely they had just been friends, comrades-in-arms and all that.
Then she was struck by a troubling thought. What if Gretchen had been in love with somebody else back then? A classmate maybe, one of the boys? Some sports star, or local bad boy, or a kind upperclassman?
Or maybe she had already liked girls even then, and had actually been with one of the other members of their group. Maybe she and Candeloro had been a thing, or she and Ophelia, or Oktavia. It wasn’t really likely, but the possibility did exist. Maybe she did have something special with one of the others, something that was cut short by death, and it was only because of chance that she and Homulilly were together now.
Or maybe (and it was this possibility that scared Homulilly the most) it had been Hitomi that Gretchen had once had such a relationship with.
Homulilly suddenly realized that she was doing it again, entertaining self-abusive thoughts about her own worth. She sighed, and fell back onto the mental exercises she often needed to keep from following that destructive rabbit hole.
“Well, here we are,” Ophelia announced suddenly, jarring Homulilly out her musings. “Home sweet home.”
Homulilly looked up in surprise. They really were there. Wow, it felt like no time had passed at all.
“Okay, so, we weren’t expecting things to be so melancholy right about now,” Ophelia said as she unlocked the door and pushed it open. “But we took the liberty of setting things up for you.”
She motioned to the mantle over the fireplace. There, the sword, spear, staff, and gun had been rearranged to make room for Homulilly’s dark violet shield and Gretchen’s pink bow.
“Granted, this kind of seems like bad timing in hindsight,” Ophelia said as she stared at the arrangement. “But…”
“No, it’s great!” Gretchen was quick to reassure her, this time sounding sincere. “It makes it look like we really do belong her.”
“That’s because you do,” Charlotte said, lightly punching her in the shoulder.
Then there came a flapping of wings, and Cheese flew across the room to perch on top of Homulilly’s spider-lily. “Hi!” he declared, and fluffed his feathers.
Homulilly couldn’t help but feel a little better. “Hi yourself,” she said as she stuck her arm up. Cheese climbed onto her radius and tilted his head, inviting her to scratch his neck.
“Fuck blueberries,” Cheese muttered as he happily swiveled his neck around.
Gretchen giggled, and their new housemates sighed. “Leave it to Cheese to kill the tension,” Candeloro said.
“And before you start, he didn’t get that from me,” Ophelia said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I love blueberries.”
…
“And here’s your new room!” Charlotte declared as she flung the door open.
The guest room that had been repurposed for Homulilly and Gretchen’s personal use was roughly around the same size as their old dorm. Upon looking inside, Homulilly couldn’t help but smile.
Most of their belongings were still sitting in a small stack of boxes in the middles of the room, but the furniture and wall decorations were already in place, in more-or-less the same places they had been before.
“Feel free to redecorate if you feel like it,” Charlotte said. “I mean, duh, it’s your room. But we thought we’d at least make it familiar to start.”
“It’s wonderful!” Gretchen said, clasping her hands together. “Thank you so much!” She rushed in and plopped down onto the bed.
She bounced a couple times in her seat and then blinked in surprise. “Uh…water bed?”
“Takes some getting used to,” Candeloro said. “But it is kind of great once you do.”
“And we had to made specially tough,” Ophelia added. “So don’t worry about accidentally poking those legs of yours through.”
“Ooooh.” Gretchen stretched out to her full length, wire-legs dangling over the end. “This is great. Homulilly! Come and try this!”
Homulilly tilted her head, judging the distance. Then she bolted across the room, flipped a cartwheel, and bounded over Gretchen’s horizontal body, landing neatly in her customary space right next to her in a lying position. The mattress immediately starting roiling in response, bouncing them up and down. The two glanced at one another, and then burst into a fit of giggles.
“I think they like it,” Oktavia noted.
“Well, make yourselves comfortable,” Candeloro said. “Not that it’ll be too hard.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” Ophelia said. She flicked a switch next to the light switch and then knocked her knuckles against the wall. “This switch activates the sound proofing.”
“Sound proofing?” Homulilly said as she pushed herself up on her elbows.
“Yup.” Ophelia grinned, displaying her prominent canines. “In case, you know, you…want to play music really loud! Or watch holos! Or, uh, feel like engaging in noisy activity-”
“Jesus Christ. Turn it on if you want to have sex,” Charlotte said bluntly. “All of our rooms are set up the same way.” When everyone stared at her, she just rolled her eyes. “Oh, what? What? We’re all adults. Here.” She picked up what looked like a plastic door-hanger. “See? A ‘Do Not Disturb Sign.’ Put this out and flick the switch. We all do the same, so we’ll know to leave you alone. And…if you see one of these hanging out of one of our rooms, don’t knock unless it’s really important. Cool? Cool.”
Another pause, and then Gretchen started laughing softly. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s very considerate of…” Another burst of giggles ate up the rest of her sentence.
“Seriously, get used to the bluntness,” Charlotte said. “If you’re going to be living with this crowd, you’re gonna lose that sensitivity real quick.”
Homulilly cleared her throat. “Um, we never were really…all that sensitive about it. That was mostly you guys.”
“Hey, can’t blame us for playing it safe,” Ophelia said with a shrug. “I mean, you got people that are six years younger than us, ten years older, fifty years older, actually kids, and they all look the same. Where’s the line?”
Charlotte looked at her in amazement. “Ophelia, your ability to take a slightly awkward situation and make it so much worse has never ceased.”
Gretchen let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Guys. Guys. Please. We’re not, you know, we’re not kids anymore. And we’ve been hanging out with you ever since we got here. And we’ve been having sex for the last couple of years. Seriously, you’re the ones making it weird. Stop it.”
“Oh, come on!” Ophelia said. “You guys are like our little sisters or something. Of course it’s going to be a little weird.”
Homulilly rolled her eyes. “Thank you for the privacy switch,” she said in a slow and deliberate manner. “We promise to turn it one so as not to bother the rest of you with our raucous lovemaking.”
“Good to hear,” Ophelia said. “Also, if you promise to wait at least one month before walking around in your underwear, we promise to do the same.”
Homulilly blinked. Well, okay. Their lives really were…different now.
…
“Are you okay?” Gretchen said.
It was late, nearly eleven, and the two had finished cleaning up for bed. It was a little strange not having a bathroom directly connected to their room specifically for their use anymore. Their new house had two bathrooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. Ophelia and Oktavia’s bedroom was downstairs, as Oktavia still had difficulty with stairs, so that bathroom was theirs, while Candeloro and Charlotte’s bedroom was down the hall from Homulilly and Gretchen’s, with what was now their shared bathroom in between. It was larger than the one that the two used to have back at the FIB, with an actual bathtub in addition to the shower, but now that it was being split between the two couples, they suddenly now found themselves faced with having to take turns. That was definitely going to take some getting used to.
But now they lay side-by-side, and it felt like home.
Homulilly turned over onto her side, toward Gretchen. “I…suppose,” she said. “I’m just thinking.”
Gretchen turned toward her, sending small waves across the mattress. “About Hitomi?”
Homulilly sighed. “Yes, that.”
“Me too.” Gretchen stretched an arm out around Homulilly’s shoulders and brought her in close while her legs lightly looped around her girlfriend’s. “It’s just…I don’t know what to think about it. I mean, we used to just have this big blank spot right before we woke up that one day, and I figured it was always going to be that way. But now?”
“Now we have names,” Homulilly said.
“Yeah. Huh.” There was a pause, and then Gretchen said, “Madoka. Sounds…”
“Pretty.”
“Well, I was going to say weird.”
“It’s still pretty.”
“Pretty weird.” Gretchen sighed. “I like yours better. It’s close to your real name too.”
Homulilly nodded. “Homura.” She shook her head. “You know, it’s supposed to be dangerous for us to say them out loud. Or think about them too much.”
“I know, I know,” Gretchen sighed. “But I still can’t help but wonder. It’s interesting, but also kind of scary.”
“Scary?” It wasn’t that Homulilly disagreed, but it was curious that Gretchen felt that was. “Scary how?”
Gretchen shrugged. “Well, we apparently have all this history with her, a whole friendship. She probably knows lots about us. Like, all of our friends’ old names. What our families were like. Maybe even…”
Her voice trailed off, and Homulilly took notice. “Maybe even what?” she pressed.
“Well, it’s silly,” Gretchen said after a moment of hesitation. “But I did start thinking…what if one of us left someone…special behind?”
“Like a boyfriend,” Homulilly said.
“Sure. I mean, it feels super weird to think it, but sure. Or a girlfriend. Then I started thinking…” Gretchen made a face. “Well, what if one of the other girls used to be my girlfriend. Or yours. Like, what if there was this big, steamy romance that we don’t even remember. Then I started thinking-”
“What if you used to date Hitomi?” Homulilly said with a sigh.
Gretchen let out a small laugh. “You were thinking the same thing?”
“Pretty much. I guess we think a lot alike.”
“Well, sort of, but I was actually worried that she used to date you.”
Homulilly snorted. “Fat chance. She was happy to see you, remember?”
“I guess so. I hope that isn’t the case.”
“Me too.”
Another silence fell, the two of them musing on many of the same thoughts. Then Gretchen said, “You know, this is going to sound dirty, but I always kind of wondered why the others split off into pairs instead of, um, you know…”
“All four of them hooking up?” Homulilly felt a small smile start to form.
“I guess. I mean, I’ve heard that other Walpurgisnachts do that sometimes.”
Homulilly thought of some of the larger Walpurgisnachts she had read about, with some of them having over twenty individuals. She thought of the relationship she had with Gretchen, and then tried to picture having that sort of intimacy with so many people and found her head starting to hurt.
“You know, you kind of sound like you wish that’s what they did,” Homulilly said as she sat up enough to look Gretchen in the eye. “Do you also wish that they let us in on that too?”
Even in the dark Homulilly could see Gretchen’s blush. “No! No, that’s not what I mean! I mean…” Gretchen slapped a hand over her eyes. “Augh!”
Homulilly snickered and leaned in to kiss Gretchen’s cheek. “You know, we still don’t know what made them witch out. Or us, for that matter. Maybe we could have ended up all part of the same Walpurgisnacht. Then maybe that would have happened.” One of her fingers started to slowly slide up and down Gretchen’s stomach. Meanwhile, she put her mouth close to Gretchen’s ear and whispered, “All of us naked in one big bed, trading kisses and gentle touches. Candeloro’s ribbons tying your arms together while four pairs of hands stroke-”
Gretchen clamped a hand firmly over Homulilly’s mouth. “Okay, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it! I’m sorry I brought it up! Jeez, you’re getting Ophelia levels of dirty!”
Laughing, Homulilly lay back and looked up at the ceiling. Then her thoughts returned to Hitomi and her good mood withered and died.
After a moment she said, “You know what I wish though?”
“Hmmm?”
“I wish we never met her.”
“Huh? Who? Hitomi?”
Homulilly nodded. “It’s just…this was supposed to be a happy day. Our graduation. When we finally get to go out and start our lives for real. Then by sheer coincidence she shows up and now everything’s all confusing.”
There was a pause, and then Gretchen said, “That’s not really fair. I mean, it’s not her fault.”
Homulilly sighed. Of course Gretchen would stick up for her. She had a very kind heart, after all. It’s one of the things Homulilly loved about her, but now really wasn’t the time. “I know, I know.”
“I mean, she’s lost her home, her family, her friends, and everything. And dying had to have been terrible. She has to be scared out of her mind.”
Well, that much was for certain.
“You want to help her,” Homulilly said. It wasn’t a question.
Gretchen swallowed noisily. “Kind of.”
“Even though you know how dangerous that would be. Remember what we learned about witch names and old names and-”
“I know, I know,” Gretchen sighed. “But there has to be something!”
“She’s with the FIB,” Homulilly pointed out. “That’s the best help she can get.”
“Yeah, but…”
“You feel sorry for her.”
“Well, yeah. Don’t you?”
Homulilly frowned. “Maybe. A little. But…”
She thought for a moment. Then she said, “All right, I’m going to change my wish. I wish…I wish that she never took a contract. That she stayed a normal girl, that after we disappeared she was sad for a while but eventually got over it, that she grew up, got her dream job and earned a lot of money, married some nice guy who also had a lot of money, and had long and happy life that never had anything to do with magic or aliens. Better?”
Gretchen laughed. “Yeah, I guess that would probably be for the best. But that’s not what happened.”
“Yeah, I know,” Homulilly sighed.
The two fell silent again. Homulilly stared up at the ceiling. Back at the FIB, whenever she had something on her mind (which was often), she would lie awake and stare up at the patterns in the ceiling. Now that she was presented with a completely different ceiling with unfamiliar patterns, she was finding it difficult to settle back into her old rhythm. She supposed that she would get used to it in time, but she would have vastly preferred that life had waited until she had done that before throwing something of this magnitude at her.
Relax, she told herself. Just relax. It’s not your problem to solve. There are trained professionals handling it. You don’t have to do anything. Just let them do their thing, and concentrate on living your life. Nope, that wasn’t working. Fine. Okay, one calliope, two calliopes, three calliopes…
Then she heard the door open.
Confused, Homulilly raised her head to see. No one was at the door, but two of Gretchen’s legs had extended themselves all the way across the room, one of them gripping the door handle and the other fiddling with something outside.
“Gretchen?” she said in confusion.
“Sorry. Just putting the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign out,” Gretchen said.
“Huh?”
Gretchen’s legs closed the door, and one turned the lock. Then, after a moment of deliberate hesitation, one snaked over to where the soundproofing switch was and nudged it on.
“This is our first night in our new life,” Gretchen said. Then she rolled over onto Homulilly. “I’m not going to spend it worrying about something I can’t control.”
Homulilly blinked. The view of the unfamiliar ceiling was now blocked by the very familiar view of Gretchen’s softly glowing pink eyes and coy little smile. Oh yeah. This was so much better.
“Good idea,” she said, tilting her head to that theirs touched. Her hands slid up Gretchen’s sides to meet behind her back, tracing her body beneath her pajamas.
Gretchen started moving her body against her. One of Homulilly’s hands traveled up to the back of Gretchen’s head, gripping a handful of her hair and pushing her into a deeper kiss, while the other trailed downward toward her thighs. That much was familiar territory for them, but the way the water mattress gently rocked and bounced beneath was moving their bodies together in…interesting ways. She wondered if their friends had gotten it for them with that very reason in mind. Knowing them, they probably had.
Then they parted just long enough to catch their breath. Homulilly’s breath had quickened, as had her illusionary pulse.
“Yeah,” she panted. “This is so much better.”
Then she pushed Gretchen back down into her.
…
Charlotte pressed her ear to the Gretchen and Homulilly’s door. As expected (and hoped), she heard absolutely nothing: no voices, footsteps, no furniture creaking, nothing. That, coupled with the sign hanging from the doorknob, told her everything she needed to know.
Good.
She headed back downstairs. There, everyone was hanging out, relaxing. Ophelia was seated at the far end of the couch, playing with her phone. Oktavia was stretched across the couch’s length, her head in Ophelia’s lap, an oceanography book in her hands. Candeloro was in her easy chair, reading a book.
“So the kids are going to be, um, occupied for the rest of the night,” Charlotte announced as she entered the room.
“Did’ja hook up a camera in their rooms, you freaking voyeur?” Ophelia remarked.
“Ah, ha. No.” Charlotte glanced around the room. “So…are we going to talk about it?”
Everyone looked up at her then. “Talk about it?” Oktavia said. “About what?”
“You know what.”
Sighing, Oktavia sat up and turned around so that she was sitting straight. Candeloro put her book down. “Do you really think that it’s that serious?” Candeloro said.
Charlotte sat down in her own chair. “I think that a mysterious possible sixth member of your old supergroup just showed up. And unlike any of us, this one probably has all the answers to every question you ever had about your past, but those answers come with a very strong chance of damaging your mental and spiritual health. Hell, Gretchen and Homulilly probably got a little twisted up already. So yes, I think this is very serious.”
Everyone exchanged an uneasy look. “You really think she was part of our Puella Magi group?” Oktavia said.
Charlotte took a deep breath. “No idea. But, seeing how she is, in fact, a freaking Puella Magi or else she wouldn’t even be here, and seeing how she knew Gretchen and Homulilly by sight and name, I’d say that that’s a possibility we can’t ignore.”
Ophelia sighed. “Jesus, and this was supposed to be a happy day.”
“Did we ever get a name for her?” Candeloro said.
“No,” Charlotte said. “Should we?”
“Might not be a good idea. We’re kind of playing with fire here,” Ophelia said. “Only…in this case none of us are fireproof. This is pretty dangerous. Who’s to say that even just her name can’t screw us up? To say nothing of our own names. I mean, we all saw how upset they were.”
“Yeah, and speaking of which, what do we do about that?” Oktavia said. “I mean, this is kind of outside our wheelhouse.”
“What we do is be there for Gretchen and Homulilly in any way we can,” Candeloro answered. “Things were already confusing enough for them as it was. This is just going to make things worse.”
“Okay,” Oktavia said. “But I was kind of hoping for something a little more specific.”
Ophelia shook her head. “Look, we’re kind of being idiots here. We don’t have to do much specific, okay? Be there for Homulilly and Gretchen? Yeah. Definitely. But this new kid is in the hands of literal professionals. They handle this kind of thing all the time. And hey, if the kids are somehow affected by what went down earlier, then we take them to said professionals, or some other professionals.”
“Good point,” Charlotte said.
“It is sort of weird to think about,” Oktavia remarked. “I mean, they now know their old names. Chances are, this new girl knows all of ours too.”
Well, most of them anyway. “Bad idea,” Charlotte said. “Come on, we all took the classes. We know how dangerous that it.”
“I guess. But even so, aren’t you at least a little curious?”
“No. I probably wasn’t part of the supergroup, remember? So she wouldn’t know me.”
“I don’t know,” Oktavia said. “I mean, she might. We don’t know how long she knew us or how you figured in. I mean, you still might have just been a late addition, so there’s still a chance she met you.”
Charlotte shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t think so though. Call it a hunch.”
A beat went by, and then Candeloro spoke. “You know, I can’t help but feel sorry for her. This new girl, I mean.”
“Yeah. That must suck,” said Ophelia. “I mean, watching all your friends turn into witches? Hell, she probably helped Homulilly and Gretchen take us down, and then had to take down them when they witched out. So after all that, you end up getting killed, wind up in some kind of freak show instead of Heaven or whatever, and then all of a sudden there’s your friends again, except that they still kind of look like the witches you killed and don’t even remember you.”
Yeah. That was…definitely a sobering thought. “Well, yeah, really blows,” Charlotte said. “But on the upside, Oktavia’s right: she ended up in the best possible place, and now she’s with the most qualified people to help her. I think we should just let them.”
…
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
No. No, no, no! This was all wrong! Nothing made sense, nothing was right.
First her best friend disappears, then the city gets hit with the biggest storm in decades, and then her other best friend disappears as well! And in very short order, apparently magic exists, monsters exists, and her friends had been magical girls like Sailor Moon fighting monsters and maybe that’s why they disappeared and if she made a contract with the strange cat…rabbit…mouse…thing, then she would have magic too and be able to find them and bring them home.
But then she fought her first monster and…and she died. It had been a towering thing that looked like an oak tree with street lights, and she didn’t know what she was doing, and it had knocked her senseless with one blow, followed by another blow, and then another blow, and then she was in more pain than she had ever been in her life and was just screaming for help, begging for someone to come save her but help never came, and Kyubey was just there watching her die, and the blows kept coming and coming and coming until it stopped hurting.
And then all of a sudden she wakes up in a strange room, and she thinks that she’s been saved, that she’s in a hospital room, except that it’s not, she’s alone and there’s pictures of Madoka and Sayaka all over the walls with red lines connecting them and weird gibberish scribbled everywhere like they had been written by a crazy person, and she had found her umbrella nearby and ran, ran, ran so far, calling out for help, calling for anyone.
And then someone did come, but they were in an honest-to-God spaceship, and they told her that she was dead, she was dead and this was the afterlife and-
“Hitomi?”
Hitomi involuntarily tensed up. She slowly turned to peek over her shoulder.
Dr. Jazmine was there, standing at the door to the room that they had given her. She was a blonde Caucasian girl who didn’t look like she was even two years older than Hitomi, and she was a doctor. Apparently she was forty-seven. It didn’t make any sense.
“Y-Yes?” Hitomi said, her voice cracking.
“I looked up that name you asked me about. Sayaka Miki?” She shook her head. “There was nothing. I’m sorry.”
Hitomi stared. Nothing there? How could there be nothing there? Madoka was here! Madoka and Homura Akemi! She had seen them! “Are you sure?” she said, scooting around on the bed so that she was fully facing Dr. Jazmine. “She has to be here! She’s, um, about this tall, with short blue hair and blue eyes.”
Dr. Jazmine shook her head. “I’m sorry, but there’s no one by that name anywhere in Freehaven’s records.” She hesitated, and then said, “You said that there was a few weeks between her and your friend Madoka disappearing, right? Then maybe Sayaka ended up in a different place.”
“Place? Different?” Hitomi inhaled sharply. “You mean, like Hell?”
“Er, no. I mean a different city.”
“Oh.” Cities in the afterlife. It made no sense.
“I can call around if you like,” Dr. Jazmine suggested.
Hitomi nodded. “Okay. Thank you. But, um…”
“Yes?”
“Can I…speak with her? Madoka, I mean.”
Dr. Jazmine sighed. “Hitomi, that isn’t a good idea. She isn’t-”
“Please!” Hitomi hopped off the bed and ran over to grab Dr. Jazmine’s hands. “Please! I need to talk to her!”
“Hitomi, you-”
“I do anything, anything at all! Just please, please just let me talk to her!”
“You don’t-”
“She doesn’t want to see me? Is that it? It’s because she’s a witch, isn’t it? Does she hate me now?”
“Hitomi, listen!” Dr. Jazmine grabbed her by the wrists. She wasn’t rough, but it was definitely firm and attention-grabbing. “It’s very dangerous for a witch to talk to someone she used to know!”
“Dangerous?” Hitomi blinked. “Why?”
“We’re still not sure why, but witches don’t remember their old lives. Not their family, not their friends, not even their own names. There is a faint recognition when they meet someone they once knew, but that’s it. Talking to her won’t do any good, because I promise you she won’t recall anything you want to talk about.”
It felt like someone had stabbed her in the gut and twisted the knife. “But…”
“What’s more, hearing their old name does actually hurt witches,” Dr. Jazmine said. “And before you ask, no. It is impossible to make a witch remember anything, no matter how hard you try to jog her memory. But their old names do cause them mental stress, and saying it to them to much can do actual psychological damage.”
Tears started to trickle down Homulilly’s cheeks. “So you’re telling me that I can’t even see her? That’s so cruel! I died trying to find her!”
“I understand, and-”
“How could you?” Hitomi all but spat. “How could you understand what it’s like? I feel like my whole world won’t stop spinning, and every time I start to get used to things, something comes along to kick it again!”
“Because it happened to me too! Everything you’re experiencing right now, everything you’re feeling, I went through it as well. Yes. Even meeting someone I used to know and not having her even know her own name. I went through it too, Hitomi. And it hurt me just as much as it hurts you.”
Hitomi gaped at her. Her throat seized up, and, with her wrists still in Dr. Jazmine’s hands, she collapsed to her knees.
She almost didn’t notice Dr. Jazmine kneeling next to her or how she gently placed her arms around Hitomi’s shoulders. She just knew that she was crying into the older girl’s shoulder, her own arms gripping her as if holding on for dear life.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Dr. Jazmine murmured, one hand gently stroking Hitomi’s hair. “You’re all right.”
Hitomi miserably shook her head. “No. I’m not.”
...
I’ve been writing PMMM fanfiction for almost a decade, and this is the first time I’ve included Hitomi at all. Does that seem right to you?
Until next time, everyone.
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As fun as it is to throw salt at Gosho I think this could be a good time to talk about some good DC cases. So, which are your top ten cases so far?
Hmmm, this took some thought–presented chronologically because I couldn’t pick preferential order XP
Billion Yen Robbery (013-016): Even disregarding its long-term impact on the plot, this case on its own had a good twist in how Akemi disguised herself and the lies she told to track down her robbery partners. I’m always a fan of people, rather than going for big heavy-duty disguises, just using little details of makeup and presentation to completely change their appearance. Ran’s big heart was evident in this case and how strongly she felt about “Masami”‘s safety after just meeting her twice, and this one also what is still one of my favourite ninja-Ran moments to date. Potential kidnapper/murderer across the street? Maybe we should call the police, or run down the stairs OR I GUESS WE COULD JUMP OUT OF A FIRST FLOOR WINDOW AND CHASE HIM ACROSS THE STREET AND DO A FLYING KICK TO DESTROY HIS CAR WINDOW AND ALSO HIS NOSE
Akemi’s death opens up a shitton of plot, and, despite how it gets slightly overused later on (not quite to “did you know Bruce Wayne’s parents got murdered” levels but definitely a biiiiit overused) it’s still one of the most genuinely tragic deaths, especially since Shinichi admitted his real name to her to try and offer her some comfort as she died. TEARS Q_Q
A Haunted Mansion Murder Case (017-019): The case that introduced the Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta. I always think of this one quite fondly. It had a genuinely creepy atmosphere–the “haunted” mansion looks the right side of cliche-creepy, especially once it turns out there’s actually someone around, and honestly I can forgive the incidents of the kids wandering off alone and vanishing because they’re six, of course they’re gonna do silly shit like wander off alone in a haunted mansion. And the truth of the matter is something that’s vanishingly rare in Detective Conan, something I wish we saw more often: a crime of passion.
There’s no clever trick to the murder: the son, Akio, just loses the rag under a torrent of verbal abuse and smashes his father’s head in with a candlestick. There’s no clever trick to the cover-up, either; his mother messed with the crime scene a bit and reported it as a robbery, and given that the family’s obviously very wealthy, money probably changed hands if any investigating officer did think to suspect anything other than a robbery. All she’s thinking about is protecting her son from the consequences of his crime; all he can think about is his guilt and horror over the murder he committed. The case goes from genuinely creepy to honestly tragic. It’s a proper emotional story, and at no point do any six-year-olds have to witness a human corpse, which I’m always in favour of. And I like Genta, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi and I’m glad they were introduced shut the fuck up
The Hatamoto Family Case (020-025): This was another case with good creepy atmosphere, a solid closed circle situation, classic big fucked-up family situation but at the heart of it, Natsue and Takeshi are a genuinely sweet couple who really don’t deserve all this bullshit and you spend the case really hoping for them to be safe and things to turn out okay for them, the traumatic deaths of several close relatives aside. The murderer is pretty sad, though I feel like Gosho intended him to be more sympathetic than he actually was–he certainly could’ve done with less abuse from his grandfather and been allowed to emotionally invest in his art more, but the cousins thing aside, murdering multiple people over a girl you’ve never even approached marrying somebody else with whom she’s had an actual relationship and is in love with is… not sympathetic. But I’m also glad that the nice chef uncle came out alright too, and that all three of the sympathetic family members reappeared in later cases since they were all very likeable characters.
Moonlight Sonata (062-067): This one sticks in a lot of people’s minds, and I think it’s for the same reason that the haunted mansion case sticks in mine; atmosphere. This is another one with a good, genuinely creepy atmosphere from the immediate sense of “small town with a dark secret” we get as soon as the Mouri Detective Agency arrives on the island. Gosho was very good at building these atmospheres once upon a time, I would’ve liked to see him write a horror manga. The case is deeply tragic from start to finish, from the murders of the Asoh family, to the fact that Seiji/Narumi got the idea for the “curse” from playing a funeral song for a man who’d just had a heart attack after admitting to murdering their family, to the complex nature of Dr Asai’s grief and guilt that they felt the need to avenge their family but simultaneously called for a detective in the hopes that they’d be stopped, to their suicide at the end because they can’t live with what they felt obligated to do. There are Gosho’s usual… issues… with gender, and given the bigotry that became obvious later he probably had no clue at all what he was doing with Dr Asai’s gender, but I feel like they weren’t handled unkindly for an AMAB character living as a woman? I could be wrong and I wanna open this one up to the trans folk in the audience because I’ve never found a trans fan’s commentary on Dr Asai and how they think they were handled, but goddamn I still cry thinking of their suicide at the end and I appreciate that this was a one-off case that had a visible long-term emotional impact on Conan.
Magic Lovers’ Murder Case (192-196): As well as being an interesting murder involving some quite sympathetic characters, this is a really good case for seeing what Kaitou Kid’s like under the mask (or was like; I feel like he’s lost depth since this?) as expressed through Katsuki Doito. He came along to investigate suspicious user activity, but he joined the magic-lovers’ forum because he is a nerd for stage magic and stage magicians and enjoys nerding out about stage magic and stage magicians. He gets to unapologetically fanboy over his late father with other magicians, with is pretty goddamn cute imo. He also gets to show off knowledge and fondness for other magicians, and his knowledge of magic tricks is useful in solving the case, even though, by his own admission, he’s no detective, and it led to tragedy. We don’t really see how Kid felt about being unable to prevent that murder, since he was still being played as pretty mysterious at the time, but it was a good choice for his second appearance in DC imo since it cemented him as Not A Bad Dude. Also, Conan gets to be one of Those Shonen Protagonists by running across a burning bridge, which, y’know, is always cheesy, but also always kinda cool (the artwork was particularly effective imo)
Twilight Mansion (299-302): I genuinely enjoyed the gathering of the knock-off famous detectives and was pleasantly surprised by Hakuba’s appearance (back when I still held out hope that that kind of thing meant that Kid would get more involved in the plot). The mansion itself is actually quite gorgeously designed and rendered, especially at the end when the exterior crumbles, and again, DAT CREEPY ATMOSPHERE. I guess it’s officially plot-important now, too, which I just wanna say, I officially called nine years ago, but also I was hardly the only one calling BO involvement with Karasuma.
Most of all, in general, I just really like watching and reading things involving skilled people being very competent at what they do, so the fact that ALL of the gathered detectives (save that one dead one) figured out what was up and were able to communicate and come up with a plan without revealing themselves to the brilliant detective BEHIND the whole thing, and the execution of that plan, were all very, very good and I liked it. I might reread this one right now, actually, while I’m thinking about it, I really do enjoy it top to bottom.
Golden Apple Case (350-354): PEAK interesting backstory on the part of Vermouth and Yukiko, a reasonably interesting murder, Yukiko’s RAD driving scene, and one of my favourite Ran moments ever. The confrontation with the serial killer/Vermouth is tense as hell, and the fact that Ran reacts instinctively to save his life and just can’t bring herself to drop him and let him die, to be responsible for a death, no matter whose, is a very powerful statement on the integrity of her character. She’s just to her core, and Shinichi does steal the moment a bit by helping her pull the serial killer up and getting the really good “you might need a reason to kill, but you don’t need a reason to save a life” line, but this still feels entirely like a Ran moment for me. We find out later that this incident had a profound effect on Vermouth, too, and is possibly the entire reason she’s hiding Shinichi’s secret from the BO and explicitly the reason she doesn’t want Ran to come to harm. Shame we haven’t had much Vermouth character development in a while because this stuff was JUICY.
Two Cases Under One Moon (429-434): An ICONICALLY good Bo-fightin’ case where everybody involved is putting in Maximum Effort. Heiji puts on an extremely good show as a fake Shinichi (the boy’s an extreme drama queen and Heiji does that very well), Yukiko’s disguise skills are valuable and well-used, we finally get the revelation that Vermouth has been Dr Araide for a while AND that she’s maybe immortal (…not… that we’ve gotten ANYTHING on that since..) AND we get the VERY interesting nature of her feelings concerning Shinichi and Ran. Also, we get Ran so concerned about Ai’s wellbeing that she hides in a car boot and then jumps into gunfire in order to protect her, GOD that’s SUCH a good Ran moment. Shinichi, Jodie and Akai all also get to be very brave and very smart and very badass, and ugh really I just wanna go back to everything about Vermouth in this case and explore more of that forever. Please. Also more Jodie, whose backstory we finally got in this case after revealing that she’s not Vermouth. What is it with interesting women disappearing as soon as their backstory is out MOVING ALONG
Clash of Red and Black (595-609): This case is a cracking case. This one was long and complicated and many-layered and everybody involved was on their highest gears and it was great. Akai and Conan work as a fantastic team and Conan gets free reign to do some very good detective work for the FBI (I still believe he told Akai who he was during this case, it would make sense and undercuts how concerned I am with all of these grown adults letting a six-year-old run all around an active incident). We get a good look at the incredible power and cruelty of the Black Organization when they cause immense collateral damage just to flush the FBI out. We get the story on both Akemi and Akai’s relationship AND the Hondo family, and OH BOY THE HONDO FAMILY.
It’s also one of the most interesting Eisuke cases, imo, where not only does he do some solid investigation to find Mizunashi Rena, we get a glimpse of some real deep trauma over losing his last family member that’s driven him to be willing to attack Rena with scissors out of desperation to get answers about what happened to his father and sister. I mean, I am most definitely not advocating stabbing coma patients, but for Eisuke a lot of the trauma of your whole beloved family dying or disappearing was just implied and not explored, and then he got booted from the series immediately after things got interesting with him, so bleh. We also barely see Hidemi after this, and ?????????? because she’s a CIA agent who’s in DEEP to the BO after surviving a HORRIFYING situation where she has to proudly boast of murdering a man who was secretly her FATHER, who SACRIFICED HIS LIFE TO PROTECT HER… why are we dicking around so much with Mystery Family instead of exploring this one??? This case is kind of the last hurrah for anything interesting happening with the Hondos so I love it for that.
And I love the complicated counter-bluff involved in delivering Kir back to the Black Organization without looking like they were delivering her. Again, this was apparently in exchange for her assisting the FBI and she barely appears after this…? Nope this isn’t about salting at Gosho moving on
The Life-Threatening Broadcast of Love (804-808): I love this one solely and 300% for the part where Miwako Sato jumps out of a helicopter, shoots a noose off of her boyfriend’s neck, grabs him, wraps her coat around him to protect them and knocks both of them out of the range of a bomb blast at the last second, like the goddamn action hero that she is.
So in no particular order, those are my top ten: how about the rest of you?
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Duality: A Turning Point
[TW: Extreme Violence, Traumatic Experiences]
It was a good choice for Shanaris to rid herself of the chaotic wars in Azeroth and take to Pandaria. The beautiful, endless hills and valleys of green topped with the topless mountains of Kun’lai. Many a time did Shanaris take herself to those mountains to remind herself of a land she loved, a land that once was her true home. Shanaris ached with an invisible pain that her home was not her own any longer. Kalimdor had its right and name stricken by the barbaric and the ruthless. Shanaris didn’t enjoy this fact. in the air, even in Pandaria, she felt she could taste the blood of her brothers and sisters being shed and desecrated by a growing undead legion. Though Shanaris felt adamant in wanting peace for herself and her children, her loved ones, those she cared for she did not feel at peace. There was a restlessness inside of her crafted by thousands of years of strife. An era of peace crafted by Kaldorei and the people who ruled it? No, there wasn’t peace. There was domination-- subjugation of the enemy. When no one was left to oppose the Kaldorei only then was there a brief moment of peace. Shanaris slowly understands that she needs to become a necessity.
Within the confines of the jade Forest rested a home by the channel that lead river into ocean, spacious enough for several people but owned by one singular Pandaren. Apparently it was obtained by generous donations to her during a part time job. Who would have thought humans had such a small grasp on the value of a gold piece? Cobblestones lined the ground with well-cared for realms of green within the miniature kingdom. A house was built in the middle with the faintest smell of ink in the air along with the typical, warm meal. These scents were discerned easily by Shanaris. It came to a point that she could pick and specify exactly what was made. Yesterday, more black ink for inscriptions and scrolls. Dinner, mushan steak, thick, cooked with onions, mushrooms, pepper, silverleaf, honeysuckle, mageroyal, and nutmeg. The side was a bowl of rice to assist with digestion; ever thoughtful.
After dinner came rest, putting the children to rest at least. They slept so soundly it put a smile to Shanaris’ face-- a true, genuine smile. It came to a point where her twins were finally distinguishable. Syrandel seemed to be a far more hearty eater, stuffing herself and getting spoilt by such means. Lorelan took her share, but that was it. Never too much or too little, but just enough. Shanaris exhaled amusement from her nose as both hands equally caressed her children’s heads, stopping to place said hands upon their chests with a featherweight touch.
“My sweet little saplings, how mighty you will grow. Be the elf I never got the chance to be.” Her voice was so low that even she almost didn’t hear herself. If these children were anything like she was as a child they’d be incredibly light sleepers. With a final farewell Shanaris leaned into their proximity to place a single kiss onto their forms; one each. Shanaris left the small area in which they would be cared for, promptly closing the door behind her.This door was then set alight by a series of runes etched in the ancient Pandaren language. Shanaris looked onto these runes blankly from their bright shine to dimming, disappearance.
“I think you are a far better mother than I, Akemi...” Shanaris uttered these words aloud, which brought pause to thoughts to let these words echo within her mind-- to let it force her actions to a complete halt. The elf bite her lip, feeling this encroaching feeling of contempt and struggle within her body, mind, and soul. As if coming from a nauseous episode Shanaris shook her head, turning away from the door and leaving the home to stand outside-- embrace the nightfall and countless stars in the sky. She made her way to a perch-- a column on the corner of the stone fence.
Once she found herself settled, the elf stared upward, looking to the vast sky above. it was then she became expressionless. Shanaris let her mind dance into the sky, creating invisible images of the many countless thoughts that ran through her mind. More recently, troubles with the Collective and how to minimize the damage, passionate moments with partners gained and lost, and the occasional nostalgic episode. She missed her old life there was no denying that. The feeling of masterfully crafted silk upon your flesh is not something easily forgotten, even less so when it is made by the man you love...
Shanaris quickly snapped her head downward, eyes clenching with a noise of frustration leaving her lips. “Again with you-- let me rest! Let yourself rest...” Shanaris uttered with a voice almost pained. Seeing him immediately brought that vision of blunt force trauma into her mind, and the blood that splattered onto her face. She never wants to remember Al’mashan every step of the way, but when even the heartbeat within a man’s chest thrums in your mind there is not much you can do. Shanaris raised her gaze once more, sighing with relief and returning to her mindscaping. The image had vanished, but the pain remained.
Shanaris did her best to regain her stoicism, and her best was enough. Roaming her memories, thoughts, and enjoying the little things rather than larger, more important memories. This troublesome habit was interrupted by a series of rapid movement in the distance. In the silence of the forest, where only the nocturnal beasts sung, Shanaris memorized its dissonant tune, and could pick exactly when a beast was being silenced by its predator, or greeted by a necessary mate. This time was different. Her ears did not gain the sound of natural occurrence but the rapid movement of a tree’s residents leaving-- abandoning their home while leaving the flightless to cry out. Instinct prompted Shanaris to stand and face the direction of the noise. Anything warranting a change in the song around her was enough for investigation, be it Mogu or otherwise. Shanaris dropped from her perch to take her glaive in hand and take an unhindered, hastened march to the origin point. Tradition dictates that in Pandaria, Shado-pan handle disturbances within that threaten the land. Even Shado-pan sleep.
“The middle of the woods, what in the Gods’ names is out here...” As Shanaris came closer to the origin of what she deemed a disturbance, her sense of smell started to unravel the truth as if replaying the events before her. in a blurred fashion. A firearm as used to fire into something, followed by retaliation and failure to succeed. A blade was drawn, and then silence. Shanaris saw blood trails-- at least four in pairs of two. One headed west, the other headed south which was where Shanaris had come from. Shanaris rested her glaive onto her shoulder and closed her eyes. Once more she focused on her senses. To the west she heard the padding of increasingly distant steps, and to the south... heavy footfalls-- rapid, louder. Shanaris quickly turned around to find herself witnessing an Orc clad in black attire, in the air with bloodied dagger and axe in hand. This one was different from the rest she had faced-- no guttural warcry and scream, just an attempt for a clean kill.
Shanaris almost didn’t notice her, and for that she gained a blade plunging hilt deep into her shoulder. If she had not turned it may have gained a more critical target. Unlike this Orc, Shanaris roared immediately finding herself boiling with Ursoc’s rage. The unnamed, unknown Orc found herself thrown back. Shanaris stood up, taking the dagger in one hand and ripping it out. Shanaris roared once again. It was then that she dropped both weapons to the ground, opting for her bare hands. The orc landed on her feet well enough; agility was part of the job after all. The orc readied her axe in hand, preparing for her final charge. No final warcry, just an attempt at pure efficiency. Once again the orc lunge, clearly attempting to cleave open some part of Shanaris’ body. This was what the orc learned as an impossibility. In an instant the ground opened to introduce her to the roots underneath. They moved with such a velocity that instead of knocking the orc out of the air, they broke straight through her. Shanaris dropped down to pick up her weapon and move closer to the orc in its final death throes, gurgling its own fel-tainted blood. Shanaris rendered her completely immobile, pierced through several non-critical points, and one major artery within her leg. There was a smile on Shanaris’ face, one that held nothing but sadistic malice. The orc could barely keep her eyes on Shanaris, both rolling to the back of her head in the extremes of pain before she bled out.
“Do not worry. Death will come slow. These roots close your wounds, but drink you dry....” Shanaris leaned her lips right beside the Orc’s ear to speak in a rough, pained voice. “Lok’tar Ogar, little one. You have paid your price.” Shanaris backed away from the gruesome bloodletting to turn her sights to the west-- where the other blood trail lead.
Shanaris hounded slowly for her prey. If they were bleeding that meant they would not be able to get far. The bleeding stopped some short distance away, but the trail continued as an invisible, hunger-inducing fume. Shanaris grunted, looking to her shoulder to see just how much blood she was losing by leaving the wound open. Already her well-kept robes were stained: again. Some elven expletive was uttered before she worked on healing the wound. As she did, a ragged breath was heard. Healing would have to wait. Shanaris frowned, gripping weapon in hand to venture to its source. What she saw was not what she expected.
“Elf? Here? H-Help! I need--” The man uttered before a sharp pain struck through his body. His voice slowly dulled out in Shanaris’ ears as she focused on more important matters. Shanaris inspected the man to see he was, in fact, human. A human with a rather horrid slice in their side, as well as some bruising. Shanaris’ nose twitched. Within the scent of blood she tasted gunpowder in the air from a gun still warm from its shot. Shanaris went from piece to piece on the man’s body before focusing on his eyes. He held fear, while Shanaris slowly made herself seem like less and less of a friend. Without concern for the man’s words, she spoke.
“--nearby village, anything--” His words sharpened in Shanaris’ ears, but not without Shanaris’ interruption.
“You bring your war to a land that needs no place in it. You endanger the peace here and for that alone you need to die. Die knowing you have done nothing for your people, mankind, your loved ones. You will die a failure, nothing, forgotten as the world around you forces decomposition to turn you into mulch.” Shanaris did not give this man a chance to speak up or beg for his life. One, maybe two seconds of pleading before she stepped away, raised her glaive and gave the man a merciful, mortal strike. The scythe of her blade cut through his Adam’s Apple, opening the front half of his neck. The blood was generous, and not a bit of it got on Shanaris’ weapon. He fell lifeless within seconds, the last thing uttered from his lips incomprehensible and worthless just as Shanaris deemed him. Alliance, Horde, neither mattered to her. All were wrong in her eyes-- ruiners of peace.
Shanaris relaxed her stance and looked back to the south-- back home, then to the northeast, toward her true home. Shanaris heaved a heavy, distraught sigh as her steps headed back to her children. As she walked, the wild and predatory eyes were shifted into discomfort and conflict. She never found herself with a break it seems, not while the world existed in the state that it did. Once more during her trek she found herself roaming the past-- the peace the Kaldorei held and her own actions. What she did reminded her well of how she hunted down the Highborne that were exiled, killing off those that she knew in order to gain a sense of entertainment and vindication. Their deaths, their exile-- these things brought both Shanaris and her people peace. This peace was gained by two things: domination, and strength. Shanaris growled by the thought, anger and frustration rising within her. She held anger for the Alliance and Horde-- even her own people. What angered her most was herself, that she was going to go back on her word to do one thing: bring casualties to the war.
“I need a bath, and a nap...” First she would check to see if that Orc was still alive.
#night elf#kaldorei#warcraft#World of Warcraft#writing#story#character development#tw: death#tw: trauma
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❉ 139 Dreams (Maya Yokoo) Invite
📑 Table of Contents
Genre: Angst, School, Slice of Life, Fluff ☁
Word Count: 1,921 ☁
Pairing: Reader, Maya ☁
World: Bamboo Blade ☁
WARNING: This fic features a reader with a social anxiety disorder and panic attacks. If this bothers you, please don’t read.
☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁
When you first came to Japan, you viewed it as a second chance, an opportunity to change yourself. You were determined to overcome your social anxiety disorder, but when school started, your resolve shattered. On the first day at school, you spent more than half the day in the bathroom, trying to keep yourself together. The other kids tried to talk to you, interested in your life back in America, but despite yourself, you could only apologize and run away.
After a while, people stopped trying to talk to you and the year passed in complete solitude. You didn’t know what to do anymore. You had tried so hard, but your body always betrayed you. When confronted with another human being, your brain perceives them as a threat to your life. Without questioning it, your body believes these signals and activates fight-or-flight mode.
Every night before bed, you’d vow to try harder, to do better, but the next day would arrive and nothing changed.
The bell rung, making you jump from your thoughts. Your classmates chatted happily as they gathered their things and left the room. You were on cleaning duty today, so you stayed behind, waiting until everyone had left before getting started.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
You glanced at the front of the room where two of your classmates stood. Ai Masato was blocking the door, giving a stern look to Akemi Asakawa who was attempting to leave.
“I’m going to be late!” Akemi whined, jutting out her bottom lip.
Ai didn’t budge, folding her arms over her chest. “I’m sure the kendo team will understand. You’re on cleaning duty with Y/N-san.”
“I’m not worried about them!” The blonde waved her cell phone. “My boyfriend is taking me out on a date this afternoon.”
“He can wait, too!” Ai scowled, pushing up her glasses.
Akemi wanted to argue but decided that doing so with a member of the student council wouldn’t end well for her. “Fi~ne,” She placed her bag on the desk, motioning for you to follow. “Let’s go,”
With nervous steps, you followed the girl to the supply closet to gather the things you would need. Ai was gone when you both returned to the room. You set the broom and dustpan against the wall before starting to move the desks to the back of the room. You had just picked up the third one when Akemi called out to you, startling you – you nearly dropped the desk but tightened your grip just in time.
“Hey, Y/N? Are you dating anyone?”
The question shocked you and your heart picked up speed. Why was she asking you such a thing? You tried to keep your mind on the task at hand as you quickly shook your head no.
She frowned. “Well, dating someone is really special! When you miss dates, it puts a strain on the relationship, you know?”
You stayed silent, setting another desk against the back wall.
She didn’t like your silence and moved to stand in front of you, clapping her hands together. “I just can’t miss this date. You can handle this alone, right? I promise to pay you back later!”
You swallowed hard, feeling ice creeping through your veins. Your heart felt like it was going to burst out of your chest. She was far too close to you and it was getting hard to breathe. You closed your eyes and nodded your head frantically, wishing everything would just stop.
“Thank you so much!”
You heard rustling, the door sliding open and then closed, and then silence. Your knees buckled under you and you fell back onto the linoleum floor. It took a while for your body to stop shaking enough to continue cleaning. ‘It’ll be really late by the time I get home…’ you thought with a frown, picking up the dustpan. Still, you were thankful for the solitude and silence.
An hour slowly ticked by and you were still cleaning. ‘I just have to put the desks back and I’m done,’ your stomach growled in protest. You picked up a desk to move it when the door slammed open with force, a loud voice echoing in the room.
“Damn it, what’s taking you so long?!”
You squeaked in surprise, nearly jumping out of your skin. The desk slipped from your hands, landing hard on your foot before falling over and taking your body with it. The pain and noise echoed throughout your body. Still rattled from earlier, you began to shake violently.
“Shit, are you okay?” Maya Yokoo, a third-year student, rushed over to you, kneeling down next to your form. “Are you hurt?”
Her voice was loud in your ear and you flinched. You felt so overwhelmed and scared. Tears pricked your eyes, sliding down your flushed cheeks. Your ankle was throbbing in time with your heart.
Maya started to panic. “Ah, please don’t cry! It’s alright!”
“I’m s-so-rry,” you cried out. You’d give anything to just disappear.
“Sorry for what? You didn’t do anything wrong!” Her eyes scanned your trembling form down to your ankle, which was bright red and beginning to swell. With a nod, she leaned forward and slipped her arms under your back and knees. She picked you up like you were a feather.
You instinctively froze in shock, clinging to her kendo uniform. You had never been in this situation before with someone carrying you. Your heart skipped a beat at the warmth radiating from her body. She brought you to the nurse’s office, setting you gently on the bed and quickly explaining to the nurse what had happened. The nurse nodded in understanding, giving you a reassuring smile before examining your ankle.
She hummed. “It doesn’t appear to be broken, but you should go to the hospital to be sure. I’ll call your older brother for you.” She patted your shoulder with a smile before walking away. You had been in her office plenty of times with your panic attacks, so she understood your issues and always did her best to assist you.
You stared down at your hands, seeing Maya standing beside the bed from the corner of your eye. You wanted to look at her, to thank her, to apologize, but your voice wouldn’t work and you couldn’t bring yourself to meet her piercing gaze.
She brought a chair over and sat down, brow furrowed. “Why were you cleaning alone? Where’s Akemi?”
Your hands clenched. Should you be honest and tell her that Akemi left? If you did that, the blonde might hate you, and you didn’t want that. You closed your eyes tightly, focusing on your words. “She wasn’t, um… she wasn’t feeling… well. I t-told her to… to go home.”
Maya narrowed her eyes, not believing your story at all. She considered demanding the truth from you, but she didn’t want to upset you again – you had only just stopped shaking.
The door swung open and your brother rushed inside, breathing heavy from his run. “Y/N! Are you okay?” You nodded, feeling guilt settle in your stomach; you felt like such a burden. “Come on, let’s get you to the hospital. Can you walk?”
“Um…” you scooted to the side of the bed, putting all of your weight on your uninjured ankle. Slowly, you transferred some weight to the other one. It was pretty sore, but you could walk slowly. You breathed a sigh of relief before turning toward Maya and bowing, hoping she understood your meaning, ‘Thank you.’
☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁
The bell for lunch rang and you stretched your legs under the desk before standing up, manga in one hand and your lunch money in the other. Your brother worked too much to have the time to make you a lunch box and your cooking skills were deplorable.
‘Akemi wasn’t in class today… I hope I didn’t get her into trouble…’ you sighed, trying not to think about the events of the day before as you bought a bread roll and headed outside. There was a large, old tree on the side of the school where you spent all of your free time. The tree felt special to you because it always seemed to calm you down.
You sat on the grass and started to peel the sticker off of the bread roll.
“There you are!”
You jumped, dropping the roll on the grass. Maya was approaching fast, Akemi caught under her arm. You scooted back until you were flat against the trunk of the tree. ‘S-She looks so angry…’
Maya came to a stop in front of you. “Y/N, Akemi has something to say to you, don’t you?” She squeezed her arm, making the younger girl whine.
“But they said -” She stopped when Maya’s eyes narrowed and Akemi frowned, turning toward you and bowing. “I’m very sorry for ditching you yesterday!”
You quickly nodded, staring at the ground.
“Can I go now?” Akemi pouted, turning to the older girl.
Maya rolled her eyes, watching as the blonde walked away, eyes glued to her cell phone. She then turned to you, watching you curiously. She couldn’t understand why you refused to look at her or why you always acted so nervous. She had asked Akemi about you, but she only said that you were always alone.
“Sorry about her,” she apologized, sitting on the grass across from you. “How’s your ankle?”
“I-It’s okay…” you mumbled, absentmindedly picking at the blades of grass.
“That’s good! I was worried about you,”
Your eyes widened in surprise. ‘She was… worried about me?’ You could feel your cheeks growing warm at the thought.
She noticed this and smiled, feeling her heart skip a beat. ‘Y/N is so cute,’ she thought. “Hey, why don’t you come to our practice this afternoon?”
‘Practice?’ you were confused for a moment, tilting your head. ‘Oh, right, she’s on the kendo team, but… why would she invite me?’ you lowered your head, strands of hair falling in your face. How could you say no after she’s been so nice to you? On the other hand, just the thought of going made your anxiety raise several levels.
Maya frowned, reaching forward to brush your hair away from your eyes. Your head whipped up in surprise, eyes locking with her own. Her cheeks flushed at how beautiful they were. ‘No, Y/N isn’t cute, they are gorgeous. I want to help them open up!’ “Please!” she reached for your hand, pausing for a brief second before resting it on top of your own.
Your heart was pounding in your ears, face as red as a cherry. You were scared, but a part of you didn’t want to let go of her. ‘I… I want to change!’, tears sprung to your eyes, splashing onto the back of her hand as they fell down your face.
Maya bit her lip. ‘Shit, I made them cry again…’ “Look, you don’t have to if you -”
“I…” you interrupted her, turning your hand over and grasping hers tightly. “I want to go!”
Her lips pulled up into a smile, free hand brushing your tears from your cheek. “I’ll come to get you after class.”
The bell rang to signal the end of the lunch period.
Maya stood up, pulling you with her. “No more tears, okay?”
You nodded, rubbing at your eyes. For the first time in years, you smiled a bright, genuine smile. You didn’t know if things would actually change for you this time, but you felt more hopeful than you ever had.
☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁
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#139 dreams#angst#school#slice of life#fluff#one shot#maya yokoo#yokoo maya#bamboo blade#anime#writing#creative writing#writeblr#scenario#scenarios#anime scenarios#anime scenario#fanfiction#fanfic#fanfics#anime fanfic#anime fanfics#reader insert#reader-insert#reader
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We love you ( Just like This)
The last month taught Tetsurou he had a lot of feelings but none of them were exactly like this.
Brain beehive.
That’s what it was.
Loud fucking bees. That or a staticky tv that shrieked every so often.
Read on AO3
Series: Being Gross
Chapter: 4/?
Pairing: KuroTsuki
Rating: E
Tiny chap showing Kuroo’s side of the call
The walk back to the apartment was an experience.
Somehow he managed to not only walk to the register and order but also get his order right, even if he’d forgotten all about the warm cup in his hand until he was setting it down in the kitchen. When Tetsurou’s head was back on straight, he was going to thank the heavens for making sure he didn’t get run over in his haze.
Talking to Akemi proved his instinct to flee absolutely correct.
Accurate.
Right, for once in his life.
Don’t go there. That’s not true.
Venturing to the outside was an absolute failure, accomplishing the opposite of what he intended to do in the first place, and Tetsurou found himself exactly where he was before he left only with an extra blanket, more dread, and a weird ooze of equal parts numbness and worry.
Light blinked at him from where he stared at his phone’s screen go black. He tapped it back to life, conversation with Tsukki bearing into his skull. Usually staring at it brought him nothing but joy. Now it was more of a low buzzing in the back of his head that got incrementally louder until he couldn’t hear himself think.
The last month taught Tetsurou he had a lot of feelings but none of them were exactly like this.
Brain beehive.
That’s what it was.
Loud fucking bees. That or a staticky tv that shrieked every so often.
He was angry, too, that a single person had enough hold on him to turn him into whatever this was.
The logic part of his brain was fucking him over. Tetsurou was moderately smart if his scholarship was anything to go by (and if there happened to be any kind of university staff present then Tetsurou is a genius deserving of their free education), based things in logic, on science.
How else could he explain that it affected him so much unless whatever Akemi said was true?
Tap.
Another tap.
Tsukki’s last message burned a hole in his retinas.
<< Already here
<< I see Yamaguchi
<< Talk to you later
Tetsurou wanted nothing more than to talk to him, spam him with useless messages just to know that for a second Tsukki would be thinking of him, wouldn’t forget about him, no matter how momentary. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It felt like he was intruding, clingy. Unwanted. A mental image of Tsukki looking down at his phone and huffing in annoyance was on loop, overlaying over itself whenever Tetsurou’s hand itched to press a message.
How lame. Pathetic.
That one was new. Must have rubbed off from when Tsukki said it.
This was the worst.
Day one and already Tetsurou was a downer.
Knocks on his door filtered in with the rest of his thoughts, followed by, “Uh, Tetsu.”
Tetsurou cleared his throat, still dry from the cold air outside. “Yeah,” he said, then repeated when the first one was barely audible.
“There’s a full to-go cup in the kitchen. It’s cold. Are you sulking because Tsukki left?”
Tetsurou winced, unable to hide it. “A little.”
Tetsurou’s answer a green flag, Bokuto pushed the door open. Eyes landing on him, Bokuto whistled, “That doesn’t seem like a little. That’s a whole lot of sulking you’re doing there. You okay?”
Instead of answering, Tetsurou began, “So I ran into Akemi at the coffee shop today.”
Bokuto froze. “Shit.”
“That sounds about right.”
Eyes narrowed, Bokuto came closer. Finger pointed accusingly at Tetsurou, he picked up steam. “She said something, didn’t she. She always says something. Fuck her and her big mouth.”
“Nothing that isn’t true,” Tetsurou said defeatedly.
“That sounds like a lie because that woman is incapable of saying anything nice about you and you are the nicest person alive, but okay,” Bokuto jabbed back. “What’s on your mind?”
Tetsurou’s laugh was forced, phone going black again and being dropped next to him on the bed. “Nothing. Everything. The reality of my life.”
“That you’re awesome and are gonna drink yucky cold coffee because you’re disgusting like that.”
“Fuck you, lattes are good even when they go cold, I’ll not have this slander in my house,” Tetsurou deflected. Bokuto was eerily good at detecting bullshit when it was coming out of Tetsurou’s mouth like this, so he’d get the truth out of him eventually. Maybe not all of it, not the things that may include him in it. Tetsurou did not want to say anything that would hurt Bokuto in any way.
Relenting to coming clean with at least a part of it, Tetsurou turned on his side to face him, unable to look at Bokuto in the eye. “Okay, before you say anything, just hear me out. Tsukki goes back home, in the time he’s there he realizes how completely out of my league he is and how he could be dating literally anybody else, then proceeds to dump my ass.”
Bokuto chuckled, chuckled, as if this wasn’t the best part of Tetsurou’s heart on the line, “Nah.”
Shuffling some more to get some of the twitching out of his body, Tetsurou continued, mumbling, “He could have anyone, you know. Like an actual real relationship with somebody else, he’s not emotionally stunted or whatever.”
Bokuto’s face did the thing when he’s not sure he’s hearing something right. “Hey, don’t,” he protested.
“I mean it. He’s so pretty Bo, and smart, and snarky, and funny and he’s liked other people. Loved other people,” Tetsurou sighed out, aware of how his face took on that dumbfounded look that came to life whenever he talked about Tsukki but oblivious to the pained edge to it.
Tactile as he was, Bokuto was already coming closer, knee dipping the bed. A point of warmth in the wave of ick that flowed through him. Tetsurou owed Bokuto so much already, always being there. He spoke with conviction, completely sure of what he was saying. “Yeah, but those people aren’t you. Where is this coming from? From whatever whats-her-face said? Because I’ll fight her, you know I will, I don’t give a fuck.”
Tetsurou took a deep breath. Keeping this in to fester inside him was not the right way to go about this. He knew that. Bokuto would never judge him for whatever ran through his brain, he knew that too. It was the only thing that kept his mouth going. “I can’t do this… thing with anyone else. I tried, really tried. You remember Akemi. I just kept hurting people. I thought I couldn’t at all and then he showed up again and it was like ‘Hey, at least I’m not all the way broken.’ That’s a lot to put on him.”
Tetsurou curled inward with every word, the next releasing breath flowing through his limbs and spreading along the one that thought he’s kept tighter to him than the rest, “What if he’s putting up with me because he knows that.”
Bokuto rebuked it immediately. “Nah, bro.”
Tetsurou shot him a disbelieving stare.
Bokuto sobered up, laying a hand on his shoulder, and when Tetsurou didn’t lose the face, becoming an octopus around him. “Tetsu, listen to me. He’s not putting up with anything. You love each other so much it’s too cute sometimes, borderline disgusting. That’s coming from me, and my love for Akaashi is another level.”
“At least you’re aware of it,” Tetsurou tried to joke, mirth behind it a complete forgery.
They laid there in silence, Bokuto’s grip on him not loosening one bit. It was comfort in it’s purest form, the heat of Bokuto’s body against his. A long time ago he thought himself in love with Bo and in moments like this he could see why. Tetsurou melted into it, trying his best to forget his run-in with Akemi, trying to find truth in Bokuto’s encouragement, in the physical presence of his support.
He was halfway to unconsciousness when Bokuto’s voice rumbled between them. “Hey, Tetsu?”
At Tetsurou’s hum, Bokuto continued, “You’re not half broken. You’re not broken at all; you don’t need to be fixed or put up with. Tsukki loves you. We love you, just like this. Exactly as you are. Please remember that.”
Bokuto was not a liar. That got Tetsurou up from bed. It drove him to drink the coffee he spent money on— Fuck Bokuto for hating on him, it was good, even if he did end up reheating it—lead him to his basket of goodies perched in his bathroom.
Clad in a casual set of Hello Kitty pajamas Tetsurou spread a chocolate mask on his face, hair littered with tiny kittens while going over pictures of them on his phone. Most of them were of Tsukki, unaware that they had been taken.
It was lame. Kind of creepy, if you really went there.
Tetsurou knew this.
Bokuto might have gotten him out of bed and into doing some self-care things, but he didn’t erase Tetsurou’s worry. Swiping another picture of Kei on his phone, Tetsurou made up his mind.
When Kei returned, that’s when Tetsurou would bring it up.
Hey moonshine, welcome back. I’m scared that I’m guilting you into being with me because I can’t seem to work right in the whole emotions department and I’m apparently no good at not hurting others. I’m also incredibly jealous of you and all my closest friends because they’re loved in a way that I’m not. Anyway, how’s the fam?
Tetsurou snorted. Fuck.
Boyfriend of the year.
Alone as he was since Bokuto had some babysitting to do there was no one to witness Tetsurou rolling on the floor, hands covering his recently washed face. Not great for his pores, fantastic for the building panic. If there was one thing he did not want it was to jeopardize what he had with Kei.
He loved Kei so much. So much more than he thought he’d be able to love anyone.
Thinking about the way Kei woke up in the mornings, groggy and trying to blink out the blurriness from his eyes before remembering he can’t see right made Tetsurou’s chest fill with giddiness. On some level he knew that when he brought this up Kei would tell him none of it was true. The guilt-tripping, not the waking up thing, he had that shit on video and could present hard evidence to the court.
It was the what if , the off-chance, that brought the fear.
Biting his lip Tetsurou stared at the ceiling, lost in thought until the vibration from his phone pulled him back. A new message from Kei had his lungs jumping and trying to leave through his trachea, racking cough making him splutter harder.
MOONSHINE<3[10:23 PM]
<< [img sent]
<< How did u know about these?
A picture of the cute ass strawberry he found online and the gift card for the bakery Yamaguchi had told him about were set next to each other on what Tetsurou would assume was a blue comforter, fuzzy red sock peeking in the corner.
Hey, those were Tetsurou’s socks.
Sneaky thief.
His sneaky, sarcastic thief.
How embarrassing that a little thing like stolen socks already made him feel better.
>> i may or may not have bribed yamaguchi with candid pictures of you
He was staring at those very pictures while sulking, insecure puddle that he currently was, just seconds ago. Tsukki responded immediately, a tiny smile cracking Tetsurou’s face.
<< So this is what betrayal feels like
>> you got cake tho
<< True
<< Speaking of
<< [img sent]
Whatever Tetsurou was expecting, that was absolutely not it. Christ.
Thank you, baby Jesus, for not only you get presents on this holy time.
>> did you just
>> call your ass cake
Tsukki took longer to answer this time, Tetsurou’s eyes glued to the screen in front of him. In his whole crisis pit Tetsurou had actually forgotten about the lacy thing he slipped into Kei’s present.
<< I send you a picture of my ass in lingerie
<< That you got for me
<< And all you care about is if I called it cake
Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to fixate on when your boyfriend sends you something racy but the banter they had going on was doing more to soothe Tetsurou’s soul than how fan-fucking-tastic Kei’s ass looked in that picture. Fear not, when Tetsurou was feeling less icky he was absolutely jerking off to that. Multiple times.
He needed their dorky moments right now.
>> YOU MADE A PUN TSUKKI
>> THIS IS A BIG DEAL
<< Can’t we just sext like a normal couple?
Tetsurou sighed. He could say no, and then Kei would probably figure out something was wrong. Any type of picture, mostly including the semi-nude and nude variety from Kei have never been turned down. They were met with utmost enthusiasm and similar replies.
You could just tell him you’re feeling like a shoe and need some reassurance.
Yeah, nothing like insecurity to get things going down there.
Fuck.
Tetsurou wasn’t completely uninterested. It was Kei, that alone had something going on.
He trudged to the bathroom to wash off his face mask.
>> fine
>> be that way
>> [img sent]
>> Tetsurou
<< I can’t get hard when you’re wearing baby cat hairclips
<< That are a matching set with Kenma’s
<< I can’t
<< It’s wrong
Oh. So that’s how it was going to be? Hello Kitty was game but suddenly the hairclips were not?
>> you know what
Tetsurou pressed the call button, face set. Kei took less than two rings in picking up. “You can’t give me kitten hair clips and expect me not to wear them, Tsukki. You can’t,” Tetsurou huffed out.
He was standing firm on this. He loved them. All of them.
“It’s not about if you wear them or not, just take them off when sending me nudes,” Kei hissed. “That’s all I’m asking. I don’t want to become someone who can get hard even when you’re wearing them. Especially when calling them kitten hairclips, Tetsurou.”
Tetsurou grabbed at his hair, exasperated. “What’s wrong with kitten hair clips!?”
“I gave the exact same set to Kenma, who put them on immediately, and whom you happen to call Kitten. It was heartwarming. Don’t tarnish something nice, you savage.”
Oh. Yeah.
That was heartwarming.
Kenma sent him a picture earlier in the day before it all went to garbage. No caption, just a close up of his hair. Tetsurou hadn’t sent one back, even if he’d been wearing them for the better part of the evening. He always sent Ken a picture of their matching things.
That made him droop. “Yeah, okay, you win that one.”
“Humanity wins,” Kei snarked back.
It was perfect.
His voice was perfect.
He missed Kei so much.
It hasn’t been a single day and I’d give my left nut to hug him.
Tetsurou’s forehead hit the door jamb with a small thud, eyes closed.
I’m scared. It’s too much.
“Is everything alright?”
Had Tetsurou said anything? He’d been silent the whole time, hadn’t he. Fuck. Trying to replicate what he sounded like when he was a normal, functioning human being, “Yeah. I tried one of the facemasks earlier and my face is pimped. How is everything over there? Everyone doing okay?”
A small pause.
Please, for the grace of baby Jesus, keep talking. Say anything .
“Fine,” Kei hummed, “ Yamaguchi is an evil lord in disguise, like always. Aki keeps hovering over Saeko-nee until she yells at him; she’s barely even showing. I gave them your present.”
Baby J, you never fail me.
Releasing a breath, Tetsurou marched back to his pile of blankets, chest unconstricting. “Oh? What did they say?”
“Nothing, they want to open it when Mom gets here.”
Kei’s voice was a balm. Tetsurou could hear him talk for hours. Settling back, he wiggled to get the fluff just right, “Did you set up the angel?”
“What?”
That’s a no. “Yeah, the one with glass wings, I think?”
“I haven’t yet. Thanks for reminding me.”
“Your mom specifically called you so that you would set it up, so it seemed like it was important.”
Shuffling filtered through Kei's end. “There’s a story there, you know."
That sounded like the start of something, and Tetsurou's eyes shut, content with listening to Kei go. “Really?”
“It was the first gift my mom gave– uhm, my other mom.” Tetsurou chuckled at Kei’s hesitation. Talking about his moms was a recent development and he was still getting used to using his French in regular conversations.
This was going to be painful for Tetsurou, but he’d take if it meant he could hear Kei talk all night. Soothing one discomfort by poking at another. What a day.
“Maman was spending her first Christmas here, away from her family and in a foreign country where holidays don’t mean the same thing. I told you, remember? That Christmas is something you do as a family in France? It’s not a day you spend with only your lover.”
Tetsurou hummed. How could he forget? On the list of thing that summed up the difference in their family life that had been one of the most recent ticks. Kei was so peaceful when telling him about it, so much that it mostly covered the sting.
“So maman was feeling bad but trying to bottle it up–”
Kuroo interrupted. “So that’s where you get it from, it’s genetic.”
“–and having a hard fucking time, Tetsurou.”
“Anyway, she and mom were friends and mom noticed and figured it out, and maman kept drawing these angels on the edges of her sketchbook, so mom bought this angel ornament–”
Kei’s voice cracked, followed by silence.
“Yeah?” It might sting but Tetsurou still liked hearing about it, vicariously living through whatever Kei told him next.
“Yeah. Uhm- so. Maman did some Christmas shopping here and sent it back home to France, but since mom was her only close friend here she bought her something too. ”
“That’s… kind of adorable and sad but not?”
“Such a poet. Calm down there, Neruda.”
“Anyway, they meet up for—” Kei’s voice cracked again, what on earth? “—coffee and they chat, and randomly mom tells her that she knowns maman’s been feeling homesick so she got her a Christmas present to celebrate like she does, and maman pulls out her gift and tells her she also got included in the gift giving this year.”
Kei paused again.
Did this boy not know how to tell a story? Tetsurou was not here for the suspense. He was now emotionally invested, eyes wide open. Lay it all out. “And,” Tetsurou prompted.
“And so maman unwraps her gift and starts cracking up. Then it escalates to full-blown cackling. Mom’s put out because ‘hey, I put a lot of thought into that, so what if the angel’s a little wonky you little shit’—”
“Ah, so you take after that mom,” Tetsurou grinned, having been on the end of one of those lines more than once.
“—which only makes maman laugh even harder. So now mom’s pissed, but maman grabs the unwrapped gift and lo and behold–”
“Wait.” Could it be? That was not happening. That would be too much, how much more adorable does a family get. “No fucking way–”
“Another angel but with ceramic wings ‘cause mom liked plates and stuff,” Kei ended, pleased tone leaking through.
Enjoyment rose through him, cutting away everything else for a moment. “Holy shit, that’s incredible. Oh my god, your moms are so rad.”
“They tell that story on Christmas, every year. They get drunk on wine they tell us that story. So, yeah it’s really important.”
Kei was so fucking soft.
So, so soft.
Like marshmallow fluff, sinking into every crack of Tetsurou’s body. Every twist, subduing the buzzing in his head.
...Aaaaand then Tetsurou’s brain had to ruin it.
So that’s what that love sounds like.
Tetsurou ached.
He wanted.
Wanted to have something like that, wanted to be a part of that. All he could do was try, try to not let it seep into his words, try to keep the vines around his lungs away.
“It sounds like a one of a kind thing,” he said, failing miserably.
It came out as an afterthought. A cloud floating between them. “Next year.”
Tetsurou paused, head cocked. “Tsukki?”
“Next year come with me. Spend Christmas with me here. You should hear it in person, Tetsurou.”
And Tetsurou sunk.
Sunk, far, far down, deep into the softness of Kei’s voice when saying his name. The same amount of soft, softer still, cotton rough when compared to what Kei whispered into every syllable.
There was an eternity of silence between them.
Tetsurou couldn't speak.
What did you say to that? How did you respond?
Again, at the end of a breath.
Ah, so that’s what that love sounds like.
“Tetsu?”
Kei’s voice was slow, asking.
As if there is anything other I could say.
Sight blurry, third try the charm, Tetsurou’s breath holding him still, he accepted every hidden promise. “Alright, Kei. Next year.”
#kurotsuki#bg#it's been a while since I posted any being gross and it's this hot mess#my writing#idk#bokuto is the best and i love him#kuroo has a lot of feelings in this#but when does he not#haikyuu!!
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I Want The Truth
Title: I Want The Truth
Category: Digimon
Pairing: Possible Ami/Arata
Rating: T
Summary: Yukino Aiba is on a mission, the Central Hospital in Japan called stating that her daughter is a victim of EDEN Syndrome, but Kyoko told her that Ami is released and someone is messaging her using Ami’s digivice
Author’s Note: I don’t know if Japan’s hospitals are the same where a child is put into the hospital, the parents are notified, however, I found it strange that her mother wasn’t more informed. So didn’t a friend of mine. So this story takes place where Yukino is more involved.
Disclaimer: I do not owe any rights to the Digimon franchise
~~Story Begins~~
“My daughter is in a coma, I am going to go back to Japan for a week. I am using a week of my built up vacation for it,” Yukino Aiba spoke to her boss. “I need to see my daughter.”
“I’m afraid, we can’t do that,” her boss spoke over the internet call.
“I have enough vacation build up to where I can take five years off,” Yukino argued. “A week shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Ms. Aiba, I simply cannot allow you to - “
“I’m GOING to Japan for a week to see my DAUGHTER who is in a COMA,” Yukino restated with authority. “You WILL use a week of my vacation time to cover it.”
“How dare - “
“I can easily find another job,” Yukino bluntly told him. It wasn’t a secret that her stories was the only thing keeping her boss’ company skating by. As soon as other programs heard the news that she was no longer working with this company, she will have new coverage stations and shows running to get her to join their team. She has that big of a fanbase internationally and her stories have helped out so many people in the world. “You don’t scare me.”
“Too bad, you’re fired,” the boss said.
“Excellent, you’ll be hearing from my lawyers,” Yukino said ending the call.
Two years without having a day off, a cut in the paycheck that she wasn’t notified about, harassment and discrimination, and now not letting her use a week of her vacation to go home due to a medical emergency that dealt with her daughter, her only family member in fact. This company that she stayed with due to loyalty will have no choice but to surrender to her.
She paid for a ticket back to Japan as she called her lawyer, “Hello, Mr. Soujo, do you still have all the evidence for my case?”
“Yes, why?”
“Think you can add unlawful termination and another case of discrimination to the list? I’ll send you the recording.”
“Of course, what’s the new discrimination case?”
“Not letting me have a week off to see my daughter who is in a coma.”
“I’m terribly sorry about that, however, if Ami is anything like you, she’ll make it through,” Mr. Soujo said. “However, I will not put that on the discrimination case.”
“Why not?”
“Too lenient on the charges, they could buy their way through it. No, I will add that to the failure of complying with the MLA Act of ‘25 that was passed in Japan stating that a company must allow an employee time off to be with an immediate family in time of crisis. I’m assuming you tried to use vacation and they refuse?”
“Yes.”
“That will go your case of back pay. So, what would you like to do with this case?”
“All the way to the court, no bargaining either. The world needs to know the truth about this company and those in charge. When I get back to Japan, I’ll do some research, see who else is working for them and I’ll give them a part of the money that I’ll win.”
“Of course,” Mr. Soujo said.
She talked with him a few more minutes before hanging up and calling another international TV station. “Hello, this is Yukino Aiba and I was wondering if that position you offered me is still available?”
“...”
“Yes, I am interested in it.”
“…”
“Great, you already have an assignment for me? “
“...”
“I can’t. It takes place in Japan?”
“...”
“Eden Syndrome?” Yukino thought about it. That’s what the hospital said Ami was suffering from. “I accept. I’m heading back to Japan now. Will it be okay if I meet with you after I see my daughter? She’s a victim of EDEN Syndrome too.”
Yukino smiled as the other line offered their condolences and said it would be okay and offered to give her some time to spend with her daughter. “No, I’ll still work since I will be back at home and not abroad. She wouldn’t want me to mope around the whole time. Thank you.”
Yukino boarded the plane two hours later and waited impatiently as she headed back to Japan.
When she arrived in Japan, she instantly headed to Tokyo then to the Central Hospital, just passing by Shinjuku, five minutes before the Digital Shift happen, eight minutes before Ami and Arata started exploring the Digital Shift.
Yukino saw her daughter through the glass which she placed a hand against, “I’ll find the reason why this is happening and I’ll find a cure, I promise,” she said to her daughter.
Weeks passed and Yukino was investigating the Akihabara Disappearances, her reporter instincts knew a story and this was quite the story. An original work that had influences was being credited as a fan story, the author got bullied and had insults of them being a terrible person stealing someone else’s work and crediting it as their own. Those were the first people to disappear and Yukino was curious as to why the police wasn’t investigating it. Bribery? Blackmail?
She’ll look into it later after she decides on what her next story will be, the hacker group known as Judes or the Japan police force. Obvious to Yukino, the police force was corrupted with a few good detectives on the team.
There was a purple light, the world went black before returning to a warped space. She did see one of the people that went missing and tried to speak to them.
“Hello? I’m Kino from anchor news station, can you -” the person obviously wouldn’t respond. They were as still a statue so Yukino caught off her own question and looked around the environment that she was in now. “Where am I now?”
“You are still in Akihabara, dear,” a voice said from her behind her. She turned around and glared at Akemi Suedo. A face she was hoping to never see again. “I was not expecting you to be here, Yukino.”
“I wasn’t expecting to see your face ever again, Akemi,” Yukino replied poison laced within her voice.
“Ah..yes..well, where a Digital Shift happens, I’ll be there.”
“Digital Shift?” Yukino knows she’s been gone from Japan for a while but all the new stories that she could be covering keep making her list grow longer.
“The reality world is being affected by Digital Waves thus causing a shift to happen,” Suedo explained. “We are in one now.”
“Mari? Mair!” a voice yelled close by.
“How many people can enter these Digital Shifts?” Yukino asked.
Akemi shrugged, “Whoever has the bravery to enter it I guess. I never thought about that before. However, I see that my two young acquaintances are here,” he said. “Your daughter has grown up beautifully.”
Yukino’s eyes flashed as she sneered at him. “You leave my daughter alone. You had a chance to be - “
“Suedo I’m not surprise to see you here, but the famous reporter Kino? That’s new,” the boy said shoving his hands in his pockets.
Yukino looked to his companion and her eyes went wide, so didn’t his companion. Her daughter was standing right there, right next to the young man.
How is that possible? Her daughter is still in a coma caused by EDEN Syndrome. She visited her this morning!
Ami shook her head once, she seemed just as surprise to seeing her as well. The head shake was a sign not to give anything away, a sign language that they created when Ami was a child so Yukino could escape dates easily or if Yukino was really into a guy and didn’t want too much information given away. So her companion doesn’t know about Ami being a victim of EDEN Syndrome.
The conversation happened between the three, well mostly between the two boys. Yukino and Ami just sort of took a step back upon hearing all the technical terms. Yukino watched as the two teenagers leave, Ami poking the man’s shoulder. A sign for Yukino that Ami will message her and explain more in person.
The two Aibas did have a very complicated sign language but it got the points across without it being too obvious.
So, hours later, after receiving a message from Ami to come to Kuremi Agency. Yukino found herself sitting in Kyoko’s office as Ami sat on the other couch with Kyoko, because she was a client.
“So, you have a cyber body?” Yukino questioned.
“Yes, it’s weird, but no one truly knows about it,” Ami explained. “The one who might have an idea is Yuuko Kamishiro, but I don’t think she’s put the facts together yet.”
“I see, I guess that makes sense now,” Yukino spoke as everything came into place. No one was lying to her about her daughter’s condition, it was just complicated and the facts were hidden. “You are looking into the connections of EDEN Syndrome and Kamishiro Enterprise as well?”
“Yes, there is no doubt about it that they are connected,” Kyoko said.
“So Mom, why are you back in Japan?” Ami questioned. “I thought you was in Italy?”
So, Yukino explained her side of the story to the two.
“Finally!” Ami exclaimed.
“That is quite interesting, the fact that you are investigating EDEN Syndrome along with doing side reports. I’ll be happy to share some of the information we have already gathered with you.”
“I think I’m caught up to date if not more,” Yukino said causing the two detectives to look at her. “However, more importantly, who was that young man you was with, Ami?”
Ami tensed up and looked away, “Arata Sanada, one of my online friends that I met recently.”
“That’s what I thought,” Yukino mumbled quietly as she watched her daughter try to hide a blush. Even when Ami was little, she had a huge crush on him, not that Ami remembers it.
Months passed and the Tokyo Blackout happened than the disappearances of Ms. Rei Kishine. Suedo kept in contact with Yukino much to Ami’s confusion and Yukino knows she wants to ask, ‘Is he my father?’ but Ami knows now is not the time to ask. Yukino knows Ami deserves the truth over what happened to her father, but she can’t bring herself to tell her.
She was walking to Shinjuku Station late at night and spotted Arata Sanada sitting there sleeping. She remembers hearing about it on the news and Ami asking her for help on what to do, but he’s a fugitive now.
She slightly nudged his side with her foot, she wanted to talk to him but she knows, learned, that information doesn’t come free. She doesn’t want to ask him why he’s a fugitive, she knows from Kyoko, Ami, and Suedo himself so she got both sides of the spectrum.
He wakes up slowly before freezing once seeing her, “Get up and follow me. We need to talk.”
“How do I know you won’t turn me in?” Arata questioned.
“I could have left you asleep, but I didn’t.” Yukino said. “Besides, I want information that only you can give me. In exchange, you can get food and a warm bed without the fear of getting caught with me.”
“What type of information?”
“Judes.”
“How did you -”
“I’m a reporter, I have connections,” Yukino said nudging his side with her foot again. “Come on, let’s go. I would much rather wait until morning before I start getting the information and I’m sure you would like a comfortable bed.”
Arata followed her after getting up, he was warily about this reporter. She seems to know that old man on a personal level, the fact that she knows about Judes and how he’s related to it, so he’s going to play dumb and follow that saying, ‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.’
“In price for your information, you can spend three days at my house, avoid windows, and don’t answer the phone, doors, or your digivice. You’ll also get warm food and a bed. Needless to say, my food won’t be as good as my daughter’s but it’s still warm.”
“Won’t your daughter get suspicion?”
“I’ll tell her not to come over for three days, she understands that I deal with shady people some times so when I tell her not to come over, it’s usually in her safety.”
Arata quickly got in the back seat of her car where the windows were tinted. “It seems like this isn’t your first time dealing with a fugitive?”
“No, not by a long shot,” Yukino said getting into the driver seat. “You are actually the easiest fugitive to follow me.”
“I’m still learning.”
Yukino smiled. She wanted information over the Judes and over being a hacker. Even if he couldn’t provide the information she needed for her story, she would still take care of him, Just to help put her daughter's mind at ease. She would save the information later for a different new story, she’s still working on the Akibara Disappearance side story.
After the defeat of Examon, Yukino spotted Eater Arata and went up to him.
“Are you happy?” she asked causing the boy to turn around and face her. “Is the Arata Sanada happy?”
“Of course, I’m happy. I have all this power. I can save my friends.”
“With power comes responsibility,” Yukino said. “I know what Suedo did is wrong but -”
“You knew?” Arata asked outraged.
Of course she knew, Ami was forced to forget the past eight years, five years of her dating Suedo was such an excellent father to Ami even though she wasn’t his child, two of those years overlapped with the EDEN Beta Test. With her daughter being a victim of memory locked by at the time her fiance, how could she not know?
“Of course, I’m a reporter, it’s my job to uncover the dark truth,” she responded with instead. Arata tried to imitate her holding his Eater hand up in front of her but she just crossed her arms. “She’s worried about you.”
“I know a lot of ‘she’s’,” he commented with a snicker.
“Oh, but you know exactly what she I am talking about,” Yukino said and watched as the red eyes turned grey for a millisecond before returning red. “Mind if I give you a warning?”
“Are you going to lecture me over my choices?”
“No. She hits hard.” Short and simple, the message was clear and vague. Yukino wanted the message like that, to give him somewhat of a warning but to also still have the element of surprise. She walked away from him, not fearing Arata would eat her. She wasn’t digital and he wasn’t powerful enough, close, but not quite there.
She watched from the roof of the Tokyo Metropolis Building as Arata rubbed his cheek as he spoke to Ami. She made herself known as she joined them. She was focused on Suedo and she was going to make sure she was heard.
“You’ll bring all five children back safely, won’t you, Suedo?” she asked.
“N-n-no way?” Nokia said. “The famous Kino is here too?”
Suedo scratched his head, “I’m not much of a fighter, you should know this Yukino.”
“Obviously, the children can take care of themselves and each other,” Yukino stated. “But don’t you want to fix the mistakes? Yuugo could have been saved if you didn’t seal their memories.”
“You knew?” Yuuko asked.
“Along with other previous mistakes,” Suedo spoke. “I’ll make sure the ones who aren’t data return safely. The two that are data, I can’t make any promises.”
“You have no shame,” Yukino said so badly wishing she could be as bold as her daughter and punch the scientist.
“OMG! Just kiss!” Nokia shouted causing the two adults to blink. “Sexual tension is bad for you and we can feel it over here!”
“Nokia!” Yuuko exclaimed.
“What’s sexual tension?” Omnimon asked.
“No! No! No!” Arata spoke shaking his head. “That doesn’t put a good image in my mind.”
Alphamon laughed as the reporter turned to look at them, “You humans, never fail to surprise. I expected Ami to have that reaction, not you Arata.”
“Huh?” Nokia questioned. “Why would Ami have that reaction?”
“You two dated for a time, didn’t you?” Ami asked her mother. “I remember memories of me being little and Suedo taking you and me out on dates, he also asked for my permission before you two started officially dating, I think.”
“I told you that she grew up beautifully,” Suedo said scratching his head. “Observant, just like you.”
“Anyway, I do know that you two kissed so much I became immune to it,” Ami said. “Possibly the reason as to why I am never jealous when I see couples.” She pointed at her mother and at Suedo, “The two of you never could keep your hands off of each other. It’s a wonder I’m still an only child.”
“That’s enough out of you,” Yukino said placing her hand on Ami’s head and pushing down on it gently, glaring at her laughing daughter.
“Aw, how cute. You two are blushing,” Alphamon said laughing herself. “Let’s create a new blend of coffee for this moment. How does coffee with chili peppers, dragonfruit, and black bean paste sound?”
“Are you crazy?” Nokia asked.
“Ah, that’s right. You preferred the wasabi in it,” Alphamon said thinking.
Ami got away from her mother and started pushing Arata away, “You have a case for me, right?”
Arata quickly got the message and walked with Ami towards the elevator, “Yeah, of course.”
They entered the elevator and Yukino looked at Suedo. “You had better make sure that all five of them returned, that’s including Ami.”
“There is a large amount of uncertainly, I cannot give you-”
“You WILL bring my daughter back to me,” Yukino spoke. “Five years of dating me, three years being engaged, you know how much Ami means to me! You know that she’s the only family I have left!”
“Ami is your only family?” Yuuko asked surprised. Maybe that was why Ami wanted a connection with her, because they each only have one family member left in their life.
In the elevator going down to the lobby, Arata was still rubbing his cheek.
“Does it still hurt?” Ami questioned.
“It stings a bit, how are you not feeling it?” Arata asked back.
“Possibly because I’m data. I can’t feel any physical pain but I can feel my Digimon’s pain.”
“Makes sense. Damn, your mother warned me too that you hit hard.” Arata leaned back against the railing behind him as they kept going down. “Your mom is really nice, though I really didn’t need all of those images you gave us.”
“You think I wanted them when I was at the age where I didn’t want any cooties?” Ami asked. “However, how do you know my mom is nice?”
“She gave me a place to stay for three days with warm food for information over Judes and being a hacker. Said it was for a story. If I would’ve known you was her daughter -”
“You honestly didn’t think I wasn’t there,” Ami said. “My mom’s cooking is good but there is a reason as to why I can handle some of the coffee blends Alphamon makes. The food you ate was definitely not from my mother.”
“You fixed those dishes than?”
“Every single one. I highly doubt you wanted to try my mom’s weird flavor experiments that don’t work 75% of the time,” Ami said giggling. The elevator doors opened and they walked out. “Mom also did it to help put me at ease.”
Months later, EDEN Syndrome was known as a cyberterrorist attack but six people knew better. Yukino looked at her daughter who was still in a coma, the last one to awake. “Don’t you think you’ve worried your friends enough? It’s time for you to wake up.”
Blue eyes slowly opened and stared at the ceiling as Yukino called to staff to let them know that Ami was finally awake.
“This is one story where the truth will stay in the shadows, away from the people’s attention,” Yukino said to herself.
~~The End~~
#Digimon#Digimon Story#Digimon Story Cyber#Ami Aiba#Yukino Aiba#Arata Sanada#nokia shiramine#Yuuko Kamishiro#Akemi Suedo
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Maaaan today sucked. Any chance you could give us a lil snippet of something with the lokster? Hope your day went better than mine!
Loki is a slightly awkward dancer—that is, when it comes to anything more casual than waltzing or more appropriate than dances having to do with *cough* below the waist.
He knows it, too, you’ve poked plenty of adoring fun at him when you were dating and he’d make the mistake of wiggling a little to the song playing over the loudspeakers.
Okay, it’s cute.
And honestly, not completely hopeless. His moves are a tiny bit…dad-like, with the snapping and head bopping, but it’s really, really cute when his hips start moving and he closes his eyes and hums a little bit—
God, he’s just vacuuming, that shouldn’t be so adorable.
Normally Loki doesn’t dance like this unless he’s drunk or you’ve given him some kind of incentive to attend a social event, but you just walked in the door.
That means Loki’s been home alone, for the two hours-ish you had to work overtime.
And apparently he got a hold of your Spotify account, because here’s your husband, vacuuming the living room, singing along to Safety Dance as he sways around the couch.
First of all, he’s cleaning, while you weren’t even here to “reward him,” and second of all…
“Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance, well, they are no friends of mine—”
Oh my god.
This makes everything better. All that overtime, missed appointments, and angry reps were worth it, getting to come home to find your mean ol’ godly hubby singing along to 80’s music and dancing like—like that.
He pops a hip as the beat hits and you nearly lose it, clapping a hand over your mouth to muffle your snort.
“—and we can act like we come from out of this world and leave the real one far behind…”
This is unbearable.
Without a second thought, you dump your bags on the floor and run into the room, smacking his cute butt on the way and grabbing him around the waist, jumping right into the song with him.
Loki practically screeches in shock, turning bright pink at being caught, but you just grab his face and kiss him nice ‘n hard.
“We can dance, we can dance,” you giggle into his lips, dancing a little as you kick off your shoes. “Everything’s out of control—”
“Welcome home,” Loki laughs, quickly regaining his balance and taking your hands in his to sway side to side with you, leaning in to kiss you again. “I’ll be speaking to Stark for making you stay so late, that bastard—”
Your finger smushes up against his lips. “Shh. It wasn’t his fault, just forget it. This is a much needed distraction.”
“Are you sure, my love?”
Another chorus of safety dances blares up again and you can’t help but giggle; smiling feels so wonderful after a day like today.
“I could easily provide a slightly more thorough distraction,” Loki continues, spinning you under his arm and quickly twisting you back out. “It’d be my pleasure—yours, actually—”
“Oh, shut it,” you laugh, breathlessly jumping away from him, arms out as you twirl. “I haven’t heard this song in years, keep it in your pants and let’s do something with our clothes on, for once.”
“To be completely honest…” Loki grins and pushes the vacuum out of the way, jumping onto the couch and holding out a hand to you. “I might be glad you said that.”
“But you’re the one who suggested the other thing—”
“It’s my first instinct,” he chirps, helping you onto the couch. “Have you seen yourself? You can’t blame me, it’s just natural.”
“You’re so stupid. I love you.”
Why you’re jumping on the couch, I don’t think Odin could even answer, but Loki had the right idea—this is nice.
Weirdly childish, but it’s your couch, in your house, your dinner you’re now putting off, your time you’re wasting.
Reality can go suck it; you’re going to ignore its existence for a while longer.
You jump a little higher, grabbing Loki’s hands and syncing up with him as you start singing at the top of your lungs again.
The song changed and now Loki’s laughing, hair whipping around him as he scrunches his eyes closed, bites his lip and shakes his head around—another excuse for a dorky dance move.
“Did you know this might be my favourite Midgardian song?”
“Hm?” You jump closer. “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic? I thought you didn’t like 80’s!”
“I never said that,” Loki gasps, long fingers pressing to his chest. “I happen to enjoy music of all decades, and this song especially.”
“You liar,” you giggle and poke him in the gut just to see him flinch when it tickles. “You told me you hated my ‘Midgardian noise,’ and it really offended me for a couple days—”
“Oh, please,” he scoffs. “This song makes me think of you, and no, I’m not just trying to flatter you.”
“Mhm.”
A glint in his eye, he lurches forward to grab you around the waist and spin you around, ignoring your shrieks of laughter and plopping you down on the other side of the couch.
“Every little thing she does is magic,” he decides to nearly shout along with the music, “everything she does just turns me on—”
“Even though my life before was tragic,” you jump in, breathlessly scrambling back to your feet and bouncing around him.
Loki grabs your face between his hands and smashes his lips to yours. “Now I know my love for her goes on…”
“You’re such a flirt,” you grumble, leaning all your weight into him as he kisses you with grinning lips.
Going, going…flop.
His back hits the couch taking you down with him, arms tight around your waist.
“Guilty.”
You just shuffle around so you’re not squishing him and reconnect your lips, breathless and a little sweaty, kissing away everything bad in the world.
“So,” Loki manages to get out between kisses, “bad day?”
“The worst, but that helped.”
“Tell me every awful detail.”
His hand fits so perfectly around your head, pulling you down to smooch your forehead and tuck you into the curve of his neck.
“Nah,” you sigh, nuzzling into his intoxicating scent of home. “It’s probably stupid, I won’t annoy you with all that.”
“My love.”
“Hm?”
His thumb is cold along your jaw, lips cool against your forehead.
“I happen to enjoy speaking with you.”
You hug him tighter, hiding your giddy grin in his neck. “You sure? I might rant for hours—”
“And I will love every second of it,” Loki promises.
“You’re somethin’ special, your majesty.” For someone so cold, he certainly is good at making you feel warm. “Most guys couldn’t give two shits about their wives days.”
“For the record, love, I could give an infinite number of shits about you.”
“How…sweet,” you laugh, backhanding his chest and pressing a kiss to his throat. “Most guys don’t have impromptu dance parties with their girls either. But I’m glad you did.”
“Well, I’m not like those ‘other guys,’ babe, remember—”
“You did not just call me babe.”
His laugh shakes the whole couch.
“Start ranting, my love.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
hope you enjoyed, please reblog and feel free to send me ideas!
loki tags: @bluediamond007 @himitoshi @drakesfiance @destiel1597 @dangertoozmanykids101 @archy3001 @jcalpha1 @yzssie @skullvieplu @forthesnakeofdragons @skulliebythesea @wegingerangelica @storiesfrommirkwood @agarwaeneth @adaliamalfoy @laurfangirl424 @paradisaicsam @fitzsimmons-is-forever @ladylokimischief @katelinwrites @tarynkauai @polaristrange @loavesofmeat @canadian-ravenpuff-multishipper @lou-makes-me-strong @holyn0vak @chocolatealmondmillk @swtnrholland @kenzieam @jessiejunebug @catticas @the-republic-and-face-of-texas @doralupin01 @whitewitchdown @atomiccharmer @falconfeather23435 @babygirlicecream @avengrcs @vethrvolnir2 @bookgirlunicorn @wabisabigrl @myhealingstar @khaleesi-marvel @ei77777 @spacecrumbs @scarlettghost13 @rocks-are-pretty-odd @confessionsofastrugglingteen @easilydistractedwriter @arttasticgreatnessoftheawesome77 @fluffyllamaswearinghats @milktearose @lcyouinhell @h0tshotholland @dontmesswithmemundane @southsidesarcasticwriter @helnik-s @lilith-akemi @fire-in-her-veinz @unlikelysamwinchesteronahunt @mischievousbellerina @kcd15 @mellowgirl01 @lokislilcaribbeanprincess @allthingzhiddleston @scorpionchild81 @lokixme @blue-automne @galaxycharmed @devilbat @kangaroobunny @end-up-well @planetariumx @sarcsep @mrfandomtastic @amaru163 @im-way-too-many-fandoms @caswinchester2000 @kybaeza @wester-than-west @vintagesunshinebitch @adefectivedetective @poetic-nikolai @moonduhsted @kerri-masson @iamverity @innaminitus @spnbarnes @narcissxblack @woohoney @anxiousamandapanda @padmeisgay @authordreaming13 @lokisironthrone @theunknowinglys @highfuncti0ningfangirl @epicfallenismine @stubby-toe-589331 @fandomnerdsarecool
#loki x reader#loki reader insert#loki imagine#loki fluff#domestic!loki#loki requests#loki dancing#loki fanfiction#loki drabbles#loki laufeyson
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